Sorry, I only intended this to be a short little thing, written in the car whilst waiting to pick up my son from a party, but it has grown and evolved. I obviously like angry Harry way too much and lucky for me, so do lots of you. Don't worry your secret's safe with me. Be lovely to hear your views though.


"Where on the list do you want to start?" Nikki asked helpfully. "Start with the others and work up to me, or just plough in to me from the beginning? And how does God even get to feature on your little list? What's he done to you this week?"

Harry was startled from his reverie about what a good listener she was, by this diatribe and the mocking tone of her voice.

"I just don't understand…" Harry began.

"Try me!" she said defiantly.

He stared at her silently for a while, wondering if she really meant it, it she really did want to hear his long list, if he should take the plunge and let rip, and where to start? Did she really need to know how annoyed he was at Leo's behaviour? She'd been there and seen it, she would have realised how cross he had been not to mention the appalling behaviour of the others.

But if he did start with her there was a chance she would leave, walk out, slam the door and then he would be left to wallow in his own emotional mire without her nagging; it suddenly seemed like a good option. To make her go; that would be the best solution. That's what he would do; make her go. Just for a second he had a mental image of that fairy tale wolf he'd imagined himself to be earlier, 'I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down,' he thought. And while he was at it he would clear out all the humiliation, rejection and stupidity he'd had to deal with all week.

"Your poem," he began setting to work at destroying her very foundations. "The poem at your father's funeral; why did you choose that one?" He sat down next to her, in an attempt to make her drop her guard.

"It seemed… it seemed…" she broke off.

"Wouldn't the one about rage have been more appropriate?" he asked.

She looked quizzically at him, he'd only been left with the book for five minutes when she went to go and buy the coffees.

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light." He quoted.

"It's not really very apt for a funeral is it? It's a bit late by the time you've got to that point!

"But do you really think there is something more? That death has no dominion? With all your scientific knowledge and training, how can you still believe?" he asked.

"Harry…That poem, it's just about living on in someone's memory. My dad wasn't religious, what was I supposed to read? I'm not sure I always do believe, I just don't know, but isn't there something in you that dreams of some kind of immortality?"

"Not often," he said darkly. "I've not even done forty years yet and I've seen quite enough already."

"You don't believe that," she said.

"But to believe don't you need more than some story about a resurrection. Don't you need to know the how, the facts, the science?"

"But then you wouldn't need faith," she explained.

"But why does the whole story have to be so ridiculous? Relying on an eye witness who's colourful past calls into question the veracity of her testimony."

Harry stood up; towering over her; her simplistic belief suddenly enraging him and the full power of his earlier anger gripping him tightly. All that had held him in check evaporated under the heat of his own rage and he gave himself over to the cacophony of words that began spewing uncontrollably out of his mouth. "The hero of this story, getting executed in an atrocious manner, in a tomb; dead for three days, his devoted friends coming to the memorial garden, just so they can see his body. Dead means dead! The disciples weren't scientists and they knew that; they weren't even expecting a miracle, just to see his DEAD body."

"Harry," Nikki cried, all her earlier bravado beginning to melt. They had suddenly strayed onto dangerous ground. "No more Harry, that's enough," she said quietly. The picture he was conjuring was far too raw for her and not just any old story, not even a Bible story."

"A woman," Harry continued regardless, oblivious to the obvious but relishing Nikki's discomfort, enjoying seeing the pain he had felt all week projected onto someone else. " A woman, so devoted she struggles to the tomb by herself with no thought for propriety or her personal safety and when she finds the place empty turns to sit…she's confused… the sun shines brightly despite her heartbreak and obscures her vision. But then she sees something, a movement amongst the stones. She can't believe what she sees, so she turns away, she talks to a man she thinks is the gardener and at the sound of her name, she believes. This story, THIS story is supposed to be true and real and make all the pain of death go away? I just don't buy it."

"Stop it," Nikki wailed.

"When you're dead, you stay dead and that's it, you of all people should know that!" he thundered cruelly.

"Stop it," she repeated.

"What?"

Nikki scrubbed tears away from her cheeks and stared at him blankly.

"What?" he repeated thinking back to all that he had said; he wasn't expecting her to be so sensitive about a religion she hardly believed in.

"But it was real!" she looked up at him intently with her tear stained face and saw his total lack of comprehension.

"For me! Once. It was real; it was so very very real." she whispered and her voice hitched and he heard that familiar howl of pain and he remembered and he realised exactly what he'd done; what story he'd actually told. He staggered away from her, grabbing hold of furniture just to steady himself. His body began to shake and he felt lightheaded just as if he had really vomited up his dinner and not his last words. They never talked about Hungary, it was such a taboo subject between them, he had buried those memories so deep and had almost forgotten how much she had been hurt by it all. How terribly it had affected her; but not anymore. What had he done?

"You bastard," she called after him, but still she didn't move.

"Nikki?" he said gently, he was still shaking, stunned at how callous he had been, how cutting, just how far he had pushed her.

"Why are you trying to hurt me?" she asked through her tears.

Harry started pacing again.

"It's the only thing I'm actually good at," he shot back morosely.

"That's not true," she replied but he laughed it off dismissively.

He continued to pace while she regained her composure.

"I'm sor…" he began.

"Don't," she interrupted and they relapsed into an uneasy silence. She still showed no sign of leaving. How could his plan have backfired so disastrously? What had he done? She was his friend.

"You never answered my question properly the other day," Harry began when his breathing finally slowed again.

"What one was that?"

"The one about how things were with your father. You were ok weren't you?"

"What? Is that going to make you feel better?" she said in exasperation. "Is that what this is about? My relationship with my dad? Is that why you're punishing me?"

"I'm not punishing you," Harry claimed.

Nikki just raised an eyebrow back at him. "You could have fooled me," she muttered.

"Would it be better for you if for the last two years my father never asked me for money, he was never in trouble with the police, he was the poster boy for sobriety and he cheered my every success? Would it be better that way? I'm the one who is supposed to be grieving Harry. Why are you being so bloody selfish?"

"'Cause I'm good at that too," he joked. The timing of this sudden bout of humour failing him completely.

"Well for your information he wasn't Harry. Does that make it better? Does it make YOU feel better? He was still a mess and we may have talked from time to time but not much and it wasn't ok." She paused for breath, wondering whether to continue, whether to let out how she really felt? Harry had obviously not been holding back this evening, but if they both stepped off the edge? What then? She continued more quietly,

"And now he's gone and much of me is relieved, relieved that I don't have to feel guilty about not talking to him anymore and not worrying that when he does call he's not just trying to rip me off yet again." She paused briefly, "but the rest of me is now screaming that I am totally and utterly alone in this world. You don't understand how that feels Harry, and it scares me and I hate it; I really really hate it."

"I understand," he whispered to himself but he didn't trust himself to catch her eye.

"You're not alone," Harry murmured.

Nikki chose to ignore this comment or perhaps didn't even hear it.

"So that's me and God taken care of," she blustered; regaining control of her tears and trembling hands, hoping to change the subject from the raw nerve of pain they had uncovered. "Who else has pissed you off this week? Are you carrying on through your list? I thought you and DI James were getting on well?"


'Do not go gentle into the good night,' Dylan Thomas

'Death has no dominion,' Dylan Thomas

Harry's recollections; slightly twisted but hopefully you'll forgive me, I'm sure his memory would be slightly sketchy. John 10 v 11-18

11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13 They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 15 He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him." 16 Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means "Teacher"). 17 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" 18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

No sacrilege intended, I happen to believe this story does give hope for the resurrection and I wrote this on Easter Monday so it was all fresh in my mind.