OOM: 2x07, i. '...you got to one of mine.'

[the_gene_genie]

 

He remembers, afterwards – and God knows, he’s got enough time to think – that feeling he’d had the first time he’d gone through this, the first time he’d allowed himself to wonder whether Sam was right. When the picky pain had kept on about Harry Woolf being accused of being bent, his initial reaction had been anger

(‘call him that again, I’ll break your chin in nine places’)

...actually, no. His first reaction had been to laugh, and laugh a lot. And then when the man wouldn’t drop it, then he’d got angry.

And then...

...and then his brain had started putting things together, even though he didn’t want it to, even though he fought it all the way. Until the moment, outside Arnold Malone’s lock up, when he couldn’t deny it any more. When they’d found enough evidence that it just couldn’t be ignored. He couldn’t stop the sick feeling, couldn’t stop the way his stomach dropped into his shoes and the cold, harsh realisation that the man he’d tried to live up to his whole career, was bent. Was one of them, instead of being a rock-solid part of the we he holds so dear.

He’d felt it again when he’d first realised that his suspicions about Mac were right. It hadn’t been as strong because he’d felt it before and anyway, he’d never been Mac’s DI. He only met him when he offered him a job down in London and yes, he’d thought he was a good bloke and yes, the man had said all the right things. He’d portrayed himself as the epitome of a good copper and for a while, he’d believed him.

Neither of them – neither of them combined – come close to matching the devastation he felt on this case. He thinks back and it still makes him sick, still brings the unfamiliar prick at the back of his eyes, still makes him wonder where he went so wrong.

And it had all started so innocuously too.

~ ~ ~

 

They’d had a tip off about a drug deal going down on a building site. He loves those moments in the van with his boys before they go out and kick some scumbag arse. The anticipation, nervousness, excitement. There’s always a chance these things can go wrong but they’re in it together, and that’s what makes it so good. One for all and all for one. And it nearly does go horribly wrong, when he’s got a knife at his throat and the bastard holding it there is telling the others to let his men go. He looks at Ray and Chris, the concern on their faces and he’d feel proud, if there weren’t the pressing matter of a blade against his skin. It’s a good job he left Drake in the van, punishment for falling asleep while they waited, because it leaves her ideally positioned to knock the git out with a well-placed blow to the head. And it just so happens, he falls onto a newly-laid concrete foundation...that has a hand sticking out of it.

So, there’s a dead body. A murdered dead body, as it turns out. And then Skip’s birthday party, where he gets to freely ogle Bolly’s barely-clad legs and she doesn’t even seem to mind. Where he calls Chris and Shaz ‘family’ as he places himself firmly at the top table for their wedding – he does love a wedding and as he points out, he’s been more a father to both of them than their own real ones.

But then everything gets difficult. To start off with, a young PC – Martin Summers – from Fenchurch West turns up and tells them that the manager of the building site where the body was found, Michael Lafferty, is as crooked as they come. Treats his workers like shit, pays them next to nothing and taxes back what they do get. He’s filed reports and nothing’s been done so the kid has started to wonder who Lafferty is friends with. He’s a fresh-faced young man, this PC, and seems like a good lad but Drake seems to take an instant dislike to him for reasons that he can’t fathom.

‘He is up to something. He’s manipulative, he’s calculating, he is dangerous is what he is.’

‘...seemed like a decent copper to me.’

The boy sort of reminds him of himself when he was that age, as it goes.

~ ~ ~

 

The dead bloke, David, is Polish and there’s a note found in his belongings. Another Pole who works on the site, Tomasz –a bloke who’s in the frame for the murder, to start with – tells them the note is just a poem, very famous back home. And that David had found out something about Lafferty that would make life better for them all; that he had gone to see him the night he was killed. He puts the note in the evidence room, like they always do, and doesn’t think it’s a big deal. It’s just a poem, he’ll have it translated and checked out tomorrow.

~ ~ ~

 

When he thinks back on all of this, this is the point where his stomach starts to turn; the point that has him reaching for the Scotch and sangria and whatever else is to hand. Drake had brought up the possibility that this was linked to Operation Rose but they still didn’t know what that was at that point. It was only later that it started to make a bit more sense. And now it is later and he doesn’t give a damn about Operation Rose anymore. All he thinks about is what came next and then, a few days later, how it ended.

