Hey, thank you as ever for the reviews and feedback! Just a few quick requests to ask of you... There's a poll on my profile for all my Ashes to Ashes readers about a story I'm planning to write soon, and I want to know your opinion, so I'd be really grateful if you went to vote. And also, this is a little unrelated to this story or anything, but a friend and I have just started a creative writing blog on 'blogger' so it would be fantastic if you checked that out too, and even more fantastic if you followed us and/or left a few comments! The link is on my profile. :P Anyway, that's it for the advertisements *guilty face*, here's the next chapter, I hope you like it!

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Disclaimer – I don't own Ashes to Ashes. :D

Chapter 14 – Change Your Mind

When Alex entered CID the next morning, it was to find the team in a strange state of inactivity and its Guv nowhere to be seen. Ray had his feet up on his desk and was flicking lazily through a few old case files she didn't recognise, Chris was leafing through a few papers with an obvious look of disinterest on his face, and Shaz was in the kitchen, making a few cups of tea. Frowning, Alex stood there for her moment, hands on her hips as she looked around. "We've got a double murder case on the go, what are you all doing?" She crossed over to the case board in order to draw their attention back to it. "And where on earth has DCI Hunt gone?"

Ray glanced up at her, and if he was surprised at her formal use of the term 'DCI Hunt', he didn't show it. "Got barely no leads, have we?" he said to her, removing the cigarette that was dangling from in between his lips. "I'm looking back at old cases to see if there's an old MO we're missing, but that's a waste of time, and Chris is lookin' through Ian Humphreys' and Simon Taylor's financials, but there's nothing there either..."

Chris put down the papers in his hands as if to enforce Ray's point. "Too right, Ma'am. This case is shit."

Alex's eyes widened, her mouth dropping open a little way. "This case is shit," she repeated, astounded, and making quote marks in the air. "Well I'm sorry, Chris, but whether a case is 'shit' or not, isn't up to you. Two men have been murdered, and it's our job to find out why, and by whom. Now if that's not exciting enough for you, then I'd advise you to go find yourself another job, because you're not welcome here."

Chris gaped at her for a moment, almost as though his brain was slow to process what she was saying before he eventually clamped his mouth shut and nodded, sitting up a little straighter. "Right, sorry, Ma'am."

Alex gave him a small, very brief smile before picking up the whiteboard pen. She was about to turn to the case board again when she paused and glanced over to the glass den at the other end of the office, still deprived of its lion. "And I won't ask again, where the hell is DCI Hunt?"

Ray shrugged, having now put down the old and useless case files and lit up another cigarette. "Don't know, Ma'am," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Came in an' he wasn't here. Me and Chris haven't seen 'im all day...We thought, you know..." He sniggered. "We thought 'e was with you."

"I haven't seen him either, Ma'am," Shaz said softly as she reappeared and handed an extra mug of tea to Alex, providing the perfect distraction. "You looked like you needed one."

Smiling gratefully at the young WPC, Alex took the tea from her and took a large gulp. She sighed. "Thanks, Shaz...Right, I suppose we better get on with our jobs then, if DCI Hunt doesn't want to turn up then that's his problem." Alex turned back to the case board, pen poised as she tried to once again adopt a more professional air. But inside, her mind was reeling. Where the hell was Gene? It wasn't like him to just turn up late to work, no matter what was going on around him. Hell, he always shouted at her enough for being late. But then, she remembered that hurt look on his face when she had turned away from him the previous night...the look in his eyes that she could barely describe when she had told him they were never going to work. Hurt, yes, but insulted, too...And maybe, dare she think it, a little bit helpless? And that was what stung her the most, whenever she thought about it – which she had done a lot. Alex had tossed and turned in her bed the whole night, unable to get the image of his forlorn expression out of her head.

"Ma'am?" Shaz dragged her out of her thoughts as she peered at her DI curiously, the faintest smile present on her face. "You okay?"

Snapping herself out of it and firmly telling herself once again that she had done the right thing, Alex nodded and pushed a smile onto her face. "Yes, Shaz. Sorry, just thinking. Right..." She took a deep breath, her eyes scanning the information on the case board as she forced herself to concentrate. She would not allow herself to be distracted by Gene Hunt. "We have two men, both murdered. The things that link their murders are the murder weapon, method of both entry and murder, and the fact that numerical codes, relating to bible quotes, were left at both the scenes. One reading 'Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much', and 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; thy shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife'. These, clearly, reveal the motive behind the murders."

"Well, yeah," Ray said, shrugging again as he took a long drag on his cigarette. "Delilah Harris was playing away with Simon Taylor and Ian Humphreys, so 'er husband decided to knife 'em in the chest a few times."

Alex sighed, a small surge of annoyance at Ray's comment shooting through her. She really wasn't in the mood for their typical disregard of correct procedure, and there was something about CID that morning that irked her. She kept trying to insist to herself that it wasn't Gene absence that made her feel so out of place, but she knew deep down that it was. It was weird, standing there and briefing the team without his intense gaze fixed on her, without him interrupting with his sarcastic or, more often than not, smutty comments. "Samuel Harris is looking like our most likely suspect at the moment, yes, because his motive for killing these men fits perfectly with the quotes. But there are other areas of this to explore. For example: why now?" She pointed to the pictures of their two victims. "Delilah Harris' affairs with these two men were only revealed to Samuel over six months ago, so why would he wait all this time to murder the men who 'coveted' his wife and 'committed sins' with her?"

