Jean's heels echoed in the hallway with each step down to the holding cell where Nancy Donnelly was being kept. Jean clutched the paper bag tightly in her hands and tried to keep her nerves at bay. She had no real reason to be nervous, she knew. She was Mrs. Blake, a doctor's wife and a respected member of the community. Even so, Jean surreptitiously looked down at her dress and her shoes to make sure she didn't have any dirt or scuffs anywhere. Silly, really. Jean had not lived on the farm in over a decade. But something about Nancy Donnelly just brought back all of the old worries.

"Hello, Ms. Donnelly. I'm not sure if you remember me from yesterday, I'm Jean Blake," she greeted politely. "I know how difficult it is to be in that cell all alone, and after the horrible events of yesterday. I brought some muffins for you, if you'd like them."

Nancy approached the bars of the cell and cautiously accepted the bag. "Thank you," she replied quietly.

"You're welcome."

The two women fell into a rather awkward silence. Nancy was staring at Jean, scrutinizing her. Finally she said, "I remember you. Not just from yesterday. We were young. You were a scrawny, sloppy farmgirl."

Jean was practically vibrating with rage, but she kept herself under control. "I did used to live on a farm but that was a very long time ago. My husband is the police surgeon," Jean boasted.

"I suppose that would be a step up for you," Nancy commented rudely, shrugging with disinterest.

It was very easy to see how Lucien had gotten distracted from his purpose and stormed out after Nancy got him riled up. Jean was nearly ready to turn on her heel and escape back home. But she would not lose sight of her goal. She would not let Nancy have the pleasure of knocking her off balance. Jean stood up straight and squared her shoulders and asked, "Ms. Donnelly, now that you're in a better state to speak, could you tell me what happened to Reggie? I do believe that you did not kill him, but you must've able to help figure out who did."

"I already told the police and you and your husband that I didn't see anything. We were arguing and he pulled me into the alley to not make a scene but I told him to go to hell and stormed off down the street. But when he didn't follow, I went back to apologize, and he'd already been stabbed by then. I didn't see anyone there. I tried to help. We may have fought a lot, but I did love him," Nancy insisted.

Like you claimed to love Matthew, you miserable cow? Jean thought to herself, intelligently keeping such thoughts to herself. "Alright, well, perhaps you can tell me what you and Reggie were doing in Ballarat? The police don't seem to know," she asked aloud. Hopefully Nancy couldn't see the way Jean's knuckles were turning white where she held onto her handbag.

Nancy frowned. "Just business. My parents died a long time ago, and I haven't got any other family. No real reason to come back for my sake. But I did want to see the town again, so I made Reggie bring me with him. Besides, if he was going to make enough money to get us out of trouble, I wanted to be here to help."

"What sort of trouble?" Jean asked immediately, hoping to steer Nancy onto something useful and not prattling on about her romantic entanglement with the deceased.

There was a nervous, twitchy sort of expression on Nancy's face. She leaned forward and spoke in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. "In Melbourne, Reggie was involved with some not-so-nice people. I think perhaps he owed some money to the mob."

"Some money?"

"A lot of money."

"And he was coming to Ballarat to make money to pay off his debts? How?"

She sighed, "See that's just it. Reggie didn't want to have to pay off the debts. That's what we were fighting about. I told him he was being stupid, trying to outsmart people like that. Reggie wasn't ever very smart. Thought he was, but I think he'd have been dead a lot sooner if it wasn't for me getting him out of hot water."

Jean furrowed her brow in frustration. Nancy had an annoying habit of speaking a lot and saying very little. "So what was his plan to outsmart the mob?"

"He wanted to get a controlling interest in as many Ballarat businesses as he could. The town is big enough to catch Melbourne's attention but small enough to keep a relatively low profile. He was going to leverage the business interests and try to convince whoever it is that the debts weren't worth collecting or that Reggie was too powerful to be intimidated or something like that. Stupid bloody man." Nancy's voice hitched slightly, her emotion betraying her harsh words.

"What went wrong, do you think?" Jean asked, injecting some soft kindness into her voice.

"I don't know. I know he didn't have the money to buy a new suit let alone business interests. The plan was never going to work. But I don't know how anyone could have found out about it!"

Maybe because you were shouting in a public street about it, you absolute… Jean stopped herself from thinking the end of that sentence. Being rude, even in her own mind, was uncalled for.

Before Jean could say anything else to Nancy, Charlie called for her. They'd already overstayed their welcome at the station. He needed to drive her home. Jean thanked Nancy and told her to enjoy the muffins and hurried away, hoping to never have to see that woman's face ever again.

Jean spent the car ride telling Charlie what Nancy had told her, and as they pulled up to the house, she concluded by suggesting, "Contact Melbourne for Reggie Wallace's known associates or anyone with possible mob connections, and see if any of them may have followed Reggie and Nancy to Ballarat. If Reggie was being watched by the mob and he was overheard telling Nancy of his plan that would never work, that might have been enough to get him killed when Nancy left him alone, just for that minute."

Charlie parked the car and smiled. "You know, you'd be a great detective if you wanted to be."

She placed an affectionate hand on his arms. "I'm much happier right where I am, taking care of you lot. I'm just lucky that taking care of you and Lucien often involves getting to solve crimes for the police as well," she said with a smile.

They went inside and found Lucien coming down the stairs. "There you are! Where have you been?" he asked with concern.

Charlie told Jean he was going to bed and hurried up the stairs past Lucien. Jean hung up her coat and put her purse on the side table. "I was at the police station. Charlie drove me, since I can't very well go by myself after hours. I didn't think you'd beat me home, or I'd have left a note." She sighed and felt her shoulders slump with the weight of the day. "I must say, I am glad you're here."

