Sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter uploaded! Work has been super busy, and I was determined to get this right... Let me know what you think when you've given it a read!

Alex wiggled into the sleek satin dress, nervously smoothing the fabric over her stomach.

"D'you need a hand with the zip, Ma'am?" Shaz called from the other side of the cubicle door. "Only I know we're runnin' short on time, and..."

Alex slid back the lock with a click. She averted her eyes when Shaz's jaw subtly fell. Her cheeks warmed: she had become so used to hiding under her clothes of late and it felt alien to be so on show, especially knowing the desired outcome of the evening.

The dress had been an easy choice. It was reminiscent of 'the' dress from Dirty Dancing, although what with the film being years away from release, she kept shtum with her knowledge of her outfit's future significance. The fabric had an elegant fall to it, hanging beautifully to its hem just above the knee. It was satin in the palest pink – even the colour was youthful, but with her toned-down make-up and the way she'd styled her curls, Alex hoped she adequately pass for young enough to catch the eye of Peter Richards, though the thought made her shiver.

"Some help with my zip would be much appreciated," she said, turning on the fifties-style silver heels she'd paired with the dress. "I'm just relieved it fits."

"Oh give over, Ma'am!" Shaz replied, sliding the zip up with ease and a shake of her head. "There's nothin' of you, it fits perfect. You look lovely," she remarked genuinely.

"Thank you," Alex murmured. Her comment still stood, though it was precisely the fact that there was 'nothing of her' that she'd worried about. She hadn't exactly been high on her own to-do list since the miscarriage, and despite Gene's concerted effort, it had been too easy to put this case first, everything else second and herself firmly last. Some mornings it had been something of a battle to force down a single slice of toast at his insistence. It was infantilising at times, being reminded to eat, but she knew his pushiness came from the right place. Despite it all, there was always a steady hand around hers when she needed it – sometimes even before she knew she needed it.

"Oh, an' you dropped this as we was comin' in 'ere." Shaz held out Alex's warrant card.

Alex took it and turned it over a few times in her hand. "Not sure I'll be taking it out with me, but thanks. I think I might have to leave it with the Guv, don't want to blow my own cover!" She forced an almost-convincing laugh and was glad when Shaz played along.

'Bloody hell...' seemed to be the general consensus when she returned to CID, shoes tapping gently on the floor and skirt swaying delicately around her. The male gaze around the room burned her like lasers and she shifted awkwardly where she stood, paralysed by their stares in front of her desk. The door of the Guv's office swung open on hearing the waves of approval; she was deeply grateful of his instant reaction being one of total normality.

"Alright lads, if you'd be so kind as to put your tongues back in your mouths, Drakey might not trip over 'em on 'er way into my office!" He held open the door and she tried to hold in a small smile as she was forced to duck under his outstretched arm.

The moment the door closed, she turned on him expectantly, projecting a little of her old confidence once more. "So, will I do?" she said. She held out her arms slightly in invitation for his visual inspection.

He looked her up and down, seemingly serious until he rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. "Keepin' my 'ands off you tonight is a test I am doomed to fail," he replied darkly. Taking a step forward, he lightly placed his hands on her waist and looked seriously into her eyes. "Of course you'll do. You'll always more than do, Alex. I just wish sayin' it tonight didn' feel quite so much like throwin' you to the dogs."

She kissed the corner of his mouth, not quite trusting herself either when he was in the mood to say such things to her. "You're not throwing me anywhere. I'm putting myself there of my own volition… and very much against yours."

"Smart arse," he retorted. "But you're not wrong." He took another second to drink in the sight of her. "Right, where we puttin' this wire?"

She'd have done it herself, obviously, but he'd offered to help and of course it was vital that the wire was invisible even to someone close by. It surprised her though, how tentatively he touched her. She had expected his usual belt-and-braces directness, but was met instead by a gentle touch she hadn't known he was capable of, and a respectful hesitation at the hem of the dress. He knelt at her feet and waited for her to lift the skirt herself before he carefully strapped the small box to her inner thigh. She shivered.

"Alright?" he checked at once.

