Archive of Our Own

The Manchester rain splattered against the roof of the car, the metallic sound above providing a respite from the noise in her head. It was soothing. A relentless, yet hypnotising rhythm of water and steel.

Closing her eyes and letting her head fall back against the headrest, Lisa let her eyes close, surrendering to the peace that washed over her as she wondered how it had come to this.

Seeking refuge in her car from the outside world. From the looks. The constant jibes. The stress of everything weighing her down.

Her job was never easy, especially when it came to murder, but somehow this case was draining her of everything.

It should have been the happiest time of her life, getting to marry Carla, and it was. It was the most perfect day. She remembered the way Betsy had cheered, how Ryan had whistled, how Roy had wiped a tear from his eye as Lisa and Carla shared their first kiss together as wife and wife. And though the day hadn't been exactly how they'd planned it, she wouldn't have changed it for the world. Well, up until the body had been found at least.

She'd never forget the way she and Carla swayed together in each other's arms to the gentle rhythm of the music, alone in their newfound bubble of wedded bliss after all the guests had left.

It had been one of those rare moments where the street had gone quiet in the best possible way. The factory’s usually harsh, glaring lights had been softened by fairy lights, the loud upbeat music that had been playing most of the day, replaced by something softer.

For once, Carla had looked happy. Not guarded. Not sharp around the edges. Not braced for the next disaster. Happy. That was the image Lisa had held onto in the days since. That smile. Those arms around her neck. The way she had leaned in and whispered, “Mrs Connor-Swain has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” just so she could see Lisa smile. The way they shared a kiss, disappearing into each other's lips.

And then Betsy came hurtling back into the factory, a complete wreck. In that moment in Underworld, Lisa no longer saw a strong independent young woman. Instead she saw the same young girl consumed by trauma from the day Lisa told Betsy that Becky had died. Ha, died.

Pretended to die. The crying, the uncontrollable shaking, the hyperventilating as her daughter tried to get much needed air into her lungs.

Lauren arrived not thirty seconds after Betsy, having no idea what was going on. It had taken an effort from Lisa, Carla and Lauren to calm Betsy down enough to finally get out of her what had happened. It was Carla who had got Betsy to sit. Water had appeared in Lauren’s shaking hands. In front of her daughter, Lisa had crouched, still in her wedding outfit, still with one hand unconsciously gripping the ring Carla had given her hours earlier on her own finger, and forced herself to keep her voice calm.

“Bets. Look at me. Breathe with me. That’s it. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. I’ve got you.”

But Betsy hadn’t been looking at her. Not properly. Her eyes had been too wide, too far away, trapped somewhere Lisa couldn’t reach. 

The words had cut through the air like a knife.

“Body. Behind Dev’s” and that had been it. Three words was all it had taken for Lisa to switch from newly wedded civilian to Detective Sergeant.

Her phone grabbed in one swift motion, and heels tossed aside before she even got out the door so as not to risk breaking an ankle running across the cobbles, she'd gone to check for herself. Even now, weeks later, she could still feel the shock of the cold damp cobbles against the soles of her feet as she ran. Could still hear Carla shouting after her to just call the police and wait for backup, but that was never an option.

She hadn’t looked back. She couldn’t. Because if she had seen Carla there, still in the soft aftermath of their wedding, one hand likely reaching uselessly after her while the other stayed wrapped around Betsy, Lisa might have hesitated. And there wasn’t room for hesitation. Not with Betsy’s voice still echoing around her head.

Body. Behind Dev’s.

Her heartbeat loud and violent in her ears drowned out anything else except the detective in her that had already started building a picture of the scene before she'd even reached it. And then there he was. Theo Silverton. Face down. Motionless.

For one second, everything in Lisa stopped. Then training took over. She crouched beside him, fingers going to his neck, eyes taking in everything all at once. Blood. Stillness. The wrong angle of him. The horrible, heavy quiet that settled around a body before anyone officially named it as one.

“Come on,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. She checked again. Nothing.

But nothing wasn’t enough. Not yet. Not until paramedics said it. Not until she had done every single thing she was supposed to do.

Her knuckles turned white from gripping her phone so tight as she'd dialled 999.

“Ambulance,” she said the second the call connected, her voice clipped and steady in a way she didn’t feel. “And police. I need both. Possible fatal assault, behind Alahan’s corner shop on Coronation Street. Adult male, unconscious, not breathing.”

She gave the details. Location. Condition. What she could see without disturbing more than she absolutely had to. Her name. Her rank. Her voice didn’t shake once.

At that time, she was Detective Sergeant Connor-Swain.

Not newly married. Not barefoot on the cold ground. Not a mother whose daughter had just found a body. Not a wife whose wedding had been ripped open before the night was even over.

Just a copper at a scene, calling it in.

By the time the sirens came, Carla had brought Betsy as far as she could bear, one arm wrapped around her shoulders, keeping her back from the worst of it. Looking over once, Lisa remembered seeing them beneath the streetlight, Betsy pale and trembling, Carla’s face set hard with worry.

Their wedding night should have ended with champagne, laughter, and the ridiculous little suitcase Carla had packed far too carefully for someone who claimed not to care about the honeymoon.

Instead, it ended at the police station.

Together, Lisa and Carla had escorted Betsy down there themselves, Carla’s hand never leaving the small of Betsy’s back as Lisa switched between mother and detective so many times she felt sick with it. Betsy wrapped in Carla’s wedding jacket, voice flat with shock whenever she spoke, Lisa gripping her daughter's hand tightly, a grip that said ‘don’t worry, mum’s here’ without the words needing to be spoken.

That was the first night. The first long, fluorescent-lit, bitterly unfair night of the case.

The night Lisa Connor-Swain should have been falling asleep beside her wife.

Instead, she had sat in a police station in her wedding clothes, waiting for her daughter to come out from the interview room where she was telling of how she'd come across the body of Theo.

By the next morning, the wedding clothes were gone. The ring, the only true reminder of the happiness felt a day earlier.

Before her shift, Lisa had stood in the station toilets, staring at it beneath the harsh lights while she made sure her shirt was neatly tucked and her collar fixed, watching the gold catch against the dull blue of her work blazer. It looked almost wrong there. Too soft. Too new. Too full of promises for a place built around statements, evidence bags and grief.

For a moment, she stood turning it on her finger.

Then she went to work. Officially.

No longer the barefoot bride who had run across the cobbles because her daughter had found a body. No longer the woman who had spent her wedding night on a hard plastic chair, waiting for Betsy to come out of an interview room. Detective Sergeant Connor-Swain now. Lead officer.

Focused. Professional. The person everyone expected to know what came next.

____________________________

The morgue was colder than she remembered. It always was.

No matter how many times she walked into one, no matter how often she told herself it was just another part of the job, the first breath always caught somewhere high in her chest. Antiseptic.

Metal. The faint chemical sharpness that clung to the air. The quiet was different there too, heavier than silence should have been, as though even sound knew to keep its distance.

Theo Silverton lay beneath the lights, white sheet covering up to his neck, still in a way that made the room feel smaller.

A different kind of stillness from the one behind Dev’s. Cleaner now. Clinical. Stripped of rain, cobbles, flashing blue lights and Betsy’s scream caught somewhere in Lisa’s memory. Here, there was no street noise. No Carla shouting her name. No first responders moving around her.

Just Theo. Dead. Documented. A piece of evidence.

At the edge of the examination table, Lisa stood, gloved hands folded in front of her, and forced herself to look.

Properly look. Because that was the job.

The pathologist spoke beside her, voice low and measured, talking through marks, wounds, timings, things Lisa wrote down because she had to. She noted what was visible. What needed photographing again. What had been bagged. What had been taken for testing. Clothing. Trace evidence. Anything under the nails. Anything that might tell her who had put him there.

Every detail mattered.

Even his.

That was the part she hated. Not loudly. Not in a way anyone in the room could see. But it sat beneath her ribs, heavy and sour, as she watched evidence being collected from a man whose cruelty had already left half the street bleeding in ways no post-mortem could record.

She had seen him alive. That was what kept catching her.

Theo Silverton with his smug little smile. Theo Silverton holding court like the world owed him space. Theo Silverton making Todd shrink without ever needing to raise his voice. Theo Silverton moving through Weatherfield as though charm and control were the same thing if you dressed them up well enough.

And now he was here. Silent. Powerless. Still demanding her attention.

Looking down at him, Lisa tried to make her mind stay where it belonged. On injuries.

Timelines. Evidence. Facts.

Not on Todd’s face.

Not on Betsy’s shaking hands.

