Fic: An Arm for an Arm (Sam!whump for Cello), Brown Cortina
Title: An Arm for an Arm
Rating: Brown Cortina (for nasty injuries to a dead person and, well, said dead person)
Word Count/Length: 2,085
Notes: Cello: the Sam!whump I did have written would not be converted, so I have started again. You will receive a double dose of whump, but double doses are good, right? As long as they’re not chlamydia.
Summary: Sam's day goes very, very wrong. And this is only the first chapter.
Tuesday, 21:30
“No- no, NO!”
“Tell us how you killed her, Tyler. Tell us why you did it, or…”
“No, please, don’t, please Christ, don’t, bloody don’t-”
“You were warned very, very carefully, Sammy-boy. Even your own DCI thinks you’re guilty, doesn’t he? Now do we have to force this out of you or will you come quietly? Our witness says you did it- doesn’t she, love?”
“No, don’t you bloody dare- ARGH!”
“Shut him up.”
“How, Boss?”
“Hold him face down.”
“Jesus, no! I’ll tell you! I swear, I’ll tell you, I’ll confess to anything, just as long as you don’t- ARGHHH!”
The woman’s screams. Branding their way into his ears, screeching at his skull.
“I think our little DI’s learning his lesson. Best we make sure it’s fully engrained, eh boys?”
“NOOOOO! ARGH! NO!”
“SAM! Don’t say it! Don’t-”
“No! I said I’ll do it! I’ll bloody do it!”
-0-0-
Monday, 11:25
“And what time do you call this, Guv?”
Gene clearly felt exactly like Sam did: shite. But Gene had someone to care for him at home, and Sam didn’t, and thus Sam had dragged himself out of bed at this ungodly hour to come into the station and actually do some work, whereas Gene had evidently snuggled back under his duvet and used his croaky “I’m sick please help me” voice to cadge both a lie-in and some hot lemon and honey, if the smell of his breath was anything to go by. Sam made a mental note to try hiring Gene’s missus to look after him.
“I call it a bit past eleven,” Gene grumbled, pulling his coat tighter around himself and shivering. “You should be grateful, Tyler, I dragged meself out of bed to come an’ lead you useless bunch of tossers. Could’ve ‘ad me missus attendin’ to my every need, but no, she decided Intensive Care was a better use of ‘er time an’ kicked my sorry arse out the door.”
“Intensive Care?”
“She’s a nurse, Einstein. Bloody ‘ell, think yer a bit worse off than me, from the looks of you, Tyler. Should go ‘ome. Or maybe I’ll give ‘er a ring an’ book you a bed- in the psychiatric unit, of course.”
Evidently the NHS had got to Gene’s wife before Sam had, then. Bugger.
Gene lurched off into his office, only pausing to pull a blanket off the top of a cabinet and toss it in Sam’s direction. “Go an’ lie down in the locker room, yer no use to us lookin’ like that. Not takin’ another stroll up the Yellow Brick Road, are you?”
“No. Just the lovely effects of your thoughtfully-distributed virus. Thanks, Guv.” Sam caught the blanket, wrapping it around his shoulders as he stood up. Of course Gene wouldn’t send him home like any normal DCI, he’d keep his Deputy where he could watch over him, in some strange way. It worked much better than any kind of sick leave Sam had had in 2006. “For both, er, gifts.”
“You can keep the germs. I’ll be wantin’ the blanket back.” Gene pulled his door shut behind himself and almost toppled over. Sam rolled his eyes. Yes, Guv, swing doors tend to be a bit difficult to slam shut.
Dragging his sorry carcass down to the locker room proved painful, as did the springs jutting into Sam’s back as he lay down on the ancient sofa-bench provided; a couple of DCs gave him strange looks as he curled the blanket around himself and buried his face into the small stack of pillows provided, trying to focuss on the case file he’d brought with him, but Sam’s flat was notorious for being a shitheap and nobody made any comment, simply giving him a wide berth, wary of catching whatever the Guv had passed on to him. Annie wandered in only to head straight back out again, returning with lemon and honey to force it down Sam’s throat.
