Summary: The investigation continues and, as with so many other things in Sandford, no headway is made.

Danny was at the station early the next morning, despite having spent the night on the couch with the DVD screensaver for company. Nicholas was there too, sitting at Danny's desk with a piece of paper under one hand, staring blankly into space.

"You right there?" Danny asked cautiously, being careful not to sound like he was being cautious. All men are secretly this insecure and complex.

Nicholas looked at Danny. "Have you been in touch with your father yet?"

Danny stopped short of his own desk, dumbfounded. "No," he said in a hardening voice. "And what exactly would I say if I were? "Hi dad, I'm pretty sure I hate you for being a murdering monster; how's the food?" I hardly think that that'll mend any bridges."

"I hardly think that's what you really think of him," Nicholas replied calmly, staring at his fingers as he dragged them over the slightly rough finish of Danny's desk. "If it were, you'd be able to say it and move on."

Danny grabbed the chair from Walker's desk and violently slung it round, sitting across from Nicholas. He leant across his own desk, casting a dark shadow over doodles and diagrams and a single photo. "How about, instead of spending your free time poking at my family relations," he said in a low, angry voice, "you sit and work at your own?"

Nicholas stared at Danny for a moment longer, before snatching at a piece of paper on Danny's desk, cramming it into his pocket as he stood up. "I want you to double-check the work the Turner's did over at the Swan and the pub. If there are any non-locals in Sandford I want them here within the hour." Then he went into his office and slammed the door behind him.

"Prick," Danny muttered.

The day was spent tensely, full of short sentences and heavy silences.

"Doris, you lift any prints from the scene?"

"None but the Tanner's. Sorry, Chief."

"Cartwright, get anything new from today's interview?"

"If by 'new' you mean 'helpful', no."

"Any word on similar cases in the surrounding areas?"

"Nobody's tellin' me nuthin'."

And then Nicholas would stare at things just behind Danny's head and pace like a caged lion. Finally he sunk into deep thought, only emerging to accept a biscuit and ask the room in general: "Has anyone talked to the kid? The eldest?"

Rory Turner was "nearly-nine", and gazed around the interrogation room with wide-eyed amazement. The initial plan was to talk to him in the station kitchen, but he had begged to be taken to where "all the bad guys spilled their guts and then cried, please". Kids these days. Doris sat next to him, with Andrew Wainwright across the table, attempting to ask questions between Rory's own demands for information.

"So is there were you made them confess? Right here?" Rory asked keenly, twisting in his seat to look at the ceiling.

"Well," Doris said awkwardly, "it were mostly the facilities in Buford, and a lot was done in the interview room of the Bath prison. Do you remember yesterday?"

"It was Monday," Rory said definitely. "Did anyone ever lunge over the table and try to strangle you with the cuffs? Did you ever have to cuff someone's feet as well? With the chains that connect them all up?"

"No," Doris said. "Can you remember anything out of the-"

"Tina Davis, her big sister said that her boyfriend came in here to pay for a parking ticket, and he reckoned there were blood stains on the floor." Rory looked under the table, between his own swinging feet. "How do you clean up blood stains?"

"You use some soft drink," Andrew cut across Doris' sensible answer. "But you have to be careful that it doesn't eat up the carpet. You ever got blood on your clothes?"

"Last week," Rory said. "I feel over at school, and hurt my knee."

Andrew raised his eyebrows, looking impressed. "Can I see?"

Rory obligingly put his leg up on the table, pulling his jeans up to show of the dark scab with a proud grin.

"Wow," said Andrew, taking his sunglasses off for a closer look. "Could you see the bone or anythin'?"

"No," said Rory, looking rather put out about the lack of bone observation. "Mum yelled at me for ripping my pants though, then I went and played with Buster. Buster's my dog."

"Do you play with Buster a lot?" Andrew asked, chin in palm.