Not on the fact that her first full day as Carla’s wife had started in a morgue.

She tightened her grip around the pen. This was Theo Silverton now.

Not the loud, arrogant, overly confident man that Lisa had seen walk the street. Not looming over anyone with that calm, calculated smirk on his face that made people, decent people doubt their own instincts. Not controlling Todd like he owned the air in his lungs.

Dead bodies were nothing new to Lisa. Of course, they weren’t. It was part of the job. If anything, she'd seen too many. Some peaceful, some brutal, some that had stayed with her long after the paperwork had been filed away and the court dates had been and gone. She could never really get used to murder, no matter how many times people assumed she must have over the years.

It's easy for people to assume that police officers can just switch off, stop having feelings, see the body for nothing more than that, a body. But there was always a moment, however small, where the body stopped being evidence and became exactly what they were — someone who had been alive, and then had that life ripped from them.

But Theo hadn't stirred that thought in Lisa, not because his death mattered any less than anyone else's, but because there was a small part of her that hated that it didn't.

Hated that even after everything Theo had done, even after sitting in that interview room and listening to Todd recount months of torment in a voice that barely sounded like his own, Lisa still had to look at Theo’s body and see a victim.

She could still picture Todd at the station, not the same man who usually filled a room with sarcastic comments and dry-witted humour, not the Todd who would roll his eyes dramatically when George would make a comment about work despite clocking off already, but a broken version of him. Bloodied. Bruised. Folded in on himself as if he were scared to be anything more than as small as possible. And he had looked smaller not just physically, but in all the ways that mattered.

Like Theo had chipped away at him piece by piece until all that was left was what had stumbled into the station, held up either side by Sarah and Kit, running on nothing more than fear, adrenaline and the last scraps of courage he had.

Lisa had sat opposite him with her notebook open and her jaw clenched so tightly it ached.

She had asked the questions because she had to. Careful questions. Professional questions.

The kind that sounded clinical on paper but felt brutal in the room.

When did it start?

What did he say?

Did he threaten you?

Did he control your money?

Did he isolate you from your friends?

Did he ever stop you leaving?

Did he put his hands on you before tonight?

Each answer had cost him. Lisa had watched that cost land in his body. In the tremor of his fingers around the paper cup of water. In the way he flinched at sudden noises from the corridor.

In the pauses where shame tried to close his throat before truth forced its way out anyway. The apologising had kept coming from Todd too, as though the abuse had been poor manners on his part. As though Theo’s cruelty was something he should have managed better. Hidden better. Survived more neatly.

That had been the bit that got under Lisa’s skin. The apologising.

Because she had seen it before. Victims apologising for the mess. For the time. For not leaving sooner. For still loving the person who hurt them. For being frightened. For being angry. For needing help.

And Todd, blood drying at the corner of his mouth, bruises already blooming beneath his skin, had sat there trying to make himself less inconvenient. At one point, his voice had gone completely.

He had opened his mouth to answer her and nothing had come out. His fingers had tightened around the paper cup until the sides buckled, water sloshing over his hand and dripping onto the table between them. He had stared at the mess as if that, somehow, was the thing that had broken him.

“Sorry,” he had whispered.

Lisa had wanted to snap the pen in her hand. Not at him. Never at him.

At Theo. At every person who had taught Todd that even his pain needed to be tidy. At the system that required a traumatised man to describe his own breaking in detail before anyone could build a case solid enough to protect him. At herself, because she had been part of that system, sitting there asking him to keep going.

She had put her pen down then. Only for a moment.

“Todd,” she had said, carefully, gently, letting the recorder keep running because she couldn’t afford to lose the words but refusing to let the process swallow the person in front of her. “You’ve nothing to apologise for.”

He had laughed at that. A horrible sound. Small. Empty. Like he didn’t know what else to do with kindness.

“Feels like I have,” he had said.

And Lisa had hated Theo more than she had hated most men in her career. Quietly. Completely.

She had hated him for every bruise, every flinch, every careful little correction Todd made to soften the truth. She had hated him for the way Todd seemed unable to trust his own memory without looking for permission first. She had hated him for making a grown man sit in a police station looking like a frightened child who expected to be blamed for being beaten in the first place.

She had hated that when she’d asked Todd whether Theo had ever made him feel like he was losing his mind, Todd had not answered straight away. He had just looked at her. And that look had told her everything.

Lisa knew what coercive control did. She had seen it in statements, in body language, in the way victims learned to edit themselves before anyone else had the chance. She knew it wasn’t always the visible injuries that told the worst story. Bruises faded. Split lips healed. But the constant erosion of certainty, the careful dismantling of a person from the inside out, that was what stayed. Across from her, Todd had sat wearing both kinds of damage. The visible and the invisible. Part of Lisa had wanted to reach across the table and tell him to stop. She had wanted to tell him none of it was his fault until he believed her.

Instead, she had stayed professional. Gentle, yes. As gentle as she could be. But professional, because the statement mattered. Because every word might one day matter. Because if Theo was ever going to be held accountable, Todd’s pain had to be turned into evidence, line by line, answer by answer.

That was the job. Take the worst thing that had happened to someone and make it usable. And now Theo was dead.

Murdered.

A victim.

Lisa’s victim, professionally speaking.

That was the part that twisted in her chest until she could barely breathe. Because she couldn’t unknow what she knew. She couldn’t unsee Todd sitting across from her, battered and hollowed out, describing the private hell Theo had built around him. She couldn’t pretend Theo had simply been a difficult man who’d met a tragic end.

But she also couldn’t let that knowledge make her careless.

Theo Silverton had been an abuser.

Theo Silverton had also been murdered.

Both things were true. And Lisa had to hold them both at once, no matter how much it sickened her.

That was the thought she couldn't shake. The one that sat like grit beneath her skin as she opened her eyes and sat staring through the rain streaked windscreen of her car, parked a few streets away from home because she hadn't trusted herself to walk through the door yet.

Theo had been a horrible man. There was no polite way around it. No sanitised phrasing would make it easier to swallow. He had been cruel. Manipulative. Controlling. Evil.

He had wormed his way slowly into people's lives, onto the street and slowly spread his poison through Todd and those closest to him.

In the statements, Lisa had seen it. Heard it in the silences. The pauses. The way people described Theo in careful pieces, as though saying the whole truth out loud might still summon him.

Even now, dead, he had power. That was what made her furious.

He had managed to make his own murder complicated by the sheer number of people he had hurt. Every interview felt like digging through wreckage.

Todd, devastated and traumatised and somehow still apologising for things that weren’t his fault.

Danielle, torn between anger and grief and whatever history had kept her tied to Theo for as long as it had.

Summer trying to be composed and failing by inches.

George looking as though one wrong question might knock him over.

Neighbours with opinions polished bright from gossip.

Friends who weren’t really friends. People who had seen things, heard things, suspected things, ignored things.

And all of them looked at Lisa as though she should already know. As though being lead detective meant she could pull truth out of the air if she just concentrated hard enough.

As though a dead abuser made for an easy murder.

The worst part was, once upon a time, Lisa would have prayed for a case like this.

Not because she wanted anyone dead. Never that. She had seen too much of what murder left behind to wish it into the world. But after Becky had died — after Becky had supposedly died — complicated cases had become a kind of mercy. The messier, the better.

Give her conflicting statements. Give her a timeline with gaps in it. Give her suspects who lied and evidence that refused to sit neatly where it was supposed to. Give her something that demanded every scrap of focus she had, because focus was easier than grief.

Back then, when Betsy had finally cried herself to sleep and the house had gone quiet, Silence, Lisa had learned, was the enemy. Silence was where Becky lived.

In the empty half of the bed. In the toothbrush that took too long to throw away. In the school forms where Lisa had to write herself down as the only parent, pen hovering for half a second too long over the box that asked for emergency contacts. In Betsy’s face when she forgot for one beautiful, terrible moment and called out for her mum before remembering there was no answer coming.

So Lisa had worked.

God, she had worked.

She had taken the overtime no one else wanted. Stayed late on cases that could have waited until morning. Took the work home with her and worked all night refusing sleep that would bring her images of her so-called dead wife. Sat in interview rooms beneath flickering strip lights and convinced herself she was doing it because justice mattered, because victims deserved answers, because she was good at her job.

And all of that was true.

It just wasn’t the whole truth.

The whole truth was that a murder board was easier to look at than a framed photograph of Becky. A post-mortem report was easier to read than Betsy’s school notes with the careful little change from parents’ evening to parent’s evening. A suspect’s lie was easier to untangle than the knot in Lisa’s chest every time someone said they were sorry for her loss.