"Mm-hm," she affirmed. She wouldn't say it aloud, not now, that feeling his touch there had sent shockwaves rushing and blood pulsing. "That's fine, it doesn't feel like it'll fall." To admit the impact of his touch, now… One thing would lead to another and this evening just wouldn't work if she smelled of another man's aftershave instead of Chanel No.5.

She passed him her warrant card as he stood. "You need to look after this for me; I'm not risking taking it."

"Too right," he replied, tucking it safely into an inside pocket of his suit jacket. As an afterthought, he took her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles. He met her eyes and they shared an unspoken moment acknowledging what she was about to do.

"You do know that I can take care of myself, don't you?" Alex said quietly.

Gene nodded. "Course I do. It don't make it easier, lettin' you go though."

She broke their eye contact and glanced at the floor.

"Bolls – look at me?"

Uncertainly, she did as she was told.

"Of course I know you can look after yourself," he repeated. "I know we went through all that shit about me not wantin' you to be in on the sting operation, but –"

"– that doesn't matter anymore," Alex contested.

He shook his head. "No, it does. I don't want you goin' in there if you don't think you can do a good job. I need you believin' you're gonna walk in there lookin' like a bloody filmstar and get that creep hangin' off every word you say. Unbreakable, Bolly, understand? I know you can do it, I jus' don't think that you do. You're unbreakable."

She took a steadying breath and straightened her back to stand a little taller. Putting her shoulders back, she thought of the moment she'd had alone in the ladies' after Shaz had left ahead of her, when she'd been overcome by the childish desire to spin around in her dress. The fabric had swirled and risen up around her. She'd certainly felt unbreakable in that moment. She balanced on her toes and kissed Gene's cheek. "Unbreakable," she whispered. She let a small smile cross her lips.

"That's my DI," he replied proudly.

They rode silently in the Quattro until Gene pulled up two streets away from the hotel on Canary Wharf. The others had split up across different unmarked cars and would join the Guv after she'd left, and Shaz was back in CID, quite happy to be nowhere near their psychotic suspect.

He checked his watch. "Not yet," he remarked "A journo would never show up on time for shit like this, not even a wired one."

Alex rolled her eyes but said nothing. She stared out of the windscreen to about twenty yards ahead, where she could see a man in a tuxedo walking arm-in-arm with a woman in floor-length red gown, taking the direction she'd head herself in a few minutes.

Gene eyed her clasped hands suspiciously. "You still nervous, Bolls?"

"Of course not."

She replied far too quickly for his liking; he reached for her hand and squeezed it firmly. "Y'know, you're a crap liar sometimes."

"It's a good job I'll be flanked by you and your armed bastards then, isn't it?"

The corners of his lips twitched upwards. It was easier to take her words at face value than have to confront some of the thoughts that emerged if he allowed himself to dwell on her putting herself within reach of a total psycho who was already wanted for triple murder. More than once, he'd been stopped in his tracks by the sudden mental image of her face on one of the damaged and degraded bodies in the morgue. If that bastard so much as laid a finger on Alex…

"We'll be listenin' in from start to finish," he said certainly. "So you can stop shakin' like a leaf, alrigh'? Ruins that image of smarmy writer you're meant to be goin' for."

She rolled her eyes at his crass bravado. "Where's your flask?" she asked briskly. "Stupid question, it's in your inside left pocket, isn't it? Give it here."

He handed It over wordlessly: she wasn't in any mood to be teased. Watching her throw it back, he couldn't help his eyes being drawn to the lipstick she left around the rim. She shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut, but the Dutch courage seemed to work. When she held out her hand to inspect her nerves, it was steady as anything.

"Right, I'm ready now," she said with an air of finality.

Gene watched her walk alone down the road until she turned a corner and was out of his sight. She didn't so much as glance back, which was probably for the best. It wouldn't be long before he was joined in the Quattro by Ray and Chris, but in the meantime he listened intently to the sound feeding back from Alex's wire: the solitary sound of her heels clicking along some out-of-view pavement.

It was laughably easy to gain entry to the party. All it had taken was to flash a confident, winning smile and she'd had no need at all for the forged press pass and ID in her purse. Alex suspected it was her twenty-first century sensibilities that had made her so insistent on having both about her person.

