Again, thanks for all the reviews! Hope you enjoy part three - things get more complicated from hereon in! Gem - I'm surprised you've seen this before because the only place it's up is a small site owned by me and very few people know about it! You might have found it via the old Bill forum, TBVU? My username was Emmy there if that helps. And Miz Greenleaf - the Kerry involved is Kerry Holmes - it does say near the beginning of Chapter 2 but it was probably easy to miss!

Meadows stood still, frozen to the spot. No. Oh God, no.

Rod stepped away from the van he'd been leaning on and stared at the awful sight in horror. A thousand thoughts ran through his mind as he acknowledged the destruction before him. All those times he had mocked Kerry ... and the times he knew she was right but never admitted it...

He began to walk over to Meadows, but before he could reach him, the DCI had broken into a run towards the entrance. As he neared the tattered hole where the doors had once been, a fireman grabbed him by the shoulders to stop him.

"Hey mate, what the hell are you tryin' to do? You can't go in there!"

Jack dug out his warrant card and waved it in the fireman's face. "I'm DCI Meadows, Sun Hill, okay?" He pulled away and made for the door, but was stopped again, more forcibly this time.

"You could be William the bleedin' Conqueror for all I care, mate! The rest of that could collapse at any time – nobody is going in there yet!"

"Two of my officers are still in there!" Meadows yelled in desperation. "They were down in the basement checking things out and they haven't come back!"

The fireman stopped and relinquished his grip on Jack's shoulders. "Two, you say?"

"Yes. DC Holmes and DS McAllister. Both female. Everyone's accounted for except them."

"Alright lads!" the fireman called back to his crew. "We've got two coppers still inside, we gotta get a move on!"

The three older men in handcuffs exchanged glances and sniggered.

Darkness.

Silence.

Slowly, Kerry opened her eyes.

She had not been knocked out, but had shut her eyes and covered her head as the ceiling had started to cave in. It had been all she could do; there had been no warning, no time...

Her mind was still fuzzy, but the last thing she remembered was she and Debbie being knocked to the ground by something collapsing on them from behind. Damn those high-heeled boots, she thought; if it hadn't been for that, they might have got out in time. Virtually pinned up against the wall by a fallen beam, she looked above her, almost too scared to move in case she dislodged something that might cause a second collapse, but was slightly consoled by the fact that whatever had caused it seemed to be over: no smoke or fire that she could see. She shifted uncomfortably and flinched; her ankle still hurt and falling over again probably hadn't done it any good. But then suddenly something far worse dawned on her. Where was Debbie?

"Sarge?" Her voice was no more than a whisper as the dust caught in her throat. She coughed, then tried again.

"Sarge?"

Kerry felt tears sting the backs of her eyes as the realization and fear began to set in. It was still incredibly dark, and she could hardly see a thing. The dust didn't help either, but as she felt around the floor, her hand fell upon something cylindrical shaped...a torch? She picked it up and felt for a switch. Yes, there it was. Now please, she thought, work!

Suddenly there was light. Not much, but it was a start; one of the others must have dropped it on the way out. The dust was still quite thick, but now she could see that there was nothing balanced too precariously around her, though the corridor was strewn with debris and she could no longer see the staircase up to the ground floor.

Slowly, she shone the torch around, looking for Debbie. She couldn't be far, but if she was unconscious - or worse - no, she didn't want to think about that. Suddenly she spotted her a few feet away, lying on her back, motionless with a long wooden plank that had probably once been part of the ceiling lying across her chest.

"Sarge?" she coughed again, trying desperately not to panic.

No response.

"Debbie?"

Debbie's eyelids flickered as she realized that somewhere, someone was calling her name. At first, the sound seemed far away, but now it was becoming closer. It was blurred, as if it were being spoken underwater, but it gradually became clearer as she came to her senses.

"Debbie?"

There it was again.

"Mmmhmm...?" She half opened her eyes and found herself once more in the devastated corridor. There was light now...not much, but anything was better than total darkness.

A surge or relief swept over Kerry. Debbie was alive, at least.

Kerry shuffled over to Debbie's side, "Sarge, are you ok? Try not to move."

Debbie rubbed her eyes and looked up at Kerry from her uncomfortable position on the floor.

"What happened?" she murmured, "I must have hit my head. God, what's that?" she started, noticing the beam for the first time. "I can't move much; can you get it off me?"

