The Bill: Corruption.

Chapter 4: Wake Up Call and Consorting With the Enemy.

At about 6:30am Stephen Hodges into the building and straight up towards the residential suite. He opened the door and walked in to find John and Claire fast asleep cuddled up together. He stood just watching them sleep for a few minutes not wanting to break the peace. After a moment or two he realised they needed to wake up and so quietly walked up beside Claire and whispered in her ear, "what time was you supposed to be at Sun Hill today?"

"6am," she replied half asleep.

"Well in that case, you're late."

At that Claire leaped up in a rush not to be too late. It was only then that she realised why Hodges was staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face. "It's not what it looks like guv," she quickly tried to explain, "He had a nightmare."

      "Did I say anything?" Hodges asked, "Did I say anything?" he repeated when she tried to explain a second time.

      "No sir,"

      "Then what are you worrying about?" he asked bursting into a fit of giggles.

      "Sir?"

      "You better get going;" he said forcing the giggles to cease.

      "Yes sir," Claire replied, "I'll be back soon," she promised John who had woken wondering what all the commotion was about. She then rushed out of the door towards Sun Hill.

      "Sorry I'm late ma'am," she apologised to Marion Raye, the AMIT team leader.

      "Well at least you're here now," she replied, "we have, as of yet, had no look in finding DS Boulton so I've got some people working on that; in the meantime I would like you and DS Beech to start piecing together the best you can, the events of the night of the attack."

      "Yes ma'am" Claire said before wandering over to DS Beech. "Don," she called to him.

      DS Don Beech looked around himself to the direction of the voice which he quickly recognised as Claire's. He started walking over to where she was now sitting at her desk with a pen and paper in front of her. Claire started writing times in hourly intervals on the paper, from 5pm, the time they knocked off work to 5am, the time they was called into work the next morning. She then wrote down what had happened at each of the times, leaving blank the ones she wasn't supposed to know so as not to arose any suspicions.

      About 5 or so hours later, Claire finished her shift at Sun Hill and headed back to CIB headquarters.