As expected, the party itself was the epitome of excess, the pinnacle of the new-wealth, eighties high life. Her parents had probably attended similar functions within their own circle, a thought which momentarily stung as Alex balanced on a bar stool facing the lavish ballroom. She didn't have long to dwell though, as her eyes met those of precisely the man she was there to see. At once, she turned up the air of youthful flirtiness, batting her eyelashes and swiftly looking away from Peter Richards. She surreptitiously rummaged in her tiny clutch bag for a powder compact; glancing into its mirror gave her enough time not only to compose herself but to break eye-contact with him properly and then check he was still looking.

He forced his way through the crowd to reach the bar, and the moment Alex realised this, she shivered involuntarily. She swallowed, wishing she didn't feel quite so alone. But there was no time for insecurity: she replaced her smile and turned a curl between two fingertips, forcing herself to meet the eyes that gave away the propriety of their owner.

He stood before her with a mania in his eyes that would only be noticed by someone who knew what they were looking for. A little more obvious, though not much, were the creases in a shirt hastily ironed that afternoon by someone whose wife had always done it for him. Richards' imperfect white shirt was topped with a waistcoat that didn't match his pinstriped trousers. A watch-chain led Alex's eye to the buttons of the waistcoat, and from there her gaze was caught by a glint of light on his tie. A gold Masonic pin. She eyed it suspiciously, filing its existence as a mental note for later – and then a thought struck her.

"Oh, I haven't seen one of those in years," she said innocently. "That pin, it's from the Freemasons, isn't it? I'm sure my grandfather used to have one just like it."

Alex's words crackled through to the Quattro, where within seconds, Gene's fury had filled the car and Chris wished there was a discreet way to escape the backseat of the car.

"You better hope that psychopath 'ad a grandad in the Masons, Carling, and just thought the badge would look pretty for the party," Gene snarled. "Because if I find out you let me put Bolly in there, knowin' the monster from your special boys club, then your life will not be worth livin'!"

"Guv, I swear if I'd've seen 'im before I would'a told you!" Ray shifted uncomfortably in his seat, knowing the likelihood he'd be believed was slim to say the least.

"I've not seen you around before," Richards said, loud and smooth as he looked Alex up and down where she sat. "Surely a beautiful woman like you isn't here alone, when it's nearly Christmas?"

Alex forced a laugh, then fiddled some more with her hair, keeping him guessing with a secretive smile before she broke her silence. "Oh, I was rather hoping to pick up a nice executive for the evening, to keep me company."

"You're in luck then." He leaned on the bar lazily, a glint in his eyes that didn't match his stance at all. "This time next year, I'll be up at that top table –" He nodded in the direction of a raised platform towards the front of the room. "Peter Richards. Pleasure to meet you."

She looked at him with wide, dollish eyes. She knew flattery and sending him up would appeal to his delusional state, unethical as it might be to garner 'trust' like that. Although from what she'd seen, the eighties didn't much care for ethics… "And a high-flyer like you, what are you doing here alone? I hardly believe there's not a woman in your life already."

"Christ, go for his throat from the off, why don't you!" Gene muttered to himself as the unfolding conversation wound its way through the wire to the waiting team.

"You've got to 'and it to 'er really, haven't you?" Ray said thoughtfully. "It's not like one of us could 'ave got anywhere near 'im – but 'e doesn't even know 'er name, and already sounds like 'e's ready for takin' her downstairs, inside!" He turned around in his seat, cracking a smile and expecting to see the same from Chris. He frowned slightly in confusion when the DC's face showed shock instead of amusement.

"DS Carling, get out of my car."

"What?"

"Ray, out of the car!" It was a roar, every syllable amplified by rage in its purest form. Undercover mission or not, Gene would not let this lie. He stormed around the Quattro and seized Ray by the collar, pushing him back against the paintwork.

"Guv, what's goin' on?" Fully aware of the capability of his DCI to cause a lot of damage when angry, Ray seemed to have shrunken to a fraction of his former height.