She had hidden in the work because the work had rules. Evidence either existed or it didn’t.

Timelines could be checked. Alibis could be tested. Motives could be pulled apart and laid flat under fluorescent light.

Grief had none of that.

Grief just sat beside her in the passenger seat on the drive home and followed her through the front door.

Back then, she had welcomed the hard cases because they kept Becky quiet.

Now Becky was alive.

Becky had always been alive. And somehow that made every old coping mechanism feel rotten in Lisa’s hands.

Because what had she really been running from all those years? A ghost, or a lie? A dead wife, or a woman who had chosen to let Lisa mourn her? Had all those late nights, all those extra shifts, all that righteous exhaustion been built around grief that Becky herself had manufactured?

The thought made Lisa feel sick.

And now here she was again, sitting in her car after another endless shift, buried in another complicated murder, except this time there was no comfort in it. No clean escape. No grim little gratitude for a case difficult enough to drown out the ache.

Because Becky wasn’t quiet anymore.

Becky was everywhere.

In every suspect who looked Lisa in the eye and lied. In every witness who gave her just enough truth to sound believable. In every person who had hidden something in plain sight and trusted Lisa not to see it until it was too late.

And Theo Silverton, dead or not, had left behind the same kind of damage. Manipulation.

Control. People doubting themselves. People questioning what they knew, what they’d seen, what they had allowed themselves to ignore.

Once, Lisa had used complicated murders to escape Becky. Now this one had dragged Becky right back into the middle of her head. It had been like that all day.

The incident room had felt too hot and too bright, full of ringing phones and half-finished coffees and officers moving around her with the careful energy people used when they knew their superior was close to snapping.

Theo’s photograph sat in the centre of the murder board, surrounded by arrows, timelines, printed stills, statements, names.

Todd Grimshaw.

Danielle Silverton.

Summer Spellman.

George Shuttleworth.

Gary Windass.

Sarah Platt.

Maria Connor.

Betsy Swain.

Her daughter’s name on a murder board. That had nearly finished her.

It was typed neatly on the printed sheet, black letters on white paper, stripped of all the panic that had come with it. There was no shaking in the font. No breathless sobbing. No Carla kneeling beside Betsy on the factory floor, one arm around her shoulders while Lisa asked the questions she had hated herself for asking. No Lauren hovering uselessly in the doorway, eyes wide, not knowing whether to stay or go.

Just a name.

Betsy Swain.

Witness.

For longer than she should have, Lisa had stared at it. Not as a detective. As a mother.

She had thought about Betsy that morning, standing in the kitchen in an oversized hoodie, insisting she was fine while refusing breakfast and flinching when a neighbour’s bin lid slammed outside. Leaning against the counter, Carla had been there in that careful way she had when she was trying not to make Betsy feel watched.

“You don’t have to go into work,” Lisa had said.

Betsy had looked at her like she was ridiculous. “I’m not sitting around all day thinking about it.”

What Lisa had wanted to say was, ‘You already are.’

Instead, she had nodded.

Because Betsy was too much like her sometimes. Stubborn. Defensive. Convinced that needing time to recover was a personal failing.

Over Betsy’s head, Carla had caught Lisa’s eye.

A whole conversation had passed between them without words.

‘We need to watch her.’

‘I know.’

‘You need to watch yourself too.’

‘Don’t start.’

Before breakfast could turn into another thing she failed at, Lisa had left.

At the station, she had read and reread Betsy’s statement until the words lost shape.

Then Todd’s. Then Danielle’s. Then the preliminary notes from door-to-door. Every account seemed to open three more questions. Every motive came wrapped in trauma or rage or fear.

Nothing lined up cleanly.

And people kept noticing.

One officer had asked whether Lisa wanted someone else to take the next interview, and Lisa had snapped, “I’m capable of doing my job,” with enough force to make the room go silent.

She apologised ten minutes later. Sort of.

Then there had been the interviews on the street. The endless shuffle of people sitting down across from her, some frightened, some defensive, some almost seemingly eager to be involved in something big enough to be gossiped about for years.

The eyewitness statements were coming from all sorts of people.

The one who swore she had seen Todd arguing with Theo that night, then admitted under pressure that it might have been two days earlier.

The one who would say that Theo “has a temper, but don't we all?” while avoiding Lisa's eyes.

The one who'd recalled seeing Theo on the street that night and being ‘off’, but then adding, with a shrug, that Theo was often off.

The one who had leaned back in his chair and said “No offence, but with his reputation, you must have a queue of suspects by now.”

No offence.

Lisa had smiled tightly.

People loved those two words. They used them like a free pass, a verbal wipe-clean surface they could smear anything across.

No offence, but maybe if the police had done more when Todd reported him, this wouldn’t have happened.

No offence, but everyone knew Theo was trouble.

No offence, but shouldn’t you be looking closer to home?

That last one had stuck. Closer to home.

As if her home wasn’t already full of this case.

As if it hadn’t walked through the factory doors in the shape of her traumatised daughter on her wedding day. As if Carla hadn’t postponed a honeymoon before they’d even had a chance to wake up married and unburdened.

As if Lisa could separate any of it. By the end of her shift, she had been staring at Theo’s photo so long she had begun to resent him for still demanding attention. Dead, and still taking up space. Dead, and still pulling people apart. Dead, and still making Todd tremble, Betsy withdraw, Carla worry, Lisa doubt herself. Dead, and somehow still winning.

That was why she hadn’t gone straight home.

That was why she had ended up here, parked in the rain, letting the sound of water on metal stand between her and the life waiting inside the one building that provided all the safety she could ever need.

Dragging a hand down her face, Lisa’s wedding ring caught briefly against her cheek. The sight of it almost undid her. She turned her hand in the dim light of the car and stared at the band on her finger. Simple. Beautiful. Carla had teased her about being sentimental when she’d chosen it, but Lisa had seen the way she’d looked at it after the ceremony. Like it was something precious and terrifying all at once.

Wife.

Her wife was Carla Connor.

The thought should have warmed her. Instead, guilt curled low in her stomach.

They should have been gone by now. Away from Weatherfield. Away from the factory, the station, the gossip, the murder board with Theo Silverton’s face pinned in the centre.

Their honeymoon should have been more than a postponed email and a suitcase left half-packed in the bedroom because neither of them had had the heart to unpack it properly.

It was Carla saying it didn’t matter that made it worse. That was the worst part. She had stood there with that soft, steady look that always made Lisa want to either kiss her or run for cover, and she had said,

“We’ll go when we go. I married you, not a holiday.”

As if that made it easier.

As if Lisa didn’t know Carla deserved more than being married in the middle of another disaster.

A sharp buzz cut through the car. Lisa flinched.

Her phone lit up on the passenger seat.

For one awful second, her whole body snapped into work mode. Another update. Another statement. Another body, God forbid. Another message from someone at the station asking where she was, even though she had already worked past the end of her shift and then some.

But it was Carla.

‘You coming home soon? Your shift ended hours ago xx’

For a moment, Lisa stared at the message until the screen dimmed. Then another came through.

‘I’m not nagging. I’m just asking cause I miss you. Love you wife xx’

Wife. Despite everything, Lisa let out a breath that was almost a laugh. Almost.

She typed back with cold fingers.

‘On my way.’

She didn’t move for another minute. The rain kept falling, soft and relentless against the roof. It would have been easy to stay there. Just a little longer. Five minutes. Ten. Long enough to gather herself into something Carla wouldn’t have to deal with. Long enough to lock Detective Sergeant Swain back into place and hide the rest of her somewhere under the seat.

But Carla knew her too well for that. She would see through the locked jaw and the clipped answers before Lisa even got her coat off. Carla would see the exhaustion. The anger. The fear she had been swallowing all day.

And maybe that was why Lisa had stayed in the car. It wasn't that she didn’t want to go home.

Because she did. Too much.

Home had become dangerous in its own way. Not because it hurt her, but because it let her stop bracing. Carla let her stop bracing. And Lisa wasn’t sure what would be left of her if she did.

Still, she started the engine.

By the time she reached the house, the rain had eased into a fine mist. The streetlights blurred gold against the wet pavement. Everything looked softer in the dark, kinder than it really was.

Quietly, Lisa let herself in.

The house smelled of coffee, Carla’s perfume, and something reheated that Lisa suspected she would be forced to eat whether she wanted to or not. It smelled like home.

In the living room, Carla was curled at one end of the sofa with a glass of red on the table and a stack of factory paperwork balanced half on her laptop and half on the arm of the sofa. Her hair was tied back messily, the way it got when she was tired and pretending not to be.

