Author's note: I have taken poetic licence with the features on Tommy's iPad. I am aware that physics makes any such setting impossible without an attachment but reality would spoil my fun...

They strolled sombrely back towards the city leaving the crowds outside the ground clamouring for buses and taxis. Tommy had the Record secured in his inside jacket pocket. When he had flicked through it and seen the markings he had known instantly that Roo was sending them important information. It was impossible to decipher there so they had agreed to go back to the apartment and decide on the next steps. Tommy grumbled impatiently about the crowd and then became sullen.

"It's not your fault," Barbara said earnestly as she took his hand, "we weren't expecting a teenage girl."

"Why not? We should've been open to any possibility. I was too distracted by your interest in huge footballers with bulging muscles to think straight."

Tempted to drop his hand she instead gripped it harder. "No, you're not doing that. This is not my fault either. If we'd sprung her she would never have given us the information. What happened was how they planned it. She ensured it really was us then waited. Nothing we did would have changed it. And jealousy is not attractive Tommy." The tone of her last sentence was designed to send him a distinct message.

"Jealousy is part of who I am Barbara and you know it!" he retorted bitterly as he struggled to release his hand.

Barbara stopped walking but refused to let go of his hand forcing him to stop and look at her. She pulled him back out of the crowd, up against the window of a Porsche dealership. He was clearly angry. If she was still only his partner she would have told him, politely, to grow up and pull his upper class head in. Now that they were lovers it was important to put an end to his insecurities and petty resentments.

"Yes but you're better than that as a policeman, as a friend and as my…lover. Loyalty is part of who I am but if you don't understand that after ten years of me traipsing faithfully around behind you and supporting you through all your sufferings then whatever we have here is never going to work." She dropped his hand and looked down at the ground.

Tommy was shocked. He had not expected her to take his words literally. He pulled her into a tight embraced and hugged her tightly. "Oh Barbara, I know, I'm sorry. I've never doubted your loyalty and I know you were only joking with me."

She leaned back to look at him. "I'll never cheat on you Tommy. Even when you got married and I tried those dating agencies most of the blokes were losers but even if they hadn't been they weren't you. I can't love anyone else!"

For once Tommy had no words to accurately say what he felt. It was a bold admission but he knew it was true. Barbara was strong enough to love him totally, the way he had wanted Helen and Deborah to love him. More importantly she was resilient enough to put up with his possessiveness and temper and ground him back in reality. He did not feel worthy of that type of love. "Even when I am a fool?"

"Especially when you are a poncy, aristocratic fool with no idea about real life."

He could see the smile in the corner of her mouth. "That's why I need you then," he said before he kissed her lovingly.

They walked on silently, arm-in-arm through the city which was still alive with the noise and movement of young people enjoying life. The red digital clock on top of a building taunted them with the promise of a new day in less than half an hour. Barbara knew the answer but she was compelled to ask. "Should we phone Davo now or wait until the morning?"

"I don't like being outsmarted by a nine year old. This message was for us and I think we will be able to solve it. No one will be interested at this time on a Friday night. It's not as if we have a location or a suspect. You and I can have a look then by morning we might have more to go on."

Back at the hotel Tommy retrieved his laptop, iPad and pulled a pair of black framed reading glasses from his case. The sharp edges gave him an intellectual and serious guise that Barbara found alluring. "How long have you had those?" she asked with a smile.

"For three weeks but I try not to use them," he said very quietly. Tommy thought his glasses were a sign of weakness, a loss of function that was the start of a decline into old age.

His embarrassment made Barbara like the glasses even more. "They make you look incredibly sexy, like some sort of charismatic professor."

Tommy grinned at her. "Some sort of fantasy?" he asked impishly, "I'll happily wear them to bed if we can solve this."

She had always found the way he grinned at her erotic but now that she knew what waited behind the grin she struggled to stay focussed. This was not the time to tumble into bed no matter how much she wanted it. "Then let's start before we get carried away. We need to find Roo!"

With a deep breath Tommy snapped back into his professional mode. "KoolCat, or maybe Roo, has written 1857 on the page talking about the history of Geelong Football Club, and they've underlined 1859. Now go through the programme page by page and copy out the letters exactly onto the PC while I try to figure out the key. It has to be those dates."

"Is there any connection or is it just coincidence that Sheffield was the oldest club in England and that's where Roo lived?"

"I thought coincidence but to be honest I'm just not sure any more."

Fifteen minutes later Barbara was finished. She had checked twice but had all the notations transferred. "Done. There were a lot more underlined letters than those circled but the last few are interesting. I put the circled ones in bold so we can see them easier. At the end I have a word then some sort of number."

"Oh? What?" Tommy was instantly alert.

"Clear AFP 345-16784-547 but the rest of it has no recognisable words."

"Clear? I think that means exactly that. The information following is not encoded. It is some sort of number. Too long for a phone number."

"Looks like a filing number or something."

"AFP, I wonder if that's the Australian Federal Police."

"Makes sense. Can you work out the rest?"