"D'you want to repeat your vile little comment from in there?"

The penny dropped, and Ray relaxed. Wrong choice. "Aw, Guv, you know I was only messin', it's not like you've not said the same an 'undred times before!"

The fist was lightning-quick: the motion from collar to drawback to eye socket was barely visible but its impact was a ton of bricks into Ray's left eye. In another instant, the younger man cradled his face, blinking away involuntary tears and wiping his nose with one sleeve.

Gene put his face close to Ray's; his words were softly dangerous. "Don't you ever let me 'ear you spoutin' shit like that about Alex again. D'you understand me?"

"Guv, I –"

"Do. You. Understand?"

"Yes Guv."

Gene took a step back, and took a breath. "You start showin' that woman some respect, Ray. You've no idea what she's been through, and she's still puttin' 'er neck on the line to catch a killer tonight.." He walked back to his side of the car without another word.

He leaned on the driver's door, a faint fire still burning inside him. That had been a new kind of red mist – and he knew full well that Alex would give him hell for it, even if he had been defending her honour in giving Ray that black eye. He loved her enough that he'd throw a punch at one of his most loyal friends; what did that say?

"Guv?" Ray bashfully appeared in front of him, sporting a rapidly darkening pink patch around his left eye. "I jus' wanted to say I'm sorry. I wasn't thinkin', and I think maybe I should'a been."

Gene jutted his chin out in acknowledgement. "Maybe I shouldn't've done what I did, either. We'll say no more of it, not 'til 'er ladyship gets wind of it and we'll all 'ave explainin' to do…"

"Yeah, reckon we will." There was a long pause. "Look, Guv… Is it – is it serious wi' Drake, then?"

Numerous trains of thought collided in Gene's mind. He reached for the fresh carton of cigarettes in his trouser pocket and plucked one from it judiciously. Lighting it bought him a little time to untangle his thoughts, though it brought little comfort to do so. "Never thought I'd say it," he murmured, "'specially not to you, but yeah, I think it is."

Why the bloody hell had he let her go? Chief Super's orders or not, she was in there on her own, deliberately presenting beauty and innocence in a party dress, unarmed and entirely vulnerable. What if things really were serious between them? He hadn't been lying, when he'd confessed that he wouldn't have minded having a baby with her. Could they try properly, do it all the right way? What if every night meant going home with her, or going home to her? What if things really were that serious, and he let a total nutter get his filthy hands on her in the name of collaring him to put him away for good?

Gene seized the handle of the car door and forcefully returned to his seat. "Christopher, anythin' to report?"

"Nothing much, Guv. I mean, 'e's got 'er name now and she's been spinnin' some story about gettin' 'im on the front pages in the new year. Think 'e's goin' for all of it, he 'asn't stopped talkin' about 'imself."

"Fenchurch – one, Psycho – nil," Gene said proudly, adjusting the volume of the output from Alex's wire. He played an air of total non-concern, although his heart pounded away under his shirt and he was certain this pack of cigarettes couldn't last the night.

The plan had been to keep talking long enough to convince Richards to head somewhere more private, at which point Alex would discreetly narrate their position down her wire to facilitate a smooth arrest, avoiding public embarrassment or any potential danger to other women at the party. However, she hadn't counted on the convincing being so difficult – every time she tried to steer he conversation that way, he forced it back, repeating as though on a broken record that the Chief Executive's table would be down looking for him at any minute.

She sighed. She looked Peter Richards in the eye and for a moment she was stunned to see an unfamiliar expression of lucidity.

"God, you must think I'm such a bore, going on so much about work!" he said with a mildly frustrated smile. "It takes over every waking minute sometimes, but I suppose you'd understand that, always working to tight print deadlines?"

It took a moment for Alex to remember that she was in fact masquerading as Sarah de Thame from the Financial Times, such was the shock of hearing a voice seemingly untainted by psychotic delusion. She nodded knowingly. "Yeah, I know the feeling." If she hadn't been so acutely aware of his capabilities, she might have easily fallen under his spell, taken in by his easy charm.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

It surprised her that in his apparently-lucid state, he didn't seem to remember his dead wife. She had to think fast so as not to blurt out something that would jeopardise her position. "You never answered my question," she countered. "You were so quick to disbelieve I'd be here alone; haven't you got a girlfriend who'd mind you buying drinks for me?

