'Every beat of my heart tears us further apart. I'm lost an' alone…in the dark…' Mickey sung the refrain with the CD player, grieving aloud and openly; Eva thinking that he was showing off and ignoring him. 'To my own folk, that's where I wanna be. I'm going home…I'm going h-ome…' Home or wherever you are now, Jack. Four months on and the loneliness was still raw.

'Don't give up the day job, Mickey.'

'I won't.' He sighed and stopped the tape, glancing across at Eva as he drove. 'What's been happening at Sun Hill, then?'

'Not much. Nixon got busted back down to DS from acting inspector - guess how much she liked that. We got - they've got - a DI Manson now. He's alright; Meadows isn't too keen on him, mind. Ken's still raiding the dressing-up box for his shirts, Phil Hunter got hisself another girl…massive drugs raid out on Coal Lane a couple of days before I left…'

I don't want to know that. I wanted to know Jack's okay because I miss him so, so much…It hurt to hear the news of the place he'd left behind, and he knew he shouldn't have asked.

'Surprised it took you so long to get round to asking, Mickey.'

'Yeah, well, it doesn't really matter to me, now. I don't really care. And Ev, it's Michael now.' That was the first time he'd ever said that out loud, realised it was a decision made forever.

She looked at him, curious, reminding Mickey that she'd never known what had happened to him but surely…the trial last month, when he'd gone ill for a fortnight and simply driven, kept driving until he'd found himself in the New Forest and booked into a hotel and hid until it was over; it must have made people think. Does she know? Does she?

'Why?'

'I left Mickey behind. I'm Michael, now.' Mickey was the man Jack loved, and he can't love me after going to that trial and hearing what happened…Did he go? Did it matter? He'd read the result of the trial; Delaney being given seventeen years, but it hadn't mentioned Jack. It hadn't mentioned him by name, either.

'Michael? Look, I don't know why you left Sun Hill, but…I'm not going to ask you about it.'

'Thanks.'

She looked at him, thinking that he seemed older and sadder than he should be; realising that in the week they'd been paired together, he hadn't laughed once. He'd hardly smiled; even his greeting had been a simple 'Oh, hi, Eva,' that sounded false. He seemed different in work as well, reserved and edgy with all his colleagues, with a meticulously tidy desk in the far corner of the office and all his efforts being directed at solving cases, although he never seemed to take any enjoyment from it. He was almost emotionless now.

'Do you actually like MIT, then, Michael?' The name sounded odd to both of them.

'It's a job. I do what I'm told to, as well as I can. It's alright.' He shrugged, unable to say that he hated working here because every day reminded him that he'd run away. Surrendered. Let Delaney win.

'Oh, lighten up.'

Mickey - Michael - turned back to the road, trying not to think how much that comment hurt. He'd found that words hurt much more now, that he was more sensitive to what others said or did, and it was a change in himself that he didn't like. He drove in aggrieved silence for twenty minutes or so.

'Tell you something that might cheer you up.'

'What?' He snapped the reply at her, hating the memories the gossip was bound to stir up and unable to think of a way to avoid hearing it.

'You remember DS McAllister, don't you?'

'Yeah.' I remember that me and Jack killed her lover, even though he was a rapist like Delaney. He'd not made that connection between the two men before.

'Want to guess who she's sleeping with?'

Lucky her if she's got some-one. 'Couldn't tell you.'

'The DCI. Really.'

'Jack Meadows?' The sounds were meaningless, the sudden pain too intense to think through. There must be a new DCI or it must be Barton Street's boss…he must have left and I don't know where he's gone, then…but he can't be with her.

'Course. What other DCI we talking about? You've never seen CID so peaceful; he should have got together with someone in work a long time back - he's much better tempered for it.

Was that all I meant to him? Just someone to have a fling with and then move on, like it didn't matter. I mean, I did that a few times but not like that…I thought me and him…Then realisation hit that he'd been the one to leave and that it would have been idealistic to expect Meadows to give up on seeing other people, on being loved.

'Don't you think that's great though? The grumpy old DCI - never shown any interest in anyone there - and the original Ice Maiden. Although you'd have thought her taste in men would have improved since Chandler; she could have had anyone, not some old bloke just seeing out his time to retirement and making everyone else's lives miserable while he does it.'

The rejection, the pain, turned into cold fury. 'Don't say that. Jack isn't like that.' He growled the words, barely opening his mouth: clenched his hands around the steering wheel until they hurt and the ring cut into his flesh. Whatever he's doing, he isn't like that. Not Jack.

'What, Meadows?' She glanced at him, seeing the agonised expression on his face, the hurt in his eyes. 'You okay? Oh, don't tell me you had a thing for Debbie McAllister. All the same if you did, really; she'll soon get bored with him, be back on the market.'

'No.' He couldn't believe that she'd got it so wrong, that anyone could think that he fancied McAllister who was young and pretty but not the person who haunted his dreams. At least, if she still thinks I'm into women, she hasn't heard about Delaney and let that change her mind.

'What, then?' Eva was genuinely concerned.

'Something else. It's okay.' Oh God, Jack…Jack, I miss you so much, so bad, I wish you were here just to tell me it wasn't true. The loneliness was worse than the old darkness now; a realisation that his dream of Meadows coming to look for him wasn't ever going to come true, and that he was no longer important to the Dalesman. He'd been left, forgotten, like he'd asked to be - and now he knew that he hadn't wanted that at all.

Squinting through the tears that scaled his eyes and threatened to blind him completely, Michael drove as fast as he dared, aware that he was trying to run away again, and knowing that it wouldn't work, because he loved Jack too much to want to think that they'd never meet again. And he doesn't even believe in Heaven, so we haven't even got that.