Chapter One

"It had to be today, didn't it?"

Simon sighed as he turned the steering wheel sharply to the right and turned into the practically disused haulage yard. Of all the days the raid could have taken place, it had to be today. It wasn't just the fact that it was his day off. It wasn't even the fact that it was his first full day off in two weeks. It wasn't the fact that this wasn't even his case, or that he'd been roped into it because they needed someone to oversee the recovery of some computer files which at some point would probably lead to his first visit to the techies in the sever room since his accident. It was much more than that.

"Today of all days," he sighed, "It just had to be."

Like he wasn't nervous enough as it was.

His David Bowie CD blared out as he came to a halt. It was strange, he reflected, the turnaround in his attitude since the showdown with Keats and saving the comatose Alex. Where as before the sound of his favourite 80s music would send him into a panic and cause him flashbacks that stung his soul, hearing those songs now reminded him of the battle he'd won and the difficulties he'd beaten. They were a sign of his strength and reminded him how far he'd come.

He switched off the music and reached into his pocket, his fingers closing around the small box within.

"Of all the moments, on all the days…" he grumbled.

The moment he received the call had annoyed him as much as anything. So had his unconsidered response to the station.

"…But I'm at the jewellery store!" was one that would take him years to live down.

He could still hear the laughter ringing in his ears, along with one comment shouted out by his DI who thought inventing Shoebury Bling was a good idea. Couldn't he have thought up some excuse? Or even just decided not to blurt out his current location?. For a DCI, thinking on his feet was not one of his strong points.

He pulled out the little box, checking it was shielded under the dashboard from prying eyes, and looked at his purchase quickly. Just staring at it made his heart thump in his chest and he felt as though he couldn't breathe. He murmured a few words under his breath as though trying them out for size. That was more than he'd been able to do with the shiny, platinum band that sat in his palm, tucked away in its box. He'd been rushed so much by the urgent call that he had to buy it in a hurry and just hoped it was the right size.

Seeing a couple of figures walking towards him, he knew he had no more time to think things through just yet and hurriedly snapped the box shut, almost taking a finger with it, then slipped it into his pocket. He opened the door and stepped out of the car, pulling his collar up around his neck to shut out the strong winds and walked towards the two incoming figures.

"DCI Shoebury?" one of them asked.

"That's me," sighed Simon.

The man extended his arm.

"I'm DI March, this is DS Fullerton," he began with a firm handshake, "your DI brought you up to speed, I take it?"

"Erm," Simon blushed, recalling the 'Choose Shoebury Bling for all your rings!' jingle that Sally had created halfway through giving him the lowdown on the case, "of a fashion."

"We're hoping it should be pretty straightforward," March told him as they began to pace towards a crowd of uniform, CID, sniffer dogs and curious members of the public who were being constantly shoed away by various frustrated coppers. "We've been trying to get close to this dealer for some time. He's been on our radar for close to two decades but he's evaded us at every step. Finally we found someone close enough to him who wanted out of the business that we got the information we needed ."

They stopped walking and stared at a couple of stacked up portacabins.

"So Nailer's actually on the premises?" Simon asked.

"We think so," Fullerton told him, "we've had the place under surveillance for five days now, tracked his every move, he entered the building at nine this morning and there's been no sign of any movement since."

"We've heard he's on the verge of packing up and moving his business again," said March, "so we've got to act today, before we lose him again and the scent goes cold."

"We don't think he stashes a huge amount of the drugs here," said Fullerton, "but he runs his business from this yard and we believe he has computerised records of his associates, suppliers, and downline in there. They'll be encrypted, and he may even try to destroy them."

Simon scratched his head and nodded.

"We'll deal with it," he said, "We'll get as much info as we can off his machines."

"We appreciate the fast response," said March with a friendly slap on the back that came a little too hard for Simon's liking and made him cough and choke. As he watched March and Fullerton walk briskly in the direction of some POLICE tape he put his hands in his pockets and let out his breath noisily. He felt the box in there again. For a moment he'd forgotten all about it but now his fingers had encountered it he felt his heart leap again.

As his eyes surveyed the scene he was surprised to spot a familiar face in the distance, who spotted him at the same moment and started to walk towards him. Simon began to do the same, a smile across his face.

