Max and Roger

Later that morning, Max encountered Roger in the corridor. Roger acknowledged Max with a nod. He didn't go so far as to be friendly, because to be perfectly honest, he didn't much like Max. He had never quite trusted him, and since Max's behaviour towards Millie last year he had given himself license to stir Max up a bit. Max could not help but notice Roger's occasionally disrespectful attitude towards him as a senior officer, but in this case he felt Roger might be his most discreet and honest source of information about Millie.

"Say Roger," Max scratched his lip with his thumb nail as he spoke, "I heard today that Millie left the force…"

"About four months ago, Sarge." Roger was incredulous that Max had only just realised. He was glad poor Millie wasn't around to hear that!

"So what's the story there? Why did she leave?"

"I don't know. I guess she didn't feel it was the right job for her." Roger avoided letting Max think it might have had something to do with him. He felt Max was egocentric enough as it was.

"Do you think, the ah, kidnapping had anything to do with it?"

"I'm sure it contributed Sarge." Roger continued to play it cool.

"I'm disappointed she didn't feel she could come and talk to me about it. I thought we'd worked well together, before all of that."

"She talked it over with Smithy, I think that was the right thing to do."

"Of course," said Max. "So do you hear from her? What's she doing now?"

"No, she doesn't really talk to anyone from Sun Hill from what I understand." Too many bad associations, Roger added in his head. "As to what she's doing, she sings in clubs around town. She's made quite a go of it apparently, had no trouble getting work. Of course she'd been a singer before she was a copper. I guess policing didn't let her express her creative side."

"Good for her. I didn't know she was musical."

What did you actually know about her Sarge, Roger wanted to ask, apart from the fact she was good to look at and willing to tolerate you? Out loud he said "Not much opportunity to show her talents off around here really, except those karaoke nights at the pub." He smiled at the memory of how happy being on stage seemed to make Millie.

"Rodge, do you know why Millie didn't invite me to her send off?" Max blurted out the question he really wanted to ask quickly before he changed his mind about asking it.

Roger sighed. "It wasn't Millie, it was Sally who didn't want to invite you to the farewell. Millie had no idea you weren't invited. Sally just thought you'd upset her. To be honest, I've felt bad ever since about not inviting you myself. I didn't think it was Sally's decision to make. But at the time, for Millie's sake I thought…"

"Thanks Roger," Max turned and hurried away before Roger could see his reaction. He was a bit surprised how relieved it made him that Millie hadn't hated him so much that she didn't even want to say goodbye to him.

Left alone in the corridor, Roger remembered the evening of Millie's farewell. It was a great night really. Everyone was there (bar one person of course); their section, CID and even the super. Roger remembered Neil and Jack talking while Millie sang. "Millie's a lovely looking girl," Jack had said, and Roger remembered the amused look exchanged by Jo and Stevie at Jack turning into a 'dirty old man' once he'd had a drink.

His most vivid memory was a downhearted Millie looking towards the door hopefully. "Are you sure you invited Max?" she asked Roger.

"I'm sure Sally invited everyone," he replied. He couldn't bring himself to lie to her outright.

"I had made up my mind I was going to make my peace with him before I left," sighed Millie. "It looks like he just didn't care enough to even make an appearance."

"Oh Millie," Sally said, slipping her arms around Millie's shoulders. "It's just as well to know what he's really like."

"You're right," said Millie, "I'm going to get another drink and have one last night dancing with my boys." She indicated Nate, Will and Leon.

"Are you sure we've done the right thing?" Roger asked Sally after Millie had left.

"Yes I am. She needed to get over him Rodge. And obviously she needed our help to do so. She would have just kept on hoping if she'd seen him. Really, we did the kindest thing."

Roger wished he could share Sally's confidence.

Millie's Dilemma

After her meal, shower and various household duties, Millie sat down at her piano for her daily singing practice. Her choice of material was maudlin. Her renditions of standards like Cry Me a River, I Got it Bad (And That Ain't Good) etc were particularly heartfelt that day. Although it was some release to belt them out, singing them only seemed to reinforce the sense of her insignificance to Max that had resurged with her memories. She thought to herself bitterly that Max probably didn't even realise she could sing. She had a single dimension to him, and that was as a support player. He had no idea that she had had a life before him, and what really hurt was that he probably wouldn't have cared anyway. She found herself getting more and more despondent. She had to think of another way to fill her day until John called and came over that night. So instead of staying at home as had been her intention, alone with these thoughts, Millie decided to occupy herself by going shopping.

