Armageddon
Chris was always hungry - starving in fact. As a kid he’d always been the first at the dinner table and last away, and his mum had remarked on more than one occasion that he had hollow legs. He was a growing lad, no doubt about that, and he definitely liked his food. He liked being a copper too, especially a detective, but he was the first to admit that he was easily distracted by his stomach. Like on his new DI’s first day, when he’d felt mortified because his egg and bacon sarnie had dripped all over the evidence they were looking at...or the drainpipe he’d hacksawed off, putting his fingerprints all over it in the process, just because the ice-cream van jingle was still playing and he wanted a 99 before it drove off. And of course he’d never forgiven his new boss for chasing him after Billy Kemble died...he’d dropped a whole bag of chips on that occasion and had been so distraught at their loss that he couldn’t think straight and bugger if he hadn’t gone and accidently let the cat out of the bag about Ray... He shook himself mentally and checked his watch. Time to meet the Guv - some dodgy assignment over on Megiddo Road. He pursed his lips as he grabbed his coat and started to walk out of the office. If he hurried, he could just about fit in enough time for a burger on the way...
***
Ray stubbed out the remains of his cigarette, hands automatically reaching for another. Chainsmoker, his girlfriend, Wilma had accused him the other night, but he didn’t care and he lit the new cigarette, drawing deeply on it’s toxic fumes. Poisonous, yes, but they were his kind of poison, like the scotch in his hip flask and the cannabis he occasionally smoked....although he hadn’t done drugs recently, nope, not since Billy Kemble. He scowled, shifting his position in the car, waiting for the traffic lights to change. It hadn’t been his fault - not really - all he’d wanted to do was get that idiot scrote Billy Kemble to talk before the Guv got back and he hadn’t seen any real harm in stuffing the drugs down his throat. Poisoned him, that new wanker of a DI had declared and he’d lost his rank - just like that - and half his pay! Poisoned.... Ray yanked hard at the steering wheel, sending the car screeching around a corner...if his boss wanted poison, he’d give him poison. He’d already started - all it took was a comment here and there, spread behind his superior’s back - all true mind, cause everyone knew that he was a nutter really - but those few rumours would spread like wildfire and soon there’d be a plague of accusations for his DI to deal with.... He looked at the clock on the dash and pressed his foot down on the accelerator. He had a meeting with the Guv in five minutes and he didn’t want to be late.....
***
Sam walked briskly down the road, glancing at his watch from time to time. He had a meeting with the Guv in a few minutes and he wanted to be early. He’d compiled a list of all the new procedures he wanted to instigate in the offfice, but the Guv had thrown them out without so much as a glance and he was just itching for a fight so he could find out why. He shook his head, clenching and unclenching his fists reflexively. Why did everything have to be such bloody hard work in this time? If he really was starring in his own imaginary plot how come he hadn’t made it easy for himself? And yet it seemed that everytime he was ready to give up, something would kickstart him into fighting again. He recalled his mum’s voice floating out over the aether of the car’s radio, urging him to fight. He’d risen to the Guv’s “no-fight” bait too, and he’d lost count of the times he’d deliberately ignored the test card girl - he didn’t care what anyone said, he would not lay down and sleep, or give up or anything like that..even if he had to spend the rest of his life fighting. Ted Bannister had had the right of it, Sam realised, thinking back to the mill investigation. He’d said it was a war, and he was right... if only he knew exactly who and what he was fighting for...
***
The Guv checked his watch in one slow, languid movement and leaned back against the wall, cigarette hanging from his lower lip. The boys would be here soon and their next job was going to be an unusual one. Not that he was a stranger to hard graft and tricky situations - hell his whole career had been about tough choices and split second decisions - especially when he’d been under fire. In his youth it’d earned him the nickname “killer,” not because he was gratuitously violent, but because he’d never missed when it came to a shoot-out. It had got him into trouble on one occasion, when he’d mistakenly killed a kid, and that harpie at the local rag, Jackie Queen, had never let him forget it - at least not until recently. The Guv took another drag of his cigarette, blowing out the smoke in one long drawn breath. He’d come under fire quite a lot recently - the armed blag at the mill for a start, not to mention the hostage situation at the paper, and he still regretted never shooting Vic Tyler’s ugly mug whilst he had the chance. He sniffed. It was a dog-eat-dog world out there - kill or be killed, and Gene Hunt knew exactly which side of the gun he’d rather be on...
***
The four men came together, three of them eyeing each other warily, the Guv calm and collected as usual. He scanned his team, nodding as he took in their appearances - Chris, stuffing his face, famished as usual - Ray, cigarette in his mouth, polluting the environment around him - Sam, fists clenched, at war with the world and everything in it. A slow smile spread over his face and he ditched his cigarette, one foot grinding it into the dirt. “We have a new job, gentlemen,” he began, his eyes taking in their frowning expressions. “But don’t worry, for once we’ve been given some inside information,” his eyes swept around the group. “...a revelation you might say.” He turned around to face the deepening sky and adjusted the fit of his gloves. “What do you say my little angels of doom...” he asked with a glint in his eye and a smile on his lips sharper than any scythe... “to the end of the world....”
***
And in a dusty corner of a Mancunian estate, the Four Policemen of the Apocalypse began their last investigation.....