The hysterical call came in during the early morning. From what the emergency dispatcher could make out, someone had been attacked at the Daily News office. The report was forwarded to Sun Hill police station, the Daily News office being in their patch, with some trepidation. It wasn't exactly a secret that a reporter from there had been posing as a police officer for nearly a year; it had been all over the news for nearly a week now. It was only civic duty which grudgingly compelled Gina Gold to send two of her officers to investigate, and if it was that stupid girl…well, had she been expecting what she did to win her any fans? She glanced across into Smithy's office where he sat working at the computer, or pretending to. She'd seen his eyes widen when he'd heard the report and he'd been ordered to stay at the station, when he was halfway to grab his coat and hat. She wasn't going to let that girl worm back into his affections, even if it wasn't her who was injured. Poor Smithy. He never had any luck with the women. She'd sent Tony and Yvonne instead; two who would be stoic, professional and not let whatever friendship they'd previously had with that treacherous little snake get in the way.

The ambulance was already there by the time Yvonne and Tony pulled up outside the news office. A small crowd had already gathered, all standing on tip toe, trying to have a nosy. Yvonne reached first and pushed her way through them.

"Move back, please, thank you," she said sharply. "This doesn't need an audience!"

There was little answer apart from the usual snide looks, and of course nobody paid any attention.

"She said move back!" Tony said, none of the jolly cheeriness usually on his face present. "This area is going to be sealed off, and if you're not a witness, you're not needed here! If any of you come any closer, you'll be nicked for obstruction!"

There were some more glares, but the crowd backed off several steps, murmuring amongst themselves. Yvonne and Tony hurried to the solo car in the park, beside which two paramedics crouched, speaking urgently to each other. They saw large men's shoes, dark trousers and a pinstriped suit jacket. Then one of the paramedics leaned back to get something from their kit bag and they saw the bloodied and beaten face of Bruce Malcolm.

Yvonne felt sickness roll up inside her. When the – admittedly limited – information they'd received before they'd been sent said someone had been attacked, she was expecting just a punch or two, probably calling them there to laugh at their expense, but it was obvious that Malcolm had been subjected to a brutal beating. She looked at Tony as he looked at her. He looked equally as sickened.

"I'll seal off the area," he said. "We'd better get CID down here."

She nodded and he hurried to get the cordon tape. As he passed the ambulance, he sat the chalk-white face of a woman poking out of the red blanket ambulance crew always seemed to carry, and shrewdly guessed she was the informant who had called the incident in. as he pulled the cordon tape across the scene, a vaguely familiar man pushed his way to the front of the crowd.

"What's going on here? I need to get to work!"

"Well it's a crime scene," Tony said acidly. "See the tape, the police, and the ambulance? That means something's happened."

The man glared at him, then looked past his shoulder towards the paramedics and Yvonne. His eyes widened.

"That's Bruce's car. He's never here this early. What's happened? Is he hurt?"

"Who are you?"

"Logan Lockwood," he said and then Tony remembered. This was the obnoxious journalist who'd interviewed Lance some months ago, forcing him to come out to his family before he was really ready. They were all the same, journalists. Andrea included.

"He's been attacked," said Tony. "That's all we know right now. One of your colleagues called it in. Female, forty-ish, blonde hair?"

"Jennifer," he said. "Jenny Quy. Where is she?"

"In the ambulance. Don't even think about it," Tony said as Lockwood made to duck under the cordon tape. "This is a crime scene, as I've told you. Not an opportunity to make another front page scoop!"

Lockwood shot him another glare, then his mouth fell open slightly as the paramedics began to wheel the stretcher to the ambulance. He could only see Bruce's bloodied face, but that was enough.

"What's happened?" he said, and Tony thought he could detect genuine horror in the man's voice.

"We don't know yet," he said. "But I can assure you, you won't be the first to know. Wait there, Mr Lockwood, and if any of your colleagues turn up, please ask them to stay. CID are on their way and they'll want to question you all."

He turned and walked back to the scene and met Yvonne as the door to the ambulance shut.

