What Breaks A Detective.

Chapter 2

Smart came to in a bed, but it wasn't one that he recognised. But a quick look around confirmed his original suspicions.

He was in hospital.

Oh for hell's sake.

He shuffled upright in the bed, and moved his pillow so the headboard didn't dig in his back. The hospital wing he lay in was overly light and airy, clashing with Smart's irritable mood. There weren't many people about, he noticed, and all of them bar him were asleep. Smart's instinct was to get up and check himself out, to get back to work, but he had a feeling his overprotective older brother had a hand in this somewhere.

At that point, a young nurse came into the ward, quite a pretty young thing with a button nose and long, black hair tied up in a neat bun. Smart coughed almost politely until she noticed him.

"Can I get out of here?" he asked. She looked strangely at him.

"Name, sir?" she asked primly. Smart considered giving a false one, but he reckoned he'd only land himself in more trouble with Quinne.

"Smart" he replied fixedly. "Tobias."

This seemed to elicit some sort of recognizance from the girl.

"I've been told to keep you under strict supervision, sir" she told him, as he glowered at her. "Your brother said he'd come and discharge you early this evening."

"Did he now?" Smart commented dryly, rolling his eyes and lying back down between the sheets. "That's nice."

"Would you like a hot drink, sir?" the nurse enquired politely. "Or perhaps something to eat?"

"No" Smart grumbled. "Thank you."

She left promptly, and Smart was left to sulk in silence. He wasn't going to give up on Allie, whatever Quinne said. He'd tried accepting it, but there was something about what had happened that didn't quite ring true. He hadn't a clue why, but it just felt wrong, and to make it worse he couldn't get it all out of his head. Everything he'd seen, done and heard on that fateful 24 hours and the investigation after was constantly on a replay, around and around in his head, so he couldn't not consider it.

After Quinne had floored the Lieutenant during the fight in his mother's the living room, the rest of them had spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes discussing exactly what had happened and where they all stood. He had wanted to lock the Lieutenant in the pantry, but his mother was very proud of her jams and hadn't wanted to put them in jeopardy. They had all assumed Allie was locked in her room and was staying there, until a few hours later when her sister Isabel had knocked and gotten no response. He'd been the one to find the key in the vase, and had instantly deduced that Allie had gone with the cart that her friends had come in, and that she was headed back to London alone.

Alright, he hadn't actually known it was London she was headed, but it was a pretty educated guess.

Once they'd stopped the Lieutenant shouting (again!) they'd headed straight down after Allie, in a hope to catch her before she did anything stupid. They'd expected her to hide somewhere clever, and as they were still technically on the run none of them had thought to go to Praed Street, as they had assumed it was still under surveillance and that Allie would stay away from it.

As he had every time he came to this part of the story, Smart mentally kicked himself. If he'd only gone to Praed Street, then perhaps he could have prevented what had happened.

The first real clue to Allie's whereabouts they'd got had the telephone call from the phone box on Baker Street. It was picked up by a young officer, Bentley (which explained why the boy was now his secretary!) and had been Allie herself on the phone, tipping off the police as to her crazy plan she'd concocted on the Thames Bridge. She hadn't said much, only that she would be in need of Yard backup from about twelve p.m. at the Thames Bridge on the same day, and that they should stay undercover 'until the right time. You'll know when.'