the_gene_genie: (Ashes - Stern/Silent Hurt)
DCI Gene Hunt ([personal profile] the_gene_genie) wrote2012-06-19 12:44 am
Entry tags:

OOM: 3x08 (ii)


Things are cooking in CID. He hasn’t seen them work so well all year. Chris is on the gangsters, following up the snouts, calling up Europlod. Ray’s chasing the phone number on the dead bloke’s hand.

‘Good, this is what I like to see, the machine working.’

Despite everything, he’s got a good feeling. With Drake out of the way, he doesn’t have to think about last night. Just his lads, and a nice dirty case to fix.

Until Shaz pipes up. ‘Oh Guv. DCI Keats says he’s got something for you.’

He swivels in the doorway to his office, and heads out. ‘Oh, joy! Lucky old me.’

Let the bastard try and slow him down today.

~


Keats office is the furnace it always is. He walks in without knocking, and sees him putting a tape into the video player.

‘Best porn’s on VHS.’

‘Betamax. I’m a sucker for quality.’

‘You wanna get yourself into CID, an’ watch my team workin’ as a unit.’

Keats picks up a folder from his desk. ‘You asked me for any old files from the Yard on gem smuggling. I got intel.’

‘Intel. There’s posh.’ He paces, side to side. ‘Tell you what, you get ‘reconnoitre’ into a sentence, I might buy you a fish supper.’

‘Walter Tavish. Once handled gems out of Sierra Leone.’ He hands a page over without looking at him. He almost sounds bored. ‘Through London, and on into Europe.’

‘What, so, Tavish was fencing for a foreign gang. Then he switched his allegiance to the Hardimans. Who wanted to muscle in on the action, but they were killed for it.’

Keats half-smiles, and turns away towards a cupboard. Gene drops the file back on the desk.

‘Well, I got myself a contact. Rachel Miller. Something tells me she’s gonna be key.’

‘That old Gene Hunt nous.’ Keats has a box in his hands. He puts it down in front of him. ‘That’s what wound up Sam Tyler. Those grand hunches of yours.’

He stares at the box. Sam Tyler again. Some of the wind comes out of his sails. ‘What’s this? Your packed lunch?’

‘My report. On you.’

Keats is quiet. He’s not gloating. He’s not looking smug. He’s not grinning, or insulting, or threatening. Which is sort of threatening in itself.

‘Fascinating reading,’ he says softly, and walks to the side door. Gene watches him leave. All of a sudden, the case looks less shiny, less important. The thrill of the chase replaced by the dread of reality.

He looks at the box. It’s just a box, though it seems to stare back at him. Black, unadorned. Size of a briefcase. Bloody hell, how much did the bloke write?

The door clicks shut, and he’s alone. Gene shifts from side to side, then thinks stuff this, and pulls the lid off.




It contains a photograph.

One photograph.

He looks at it. It’s a farmhouse of some sort. Black and white. There’s a weathervane in the shape of Old Man Time.

He picks it up. Looks at the door Keats left through. Looks back at the photo, and there’s something, a flash of recognition. Like he’s seen this place before, but he can’t remember where, or when.

He flips it over. I think we’ve found our grave, in Keats’ neat block print. He reads it once, then again, and is dimly aware of his breath starting to come a bit faster. Flips it back over. He knows this place. Grave. Grave.

Bolly was...

The TV flicks on, presumably to whatever was on the tape Keats put in the machine. There’s no picture. Just a voice. A voice that makes him freeze, blood cold in his veins.

And here comes her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second...

The picture comes on. The Queen, on her coronation day, in her carriage. 1953.

...by the Grace of God, Queen of this realm and her other realms and territories...

He’s staring, and the photo’s in his hand and his thoughts leap from one to the other, farmhouse, the Queen, farmhouse, Coronation Day, farmhouse, grave…the TV flicks off, and he’s still staring, with fear clawing up his throat, twisting his stomach into knots.

Farmhouse...grave..

...Alex.

He bangs through the doors of CID, strides over the floor. Ray says something, keeps saying things; he just walks to his office, and yanks open the drawer where he keeps his gun. Takes his coat, and is gone.

The case doesn’t matter. Really, truly, doesn’t matter. She’s got a headstart on him. He has to get to Lancashire, and he has to get there now.

~ ~ ~


She would have taken a pool car. No match for the Quattro. She had, what, half an hour’s head-start on him? Even if she puts her foot down, he won’t be far behind. If he gets lucky, he might get there first.

And do what? Look for what? He’s not sure, but she’s after a grave and it’s ringing a bell, somewhere in the depths of memory long dormant. Just like the video footage of Coronation Day – he’s seen it before, everyone in the country has. It was different this time. That voiceover, those pictures; his throat had closed over, trapping air in his chest, squeezing his lungs tight. The two have to be linked. No, he knows they are. He just doesn’t know how. And if he doesn’t stop her, she’ll make that link for him.

