Anna stifled a yawn with the back of her hand as a balding man hurried around to arrange tools and instruments just so. He occasionally gave her a nod and she returned it. But her attention only really focused when a man with a white mustache and John walked into the mortuary.

"Ah, Dr. Smith, I'm so glad you're already here." The man with the mustache crossed the room to shake her hand. "I'll be needing your opinion on this."

"Always glad to be of help Doctor Clarkson." Anna used the back of her hand again, checking the clock on the wall. "Though I'm struggling to ignore the hypnotizing call of my bed at this hour."

"We won't take too long here since Mr. Moseley did a wonderful job making this easier for us by already processing most of the details." Doctor Clarkson pointed at the body, "Would you like to tell us your findings, Mr. Moseley?"

"As I suggested to Doctor Smith last night, it's belladonna poisoning administered through ingestion." He pointed to a pile of intestines and Anna raised her eyebrows at the split intestine Mr. Moseley showed them. "They gave him too much for the mania and hallucinations you'd get through longer administration but it would've caused some intense reactions."

"According to the interviews, he choked himself to death." John looked up from her notes and Anna shrugged.

"The tropane would cause a significant amount of delirium so he might have choked himself by thought."

"His heart would then beat irregularly, his breathing would strain, and then there'd be some significant paralysis before death." Doctor Clarkson used a pen to tap on the man's face. "The clench in his jaw would've made it difficult for anyone to help him breathe."

"One of the women tried to help him breathe." John consulted his notes again. "She used chest compressions."

"That'd explain the bruising on his chest." Doctor Clarkson pulled the sheet back enough for them to see.

"Is there any other sign that something else happened to him?" Anna pointed at the body. "Signs of any other kind of abuse?"

"Not that I found and I wouldn't think so." Doctor Clarkson pulled the sheet back. "The Turkish Embassy has requested we have the body immediately prepared and taken back to Turkey."

"I can imagine they want their ambassador back." John shuddered, tucking his notebook away. "I'm sure they were hoping he'd come back a bit more heroically."

"Or at all." Anna pushed herself to stand, "If there's nothing else I can do to help, I've sleep that is calling to me and I need to respond to that call."

"We're done here." Doctor Clarkson extended a hand and shook both Anna and John's before turning to Mr. Moseley. "We need to review the Turkish Embassy's requirements about the body and make him appropriately ready for his return home."

"Thank you Doctor." Anna smiled at them, "You've been very helpful."

"It's my pleasure and I hope you find whomever you need to so the Turkish Embassy decides to make their war on our government for this."

"Whatever Mr. Pamuk was doing in the Cerulean Swan, I'm sure it was not official business." John muttered but Anna nodded with him.

They headed toward the door and John stepped around Anna to hold it open so she could enter the corridor. She waited for him to join her and they walked in step toward the exit. "I wasn't sure you came to the autopsies yourself."

"I did ask you to tell me the time." John's smile with his reminder gave a smile to Anna as well. "I don't want to worry about having to read the notes made in handwriting I can't read."

"Ah, the doctoral scrawl." Anna chuckled, "I guess that's something to worry about when your job is already difficult enough."

"I will say that I'm not sure where to start when there's a Turkish representative waiting in my Superintendent's office hoping we have an answer as to who actually killed their ambassador."

"I can imagine that's difficult." Anna paused before the door, "I was hoping you'd call on me if you need anything in this case."

"Are you afraid I'd call on someone else?"

"It's more who might call in your place." Anna cringed, "You work very closely with Robert Crawley and he's… he's not in a place to speak with his eldest daughter at the moment."

John frowned, "So he said and so she intimated when I interviewed her last night."

"And?"

"It's none of my business but I am genuinely curious as to why they're not on speaking terms." John pushed his hands into his pockets, "However I'm more curious as to why you're mixed up in all this this."

"Mary Crawley's a friend of mine and, as such, I'm privy to personal details about her life I'd fear her father might try to coerce out of me." Anna slipped her coat over her shoulders, drawing her gloves on to give her time. "I like him, as a person, but I don't want to be caught in the middle of a family feud."

"Ah," John nodded, wrapping a scarf around his neck and playing with the hat in his hands. "You want to avoid injuring his pride as much as you want to maintain her confidence."

"Precisely." Anna went to turn the knob on the door but John beat her to it and held it open for her. "You do know how to spoil a woman Mr. Bates."

