"Careful dad," Shandi said as she recovered her balance after her father had run into her.
"Sorry, I didn't see you."
Shandi ducked her head around her father to peer into the room. "Hi Martha," she called out before returning her attention to her father. "Dad, I think Georgie's on her way back and I don't think she would take kindly to you being here."
"It's ok Shandi, I'm an old hand at sneaking in and out of hospital rooms so my daughter doesn't see me."
Martha frowned at his comment, wondering what he meant by that.
"You've found her and she's dead, isn't she?" Charlie asked, taking a stab at why the normally upbeat Detective was looking so grim.
"We were half way to the city when the call came in that a body matching Miss Scott's description was in a city morgue. The woman had been found dead in an alleyway."
"Early reports say she suffered major head injuries, but that's all we know so far," Graves said. "And as of yet, it's still unconfirmed that it is Bianca Scott's body."
"Does April know it might be her sister?"
Robertson shook his head. "Until we have confirmation, she's just a Jane Doe and we don't want to unnecessarily upset April."
Joey practically skipped back into the club after dropping Charlie off and grinned when Alf rolled his eyes at her mood.
"I should let you have a longer lunch break all the time," he murmured good-naturedly.
"I certainly wouldn't complain," Joey replied, then cheekily added, "Neither would Charlie."
"Young people these days," muttered Alf on his way to the office.
Joey put her work apron on and got behind the bar.
"Those really must have been some truly special sandwiches that you made earlier, if your mood is anything to go by," Suzi said from the end of the bar.
"I don't think it was so much the food," Joey said, a little surprised to see Suzi was still there. "But more the company I was keeping."
"Ah company," she said with a heavily exaggerated sigh. "I've almost forgotten what company was since I've been sitting here all alone."
"Hugo offered to keep it."
"I'm lonely and bored, not sad and desperate," she replied. "Any way, I shouldn't be lonely for much longer. My friend called again to say she was nearly finished at work and would be meeting me here in an hour."
"Can I get you another drink while you wait?"
Suzi nodded. "Better make it an OJ though, otherwise at this rate, I'll be drunk by the time she eventually gets here."
"OJ it is."
"It's not the only news we've received," Robertson said. "Officers went to the bank Miss Scott made her withdrawal from and took the footage and a copy of the withdrawal slip to our forensic experts. The image from the bank still isn't the best, but after comparing it to a photo of Miss Scott, our expert is confident in stating that he believed the images were of two different women and preliminary analysis of the signature tends to back this up." He smiled at her then and Charlie thought it was a genuine smile that completely changed his face. "It seems like you were right about the woman in the CCTV footage not being Miss Scott."
This was one time Charlie hated being right, but now with confirmation from experts that someone was posing as Bianca and a body being found that could be her, it really did look like her ex was dead and while she had believed this was nearly always going to be the case, it still didn't make this news any easier to deal with. "What now?"
"Until the body is formally identified, we will be concentrating our investigation on the cover up. Someone hired the woman in that footage to pose as Miss Scott, so finding her becomes a priority."
"How did they get a hold of Bianca's account details and signature for this woman to use?" Charlie asked them.
"In my experience, a woman's handbag can hold a gold mine of information about the woman who owns it," Robertson said and he smiled again at Charlie, though this time it was more of a smile that adults reserved for slightly slow children and Charlie suddenly realised why.
"Of course, like a licence with her signature on it, along with her bank cards," she said, now feeling a little dumb for even asking the question, especially since Bianca never went anywhere without her handbag and so would have provided Angelo or whoever hired that woman, with all the information they needed. "What about the clinic doctor, any luck finding him?"
"We did manage to find his name on a flight over to New Zealand," Robertson said. "A bit of checking and we discovered he has family over there. We made a call to our Kiwi friends and asked them to have a little chat to him about his supposed examination of Miss Scott and his sudden financial windfall."
"We should have a reply sometime today or tomorrow at the latest," added Graves.
"We're also waiting to hear from the Detectives investigating Jane Doe's death."
"New flowers?" Watson said when she returned to her girlfriend's room and found the nurse putting a vase in amongst all the others, before she smiled at her and left them alone.
