Both Beth and Robbins were silent.

"What did you find in the coffin?" asked Wilson. "He wasn't there, was he?"

Robbins ignored the question, and repeated his own. "Where is he now, Wilson? Do you have any idea?"

"I'm right, aren't I?" said the policeman, but Robbins still didn't answer him. Wilson turned again to Beth. "Who is he, doctor? Whatis he?"

"Right now, he's missing," she replied. "And we need to find him if we're to answer any of those questions."

"Sir?" came a voice from behind. It was the WPC again. "You're wanted on the phone."

"Can't it wait? I'm busy here." Robbins flapped at a fly that was buzzing around his head, making its bid for freedom through the open door.

"It's about the man from this cell," she told him. "There's been a sighting."

~

"I should have seen this coming. Why didn't I send a uniform to keep an eye on the place as soon as I knew he was free?" Robbins banged the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

Beth, in the passenger seat, stared out the window at the small school they were approaching. The red brick of the building, and gray-slated roof, looked remarkably like her old primary school. "No wonder your stomach is always playing up. Which, by the way, I've told you to get looked at... Listen, you weren't to know this would happen."

"You read the gravestone same as I did: 'Devoted son, husband and father'. He'd already visited Mrs. Daley. There was a huge probability he'd try to get in touch with his... with theson again. Shit!"

Robbins was still reluctant to recognize the man as Matthew Daley, even after what he'd seen. She recalled the conversation they'd had on the way to the station when he'd asked her for theories. "How about this: Matthew Daley dies, is pronounced, then buried. But he's not really dead."

Robbins grimaced. "What do you mean, not really dead? How can he not be dead when he's had a fucking autopsy?"

"Happens more often than you think," she replied. "Patients even wake up in the middle of autopsies sometimes. Or when they've been buried prematurely. The medical term for it is Catalepsy, where the patient suffers from a form of temporary paralysis and appears dead." Sleep well, it had said on the gravestone----and perhaps that's all he had been doing, just sleeping. "The latest thing now is to put a web-cam in the coffin so you can keep checking on the deceased."

Robbins pulled a face. "Beth..."

"Ask Poe, it scared the crap out of him."

"I suppose you'll be saying next that he'salive and well and still churning out stories," Robbins said snidely.

"Now you're just being a dickhead."

"Can we just cut to the chase?"

"Okay, so say he does wake up for some reason. Starts banging on the coffin----"

"Nobody would hear him."

"Say that they did," Beth argued. "Say someone dug him up then just put everything back the way it was."

"Why? Why would they do that? And why would he wait until now to come back?"

"I've no idea. You're the detective."

"But the state of him, Beth... How could anyone recover?"

"I don't know. A freak of nature, recuperative powers, something to do with the blood..."

"None of which was picked up in the autopsy."

"Perhaps it was where he worked."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Steve, that place was closed down because of all the leaks. God knows what working there for so long might have done."

He waved his hand dismissively.

"At least we have some samples from the coffin. We can work on a DNA match now." And they'd left it at that, not getting any further at all. Now here they were, looking for a man who should have been inside that coffin but wasn't. A man who had come to see his little boy.

They pulled up, the white and orange car following them doing the same. Valentine and Adams waited inside their car while Robbins and Beth got out and went through the school gates, pressing the buzzer at the main door. A secretary opened it and Robbins flashed his ID. They were taken through to an office where the headmaster of the school greeted them with a worried frown. "We've never had an incident like this before," he assured them, "we pride ourselves on keeping the pupils safe."

"I understand," said Robbins. It was difficult to tell from his voice whether he was being sarcastic or not.

"Mrs. Shaw, one of our helpers who drew this to our attention, was very distressed by the whole thing and had to be taken home."

"I'll bet. We'll need to talk to her later, get a statement. Now, if you wouldn't mind..."

The headmaster gave a nod of understanding, taking them through the school where lessons were carrying on as normal that afternoon. "We've put him in the quiet room," the headmaster told them. When Beth and Robbins looked puzzled, he explained, "Oh, it's where the children go if they want to read alone or have some time to themselves."

Inside this quiet room, which was much smaller than the other classrooms they'd seen, a little boy with tousled hair was sitting at a desk. He had a toy car in his hands, turning it over and over. The scene was like Robbins' first encounter with the man back at the station, only in miniature. The boy seemed to have the same mannerisms, even had a look of the man they were pursuing. Robbins crouched down beside him. "Hello..." He looked back over his shoulder at the headmaster.

"Jason," prompted the man.

"Hello there, Jason. I'm Chief Inspector Robbins."

The boy looked at him, then continued to study the toy car.

"Do you think you could answer a couple of questions?"

The boy shrugged.

"That's a nice car, who gave it to you?"

Jason shrugged again. Robbins looked over to Beth for help.

The doctor walked to the desk and pulled out a little chair, sitting down opposite. "Hi Jason, my name's Beth. It's very important that we talk to the man who gave you this. Do you know where he went?"

Jason shook his head. "He didn't say, but I'm going to see him again. He told me that."

Robbins gave Beth a worried look.

"Let me through. Where's my son!" A commotion at the door to the 'quiet' room drew their attention and they turned to see a woman with short black hair pushing her way in, past the headmaster.

"Mrs. Hill, you got the call----" he began, but she ran to Jason and hugged him tightly, checking every inch of him over with her eyes. It was only then that she seemed aware of the other people there. "Who are you two? What were you doing with my son?"

"Please calm down, madam," said Robbins.

"No, youcalm down. I'll calm down when I find out just what in God's name is going on."

"That might take a bit of explaining," said Beth. "We're not really sure we understand it ourselves."

"I saw Dad today," said Jason before anyone else could speak.

This took the woman aback. "Your Dad? Sweetheart, your Dad's at work. You know that."

"No, he said he was my real dad. What did he mean?"

All the color drained from the woman's face. She brushed a hair out of her son's eyes. "Sweetheart, that's... that's just not possible. Remember, we talked about this before. Your real father... he's not with us anymore."