"I'll be honest, I should be more afraid that you're calling me holding the door for you spoiling." He followed her out of the building and onto the bustling street. "But I believe I've delayed you from sleep long enough."

"It's the job." Anna went to walk away but stopped, digging into her bag to extract the evidence bag with the pen. "I had my friend investigate this and he suggested a contractor worked on it."

"What made him so sure?"

"He used a similar model in the war, as I mentioned, but he said the design, style, and execution are much improved. Suggested that someone with that kind of craftsmanship might've taken their skills to the private sector once the government had no more use for them."

"You mean someone whose work is now classified by the SIS?"

"I think they're called MI6 now."

John waved a hand, "Whatever they're called, you're suggesting they've got a rogue scientist developing these for commercial use?"

"Maybe not rogue but I think someone decided to market their tools to a very specific group." Anna shrugged, "It'd be worth investigating."

"I'll make a note of it. I've got to have someone I know who once worked with me who might know something or someone." John pulled out his notebook, jotting down a quick sentence or two before facing Anna. "Now I've really distracted you."

"It's information that'll help your case." John took the evidence from her and Anna adjusted the straps of her bag on her shoulder. "We're still comparing fingerprints but it's a slow process. There are twenty-five different sets and we're using our most sophisticated tools."

"Which are?"

Anna snorted, "Our eyes. Poor Jane told me she took a short nap and all she could see were loops and whorls."

"I'd say she is rather unfortunate but better loops and whorls than the faces of the dead." The air between them seemed to freeze. Anna dropped her gaze as John stumbled for words. "I'm sorry, that was… unacceptably depressing."

"Do you see faces from the war too?" Anna kept her voice quiet but even in the noise of the street she saw in his face he heard every word. "Because I do sometimes and I don't sleep afterward."

"I can't tell you how many books I've read because I've almost incurable insomnia these days." John shivered and pointed across the street, "Might I tempt you with some tea? I've a feeling this conversation's not one for us to continue in the cold."

Anna flicked her head both ways and then hurried across the street with him to enter the teashop. They found a corner, away from the door, and John drew out the chair for her. She let the smile spread over her face and took it, tugging her gloves off one at a time. "You just can't help but be a gentleman can you?"

"I'm my mother's son." He unwound the scarf from his neck and shrugged his coat back over the chair. "Though, if I were being as polite as she insisted I should be, I'd have already let you go home and stopped delaying your rest."

"I've still got a bit of freewill, Mr. Bates." Anna smiled at the waitress, "Pot of tea please and your chocolate biscuits."

John cleared his throat, searching fruitlessly for a menu a moment before shrugging. "That'll be fine."

As the woman walked away John directed his focus to Anna and she shrugged, "I'm at the mortuary frequently enough that I've need to stop by for refreshment."

"Are you certified to be of aid to them?"

"I am them in other situations." Anna played with the fingers of her gloves. "I'm the forensic expert and, as part of my training, I studied as a doctor."

"Hence the salutation."

"Yes," Anna let the gloves alone, pushing them to the side of the table. "When I was a nurse, during the war, I always wanted to do more. I wanted to help all those suffering and realized that there was a lot I could do but when they needed more I couldn't help them. So I applied to be a doctor."

"And?"

"They weren't keen on it but with the recommendations of the doctors I worked with in the war and my commanding officers I finished the course as third in my class." Anna smiled, "I wanted first but I had a bad bout of flu and missed a set or oral examinations no one was allowed to repeat."

"But you succeeded?"

"I did." Anna sighed, losing her focus as she stared at the wall. "And then I realized there was a new problem now. It wasn't like the war anymore because the war had changed."

John frowned, "I don't understand."

"It wasn't about keeping people healthy anymore, that wasn't enough for me." Anna hurried to explain, "I think people deserve health and long life, please don't mistake me, but I also think that… we're fighting a different war now and what I wanted, in the field, I still want."

"To help the suffering?"

Anna nodded, "Those on the streets suffering in fear of killers and violence. It's not like the battlefield where you knew the direction of the enemy and we simply battled back and forth to gain our advantages. Now it's about the shadows we want to face with courage instead of jump with fear."

"Aptly stated." John sucked the inside of his cheek, "I think that's why I returned to police work after the war. Nothing else could keep me using the skills I honed to an edge then."