"What did they say?" Tony asked as the vehicle screeched away, sirens blaring and lights flashing.

"They think he was beaten with a blunt object," Yvonne said and flicked her head for Tony to follow. He did and she pointed to the piece of piping on her floor, still stained with blood. "Probably with that."

"Nasty," Tony said and looked at the blood stains around the car. Even though the car itself was red, it too was covered in obvious blood spatter.

"They think he was out here for a long time before he was found, Tony," Yvonne said softly. "He's freezing cold. He could well have been out here all night."

"Yeah, makes sense," said Tony and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. "His minion over there said he's not usually here this early."

They both looked at Lockwood who had been joined by a few other people, to whom he was talking to in a low whisper. He looked over, clocked them watching and seemed to shut up instantly. The two who stood by him wore the same look of shock

"I still need to call CID," he said and pulled his phone from his pocket. Yvonne stood by silently as he made the call to the superiors, requesting CID and scenes of crime examiners to the scene.

"This is anger, Tony," Yvonne said, when he rung off. "A beating like that, it can't be just a simple robbery. They didn't even take his car. A bit overkill, even just for a robbery."

"Overkill? Is he…"

"Oh, no, sorry. He's still alive. But they didn't sound like they hold out much hope. I know the man's a snake, but who'd hate him this much?"

They exchanged another look and could see it in each other's eyes, that they were both thinking the same thing. Tony shook his head.

"No, come on Yvonne. Whatever she is, she's not capable of that."

"How can we trust anything we ever thought we knew about her?" Yvonne said harshly. "He exposed her, he humiliated her. She must've been angry."

"Angry enough to do that?" he said and gestured to the car.

"This was personal, Tony. This was rage. We're going to need to question her."

"They argued, yesterday."

Lockwood's voice made them both jump. He was now behind them, having ducked underneath the cordon tape.

"Look, I told you…" Tony started.

"Oh keep your hat on, I'm not coming any closer," Lockwood said impatiently. "I just came over to tell you. He and Andrea argued."

The man had a calculating look in his eye that Tony immediately didn't trust. He glanced at Yvonne and could see from her expression that no matter what she thought about Andrea, she had the same feeling.

"When?"

"Yesterday afternoon. She came to the office. It was the first time any of us had seen her since the expose. We were all pretty surprised, I assumed her no-show was her way of telling Bruce she'd quit, so I didn't expect to see her again."

"What happened?"

"She came in the afternoon, I don't know, about five? It was just starting to get dark. She breezed past us and just went straight to her office, started clearing it out. Bruce had seen her arrive and went to have it out with her about not giving him the report." Lockwood huffed and rolled his eyes. "I told him, he should have exposed her after he got what he needed. He never listens."

"The report has been seized by court order."

"Yeah, right, she said as much. But you wouldn't have a chance to do that if…" Lockwood trailed off as the two officers' eyes hardened. "Never mind. Anyway, she basically told him she quit and walked out, said something about seeing him in court. I told him to let her go, but he followed her. He grabbed her."

"Grabbed her?"

"Yes. Kind of hard. They carried on arguing. He was sure she was seeing someone, from your station I mean. On a…personal level."

"Even if she had been, why would that be any of his business?" Yvonne said, her interest now aroused, even though she tried not to show it. She'd been quite good friends with Andrea, or so she'd thought, and she'd never once mentioned being interested in anyone at the station.

"It isn't, but…" Lockwood looked distinctly uncomfortable and said; "look, I know you wouldn't understand, but what he gave her was a massive opportunity. It could have been big for her, and some of us didn't understand why he wanted her for the job. But something he said yesterday, it made me wonder."

"What did he say?"

"I didn't hear exactly what he said, but he thought she would be more…thankful to him."

They both caught his meaning at the same time and wore the same look of utter disgust.

"And were they? Involved with each other like that?"

"No, though I don't think it was out of lack of wanting, at least not on his part. Anyone could see she wasn't interested and she told him as much, that anything he did for her didn't mean she'd come running to him. She went to leave and he grabbed her again, and that's when I went to step in, pulled him away from her. It did look like he was hurting her."