“D’you think you need the doctor?” she murmured as he drained the last dregs of the mug with a wince, pushing himself back down. “’As anyone taken yer temperature or given you some paracetamol- ‘as anyone even ‘ad a look at you?”
“No. Come on, Annie, nobody wants to be close to me at the moment.” Sam attempted a chuckle, giving up when it only made him cough. “I’ll be fine. I’m a cockroach.”
“In need of being squashed?” Evidently Gene had taken advantage of his rubber soles again, to sneak up on them both. “Thought you were more like a koala meself. Cute on the outside, but they can give you all sorts of germies. Tyler, I know yer quite ‘appy ‘ere with Matron Cartwright, but there’s a body in the morgue, needs identifyin’.”
“Yeah, sure, Guv- wait. Identifyin’?”
Gene jerked his head towards the doorway. “Remember that Denise bird? Beauvoir lady? One of ‘er mates ‘as been found, stabbed. Or we think it’s one of ‘er mates. Whatever she is, she’s got your phone number in ‘er pocket.”
And as if that morning couldn’t have been any worse, now Sam was supposedly the final contact of a dead woman. Bloody wonderful. How could 1973 top that?
-0-0-
Like this, apparently.
“Lillian Baker, twenty-five years old, married to one Stanley Baker, of Hutchinson Close. Body found earlier this morning by an old bloke out walkin’ his dog, stabbed twice, once in the abdomen, the second through the ‘eart. Stanley was questioned, said ‘is wife never came ‘ome the previous evening, phoned ‘im to say that she was goin’ to be stayin’ with Denise for the night because she’d missed the last bus. She was found outside a phone box, the last number dialled from the phone box was your number. Died somewhere between five and six in the morning, the phone company told us she called you at ‘alf past three. Any of this soundin’ familiar, Tyler? … Tyler?”
“Yeah… yeah, I’m still ‘ere.” Sam had to stabilise himself against the wall, shivering so hard it was a wonder he remained standing. The shock had yet to wear off. “Guv, I was fast asleep at ‘alf past three. Lillian ‘asn’t contacted me.” But she had. Auntie Lillian used to contact him all the time, coo over him whenever he went to play with her son Thomas, send him birthday cards and little presents tucked away in the envelopes. And then one day she stopped, and Sam never worked out how, or why, just that she had. Ruth had never said, mumbling something about Lillian going away as she made Sam’s tea one night, and he’d snuck down at half past ten to find her crying into the sofa cushions, mascara and lipstick everywhere as she howled. Lillian had been there whenever they’d needed her after Vic had left, even after they moved, and then suddenly she wasn’t. Sam’s world started swirling, only partially because of his sickness.
“But you knew ‘er. Recognised ‘er straight off.” The Guv’s eyes were boring into him, twin lasers in his drawn face. “Where from?”
“Well, I saw ‘er a number of times when we were talkin’ to Denise. An’ she was at the Twillings’ party as well. One of the toga girls.” She wasn’t, but he couldn’t explain how he knew Lillian without Gene calling the funny farm for him. “You don’t think someone else from the party might ‘ave-”
“She ‘asn’t received any threats, ‘ad trouble with anyone, ‘er fella’s got a cast-iron alibi in the form of ‘is mother an’ brother, they’d both gone round for tea. Little boy ‘asn’t seen or ‘eard anything.” Gene’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Six years old, ‘e is. Doesn’t know why Mammy’s never coming ‘ome.”
“Thomas.”
“So you know ‘er son’s name as well? What aren’t you tellin’ me, Tyler?”
“Jesus, Guv, you think I’ve got something to do with this? Thomas was one of the little boys at the school Annie visited as Tufty. I remember ‘im because I ‘ad a chat with Lillian at the school gate before I went in to talk to ‘er. She wanted to know what was ‘appenin’ with Carol Twilling. Look, I ‘ad a passing acquaintance with Lillian, but nothing- nothing intimate, we weren’t friends.” She was my auntie.