"Hey you," he grinned, "fancy seeing you here."

The smiling face of Robin came closer.

"You can't leave me alone for five minutes, can you?" he said. "Hey, I thought this was supposed to be your day off."

Simon rolled his eyes.

"Tell me about it," he grumbled.

Robin looked behind him where his team were busy looking after three trained police dogs.

"They they are…" he grinned cheekily, "…your best friends!"

Simon pulled a face. As much as he loved Robin he didn't like the canine company he kept. One unfortunate childhood incident with a small dog and he was literally scarred for life. It was a sign of how much he loved Robin that he was able to overlook the whole dog-handling part of his career.

Robin on the other hand was a natural. From an early age he'd wanted to work with animals but when the whole lion taming thing hadn't worked out the way he planned he dusted off his remaining digits and went back to the drawing board. Deciding to join the police force after university he immediately became interested in the dog unit and, after proving himself to be a reliable officer, was accepted for training. Showing his natural skills, he found himself fast tracked and before he could catch his breath he was heading up the unit. His one disappointment in his position was giving up the dog that had become his own. Cassandra, he'd called her, a beautiful Labrador who had been trained especially for sniffing out the interesting array of substances they were on the look out for today. He knew the officer who now took charge of her was more than capable of handling her and taking good care of her, but he still missed having her around.

"You leave me out of the slobber patrol," Simon commented, eying up a particularly drool-worthy canine, "I'll stick with my nice, friendly computers."

"They've not been very friendly to you in the past," Robin commented cheekily, poking Simon in the head and running back toward his unit with a laugh.

"Oh, ha ha, very funny," Simon put his hands on his hips in a fake huff, "one day you'll get a dog landing on your head and then we'll be even!"

Simon could joke about it now. In fact, he was very good at joking about the whole situation. The aftermath of Keats's demise and the weeks that followed while he recuperated were very strange indeed. Suddenly Simon was on the front page of every paper, appearing on every news bulletin, interviewed in the local and national press and reaching hero status. He received invitations to appear on Newsnight and Have I Got News for You, found himself headhunted to become the spokesperson for file server safety within the police force and there was even talk of a shoe sponsorship deal at one point.

Simon was relieved when the fuss died down but the surrealism of those few weeks made the transition to a more fulfilling and outgoing life easier. He was safe from Keats-related nightmares now too, although programmes such as Channel 4's Dispatches special - Jim Keats: Where Did It All Go Wrong? didn't help matters.

He fingered the box in his pocket again and mumbled a few words under his breath.

"Robin, these last few months have shown me…" he shook his head. It wasn't enough. "Rob, without you I don't think I would have made it this far…" still not right. He sighed as he watched armed officers edging closer to the Portacabins. Must be time for action, he thought, stepping closer to the crowd.

Close enough to see, distant enough to hear only a mumble, he watched the officer in bullet proof vests surround the decrepit building and order their suspect out of it. He watched the officers scuttling around like mice, the dogs awaiting their cue and March and Fullerton preparing to enter by force if necessary.

What none of them had been anticipating was a motorbike bursting through a false, getaway panel on one side of the cabin at top speed with a bullet-proof Nailer mounted on the roaring beast. As officers scattered out of the way of the vehicle and others aimed their guns in his general direction he held his own gun aloft and fired three random shots into the dog handling unit before speeding away through every barrier the police had thought would hold him.

"No!" an ear-splitting shriek came from somewhere and Simon looked around just in time to see Robin diving to the floor. Fearing one of the shots had caught him, he ran as fast as his body would allow across the yard to where Robin had dropped. Blood was everywhere which caused Simon to panic for a moment but as he drew closer he saw that Robin was not the source.

"The bastard!" Robin's angry, tear-laden voice cried out, "He shot my dog! He shot my fucking dog!"

Simon's eyes dropped to the sight of Cassandra laying on the ground, blood pooling around her as officers raced around trying to make sense of what had just happened.

"Oh God, Robin…" Simon barely knew what to say, "I… she'll be OK… they'll get her to the vet…"

Robin gasped for air, the shock of the event knocking the breath out of his body.