"Then what happened?"

"He told her she 'owed him,' and she told him that if he was expecting anything other than the agreed work from her, he should have made it clear from the start. He blamed her for making him a 'laughing stock.' She told him he'd done that all himself, that he'd just had to let her go, like she'd asked. That he'd made a lot of people angry. She said he'd annoy the wrong person one day."

"And those were her exact words?"

"Pretty much," he said and looked over at Bruce's car. "Listen, for what it's worth, I think you're right. She's not capable of attacking someone like that."

"But?"

"Well, there have been threats. Since the expose. Letters, phone calls. Some of it against her as well."

"And did anyone tell her?"

"She wasn't taking anyone's phone calls, and Bruce said he didn't get any response when he went to her house, so unless he told her in any messages…" Lockwood shrugged. "I don't know. Sorry."

"Has anything like this happened before? Not just to Bruce, but to anyone from your office?"

"No, at least not in my time, and…well, you'll probably hear it from some of the others but Bruce has a bit of a reputation of going too far to get a story."

"We've noticed," Yvonne said acidly. "Unless every newspaper in London had a journalist undercover in a police station."

"Well, yes," Lockwood said impatiently, but I mean in general. He has a tendency to look the other way when some of us use tactics to get stories that most people would probably consider underhand. What I'm saying is, I think you'll find more people who had a grudge than Andrea."

"You really sound like you don't think she could have done this."

"Well, I don't," he said. "I know you think we're all a bunch of lying underhand Judases, but we're not without some loyalty. If you want the truth, I don't like her, and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual, but I can't stand here and tell you I think she was so angry to do anything like that."

"But she was angry?"

"I think she was more hurt, really, but you can ask any of the others. Jenny's quite close to her, though mind you, I don't think even she's spoken to her since the expose."

"Well thank you Mr Lockwood, you've been very helpful," Tony said stiffly, then gestured with his arm to go back under the cordon. "We'll get a formal statement from you later.

Lockwood went back under the cordon just as Phil Hunter's car pulled up. He got out of the driver's side, Sam from the passenger's and the pair ducked under the cordon to join the two uniformed officers.

"Where's Malcolm?" Sam asked.

"He's already been taken to St Hugh's with Ms Quy who called us," said Yvonne. "He looked bad, Serge, really bad."

Sam's eyebrows rose but when she followed Tony and Yvonne to the car to look at where Bruce was found, she looked sick. Her eyes fell on the metal pipe.

"Is that…"

"The paramedics can't be sure, but it does have blood on it, so I think that's quite conclusive."

"Any witnesses?"

"No, but the paramedics also think he might have been here all night. He was very cold when he was found," Tony said. "And his colleague over there, Lockwood, said he's never here this early."

"Well if we're looking for someone with an axe to grind, we're going to have a very long list to get through," Phil said, staring at the blood pooling around the car.

"Apparently he and Andrea had an altercation yesterday."

Sam's eyes snapped to Yvonne.

"Surely not. She's not capable of that level of violence."

"Well, that seems to be the growing consensus," Yvonne said grudgingly. "And according to Lockwood, they've had some threats come to the news office, even some directly against her. But we'll need to eliminate her regardless."

"Of course," Phil said, "but we should also look into these other threats."

"As the last person known to argue with him though, we'd better speak to Andrea quickly though," Sam said. "God knows how long before this is all over the news again. As if it needs to be when it's all just dying down."

"Why don't you two head to St Hugh's and speak to Ms Quy?" Sam said. "We'll wait here for the CSEs. Then we'll decide what to do about Andrea."