There wasn't so much as a shadow across his face, and it sent a shockwave down her spine.

"Not any more, no," he said crisply. "What's your poison, then?"

She cleared her throat, remembering that Sarah de Thame didn't know about Patsy Richards, hadn't seen her on a mortuary slab. She turned around on the bar stool as Peter moved to stand next to her, so close she could smell his aftershave, and leaned elegantly on one elbow. "Oh I'll let you pick. Your choice."

The bartender turned around, and immediately there was a flicker of recognition in his eyes that sent Alex's heart rate through the roof. As soon as he began to speak, she tried to hush him, but it was too late. Her cover was blown.

"DI Drake! So good to see you again! Let me do you a cosmopolitan, on the house!" He turned to reach for the vodka bottle, a warm smile still on his face.

At once, a cool hand tightened around her wrist, under the bar and out of sight.

"Excuse us," Richards snarled before dragging Alex off the stool and forcefully steering her across the huge, packed function room.

If any of the partygoers noticed her stricken expression, they said nothing. Nothing extraordinary about a terrified-looking young woman being pushed around by a seething man, apparently.

"DI Drake! So good to see you again! Let me do you a cosmopolitan, on the house!"

The jovial tone of the bartender wasn't mirrored one bit by the occupants of the Quattro. All three jaws dropped, and by the time it was clear the Richards had twigged, Gene was out of the car and halfway down the road, his fist clenched around the warrant card entrusted to him that bore Alex's name and photograph. Ray and Chris trailed some way behind, the latter having grabbed the portable equipment to keep listening in to the wire, until the Guv roared at the street corner that they bloody well better hurry up. Chris did as he was told out of unwavering loyalty to the Guv and Ma'am; Ray picked up his own pace having never heard the Guv talk to or about any woman in the tone he reserved for DI Drake. She might be a 'posh mouthy tart' but there was something different in the way he'd affirmed that he was serious about her. She was a pain in the arse, but at the end of the day she was their pain in the arse and they'd be damned if any of them would let her be hurt by some triple-murdering lunatic.

A stammering night manager at the front desk was extremely unwilling to permit entry to the three CID officers, especially their apoplectic DCI who seemed to be the human embodiment of a bull in a china shop.

Gene shoved his warrant card under the pot-bellied man's nose. "There's a female officer undercover in there, whose lilfe may well be in danger. I'm 'er DCI, among other things, and I swear to God if anythin' 'appens to that woman because you wouldn't let us in, I will shove this warrant card so far up your arse that it'll knock out your bloody fillings!"

His cheeks swiftly purpling under threat and the usurpation of his power, the night manager silently waved them past the desk.

"Bloody jobsworth." Gene swore under his breath, furious that he'd been delayed by such a precious pen-pusher. At this point, he wasn't sure he cared much about the arrest at hand, although it would be a lucky bonus. All that mattered was reaching Alex in time to prevent her coming to harm. Of course, if Peter Richards hadn't beaten a cowardly retreat by the time CID arrived, then to beat him seven shades shitless would be an ideal outcome for the case.

Caught up in blind panic, Alex submitted to being pushed and dragged along hotel corridors. She was anxious not to make a scene and spook her captor even further, prompting him to make a disastrous decision. Although she presented a stoic exterior that would be enough to fool this relative stranger, her eyes were just over the limit of too wide, and her words (quiet as she tried to keep them) came out too quickly. Rushed whispers down her wire were an endless stream of pleas for help. It was a last-ditch strategy and a high-risk one, but nonetheless she audibly narrated her location, listing room numbers or notable features that might help her be found. She wanted to trust that her fellow officers would be on her trail already, but couldn't help adding desperate murmurs between hushed comments.

"Past seventy-two and seventy-three, left opposite the stairwell… Please, Guv, please come and find me."

