The phone rang at 6.00am. Dempsey reached out to answer it but it wasn't near him. He threw the covers off and walked over to answer the courtesy alarm call. As he put the phone down he looked at Harry waking in the bed.

"Morning babe" he sounded disgustingly bright Harry thought. "You want breakfast?"

"Coffee" Makepeace stretched wondering why she felt so tense then relised she'd spent the whole night holding tight to the bed edge.

"Up here or downstairs?" asked Dempsey as he slipped a shirt on.

"Anywhere" she sat up and looked at him "You're exceptionally cheerful this morning" they may not have shared many hotel beds but Dempsey often slept on her sofa after a late night and she was quite used to the sight of him wandering around with just a towel slung round his hips, eating toast and drinking coffee.

"We slept together" his eyes danced

"We slept in the same bed" she pointed out

"Still felt good to me" he couldn't stop grinning

'And me' thought Harry "Breakfast downstairs" she decided would be far more prudent.

At 7.30 they pulled into the local factory. Inspector O'Malley glanced out of the window; he noticed the Porsche and did a double take. He wasn't impressed.

"DS Makepeace and Lieutenant Dempsey here to see Inspector O'Malley" Harry introduced themselves and they were showed to the second floor office. They discussed their needs with Inspector O'Malley and he offered them a desk, computer and DC Quinn available to research for them.

At the same time they were introduced to the rest of the office. Half an hour later the door opened and a tall curvy police woman with short dark wavy hair came in. Dempsey walked over to her and introduced himself, and when Makepeace coughed, her as well.

The woman introduced herself as Clarissa Sullivan, also a sergeant. She walked back and forth across the office, Makepeace thought to get one paperclip at a time. If it was designed to attract Dempsey's eye it worked; when he eventually stopped looking through the Irish photo file and watched her she brought him a coffee over and started to flirt. Makepeace was furious. Clarissa noticed that also; "How come they allow married couples to work together in the Met? Over here if you're married you're on different teams"

Dempsey smiled "Oh we ain't really married – that's just the undercover bit"

Makepeace felt that gut wrenching thud in her stomach - so much for this role meaning anything else. At times like this she failed to understand Dempsey and the only way she could cope was to dig deep into work, she asked DC Quinn about the men on a couple of photos. He told her about their past records, drug use and where they could usually be found. Makepeace asked Dempsey for the car keys.

Clarissa spoke up "Hey is that your Porsche?"

"Yeh, sexy don't you think?" Dempsey asked her.

Clarissa suddenly 'remembered' all the background reading she had done and volunteered to show Dempsey where to find a lead.

Makepeace gave up at that point, "May be you could show me Quinn, if you have an unmarked car that is?"

"No problem" Quinn was chuffed to bits; he reminded Harry of Fry.

Makepeace and Quinn had a successful morning and went back to the offices. Dempsey and Clarissa were still out, Harry suspected they were holed up in a pub somewhere, she was right.

When they eventually came back Dempsey was not interested in Harry's leads.

"Clarissa says we should be looking at Fitzgerald and making our way down to the south coast" he said

"Oh does she" Makepeace was cool

Dempsey recognised the ice queen, but thought he could handle her. "Yeh, if we go down to Cork…"

"If we pay a visit to Ryan and Sean Tierney on the north side of town" Makepeace interjected.

"If we take the advice of our colleagues" Dempsey was annoyed

"Then we will follow up the lead Quinn and I picked up this morning"

"Then we will prepare to go on a journey as suggested by Clarissa"

"No Lieutenant"

"No Sergeant"

"I'm going to see where my leads take me, after I've had something to eat. No doubt you've eaten"

"You're right, we've eaten. It's your lead, you follow it"

Makepeace left the office. Quinn was unsure what to do; he decided to follow about a minute later.

Dempsey asked for some maps, and looked back through the files they had brought from England.

Inspector O'Malley came asked Clarissa to follow up a lead on the current case she was attached to and about 4.00 with all his preparations done Dempsey made his way back to their hotel.

By six Harry still hadn't come back, James went for a walk taking in the famous Dublin sights and at 7.30 decided to change for dinner. At 8.00 he went down to the bar, he didn't quite know the best way to track Harry down. He ordered a drink, and 8.30 took the table he had reserved. He wondered what Harry had found that could have kept her, and considered going back up to the room to look for the phone number of the police offices but just then Clarissa walked in.

She made her way over to reception and asked for Dempsey; they pointed her to the restaurant, and on finding Dempsey Clarissa sat herself opposite him "Hi" she smiled.

He smiled back, and asked her if she had eaten. She explained that she had just finished a possible IRA crime and was starving. Starving or ravenous was a description Dempsey identified with, he suggested they ordered dinner and Clarissa thought the world had just fallen nicely on her plate.

They had just finished the main course when Harry came looking for Dempsey. She saw him sitting, eating, laughing with Clarissa and turned back around. Makepeace felt as numb as a relative who'd just been told of the death of a loved one, then as the numbness faded and a searing pain knifed it's way into her instead she felt absolutely and utterly foolish. Ordering a sandwich to take to their suite she went upstairs, although she tried Makepeace couldn't swallow any food and chucked it in a bin.

When the wine bottle was empty Dempsey remembered that he had been concerned about Harry, and asked Clarissa for the office phone number. He rang and was told by the duty sergeant that Quinn had brought the car back an hour ago.

He asked at reception and discovered that Harry had ordered room service also nearly an hour ago. He ran upstairs and knocked on the door.

"Harry it's me"

She opened the door.

"So you've blown our cover, done no bloody work and picked up an Irish Cop"

"What the heck?"

"You've eaten, not once but twice today whilst I've been working, tailing, talking, delving, and doing a darn sight more leg work than you Lieutenant"

Dempsey knew he was in trouble because of the 'Lieutenant' bit. "Well I got kinda hungry waiting for you, you didn't leave any messages"

"I was working"

"What do think I was doing?"

"I've no idea! It looked to me like the wrong type of leg work Dempsey"

"I've done paperwork and booking our next hotel and…"

"Clarissa Dempsey, Clarissa"

"Oh I left her downstairs, I'd better go and say goodnight"

"Just don't…"

He was gone. Harry rang down for an extra blanket, which arrived just as Dempsey was making his way back as well. He stood behind the porter as Harry opened the door. She took the blanket from the Porter and handed it to Dempsey, then threw a pillow onto the sofa and got into bed. She buried her head into the pillow afraid that he might see her tears.