Mark opened the laptop, the screen coming to life. The background image was some kind of picture, the date and time in the foreground, the battery life meter in the bottom right-hand corner. It wasn’t in percentage, but he could see it was almost out.

He had to work fast.

He pressed the space bar, hoping that the screen saver would disappear if he did so.

It did.

Replaced by a password box.

‘No…’

He tried everything he knew to get past it, but failed at every turn. It was no use. There was no option to bypass it, no cancel button to log in as a guest, no clues to the password. Mark began inputting random words. Strings of numbers. Anything he could think of, in order to get in.

Every single one failed.

Eventually, it stopped allowing him to put them in, locking him out indefinitely. Mark sat back in the driver’s seat, defeated. The screen changed back to its screen saver, the battery icon flashing red.

He didn’t know what to do next, other than to tell the truth. To have the full weight of Major Crimes helping, and hopefully save Natasha. His career was probably still over, but he had to do something.

It wouldn’t help, of course; she would be killed so he, whoever he was, wouldn’t be caught. If she wasn’t already dead, he thought. He’d been played with, just like everyone else involved. It was all a game and there were no winners.

The laptop shifted on his knees, as he dropped his head back onto the seat rest. Screwed his eyes shut and tried to think of a way in which all of this could be sorted out. A way in which he could save his career, save Natasha, stop the madness.

Nothing came.

Mark was out of ideas, he realised. He had nothing left. Every single decision he’d made had been wrong. A day spent in custody, pretending to be a serial killer for what looked like no reason. He’d listened to some robotic voice over his phone, decided to follow it, and tried the ridiculous. And for what? To save someone who was probably already dead.

Mark rubbed against his forehead with the palms of his hands, wondering how long it would take for someone to find him. To take him back to Liverpool in disgrace. He’d only narrowly escaped being charged for something back at the police station. Now he imagined an investigation against him would find plenty of reasons to make sure he was gone from the police for good.

He had destroyed his life.

Just like he’d been told to do.

Maybe he had won then, Mark thought. Probably not in time to save Natasha’s life, but he could claim a victory of sorts. Even if it meant the loss of everything.