~ ~ ~

 

PC Summers disappeared that night. He doesn’t know about it at the time. The morning after had been taken up entirely by the discovery that the Polish note had been nicked from the evidence room. He is Not Happy about it, just like Viv isn’t happy at the insinuation that he let someone steal something out from under his nose. There’s a minor row and then it seems that Summers was in the evidence room when he really shouldn’t have been.

‘It’s impossible, it can’t be Summers.’

She seems shaken.

‘Um...his signature, I saw him, he was...signing something, he was filing and this isn’t his.’

‘Sir, Summers has gone AWOL, missed his shift last night, didn’t call in.’

‘Well whose bloody signature is it, then?’

He takes the log book from Viv’s hands, and shoves it back into the man’s chest. This whole case is starting to stink like a month old chinky. They repair to his office to work it out but he can’t sit still, paces, frustrated and angry and not liking the places his brain is starting to take him.

‘Someone forged it, someone with easy access to the evidence room.’

‘Well, whoever took it, why would they want a poem?’

‘Who says it was a poem? Maybe Tomasz was too scared to tell us wha’ it really said.’

Late that night, Tomasz turns up in intensive care, the victim of a hit and run that was clearly designed to kill him.

~ ~ ~

 

They stand over his hospital bed and he can’t ignore the obvious anymore.

‘There’s no sign of Summers.’ He looks at the unconscious man lying there in traction. ‘Both of ‘em put one man in the frame.’

‘Lafferty. But how could he know that we brought Tomasz in?’

And that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it?

‘Someone in our station told ‘im. Probably the same bastard tha’ stole the note. Someone in CID, someone on my team.’

She looks down.

‘You thinking about Mac?’

‘I’m thinking about Mac, abou’ Kevin Hales, abou’ every investigation tha’s gone tits-up as far back as I can remember.’

‘What’re you going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

~ ~ ~

 

But he had known. There was only one thing he could have done and that was see it through. But he’ll never forget what it felt like, that night. He’d gone home and sat up most of the rest of the night, just staring at the walls with a glass of Scotch in his hand.

His team. His lads. Hadn’t he said to them once, after he’d been arrested and then cleared of murder, I understood I commanded your unswerving loyalty, your love, affection and unquestioning obedience...apparently I was mistaken...

He hadn’t been wrong, then. He doesn’t think. They’d been stupid, yes, to ever think he could have killed those men. But he’d wondered himself, hadn’t he? They just hadn’t been sure.

But this was different. This was one of them deliberately going against him and people had been murdered, lives had been ruined. He had spent that night trying to think who would have it in them to do that but no name had stood out. Maybe he just hadn’t wanted it to. He couldn’t bear to think of one of his boys betraying him like that. Those lads, that he thought of as family, looked after like they were his kids.

Couldn’t bear it.

~ ~ ~

 

The station seems normal the next morning. He sits at his desk and waits for the team to arrive; you can always hear them coming a mile away because they bicker like girls, take the piss out of each other, always walk in together. A big group of mates, trusted colleagues, police officers. Today Ray’s getting a ribbing about having hurt his foot the day before and he stands, listens, looks at them all but he can’t bring himself to say anything, let alone join in.

He feels like a ghost in his own station. He wanders, hands in his pockets, not looking at anything in particular, not talking, not working, not anything. Not there, not really.

Chris, in the interview room, talking to a man about stolen goods. The boy smokes and looks to his Guv in disbelief at the scumbag’s excuses but he doesn’t acknowledge it, just paces and thinks.

Chris, who’s always a kid. Who came to him gullible and clueless and confused; he vaguely remembers those first few days when the lad didn’t seem to know where he was. He’d taken the piss and bought him pints and laughed with the others when he’d heaved up in the corner of the Railway Arms.

(‘Look at Chris. You put the effort in and wha’ d’you get? Same stupid grin...’)

