OOM: 2x06. There's no such thing as society

[the_gene_genie]

 

‘Told you didn’ I? Bastard fell down some stairs.’

‘Oh yeah, very original. What next, he walked into a wall?’

‘Not my fault he’s got two left feet.’

Really, he thinks she should be used to it by now. When you arrest scum – especially drug dealing scum, like Heroin Harry here – and they try and resist, said scum gets a kicking. It’s just the way of the world. They expect it, just as he doesn’t expect them to come quietly and would be quite disappointed if they did.

She starts talking gibberish again, which gives ol’ Harry an opportunity to wriggle free and try and escape by chucking himself over the nearest wall. As they look down the embankment to where the idiot’s lying flat on his back and shaking his head to try and revive himself (trying that move with your hands cuffed behind your back was just madness, really), Gene thinks the tosser has proved his point nicely.

‘See? Walked into a wall.’

Drake is obviously in a whimsical kind of mood today. Probably been hanging about with hippies or lefties or similar, when he wasn’t looking.

‘You know, you forget don’t you, sometimes, how beautiful London can be. The architecture, the canals...’

‘...dead body floatin’ along.’

‘You really have no poetry in your soul at all, do you?’

‘No, that dead body there, look.’

He points quite happily at the corpse drifting on by. London. Never lets you forget what a shithole it is.

And the canals have got nothing on Manchester’s, Bolly.

~ ~ ~

 

Colin Mitchell worked for a local ‘businessman’ who turns out to be a first-class scumbag, one who has somehow managed to stay off Gene Hunt’s radar. If that weren’t insulting enough, he’s a scumbag doing one of the things Gene hates most – exploiting decent people and then beating the crap out of them when they can’t pay the money he loans them back. The barbed-wire ‘brand’ on their arms is just the icing on the cake, really. He can’t believe he’s hearing about this man, Trevor Riley, from a bunch of old folk who’re trying to set up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme, headed up by Mitchell’s father. He was taking the piss out of them before but when one reveals the bruises all over his torso given to him by Riley’s men, it stops being a joke and starts being something, someone, who needs to be stamped down on pronto.

He gets a visit, this Trevor Riley. And within ten seconds of being in the same room as the cockroach, Gene knows this is a bloke he just wants to paste all over the walls. For one thing, the man doesn’t even get up when they go in, doesn’t put his paper down. For another, the first thing out of his mouth is an insult and then he just chucks his lawyer’s card across the desk and tells him they’ll sort it out.

He can’t quite believe the nerve of the vermin, actually.

‘You still ‘ere?’

Gene kicks his feet off the desk. The bloke still doesn’t seem scared but he does at least start paying attention, especially when they tell him Colin Mitchell’s dead. He tries to make out like someone’s got it in for him and points out that he wouldn’t leave his brand on a person right before killing them which, in normal circumstances, might be a valid point. But in this case, Gene really really wants this ‘roach to be guilty.

‘I run a legitimate business an’ yes, people don’t always read the small print. S’not my fault people are stupid. Not up to me to look out for them.’

Drake pipes in with one of Thatcher’s most famous recent quotes.

‘There’s no such thing as society,’ and the man smiles, points at her.

‘There ya go. I’m just taking advantage of the current economic climate.’

He goes on to say he had no problem with Mitchell et cetera, that he’s about two seconds away from calling his lawyers and having them done for harassment. At which point, Gene’s ever tenuous patience runs out and he grabs the bastard by the tie, yanks him down and staples it to the desk.

‘One second...two seconds. G’on then, try me.

...y’know, I ‘ave had harder shites than you, Friday nights after a curry. An’ when I’m done, I don’ sit there ruminatin’ on the individual’s role in society, my son. I flush ‘em away.’

He’s stalked out long before the bloke pulls his tie free and stands straight again, but he still hears the ‘tosser!’ that’s yelled after them. Good. Because if this twat’s managed to get under his radar, it means Gene wasn’t on his.

But he bloody is now.

~ ~ ~

They find Mitchell’s abandoned car, complete with plane tickets inside. Two of them, for him and the wife, travelling separately two months apart. Donna Mitchell had failed to mention anything about that when she’d come in to ID the body.

‘Bolly, people don’ hide things from me. They jus’ forget to mention it ‘til my boot meets their arse.’

They bring her in. She’s quite clearly nervous in the interview room but that suits him just fine.