"The bastard," he repeated, "He's going to pay…. you're going to pay for that!" he screamed into the ether, as though Nailer could hear him. To Simon's horror he watched Robin tearing toward one of the squad cars and opening the door.

"Hey, wait," he cried, "where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to get the bastard!" Robin cried.

"Rob, you don't know where he's gone!" Simon cried "there are already two cars going after him with two officers apiece, look! What makes you think you're going to get to him faster than they will?"

"Because he didn't shoot their bloody dogs!" cried Robin, "get in!"

Simon too a step back.

"I can't!" he cried.

"Get in!"

"Robin, listen to me!" Simon cried, "they're already getting Cassandra in that van to take her for emergency treatment. She'll be alright. Go with her." Robin ignored him and climbed into the car. "You can't drive off like this! The state you're in, you'll run someone off the road! You need to calm down! You at least need someone to come with you."

"Then get in!" Robin urged one last time, pushing open the passenger door.

Simon took a deep breath. He knew it was wrong. He knew they could both end up in big trouble for this, but seeing Robin in such an angry state left him with little choice. He could at least try to be the voice of reason.

"I think I'm going to regret this," he muttered, climbing quickly into the seat beside him and barely having time to close the car door before Robin sped away. "Hey! Seatbelts!"

"No time," Robin stared straight ahead, speeding up as quickly as the car would allow.

Simon gulped.

"Please, Rob, I know you're angry but driving like this isn't going to help anyone!" he cried, "you don't even know where you're going!"

"I'm following the side road," said Robin, "it heads straight to the airfield. I'll bet he's got a plane on standby."

"They'll have alerted the airport by now," Simon griped the seat so hard his knuckles turned white, "Please, slow down!"

"I've got to get to him," Robin hissed.

"And do what when you get there?" cried Simon, "Just listen to yourself! I know you love that dog but what do you think is going to happen if you get to the guy? Are you going to kill him? Punch him? What kind of charges are you going to face, Robin?"

"I just want to get to him," Robin cried, "I want to make sure he's not going to get away with this!"

"He won't!" cried Simon, "but this is not the way."

"Then what would you have me do, hmm?" cried Robin, turning to face him, "sit down with a nice cup of tea, waiting for the news that he's disappeared off into the night, never to be seen again?"

In an instant, Simon's eyes bolted.

"Robin, Look out!" he screamed.

Robin turned his eyes back to the road a moment too late. A fallen tree in his path sent the car careering across the road, turning over and over as Simon and Robin were thrown around inside it like flakes in a snow globe.

As the car reached the end of its flipping, spinning journey and came to a halt upside down, both Robin and Simon lay deathly still beneath the battered metal frame.

Silence fell.

Everything froze.

Blackness descended.

Deep, deep darkness.

Layers of black.

Oceans of silence.

Then, no more darkness.

Sound.

Light.

Life.

As Simon opened his eyes, the first thing he felt was a pain in his neck. He whimpered a little and reached up to touch the painful area. He noticed a deep gash across his arm, blood seeping out and staining his shirt sleeves.

That was the first clue.

"What the…?" he mumbled. Since when did he have on a purple shirt? Hadn't it been white with thin blue stripes just a few moments earlier?

"Rob?" he coughed a little, "Robin? Rob, are you…." he turned towards the driver's seat to find that Robin now had a mop of curly hair, lipstick and breasts. "Fucking hell!"

Panic set in. A cold dread washed over him. It couldn't be… it just couldn't.

"No…. no, that's got to be wrong. See, I made my peace with the eighties…." Simon began to jabber. He forced the door open and began to stumble onto the road outside. His head was spinning, so was the world around him. He was in a different place, a different time, a different world, and not one he wished to see again.

"No… it can't be… I can't…"

His eyes darted around, looking for any sign of familiarity or something solid to grab hold of, his palms sweating and his mouth as dry as the desert. That was the moment he saw them; two familiar figures, standing, watching.

That was as much as his brain could handle.

A blissful nothingness overtook Simon and he crumbled to the floor. In that moment of darkness, Simon wished that was how he would remain forever.

A pot of smelling salts had a different idea.