He bites the inside of his cheek, and finds himself glancing from her eyes to her lips, and back up. But there's been something on his mind since this morning, and those hours in front of the TV on his own.

'Y'know, there's a...there's this thing, but I don' know what it's called. When something happens, whether you want it to or not. And after, things are different and-'

This isn't coming out right.

'-what I mean is - well, look, when I used to walk aroun' Manchester, people would look at me, an' say hello, and come an' talk and it was good. And then there was this case that got splashed all over the papers, an' Jackie Queen made me out to be some kind of monster. And for bloody months after, people looked at me like I was shit they'd jus' stepped in.'

And wow, it still stings, even now. He has to actively remind himself that it wasn't real. Real for him, but not anywhere that counts.

'It got better, right. But even a couple of years after, sometimes I'd run into people and the first thing out of their mouths was, 'you're the bloke who shot that lad', and they hated me. See?'

He's not sure that made sense even to himself, but he wants to get it out before the hope disappears for good.

'What I mean is - sometimes things happen, and you look at someone an' they're different, no matter what. You can't go back to seein' them the way they were, even if you want to.'

And he can't understand how that isn't the case here. After what she saw rolling on the floor of CID, after the things she found out - how can she be sitting here, thinking he's the same bloke she nearly slept with one night? That's what he doesn't get.

If it were him, he doesn't think he could do it. It would have destroyed too much.