‘See, DI Drake here, she does this thing called psychological profiling; now if you ask me, it’s a lo’ o’bollocks but I’m goin’ t’have a crack at it anyway.

So...nice ‘ouse.  Nice car. Enough jewellery to signal ships off the coast. Doesn’ hide the fact tha’ you’re from the gutter. An’ all the perfume in th’ world can’t hide the smell of scum.’

‘...well, that’s not psychological profiling, is it? That’s just you insulting the lady.’

‘I’m sayin’ tha’ Blondie ‘ere likes the good life a little bi’ too much.’

‘And you haven’t stopped to consider that they might have been running away from someone.’

‘If you’re gonna run, you run together, not two bloody months apart.’

...he’s not wrong, though, even if his standards of profiling don’t meet with her approval. Donna Mitchell tells them that Colin was going to disappear, she was to report him missing and join him two months later, all to cash in on the life insurance policy her husband took out. Only then he really did get killed. They were running away from Riley and the mess they’d got into; Donna had grown up on the same estate as Riley and had been jealous of his wealth, wanted a bit of it for her and her bloke.

~ ~ ~

 

Colin’s dad, Stanley, is a decent bloke. He reminds Gene of a lot of old men he knew when he was growing up; the sort that want to help the community and stick together and try not to let the scumbags have everything their own way. He can respect that, even if the man is a bit stupid to have gone and got himself beaten up by Riley’s blokes. A mate of his, the one at the meeting who showed off his bruises, was about to get branded so he’d gone down with some others to help and ended up with a broken arm and a black and blue face. Turns out he’s had the brand put on him before, when he borrowed money off Riley to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment in a private hospital. He knows what it’s like to get on the wrong side of Riley and has the guts to stand up and say no more.

Gene’s liking this tosspot less and less, and he didn’t have a high opinion of him in the first place. He’s momentarily distracted by Drake passing out on the kitchen floor and then...trying to hug him, while babbling something about feeling good and showing off the best of herself (he’s given up on that ever happening but he’d not mind if she changed her mind). He fends her off, unwilling to get drawn in again and anyway, Riley’s in his sights and he wants to get the bastard before giving thought to anything else.

Anyway, she’s started talking about leaving again.

‘I’m still alive,’ she says and something in him rebels. For a moment, it’s almost like he knows what she’s talking about and doesn’t like it; there’s a wrench and a stab and...it’s gone, and he’s just exasperated. He doesn’t have time for this.

~ ~ ~

 

Just because they can’t find a way to nail Riley on the murder – yet – doesn’t mean the man isn’t guilty of something.

‘I bet his office is crawlin’ with evidence. Raymondo – fetch me my search warrant.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

Ray zooms out of his chair like an enthusiastic kid. Drake looks sceptical.

‘When did you have time to get a search warrant?’

He just looks at her, holds out his hand when Ray returns so he can put the crowbar in it.

Sometimes you just have to do things the old way.

~ ~ ~

 

Breaking into an office and searching it without a warrant is hardly legal. As Drake is keen to point out, anything they find will be inadmissible in court. He’s just as quick to point out that they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it. First they have to find something.

And find something they do (after nearly getting sprung by Riley who returned unexpectedly; luckily Chris and Ray had the nous to distract him by stealing his car, so he reckons they’re alright. Even if the weasel did see them drive away). A nice videotape of Riley giving Donna Mitchell a right good seeing to from behind. With this juicy bit of information, he’s pretty sure they can wrap this up quickly. Looks like the case is a straightforward one of bumping off the husband so Donna and Weasel Boy can shack up together, despite Drake insisting that the bird wasn’t enjoying it.

And then she changes the subject. She says she might not be there very much longer. Not a transfer, she says, when he asks. She doesn’t explain any further, naturally, but does give them all a letter to read after she’s gone. He pockets it with a carefully impassive set to his face and sends them all off home. It’s late, they’ve done a good night’s work and he’s tired, wanders off to where he parked the Quattro earlier.

‘You got a light there, mate?’

‘Yeah.’

It’s a quiet street and there’s no one around. He doesn’t think anything of stopping to help the bloke out; he’s walked these roads alone since he got here and never had any trouble. You’d be pretty stupid to face up to a bloke his size, after all.

But these men haven’t faced up to him. He turns, flicking open his Zippo and looks into a face covered by a balaclava. There’s a moment’s pause and then he feels the bat connect from behind, right across the shoulder blades. A fist to the face, the bat again and he’s down, unable to stop the blows raining in, seeing stars as they drag him off the pavement into some grass and belt him a few more times for good measure before running off.

