As Amy lay in bed that night she thought of Alex. He had been playing constantly on her mind since she had left the message on his answering machine. The only time she hadn't thought of him was when she had been talking with Ned. She wasn't sure if this was because there was something about Ned that she really liked, or because she was so afraid of what kind of a copper Barron was, and just how close she had already become involved with him through that simple robbery. But Ned seemed to have an uncanny ability to calm her. He had told her secrets, secrets which could put both their careers and their lives in danger, but he had such a purity to him that just drew her in. Maybe they were the same kind of cops. It was a small comfort in the terrifying world of Homicide.

As they had left the Latin Quarter earlier that night, and walked out to Ned's car, Amy had spotted Barron talking on his mobile phone out in the front courtyard. They exchanged just a fleeting glance but the death stares he continued to give her still shook her insides. As she climbed into the passenger seat of Ned's car, she wondered if Ned could smell the fear that suffocated her senses. She felt riddled with the intensity of working in such close proximity of someone who was crooked. Perhaps that was why Ned was such a comfort. He seemed to protect her and care for her welfare the way Alex used to.

As they drove back to Amy's flat, Ned seemed intent on continuing Amy's Homicide crash course. "So who did he pin the drycleaners robbery on the other day?" Ned asked with a chuckle, as if he was just so used to occurrences like this and so accustomed to having to live with the way Barron and the like worked that he could do nothing but laugh about it anymore. Amy turned to face him as he drove, adjusting her seatbelt as she did so.

"I don't know details," Amy shrugged. "I was just dragged along for the ride. All I know is his name is Dylan McMahon." She surrendered the information, hoping that it would entice Ned to spill more juicy scandal.

It did. Ned nodded his head knowingly as he drove, still chuckling his desperate hopeless chuckle. "Ohhhh yep," he replied. "Dylan McMahon. One of the usuals. Barron's totally got the hots for his chick. Did you see her there too?"

"Blonde, beautiful, a lot to say?"

"That's the one. Laura Grimaldi," he nodded. "You'll see a lot of her. And not just with Dylan."

Amy caught on immediately, thankful she hadn't totally lost her touch. "She from your neck of the woods is she?" Amy asked knowingly, referring to his days on the streets of St Kilda, where the streetwalkers ruled the footpaths.

"Oh yeah," Ned confirmed as he pulled up to her flat smoothly. "She does business with a lot of the coppers around here. But none more than Barron."

"Why is that?" Amy felt embarrassed that she still needed to ask questions. If she were back in Mt Thomas, where she knew everyone on the books inside out and upside down, she never needed to ask questions. It was always others asking her for the answers to life mysteries. But not here.

Ned shrugged, suddenly seeming to tire of talking shop. "She's got a drug habit to feed, knows too many of the wrong people and has a boyfriend whose spent more time on the inside than he has on the outside." He looked at her as though he couldn't believe she hadn't already figured it out.

Amy nodded solemnly, trying not to let the revelations swish around in her head too much. Sometimes Melbourne and all its dark little secrets gave her headaches. Behind her eyes she ached, and all that could cease the throbbing was to close them. So she thanked Ned for dropping her home again and wondered inside to her little flat with its musty smell and tiny rooms. In a way though, she was almost grateful she lived on the first floor – it meant she didn't have to climb any stairs.

As she laid under the covers as the clock ticked towards midnight Amy kept her eyes closed, trying to get Alex off her mind. She wasn't sure which was worse. The thought of Barron doing shonky dealings for his own benefit or the thought of Alex getting her message and not calling back.

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you

Amy rolled over to face the opposite wall of her tiny bedroom and squeezed her eyes shut even more in a desperate bid to wipe Alex from her mind. But she couldn't. If he hadn't returned her call, she had to assume he didn't feel the same desperate longing for her that she did for him. He was over her already. He'd moved on. She was out of his life.