Andrea returned to her flat, laden down with shopping. Amongst her purchases was a new phone. She didn't know if or when she was going to get the one the DPS took back and wasn't even sure she wanted it back. They could keep it. She put away the food she'd bought and set the phone up to charge, then looked around the flat. It was a state. She'd lived like an animal, feeling sorry for herself over the last week. It was time to snap out of it. She set about cleaning; hoovering, dusting and polishing, the whole chore taking nearly all afternoon. She changed her stale-smelling bedcovers and crammed washing into the machine. Rubbing the back of her neck in exhaustion, she put on the kettle, then opened the drawer, taking out the necklace. It was Kirsty. It had to be. The alternative was too horrible to bear. The image of the body, blood pouring from his face, the necklace pendant falling into the desert sand.

"He was hurting you!"

"I can't find a pulse. KC, I can't find a pulse!"

The shrill voices filled her head and she squeezed her eyes shut, squeezing the pendant so hard, her hand hurt. He hadn't had a pulse. She'd tried frantically, feeling his wrist and his neck, the panic growing with every passing minute. He'd been dead. She was sure of it. And for Kirsty to use the necklace to frighten her like this…she wasn't sure what the biggest betrayal was; that or what she'd done to make her stop speaking to her in the first place. Well, it wasn't as if she was in any position to judge anyone for betrayal. Well, she wouldn't give Kirsty the satisfaction of a reaction. She had her address somewhere. Maybe she'd send it back, with no note, just as she'd done to her. Change the chain back to a cord. Give her a fright, see how she liked it. Andrea poured herself a glass of red wine and took it through to the bathroom. She'd have a soak with the lavender bath crystals she favoured and try to relax a bit. She hadn't heard from Bruce all day, she thought, watching the tub fill with water and inhaled the smell of lavender. Well, she wasn't complaining. She didn't care if she never heard from him again.

Soaking in the bath, she sipped her wine and let the relaxing fumes engulf her. She'd washed her hair until it was squeaky clean and soaped herself all over and now just wanted to take some time and chill in the water. She heard the distant sound of the doorbell and closed her eyes in irritation. Spoke too soon. Well, Bruce could clear off. She hadn't opened the door to him in the last week and wasn't about to start now. He could go away. She pushed her shoulders under the water and the doorbell rang again. Then came the knocking. Frantic knocking. Startled, she sat up and looked towards the door, then listened. Usually, Bruce would be yelling at her to open up and talk to him, but now it was just knocking, and it didn't sound as if they were about to give up. Maybe it wasn't Bruce. Andrea got out of the bath, hastily wrapping herself in a towel and hurried to the door, her hair dripping. By the time she reached the door, the noise had stopped the door. She opened it, poked her head out and blinked in surprise as Gina Gold and Sam Nixon, walking towards the car, turned back to her.

"Oh," she said, awkwardly. "Sorry, I was…"

She trailed off as they walked back to her, feeling exposed in just the towel, even if it covered most of her body up. Andrea stood back and let them in, closing the door before turning to them, feeling a tenth her size under their stony gaze. She saw their eyes linger on the bruising on her arm and cringed, wishing she hadn't answered the door in a towel.

"Sorry, I'll just get changed, give me a minute." She gestured to the sofa. "Sit down. I won't be long."

Andrea went into her bedroom and wrapped her hair in a towel, turban-style and quickly dried herself before changing into jeans and a jumper. She felt the urge to stay in her room, but stalling wouldn't be a good idea. Better get it over with. She ventured back out and sat awkwardly on the corner sofa, facing the two.

"Tea? Coffee?" she blurted.

"No thanks," said the Inspector. "Where were you last night?"

Andrea blinked. "Here."

"Can anyone confirm that?" Sam asked, and Andrea thought she held a hint of sarcasm in her tone.

"Only if you speak cat," Andrea said, her eyes narrowing. Even though nobody else had seen her as a real copper, it had felt real to her. "What is this?"

"Bruce Malcolm."

Andrea's forehead wrinkled in confusion. Surely he hadn't actually been stupid enough to complain about her not giving him the work.

"What about him?"

"He was attacked," said Gina. "Last night."

"How bad?"

Even to herself, Andrea's voice sounded small and tight.

"Bad," said Gina. "He's at St Hugh's on a ventilator and its very much touch and go. There was a piece of lead piping found at the scene. CSE are pretty sure that it's the weapon."