He’s been hard on Chris, over the years. But the boy’s stepped up and he never backs down in a fight, he was the one that let him and Drake out of that vault, he’d got him and Sam out of a very sticky situation with Toolbox back in the day, when it looked like they might have spent the rest of their lives helping with the foundations of the M62. He might be a bit dim but he’s a good lad, he works hard, he listens and does what he’s told. And hasn’t he told them enough times about what he’ll do to coppers that have crossed the pavement?

It can’t be Chris. It’d be like his own son standing up and sticking a knife in his chest; imagining Chris letting him down is like being a parent watching their child grow up smiling and then seeing them walk out once day, declaring hatred and disappearing off into the sunset, never to be seen again. He can’t imagine the lad out there on his own, can’t see him being capable of this.

He doesn’t want him to be capable of it. If he was being honest – shit, if anyone were to look closely, they’d see more than just the Guv in a pensive mood. They’d see a dejected man, but one with the resolve to find the truth. Because he knows he has to but he can’t stop the way his insides have shrivelled to nothing, how he can’t eat and the Scotch isn’t touching him, how he doesn’t even feel like he’s standing in the room.

He just can’t believe one of them has done this to him. That’s what it all comes down to.

If Chris is the son, Ray’s the brother. The younger brother who dotes and tries to emulate and gets it wrong a lot of the time but goddamn it, he works hard. Ray’s been his right-hand man for almost as long as he’s been a DCI and he could never find a more loyal officer,

(I left a weak man in charge...)

there is no better wingman out there. Ray fights and scraps and works and does what he’s told, but in a different way to Chris because he doesn’t always need to be told. He has a mind of his own and he’s dedicated it to being a copper. Back home, he arrested more crooks than the rest of the department put together. Alright, he’s made mistakes and he’s not management material but he’s a grafter. He’s not even completely straight and that worries him but when he thinks of Ray, he doesn’t think of the backhanders and coercing handjobs off girls in exchange for losing the paperwork. He thinks of his mate down the pub, both of them drinking until they can’t stand up; he thinks of the times they’ve hit clubs and gone on the pull together, the poker games and sharing smokes and laughing in the Cortina during a stakeout. Ray’s his mate.

Alright, so he’s put distance between them these last few years but when the lights go down and the rest of CID have gone home, or out, or wherever, he can count on Ray to be there with him whenever he asks, poring over a case and sharing the bottle with him. If it weren’t for the fact that he knows the man likes an extra few quid along with the rest of the human race, he’d write the idea off completely.

He can’t write anyone out of suspicion though, except Drake of course. There’s no question of it being her and that’s the one silver lining in this whole sodding mess, that she’s here to work it through with him.

His travels take him through reception, where Viv is dealing with a homeless man in that calm, polite way he has. He stops and looks back, catches his eye and wonders, could he? No, not Skip, surely. Skip’s the quiet centre of it all, the wheel in the middle that keeps the rest of it ticking over, the relaxed, strong, middleman that gets on with everyone but who no one wants to cross. He’s the good guy, brains and strength and mostly placid only you want him on your side in a fight. He’d happily take Viv into CID if the man wanted it but he’s happy where he is and now Gene hates the way that makes him wonder if there’s a reason he’s happy where he is, happy being the link between CID and uniform and the public. Does it make him accessible to all the right (wrong) people?

The first time he’d met Viv, the man had shook his hand and told him he was sorry, all Northerners looked the same to him. He’d known right then that this guy was alright. That’s the problem, isn’t it? He thought all his guys were alright and now this.

He can’t walk and think all day, it’s time for action. So he heads back to his office but he has to pass Shaz on the way, the bright little plonk that Drake has so much time for, who he has to admit might just have the brains to match her ambition. She’s a woman, so does that automatically make her more open to persuasion?

No, not this one. She’s as stubborn as any of the blokes around here and has never given cause for suspicion. But she’s getting hitched soon and maybe she wants married life to start with a bang, maybe she wants a nest egg for when the children start arriving. Maybe that bright, but gormless, smile is covering up something far darker than he would ever have thought her capable of – and he thinks she might be capable of plenty, at some point. Perhaps she got tired of waiting, perhaps he didn't look closely enough and she's pulled the wool over his eyes all along.