It was a dangerous tactic but a risk she was willing to take while she knew what Richards was capable of. She was careful to muffle her words with his rambled mutterings at first, but this cover wouldn't last as her panic rose. "Upstairs, third floor," she whispered. "Please hurry up – past room three-one-four. I can see a painting of the New York skyline –"

She abruptly fell silent as Richards froze and then seized her tightly by the upper arm, forcing her back into a wall.

"They're listening in," he hissed, looking around wildly before bringing his face threateningly close to hers and tightening his vice-like grip even further.

"No, I –" Alex tried to come up with some kind of explanation but was interrupted by being thrown down to the floor. Her head slammed against the unforgiving carpet tiles. In an instant, he was on top of her, pinning her down. An icily cold hand forced its way down the front of her dress in search of a wire. Alex held her breath, pressed her lips together tightly and squeezed her eyes shut.

A few errant tears slid from the corners of her eyes, down the sides of her face. Knowing what had happened to Patsy Richards, terror coursed through her veins. She'd always thought she would be strong enough to fight back.

"Where are they listening from?"

The wire pack was fastened securely to her inner thigh, the fine wire taped up her back, hidden by one strap of her dress. She was paralysed by fear, pinned down by the weight of a known murderer on a scratchy carpet in a hotel corridor, too scared to even scream. Please, she thought, please, let Gene have heard enough to come searching.

"You all think I'm crazy," said Richards.

He looked down at Alex with eyes that exposed his vulnerability as well as the inherent danger he presented. He reached into her dress again: this time he was too forceful against the delicate satin and Alex both heard and felt the popping of seam stitches.

"They've sent you to listen for the doctors, so they can put me in a padded cell," he went on.

"N-no," Alex said, trying hard to level her breathing and speak through her desperately dry mouth. "No, Peter, it's not like that at all, no-one is going to put you in a –"

"WHERE ARE THEY LISTENING FROM?!"

She drew a shaky breath through her nose. "There's – I'm wearing a wire. It's under –" She cringed internally. "It's under my skirt and t-taped up my back. It's okay, I'll take it off, there doesn't have to be a scene."

Chris, still diligently listening in to the increasingly crackly audio since leaving the car, respectfully removed the headphones, wincing.

"Guv. Guv!" he said, keen to get the DCI's attention as quickly as possible.

Gene turned around at once.

Chris ducked his head – it was blindingly obvious the Guv wanted news, not the words he was about to hear. "Guv, I can't listen to this," he said firmly. "'e wants 'er wire… The way 'e's talkin' to 'er, I dunno what 'e'll do next… I couldn't look 'er in the eye again, 'earin' that! I'm sorry, Guv."

It surprised Gene that his old impulse to roar at Chris didn't surface. He looked the young man up and down, no longer seeing the brainless, hapless boy he'd raised up from uniform on trust that his decent heart could carry him through. That 'decent heart' had never been more apparent than in the respectful young man who'd stood up for himself and refused to hear the decimation of his DI's dignity.

"Alright." Gene sighed, glancing around the small, secondary foyer they had stopped in before meeting the gaze of the young DS. "S'alright, Chris. Give it 'ere, then. I reckon she'd be proud o' you, for what you've just done." He gave Christ a silent nod of acknowledgement, a wordless notation of his own pride, too.

Alex scrambled to her feet, awkwardly reaching for the wire where it snaked up her back.

"Hurry up," urged Richards coldly.

Her fingers quivered: it was no good. She pulled and fumbled but none of it would come free. Richards lunged towards her and she pressed her back fearfully into the wall. He made a grab for her skirt; it was only the knowledge that she'd have to make an accurate statement once it was all over, that stopped her closing her eyes and trying to block it all out. Knowing what he'd done before made it agony to have his hands so close to her underwear as he clumsily snared the wire pack. She pressed her lips closed to suppress a cry as his nails scratched at her inner thigh. The wire had been keeping her safe, but part of her was thankful that her male colleagues wouldn't hear the intricacies of whatever happened next.

In one lightning-quick movement, he tore the taped wire away from her dress and her back, then threw the lot on the floor to stamp on it until it was fractured shadow of what it should have been.

She was on her own.