One thing she liked about her new lifestyle was that she didn't have to wear that boring uniform everyday. Shopping and buying nice things that she could actually make use of had become a regular pleasure for her. Once she had lost all hope of anything happening with Max she had found her social life began to open up again. It became a joke amongst the Relief that every time they went out, some guy made a move on Millie. Millie enjoyed the attention, she hadn't had so much of it since her pre-policing days when she hung around with other musicians, and hadn't been holding off on other relationships because of the looming notion of saving yourself for 'The One'. She went out, she drank, she flirted, she had affairs. And as this happened the idea of being a police officer became less appealing.

The real test for Millie had come when she bumped into one of her kidnappers, Mick Jones, who was newly released from prison and drug free. Liv Till and Si Jones had borne the brunt of the responsibility for the kidnapping and robbery (largely due to Millie's testimony) and Mick's sentence was in comparison quite short. Her feelings about Mick were of course mixed. He had, after all, held her a gunpoint and kept her gagged and bound to a chair. But the more she observed and talked to him that night, the more she found herself sympathising with and actually liking him. After her run in with Max that day, she had basically just wanted to get home, get drunk and forget about what an idiot she'd made of herself over him. And there was Mick, this criminal, who seemed strangely concerned about her, and showed an admirable protective instinct towards his brother as well. She couldn't deny she thought he was kind of cute and he seemed to be attracted to her too. When she met Mick again and he suggested they have a coffee together, Millie said yes. She wasn't going to adopt the Max Carter view of people and see them as either good or bad. Mick had shown her that he could be kind and loyal, and she needed to prove to herself that she wasn't one of those 'once a crim, always a crim' officers like... you know who. So when it came time for them to part and he had bent down to kiss her, she had responded and they'd spent the night together. In the light of the morning Millie realised she had perhaps been unwise and had put her whole career at risk. But Mick seemed to understand that this was as far as it would ever go with them. They farewelled each other knowing they would be walking out of each other's lives forever.

All of these things left her longing for the carefree days of her life before the police force. Her next day at work she had knocked on Inspector Smith's door told him she wasn't sure if she was cut out to be a police officer. Inspector Smith said that perhaps she should take some time off to think things through. He said he had noticed that the meticulousness that had been the hallmark of her work seemed to have slipped a bit in recent times, and she'd been late more often than usual, "but that just makes you like everyone else in the Relief," he said. "You're a good copper Millie. Don't go jumping to any rash decisions just because you've had a bad experience." Millie said she would continue to think about things for a little while longer then, she just felt she should give him a head's up in case she did decide to quit.

When Millie had left his office, Smithy sat and thought about what she'd said. He'd sensed that Millie's mind was already made up about leaving, and he was sure she was making a mistake. She was good at her job. She was thorough and level-headed and everyone had been impressed by the way she'd negotiated the situation with her kidnappers. Smithy noticed Roger passing by, and called him in. As Roger was the officer who had partnered Millie on the day of her kidnapping, Smithy asked him his opinion of its effect on Millie. Roger was hesitant to talk at first, but once Smithy had convinced him nothing would be repeated to Millie, Roger opened up, and also told him about what DS Carter had said and how Millie had reacted strongly to that.

Smithy dismissed Roger, frowned, and then made his way up to CID. He felt he had to make DI Manson aware of Max's behavior, seeing as Max was one of his team. Neil was in his office and gestured for Smithy to sit down.

"Did you know," Smithy said, "That one of your senior officers said, in the hearing of the young PC in question, that she was unimaginative and not very smart?"

Neil rubbed his eyes with his hands. God he was sick of taking care of Max's people issues. "OK, when was this?"

"The night the PC in question was taken at gunpoint and held hostage along with the sister of…"

"Say no more. He said this to Millie, right? I could see that they were really going at each other over that case, but I thought it was some sort of lover's tiff."

"Is there something going on there?" asked Smithy.

"Not that I'm aware of, but I think it's been pretty clear that most people wouldn't have been surprised if there was. They are certainly reactive to each other. Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

"I don't know there's much that you can do. My problem is that now PC Brown has come to me saying she wants to leave the force. And I think that would be a shame. She really proved herself that on that case …"

"I couldn't agree more. I was very impressed by her handling of things that night, and I think that a lot of people underestimated her." He was thinking not just of Max but of Inspector Weston as well. "Look Smithy, would you mind if I had a talk to Millie about this? I have a lot of sympathy for her, being a quiet achiever myself." Neil said this with a slight upturn at one side of his mouth.

"Sure. I'll send her up to you when the opportunity arises. And oh," Smithy said with a wink as he stood up, "Try and keep Max away from her."

"That's a better option than what I'd come up with that night, which was handing them some cash and saying, "Here's money for a hotel room, now don't come back till you've got this out of your system!"

Smithy left the room laughing.