“You went whiter than a sheet walkin’ in ‘ere.”
“The smell, Guv. I’m sick already.” Sam motioned to the corpse on the slab, swaying on the spot. “Think I need to get out. You’re not lookin’ so bright yerself.”
Reaching out to stabilise himself, his hand brushed cold, dead skin, a streak of blood on the back of the hand.
“Eurgh… there isn’t a chair somewhere, is there? She’s got an injury on the back of ‘er ‘and, I want to take a closer look.”
“Be my guest, Marjorie.” Gene stepped forwards, dragging a chair up from the wall. “Where, the back of ‘er ‘and? Maybe she struggled, but if she was strugglin’ against ‘er attacker, the wounds would more likely be on the palm of ‘er ‘and, not the back.”
“Top marks, Guv. Nice to see I’ve taught you something.” Sam patted Gene’s back, turning away from the glare promptly sent his way as he began to peel the cloth covering Lillian’s body back. “Seriously, yer right. There’s no real reason why Lillian would ‘ave injuries there unless they were delibera-”
He stopped. Stared.
And suddenly he was dry-retching, and Gene was grabbing him, pushing him into the chair and shoving his head between his legs, yelling at Oswald to fetch a bucket, and it was too late as Sam heaved his guts up all over the mortuary floor, Gene’s shoes, and his own lap.
-0-0-
Tuesday, 22:00
“Right then, Sam. You know what you need to do?”
“I promise I’ll do it- just let Ruth go, I promise I’ll do it, let ‘er go back to ‘er son. Little Sammy, you know ‘im, ‘e’ll be worried sick.”
“Oh, no. You’ll go straight to that DCI of yours if we don’t keep her as collateral. We don’t have the time or inclination to have to bother persuading Hunt, but we’ve got, well, informants who can make Hunt very, very dead if they need to. You just be the good little soldier we know you are and go confess, alright?”
“Gene won’t stand for this.”
“Then we’ll kill Gene.”
“You- NO!”
“One word, Sam. One word, and Gene, his wife, and everyone associated with them are dead. You want all of that on your conscience? Believe me, we won’t make it nice either. I hear Mrs Hunt’s quite the looker… would certainly be of interest to me. And, you know, variety is the spice of life. Gene himself wouldn’t be so bad.”
“You’re sick.”
“I know.”
“You also know I can prove myself innocent of Lillian’s murder. You know that.”
“Your naïvety is quite striking, Tyler. You’ve got no alibi, no witnesses- and the evidence… well, even Gene said it didn’t look good. And let’s face it, Gene would know. Pity he won’t be able to use the same methods to get you out of this one, eh?”
“Gene won’t stand by an’ let this ‘appen.”
“He already has.”
-0-0-
“Sam… you need to tell us the truth. Everything you know about Lillian Baker. Because Christ, it’s not lookin’ good, is it?”
“She’s a Beauvoir lady. Married, one son. Friends with various people around Manchester, includin’ Ruth Tyler an’ her sister Heather. Never been in trouble with the police, not addicted to drugs or alcohol, perfectly ‘appy with ‘er life from the looks of things. Wanted another child, was goin’ to quit work to look after ‘em. Guv, most of what I know about Lillian, I’ve ‘eard on the grapevine or read in the files about ‘er. She was a nice lady an’ now she’s left a little boy an’ a lovin’ husband behind.” Sam felt the bile rising again, had to swallow hard to stop himself throwing up, curling his arms tight around his shaking form. “I ‘ad nothing to do with ‘er, not really, so why was my name carved into ‘er forearm?”
“You tell me, Sam. You tell me.”
-0-0-
Wednesday, 9:00
“I did it… I killed Lillian Baker. This Sunday.”
The DCI nodded, stood, and wrenched his arms behind his back, slamming him into the table so hard something cracked, and Sam just heard their laughter through his screams before they were tossing him to the floor and kicking him unconscious.