Anna went to say something but stopped as the waitress deposited the cups and pot between them, the plate of biscuits sitting delicately on the edge of the table, before she waited. John spoke first, "Thank you. I think we'll be alright now."

The woman walked away and Anna went to speak again, "I don't know if this is an impertinent question, but you mentioned you were in Singapore."

"Yes."

"And that the Japanese released you."

John turned their cups over and poured the pot carefully over the delicate china. "I've a feeling you've a question at the edge of your tongue that you're almost afraid to ask."

"What did you endure?"

John stopped, finishing the pour and setting the pot to the side to meet her eyes. "I don't think you want to know."

"Normally I wouldn't ask but…" Anna pulled at her fingers and then occupied them holding the cup to rotate it slowly in her grip. "Seeing the dead doesn't bother me, I do that every day, but that young man lying on that table reminded me of all those other men I cut open and sewed back together. The ones I had to help send back to their mothers with all the life shot or blown out of them. It reminded me of what we all suffered and I… I find myself looking for someone to talk to about what happened to me."

He nodded, eyes widening a bit as if realization dawned with a literally increased perspective. "You did say you were at Dunkirk."

"I watched them bomb those ships, Mr. Bates. I almost drown on one of them. If I hadn't been near the door myself I would've gone down with my boat." Anna turned her gaze to her cup but the dark liquid triggered the sounds of muffled screams, howls, and the rush of heat from burning oil. She forced herself to look up, "I know it's not something anyone talks about without turning to a flag and speaking about the salvation of the Empire but…"

"You still wake up with nightmares." John started and Anna noted that while his eyes were on her he was not seeing her. "You still hear them in your sleep. You still pace endlessly and have nights where your bed is too comfortable or your kettle too quick or the safety of your home feels like a trap. You almost want those noises and discomforts to remind you it happened and wasn't just a horrible dream you had with the rest of the world."

Anna nodded, "Yes. I want to know I'm not alone and that sounds ridiculous but-"

"It's not ridiculous." His hand covered hers on the handle of her cup and their eyes finally met, the depth of their souls drawing the other to a place they could share. An otherwise unattainable understanding they sought but never found until that moment. "I have it."

"I think many people have it but we don't know how to have it together." Anna sighed, "It's why I turned to forensics. I felt I could use my skills to battle the shadows for others and myself."

"I needed that too. Give my mind something it could understand when everything else collapsed around me."

"I forgot," Anna winced, "You divorced shortly after the war."

"That was a blessing given that even if we had been on the same page before the war, I was much altered by what happened and I couldn't have been what she needed… much less what she wanted." John sighed, sipping at his tea and Anna followed suit. "The Japanese weren't… friendly. Not in their tactics during the battle nor when they took us prisoner. All I can say is that I was glad I wasn't Chinese."

"Why not?"

"They slaughtered any of the Chinese they found and drove the rest from Singapore." John closed his eyes, "It was genocide, in my opinion, but I think it had more to do with a deep hatred their peoples have for one another."

"That was it?"

"Hatred doesn't need more justification than that." John continued, tracing a pattern on his plate and idly picking at a biscuit without actually eating it. "But they got us back to Japan and put us in one of their camps. Those of us who survived that long anyway."

"I've seen the photographs from the camps in Germany and Poland." Anna's voice almost echoed in her own head but too quietly to be heard. "I even treated a few of them and I never could've believed the kind of depravity that would allow one human being to treat another so abominably."

"It's a surprising reality when you recognize that war, for as much as we say we've civilized it, has no rules and makes monsters of men." John took a breath, "There was an American in our camp who'd been an Olympic athlete and one guard, we called him The Bird, brutalized him. It was the most difficult thing I've ever watched."

They were silent a moment before Anna spoke. "There was a man, he'd crawled on top of a landmine and then moved…" She shuddered, "There was nothing we could do for him but I sat with him until he passed in the most agonizing pain I'd ever heard. The whole time he pleaded for his mother or Jesus to take him away."

"There's no Jesus to take him away."

"I disagree." Anna swallowed, "For all those who say God abandoned us when we went to war I argue that we won because we had God to help us."

"What would you tell the Japanese about their loss then? That God wasn't on their side?"

"Wouldn't their treatment of you indicate they're not on His side?" Anna sipped at her tea, now lukewarm. "For all the agony I endured, I also witnessed some of the most beautiful miracles I could ever imagine. Each of them bearing the hand of God."

