As ever, thank you to Feebee and Firebird for their wonderful support and reassurance …

-ooOoo-

"Austin?"

"Yeah, boss?"

"Send the message."

"Yeah, boss."

-ooOoo-

Millie sighed as she started up the central staircase rising within the impressive reception hall of the Fleischmann residence. Her mother had arrived already, apparently she was just about to leave the house when Millie called. Millie didn't ask why despite the early hour, her mother had a diary of social and charity commitments that would put most workaholics to shame with its relentlessness. She started early every day, today probably would have been swimming followed by a committee breakfast meeting for the local school, church, flower festival, art society, the list was endless.

"Darling, take these," Sondra had handed over two trays of homemade frozen lasagne, "one for you and Max, and another for Georgie … and Carly when she gets home. They will need feeding, I doubt he'll eat much until then and who knows what she ..." she trailed off with a frown, unwilling to contemplate the horror Carly might be enduring.

"Er … thanks, Mum," Millie struggled to balance the two trays and the phone in her hand while shutting the door behind her mother.

"It's a good thing your father left for the office before me, you know how he never likes to see food leaving the house."

Millie frowned. Her mother was always so calm, she never rushed, never panicked, yet there was something in her tone that was disturbingly unfamiliar. She didn't seem to quite meet her daughter's eyes and had darted past Millie in the doorway, pushing her car keys into her handbag.

"Mum-"

"Where is he?"

"Oh, er … in the kitchen. I can't get him to talk. He hasn't spoken to me since Max left. I don't know what to say to him, I know I should … but it's all so close to home. I mean Carly and I-"

"I know," Sondra placed a hand on Millie's upper arm. "I know about you and Carly," she continued softly, "I know what a bully she can be but she was such a lost little girl when Joyce died. Maybe it wasn't the right decision to thrust you two together so much, but I couldn't leave them out in the cold, pining for her. Carly and Georgie needed us then and you haven't done too badly have you? Daddy and I had to let you fight your own battles and you are a better human being for it. You understand more for knowing her, I think." She paused for a moment, "I had a Carly too."

Millie chewed her lip. Devoted as she was to her mother and in awe of her capable serenity, every now and then she would drop a bombshell like this. Almost as if she was slotting missing pieces of a jigsaw into Millie's life, which would have been all well and good if Millie had known they were missing in the first place. Millie stared at her mother, confused at how could she have left her daughter at the mercy of Carly's cruelty. But this wasn't the time for that and there probably would never be a time. Perhaps the early adolescent bullying, the taunting had never been quite as bad as her adult self remembered, perhaps it was Sondra's way of letting Millie know that the world wasn't perfect and unpleasant people did exist within it. Millie nodded, accepting her mother's explanation, it didn't really seem to matter now. A father sat in the kitchen of his family home, the other two members missing, one forever and the other, well, no one could know the answer to that yet. That mattered.

"I'm going to take a look in Carly's room upstairs although I don't suppose there will be anything useful in there."

"Okay darling, I'll sit with Georgie."

"Can you stay for the rest of the day? It's just that I'd like to get down to Sun Hill and talk to the guys, find out what's going on."

"Of course, but can't you do that by telephone?"

"Yes, but I'd rather go in." The truth was Millie didn't quite believe Max was being completely honest with her and if she wanted to find out why, she would need to corner him and get answers face to face. She also didn't trust him not to heap the pressure on Georgie and the only way she could prevent that was by being his shadow.

The bedroom was stuffy. Unsurprising with the weather and also because Carly didn't use it anymore except for the occasional overnight stay. Like Millie's bedroom over in Epping, it held the physical mementos of Carly's childhood and teenage years but as she hadn't moved out until the year before it had also aged with her and moved from child into womanhood. Or perhaps it was simply a reflection of a family so different to her own. Carly didn't really have friends, so there were no cringe-worthy photographs taken in passport photo booths with terrible hair and awful make-up from fifteen years ago. There were no 'goodbye – friends forever' notes from school friends written on the last day of the last term, most of whom would never be seen again. It was neat and sparse, expensive but empty, styled but soulless. Standing there, taking in the remnants of Carly's past, she began to feel slightly nauseous. The stuffiness had finally got too much and Millie moved over to the window to open it. As she did, Georgie's voice floated up towards her. She strained to listen in, praying that he wouldn't notice. She didn't need to worry, Georgie was pacing the patio below, each step filled with an angry tension she could feel even up on the first floor.

