Don't laugh if someone in the room is crying. Always smile when you pass a judge. Red wine is better than white. French is crap to do at A level if you want to be a lawyer. You shouldn't fuck your pupils. Oh and that 'happy ever after's' only happen in fairy tales. Just some of the advice that Martha Costello has ever given me.

I didn't believe the last one when she first told me... I always thought that somehow I'd get my happy ever after, you know - good job, hot wife, all that stuff, but now, I finally realised she was right. Only it's far too late for that, it if I'm being honest.

I saw her yesterday, Martha I mean, and that's when I decided that all that happy ever after stuff was bollocks. I was in Manchester, prosecuting a drunken man for stabbing his sister, and I saw her in that stupid car of hers. The blue sports car she's owned since 2003. I have no clue where the hell she was going. Though if I'm being honest, I'm not particularly well versed in the geography of Manchester. Also, if I'm being honest, I'm not particularly sure it was her.

I'm not going crazy or anything, it was just a split second thing though, a car driving past and blonde girl at the wheel. It just… just seemed like her if you know what I mean. No, I don't even know what I mean so you have no hope. I think it was the shock to, not of seeing her again, no, just simply thinking about her again. I've tried my best over the years to forget the pain associated with her, with bloody Martha Costello, but the mere idea that I could, possibly, see her again made the pain come back with a vengeance. I was so sure I gotten over it, shows how wrong I was, and I'm not wrong often.

I moved on, of course, but everything after seemed tinged with the fact it was post Martha, post Billy too if I think about it. That was one hell of a day. Becoming Head of Chambers, Billy dying and Martha leaving. I even managed to put them in order of importance, with Martha's absence seemingly as permanent as Billy's. But know it seems it might not be, that unnerves me, the fact that she could – possibly and probably in my head – be part of my future again. The Martha I remember and the Martha I could encounter again might be two completely separate entities.

She could hate me, and I for one wouldn't particularly blame her for it. But I think I could cope with that though, if she was the same, if I still knew her but she hated me. What I dread is that she could be different – I know how self-centred that sounds, of course people changed, god I've changed - but not her, never her, she has always been the same.

I pretend that it's not the reason and make up bollocks about us booth maturing and growing apart to make it feel better but it doesn't work; it always comes back to the fact that I am scared.

I am never scared.

Apart from when it comes to Martha. I was too scared to tell her how I felt until it was too late, too scared to tell her to stay. Now I'm too scared to find out if she's changed.

I remember the last piece of advice my father told me before I was packed off to boarding school; Don't ever show people you're scared – if possible try not to get scared, it's not good for the character.

Well sod it dad, why can't you show people how you feel, Martha did and she coped fine. Until the end, that was. Calling the 'end' makes it sound awfully ominous, doesn't it? It was the end though, really, wasn't it. The end of an era. Alan gone, Billy dead and Martha's god knows where, and I am the only one left. It isn't the same, not at all. Shoe Lane still has the same name and if I'm being brutally honest, is doing better than it was with Alan and Billy at the helm, but… and that's where I fall down, why isn't the fact that it's doing better enough?

I spend more time reminiscing for a time I helped conspire to end than I thought I ever would. I sit in my office - the same office I shared with Martha because when the push came to the shove I wanted to keep at least one thing the same while everything else was changing - and just close my eyes. It's ridiculously easy for me to sit there and pretend that nothing did change, that Alan could pop in at any moment and ask me how my days going or Billy could rush in and place a new case in front of me even though I already have one or that Martha could enter, fresh from court, ranting about how her client should have got 'not Guilty'. Stupidly easy, and also very painful because when someone actually enters, bringing me out of my stupor, it hurts like it had just happened all over again.

I went out for a drink with John the other day, and I realised that he was the only one left at Shoe Lane who had really known it in its previous incarnation. The only person who remembered Alan, Billy, Martha and I working as some sort of super team. That was just before I left for Manchester, where I might or might not have seen Martha, and we sat in the pub and talked about her. About Martha. I don't really know why he started talking about her, he just did. Started going on about how good she was as a lawyer, how good it would be to have someone like her prosecuting for us, except she never would, being a staunch defence barrister.

I'm still in Manchester. I'm going home tomorrow. But tonight I think I'm going to pretend that waiting for me back in London are Billy and Martha and Shoe Lane just as it was. I know I shouldn't - my job is better than ever, I actually have a stable girlfriend and I'm happy but Martha's words, I think, will always echo in my mind.

'Happy ever after's' only happen in fairy tales.