Thank you for your reviews for the first chapter! Here's the second, with a little bit of plot and a little of what happened to Gene…

There were things Alex did after Gene died. Little rituals, little rules that she obeyed as though they might bring Gene back. She never slept in the bed in her flat any more- their bed. She took the sofa instead. Half of the bed still smelled of whisky and vanilla and she didn't want to overpower it with her perfume or ever have to wash the sheets. If she was ever having a bad day, she would kneel beside his half of the bed, move her face as close to the pillow as she dared and inhale. It was like he was there with her.

She didn't call in people into her office the way Gene had done when it was his, choosing instead to approach people at their desks when she wanted them. When anybody needed her, she would get up from her desk and talk to them at the door. She hated using the office and felt uncomfortable in replacing him in his job. She missed him so much.

XXX

There was an excited knocking on the door of Alex's office. She looked up in surprise. It had been months since anyone in CID had generated any enthusiasm over anything.

It was Ray, a sort of desperate excitement glowing in his eyes. He pushed open the door and stood in the doorway.

"Health department," he breathed, indicating the phone on Alex's desk. Her eyes widened as she grappled for the phone.

Ray closed the door and sat back down at his desk, but he kept looking up through the vertical blinds of the office at DCI Hunt as she listened through the receiver and jotted in a notebook. He looked away and caught Chris' eye. This would be it. If the Department of Health had received more information, then that was a breakthrough.

Finally Alex hung up and opened the door. She stood in the doorway, tall and imposing, like the Guv had half a year ago. Her mouth was set in a grim line but her eyes were sparkling.

"Five months."

"Similar letters, Ma'am?" Ray asked.

"Yes. Same type of paper so far as they can tell, no fingerprints, no biohazards inside. 'Five months, AL' was all it said."

"So they didn't say what they meant by 'untold misery'? Or give an exact date?" said Shaz.

"No," said Alex, walking up to the whiteboard behind her old desk. She took a red marker pen and wrote on the board the deadline.

"Shall we review the case?" she asked rhetorically, but she was still gratified to hear a few people murmur their assent. She pointed to the centre of the board to two red letters. For months they had seemed to follow her around CID. They were the reason she was a widow.

"AL. Animal League. Scum," said Ray, not bothering to hide his disgust.

"They're a terrorist group believed to be based in London," said Shaz, as though she had swallowed a file. "Founded about two years ago by Robert Langley in order to stop animal testing for any reason."

"Yeah," said Chris as Shaz paused for breath, "They started off by being a pain rather than doing any terrorism, like. Illegal protests, small riots, that sort of thing. Then they turned nasty."

"They started to use bombs. Threaten scientists, then burn up their houses. Kill whole families in the name of their cause," continued Ray, "but they stick to bombs."

"Then it all changes," said Alex gravely. Her eyes sought the next part of the story, as did everyone else's. Written in green in the top right-hand corner of the whiteboard.

Cardoxymide.

The Wonder Drug, it had been called in the papers. Some of the more excitable publications had compared the discovery of Cardoxymide as something akin to the discovery of germ theory or DNA structure.

"It's used to treat babies with conjugated…congentiful…" began Chris.

"Congenital," sighed Alex.

"Yeah, that- heart problems," he finished. "Before they're born. It works really well, no side effects or anything."

"Dead cheap to make as well," said Shaz, "but then-"

"Angela Burntwood," Ray said, exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke. Her name was written on the whiteboard too.

"She was a scientist," Shaz said, determined not to be interrupted again, "working on developing the drug. She was due a load of money for it, once the drug was legalised. But then she got cheated out of it."

"Well not really," said Ray, ignoring Shaz's look of annoyance, "she just didn't read the small print of her contract."

"They didn't think she deserved the same cut because she was a woman," snapped Shaz, spitting the last word out. Alex watched her colleagues carefully. Emotions were beginning to rise already. She didn't want to have to referee a fight.

"Whatever happened," said Alex, raising her voice above Ray and Shaz's so that they stopped arguing and looked at her, "it gave Dr. Burntwood a reason to want revenge on them."

"She was a blowing whistler."

Alex stared at DS Skelton. "Whistleblower, Chris."

"She went to the Sun," said Ray, "with a load of pictures showing animals being mistreated and abused. Said she took them in the labs when they were testing Cardoxymide on them."

"The pictures were disgusting," said Shaz quietly.

Not quietly enough. Ray suddenly stood up and started shouting at her.

"That still doesn't excuse what they did! Those bastards-"

"Easy Ray," said Alex, using her 'hostage negotiator' voice. Chris had stood up as though prepared to defend Shaz, then sat down as Ray recovered himself and mumbled an apology to Shaz.

"So, the AL noticed the story," Alex went on, "they now have a specific cause rather than just general 'stop animal testing' which means they can now make demands."

"And give deadlines," muttered Chris.

"They poisoned bread sold at Sparrow's Grocers. They figured in their twisted way that some pregnant women will buy the bread, catch salmonella and that will somehow be punishment for the government allowing Cardoxymide to be prescribed," said Shaz.

"Bloody stupid," said Ray in disgust, "it's not just birds up the duff that eat that bread, its all sorts, blokes and kids too. And of the women that are pregnant, how many of them are going to be on this drug anyway?"

"Doesn't matter," said Alex pointedly and Ray felt ashamed. He hid it by taking one final drag on his cigarette and stubbing it out on the desk rather than in an ashtray.

"The bread all came from the same factory," said Shaz and Alex pointed to another word on the board, "owned by the Scott family. Forensics taken suggests that the contamination took place there."

Shaz stopped talking. She looked up at Chris, silently pleading with him to take over. Chris did so reluctantly. The worst part was coming up.

"They denied all knowledge of any bioterrorism. We can't prove they did it so we can't form a case. But then Harry Solomon, the security guard, told us that someone would pay him to not do his job properly some nights. He knows when the next night is."

Chris stopped and looked at Ray. He couldn't continue.

"So we go. All of us lie in wait at the factory," Ray said, and everyone understood what he meant by 'all', "we don't confront them there. We-"

He broke off and looked to Alex, hoping she would take over, but she wasn't even looking at him. She was bending over, supporting herself by leaning on her old desk, her eyes shut and facing the floor.

"We didn't confront them there," she whispered, "we followed them to-"

She broke off too. And the story was left unfinished because Alex physically couldn't remember the next part of the story and for the others, the memories were too painful to recall.