When Lisa came in, she looked up and for one split second, her face changed.

Softness first. Relief. Then concern, carefully tucked away before it could become too obvious and make Lisa defensive.

“Hiya love, you alright?” Carla asked.

Behind her, Lisa shut the door to the hallway. “Yeah.” The reply clipped, calculated, giving nothing away if she could help it.

“You sure?”

“I’ve just said so, haven’t I?” The reply came out sharper than Lisa had meant it to. She heard it.

Carla heard it too.

Neither of them moved.

Then Carla set the paperwork aside. “You had anything to eat?”

“No.”

“I kept you some. Just warmed it up for you.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You said that yesterday.”

Lisa pulled off her coat, jaw tight. “Well, then maybe I wasn’t hungry yesterday either.” She pulled a glass out, grabbed the bottle of already opened wine and poured herself a glass, noticing how Carla watched her every move.

Slowly, Carla adjusted her position. “Right.”

That one word was enough. Lisa felt it land somewhere already raw.

“Don’t start.”

“Eh?” A frown pulled at Carla’s mouth. “I asked if you’d eaten.”

“No, you didn’t. You said it like there was a lecture coming after it.”

“There wasn’t.”

“Well, it felt like there was.”

For a moment, Carla stared at her and then stood, the paperwork sliding forgotten onto the cushion beside her. “I promise there wasn't. But y’know, now you've said it, if you're gonna have a drink, you shouldn't have it on an empty stomach.”

“Oh, and there it is. The big ‘but’ of it all, cause God forbid I should be able to think for myself, right?”

“Lisa, I’m not having a go at you.”

“Well it feels like everyone’s having a go lately.”

“I’m not everyone.”

Lisa let out a bitter little laugh. “No, you’re not.”

Carla’s expression tightened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She knew she should stop. She could feel the argument opening in front of her. She could see it for what it was: exhaustion looking for somewhere to go. Hurt trying to make itself easier by becoming anger.

But she had spent the whole day swallowing things down.

Now one had come loose, and the rest followed.

“I’ve had it all day,” Lisa said. “People looking at me like I’m not doing enough. Like I’m dragging my feet. Like I don’t know how to do my job. Every neighbour, every friend, every person who’s decided they know who killed Theo because they once saw him argue with someone outside the Rovers.”

“I know it’s been hard.” Carla’s voice softened.

Lisa’s hand hit the counter hard enough for the sound to echo through the house. “No, you don’t.”

The words made Carla go still. Regret hit Lisa instantly.

But she carried on anyway.

“You don’t know what it’s like to sit there while people make little digs. Not enough for me to call them out, just enough so I know exactly what they mean. ‘You’ll want to get this one right.’ ‘Must be difficult with Betsy involved.’ ‘Funny how nobody liked him and you’re still no closer.’ As if I don’t know. As if I don’t go over it every second I’m awake.”

A careful step brought Carla closer. “Love—”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“That voice.”

“My voice?” Carla looked at her, hurt flickering across her face before she could hide it.

“The soft one.” A swallow worked through Lisa’s throat. “The one where you’re waiting for me to fall apart.”

For a moment, Carla was quiet.

The rain tapped faintly against the window.

Then Carla said, “Maybe I am.” Lisa’s eyes snapped to hers but Carla didn’t look away. “Not because I think you’re weak. Because you look like you’ve been holding yourself together with string.”

Lisa’s throat tightened. “I don’t need analysing.”

“I’m not analysing you.”

“You are.”

“No.” Carla’s voice was steady now. “I’m worried about you.”

Lisa looked away.

She could cope with anger. She could cope with sarcasm. She could cope with a row.

Concern was harder. Concern asked for honesty.

“I can’t do this tonight,” Lisa said.

Something shifted in Carla’s expression. “Do what?”

“This.”

Lisa gestured between them, too tired to make the movement anything but vague. “Being watched. Being checked on. Being asked if I’ve eaten or slept or if I’m alright when I’m clearly not, and then having to say I am because what else am I supposed to say?”

For a second, Carla only stared at her. For a second, Lisa thought she would snap back. She almost wanted her to.

A row would have been easier than whatever was sitting in the room between them now.

But snapping wasn’t what Carla did. She breathed in slowly.

Then she opened her arms.

“What are you doing?” Lisa blinked.

“Come here.” Carla’s voice was quiet.

A small, disbelieving shake of Lisa’s head was the only answer at first. “Carla.”

“Come. Here.”

“I’ve just had a go at you.”

“I noticed.”

“I’m being horrible.”

“You’re being tired.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“No,” Carla said. “But it’s a reason.”

In the middle of the room, Lisa stood there, glass of wine in one hand, hair damp from the rain, throat tight with everything she’d spent all day refusing to feel.

Still, Carla didn’t move toward her. She just waited. That was what did it. Not the words. The waiting. The patience of it. The quiet certainty that Lisa could come undone and still be wanted afterwards.

The glass went down and she crossed the room before she could change her mind.

The second Carla’s arms closed around her, the fight went out of her so completely it almost hurt. She dropped her forehead to Carla’s shoulder and gripped the back of her jumper with both hands. Carla held her firmly, one palm between her shoulder blades, the other at the back of her neck.

“There,” Carla murmured. “I’ve got you.”

Her eyes closed. Her breath shook. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“I never thought you did, darlin’.”

“I’m just…”

Slowly, Carla’s hand moved over her hair. “I’m here.”

A broken breath escaped Lisa. “I’m so tired.”

“I can feel that.” Carla held her tighter.

For a while, neither of them said anything. Lisa let herself stand there in the middle of the living room, held together by Carla’s arms and the stubborn warmth of the house. Her body still felt wired, like some part of her was waiting for the next phone call, the next accusation, the next impossible question. But underneath it, exhaustion spread heavy and deep.

Eventually Carla drew back just enough to look at her.

“You done shouting at me?” she asked softly.

A weak, watery laugh slipped out of Lisa. “For now.”

“I can live with that.”

There it was. A trace of Carla. Dry, but gentle. Not enough to break the moment. Just enough to let Lisa breathe. To the sofa, Carla guided her and sat close, pulling the throw over both of them.

Half turned into her, Lisa ended up tucked close, boots still on, too tired to care that Carla would probably complain about it, but she didn’t. She just tucked Lisa closer, one arm secure around her shoulders.

The quiet returned.

This time, it didn’t feel like waiting.

It felt like shelter.

This was what Lisa wasn’t used to.

That was the thought that slipped in quietly, almost shamefully, as Carla’s fingers moved through her damp hair and the worst of the shaking began to ease.

She wasn’t used to coming home with a case under her skin and finding softness waiting for her. Support, yes, in theory. People always said the right things in theory. They said, I’m here if you need me, and you can talk to me, and don’t bottle it up. But Lisa had learned a long time ago that needing someone properly was different from being offered comfort in passing.

Needing someone meant inconveniencing them. It meant bringing the ugliest parts of your day into the room and hoping they didn’t throw them back at you.

Becky had always found a way to throw them back. Not always loudly. Sometimes that would have been easier.

Not at first, maybe. Lisa didn’t like thinking about the beginning, because the beginning had been good enough to make everything after it confusing. But later, when Lisa came home hollow-eyed from a shift, when a case had gotten too close or too ugly or too impossible, Becky had never simply opened her arms and let Lisa fall apart. She looked for the edge instead. The thing she could turn into a fight.

A missed dinner. An unanswered text. Lisa’s tone when she said hello. The fact Lisa had brought work home in her face even if she hadn’t brought a single file through the door.

Becky could take Lisa’s exhaustion and twist it until Lisa found herself apologising for being quiet, for being late, for being affected by the kind of things no one should have been able to walk away from unaffected. Sometimes Becky would accuse her of shutting her out. Sometimes she’d say Lisa cared more about dead strangers than her own family. Sometimes she’d make a comment sharp enough to draw blood and then act wounded when Lisa reacted to it.

And Lisa, tired and guilty and desperate not to make home harder than work, would give in. She would smooth it over. She would apologise first. She would swallow whatever had followed her home from the station because there was no room for it once Becky had decided they were arguing.

So this — Carla’s arms, Carla’s steady breathing, Carla telling her she was forgiven instead of making her earn it — felt almost impossible.

After a while, Lisa lifted her head slightly.

Looking down at her, Carla asked, “What?”

“I’m not used to it.” A swallow worked through Lisa’s throat.

“Used to what?”

“This.” Lisa gestured weakly between them. “You not arguing back.”