Silence greeted her questions, and even Shaz merely gazed confusedly at the board, her eyebrows knitting together slightly as she almost seemed to will the pieces to fit together before her very eyes.

"Exactly," Alex said with a sigh as she put down the pen she had been using to point to the victims and pieces of information, "We don't know. So what do we need to do?" Silence again. "Chris?"

Jumping slightly, Chris looked up, appearing a little alarmed as he was caught off guard. "Uh, sorry, what?"

Sighing again, Alex stepped back patiently on one foot and nodded towards the case board. "We don't know why our killer decided to strike now and not all those months ago. So what do we need to do?"

Chris frowned, a puzzled look painted on his face before he eventually looked up at her again, seeming every bit the nervous schoolboy, desperately hoping that he's got the right answer. "Um...find out?"

Ray snorted automatically and chucked his lighter at Chris. "Twonk," he muttered.

"No, he's right" Alex said, frowning at Ray as Chris' eyes widened in delighted surprise. "We need to find out. So how are we going to find out?"

"We could talk to Delilah to find out what exactly was going on at the time of the affairs, and how her husband really reacted, Ma'am," Shaz suggested as she walked over to perch on the edge of Chris' desk and gave him a bright smile.

"Excellent, Shaz," Alex agreed with a nod as she leant forward to rest her hands on her desk, making eye contact with the rest of the team. If Gene was going to stay at home and sulk over her, then she had no choice but to take charge. Mind you, Alex thought with a pang of something she insisted wasn't jealousy; he was probably giving her the two fingers at that very moment and getting it off with some busty blonde about half his age and half her class. "We need to poke and pry into every small nook and cranny of the Harris' lives, and our victims'. I want to know everything that's happened in their lives in the past twelve months, no matter how irrelevant."

"Everything, Ma'am?" Ray asked, scepticism clear on his face. "You being serious?"

Alex merely raised an eyebrow at him, her patience slowly slipping away. Why was everyone but Shaz being so irritating? "Do I look like I'm joking?"

"Not really," Ray muttered as he moodily stubbed out his cigarette and muttered again, quieter this time and under his breath, "Someone didn't get any last night..."

In the relative silence that hung over CID that morning however, Alex caught the remark and it was with another shoot of annoyance that she snapped at them. "What is wrong with everyone today?" she exclaimed, fuming, her voice rising all the time. "I come in here to find you all slobbing about, when I try to get you motivated you don't take me seriously, neither of you, apart from Shaz, are showing any interest in solving this case...And where the hell has DCI Hunt got to?"

"I think you'll find, DI Drake, that where I've 'got to' is no longer any of your business." A cold voice came from the doorway and they all turned to look at Gene, stood impressively, strong and silent, by the doors.

Upon seeing him, something happened to Alex that hadn't happened to her in a long time. Her words froze in her throat. She couldn't say anything, couldn't do anything. All she could do was stare at him and wonder why on earth she had said to him what she did.

"Well come on then, Drake," Gene said, his eyes cold as his tone as he turned his head to glare at her. Gone was that almost helpless look of injury from his face, and in its place instead was a stone cold mask of fury, and it seemed to Alex that it was directed purely at her. "You were in the middle of saying something I'm sure was very important."

"I, um, yes..." Alex looked down at the floor as she turned slightly away from him, anything to stop him boring a burning hole through her skull. What had she done that was so wrong? Well, she knew that was a stupid question, but she had only done what her reasoning at the time thought was the right thing to do. And it still stood; she couldn't bear any more comments from Ray like the one he had already given her, and having more than just he and Chris know would just be...Unbearable. But just as undeniable as that fact, was the fact that as soon as he'd walked through that door, turned that piercing glare onto her, that feeling of strangeness, of awkwardness, whatever it was that felt out of place in CID that morning, was gone. "I was just saying that we should definitely talk to Delilah, but also, I'd like some of us to go on a pub crawl in the neighbourhood, find out whatever other 'drinking pals' Ian Humphreys and Samuel Harris share. So, how about Shaz and I go on that pub crawl, and you three can go speak to Delilah..." She frowned, seeing a flaw in that plan. "Or, actually, Shaz and I will talk to Delilah and you three can go get pally with the drinking pals."

"Make yer mind up," Ray muttered, glancing up at the Guv.

"Don't worry about it, Raymondo," Gene said, exchanging glances with his DS before looking Alex straight in the eye. The look in his eyes scared her – the hot-blooded pain of rejection, the rage that lurked in his pupils. "She's been changing 'er mind about a lot of things lately."

Sorry – more anger and angst! Not really what you want to read at this time of the year, probably, but that's the way it needs to be! : ) Anyway, thanks for reading, please review and don't forget to take a look at that poll on my profile, and my new creative writing blog too! ;P

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