He’s not sure how long he lies there. Probably not too long; just enough time for his head to clear. But then, he’s not sure how long that takes because it hurts like a bitch and he’s not even sure if he managed to stay conscious. He knows though, long before he drags himself up to a sitting position against the chipboard fence behind him, that they were sent by Riley. Bastards with baseball bats, that’s his MO.

He’ll be angry, he knows. As soon as he can think straight, the fury will come; he can feel it building underneath the headache and the sharp pain through his shoulder and the throbbing ache in his kidneys and jaw and eye. The prospect of it is what gets him moving, that and the stiffness already threatening as the cold coming up off the ground starts eating into him. It hurts to move but he’ll be damned if he’s going to sit around here and let some bastard keep him down.

It’s a difficult night. Gene doesn’t set much store by icing wounds and the like; he’s had enough beatings in his time to not worry about the physicality of it. An inspection in the mirror reveals reddened skin across his back, upper and lower; his right shoulder hurts like buggery and is going to be awkward as hell tomorrow, his eye is starting to swell and it hurts to touch his ribs. Which means bruising and probably not much else, he can cope with that. Whiskey and paracetemol will be enough. The injuries are not what makes this night difficult.

There’s no such thing as society, she’d said, and Riley had agreed with her. Used that as his excuse for his behaviour in ripping off those people, used it to abscond himself of all responsibility. Just taking advantage of the current economic climate, he’d said.

But there is such a thing as society, isn’t there? He remembers, back home, the way his wife would spend one morning a week round at old Mrs Thornton’s up the street, cleaning for her because she was ninety two, and blind and had no family. He’d go and mow her lawn when it was his turn. If they ran out of sugar, they’d pop next door and have a cuppa and a chat and borrow some; when that tosser Harrison two streets away ran away with a shop clerk and took most of the furniture with him, everyone had given his missus odd bits to help her out and see her through and make sure she had something to feed the kids off. That’s society, isn’t it? People helping each other out when they need it.

Stanley Mitchell understands that. He’s trying to set up this Neighbourhood Watch thing, which is probably a load of bollocks but the thing is, he’s trying. It’s something for the community. It’s maggots like Riley that destroy it all, only looking out for themselves and using the baseball bats to make sure they get what they want, not thinking about the destruction they’re leaving in their wake.

He sits and drinks, Scotch to dull the pain. His living room is sparse and neutral and he doesn’t turn the light on because his headache doesn’t want him to.

When he was a kid, he’d always know when he was in for it. Usually at the beginning of the week because his old man had money in his pocket then; by Thursday he was normally too skint to go to the pub for long. Weekends were the worst. Him and Stu would lie in bed and listen for the bang of the front door; the harder it slammed, the worse it was going to be. And there was a strange sort of camaraderie, lying there in their room, looking up at the ceiling and feeling the others fear. It was usually one or the other of them, only occasionally both. Neither of them ever wished – well, once he was past a certain age, anyway – that their father would pick on the other. They’d just lie there and hope that he’d pass out before finding a reason to come upstairs; when he didn’t, they’d ready themselves, fear turning to a steely resolve to try and fight back, at least.

He drinks and tries not to think about it but it’s hard. Sometimes it doesn’t go away.

The point was, he knew it was coming. And when you know it’s coming, you can prepare yourself. Anytime him and his lads go in to collar some scumbags, you know there’s going to be a fight. You expect it, look forward to it even. But there’s a code to it; you don’t skulk around in dark corners and then jump on them in the dark. You kick the door in, yell as loud as you can and it announces the rules. It’s the way of society, in the criminal world. He’s the good guy, they’re the bad guys. They’ll fight and he’ll fight back, an even battle for supremacy. It’s the way of the world.

You don’t distract a bloke and then smack him from behind. You don’t stick a poncy balaclava over your face and smile from behind it as your mate swings his bat. You just don’t.

Except these days, maybe you do. It’s the real source of the pain, as he sits there with a bottle and tries not to think about moving, or about having to walk into work tomorrow with a face looking like this. These days, maybe this is what’s normal.

He’s drifting, tired, head starting to nod. It aches so much, it’s easier to close his eyes. But he can’t turn his brain off.