"Does anything hurt?" Kerry sat up a bit more and shone the torch over Debbie. "I don't want to make anything worse by lifting it up. Do you think...?"

"No, I'm fine," Debbie insisted, "Just get it off."

Resignedly, Kerry got to her knees and gripped the end of the fallen beam. It was heavier than she expected, and it wasn't helped by the fact that she still couldn't stand up. She lifted it a short way, then had to put it down again to get her breath back.

"If I lift, can you slide out underneath?"

"Yeah, ok, just don't drop it on me."

As Kerry lifted the beam for the second time, Debbie slowly manoevered herself out of the way, then helped Kerry lower it back down again, wincing slightly.

"Are you sure you're ok, Sarge?" asked Kerry, noticing.

"I dare say I'll have a few bruises in the morning," she admitted, rubbing the right side of her chest and shoulder. "It's all right, really. What about you?"

"I'll live. But God knows what happened," Kerry sighed and looked up at the remains of the ceiling. "The question is how long is that lot going to stay up?"

Jack Meadows stood outside the devastated building, occasionally taking a few steps through the gaping hole where the doors had once been, before being ushered back out by passing firemen who had evidently been told to keep an eye on him. Eventually he trudged back to the van, from where none of the other officers had moved far.

"Bloody 'ell, what's taking them so long?"

Deakin wandered over with a cup of steaming coffee in his hand, and offered it to Meadows, who dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

"They're bound to know something soon, Gov," he nodded towards the building. "They can't stop to come and talk to us if they're busy finding them, can they?"

He knew how patronising that must have sounded, but it was all he could do to mask his own fear. He knew that things weren't good ... maybe in this instance, no news wasn't good news. Most of the others were in the back of the van or leaning up against it, occasionally sipping at hot drinks, nobody knowing what to say or do for the best.

"Doesn't look good, does it?" muttered Proctor, blowing gently on his coffee to cool it.

"Oh, you're really helping, Tom!" Cass snapped irritably. "You never know, they might 'ave got out a different exit or somethin', or..." she faltered, and looked at the floor.

"I just can't believe those bastards would do something like that!" Skase paced impatiently up and down the pavement. "It's just so not their style; it's ... I mean why?"

Polly stepped out of the van beside him and shook her head sadly. "Kerry and I never got along that well but I never would have wished anything like this on her. Or Sergeant McAllister; I mean she was no angel and I dare say she wasn't the most popular member of the team we ever had, but ..."

"Wasn't?" Skase turned around sharply to face her. "You don't know that yet, Polly!"

Polly immediately realised how bad that must have sounded. "No, 'course not, I didn't mean ..."

"I know, I know," Rod sighed and walked over to Meadows and Deakin.

"No news, Gov?" he asked, trying to remain calm.

Before Deakin could answer, the chief fireman emerged from inside the building. He shouted something over to the rest of the fire crew, then turned to Meadows.

Jack stepped quickly up to him. "Any news? What's going on in there?"

The fireman removed his helmet and took a few breaths before answering.

"We've managed to put the fire out and cleared through the worst of the damage on the ground floor at the seat of the explosion, but I'm afraid there's no sign of your officers. Mind you, that might be a good thing. If they were in the basement, they will have avoided the force of the blast. The problem is, of course ..."

"...whatever was above them." Meadows finished.

The fireman nodded apologetically. "That's the thing, yeah. But to be honest with you it's going to be a while before we get anywhere near the basement. There's a lot of damage, it's going to take a lot of work, and I'll tell you straight, it's not looking good."

Down in the wreckage of the basement, Debbie pulled out her radio and tried to pick up a signal.

"I doubt it'll work," she sighed. "Not all the way down here ... no, nothing."

"Do you think maybe we should move?" Kerry asked. "Try to find a way out that isn't blocked or something? I just don't think that lot up there looks very stable."

Before Debbie could answer, a loud creaking sound came from behind them, and a large slab of plaster fell from the ceiling. Both jumped and turned around, tensing themselves for a further collapse, but instead, a door in the wall a few metres away slowly started to open. Instinctively, Kerry picked up the torch and shone it at the door.

Shielding her eyes from the beam of the torch, the shadowy figure of a child slowly emerged from the room, shielding her eyes from the beam of the torch. She closed the door behind her, then started to walk gingerly over the fallen debris to Kerry and Debbie. They looked at each other in amazement, before Debbie sat up, not without a little difficulty, and lowered the torch.

"Who..." she paused. A child here, alone?