He swings onto the motorway, and presses the accelerator to the floor. She can’t make that connection. Whatever’s up there, it needs to stay up there. It has no place in his world, and if she needs persuading of that…he glances to the gun on the passenger seat. He once told her he’d shot all the innocent people he cared to in this lifetime. It was true then, it’s true now. But all the same...

He leans forward in his seat, and wills the car to go faster.

lady_bols: (s3 modern listening)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 12:01 am (UTC)(link)
The road is clear the entire way. Grey English skies play out overhead like the motorway before her, featureless and mind-numbing. She doesn't turn on the radio. She simply keeps her eyes on the horizon, marking the miles like beats of her heart, passing one by one by one.

The farmhouse is off a small muddy track. Nothing unusual about it at all, save for the weathervane. It's the same weathervane she saw in her dreams. A silhouette of a man, stooped beneath a heavy burden.

The images she saw on the news report flicker through her memory, and she turns and looks up the hill. She can hear the raucous calls of the ravens in the trees. There. The scarecrow on the hilltop. She sets off. Somewhere along the way, she must have acquired a nice pair of Wellington's but she can't remember when she stopped.

It's so quiet here. Nothing but the wind and the birds. Such a drastic change from the bustle of London. It feels like the edge of the world. As she approaches, the sky grows dark.

There's a coat wrapped around the straw figure on the cross. A man's coat, in dark blue nylon. There, on the shoulder, she catches a glint of metal.

The epaulette numbers, gleaming through a coating of muck. She has to stretch to reach it, but it comes free easily. She brushes her thumbs over the numbers, clearing away the mud. Such a small thing, and yet, it feels like the first pebble of an avalanche.

A crack of thunder breaks her reverie and she looks up, somehow unsurprised to see him standing with her.
lady_bols: (s1 work it out)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
When she turns, it's almost as if she expects him to be there. She's not startled or angry. When she speaks, she tries for level, professional. Another day on the job, right?

"Someone must have found it. Pinned it on."

She takes a good long look at him, wondering what is going on behind those grey blue eyes. The tears that have been lurking beneath the surface threaten again. "There's a body buried here, Gene. It was on the news in my hospital room." She doesn't want to hear any more lies from him. "Please tell me it's not Sam."
lady_bols: (s3 modern profile)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
He doesn't answer her. He doesn't even look like he can hear her voice. If he wants to watch her, that's fine. She isn't surprised to find the spade leaning up against the scarecrow. As if someone had placed it there, knowing she was coming. Knowing what she was looking for.

The depression in the earth is easily recognisable, when you know the signs. A body decomposes and leaves a cavity as the organic material is washed away. The ground sinks in on itself, and in the constant humidity, the faint scent of putrescine mingles with the smell of wet earth and green grass.

She's planted roses before. She knows how to dig a hole. The sharp blade bites into the mud, and she puts her foot on the back end, using her weight to turn up the first shovelful of earth. Decomposition stains the soil a darker shade, making it look richer. Good things are supposed to grow from soil like this, but no. She's uncovering a grave, here. Another shovelful, and another. It won't take much. Whoever interred this body did not bury the poor soul beneath very deep.
lady_bols: (s2 scared)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 12:29 am (UTC)(link)
'No!'

She's too close to the end now. Too close to the truth. She hears the weapon cock, and she doesn't dare hesitate. The spade is relinquished as she nears her goal. She drops to her knees in the mud and begins tearing away pieces of sod.
lady_bols: (s3 modern worried)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 12:34 am (UTC)(link)
Another peal of thunder rumbles across the sky as she carefully brushes away the mud from a shattered skull. This is an old grave, possibly forty or fifty years. And the wound matches... She's seen this body before. She's stood face to face with this ghost.

She looks over her shoulder at him, a bitter breath of laughter on her lips.

'It's him.'

Disbelief twists in her gut, and her faith in him cracks.
lady_bols: (s3 i believed in you)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 12:39 am (UTC)(link)
She doesn't want to believe it, but this is the truth, cold and hard, right in front of her face. Another dead copper. Another lie piled on top of a heap of lies. He demanded blind allegiance from her before, and this is why. This body. This young copper in an unmarked grave.

'Keats was right about you, Gene. All this time.' There are no words for the cold shards radiating through her chest. 'And I believed in you.'

She can't keep the tears from her voice now. Can't hold back the crush of emotion any longer. Everything they've been through together for the last three years means nothing in the face of this revelation.

'More than that...'
lady_bols: (s1 work it out)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 12:42 am (UTC)(link)
A name. She wants to give him a name. And that means identifying the body. Her gaze returns to the bones, vision blurred with tears now. The policeman's uniform is very well preserved, and it's nothing to slip her hand under his lapel and retrieve the small red folder. His warrant card. She wipes it clean with gentle fingers, and opens it.

The name within makes her heart sink even farther.