Both their heads whipped around when the sound of footsteps echoed up from the furthest stairwell. Alex's heart sped up in relief, but a moment later there was a hand pressed over her mouth, and another pulling her hair to keep her in place, glued to her captor's side.

"You make a single sound, Drake, and my God, you'll regret it."

Her whole body tensed. She let out an involuntary gasp and was punished with a sharp tug on her hair, as his knee jabbed her in the back to force her to walk.

She might have been petrified, but she managed to gather the foresight to reach up and snap the chain of her beautiful necklace. It was so wrong to use it as a breadcrumb, but it was something Gene would immediately recognise as hers. It made a much heavier thud on the carpet than it should have done, and she could have sworn she heard it more than once, but it must have been some kind of trick – had she hit her head hard enough on the floor for a concussion?

"Christ, there's nothin' comin' through this anymore!" Gene shouted as the three of them pounded up the stairs. "Third floor, this is where they was, last thing we 'eard."

He had to play it down, but truthfully he was scared of what they might find. If his beautiful Alex became on of those women in the morgue… He knew CID would never be the same, never be as good, without her.

Nor would he.

It wasn't hard to find the trashed wire pack, though someone had done a fair job of grinding it into the carpet.

"Bolly?!"

No answer.

"Jesus, Guv, where are they?"

"Don't ask stupid bloody questions, Christopher!" Gene snapped. "Get this corridor combed, boys, sharpish."

A million competing thoughts rushed noisily through his head. Why had he thought a wire would be enough? Why hadn't he flooded this place with undercover coppers to protect her properly? Why had he let her go in the first place – why hadn't they organised a sting the likes they'd pulled off in Manchester back in the day? Sod all this social shit, just barge in, grab your man, then back before your brew goes cold. Bloody London, squeezing the North out of the Gene Genie!

"'ere, Guv, is this Drake's?" Ray held something small and shiny on his outstretched palm.

It took less than a second to identify the gold-encased amethyst. "Shit, shit – where the fuck's 'e taken 'er? Alex? ALEX?!"

Alex cowered in one corner of the hotel room, holding her torn dress to cling onto some modesty. Another frenzied search for listening devices had put paid to the elegant fall of the fabric. Her face was white and tear-streaked: everything had gone so wrong.

A commotion out on the corridor proved that her earlier narration had been worth the risk. She opened her mouth with a gasping sob.

"Not. One. Word."

For a moment, Chris didn't want to believe what he'd found. But they were right there, glistening on the carpet not far from where Ray had found DI Drake's necklace. He swallowed down his rising tide of helplessness. There was a job to do.

"Erm, Guv, Ray, you need to see these," he said urgently, motioning to the loose bullets on the floor.

As soon as he laid eyes on them, Gene was an animal unleashed. The game had changed: unarmed, vulnerable Alex was somewhere with an armed psycho who couldn't be trusted as far as he could be thrown.

The slap across her face, although meant to put a brutal end to her tears, had the unexpected outcome of steeling Alex and jolting her back to reality. There may have been make-up trailing down her cheeks but she did not have to keep playing at being a journalist with no idea how to take care of herself. She stood up straight, one hand on her stinging cheek and the other holding her dress together.

"Look," she said, in a low voice that still trembled. "You are making this much, much worse for yourself. I know that when you're lucid, you'd never dream of acting like this – but you're in enough trouble now without assaulting a police officer too. I don't have to tell them about the slap. I can say that my dress was an accident, when I make my statement; all you have to do is..." Her headstrong bargaining was cut short when she heard Gene, surely only a few doors away, bellow her name.

She completely forgot herself and on impulse, screamed out, "Gene!" before she received a fist in the stomach that took her breath away. The first split-second of eye-watering pain catapulted her back in time to battling the excruciation of the miscarriage, but this time there was one crucial difference. Then, there had been a steadfast, reassuring hand around hers. What mattered now, was getting back to him. Although she was practically doubled over from being hit so hard, she managed to call out the number of the room she was in, which earned her a forceful strike around the back of her head. She fought hard to keep her eyes open, but it was too difficult and as she folded like a ragdoll on the floor, her eyes slid closed.

