DCI Gene Hunt (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_gene_genie) wrote2012-06-19 12:44 am
the_gene_genie) wrote2012-06-19 12:44 am
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.
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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.
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It’s not like back at the office, with the sight of it bringing the ghost of a feeling, a voice that tells him he should know it. Here, sitting under lowering clouds with the squalling of crows wheeling above, he knows he knows it. He knows something happened here. Something bad.
He sits in the car, and watches it as though it might speak to him. He has a feeling the sky should be blue. There should be more colour in the grass, more red in the brick. More noise in the distance,
not just the birds, and the vast, empty expanse of hills and rain.
He wants to sit here, and not find out why. Whatever’s in there, he does not want to know. The fear of knowing crawls in his belly, and up to his throat and if he could, he’d just drive away and not look back. Except, she’s here. She won’t leave it alone, unless he stops her.
He gets out of the car. He checks his gun is loaded. And looks around. She’ll be...yeah. He knows where she’ll be.
Thunder rolls overhead. He stands, and watches her pull something off the shoulder of the scarecrow. He can’t speak. There’s too much in his head. But he can watch, and he knows she’ll see him eventually.
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"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."
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No.
Why would he bury Sam up here? Why would anyone…
…there’s a noise in his head. Flashes of green, and red. People shouting in the distance, somewhere on the edge of hearing.
She has to stop. He will force her, if he has to.
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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.
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She’s digging.
She’s digging.
He never thought they’d get to this point. She’s been searching for so long, and he hadn’t realised what it was she was looking for. Her hospital bed – he doesn’t get it, but he does, and that means…
‘Stop.’
She’s been going a while, and he forces himself to come back. He can save this. He can stop her finding what she’s looking for. He has to stop her, because if he doesn’t, it’s all finished.
The only thing he can think of is his gun. He pulls it from his belt, and blinks, and drags his gaze from the overturned earth because he has to focus. But when he pulls the hammer back, she just keeps on digging.
He barely recognises his own voice.
‘I said, stop.’
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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.
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He’s been here before. He knows it, and he can’t breathe. Can’t move.
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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.
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It’s him.
But he never killed Sam.
He searches his memory, and no, no, he didn’t kill Sam.
It’s him.
The gun is heavy in his hand, but he can’t move his arm. His fingers won’t work. No, he didn’t kill Sam. He took Sam to the pub. But he’s been here before, and he can feel the sun from that day, and hear crows, and people and he knows he can’t stop her now, can’t stop any of it now.
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'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...'
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The name within makes her heart sink even farther.
It makes no sense. No sense at all. This can't be right.
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The images make sense, finally. Past colour fades into the reality of now, and he remembers. Even as she turns, he can see it. It plays out in front of his eyes as though it were yesterday, as though nothing has happened since. But he doesn’t want to believe it. It can’t be true. Things like this don’t happen, and he refuses to wrap his head around it, even as the truth comes sharply into focus, as if someone has adjusted a camera lens to bring the past front and centre.
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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...
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He looks at the picture. He sees the signature, and mouths words that match a memory long buried. Yes, he remembers that face. He’s seen that writing before.
He turns blindly, closing his hand around the card. The answers are not down there, in that farmhouse. He knows them already. But he has to see, he has to be sure. If he’s going to know this truth, he has to know all of it. It’s too late to run.
He sets off down the hill, tucking the gun back in his belt as he walks, no longer aware of her presence.
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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.
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The place is as he remembers, only draped in thirty years of dust and cobwebs. Bottles sit on the table, pots on the windowsill. There are boards over the window, letting shafts of light through the shadows. And flags, still, after all these years. They hang from the beams over the window, trail to the floor, the only colour in a room of grey.
He stands, holding the warrant card open in his hand. A young, smiling face, and the confident scrawl of a copper at the start of life. The last time he saw this room –
- he hears her close the door behind him. She’s been gone, and he’s been here, and now she’s back. That’s about as important as time gets, right now. He looks down at a face he hasn’t seen in thirty years.
‘Skinny.’
The boy heard that a lot.
‘Yeah, he was, um...a skinny lad, needed fattening up.’
He throws the card down on the table. For the first time, the burn of anger penetrates the shock. He takes a few steps, looking around, taking it in in a way he hadn’t had a chance to before.
‘Was Morrison, said that. His mentor. PC Morrison.’
It’s smaller than he remembered. But then, he didn’t remember, did he? Until now.
‘Yes. Coronation Day.’
Crowds and music in his head. It had been on the TV. He looks around to where the noise had come from.
‘That was a funny one. His first week on the beat. But he had Morrison to guide him. That was, until someone gave the old fella a nip of whiskey, an’ before you know it, he was hokey-cokeying with the locals.’
The anger has tamped down already, but it’s still there, lying under the shock. It’s always been there. And he has to tell her this story. This is what she’s been wanting to hear, isn’t it? He has to...has to get it out. But there’s no relief in doing it.
‘Young bobby’s suddenly on his own.’
He breathes out through his mouth.
‘Someone broke in here. He heard ‘em.’
