His phone is on the table in front of him and there is the dull buzz of an incoming text. It’s from Inspector Barker, who’s been on early turn the last two days, so their paths haven’t crossed: Had word with Lively, she’s agreed to send DC to record witness statement from Leyla Abaza and add to file. Any further complaints against the good doctor, it’s on record. Well done.

And something happens in Akash Lockhart’s chest at that moment, a kind of fullness, soaring like joy but not joy, something more solid and satisfying than joy. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. He has done his job as well as he could. A truth that might have stayed buried has been unburied, and PC Lockhart knows in that moment that the pure love he feels for Veena is only one kind of love, and even though he doesn’t like Inspector Barker all that much he gives the phone a great smacker of a kiss, just before his colleague PC Mitchell bursts through the door yelling, ‘And here it IS, Merry CHRISTMAS, everyBODY’s having FUN! Ready for another fun-filled Friday night, Kashi-boy?!’

*

I don’t want to do it, but I feel I really ought.

I cross Station Road. I pass through the barriers. I turn right and mount the stairs to the covered walkway.

Thomas Warren is sitting on the metal bench at the end of Platform Seven. He doesn’t turn or look my way as I approach and I think, he can’t see me any more, now I’ve decided what to do. Now I am free, I am already gone.

I look at him for a while. He doesn’t move. His consciousness is trapped here, reliving the moment before his death, again and again. As time turns, all he will do is enter the station, again and again, mount the stairs, cross the walkway, again and again, but there will be no further investigation into him, no love or diligence to set him free. Instead, he is destined to always end up here on Platform Seven knowing only that he is alone, and that he is terribly and deservedly afraid.