An expertly placed kick put the door in a few seconds later, so hard that it bounced of the wall behind it. Gene was first in, of course, in time to see Alex, clutching her stomach, fall to the floor. He must have covered the sound of gunshot, breaking the door down. His heart broke in two.

He thought he'd been angry, handing out that black eye to Ray earlier, but this felt like nothing he'd felt before. He laid into Richards at once, furious that he'd dared lay a finger on Alex, livid that he hadn't been there to keep her safe, and devastated that he hadn't been with her to say goodbye. To hell with reducing police brutality, to hell with tomorrow's headlines if the press got hold of a Met DCI beating a suspect to a pulp. The scumbag deserved everything he got.

Ray and Chris stood back: there was no getting between the Guv and this battering. It perhaps wasn't a justice that many would approve of, but it was a justice neither of them would dream of putting a stop to.

Gene dropped the shell of Peter Richards on the bed. "I 'ope they charge you for the dry cleanin'," he muttered bitterly as the nosebleed he'd created spattered onto the white cotton bedding. "Ray, cuff 'im an' give the piece of shit to uniform. They can deal with 'im until we get back to the station."

With a heavy heart, he turned to Alex, expecting to have to confront her lifeless form. But to his great surprise, she had shuffled to sit against the wall, looking slightly dazed. The blood he'd expected was suspiciously absent.

On meeting his concerned eyes with hers full of relief, she stood up albeit unsteadily and deeply embarrassed by her torn dress. She preferred not to think about Ray and Chris seeing her in this state.

"Alex," he breathed. "You're alive." He moved towards her and put a hand on each of her upper arms, holding her firmly.

"Alive?" she said, confused. She reached for the back of her head where Richards had struck her; heat radiated through her hair but there was no blood. More, she suspected, than could be said for her back or her thigh where the wire had been clawed away.

Gene nodded, relief flooding him. "You've not been – he didn't shoot?"

It took a few moments for Alex to process what he'd said. "No, he punched me in the stomach, which bloody hurt, and… reminded me of..." And then, it dawned on her. Her face turned white. "He had – you mean he had a gun?"

The shock had hit her hard, and even though he was holding her steady she seemed to sway a little on her feet. Her face drained of colour completely and he steered her over to the bed. "Alright, just sit down a minute," he said quickly. "That's it, you're safe now." He rubbed her back gently; she leaned on him where he stood, next to where he'd sat her down. She was shaking. Her bottom lip trembled.

For the first time, not only did he know what to do without thinking about it, but he didn't give a toss who saw. He knelt down on the floor in front of her and took off his coat to drape it around her shoulders like a blanket.

"Alex." He spoke softly. "Look at me. Look at me." It took a moment, but she did it, her brown eyes swimming with tears. "I'm sorry you 'ad to go through this, an' I'm so glad you're safe. I love you."

She wasn't quite capable of words yet, but she couldn't and wouldn't break his eye contact. Silently, she lifted one hand and cupped his cheek before leaning forward to press her lips to his. There was so much relief tied up in that kiss, so much gratitude that once again he had been there to save her, and so much peace. It was all over, and she'd realised that if she really wasn't going back to 2008, then at the very least, things here felt good and right and safe. When they pulled apart, hearts pounding, he put his arms around her and pulled her back to him. He held her like he'd never let go.

Ray and Chris, having delivered their charge to the uniformed officers outside, were surprised to return to a silent corridor. Both of them had seen to it that Alex was okay (okay enough at least) while the Guv was laying into Richards, so they had expected to come back to find her going absolutely ape for the rescue taking so long. They hadn't passed them on their way back up, but as soon as Ray stood in the doorway of the room, the silence made sense. He turned smartly and put hands on Chris' shoulders to make sure he did the same.

"We'll wait for 'em by the Quattro."

"What? Guv's got the keys, and it's bloody freezin' out there!" Chris protested.

Ray rolled his eyes, pushing his friend back down the corridor. "I don't care if it's so cold that you actually lose a knacker, Chris, there is no way we're standin' in that room wi' them while they sort 'emselves out! Don't get your knickers in a twist, should only take 'em a few minutes."