Rory nodded. "I can't play inside, because it wakes stupid Lynda up, and then I get sent outside anyway. It's better outside. No one yells if you're muddy, long as you're only muddy outside."

Andrew looked sympathetic. "Does your mum yell at you a lot?"

Rory paused for a long time, before looked up at the mirrored window that stretched across one wall. The light on inside the observation room cancelled out the mirrored effect, and showed Nicholas looking bored and filling out some paperwork.

"She yells more when Lynda cries," he said at last. "Dad yells too."

"What do they yell about?"

Rory looked down at the table top, and scowled. "Lynda always cries. She's no fun, and she's stupid."

"All little sister's are stupid," Andrew said in agreement, ignoring a glare from Doris. "Parent's are stupid too."

Rory nodded.

"Do you want to try on my sunglasses?" Andrew offered.

"Wow. Real detective's sunglasses?" Andrew nodded. "Do you have to wear them at night too?" Rory asked as he slipped them on.

Andrew nodded seriously. "If you're on a case, you have to wear them all the time. It's so that if you have to do something that's not by the book, that might sometimes seem a little bit wrong, no one can prove that it was you." Andrew shared a look with Doris. "So no one gets in trouble." He admired Rory in the sunglasses for a moment, before playing with the jug of water on the table. "Did your parents yell a lot yesterday?"

Rory went still behind the sunglasses, then nodded again.

"Can you tell me what happened to make them yell?"

Rory shrugged, and looked up at the mirrored window again. "I was playing with Buster, and Lynda was crying. She always cries."

Andrew's mouth twisted in sympathy, and then interest. "Where were you and Buster playing, Rory?"

"We were behind the bath house. There's a jungle there, because that's where mum pours the baby water out and it makes it grow."

"Where was Lynda?"

"In the bath." Rory paused to push the sunglasses further up his nose. He looked a little like a fly behind the giant lenses. "She's too little to wash herself, so mum does it."

"Does your mum talk to Lynda when she washes her?"

Rory shrugged.

Andrew leaned close, like it was just the two of them in the room. "What does she say?"

Rory put his hands on the sides of the sunglasses, pressing them up against his face. "Everyone always tells Lynda to shut up. Except mum say's 'please', too."

Andrew twitched his top lip in thought, and spoke gently. "What happened then? What made the yelling start?"

Rory looked at the window, the tabletop, and then his hands. "Lynda stopped crying. I was in the jungle, so I couldn't hear well."

"Of course," Andrew replied.

"She was quiet, and then mum was quiet. I thought they'd gone inside. Maybe they did." Rory dropped his voice. "I heard footsteps. And then mum started crying."

"How long were they quiet for?"

Rory shrugged again. "A while."

Doris opened her mouth to press further, but Andrew waved her away. "What happened when your mum started crying?"

Rory scrubbed the back of his hand under his nose, and the sunglasses looked blankly across at Andrew. "She started yelling. She got loud. And then dad came, and he started yelling." He bit his lip. "I ran away, hid in the trees until dad came looking for me."

"Rory," Andrew said gently. "Did you ever see what happened in the bath house?"

Rory, staring at the tabletop, shook his head.

"Can you remember what your parents were saying when they were yelling?"

Rory shook his head again, dislodging the sunglasses slightly.

"Rory?" Andrew waited until Rory lifted his head a little, peering out from under his fringe and above the tops of the sunglasses. "You're very brave for being interrogated like this."

Rory looked hopeful. "Really?"

"Course," Andrew said with a smile. "You haven't begged for mercy at all." Rory smiled timidly back.

Tony paced a small circle in the middle of the bull pit. "So… what do we think?"

"Was it possible the kid was lying?" Andy asked.

Andrew shook his head. "Not outright. I think the outline is the truth."

"Think he was keeping quiet on some things?" Doris asked.

Andrew shrugged. "No kid wants to repeat what their parents say when they're fighting.

"Or when their parents are scared," Andy added. "You should've pushed harder. We've got less than half a real recount, you know that."