"If this has go anything to do … Kiril, I swear, if anything happens to my girl … well, I don't care what it takes … just keep your end of the bargain."

Millie took a step back from the window as Georgie disconnected his call. Who was Kiril? And how was he involved? And, why the hell hadn't Georgie told her about him? She sank down onto Carly's bed, annoyance gripping her. She hated secrets. She really hated being lied to by people.

-ooOoo-

Max looked over to where Tommy, Grace and Mickey were gathered, all watching the wide screen television, quietly conferring between themselves.

"Well?" he asked briskly approaching them from behind, his hands on his hips. Grace jumped and Mickey spun round in surprise at his arrival. Only Tommy turned smoothly to his boss as if he had been aware of every step in their direction. His piercing blue eyes fixing on Max without a trace of emotion. Grace watched, slightly in awe. Max evoked something in everybody. Often annoyance, sometimes hate, generally unease, especially when he was being nice. But Tommy was never shaken, it was as if the two men had complete understanding of each other, an unspoken connection that made for a perfect working relationship. Never a cross word passed between them although they were far from drinking buddies either. "What have you got?"

"Well, Guv," Tommy began, "not a lot … except this." He waved the remote control and resumed the motion on the screen. A masked figure, presumably a man, appeared from the side of the screen. His eyes stared into the camera for a moment before the picture went blank.

Max turned his attention back to Tommy. "Anything from the other cameras?"

"All the same. I'd have to get down there to figure out how he managed to dodge each camera to disable them all like that, but that's what has happened. Slick. Somebody has put a lot of effort into abducting this woman. Nothing from this to go on."

"No, but I've got Nate Roberts going through the rest of the discs, maybe whoever it is slipped up on his recce and we'll find something there."

Mickey chuckled, "what's Nate done to deserve that?"

"He was walking too slowly," Max answered obscurely, leaving Mickey more confused than ever. "Tommy, go downstairs and get him to hurry up will you?"

"Sure."

As Tommy passed, Max took the remote control from him and rewound a couple of frames, staring into the eyes of Carly's probable abductor. "Who are you?" he asked to himself, searching what little could be seen of the face for any clue to identity. "Grace?"

"Yes, Guv?"

"Get the CCTV for the surrounding area. There must be some sign of him in the area, a man with a bag I suppose. I guess we wouldn't be lucky enough to be gifted a masked man wandering around Canley on one of the hottest days of the year."

Grace opened her mouth to object to being tasked with finding yet another needle in a haystack, but caught Mickey's sympathetic eye just in time to remind her that she would only bring on another barrage of abuse. Instead, "yes, Guv," was all she could mutter, retreating to her desk.

Mickey shifted awkwardly, the sole survivor without a task. "You know, Mickey, I'm willing to put money on that whoever this is," he wagged a finger at the screen, "is connected to Fleischmann. Disabling security cameras smacks of an inside job. Have a word with that snout of yours, find out who's been pissed off lately."

"She's not a snout. Lesley is the girlfriend of someone I helped out a bit, that's all."

"Which makes her a snout. She owes you."

"She's not into all this, Guv," Mickey persisted.

"Well, she is now.

-ooOoo-

"Millie! I didn't know you were on your way in." Max stood in the doorway of his office and pulled her back in with him, having leapt from behind his desk to intercept her before she could penetrate the depths of CID. "No one told me."

"That's because I didn't tell anyone. Why would I?"

"I thought you were going to stay with Georgie?"

"No," Millie said slowly as if talking to a small child, "I said I would ask Mum to sit with him while I came in here, to see how you are getting on."

"Oh, right. Well you could have called for that."

"Yeah, but there's something else."

"What?"

Millie bit her lip and leant back against a filing cabinet, knowing how satisfied Max was going to be about been proven right in his suspicions, but it had to be done. "There's definitely something Georgie isn't telling us. I overheard him talking outside to someone, someone called Kiril. He was making threats, as if he knew that this Kiril either had something to do with Carly's disappearance or knew something about it."

Max's eyes lit up at having been justified and although he fought to suppress the bubble of euphoria, it was impossible. "That's great. Good girl, Millie." That did it, the bubble popped as her eyes narrowed at what he thought passed for praise, instantly pulling him up short and shamefaced. "Sorry," he muttered, "didn't mean to sound … well … umm ..."

"Like you were petting a dog for bringing you your slippers?" she finished for him acidly. She held his stare for a few moments, punishing him while he solemnly waited for her anger to dissipate.

