Dempsey felt Makepeace's hand on his leg and his heart jolted with excitement. He tried to recall a time when she had touched him as intimately as that but he couldn't think of one. He realised that she was simply doing it to offer her support and it was the only way she could do that without the doctor noticing, however it didn't make any difference to him, he thrilled in the physical contact.

"Lieutenant?" The doctor was waiting for a reply. He wasn't ready with an answer. "How do you feel working with a woman?" she repeated.

"Err, well…it's different," he settled for.

"Different in what way?" the doctor asked.

Ah hell, how am I gonna answer this?

"Well you know Harry, you see, Harry…"he began in a stutter, "…she sometimes puts herself into extra danger 'cause she wants to prove that she can do the job as good as the rest of us," he avoided eye contact with Makepeace, who was glaring at him, and continued. "But what she don't get is that it's natural for a guy to want to protect a woman more." He looked across at her then and shrugged. She didn't look impressed. "But don't get me wrong," he added quickly, "she does her job great, almost as good as me," he couldn't resist saying. Makepeace narrowed her eyes at him. "If she didn't I sure as hell wouldn't still be workin' with her!"

"Could that be the reason why you re-entered the building yesterday to search for her, not because you thought she was incompetent, but because you felt the need to protect her as a man protects a woman?" the doctor put to him.

"Well yeah, I guess."

"And we're back to the male, female relationship again. You seem to have an emotional attachment to the Sergeant that goes beyond concern for a work colleague," she observed.

The anxiety was back in his face as he considered how to talk his way out of the implications in the doctor's words. "Well we gotta look out for each other, if we didn't one or both of us wouldn't be sittin' here now!"

He's sidestepping the issue. Still not got enough for Mr Golding's needs.

"It is my understanding that you also resigned from the force whilst working with the Sergeant. Could you explain to me what prompted that resignation?" the doctor asked.

"Err, we argued," he gave a small laugh, "In fact we argued a hell of a lot and…well, it was so frustrating…I just couldn't do it no more!"

"Frustrating. Interesting choice of words." The doctor looked thoughtful. "I did warn you that it's most likely the frustrations between the two of you that causes all the conflicts in the first place." Dempsey played back in his mind what he had just said to see if he had come out with more than he had intended to.

"I didn't mean that kinda frustrations. I meant that she was drivin' me crazy with all the arguing," he explained.

"It's the same thing lieutenant, as I said, the conflicts that arise are a direct result of the underlying frustrations you feel working with a woman that you are attracted to," she replied with a little impatience.

Will you give me a break!

Dempsey ran a hand over his face and turned to see what Makepeace was making of all of this. Makepeace rolled her eyes.

Ah, she don't believe that anyway. Thank god!

"So why did you return to work then?" the doctor continued, catching Dempsey off guard yet again.

"I found the…" Dempsey began without thinking, stopping suddenly when he realised what he was about to say. He risked a look at Makepeace to see her grinning smugly at him. "Turns out she needed me. Couldn't do without me," he said, grinning back at her. She tutted and looked away.

"Okay so the point at which you decided to return to your job here was a pivotal point in your relationship then. I mean, you decided that you wanted to work with the Sergeant despite all the frustrations we spoke about earlier and the fact that she had made it blatantly clear that anything other than a professional relationship between the two of you was not acceptable to her. You left because of the frustrations you felt and yet you returned with those same frustrations because she 'needed' you. Do you not think Lieutenant that what began as a physical attraction was developing at that stage into something more?"

If he admits to this then I have enough to take back to Mr Golding.

Dempsey began to feel the palms of his hands sweating. He laughed nervously. "Not exactly but hey, I figured that if I came back I might get lucky."

Damn, that came out wrong!

I'm not listening to this! I've had enough!

"Excuse me," Makepeace began, addressing the doctor with barely concealed anger, "Perhaps we could resume this another day, I'm going to need a word with my colleague here," she said, throwing Dempsey a fiery look as she rose from her seat. "It's work related." Makepeace's expression dared the doctor to say another word. The doctor conceded and watched as she exited the office in a few quick strides, followed by a sheepish looking Dempsey.

As soon as they were out of the office Dempsey turned to talk to Makepeace, only to be nudged aside as she continued walking straight past him.

"I need some air," she grated out before disappearing from view.

Dempsey stood in the office for a while looking slightly lost until he noticed the other office workers watching him with interest, at which point he strode towards the exit after Makepeace. He emerged into the sunshine and scanned the car park for evidence of her, jumping slightly when he realised that she was standing only yards away from him, leaning back against the wall of the building.

"You okay?" he asked, tentatively moving towards her.

"Fine," she shrugged, staring blindly into the distance.

"You don't look fine," he said, leaning against the wall with one hand and assessing the look on her face.

"Was there something you wanted Lieutenant?"

"C'mon Harry, what's up?" he asked.

"What's up?" she repeated incredulously. "So, you thought you'd get lucky then? Well, there has to be some perks for working with a female cop, right?" she scowled, grating her teeth with anger.

"Ah, c'mon Harry, you know I didn't mean that. It was that psycho shrink woman in there. There should be laws to stop people like that!" he replied with rising anger himself. "She kept pushin' and pushin', the damn woman should be certified!"

She tutted and then swung her head to him with renewed hostility. "What the hell was all that bloody rubbish about a man having to protect a woman then? And by the way, I don't need you to tell anyone that I do my job well! You had those keys all along, of course I knew that anyway but… you know what your problem is Lieutenant? You're reduced to sexist little quips because you can't face the fact that a woman can do this job better than you can!"

He laughed angrily. "Oh don't kid yourself Sergeant, I only said that to keep the peace. You aint even in my league babe. It aint my fault that you don't like the truth! Face it Harry, when things get rough you need me to come rescue you. Why else did you leave that message for me?"

Her mouth fell open then in disbelief. "You rescue me! If I remember rightly I saved your bacon the very first case we worked on. And for your information," she continued, pointing an accusatory finger in his face, "I never did and never will ask you to come rescue me! The message was that I didn't need your help, are you getting the message now Lieutenant?" she shouted, moving around him and marching towards the car for fear that she might cause him bodily injury if she had to face him any longer.

"You left because you couldn't hack this job anymore," he yelled after her, determined to get the last word in, "women, emotions and police work don't mix!"

She turned on her heel then to face him. "You arrogant bastard! I left because I couldn't stand working with a pig headed, male chauvinist reject from The Bronx!" she shouted across the car park.

He stormed towards her. "Listen sweetheart, it aint exactly a picnic in the park workin' with an uptight, toffee nosed, aristocratic, lady…whatever your name is… like you!"

She gave a short burst of mocking laughter. "Lady Harriet, Alexander, Charlotte if you don't mind Lieutenant!"

He tried to hide the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth but failed. "Well lady Harriet if it's not too much trouble, would you mind awfully if we continued this fascinating discussion another time, Spikings is undoubtedly waiting for us inside," he said, putting an arm around her waist and gesturing towards the entrance of SI10.

"Fine," she said, moving with him but glancing down at his hand on her waist, "as long as you wouldn't mind keeping your 'frustrations' in check for the remainder of the day lieutenant."

He smiled politely at her. "I will try my very best Sergeant." Taking his hand off her waist, he moved to throw an arm over her shoulder instead. "Harry."

"Hmm," she replied, glancing at him out of the corner of her eyes.

"I don't suppose this would be a good time to reconfirm our date tonight?"

She turned her head slowly to him with a look of disbelief.

"Nah, didn't think so. We'll talk about it later."