“Do you want me to?” A furrow appeared between Carla’s brows.

“No.”

“Good. Because despite you being a stressy little mare, I much prefer you in my arms like this.”

For a second, Lisa almost smiled, but it didn’t last.

I mean it,” she said. “When cases got bad before, Becky didn’t… she didn’t do this.”

The words made Carla go still.

“She’d find something to argue about,” Lisa said quietly. “Anything. Me being late. Me not texting. Me being distracted. Me not asking about her day quickly enough. It didn’t matter. If I came home stressed, somehow we’d end up fighting, and by the end of it I’d be the one saying sorry.”

Carla’s jaw tightened. Noticing, Lisa squeezed her hand. “I’m not saying she was always awful.”

“I get that.”

“But she wasn’t soft with me. Not like this.” Lisa’s voice grew smaller. “And I think part of me still expects it. I walk through the door ready to defend myself before you’ve even said anything. You ask if I’ve eaten and I hear criticism. You look worried and I think it’s judgement. You try to help and I act like you’re attacking me.”

Something in Carla’s expression broke open a little. “Lisa…”

“I’m sorry,” Lisa whispered. “That isn’t fair to you to compare you to her.”

“No,” Carla said gently. “It isn’t.”

Accepting it, Lisa nodded because she deserved at least that much honesty.

Then came Carla’s hand, warm against her cheek. “But I get it,” she said.

Lisa's eyes fell closed for a moment.

“It doesn’t mean I’ll let you get away with biting my head off every time you’re knackered, mind,” Carla added, thumb brushing Lisa’s cheekbone. A weak laugh escaped Lisa. “But I’m not Becky,” Carla said, firmer now. “I’m not looking for a fight just because you’ve had a bad day. I’m not keeping score of every hour you spend at work so I can throw it at you when you’re already on your knees. And I’m not going to make you earn comfort by having you say sorry enough times.”

Lisa’s throat tightened painfully as Carla leaned closer. “You can come home stressed. You can come home tired. You can come home not knowing how to talk yet. I might tell you when you’re being impossible, because you are sometimes. But I won’t punish you for struggling,” Carla said.

Lisa let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know how to believe that,” she admitted.

“Then don’t. Not all at once.” Carla kissed her forehead. “Just let me prove it.”

“You already are,” she whispered, eyes wet again despite herself.

Gently, Carla’s thumb swept beneath her eye. “Good,” she said. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

“You say that like it’s easy.” Lisa let out a breath that sounded almost like disbelief.

Against her cheek, Carla’s thumb stilled. “It isn’t always.”

Looking up at her, Lisa held Carla’s gaze, honest enough not to pretend. “I’m not going to sit here and say it’s easy watching you do this to yourself. It’s not. You come home with half the station still in your head. You sit next to me and you’re miles away. I can see you running through statements while I’m asking whether you want tea.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“I believe you.” Carla’s voice softened. “That’s the point. If I thought you were doing it on purpose, I’d have said something far less understanding by now.”

A tiny smile pulled at Lisa’s mouth, but it faded quickly. “I don’t know how to switch it off.”

“I can see that.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to be here.”

Something small changed in Carla’s face.

Noticing, Lisa reached for her hand. “I do. Carla, I don’t want you thinking that I wouldn't rather be at home. When I’m quiet, or distracted, or checking my phone every two minutes… it’s not because I don’t want to be here with you.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Down at their joined hands, Carla said quietly, “Most of the time.”

Lisa felt her heart sink. “Carla—”

“No, don’t do that.” Carla squeezed her hand. “Don’t look like I’ve just kicked you. You asked, I’m answering.”

“Alright.” A swallow worked through Lisa’s throat.

A slow breath filled Carla’s chest. “Most of the time, I do. I know it’s the job. I know it’s Betsy. I know it’s Theo. And I know it’s Becky rattling around where she’s got no right to be. But sometimes…” She paused, searching for the least cruel version of the truth. “Sometimes it does feel like I’m trying to get through a locked door.” Lisa’s eyes filled again, but she didn’t interrupt.

“And I can cope with you being busy,” Carla continued. “I can cope with your phone going and you having to leave. I knew who I was marrying. I didn’t think I was getting someone who’d be home at six every night with flowers and a casserole.”

Despite herself, Lisa gave a wet laugh.

“But I can’t cope with you standing two feet away from me and acting like you’re on your own,” Carla said. Lisa looked down and Carla’s voice gentled. “That’s the bit that scares me.”

“I don’t know how not to be like that at times.” Lisa’s fingers tightened around hers.

Silence, not the awkward kind but the kind that was warm, that gave a person time to find their words, settled between them. Carla could practically hear the cogs turning in Lisa’s head and waited to see if she would elaborate. She didn’t. Placing a finger beneath Lisa’s chin, she gently lifted so they were looking into each other's eyes.

“Talk to me,” Carla said softly.

“You know I can’t talk about work, Car—”

“I don’t mean work. Talk to me about what’s going on up here.” Carla interrupted as she placed a finger to Lisa’s head.

A moment passed between them, eyes never leaving the other, before Carla visibly saw the walls in Lisa come down.

“I spent years doing it on my own. Especially after Becky…” Lisa’s voice went quieter. “After she ‘died’, everyone kept saying I was strong. Strong for Betsy. Strong at work. Strong because I had to be. And once people decide you’re strong, they stop checking whether you actually are.”

Carla’s expression softened painfully.

“So I became it,” Lisa said. “Or I tried to. I went to work. I came home. I made sure Betsy ate. I remembered school forms and birthdays and dentist appointments. I stood at Becky’s grave and tried not to hate her for leaving us. Then I hated myself for hating a dead woman.”

Her eyes fell closed. The words, the name hanging between them.

Becky.

Lisa felt Carla register it too.

The air changed.

Carla didn’t push. She never did when it came to Becky, not unless Lisa was spiralling so hard she needed someone to interrupt the fall.

Tonight, apparently, Lisa was already falling.

“It’s always her,” Lisa said quietly.

The arm around Lisa tightened. “Becky?”

Lisa nodded.

For a moment, she couldn’t say anything else.

Because where did you even start?

With the grief? With the grave? With the years of raising Betsy in the shadow of a mother who was supposed to be dead? With the way Lisa had built herself around that loss, hardened certain parts, buried others, only for Becky to walk back into her life breathing and lying and looking at her like she still had the right to be there?

“She made me feel useless,” Lisa said.

The movement of Carla’s hand stilled. “Lisa—”

“No, she did.”

Sitting forward, Lisa rubbed her palms over her knees. “And I know what you’re going to say. That she lied. That she manipulated us. That Costello was involved. That fake Tia, Spain, witness protection, all of it, was designed to mess with my head.”

“It was.”

For a moment, Carla said nothing, but her thumb kept moving over Lisa’s knuckles.

“And now I know she wasn’t dead,” Lisa continued, her voice roughening. “So all that grief… all that strength everyone praised me for… it feels stupid. Like I was standing there mourning a lie while she was somewhere else breathing.”

“You weren’t stupid.”

Lisa scoffed. “Yeah, well, I feel it.”

“I know you do.”

“Exactly.”

“But?”

A swallow worked through Lisa’s throat. “But I’m police, Carla. I’m a detective, for God’s sake. I’m meant to spot lies.”

“Not from a woman you thought you’d buried.”

Lisa looked away.

The room went quiet.

Then Lisa said, “That’s the problem.”

Carla waited.

“She stood there alive. After all those years. After Betsy crying herself sick. After me trying to explain to a little girl that her mum wasn’t coming home. After every birthday and school thing and nightmare.”

Her voice cracked. “And I still wanted to believe there was some reason. Something that made it make sense.”

Carla said nothing.

Lisa was grateful for that.

“She used Betsy,” Lisa continued. “She used the guilt. She knew exactly where to press. And I let her.”

“You were confused.”

“I was fooled.”

“You were confused,” Carla repeated, firmer this time.

A small shake of Lisa’s head answered first. “I nearly left with her.”

A flinch moved through Carla.

There it was.

The thing neither of them liked touching.

Lisa’s voice fell to almost nothing. “While you were tied up somewhere, I nearly took Betsy and went with her.”

Carla’s jaw tightened.

Lisa could barely bear it.

“I thought you were away,” she said quickly, desperately. “I thought you’d had enough. I thought I’d driven you off with all my mess, and all that time you were—”

“I know,” Carla said. Lisa looked at her. Carla’s eyes were bright, but her voice was steady. “I know what you thought.”

“I should’ve known.”

“No.”

