Sorry for the delay - real life and all that...

SIR DAVID HILLIER

With his most successful team out of action, AC Hillier was busy trying to manage the Met's caseload of crimes that needed investigation. Despite Lady Asherton's heartfelt plea, he did not have time to chase DS Havers and sort out her love life. He smiled tightly at his phone. "I don't have any details, Lady Asherton, but I will make some enquiries and let you know... Yes, thank you. Please pass on my best wishes to Tommy."

He hung up and punched the button on his intercom. "Smithers, send for DC Nkata please."

BARBARA

Sometimes her job had advantages. Knowing her mobile signal could be traced, before leaving London, Barbara took extra precautions to ensure she would not be found easily. She purchased a cheap mobile pre-paid phone which ran on a different network to her Met phone. She diverted her mobile to the new number and left her Met phone switched off and prominently displayed on her kitchen bench. If Tommy or Winston did gain entrance to her flat, it would be visible.

She withdrew a large sum of cash from her local ATM. That would appear consistent for a trip to a relatively isolated island. She paid for a return train ticket to Glasgow using her credit card. It was open-ended, so she would be able to return it for an almost full refund within three months.

With her false trail laid, Barbara knew her movements were virtually untraceable, but to be sure she had gone to Euston Station in time for her planned train to Glasgow. In her old coat and carrying her usual backpack, she had made sure she was recorded on several of the CCTV cameras before disappearing into the crowd of travellers alighting from Birmingham. She shucked off the coat and dropped it into the near-empty backpack. Underneath she wore a nondescript floral blouse that was not her style but had been on the clearance rack at the Marks and Spencers near the hospital yesterday when she had been discharged.

Adding a pair of sunglasses and a soft floppy hat with a scarf tied around the brim, she moved with the crowd towards Euston Road. As she walked she folded her backpack and shoved it into the M&S shopping bag. It was a ten-minute stroll to Kings Cross. Barbara took care not to look up into any of the cameras along the route. She quickly found the Ladies and discarded her shirt in favour of a black shirt and grey jumper, and a cheap cap she had found in her wardrobe. The glasses went back in her bag inside the second plastic shopping bag from Tesco that usually lined her recycling bin. Happy that it would take Winston several hours to track her, she used cash in one of the ticket machines at Kings Cross Station to purchase her ticket to Scarborough.

TOMMY

It was three hours before Tommy had time to think. His doctor, although pleased that he was awake and cognisant, ordered x-rays, scans, and blood tests. A wardsman with garlicky tuna breath and no perception that Tommy's grunts were indicating he should stop speaking, wheeled his bed around the bowels of the hospital to the various rooms. After he was poked, pulled, twisted and left to wait for ages, he finally made it back to his room. His body may have been healing, but his temper was severely frayed.

"Tommy, how do you feel?"

"Fine, Mother."

"Is there anything you need?"

"Barbara."

"I've rung Sir David. He is going to contact her. I'm sure she will be here in a day or two."

Tommy sighed and closed his eyes. A nuance in her tone bothered him. "You know more than you've told me."

"No."

"Mother," he warned. "You said Barbara had issues. What issues?"

Dorothy sat by his bed and took his hand. Tommy twitched but did not pull away. "I overheard her talking to you. She loves you, Tommy."

"I know that."

"How?"

"I..." It was hard to explain, but he had felt it as they lay beside the wall, and he had a dim recollection Barbara had told him several times since. "I just do."

"I heard her talk to you about Helen. She said you were talking to Helen after you were stabbed. Barbara thinks it was Helen you asked to marry you, not her. She doesn't know you love her, Tommy."

He sighed and closed his eyes. The letter made much better sense now. "She does, she just doesn't believe it." He ran his hand through his hair. "Would you ring Winston please, and ask him to come here after work? And bring my mobile. The nurse couldn't find it."

WINSTON

Being summoned to Hillier was like being called to the principal's office. Winston tried to think how he might have offended someone. DI Green, who was temporarily in charge of Lynley's team, seemed happy with his work. As far as he knew, he had kept his nose clean in the run-up to his Sergeants exams. He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"DC Nkata to see the Assistant Commissioner," he announced to Hillier's guard dog.

"Wait here. He won't be long."

Five minutes later, DCI Longbottom scurried out of Hillier's door. He gave Winston a shrug of apology. Clearly, Hillier was not in his best mood.

"Nkata!"

Winston strode into the room trying to look confident. "Good morning, Sir."

Hillier waved at the chair in front of his desk. "Lady Asherton rang me to inform me that Inspector Lynley is awake and seems alert and functional."