"Didn't deserve that," Andrea said, a hand flying to her mouth, sickness washing over her.

The two older women watched the colour drain from her face in fascination and the dilation of her pupils from shock. Andrea leant forward, feeling nauseous, the necklace again invading her thoughts. It couldn't be him. It just couldn't.

"Andrea?"

"What?" she said, turning her attention back to the other two.

"We understand you had a bit of an altercation yesterday."

"Well…yeah but it wasn't violent or anything."

"That's not what we heard. One of the witnesses said he grabbed you."

"Yeah, but that was all, he didn't hurt me."

"The bruising on your arm tells a different story."

"I bruise easily. I always have."

"The same witness also says you told Mr Malcolm he'd, quote," Gina looked at her notepad in a way that seemed theatrical rather than genuine, "'annoy the wrong person one of these days'."

"Yes," Andrea said. "Something along those lines anyway. I didn't mean…"

"Yes?"

"I didn't mean…like that. Look, you don't need me to tell you how far he'd go if he wanted a front page scoop badly enough. I kept on telling him he had to be careful or he'd find himself on the wrong side of a lawsuit. That's what I meant."

"Right," Sam said. "So when you left, where did you go?"

"I came straight back here and I didn't leave for the rest of the night."

She'd been too terrified to leave, the necklace dragging up such traumatic memories, she'd curled up on the sofa instead. The shrill voice of Kirsty rang in her ears again.

"I just wanted him to stop him hurting you!"

"Andrea?"

Gina Gold's sharp voice snapped her back to the present. She let a shaky breath out, feeling her body begin to tremble.

"Did you make any calls? Speak to anyone after you got home?"

"No, nobody."

"What about any of your neighbours? Would they have seen you return?"

"You'll have to ask them," Andrea said, feeling her stomach tightening.

"Since your exposure last week," Sam said. "Has anything happened?"

"Like what?"

"Have you received any threats?"

Andrea looked between the two. "No."

"No calls? No letters?"

"No. The only calls I got were from Bruce," she said and nodded to the phone. "You're welcome to listen to them if you think that'll help. The only thing I've seen were people hanging around outside, but they were other journalists."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I recognised them. Some of them anyway. Why?"

"According to one of your colleagues. Well, former colleagues, they've informed us you've resigned – threats had been coming to the news office. Some of them personal. Against you. Did you know?"

She shook her head, but Sam and Gina observed that she didn't seem all that surprised, and Sam voiced that observation to her. Andrea shrugged.

"I'm not, really, I kind of expected it. That's one thing journalists and cops have in common; threats. You sort of get used to it."

"Can you think of anyone Mr Malcolm did annoy?"

"Anyone he annoyed and would be capable of that? No."

"Can you think of a time anyone ever did carry out any threat?"

"No, and most of the time, they weren't violent threats. It was more the 'I'll sue you, you'll be hearing from my lawyer,' you know the sort. Nobody's ever been actually hurt before, at least not in my time there."

Sam nodded, fixing her with a hard stare.

"How well do you know Mr Malcolm, Andrea?"

Andrea's eyes hardened, the tone wasn't lost on her.

"Don't even go there," she said. "There was nothing between us like that. Ever."

"We've spoken to a few of your former colleagues. They all seem to think Mr Malcolm was very fond of you."

"So what if he was?" Andrea heard her sharp, defensive tone and fought it down. "It wasn't mutual."

"Some of them also seem to be a bit…resentful of the fact that you got the undercover job, and not them."

"Yeah. I got that impression," Andrea said, "But even so, I don't see any of them willing to attack him because of that or they would have done it ages ago. People do have their limits, you know. Even journalists."

She saw the disbelief in both of their faces and didn't blame them. Sam glanced back down at her notebook.

"We're having a bit of trouble tracing any of Bruce's family," she said.

"Well, he told me his parents died years ago," she said. "Some kind of accident. There is a brother though…what's his name…" Andrea bit her lip, thinking. "Angus. That's it. Angus. I get the feeling there was no love lost between them."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Oh…not that I think it was enough for him to have done that," Andrea said hastily. "Angus, I mean. In any case, he lives in Australia. I think in Melbourne. Bruce called him a 'slick, smug snake.' Among more colourful things."