"Copy and paste it onto another page. The simplest key is two because it's the difference in years. We'll try that first. So add two letters so A becomes C etc."

Tommy leant over her shoulder while they typed a new set of letters underneath the first row of the originals. "Nothing," she said disappointedly, "it's still gobbledy-gook."

"Try two letters behind."

She typed in the first ten letters. "Nah."

"Pull all the circled letters out separately." He watched while Barbara duly copied them. It was a familiar and comforting feeling working together but it was even more special now. Watching her work he knew he wanted her by his side every day, making decisions about the estate and their future. His fear was that she would not want to be part of his world beyond the Met.

"Still the same. Maybe the circles are the start of sentences."

Tommy dragged his mind back to the task at hand. "Good idea, break it up that way and we'll work on the first one. Once we get a pattern the rest will be easy."

"Nah, too short for sentences. Do you think these might be names?" she suggested when she saw a list of shortish words developing.

"Yes, I do," he agreed, "what key would he have used? Try 21 numbers forward and back."

She looked at him. "Maybe you can count that far. Besides how does that differ to five back?"

"You're right; the maximum distance will be thirteen. I guess we can try all of them."

"Can't you rig that on a spreadsheet of something? And what if it's not that simple?"

"It has to do with the dates I'm sure. It has to be simple enough for us to decipher or it defeats the point."

"Number 26? That was Tommy's number," she said enthusiastically.

"Er, no I don't think so. How many letters in the alphabet Barbara?"

"Yeah, we'd be back to scratch or would it be minus one?"

They puzzled over it for another hour trying different combinations. Barbara started to yawn. "Why don't we leave it until the morning when our heads are clearer?"

"You go. I'll try a bit longer," Tommy answered. He could feel they were on the cusp of solving it.

She stayed with him as long as she could but a little after four o'clock she started to fall asleep. Tommy looked across loving at her and nudged her awake. "Go to bed Barbara, I'll be along soon, I promise."

Barbara decided to have a warm shower. She kissed him goodnight then wandered off to the bathroom. As the water ran over her she smiled as she thought about Tommy in his glasses trying so hard to figure it out. He wanted to solve the case so badly that it was starting to gnaw at him, which was never good, but when he was like that he had a raw energy that she had always admired. It was rare for him to be outwitted, let alone by a boy. She knew he would work it out, he always did.

Tommy watched her shower. He stood leaning against the bathroom door unconsciously chewing on the arm of his glasses, taking in every curve and every perfect imperfection of her as she stood beneath the cascading water. Becoming lovers had almost been too easy after that first awkward kiss. They intuitively understood each other's needs and had quickly become comfortable and confident to explore their desires. He stripped off his clothes and tossed them haphazardly back into the bedroom. He moved to the end of the rainfall shower and stood as nonchalantly as he could against the wall. "May I join you?"

Barbara was startled but when she saw him standing there naked she smiled. "Yes."

Tommy soaped his hands then ran them slowly over her back. "I missed you."

"I've only been gone five minutes."

"Hmm, but I realised that was too long. I couldn't focus without you. I never could. I've always needed you since our first case."

"You just think that. You'd cope."

"Don't ever make me find out." He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her so tenderly that it sent shivers up her spine.

Almost an hour later he again kissed her tenderly as they lay together and watched the jet black skies begin to fade. "We should get some sleep but I thought of something. I want to ring Mother."

"You thought of your mother while we were..."

"No! I thought of it before, that's why I came into the bathroom. But one thing led to another and..."

"I'm glad they did," she said before she kissed him.

"Me too. This is definitely better." Tommy gave her another quick kiss then hopped out of bed and retrieved his iPad. He settled back into bed propped up against the cool silken bedhead. He ran his fingers through his hair to straighten it and dialled his mother.

Barbara assumed he had been intending to phone and had been cuddled up to his hip. Once she realised he was Skyping she scowled at him then wriggled away out of line of sight much to his amusement.

"Good evening Mother. How are you?"

"Tommy! Improving slowly thank you. Peter and Judith are both here fussing after me but it makes me feel old. You look wonderfully relaxed. You have some good news for me I take it?"

Tommy was puzzled. "Not really. We still haven't found the boy but he's alive. He sent us a..."

"Hello big brother," Peter said as his face suddenly appeared on the camera. He frowned then started grinning and turned away from the screen. "Judith, come quickly Tommy's shagging Barbara on Skype!"

"Peter!" Tommy and his mother yelled together in the same horrified and admonishing tone.

Tommy looked over apologetically at Barbara who had turned scarlet. She pulled the sheet over her head and sunk from view.

"Oh Barbara wait," his mother Dorothy called out, "I think it's wonderful news."

Barbara crawled her way out the bottom of the bed and turned around and glared accusingly at Tommy. She arched her eyebrows requesting an explanation. Before Tommy could speak Judith's voice came out of the small speaker. "Hello you two. Where's Barbara?"

Tommy suddenly remembered he had altered the iPad settings when he was taking photographs earlier this morning. "Sorry everyone, I had my camera set to wide angle when I took some photos of the harbour. I must have forgotten to turn it back. Barbara, I'm dreadfully sorry. I would never have done that to you deliberately."