It makes no sense. No sense at all. This can't be right.
lady_bols: (s3 i believed in you)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 12:44 am (UTC)(link)
The figure of the ghost stands opposite her, looking down into her face. Go on, he seems to say. He needs to know the truth.

The truth will set us free.

She turns and looks back to Gene, barely able to draw a breath. It takes her a moment to stand, and an eternity to take the three steps to close the distance between them. He doesn't lower his weapon until she offers the warrant card to him. She would give anything to not be the one to do this, but if this is her purpose... If this is why she was sent here... If this is the only thing standing between her and Molly. He's breathing hard, like he's just run a foot race.

Just a bit farther for us both. The truth, and then...
lady_bols: (s3 modern worried)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 12:47 am (UTC)(link)
She watches him go, not sure whether to follow or to let him be. It's only a moment before she turns back to the grave. The ghost is gone now, but she can't leave him exposed to the elements like this. The earth has held him safe for so long now, it seems only right to kneel and replace the wet clumps of soil, her hands gently straightening his uniform, and then gingerly covering his face again. He was so very young. What happened? Who did this to him? And why? If she could know the answer to that question, it might be the key to everything else.

He's gone towards the abandoned farmhouse, disappeared inside. And she takes a moment, just a moment, to say a quiet prayer for these bones. For the man whose name she now knows.

And when that is done, she follows.

~ ~ ~

She closes the door of the farmhouse behind her, not eager to disturb Gene. He's distracted, almost in a fugue state. She recognises the signs, and knows, he has to do this on his own now.
lady_bols: (afraid)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 02:32 am (UTC)(link)
'It was a man with a shotgun.'

She doesn't mean to interrupt him, but she can see the trauma playing itself out in his head. And it doesn't make sense, because he's standing here, his face unscarred by anything as violent as a shotgun blast.

He's whole, and vibrant, and here.

She doesn't quite know how that can be. His body is behind her, lying mouldering in the ground, and he's standing right in front of her.
lady_bols: (s1 distraught)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 05:11 pm (UTC)(link)
'No.'

Again, her heart is in her mouth, and she can't hold back the tears.

'No, you didn't.'

No one deserves that.
lady_bols: (s2 scared)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 05:21 pm (UTC)(link)
'Why didn't you tell me?'

She can't understand it. She thought -- it doesn't matter what she thought. Obviously. It was all about him.

'All your swagger and your bullshit, but in reality--'
lady_bols: (s3 i believed in you)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 05:24 pm (UTC)(link)
‘What is 'here?'

Alex has to know. The answer is fundamental to understanding the truth of the last three years. Of everything her life has become. 'Tell me.' She deserves to know.
lady_bols: (s1 distraught)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 05:26 pm (UTC)(link)
No. No, that can't be right. Tears well up behind her eyes.

'You're talking about people who are...'

She takes a few steps towards him, silently begging him to make her wrong. Because she's not one of them. She can't be.

'People who...'
lady_bols: (s2 scared)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 05:56 pm (UTC)(link)
No, it doesn't make any sense. She's different, isn't she? She came back of her own free will. She returned to this world, and when her work is done, she can go home. She's not trapped anywhere. No, she has to think.

'Sam.' Sam is the key to it all, isn't he? 'Sam came back here after he threw himself off that building, but he knew that it couldn't last.' He had a life here (just as she has a life back home). 'Did you help them both on their way, Gene? Did you? Sam and Annie?' Bitter tears flow now, and she can't help but take another step towards him. He's had the answers all along.
lady_bols: (s3 i believed in you)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 06:01 pm (UTC)(link)
'You helped Sam.'

That one bit of the truth cuts deep, and her voice is thick with angry tears now.

'Do I mean nothing to you, Gene? I only wanted to get back to my little girl. That's all.'

How many times has she tried to tell him the truth, only to have him spit it back in her face? And she came back, to help him?
Edited 2012-06-19 18:01 (UTC)
lady_bols: (s1 work it out)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 06:07 pm (UTC)(link)
'Oh yeah, you have.'

She didn't want him to be right about Gene. She trusted him. More than that. Her gaze moves back to him, knowing now just how selfish and petty he really is.

'You've been amazing.' Keats puts his hands on her shoulders and turns her away, speaking directly to her. 'Listen, you've done all you can to get home. There's just one last thing to accomplish, Alex. Help me explain the truth,' he takes her face between his hands, 'to Ray, Chris and Shaz.' He wipes away her tears with his thumb and she nods. The truth is all that matters, she knows that now.
Edited 2012-06-19 18:08 (UTC)
lady_bols: (s3 i believed in you)

[personal profile] lady_bols 2012-06-19 06:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Again, she turns to Gene, her voice hollow. 'I'm doing this for Molly.' She takes another step towards him, her body stiff. 'Because she can't be without me.'

Keats voice is soothing, but the edge is unmistakable. 'You placed your trust in the wrong person, is all. Hunt will try and twist you around his finger one last time. I promise you, before this is over, he will try and trick you, and when that moment comes, you... will... know..."