"Not me." John stirred a spoon in his tea but he added nothing. "I was a tunnel rat, trying to escape the prison camps, but they caught me. When they beat me and those trying to escape with me…"

Anna waited, noting the tremor to the spoon and the quiver in his hand. "They beat me until I couldn't stand and then forced me into stress positions. One of them, when I was pulled back into a kneeling position that tied by wrists to my ankles, jumped on my leg. It shattered the bone and since there was only rudimentary medical care it never healed correctly. It's why I limp."

"I'm so sorry."

"I was the lucky one." He managed a bitter laugh, almost sipping his tea but lowering it before the cup even reached his lips. "They took the other men's lives."

"Why would they leave you alive and kill them?"

"Because, with my leg shattered and me trapped in that position, it was more torture to watch them go down the line and shoot eat and every man between the eyes. All five men, one at a time, until they were bodies in the dirt in front of me."

"They killed those men to torture you?"

"They didn't dare do anything worse." John shrugged, "I was an officer and I could speak Japanese so they needed me as a translator to the other men."

"What kind of people want your suffering like that?"

"The same kind of people who create large ovens to bake people and pits where they can shoot them in a line so they fall into their convenient graves." John closed his eyes, "I offered myself in exchange, using the honorific form, and they denied me in the lowest form before telling me the punishment was their deaths before me. So I could bear the responsibility for the lives I lost."

"What happened then?"

"I never tried to escape again and it just proved their methods were effective."

"They're brutal and cruel."

"As a people they're very proud. It was war and we were the enemy. They signed no agreement as to how to treat captured soldiers so they did as they wished. And their pride wouldn't allow surrender of their own soldiers so they believed us weak and useless."

"They didn't surrender?"

John shook his head. "They'd kill themselves before they surrendered. It's why the Americans had to drop two bombs on them. The first because no one believed their warnings. The second to prove they would do it until they ended the war."

"There was nothing more terrifying than that moment." Anna shivered, "I remember hearing about it and not believing it."

"If I hadn't seen the faces of the guards I wouldn't have believed it either." John sighed, "Some say it was a mercy, dropping those bombs. And in a way it was because it prevented the possible extermination of a race to stop a war. But… I can't feel entirely well about it."

"I don't think we're supposed to feel well about something like that." Anna finished her now almost cold tea and then sighed. "I'm sorry if I dredged up some horrible memories for you."

"We've all got horrible memories that we need to rake over occasionally or we forget we're human." John consulted his watch. "But I've taken too much of your time."

"And I yours." Anna stood, pointing to the remaining biscuits. "Do you want one for the road?"

"I've not got a large sweet tooth." John held out his napkin to her. "Take them with my compliments."

Anna tucked them away, "Thank you. I've got quite a sweet tooth."

"Then it was my pleasure." John unfolded the requisite bills, leaving them on the table. "And, for all the darkness we shared at this table, I find myself remarkably lighter."

"I guess bringing our pain to light freed our souls a bit." Anna tightened her gloves on her fingers and secured her coat against the cold. "I still jump at loud noises that I'm not ready for."

"Ducking for cover?"

Anna nodded, teeth chattering the second they stepped into the wind. "I've got it now where I don't try to hide under the nearest large surface but I still get tremors in my hands. It's like all the noise is back and the memories flood me."

"I've found myself curled in my wardrobe a few times thinking I'm back in solitary or laying on the floor because I moved from the bed." John stuffed his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders against the wind. "If… If you ever need someone to tell again, I'd like to be the ear for you."

"As long as you'll extend me the same courtesy." Anna held out a hand to him. "It's lovely to know I'm not alone in the world anymore."

"Especially not with our thoughts."

"Especially not." Anna took her hand back, sliding it slowly from his. "I wish you luck with the Turkish Embassy."

"Thank you." John bit at his lip, "Other than your friend who gave you the pen, do you have anyone else you know who still works in that world?"

"I might have one or two. They've never said but…"

"But you'd know." John patted his pocket, the outline of the pen showing a moment. "I'll see what we find."

"Thank you." Anna set her feet to walk away, "And I do hope you find the guilty party."

"I hope we find him." John tipped his hat to her. "Until next time, Doctor."

"Until next time, Detective Inspector."