Perhaps they all have. If he can work with these people for years, bring two of them down from Manchester with him, spend more time with them than he ever did with his wife, for Chris’sakes...if he can do that and never realise that one of them could do this to him, maybe he’s been blind for a long, long time.

Alex is approaching and he stands aside to let her into his office, covers the glass and closes the door. At least there’s her.

At least there’s her.

~ ~ ~

 

‘As most of you know, a key witness into the murder of David Czarnecki has been seriously injured in wha’ appears to be a hit an’ run incident. It has also come to my attention tha’ someone on my watch, very possibly somebody in this room, misappropriated a vital piece of information jeopardising the entire case. Tha’ won’t do. That will not do at all. An’ when I find out who is responsible, I will be very, very angry.’   

~ ~ ~

 

He’d formulated a plan. Simple but effective. He remembers now how he had hated it, how those individual conversations with his team had made his stomach clench. But it was necessary and it had to be done and you don’t get to be the Guv by shying away from the unpleasant tasks. He’d tried to tell himself it wasn’t personal, just another way of solving the case but now, afterwards, he can admit that it was about as personal as anything he’s ever done. It wasn’t like laying a trap for some criminal scumbag who deserved whatever he got. It was a trap for one of his and he’d tried so hard not to think about what he’d do when he found the culprit. Logic said it was one of them but his heart wanted his brain to be wrong so, so much.

He’d told each of them that he had a file on Lafferty, enough to nail him. It was kept in a safety deposit box in case he ended up on the wrong side of a car accident, like Tomasz had. Each of them were told a different number and then it was just a matter of waiting.

But there had been something else first. Perhaps something understandable. Luigi’s, after work. Normally the place they all went to unwind and have a laugh, the whole team together. But that night he’d walked in with Drake and watched as the worm of suspicion crawled into the unit and broke it as easily as you’d crack an egg; he’d stood and watched the insults escalate into a full-on brawl. Luigi had pleaded with him to break it up but he hadn’t. He couldn’t. He’d just stood and watched and wondered if it had all been an illusion, if it could come to this so easily. Best friends punching each other, flinging insults, accusations flying.

He’d thought his team were...a team. But one missing piece of evidence had turned them against each other and he had to wonder – still does, a month later – if he’d done it wrong all this time. If they really were just a group of individuals who could be picked off, away from him, with the right persuasion. And what did that say about their loyalty to each other, to the job, to the force, to him?

~ ~ ~

 

He hasn’t told Drake about the sting. She comes anyway and they sit in the car on Talbot Road, waiting to see if Lafferty will turn up to find this non-existent file.

‘How d’you know Lafferty will come?’

‘I hope he doesn’t.’

He’ll sit there all night if he has to and hope against hope that the man never shows his face. If he doesn’t, then none of his team have let him down. If he does...

He’s walking up the street.

And they wait a moment, until he goes into the safe-deposit place and then, reappears again and Gene has to move, has to know.

‘Take him,’ he says to Alex, and stalks across the road, ignores Lafferty and the panda cars that have closed in, blaring their sirens, ignores everything, intent on one thing only; finding out who did this.

 

 

The box standing open is like a punch in the gut even before he reads the number on the front. When he does,

(how could you?)

his mind blanks of everything except the overwhelming, sick-making wash of disappointment, of hurt, of almost unbearable sadness. He leans against the steel of the boxes opposite and all he can do is stand, and stare at the floor, eviscerated.

~ ~ ~

The office is empty. It’s a long time before he can bring himself to pick up the phone. But pick it up he does and then it’s done, it’ll all come out tonight.

Lafferty narrowly escapes a beating but it doesn’t matter, he’ll be charged with murder, attempted murder and all the rest. That isn’t his priority, tonight. When the man’s in the cells, he retreats to office. When she approaches, he’s not ashamed to find he’s glad she’s here.

‘Are you alright?’

He just looks at her, tense, then his eyes flick back to the door. She seems to take it as a sign that he doesn’t want her there and turns away. But he can’t let her go.

‘Stay.’