A flush of colour and an air of excitement had wiped the fatigue from Danny's face. As he burst into Steve's office with barely a tap at the door – a courtesy that Steve did not demand from his second but which Danny refused to drop – Steve wondered what had the younger man so het up. "What is it?" Steve asked, putting aside the file he was perusing.

"I've just been talking to a man called Richard Collins on the phone," Danny explained. "He's flying out to Hawaii this evening."

"How does this help us?" Steve interrupted.

Sitting down, Danny grinned. "I was researching Judith Leadbetter," he replied. "I phoned the usual sources, but I didn't expect to hear anything until tomorrow with the time difference. Then I got this phone call. Mr Collins dated Judith Mann, as she was then, for several years. He proposed to her and she accepted. He went away to a conference – he's a librarian – and when he came back, he discovered that Judith had got married." Danny's excitement was obvious, but Steve couldn't see any relevance to the case. However, he knew his man well enough to know that there was a point to his story, even if Steve couldn't see it.

"And?" he prompted.

"And when he went to see who Judith had married, he got rather a nasty shock, as it was him name on the marriage certificate and the signature was enough like his to pass muster." Danny grinned. "Wait for it," he cautioned as Steve was about to interrupt again. "It was then that he discovered that his long-gone, black-sheep of a brother had returned to their home town during his absence. Collins had mentioned to Judith that he had a brother, but he hadn't told her that…"

By now, Steve could see where this was going. "An identical twin," Steve breathed. "Leadbetter?"

"In the flesh," Danny agreed. "Collins sent me a photo of the two of them. It is more than a decade old, of course, but look." Danny brandished the picture he had just been sent and also the current one of Leadbetter. Despite the passage of 15 years or so between the two shots, Leadbetter was unmistakable. Actually, Steve had less than no idea which of the two men was Leadbetter, which went some way to explaining why Judith had not known the difference.

"So what is his real name?" Steve asked.

"Neil Collins," Danny replied. He sobered abruptly. "I've put out some enquiries on his real name, so if I disappear again, you'll know where to come looking for me." He was trying to make a joke out of it, but he didn't think it was funny. Steve had managed to get him out the last time, but there was no guarantee that he would be able to do so again.

"Good work, Danno," Steve praised. "I want you to stick with me for the moment, so that nothing happens to you."

"Thanks, Steve." Danny had lost a lot of his animation now and looked tired again. "Neil and Judith were last seen boarding a flight for Los Angeles. Of course, at the time, everyone thought it was Richard. The Collins parents were both dead by this time, so there was no one to say that this was not Richard that Judith had married."

"We have to presume that somewhere along the line, Judith realised that this was not Richard," Steve speculated. "He wouldn't have known all the details of their courtship for a start. Somehow he had to persuade her to stay with him regardless. I wonder what lever he used?"

"I'll go out and talk to her again," Danny said, rising.

"Not tonight, Danno," Steve objected. "You've had a long day and you need to get something to eat and some rest."

"I'm fine…" Danny protested.

"You need to rest!" Steve declared flatly. "If you're going to interview Judith and meet Collins from the plane, you need to rest."

"All right," Danny agreed. He was tired and now that he had nothing else to do, it swept over him like a tidal wave.

Pushing aside the file he had been reading, Steve rose to his feet. "Come on," he suggested brusquely. "I'm taking you home."

"You don't need to do that," Danny protested behind a yawn. "I've got the car here."

"You're not driving tonight," Steve told him. "I'll take you home and collect you in the morning." They walked to the door together and Danny grabbed his jacket out of his cubicle. "Have you got Collins' flight details?"

"It's going to be tomorrow afternoon before he gets here," Danny replied. "Travelling at such short notice, he's got a couple of changes to make en-route." He glanced at the paper he had with the details on it. "He won't get here until 2pm." He copied them down and handed the second paper to Steve.

Pocketing it, Steve shepherded his detective out of the office. Everyone else had gone home already. As usual, it was just he and Danny burning the midnight oil. Just for a change, it wasn't actually midnight, but 7pm was more than late enough after the kind of day and night Danny had had the previous day.

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There were no mysterious knocks on the door, no dark-suited men lying in wait for him when he returned home. Steve had stopped for take-out for them both along the way and they ate together at Danny's before Steve headed for home, admonishing the younger man to get some sleep. Danny was only too happy to oblige.

A good night's sleep refreshed him and when Steve collected him the next morning, he was pleased to see Danny looking completely like himself. They had the usual morning briefing and Chin reported that so far, the firm's books were looking clean. Kono was still digging further into the sons and was going to interview them that morning. With the briefing complete, Danny headed off to interview Judith.

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The change in her from the drugged woman of a few days before was remarkable. Her eyes were clear and she wore a brightly coloured sun dress with short sleeves. "Detective Williams. How nice to see you again." She let him in herself and made him coffee, leading him through to the sunny kitchen to do so.

"No housekeeper today?" he asked, glancing around. The rigidly clean and spotless kitchen seemed more homely to him than it had the other day.

"No," Judith replied. "I let her go."

"Oh." A thousand questions shot through Danny's brain and he wondered which of them he should air to start with.

It was entirely possible that each and every question showed on Danny's face. Steve was always accusing him of being unable to hide his thoughts. Judith laughed. "I hadn't realised how oppressive my life had become," she explained. "I woke in the middle of the night – not last night, but the night after Brian had disappeared – and realised that I felt lighter, knowing that he wasn't coming home. I got up and came downstairs to make myself some tea." She made a face. "Everything had been moved around in the cupboards and that annoyed me. When we moved in here, I put things just where I wanted them and that woman had had the cheek to move everything." She sighed. "So I was hunting through the cupboards for the teabags and mugs and I found a vial of pills. They had my name on them, but I don't remember having them prescribed for me." She looked at Danny. "I'm not mad, Mr Williams. I know that for the last few years I've been locked up in my grief for the baby, but I would remember having medication prescribed for me."

"I'm sure you would," Danny agreed. He could see where this was going, and was interested to see what Judith had made of the situation.

"The only person who could have persuaded my doctor that I needed to take these tranquilisers every day is Brian. He must have then told Mrs Jennings to put them into my food or my tea. No wonder I wasn't able to function very well." She put a mug of coffee down in front of him and he saw her hand was shaking. She noticed him noticing. "Yes, I'm having some withdrawal symptoms," she agreed. "But I don't want to live in a fog. Not any more."

"Mrs Leadbetter, there are some questions I have to ask you," Danny ventured.

"Go ahead," she agreed. "It's about Brian, isn't it? How he came to be called Brian Leadbetter instead of Neil Collins?"

"Yes," Danny admitted, slightly surprised that she admitted it all so readily.

"It is rather a long story," she replied quietly. "Let's go and have a comfortable seat and I'll tell you everything I know."