Thatcher has changed Britain. Where you used to get pits and mines and steel works and factories and shipyards, places that two or three generations of a family might work in, now you’re more likely to get a job in computers or telecommunications. British Rail, British Telecom, all the state-run companies, they’re all getting sold off piece by piece, privatised and commercialised, at the whim of the highest bidder. If your business is failing, the government lets it fail and the unemployed have to adapt or drown, or turn to crime. It’s every man for himself, and what do you get? People like Trevor Riley.

He never thought it would happen. You grow up in a world where you know the names of every person on your street, where you never have to lock your front door. Where you’re respected as a copper and you and the criminals know where you stand in the big game. But this? This is new. This is change and he doesn’t like it. It feels like it’s all getting out of hand; the most stark reminder yet that that world has been left behind and he can’t ever, can never, go back.

Welcome to the new world, he thinks to himself, drunk now and almost letting out a laugh as dry as his throat. But he’s Gene Hunt. He’s a copper. And he can make bastards like that pay, he can do his job and stand up for the decent folk and remind the shit-sticks out there that this is one man you don’t want to mess with on a deserted street.

~ ~ ~

 

Walking in the next day is every bit as embarrassing as he’d thought it’d be. Lucky, really, that his lads know well enough to leave him alone when he’s got that expression on and not comment on the state of his face.

Drake doesn’t seem to have got the memo.

‘Guv?’

He turns and walks away. He doesn’t want to talk about it, he doesn’t want it mentioned, he doesn’t want anything but to decide on Riley’s fate and then go mete it out. He also wishes no one had to see him like this but he’ll be damned if he’s going to stay at home and hide. Sod that.

‘Guv!’

‘Walked into a wall.’

By the age of seven, he’d learned all the excuses in the world for the black eyes you get. And you don’t ever, under any circumstances, whinge and moan over what’s happened.

She follows him into the bloody gents.

‘What happened?’

‘Clumsy. Two left feet.’

‘They came to my flat.’

He thought the rage couldn’t grip him any tighter, but he was wrong.

‘...they lay a finger on ya?’

‘No. I hid behind the sofa.’

At least that’s something. If they’d touched her, he wouldn’t be held responsible for his actions.

But now, she won’t leave him alone. He just wants some time to think and not talk to anyone and decide what exactly to do about this but she won’t stop yapping, even when he locks himself in a cubicle. There are times when you just need peace and quiet and she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t get why this is such a big deal.

The gents is obviously not going to provide respite so there’s only one thing for it.

‘Viv? I wan’ you to stick me in the cells.’

‘Guv?’

‘That way, I migh’ get a bit of peace and quiet.’

She gets the message.

Viv won’t lock him in but that’s fine. The last time he was locked in one of these it was on a murder charge and he wasn’t all that keen on the experience then. This time though, its sanctuary, of a sort. Cool and dimly lit, quiet even; he paces and smoke, thinks.

Sometimes he wonders if he really could kill a man. Probably not. Not on purpose. But in situations like this, it’s all too easy to imagine starting to hit a bloke and not being able to stop. Riley sent those bastards after Alex, for Chris’ sakes. A man who has no qualms about beating a woman up with a baseball bat deserves nothing more than to have his head smashed in by one. At least.  But that wouldn’t be enough, even. For one thing, if he’s going to hit him, he’s man enough to do it with his own two fists. For another, there’s the bigger picture to consider.

He’d never heard of Trevor Riley. The scumbag was molesting all these people and he’d never heard of him. That has to change. There has to be a message sent, to people like him and to the people he hurt. That Gene Hunt will protect the decent folk and to all those who try and exploit them for their own benefit? They’d better watch out.

He’s in there maybe an hour, maybe two, maybe longer. When Drake walks in, he’s calmed enough to not send her away.

‘Guv, you know...it’s OK to be scared.’

‘They wen’ after you, Bols, a woman. I mean, tha’s a line righ’ there.’

He doesn’t bother trying to dissuade her of the notion that he’s afraid. He is. Just not in the way she means. He’s afraid, more than anything, of this being the way things are from now on. Afraid of everything in the past being washed away and leaving this stinking mess behind.

‘No, but we can’t sink to Riley’s level.’

‘Y’know, there’s always been scum preyin’ on decent, ordinary folk. Bu’ there was a code or honour as well. You came at him from the fron’, not like a coward from the back. Everybody wants t’be the centre of the universe these days, writin’ their own rules, doin’ whatever they want. ‘

And he, Gene Hunt, is here to tell them that no. They don’t get to do that. Not in his manor.

‘And what are you planning to do?’