Lucien approached her swiftly. "You are? Why, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Jean said, knowing that wasn't quite the truth. "I'm just tired. I'd like to have an early night and a quiet cuddle, if it's alright."

He put an arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple. "Of course, my darling. Let's get up to bed."

As Lucien watched his lovely wife perform her nightly ritual of undressing and slipping on her nightgown and sitting at the vanity to wipe off her makeup and put some beautiful-smelling creams all over her skin, he could not help but feel his heart expand with his regard for her. She did not mind his audience while she removed every bit of artifice, from her foundation garments to her lipstick, and twist her hair into rollers and tie it up with a hairnet. All of the little domestic intimacies he was privy to as her husband. Jean did not hide from him, nor did she expect him to hide from her. Neither of them sought to make the other into anything or anyone but exactly who they were. And he loved her all the more for it.

"Jean," he called softly, already in his pyjamas and watching her from their bed.

She looked at him in the mirror of her vanity. "Yes, Lucien?"

"You know that I love you just as you are."

She smiled. "Yes, I know. And I love you just as you are."

He smiled back at her. They watched each other quietly for a moment. Lucien broke the silence when Jean returned to her finishing bedtime touches. "I spoke to Matthew about Nancy."

"And how did that go?" she asked, making her way to the bed and pulling down the sheets on her side.

"Very well. Theirs is an extremely unfortunate story. He said she always wanted him to be more than he was when he never did anything to make her believe he could be, and rather than continue to disappoint his wife, Matthew just let her go, told her to find happiness elsewhere."

"I don't think she found it," Jean interjected darkly.

"Neither of them did. I can't believe that anyone would treat Matthew Lawson that way. He's a bit grumpy sometimes, but he's just…he's a good man. And he deserves better."

"I agree." Jean settled into bed and rested her head against Lucien's shoulder, cuddling up to his chest.

He kissed the top of her head and whispered, "I won't ever let that happen to us, Jeanie. I never want to assume you're happy and wake up one day and find that you're not. I want to be everything you need me to be."

"I need you to be just as you are, and I need you to come home to me every day and fall asleep beside me every night," she told him firmly.

Lucien was satisfied with that. "Good," he murmured.

Jean fell silent again, turning the day over and over in her mind. She did not want to cause Lucien any more worry, not when the reality of Matthew's divorce had clearly left him a bit reeling. But he had confessed his fears to her, and it was only right that she should trust him enough to confide in him with her own. "I didn't tell you everything about Nancy Donnelly."

"When you went to see her at the police station?"

"No, from before. When we were young."

"You went to school with her, yes? You said she wasn't very nice to you. Was there more?" he asked with concern.

"Nancy and her friends lived in town. They all got new clothes and new shoes for school every year. My mother made my clothes from old sheets and drapes, and I got my sister's shoes when she grew out of them. I didn't have new clothes or shoes from a store until after I was married. And I wouldn't have minded if it wasn't pointed out to me each and every day. Nancy was the ringleader and she'd always loudly remark at the dirt on my skirts and the mud on my shoes and the frayed hems of my sleeves. She would get everyone gathered in a big circle in the schoolyard to point and laugh at the sloppy farmgirl, the runt of the litter of pigs. Never mind that we didn't have pigs on our farm, but Nancy liked to evoke an image I think.

Lucien was utterly horrified by the cruelty Jean described with such relative calm. "That is abominable, how dare she!"

"It was almost enough to make me want to quit school altogether. And I nearly did. My parents wouldn't have minded, there was always work to do on the farm. But I wanted more than anything to learn and to see the world and to make something of myself. I had big dreams. And I would be damned before I would let Nancy Donnelly stop me," Jean replied resolutely.

As was so often the case, Lucien felt so proud of his wife, he was fit to burst with it. "Well done, Jean," he said softly.

"Though I suppose, in a way, Nancy did stop me," she realized. "Nancy always picked on me and once we were teenagers, it was Christopher who would stand up for me and comfort me after Nancy got bored of trying to get a reaction from me. And the closer I got to Christopher, well…" Jean trailed off. They both knew the end of that story.

"It all worked out for the best, I suppose. But I wish it hadn't been so hard for you."

Jean shrugged slightly. "It's all in the past now. I hadn't thought about that for years. But having to be in that hallway and try to be kind to Nancy Donnelly as she once again called me a scrawny, sloppy farmgirl was nearly more than I could bear."

"Oh that absolute cow!" Lucien growled in annoyance.

That made Jean chuckle slightly. "I'll always be glad to have you as my white night defender. But no need to be upset about it now. I don't think we'll have to speak to Nancy Donnelly ever again."

Jean proceeded to tell Lucien about what Nancy had said and the conclusions Jean had drawn and the recommendations she'd given to Charlie about it. The police could surely handle it from there.

It only took two days after that for Anthony Murrick to be located. He had been on the same bus as Nancy and Reggie, and he was known to Melbourne police as a close associate of the mob boss to whom Reggie Wallace owed over two thousand pounds. Murrick confessed during interview with Charlie. Nancy was free from custody to return to Melbourne, which she did within hours of her release.

The Blakes, meanwhile, kept to themselves for a few days. Lucien had a few patients to see. Jean had the usual housework on. They stayed at home in their own little bubble, each quietly recovering from the veritable shellshock that Nancy Donnelly had wrought on their lives. But at the end of the week, Matthew Lawson came over for dinner. The friends all laughed and enjoyed each other. Time passed, and everything was alright again.