“I should’ve seen it.”

“Lisa—”

“She committed fraud under my nose. She let another woman’s identity get dragged into it. Tia Wardley. Fake Tia. Costello. All of it. And I was stood there in the middle of it, trying to work out which bits of my own life had ever been real.”

Both of Lisa’s hands ended up in Carla’s. “That would mess with anyone.”

“I don’t get to be anyone.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.” Lisa’s voice sharpened with desperation rather than anger. “Not when I’m leading a murder investigation. Not when every decision matters. Not when people are already watching me like they’re waiting for me to miss something again.”

Carla’s grip tightened around hers. “Becky doesn’t get to decide whether you’re good at your job.”

“But she does.” Lisa’s eyes filled. “Every interview, every statement, every person who cries at the right moment or leaves something out, I hear her. I hear her explaining it away. I hear myself nearly believing her.”

A little of Carla’s expression broke.

“And Theo was the same kind of poison,” Lisa said. “Different bottle, same damage. He made Todd doubt himself. Made people question what they’d seen. Made everything messy enough that now he’s dead, I’ve got to pick through all the wreckage without letting my anger decide anything.”

Both hands dragged over Lisa’s face, dragging in a breath that didn’t seem to reach her lungs properly.

“And I hate it,” she admitted.

Softness came back into Carla’s expression. “Hate what?”

“That I have to give him everything.” Lisa looked at her then, eyes wet and furious all at once.

“The same time. The same effort. The same care. I have to stand there in that station and look at Theo Silverton’s name on that board like he’s any other murder victim.”

This time, Carla didn’t interrupt.

Lisa’s voice dropped, rough with the effort of saying something she clearly despised in herself.

“And I know how that sounds. I know what it makes me sound like. But he wasn’t innocent, Carla. He wasn’t some poor bloke in the wrong place at the wrong time. He destroyed people. He sat across from Todd and made him feel like nothing. He put bruises on him. He got in his head. He made him doubt whether he had a right to be frightened.”

Her jaw clenched.

“And I have to push all of that down. Every bit of disgust. Every bit of anger. Every part of me that saw Todd sitting there bloodied and broken and wanted Theo nowhere near him ever again. I have to swallow it, walk into work, and treat Theo like I’d treat someone who never hurt a soul.”

Slowly, Carla’s hand moved over Lisa’s back.

“That’s the job,” Lisa said, almost bitterly. “That’s what everyone forgets. It isn’t just finding who did it. It’s doing it properly when part of you doesn’t want to care. It’s giving the same effort to a man like him as I would to a genuinely innocent victim, because the second I don’t, the second I decide he deserves less because he was evil, I’m not doing justice anymore. I’m doing revenge.”

She laughed once, but there was no humour in it.

“And I hate that I know that. I hate that I can’t let myself be human about it. I hate that every time someone says, ‘Well, it was Theo,’ like that explains it, part of me understands what they mean. And then I hate myself for understanding.”

For a moment, Carla said nothing, her thumb still moving over Lisa’s knuckles.

Her face tightened with sympathy, but she stayed quiet.

Lisa’s shoulders dropped, suddenly exhausted by her own honesty.

“So I bottle it down,” she whispered. “I bottle down Todd’s bruises. I bottle down Betsy finding him. I bottle down every statement about what Theo was. I bottle down the fact that half the street are probably breathing easier now he’s gone. And then I spend all day chasing justice for him anyway.”

She looked at Carla, completely undone.

“And it’s exhausting. It’s so bloody exhausting. And Todd keeps having a go at me,” Lisa said, the words coming out quieter than she meant them to.

Carla’s hand slowed against her back as Lisa's jaw tightened. “Little digs. Not always obvious. Not enough that I can call him on it without sounding heartless. But they’re there. Every time I ask another question. Every time I have to speak to Sarah, or George, or Summer. Every time I need him to go back over something he’d rather never think about again.”

Carla’s expression softened. “Love…”

“And I know,” Lisa said quickly, before Carla could misunderstand. “I know why. I know he’s traumatised. I know what Theo did to him. I know he’s angry and scared and probably feels like everyone’s picking at wounds that haven’t even started healing yet.”

Her eyes burned, but she blinked it back.

“But I sat there, Carla. I sat opposite him and listened to him tell me what Theo had done. I watched him apologise for bleeding. I watched him shake while he tried to explain how that man got inside his head. I had to ask him questions that made me feel sick, and I did it gently, because I cared. Because I wanted to get it right for him.”

Carla didn’t interrupt.

“And now he looks at me like I’m betraying him because I have to investigate properly.” Lisa swallowed hard. “Because I have to question his friends. His family. Him. As if I’m choosing to hurt him instead of trying to find out who killed Theo.”

“That must hurt,” Carla said softly.

Lisa let out a humourless little breath. “It can’t.”

“Lisa—”

“It can’t,” she repeated, firmer this time, though her voice cracked around it. “That’s the job. I don’t get to make it about me. Todd’s allowed to lash out. He’s allowed to hate the questions. He’s allowed to hate me for asking them if that’s what gets him through the day.”

“But you thought he’d understand.”

Lisa looked down at their joined hands.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “I thought he might.”

The hand on Lisa’s back stayed there, slow and steady.

“Have you said that to anyone at work?”

Lisa laughed under her breath. “What, that investigating Theo makes my skin crawl? Or that my feelings are being hurt by the husband of the dead man. No.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I can’t say it there.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not useful.”

A frown pulled at Carla’s mouth. “You’re allowed to be human, Lisa.”

“Not in that place.” A small shake of Lisa’s head came with it. “Not with his face on the board. Not with officers watching how I handle it. Not with people already whispering that I’m too close because of Betsy, or because I should be on honeymoon, or because half the witnesses know me. I can’t stand there and admit I’m struggling to care about him properly.”

“But you are caring properly.”

After a while, Lisa looked at her.

“You are,” Carla said. “You’ve just spent the last ten minutes tearing yourself apart because you’re scared you won’t.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m doing it right.”

“No, but it means you care whether you do.”

Lisa looked away.

Leaning closer, Carla murmured, “A bad copper wouldn’t be sat here worrying about giving Theo enough effort. They’d use what he did as an excuse to cut corners and sleep fine after.”

“I’m not sleeping fine.”

“No. You’re barely sleeping at all.” A tired look was all Lisa could give her. Carla didn’t soften the point. “You’re not.”

“I can sleep when it’s done.”

“No, you can’t. Because when this is done, there’ll be something else.”

Lisa's mouth opened, then closed it again.

Carla gave a slight nod, as if Lisa’s silence proved her point. “There’s always something else. Another case. Another victim. Another family waiting for answers. Another person lying through their teeth. If you keep telling yourself you can rest when the job stops needing you, you’ll never rest.”

Lisa’s voice was small when she answered. “I don’t know how to rest with it unfinished.”

“I can see that.”

“It feels wrong.”

“Maybe it feels wrong because you’ve trained yourself to think exhaustion means dedication.”

Lisa looked at her then, caught.

Carla’s expression softened, but she didn’t take it back. “Doesn’t it?”

A swallow worked through Lisa’s throat.

“Becky used to say that,” she admitted.

The shift in Carla’s face was immediate.

“Not like that exactly,” Lisa said. “But she’d say I loved the job more than I loved being at home. That I chose cases because they made me feel important. And after she ‘died’, I think part of me tried to prove that wasn’t true by making every case matter enough to justify the hours.”

“Lisa…”

“And now I can’t tell the difference.” Lisa’s eyes filled again. “I don’t know when I’m staying because the case needs me and when I’m staying because I don’t know who I am if I stop.”

Over hers, Carla’s hand tightened.

“You’re my wife,” Carla said.

Lisa let out a shaky breath. “That’s not a job description.”

“No. It’s better.”

She paused. Lisa looked at her.

“You’re Betsy’s mum,” Carla continued. “You’re annoying in the morning. You drink terrible station coffee and pretend it’s fine. You line your shoes up with OCD precision and moan at me for leaving mine where you can break your neck. You do that face when you’re trying not to cry, which is daft because I always know. You’re more than what happens in that station.”

Lisa’s mouth trembled.

“And yes,” Carla added, “you’re a good detective. A brilliant one, actually, and I'm not just saying that cause I'm biased.”

A small, wet laugh slipped out of Lisa.

“But that’s not all you are,” Carla said. “And it’s not all I married.”

Hard blinks did little to clear Lisa’s eyes.

“I don’t know how to hold it all,” she whispered. “The job and this. You and Betsy. What Theo did. What Becky did. All of it.”