"Are you alright, love?" Kerry asked, tentatively. The little girl smiled slightly and nodded, brushing her silky black hair out of her face and patting the dust off her flowery skirt.

"Come and sit down," said Kerry, "You must have been terrified in there on your own ... what on earth are you doing down here?

The small child perched lightly on an overturned waste paper bin beside them, looking rather awkward and afraid to speak.

"Do your parents know where you are?" Kerry asked gently, sensing her apprehension.

"No," she murmured, "My mum's been looking for me but she doesn't know I'm here ... she must be really worried about me."

"What's your name?" Debbie asked.

"Eve," the girl said softly.

"What on earth are you doing down here?" asked Kerry. "Does one of your parents work here or something?"

"A friend of the family used to," she said, hesitantly. "I used to come down here to help after school if it wasn't time to go home yet. I know my way around. What about you? What's going on?"

"We're with the police," Debbie produced her warrant card and showed it to the girl. "Didn't you know there was an armed robbery going on up there?"

"Followed by an explosion by the look of it," Kerry added.

"Are you both alright?" the girl asked suddenly, looking concerned.

"More or less," Debbie coughed as she pulled a piece of plaster out of her hair. "Kerry's hurt her ankle and I managed to get flattened by a sodding great plank but nothing too bad. One of the perks of the job I suppose," she added, a little too sarcastically.

"I always wanted to be a policewoman," the child smiled for the first time so far, ignoring Debbie's sarcasm as Kerry passed over her warrant card as well. "It was my dream ... what rank are you?" She looked closer at the warrant card. "DS ... Debbie McAllister. That's a nice name. And Kerry Holmes ... hey, that's like Sherlock Holmes! I used to love those books!" She smiled again and passed the cards back to them.

"How old are you?" Debbie enquired, looking slightly suspicious.

"I was twelve on my last birthday."

"You're a bit young to have read those books, aren't you?"

"Yes, I suppose so," the girl shrugged, "but I learned to read pretty fast, and I've had quite a lot of spare time lately." Then the smile on her face turned to one of sadness.

"I'll never be in the police now. Pity, 'cause I think I would have really enjoyed it."

"You're not in trouble, love," Kerry smiled gently. "Maybe it wasn't the best idea to be down here on your own but nobody's cross with you. It's only that people must be worried about you."

Debbie nodded. "I wonder what the others must be thinking. They must have realised we're missing by now; Rod's probably put the flags out!"

"I just hope I haven't caused too much trouble," said Eve, looking uneasy. "There were a few things I should have ... should have told my parents that I didn't. If I had, I might not be here now."

"Oh, don't worry about that now," Kerry said kindly. "Like I said, nobody's going to be cross with you. Worried, yes, but that'll only be because they care about you."

"It's just ... it's just that me and my mum were always really close and shared all our problems, but this time it was something different ... something harder to talk about."

Debbie raised an eyebrow. She knew she was not good with children at the best of times, but at least this one seemed quite mature and polite, not like the little sods on the Jasmine Allen.

"Could we help, maybe?" she suggested.

Suddenly, Eve stood up and looked up with an expression of intense fear spreading across her face.

"We have to move!" she shouted. "NOW!"

"What do you mean? Why?" Debbie looked confused but recognized the sheer terror in the child's voice and rose quickly.

"JUST DO IT!" She was by Kerry's side in a flash and helped her to stand, much to Debbie's relief; she was still rather sore herself.

"Can you walk?" Eve asked

"Yeah," Kerry nodded. "I think so..." She managed to stand, but when she tried to take a step unaided, she faltered and almost fell against Eve as a sharp pain shot through her ankle. "Sorry ..."

"You'll have to help her," Eve took charge. "I'm not tall enough. Quick!"

Debbie stepped over to Kerry again, who put an arm around her shoulders, doing her best to support her weight. They edged down the corridor as fast as they could, in the direction of the stairs.

"Come on!" Eve yelled, breaking into a run. "This way!"

"What's the rush?" Debbie called after Eve. "Why do you think...?"

Before she could finish her sentence, a sudden crash behind them made them jump. They spun around, to find that the planks supporting part of the ceiling had given way, bringing down a shower of plaster, bricks, old boxes and dust ... right where they had been sitting. For a moment all three froze. Then slowly, Kerry and Debbie's stunned gazes turned to each other, and then to Eve, who smiled weakly, looking rather awkward and embarrassed.

"That's why," she whispered.