He looked so pathetic and embarrassed that Barbara could not stay angry with him. That did not however mean this was the end of the conversation. How could she ever face his family again now that they knew she had been intimate with their son and brother?

"I am so happy for you both," Dorothy called out, "the way you moped around when you were here Tommy it was obvious how you felt. I told you that you might be surprised if you told Barbara. He was scared that you'd reject him dear, but I knew you never would."

Barbara watched Tommy turn red and look at her forlornly. Oddly she felt a surge of love for him despite being distressed that he had discussed her with his mother. She had told him earlier that she would only ever love him. What was the point of hiding it? She sighed and pulled on her tee-shirt, tried to straighten her hair, then climbed back into bed and snuggled up beside him. "Hiya," she said as she waved self-consciously at three pairs of curious eyes. Tommy's arm came protectively around her shoulders and he kissed the top of her head. She knew this meant a lot to him.

"Welcome to our family Barbara," Judith said gaily.

"You're good for my brother," Peter said sincerely, "I can be an idiot, as he will constantly tell you, but I'm glad you've finally worked out you're perfect for each other."

"Have you set a date for the wedding?" Dorothy asked hopefully.

Barbara had not even thought about that even being a possibility. She was not sure if his mother was truly as pleased as she was trying to sound. "No! We're not getting married! I could never..." She stopped when she saw the pain in Tommy's eyes. "...even contemplate it until we find the missing boy."

When he exhaled slowly he realised he had been holding his breath. He tightened his hold around her shoulder. This conversation had not gone to plan and he was annoyed by his brother but more so by his mother. "I think I can manage my own proposal Mother, when the time is right," he spat angrily, "now I actually rang for a reason. Do you remember that book Father had on Bletchley Park?"

"I know it," Peter said, "it had a lot of interesting things about cryptography."

"That's the one. Could you fetch it please? I want to see if it has anything about dates as code keys."

"What do you have?" Peter asked.

Tommy sighed at his brother. "Two years 1857 and 1859. Now can you fetch the book please Peter?"

"Don't dismiss me as if I'm a fool, Tommy. I gather plus or minus two didn't work."

"No, neither did eight," Tommy said thinking Peter would soon tire of the game.

"Three or five?"

"No, I even tried three then five but that didn't work either."

"What are you two talking about?" their mother asked.

Peter frowned then explained, "one plus eight equals nine plus five equals fourteen plus seven equals twenty one so two plus one equals three. 1859 adds up to five."

Judith joined in the conversation giving Barbara visions of the family sitting around the fire solving conundrums. Peter stroked his chin. "What if you eliminate the common numbers and just use seven and nine?"

Tommy frowned at Barbara. "Did we try that?"

"I don't think so. Talk amongst yourselves I'll be back in a minute." Barbara climbed carefully out of the bed and retrieved Tommy's laptop. She returned just in time to hear him hiss at his mother, "of course I intend to propose, I'm not a complete fool Mother, but I'll do it in my own time. Barbara is hardly going to want to leap into this family is she, especially after tonight?"

She made a warning noise as she came through the door. "No, we hadn't, let me try it now."

Nobody spoke while she decoded a few letters. "No...oh hang on this might work. One word here says V_i_k_t_o_r."

"Keep going," Tommy encouraged her.

"Rodevski! It is a name. Oh yes Peter you're brilliant!"

"Excellent work Barbara," Tommy enthused. She pinched his leg below the camera line and he understood. "Thank you Peter, I think you just cracked the code and possibly the case for us."

"It wasn't very hard. Sometimes Tommy you try too hard to find what you think you should find or what you want to find and yet the real answer is right under your nose."

Tommy understood the thinly veiled message. "I'm getting much better at reality Peter. Now we must go and finish decoding this message. We'll be in touch. Good bye."

Barbara looked up and waved at the family who were bidding farewell. She felt connected to them in a way that fifteen minutes ago she would never have dreamt was possible but she was still annoyed at Tommy for having put her in that situation. She had not really considered much about the future beyond their time together in Sydney. She had vaguely imagined that back in London the pressures of life would be too great and their differences too stark. Now it appeared the family were thinking about her marrying him!

"Don't you ever do that again!" she said sternly, "what if I'd slipped under the covers to torment you and they'd seen me?"

Tommy was horrified at the suggestion. "You wouldn't have! Not while I was on the phone surely."

Barbara started to laugh. "You are so easy to shock sometimes Lord Puritan. No, I wouldn't but it would have served you right."

"I love you," he said sincerely.

"I know you do, for now."

"No, I mean it, I really do love you. I did before we started any of this but being with you, getting to know more about you, I've fallen more deeply in love with you than I ever thought I could love anyone."

Barbara was shocked by his words. If he said anything else; or if she had to reply she knew she would start crying. So she did the only thing that seemed appropriate, she kissed him. "Now, back to work. I meant what I said. We can't contemplate the future until we solve this case."