"Bit rich coming from him," said the Inspector and Andrea shrugged.

"Glass houses."

"Well, thanks Andrea," Sam said, closing her notebook. "We'll come back to listen to your messages, so please don't delete any."

"Is that it?"

"For the minute," said Gina and got up, fixing her with a hard stare. "For the record, I don't think you did this, but that doesn't mean this changes anything. I don't trust you."

"Fine," she said flatly. "I understand."

"In the meantime, if you do think of anyone you might think is responsible or if you do receive any troubling threats, let us know."

She nodded and got up as well, walking with them to the door. As they stepped outside, she spoke.

"Is he going to die?"

It was asked so softly, the two women could be forgiven for thinking they didn't hear it at all. They looked at each other and Gina turned back to her.

"It doesn't look good. He took a very savage beating. Somebody must have been very angry."

"What about his wallet? His phone? His car? Not that anyone would want to steal that."

Gina privately agreed with that, Malcolm's beat up old car was no more useful than a chocolate teapot.

"Nothing was taken. Everything seems to point to the motive being personal."

Andrea bit down on her lip, taken back again to her time in South America. Sam looked over her carefully.

"Andrea? Are you sure you don't know anything about this?"

Andrea met her eyes and shook her head, her hand on the doorknob painfully tight. She held Sam's eyes for a moment, then the detective nodded.

"All right. We'll be in touch."

She watched them walk away, then closed the door, securing the chain and deadbolt. She was shaking all over and doubted even molten lava would warm her up right now. It was a coincidence. Just a coincidence. She jumped at a shrill meow behind her. Hugo sat, giving her the expectant look only a hungry cat could. She filled his bowl and watched him gobble down the food. She wished she was a cat right now, life was so simple; fed on demand, petted on demand, and able to come and go as he pleased. Hugo looked up at her and meowed in the way that meant he wanted to go outside, so she let him out and watched as he disappeared into the darkness. She should eat something too, but thought she'd be sick if she did.

"We have to go! AJ, we have to go!"

"We can't just leave him here!"

Andrea covered her ears, as if doing so would block out the voices. It couldn't have anything to do with what happened to Bruce. It just couldn't. She got up and went into the bathroom. The bath was still filled with water. She pulled the plug, watching it drain away then turned to the medicine cabinet above the sink and took the bottle of Temazepam from inside. She'd got them from the GP some months ago when the strain of the undercover job had begun to get to her, but they'd made her lethargic, disorientated and like nothing was quite real. Not ideal for a day on a beat for a police officer. It didn't matter now, though. She'd take one of these, get an early night, anything to stop her thinking, and tomorrow, she'd start to make plans. Maybe she would do what her mother had asked her to when she'd spoken to her a few days ago; go back home. At least for a little while. She hadn't been back there in so long, it would be nice to be back in the small village where she grew up, surrounded by the Loch and greenery as far as the eye could see. And it would be nice to see the people she grew up with again, sometimes she even missed Mrs Mack. She let herself smile ruefully; she'd bet she was still the same judgemental, nosy old woman she always was. Her mother said as much. Yes. It would nice to go home for a while.

Andrea started in bed at the distant rumble of thunder, then brushed back her damp hair with one hand. She raised her head slightly and looked at her clock. It was one in the morning. She'd been asleep for hours. Well, she was going to make it a few more. She turned onto her side and stilled. She felt it then. A change in the atmosphere, something that hadn't been there before, and the absence of Hugo's purring ruled out it being him. Wait. Hugo. She'd let him out, but she didn't remember letting him back in. She closed her eyes, the fear beginning to paralyse her.

It's nothing. You're still dreaming. Or it's just the tablets. They're making you imagine things.

The thunder rumbled again, a flash of lightning illuminated the room and she saw it. The shadow in the corner, in her wicker chair. Watching her.

Someone was in her room.