‘D’you know, a good beatin’ clears the ‘ead, Bols. Our Mr Riley thinks he can run his little empire, thinks he can bump off someone like Colin Mitchell withou’ retribution.

Well, I’m jus’ workin’ out what sort of retribution is required.’

And he can’t promise her that he won’t hit back the way he was hit. He’s not going to lie to her. Sometimes, the only thing to do is speak in a language that people like that understand.

~ ~ ~

 

‘Raymondo!’

‘Yes?’

‘Does your mate still run tha’ car rental firm?’

‘Yeah, why? Wha’s goin’ on?’

‘Gonna take a scenic drive down to a friend’s scrap yard.

...listen, I need you two to stay ‘ere, OK? No one else is gettin’ involved in this. It’s gonna get messy.’

~ ~ ~

 

Sinking his fist into Riley’s puny stomach is the most satisfying punch he’s thrown all year. Handcuffing his hands behind his back and slamming him hard into the side of the shitty brown thing Ray got for him, almost as good. His boot shoving the twat’s arse into the backseat, where he can bleed as freely as he likes – cheers him up for the first time since last night.

‘D’you know, I’ve go’ a list. Hunt’s big book of bastards. You’re a new entry, straigh’ into the top ten.’

Stanley Mitchell’s mate, Bill, owns a scrap yard. He’s the one that first put them onto Riley when he showed off his bruises at the Neighbourhood Watch meeting. Gene hands him a wad of cash and tells him to disappear for half an hour, when the guy sees Riley in the backseat of the car, he looks confused but doesn’t complain.

Never let it be said that he doesn’t give villains the chance to talk. From the cockpit of the giant claw that picks cars up and tosses them around like they’re made of paper, he gives Riley ample time to spill his guts.

‘Wha’ happened to Colin Mitchell? Speak now or forever hold your peace.’

‘Sod off.’

‘Right.’

He’s never driven one of these things before. But they’re bloody good fun, if a bit hard to control.

...a few minutes later, Riley’s screaming to be let out, dangling twenty feet in the air in a car with the roof smashed in, a few seconds from being dropped into the crusher.

Not that he’d actually crush him but this tosspot doesn’t know that.

He’s screaming to be let out but he’s also screaming that he didn’t do it. And Gene’s starting to think that if he’s not going to confess now, one of two things is going on. Either he’s got bollocks of pure lead (unlikely, due to the screeching coming from the half-wrecked car) or he really didn’t kill Colin Mitchell.

Drake and the boys turn up. They’ve been working on Donna Mitchell and Alex has a theory. But one things for sure, Riley didn’t do it. And he can’t work out how to stop the machine; he presses buttons, pulls levers and hits the pedals – a moment later and the remains of the car come crashing to the ground.

‘You nearly killed him!’

‘Well, better luck nex’ time, eh?’

~ ~ ~

It was Stanley, Colin’s dad. When Colin told him about the insurance scam, he pushed him in anger and he fell and hit his head. Stan didn’t want it to be for nothing, so he fitted it up to make it look like Riley did it. He wanted his son’s death to mean something. His helping hand for the community; accidentally killed his own son and used it for the good of everyone.

He turns his head away; there’s a pause, a second when he thinks of his own mother wailing over the pointlessness of Stuart’s death; where he feels the loss from this man, losing a son to a moment’s rash thought.

Flash of anger, lifetime of regret. It’s still murder.

And maybe there really is no such thing as society anymore.

~ ~ ~

 

The mood in Luigi’s at the end of the day is surprisingly good, light. He has to ignore Alex talking more about going home but it’s not hard tonight. Fun, really, watching her take back those letters she wrote for them after Ray let it out that they’d opened and read them.

‘These are going in my desk and if, when, I get back, then you can have them.’

She’s like a mother scolding her kids. It’s quite...cute, really. And she doesn’t ask him for his back but that’s alright, he pulls it from his pocket anyway and hands it over.

‘What did you do, steam it and then seal it back up again?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t read it?’

Her surprise is more amusing than offending.

‘Not even a little bit curious about what I’d written about you?’

‘Y’see, tha’s your problem, Bols. Always got a question. Meanwhile, there’s a perfectly good bottle of shampoo there, jus’ waitin’ t’be opened.’

He hides his smile as she fumbles with the cork and takes it from her eventually.

‘You’d miss me really.’

He’s pouring champagne. Well. Why not?

‘Yes, Bols. I’d miss ya.’

But she’s not going anywhere, and he knows it.

‘Cheers.’