“Then stop trying to hold it by yourself.”

Lisa looked down at their joined hands.

“What if I drop something?”

“Then we pick it up.”

“That easy?”

“No.” Carla’s thumb moved over Lisa’s ring. “But easier than watching you carry it alone until it crushes you.” For a long moment, Carla watched her. “That’s why you’re shattered.”

“I’m shattered because I’m getting nowhere.”

“No.” Carla shook her head. “You’re shattered because you’re trying to solve a murder, look after Betsy, stop Todd being chewed up by gossip, prove Becky didn’t break your judgement, bottle down the fact that Theo made your skin crawl, and still be my wife like we haven’t only been married for five minutes.”

Lisa let out a small, broken laugh. “Sounds pathetic when you say it like that.”

“It doesn’t.” Carla’s voice was firm. “It sounds like too much.”

Lisa’s mouth trembled and Carla pulled her back into her arms.

This time, Lisa went without resisting.

“I need to catch them,” Lisa said into her shoulder.

“I know you do, and you will.”

“I need to.” Her voice cracked. “Because Theo being vile doesn’t mean someone gets away with murder. Because Todd deserves the truth. Because Betsy found him and I can’t undo that. Because if I don’t get this right, then maybe Becky was right. Maybe I don’t see what’s right in front of me.”

Carla’s hold tightened instantly. “Don’t give her that.”

Lisa stilled.

Pulling back just enough, Carla looked at her. “She’s had enough from you. Your grief. Your guilt. Betsy’s hope. She doesn’t get this as well.”

That was when Lisa broke.

Quietly at first. A sharp breath, then another, then tears she couldn’t swallow down quickly enough. Carla drew her in, one hand moving up and down her back.

“There,” Carla murmured. “Let it out.”

“I hate crying.”

“I don't think anyone likes it, love.”

“It makes me feel—”

“If you say weak, I’m putting you on bin duty for a month.”

Lisa gave a wet, startled laugh.

Carla’s mouth softened into something almost like a smile. “That’s better.”

They stayed like that until Lisa’s breathing eased. Until the tremor in her hands stopped.

Until the house felt less like another place she was failing and more like somewhere she was allowed to be imperfect.

After a while, Lisa looked at her. “I don’t know how to be someone’s wife without waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Carla’s breath caught softly. Lisa pressed on before fear could stop her. “With Becky, if things were calm, it usually meant they wouldn’t stay calm. If she was being kind, there was sometimes a reason. If I relaxed, she’d accuse me of missing something. And then after she came back, that feeling got worse, because it turned out I had missed something. The biggest something.”

Leaning closer, Carla murmured, “You’re not missing me.”

Lisa blinked.

“You hear me?” Carla said. “You’re not missing me. I’m here. I’ll tell you if I’m angry. I’ll tell you if I’m hurt. I’m not going to set traps and wait for you to step in them.”

Lisa breathed out shakily. “You make it sound simple.”

“It isn’t simple. It’s just true.”

“And what if I keep getting it wrong?” Lisa looked at her for a long moment.

“Then we talk.”

“What if I snap again?”

“Then you apologise, and I decide whether to be gracious or make you go buy me flowers first.”

Lisa huffed out a laugh.

Carla’s mouth curved faintly. “There. That’s the system.”

“That’s marriage, is it?”

“Part of it.” Carla’s expression softened again. “The other part is me telling you, as many times as it takes, that you don’t have to come home perfect.”

Lisa’s eyes burned.

“I don’t know what to come home as half the time,” she admitted.

Carla’s eyes stayed on her. “Mine.” Her voice was quiet, but certain. “You come home as mine. That’s enough.”

For a moment, Lisa went still. She couldn’t speak. Then she leaned forward and pressed her forehead to Carla’s shoulder again. Immediately, Carla’s arms went around her.

“I’m trying,” Lisa whispered.

“I can see you are, love.”

“I promise I am. I don’t want to shut you out.”

“Then don’t.”

Lisa gave a small, broken laugh against her. “You say that like it’s easy.”

“No,” Carla murmured, hand moving through Lisa’s hair. “I say it like I’m standing right here with the door open.”

She wrapped her arms tighter, and Lisa went into them with a little less fear than before. For a few minutes, they stayed like that. Carla’s hand found a slow rhythm through Lisa’s hair, and Lisa found herself matching it without meaning to, breathing when Carla breathed, letting the worst of the adrenaline drain away.

The house was warm. The rain was distant now, no longer sharp against the car roof but softened by brick and glass and Carla’s breathing beside her. The sofa dipped under their combined weight, familiar and ordinary in a way that almost made Lisa cry again. She stared at the wedding ring on her finger. “We should be away.”

Against her hair, Carla’s cheek rested. “Aye, we should.”

“We should be somewhere sunny, drinking something ridiculous.”

“Eyeing up the hotties.”

That got the smallest laugh from Lisa and she gently slapped Carla’s leg. “Oi, careful.”

The arm around Lisa tightened. “There she is. Though FYI, you’re the only hottie I'm interested in.”

“I’m sorry about the honeymoon.” Lisa’s smile faded quickly.

“You’ve apologised every day.”

“Because every day we’re still here.”

“A man was murdered, Lisa. And Betsy found him.” Carla’s voice stayed gentle, but there was no nonsense in it. “You didn’t cancel it because you fancied a few extra shifts.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t feel guilty.”

“Why do you? Feel guilty, I mean?” Lisa looked down and a soft sigh left Carla before she reached for her hand. “I knew what I was getting.”

Lisa glanced at her. “What?”

“When I married a copper.” Carla’s thumb moved over Lisa’s wedding ring. “I knew there’d be late nights. Phone calls at stupid o’clock. Cases that followed you home even when you tried not to let them. I’m not daft, Lisa. I didn’t walk into this thinking you’d suddenly become someone with a nine-to-five and a packed lunch.”

Despite herself, Lisa’s mouth twitched faintly.

“But I married you anyway,” Carla continued. “Not because I thought it would always be easy. Because it was you.” A swallow worked through Lisa’s throat.

“And yes, I’d quite like the honeymoon,” Carla added, softer now. “I’d quite like my wife somewhere sunny, preferably without a murder board within a twenty-mile radius. But I’m not sat here resenting you because your job did what your job does.”

“It shouldn’t have happened on our wedding day.”

“No,” Carla said. “It shouldn’t. But it did. But we’re still married.” Lisa’s eyes lifted to hers. Carla squeezed her hand. “That’s the bit that matters.” Carla sighed softly. “We’ll go.”

“When?”

“When we can.”

“What if things don’t calm down?”

“Then we’ll go anyway, eventually.” Carla paused. “And if this place kicks off while we’re gone, it can manage without us for a week.”

Leaning into her, Lisa said, “You say that now.”

“I mean it now, and I’ll mean it then.”

The room settled again.

Then Carla added, quieter, “And I meant what I said. I married you, not the holiday.”

They stayed moulded tighter for a while longer, before eventually Carla freed herself from holding Lisa.

“Wait here.”

Lisa watched as she rose and went into the kitchen, disappearing before Lisa could argue. She returned with a plate of food and a glass of water, setting both on the coffee table with the air of someone who would not be negotiated with.

“Carla,” Lisa said, eyeing the plate.

“Four mouthfuls.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Four mouthfuls anyway.”

After a while, Lisa looked at her. Carla looked back. Neither one wanted to back down from their stubborn staring contest, but Lisa folded, picked up the fork.

Beside her, Carla sat, close enough that their knees touched, but she didn’t make a fuss. She didn’t comment after the first mouthful, or the second. She just stayed there, quiet and steady, letting Lisa eat without turning it into another thing to be embarrassed about.

When Lisa had managed enough for Carla to stop silently worrying, she put the plate down and leaned back as Carla opened her arms again.

Lisa looked at her. “This your answer to everything, is it?”

“Tonight, yes.”

This time, Lisa let herself sink against her again.

Carla pulled the throw over them both. This time, Lisa toed her boots off before Carla could complain, and Carla made the smallest approving noise that Lisa pretended not to hear.

For a while, they said nothing.

The rain tapped at the window.

With her ear against Carla, Lisa listened to her heartbeat.

Steady.

Alive.

Here.

Her phone buzzed on the coffee table.

Every muscle in her body tensed.

Before Lisa could reach properly, Carla’s hand landed over hers. “No.”

“It could be work.”

“It could be, and it could also be nothing.”

“I should check.”

“You should stay put.”

“Carla—”

“Ten minutes,” Carla said. “Give me ten minutes where you’re not proving anything to anyone. If it is work and it's important, they'll call you, won't they?”