"They're from John," Martha said, preferring not to lie to her girlfriend. Her eyes were never far from Watson's face as she watched for her reaction and she could see the tightening around her eyes. "I think it was nice of him to bring them," she said.
"He was here?" she asked, already imagining him skulking around the corridors of the hospital, just waiting for her to leave Martha alone so he could pounce.
"No, the flowers just walked in on their own," quipped Martha. "And before you go off at him, all John wanted, was to see for himself that I was ok and to bring me the flowers. He's now going to keep his distance."
"Good."
"For the moment," she added. "Georgie, you can't avoid dealing with this."
Watson went to argue, but despite a decent rest last night, she was still tired from all the worry she had endured while Martha was unconscious and she had little energy left for argument, especially since this was the second time the topic of John had come up today. "I know," she finally admitted in a quiet voice.
Martha patted the bed next to her and Watson lay down on her side, resting her head beside Martha's on the pillow.
"As he was leaving with Shandi, John said something about being an old hand at sneaking in and out of hospital rooms so his daughter didn't see him," Martha said. "And I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about Shandi, so do you know what he meant?"
Watson shrugged silently in reply.
"Ok Georgie, spill it."
"What?"
"Come on, I know you better than just about anyone else and that shrug tells me you know exactly what John was talking about."
"Shandi mentioned something the other day, that's all."
"And what was it she mentioned?" It wasn't the first time she felt like she was pulling teeth to get a full answer out of her girlfriend.
Watson sighed and told her. "Apparently when I was shot, he spent every day at the hospital, even snuck in a few times to sit with me when I was alone."
Martha had spent a lot of time at the hospital herself during that period and she couldn't recall ever seeing John around the hospital, but the fact that he did, didn't really surprise her. "Doesn't the fact that he spent so much time sneaking around so that he could spend even just a small amount of time alone with you, tell you that he cares for you?"
Watson shrugged again and Martha sighed, knowing this was about as far as she was going to get with this today. She kissed her girlfriend's forehead. "I love you, even though your stubbornness drives me nuts at times."
Watson smiled and pressed her lips to hers.
"Shouldn't you be in school?" Joey said the moment Ruby walked into the club.
"God, you sound just like Charlie," Ruby replied.
"Oh, do I?"
Ruby chuckled at her response. "That's not such a bad thing," she said. "Except when it's playing big sister to disobedient little sister, in those instances, one Charlie is more than enough."
"Ok, then what instance is this, where you are the disobedient little sister wagging school and so you don't want me to be playing Charlie or something else?"
"Something like having a free period," she answered.
"My most favourite part of school," Joey said with a grin. "But I take it you're here for a reason?"
"Well, I wanted to ask my new big sister a favour."
"You're laying it on just a tad thick there," Joey told her. "But ask away."
"Can we go for my first driving lesson after school?" Ruby asked in her sweetest voice.
"I have to cover for Romeo until 6," Joey said. "But I'm free before and after school, tomorrow," she added and had a sudden yearning to be called into work at the last minute.
"You don't have to look like your world is about to end," Ruby commented on her change of expression.
"Sorry, it's just that I had a sudden flashback to my early driving lessons and the looks of fear on the faces of my instructors."
"If you want to change your mind about the lessons, I can find someone else."
"No, I agreed to give you a few lessons and I will, but you'll have to bear with me if I scream like a little girl once you're behind the wheel." Joey grinned at her, "Much like one of my instructors did when I went backwards instead of forwards and rammed into his parked car."
"Oh my god, you didn't?"
"Yep and that was my very first lesson."
"I'm not so sure I'm up to this now," Ruby said.
Joey put her hand on Ruby's shoulder, "Learning to drive can be nerve racking, but that mistake made me a more conscientious driver from that moment on and personally, I think you're more level headed and mature than I was when I started my driving lessons, so you'll be fine."
"You think?"
"Yeah I do," Joey told her.
"Well, I suppose I can't do any worse than you or Charlie."
"Charlie?"
"She failed her first driving test."
"Oh, please do tell?" Joey asked with a mischievous glint in her eye.
"She was so over confident the day of her driving test and thought it was going to be a breeze, that when she released the handbrake and the car started to go down the hill, she didn't realise until too late that she hadn't even turned the ignition on and so she failed her test on the spot."
Joey burst out laughing and Ruby joined her.