Winston gave a relieved sigh and tried a slight smile. "That is excellent news, Sir."

"Let the team know please."

"Yes, Sir. Happily." Winston waited to see if there was anything else then began to rise. Hillier could have rung with that news. The silver-haired man raised his hand. Winston lowered himself back into the chair.

"Nkata, do you know where Havers is? I seem to have lost her number. Lynley is asking after her."

"She's gone away for a while," Winston said truthfully. Barbara had told him of her plan to mislead everyone but had not told him where she was going. She had merely told him to leave a message on her mobile if Lynley's condition deteriorated.

"Where?"

"She said she was going to her cousin in Scotland." Winston chose his words deliberately. He did not want to lie, but he was not giving away her confidence easily.

"You don't have any contact details?"

"No, Sir. Any messages are to be left on her mobile."

"Do you know when she left?"

"This morning, I believe, Sir."

Hillier stood and walked to the window. "I wish she had stayed until Lynley had been brought out of his coma before she went gallivanting off to Scotland. I doubt she flew. Most likely took the train to Glasgow and then the bus link to Oban. The ferry is the only way to Mull unless you fly."

Winston shifted his weight uncertain of where the conversation was headed. "I don't know, Sir."

Hillier glanced at the clock on the wall. "It takes four or five hours to reach Glasgow by train. Then it would be nearly as long by bus to Oban." He came back and stood over Nkata. "Try to contact her by phone and if you can't raise her, make a few enquiries and leave a message for her at the ferry. We can presume Lady Asherton will happily pay for her to fly back here tomorrow and then after she has seen Lynley, she can fly back in a few days."

"Sir," Winston said slowly, "I think she needs some time away before seeing the inspector. Her timing was intentional. I don't think she is ready to confront what happened."

"You don't think, or you know?"

Winston swallowed. "Think, Sir. She just said she needed time to get her head right."

"Hmm?"

Winston wished he was anywhere but in that chair. This was going to cost Barbara a lot when he got his hands on her. "I think the stabbing, especially being in the abdomen, may have resurrected many unpleasant memories of pain and recovery. Seeing the DI in the hospital may have been too much. He was terrible to be around after he watched her being shot, at least until he was certain she would be okay. Perhaps it affects people like that, and we should give her some time."

"Whether I agree with your amateur psychology or not is irrelevant, Nkata. I promised Lady Asherton I would try. Let Havers know that Lynley wants to see her. If she insists she will not come back, then so be it."

Winston stood. "Yes, Sir. Thank you. I will ring her."

BARBARA

The steady rolling of the train lulled Barbara into a fitful sleep. Boarding at Kings Cross Station, she was on the express to York where she would change for the Transpennine Express to Scarborough. Although she indeed had a second cousin who lived at Carsaig on the Isle of Mull, the families had lost touch after Terry's death, and Barbara had no intention of going to visit her.

She was not proud of her lie, but Barbara knew her boss too well. Her letter would lead to two possible outcomes. In the first scenario, he would enlist Winston and any other willing, or unwilling soul, to look for her. She had no intention of being found. The second possibility was that he would be offended by her desertion and sink into a morass of self-pity. Here, his illness was on her side. In the hospital, he would be unable to seek comfort in his favourite single malts.

As she paced up and down the platform at York, she examined the brightly enamelled white columns that supported the iron arches curving over the tracks in a display of 19th-century industrial might. Sunlight streamed in through an arc of glass near the apex of the roof. She wondered if it was an original feature or more recent addition to soften the station's overt masculinity. She thought how tenebrous the station would be in winter if the corrugated iron panelling extended across the roof. And in the age of steam a gloomy miasma of steam train exhaust, coal dust and fog would have made it seem sinister. Barbara shivered at the thought then shook her head. "I've been watching too many Dickens movies."

To shake off her mood, Barbara bought a trashy magazine from the newsstand and tried to read it as she waited for her second train. Her thoughts kept wandering, still pre-occupied by Tommy. She considered a third possibility, Tommy might be concerned by her need for solitude after her history of PTSD following her shooting. She did not want him to worry so vowed to ring and leave a message for Winston to relay. Then her thoughts grew darker again. What if he was too ill to even think about her? As she stared at the clouds through the glass roof, she debated whether to change her ticket and return to London. She might have escaped the city, but she could not avoid her thoughts and feelings. It was going to be a difficult task to shove them back into their box and resume her detached friendship with the man she knew now was the only man she could ever love.

"Or maybe I should never go back," she muttered.