Lisa stared at the phone. Her instincts screamed at her to move. To answer. To be useful. The old reflex rose quick and brutal, the same one that had dragged her through grief, through Becky, through every night she had mistaken exhaustion for control. To not miss the thing that mattered. To not be the detective who failed to see what was happening under her nose. To not be fooled again.

Through hers, Carla threaded their fingers together.

“Ten minutes,” she repeated. “Theo doesn’t get them. Becky doesn’t get them. The job doesn’t get them. I do.”

Lisa looked up to meet her eye.

There was no anger in Carla’s face now. No demand. Just love, and the kind of tired fear that came from watching someone you loved disappear into themselves by inches.

Still, Lisa reached for the phone.

A flicker crossed Carla’s expression.

But Lisa only turned it face down and pushed it farther away.

A soft exhale left Carla.

Back against her, Lisa settled.

“Ten minutes,” she said.

A kiss brushed Lisa’s hair. “Good.”

Then there was a noise from the stairs.

Instantly, Lisa stiffened. Carla’s arm tightened around her before she could move. “It’s Betsy.”

The top step creaked as soft footsteps padded down towards them, Betsy appearing wearing an oversized hoodie, hair rumpled from sleep, face pale in the low light. She looked younger like that. Smaller. The way she only ever did when she forgot to perform being fine.

At once, Lisa sat up. “Bets?”

Her eyes moved from Lisa to Carla, then to the abandoned plate on the table.

“You’re finally home,” she said.

Three words again.

Different this time.

Still enough to cut.

Lisa’s throat tightened. “Yeah. Sorry if we woke you.”

“You didn’t.” Betsy leaned against the handrail, arms folded. “Wasn’t really asleep.”

Carla’s expression softened in a way she tried to hide by reaching for the throw and tugging it more securely around Lisa. “You want a drink, love?”

Betsy hesitated. That was answer enough.

A movement started in Carla, but Lisa stood first. “I’ll get it.”

Carla looked at her carefully. Lisa knew what she was checking. Whether Lisa was moving because she wanted to, or because guilt had yanked her upright like a lead.

Maybe both.

But she needed to do something that wasn’t about Theo Silverton. Something simple.

Kettle. Mug. Milk. Sugar. The ordinary rituals of looking after the person she loved most in the world, even when she had failed to protect her from seeing the thing she could never unsee.

Into the kitchen, Betsy followed her but hovered near the doorway.

The kettle filled in Lisa’s hand. Her hands felt steadier now, though not entirely.

“Hot chocolate?” she asked.

Betsy shrugged. “If you’re making one.” That meant yes.

One mug came down, then another, then a third because Carla would pretend she didn’t want one and drink half of Lisa’s otherwise.

Silently, Betsy watched. Powder went into the mugs, too much in Betsy’s because Lisa knew that was how she liked it. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The kettle began to rumble. Rain brushed the windows.

Then Betsy said, “Have you found out who did it?”

Lisa closed her eyes briefly.

The question was not casual. Betsy’s voice was trying too hard to be light.

“I can’t talk about it, love.”

“I figured.”

Turning, Lisa looked at her daughter.

Betsy held her stare. “Just wondered.”

“You’ll be the first person I tell when I get who did it.”

Mouth tightening, Betsy spoke with a hint of fear in her voice. “It feels stupid. I keep thinking if I hadn’t gone round there, or if I’d looked the other way, or if I’d—”

“No.” Lisa’s voice came out too firm, and Betsy flinched.

Lisa softened immediately. “No, sweetheart. Don’t do that.”

Betsy’s eyes shone with sudden tears she clearly hated. “I found him.”

“I know, and I'm so sorry for that, sweetheart.”

“I can still see him.”

Something in Lisa’s chest cracked clean down the middle. She crossed the kitchen and pulled Betsy into her arms.

For one terrifying second, Betsy stayed rigid.

Then she folded.

Not dramatically. Not like she had in the factory. Just a quiet collapse against Lisa’s shoulder, her hands clutching the back of Lisa’s top as though she was still small enough to be held through nightmares.

Closing her eyes, Lisa pressed her cheek to Betsy’s hair.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Muffled against her, Betsy’s voice came small. “Not your fault.”

Lisa almost laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because everybody kept saying that tonight, and she believed it from none of them.

“I’m still sorry.”

Betsy sniffed. “You always say that.”

“So do you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m traumatised. What’s your excuse?”

The smallest laugh escaped Lisa. “Fair point.”

Betsy pulled back enough to wipe her face with her sleeve. “Don’t tell Carla I cried.”

“She won’t say anything.”

“You think she heard?”

“She’s Carla, she hears everything.”

Betsy gave a tiny, reluctant smile.

Lisa held onto that little almost-smile like evidence bagged and labelled. Something fragile. Something real. Something she could not afford to contaminate with panic.

“I won’t make a thing of it,” Lisa said.

“Good.”

The kettle clicked off.

Lisa made the drinks. Betsy took hers with both hands, staring down into it like it might offer answers.

“Are you going back in tonight?” Betsy asked.

Lisa hesitated.

The honest answer was: maybe. If the phone rang with something important. If there was a development. If the case demanded it. If duty opened its mouth and called her name.

But Carla’s voice echoed in her head.

Ten minutes where you’re not proving anything to anyone.

“No, I don't think so,” Lisa said.

Betsy looked up, surprised.

A swallow worked through Lisa’s throat. “Not unless I absolutely have to.”

Her daughter studied her in that unnervingly perceptive way she had inherited from both her mothers, biological and otherwise. “Carla say something?”

Lisa’s mouth twitched faintly. “Carla always says something.”

“Good.”

Lisa raised an eyebrow. “Good?”

“You listen to her.”

“I listen to you as well.”

Betsy gave her a look.

Lisa sighed. “I try to listen to you.”

“Better.”

They carried the mugs back into the living room. Carla, to her credit, pretended very convincingly that she had not been listening to every word. She accepted her hot chocolate with a look that said she knew exactly why Lisa had made three and loved her for it.

Betsy sat on the armchair, pulling her knees up beneath the hoodie. For a while, the three of them drank in silence.

It should have been awkward.

It wasn’t.

It was fragile, maybe. Bruised around the edges. But not awkward.

After a few minutes, Betsy yawned.

Carla gave her a pointed look. “Bed.”

“Yes, stepmother.” Betsy rolled her eyes, but there was no real fight in it.

She stood, mug empty, and paused by Lisa on her way out.

For a second, Lisa thought she might say something.

Instead, Betsy leaned down and hugged her quickly, fiercely, one arm around Lisa’s shoulders from the side.

Then she was gone.

Lisa stared after her, throat full.

Carla waited until Betsy’s bedroom door clicked shut.

“She’ll be alright,” Carla said softly.

Lisa nodded, though she wasn’t sure whether she believed it.

“She will,” Carla repeated, as if she could hear the doubt. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow, maybe. But she will.”

Lisa looked down into her mug. “I should’ve been here more.”

“You’re here now.”

“It’s not enough.”

“It’ll do for tonight.”

Lisa sank back onto the sofa. Carla took the mug from her hand and put it on the table before pulling her back in.

Lisa went willingly now. Her eyes fell closed.

Tomorrow, she would go back to the station. Tomorrow, she would look at Theo Silverton’s face on the board and make herself see a victim, not just a man who had caused pain. She would give his murder the same energy she would give any other, because the law couldn’t only matter when the dead were easy to mourn. She would keep asking questions, keep following evidence, keep separating truth from trauma as best she could.

She would do it for Todd, who deserved to be free of Theo properly.

For Betsy, who deserved answers after being the one to find him.

For Carla, who deserved a wife who came home before there was nothing left of her.

And maybe, eventually, for herself.

Not to prove Becky wrong.

Not to punish herself for ever believing her.

But because Lisa Connor-Swain was good at her job.

Scared, exhausted, bruised by the past, yes.

But still good.

Carla’s thumb moved slowly over her wedding ring.

“You’re still thinking,” Carla murmured.

Without opening her eyes, Lisa smiled faintly. “Can’t help it.”

“No, I know you can’t.”

The arm around her tightened.

Outside, Manchester rain kept falling, washing the cobbles clean for a night even if it couldn’t touch what had happened to them.

Inside, Lisa let herself be held. Not fixed. Not forgiven into silence. Just held.

And for once, with Carla beside her and Betsy safe within reach, Lisa let the night soften around them. For ten whole minutes, then longer, she let herself be a mum and a wife, before detective.