Eventually, she exhaled and slumped her shoulders. Once again, this wasn't the time for recriminations. Max also exhaled in relief, he'd got off lightly. "So, did you talk to Georgie about this?"

"No. I was going to but I thought I'd bring it in to you guys first. I figured that there must be a reason he didn't mention Kiril when we talked to him earlier. I thought maybe it would be better to find out who he is ourselves, without alerting any suspicion. I mean, if he is involved, whoever he is, we don't want to panic him into hurting Carly."

Max mulled over the next step. "Yeah, you're right."

"And also Max, don't you dare go at Georgie like bull in a china shop. You need me in on this, he won't respond to your tactics. You were too aggreessive with him earlier, more or less accusing him of being responsible for Carly going missing. He might have opened up if you had let me do the talking. Like we agreed," she finished pointedly.

Max looked at her sharply. If those words had come from any member of his team he'd ball them out, or make them regret them soon after with some unpleasant task. But with Millie, it was unthinkable to inflict such punishment. And anyway, she was right he had to concede. Perhaps if he had been gentler with the old man earlier, he might have given up 'Kiril'. "Yeah, maybe." He lifted a hand to her cheek, a rare moment of softness in the workplace. Without a doubt, she was his greatest weakness.

From the safety of the photocopier, Grace watched as Max belied his well practiced inhumanity. Out of the line of his sight, she watched his guilt turn to excitement, back to guilt, to indignation and finally into something she had never seen in him before. Tenderness, whether it was real or not she couldn't tell. She stared in confusion, forgetful that it wouldn't take much for his attention to turn towards her, unable to comprehend how just a couple of hours earlier he had encouraged another young woman to pour herself over him just so that he could get what he wanted. Yet here he was with Millie doing much the same. Grace's upper lip curled with disgust.

"Mickey? Grace? In here," Max barked out into the office. "Where's Tommy?" demanding when they entered.

"Haven't seen him since he went downstairs to chase up that CCTV," replied Mickey, not bothering to even try to cover for his Sergeant. Max rolled his eyes, that meant probably chatting up Kirsty Knight in the canteen.

"Well, Millie has a breakthrough lead for us," he announced unable to keep the pride from his voice, nodding to her to fill them in on what she had overheard.

When she had finished, he rubbed his hands together a little too gleefully for Millie's liking. "Grace, I want you to find out from Fleischmann's phone operator what number he was talking to and then who it belongs to. That might give us a full name. And Mickey, now you've got something concrete to ask your snout about."

"She's not a snout!" Mickey exclaimed in exasperation.

"Just do it Mickey."

Millie watched and listened. Why didn't this feel quite right? Why did it seem as if Max, Grace and Mickey already knew more about all this than they should have done by now?

-ooOoo-

"Carter."

"Max, it's Neil Manson."

"Guv!" Max didn't bother to hide his surprise as he rooted around in a desk drawer for his phone charger. "How's things?"

"Good. Very good. And with you?"

"Yeah, great. Busy. You didn't tell me how frustrating it is to manage this lot!" he joked.

"Well, you'd never have taken the job if I had," responded Manson lightly, "anyway, at least you don't have to manage the worst of the bunch."

Max was just about to ask Neil to explain when it dawn on him that the 'worst' was probably him. Instead he gave a little dry laugh, accepting his role at the butt of that joke. "So, what can I do for you?"

"I thought I'd better give you a heads up."

"On what?"

"I'll be coming in to Sun Hill later this morning."

"Right, well, it'll be good to see you, but we've got a lot on."

"It's not social, Max. I know about Fleischmann's daughter. He's been on our radar at SOCA for a long time now and it's likely there's a connection with what he's into. We've got information that could help with finding her. But it's bigger than that, Max. We know Fleischmann is in deep to some nasty characters that SOCA has been trailing for years but we haven't been able to get near enough to take them down. If Georgie has got into trouble with them, then we can er … persuade him to give them up. I'm not coming in to take over, only to assist. Pooling resources, sharing intelligence, that sort of thing. You'll stay as SIO, I won't interfere."

Max hesitated. "Do I have a choice?" Manson's silence told all. "Thought not. I guess we'll see you later," he said tightly.

"I'll be bringing a member of my team with me."

Great, thought Max, someone else to get in the way. "Fine, I'll arrange a desk for him."

"Her. And don't worry about her getting in the way, she knows her way round Sun Hill well enough. Oh, and by the way, I'll bring the Fleischmann file you requested on Tuesday. I hope you find it interesting."