"I know that the kid's family is falling apart and that he's not exactly in any state to handle some rough treatment by us," Andrew snapped back.

Andy nodded and slouched back on Walker's desk. He waved a dismissive hand. "Doesn't refute any part of the Tanner's account at any rate."

"Doesn't corroborate any of it either," Danny said sharply. "Did either of the Tanner's ever mention Lynda being difficult, the fighting and that?"

The Turner's flipped through various printouts. "Nooo. Just the basic 'most beautiful little girl ever' stuff," said one.

"Neighbour mentioned, uhm, 'thing's've been strained, a bit'. That was just one neighbour though, and that was Ms Hymes who's a little bit hungry for gossip."

"The house is set pretty far into the block," Nicholas noted, turning away from Danny and staring at his beloved maps. "Would the neighbours have even heard anything? And if the Tanner's were having problems at home, would they have told anyone?"

"It's a small town," said Tony in a rare moment of authority. "If you're having problems with your spouse or offspring, there's always someone told, and usually it gets passed on from there."

"Khinez wuzpars," Walker said in summary.

Watching Nicholas strip after shift – and Danny tried not to make a habit of it, but their lockers were right across from one another and Danny always managed to catch sight of Nick out of the corner of his eye – Danny paid attention to all the things that Nicholas pulled out of his pockets. Ephemera, Nicholas had explained, if relevant to a crime should be kept close to the evidence, rather than scattered across somebody's living room. The piece of paper that had been abducted from Danny's desk sat for a crumpled moment on the locker shelf between Nicholas' mobile and his deodorant, before being buried once again in Nicholas' pocket.

It was folded into thirds, and had Danny's name written on it. In Nicholas' handwriting.

Nicholas was slouched against the wall of the station when Danny came out. "Walk you home?" he offered, staring at the toes of his shoes.

Danny shrugged. "Alright then."

"So," said Danny as he sank back into his couch, "you ever going to tell me about this family thing?"

Nicholas shrugged, and sipped at his glass of water. They weren't drinking, which Danny suspected was going to make things difficult. "It's," Nicholas stopped, and stared through his water and through the glass, at the fine prints that the pads of his fingers were leaving behind. "It's nothing important," he concluded dully. "Just a thing."

"Thing?" Danny asked with a smile.

"Event," Nicholas conceded. "I need to be in London on Saturday, that's all."

"Who called then, your sister?" Nicholas nodded. Danny smiled, and nudged him. "Dropping you a line twice in one year, that's got to be some kind of record. Step in the right direction and all that. She send you the Christening snaps?"

"Yeah," Nicholas said hollowly. He shifted beside Danny, sinking down into the cushions. "You know," he said carefully, pulling his fingers across the glass in his hands and creating streaky patters, "I'm envious of the relationship that you have. With your dad."

Danny snorted. "There is no relationship, in case you've forgotten. Not any more."

Nicholas shrugged, engrossed in his patterning. "He still sends you birthday cards. Even if you don't read them."

Danny stared hard at Nicholas. "You been going through my mail or something?"

"No, I recognised his handwriting. Have you even opened it?"

"No, and I'm not going to," Danny said with harsh finality. He turned painful brown eyes to Nicholas. "Why do you keep brining this up all of a sudden? Why can't you just let it go, like I'm tryin' to?"

Nicholas considered the question, and sighed. "Because I think, for all the bad things that your father has done, there's a part of him that has done good things too. And that part of him shouldn't be punished."

"There's nothing that man has done that has any good in it!" Danny said, his voice cracking.

Nicholas stared at Danny, at Danny's ragged breathing and white knuckles. "He had a hand in making you who you are, Danny," he said gently. "And I will always be in his debt for that."

Nicholas placed his half-empty glass of water on the coffee table, and left without saying anything more. Danny stared at it for a long time, wishing he didn't feel so empty inside.