He shouldn't be here. The car lurches around the corner, the blue light flashing and he glances at Chas for any sign of reassurance. There's nothing forthcoming. He grips the dashboard.

Gordon Spikings is not religious, he's seen too much life and death to think there's a faith big enough for those sins, but he's praying. He should have listened to his gut instinct. That sixth sense, which told him that this was bigger than him or his team. This is blood on his hands if this goes wrong. He prays that he made the right decision two years ago when he signed the paperwork from NYPD. He had instinctively thought he had.

"Which bloody entrance?" He shouts for there's nothing else to say as the Granda hits sixty down Birdcage Walk, the tyres screaming in protest.

Chas looks grim. His eyes are flicking into the dark and back to the road. Gordon is not expecting a reply.

This is all too close. Much too close.

He has the RT clutched tight in one hand hoping to hear from James Dempsey or Harriet Makepeace. He's never wanted to hear their voices as much as he has now. All they know is Harry was in a van driven by Swaeby, heading into the park, with Dempsey in pursuit. A gunshot was heard.

Gordon can't fathom those two out. He looks at them and sees magnets. The push and pull is nothing like he's had with his wife. He's had a sensible life, both content with their lot. A decent home with nice chintz sofas and if he doesn't get home for dinner, she'll still wait for him with a chaste peck on the cheek. She doesn't bore him with her gardening or WI news, and he will keep quiet about finding his two best detectives in a damp corridor beside a dead body. The less his wife knows, the better.

There are seemingly no secrets between James Dempsey and Harriet Makepeace. He's had his suspicions since the American stormed out to Heathrow and came back again. Both seemed to forgive each other. They arrived at Chas's wedding together, remained somewhat respectably apart but left together when etiquette allowed them to do so. Makepeace almost certainly sees her partner outside of work, since they turn up together most days. The Merc only makes rare appearances in the car park as if they've settled into a car for the days and nights.

Gordon can turn a blind eye if it means she keeps Dempsey on an appropriately measured leash, as nobody else can. When the dammed Yank doesn't have her counsel, he leaps onto buses, packed with armed bank robbers to save her. He smiles sadly at the memory now.

"Up here, turn left," He directs Chas who knows the road anyway, but it's something to distract them both. "There, up there."

Gordon thought Harry would balance Dempsey. She had been going through the motions with Tom and lost her spirit along the way. The fire and grit had left her and Dempsey looked like the perfect candidate to bring that back.

He saw the fire in the Lieutenant's eyes when he first set eyes on Makepeace at the bar and he felt a sense of victory for his sergeant. Dempsey could chase her, give him something to do, and he knew Harry would be capable of holding him at bay for as long as she wanted. He hadn't anticipated the fireworks that his decision would create and the deep sense of loyalty that it has created even if he is certain they'd deny it. Every time they argue, they seem to get closer.

Gordon tries to focus. He knows he could have a murdered copper and an out of control American… He can't imagine how losing her might affect Dempsey. He should have told her partner to take her home.

He almost drops the RT when it crackles into life and Dempsey speaks, his tone is gruff and his voice breaks on the last words. "Charlie five, I've got her, she's alive."

Thank god, he thinks, for that man. Thank heavens for Dempsey's gutter-like mind that made him think deeper and longer about Swaeby. Thank god that he had the foresight to find the wife and listen to Harry when she saw the connection they'd all missed. Thank god they're alive.

Gordon is compelled to leap from the car as Chas pulls on the handbrake and kills the engine. He pauses. He puts out an arm, a silent instruction for Chas to sit tight. He switches off the blue lights, hoping it'll stop the jack-hammer of his heart in his chest. Nobody has paid any attention to them anyway.

He's seen them wrapped up like this before. Maybe that's when he had a clue? He'd dropped them back at Makepeace's car after Coltrane and his lot had been taken away, not before they'd stood together in front of Mara as if they had a point to prove. As he'd pulled the car into the traffic, he was held up at a junction. In his rear-view mirror, Gordon had seen Dempsey waiver and fall against Harry who wrapped her arms around him as if expecting this. He was glad when the traffic moved and he could avert his eyes.

I care about you. That's what she had said to Dempsey. From where Gordon stood then, and now, it's a lot like love.

Gordon's prize team stand in the shadows, half illuminated by the headlights of the ambulance and Dempsey's car. Harry is wrapped in her partner's coat, her arms around his waist, her head is buried in his chest. Dempsey's hands grip her, moving up and down, now and then, He moves her head to check on her and draws her back. He is swaying them to an invisible tune, a frequency that nobody else will hear except her. His chin rests on her head and his eyes are shot through with pain and sorrow as if he was on the brink of widowhood, not Swaeby's wife.

So close that they are one force, but his superheroes are not invincible. This love story without words has more to tell. Stories that mere mortals like him are not meant to understand, ones he'll doubtless hear at his retirement because they'll arrive, older and maybe a little wiser. It's extraordinary that his actions created it.

Gordon quietly removes his seatbelt. "Give them a minute more, eh Chas?"