Fifteen.

The theatre was once again in darkness, or at least, it was from the entrance hall onwards. Scott had arrived via taxi, fully expecting to be greeted in the car park. Instead he had found himself alone outside the deserted building, and feeling annoyed, had let himself in.

"Hello?" an eerie silence was his only reply, "Mr. Cannaby."

As he stood in the empty lobby looking at the shuttered concessions stand he heard a noise from inside the auditorium, the sound of scraping, like a chair being pulled across a hard floor. He walked towards it.

The hall was almost completely black with only the footlights beside the seating lighting up the aisles and a dull white beam casting down onto the stage.

Scott froze. Lying directly underneath the beam was a body. It was Cannaby.

"Mr. Cannaby?" Scott ran the rest of the way, taking the small steps onto the stage two at a time, "Can you hear me?"

The man had taken a blow to the back of the head, and blood matted his hair. As Scott knelt down to try and feel for a pulse, the cleaner's eyes flickered and then opened.

"Can you hear me Mr. Cannaby?" Scott tried again.

"Sergeant?" he croaked in reply, the one word clearly exhausting and confusing him.

"Yes, sergeant Scott, you called me here remember?"

He didn't really seem like he did. Scott pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, pressing it to the back of the head wound.

"Hold this tightly all right? I'm going to phone an ambulance."

Scott stood up again, fumbling for his mobile phone, he pulled it out and glanced at the screen. No signal, perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. He moved around with it held aloft, trying to vein to regenerate some connection.

"Come on, come on you bloody stupid thing," he muttered angrily, "Yes!"

Just as a single bar flickered up onto the screen, there was a loud bang and a bright beam of light illuminated the entire stage and blinded him. In an instant, any initial thoughts he'd had of Mitch's injury being an accident vanished.

As he spun around wildly looking for a patch of darkness to let his eyes readjust, something hit him over the head and with his stomach lurching and his head spinning in pain, he tumbled over onto the floor.

"What the – ," the blow hadn't been as harsh as that dealt to Mitch, partly he suspected with a policeman's logic, because he had been busy twisting and turning, but there was still no mistaking the sticky sensation of blood on his fingers as he moved to press his hand against the gash.

"Daniel," the voice took him by surprise, it was female, soft and calm. He peered into the brightness, a silhouette was walking steadily towards him, "Daniel."

He frowned, as she stopped before him,

"Miss Saddler?"

She smiled on hearing her name, obviously pleased he'd remembered,

"Yes."

"What are you doing? You need to call an ambulance," with a great deal of effort Scott pushed himself up into a semi-sitting position.

"He wasn't a very good boyfriend," she commented sadly, glancing across at Mitch.

"What?"

She looked back at him,

"He attacked me. You know he did."

That was it then. She was loopy, or barking as he had earlier, and correctly, stated about Lorraine Miller. Clearly there was a disposition within the area to turn into a crazed murderess whenever slighted. Scott took a deep breath, he needed to keep things calm,

"Mary, he's bleeding pretty heavily. He needs to get to a hospital."

She regarded him with curiosity, as if seeing him properly for the first time,

"And you saved me."

"Yes, yes I did. I'm a policeman, it's my job. You don't need to punish Mitch, we will do that. He will be charged."

"I wanted to show you."

Scott frowned, his head was splitting and her short and rather vague sentences weren't helping the situation. He pushed himself up onto his knees,

"Show me what?" he asked through gritted teeth,

She smiled widely, lifting something up from behind her, something that caught the glare of the lights and half-blinded him again. It was a golf club. He winced, no wonder it had hurt so much.

"I can look after myself if I have to."

Slowly, Scott forced himself into a wobbly standing position,

"I'm sure you can," he touched his head gingerly, "I know you can."

"But I want you to love me."

It was a simple statement, said very matter-of-factly, and for a second Scott thought he had misheard her,

"Do what?"

"I want you to love me."

"Look, you could've just asked me for a drink, you didn't need to beat your ex up in front of me."

Her face crumpled in disappointment,

"I didn't want your pity. You don't need to protect me," she let the club fall to her side, her fingers still tight around the handle, "Just be with me."

She moved towards him, arms outstretched to wrap around him. He caught the golf club instead, not in any mood to continue with the games,

"Listen," he snapped, "This isn't going any further. Mary Saddler, you are under arrest for assault, you do not have to say anything – ," as his free hands went to the cuffs tucked habitually into his back pocket, Mary wrenched free of his grasp with surprising speed and aggression, turning the club towards him, holding it above her head like a hatchet.

He just managed to catch it as she brought it down towards him, ignoring the pain as it cracked painfully against his hand, simply grateful it wasn't his head.

Still gripping on, she screamed loudly, a red mist descending as she battled, trying to pull it from him. However hard she tried though, Scott was still the stronger of the two, despite being sleep-deprived, concussed and in pain. He gripped it tightly in both hands, pulling it about so that Mary's only option was to spin around with it. As she careered wildly across the black painted floorboards, the stage gave way to thin air and she collapsed down into the front row of the seats landing heavily. Scott was straight down with her, hands working frantically at the cuffs.

As the click of the mechanism echoed throughout the hall, the double doors banged open loudly and uniformed officers flooded the aisles followed breathlessly by Barnaby.

"Scott?"

He skidded to a halt as his eyes fell on the prone figure laid on the stage. His heart skipped a beat.

"Scott!"

"Sir?" the voice didn't come from the man on the stage but to his left, down in the seats. His eyes flicked in that direction. There, walking towards him with a hand pressed to the back of his head, was his sergeant. The smile of relief was automatic, as was the following grimace of worry.

"You're hurt." It was more a statement than a question. Scott shrugged, letting his chief pull his hand away by the cuff of his jacket. The DS heard the intake of breath, clearly it wasn't good.

"Probably looks worse than it is sir," he commented, suddenly embarrassed by the fuss. He turned round to find Barnaby fixing him with a strange expression he couldn't quite read, fondness? Respect? Bemusement? More than likely it was the last. Finally the older officer nodded, placing a fatherly hand on his sergeant's shoulder, steering him gently towards the door, for once ignoring the melee of the crime scene.

"Well," he said steadily, anticipating the protest that would follow, "Let's just let the doctors establish that shall we Scott?"

The dissent was obvious.

"Yes sir."