‘Thought they were kids. So he kicks the door open – y’know, like John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart – BAM, an’ he goes...’
‘...see in here...’
He’s tapping the side of his head, his stupid head, his ignorant, foolish, childish head, and he can’t stop,
‘...in here, he’s not some snotty kid in a uniform, oh no, he’s Gary Cooper in High Noon, he’s the law.’
He always, always, wanted to be the Sheriff.
‘Only they weren’t kids.’
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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.
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He’s been hearing that sound his whole adult life. Only now does he remember what it means.
There are tears in his eyes, voice rough as gravel, and the anger is real now, so strong he can taste it, burning a hole right through the middle of his chest.
‘He didn’t deserve a shallow grave, did he?'
'Did he, Alex!?’
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Again, her heart is in her mouth, and she can't hold back the tears.
'No, you didn't.'
No one deserves that.
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No, he didn’t. No one deserves that.
He stares at nothing. The tears sting in his eyes. The anger is what saved him, he knows, though he has no idea why. And it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t change what’s happening now.
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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--'
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‘-I forgot everything.’
And if she doesn’t believe him, it’s tough.
‘An’ you know what?’ He lets out a breath that is entirely unlike a laugh. ‘I wish I still had.’
There’s more to say, probably, though he doesn’t know what. He doesn’t get the chance anyway.
‘Ohhh, that is beautiful.’
He looks to the shadows. And is not surprised, at all, to see Keats in the corner. He should be surprised. The man wasn’t there before. But he knows, in a fundamental way, that normal rules have been suspended.
‘Corny, but uh...very atmospheric.’
The man spins into the light. Gene can’t bring himself to square his shoulders. It doesn’t seem fair - none of this seems fair - but dealing with Keats now is a step he doesn’t feel man enough to take.
‘So...there we are. This boy, in a man’s uniform. Head swimming with machismo, and bravado, and something...else, ending in ‘O’ - oh, I can’t think of another one - BANG!’
Gene stands, and lets the mockery hit home. Boy in a man’s uniform. That’s the truth, isn’t it? That’s what she knows about him, now. It’s the truth.
None of this is real.
Keats’ words pull him from the past, from a shotgun and the splatter of blood up a wall (that wall over there), into the reality he now faces. None of this is real. The implications start to settle, and none of them look good.
‘It’s over.’ The man mimes blowing smoke from a spent gun. ‘And you’re here.’
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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.
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‘Gene? Is it...coming...back to you, can you help the lady out?’ Keats trails off into a laugh, the picture of enjoyment.
He doesn’t move. But she’s looking at him, and he owes her what he knows, doesn’t he?
‘It’s, uh...somewhere where we go to sort ourselves.... Coppers.’
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'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...'
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‘Oh, you gotta admit, when you know the truth about him, it explains a lot.’
The man paces to her, around her, and Gene can see what he’s doing, and can’t move to stop it.
‘Ego. An immature relationship with alcohol. A curious...uncertainty about the opposite sex?’
He’s reducing him to nothing. A boy. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. He’s spent all this time being a man, being the man he always wanted to be, and now Keats has to do this, in front of her. It would be bad if it was just the two of them; with her watching, it’s excruciating.
‘Gradually, they came to you. Those who had issues with their passing. And you tucked in their shirts, and you wiped their noses...’
Keats is in front of him, his hands on his shoulders, and he can’t meet his eyes. He makes it sound like he’s done a bad thing, a stupid thing, but he only wanted to help.
‘...sorting out the troubled souls of Her Majesty’s Constabulary. Ray. Chris. Shaz. Oh, they been here a long time, haven’t they, eh? A lot of issues...’
Shit. Oh, shit. Keats is going to tell them. And when they know, they’ll be in trouble. He’ll make it sound...bad. He’ll make them a better offer, and if they take it - why wouldn’t they take it, once they know the truth about him? They’ll be gone, and it’ll be because he couldn’t stop Keats, all this time.
The panic is clear in his voice. ‘You touch them, I will snap your neck like a twig.’
‘Ohhh, perfect. A little bit of boyish defiance left in you. Magic.’
Keats spits vitriol in his face, and desperation squeezes his chest, but how’s he supposed to make him stop? He watches him turn to Alex.
‘This man has had ‘em imprisoned in his fantasy. And I’ve watched you help them lay their demons to rest, Alex. Just the one thing they don’t know is, unlike you, they’re compromised.’
It’s not true. It’s not. He never compromised them. He’s been helping them. Surely she knows that? She’s been the closest to him all this time. Him and her, they were unbreakable. His shoulders slump, and he heaves in a few breaths, needing her to understand but unable to explain. Surely she can see that he didn’t mean any harm?
‘Alex...’
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'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.
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He pulls in another lungful of air, suddenly aware of how ironic it is to do that.
Jesus Christ. He threw himself off a building.
'All I knew, Sam had to go. End of.’
It really is as simple as that. When he knows, he knows.
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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?
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‘He doesn’t want you home. He wants you here, with him.’
Because it’s true. He can’t look at either of them. He’s never felt so small, so much like a child. Because he was weak, and he wanted her here with him.
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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.
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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..."
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