OOM: The Lion of Fenchurch East, shaved for good.
He swallows hard, eventually. It hurts, like he’s trying to force a golf ball down his gullet. When he speaks (‘ambulance’) it sounds like someone else’s voice. He’s only dimly aware of it being Shaz who moves, first pulling the radio out of Chris’s pocket and speaking and then kneeling down next to Alex, pumping her chest just like Alex had done for her a year or more ago.
She’s so white. He feels like he hasn’t breathed in a week.
‘Guv?’
Ray.
‘Guv, what happened?’
The gun’s still in his hand. He looks down at it and watches the last of the smoke dissipate from the barrel.
‘You were with us an’ then you were gone an’...’
He becomes dimly aware, for the first time, how this might look. But he’s not interested. He looks over at the body of the dead man instead and for the briefest of moments, almost goes to kneel next to Alex, take her head in his hands the way he had that bloke. But his insides twist and his mind pulls away from it violently, like he’s sick for even thinking it.
‘Where’s that bloody ambulance?’
It’s not far. There were some on the way anyway due to the blag and the amount of people that got shot. He snatches Ray’s radio off him, avoiding his eyes, and yells into it until someone promises him that one will be with him inside of two minutes. Then he shoves the radio back into Ray’s chest and walks away, finally holstering his gun.
She fell all wrong. She hit Jeanette at the wrong moment and that stray bullet from the blonde bitch had put him off. He hadn’t meant to. It just...all went wrong. And now she’s on the ground, barely breathing, blood everywhere and he can’t think. He can’t...she’s not there.
‘Ambulance, Guv.’
‘I’m goin’ with her.’
‘Guv, they’ll want to...’
‘Then they can come an’ talk t’me at the bloody hospital, can’t they?’
He feels useless as they load her up. By the looks on the faces of the others, they feel much the same way but he can’t find the words to be reassuring. Just before he climbs in behind her, he tosses the keys to the Quattro at Ray.
‘Go back t’the station. The Super’ll be askin’ questions. Tell him about the blag and that I’ll be in later.’
The door closes on their faces and he leans back. They’re doing something to her but he just closes his eyes, lets his mind search.
She’s not there. It’s like she disappeared in the moments after the bullet hit. There’s a hole, somewhere. And behind his eyelids, he’s scared. He doesn’t know what it means.
~ ~ ~
The hospital is busy. Other ambulances arrive from the crime scene but she’s critical so she goes in first. Like he would have let it be any other way. They won’t let him go with her, though. They tell him about surgery and apparently being her boss doesn’t hold any sway even after he’s told them that she doesn’t have any family. So he sits in the waiting room, surrounded by cuts and bruises and crying kids, drinking coffee from disposable cups and crushing them in his hand when he’s finished. It feels like he sits forever, looking for her, but she’s never there.
‘DCI Hunt?’
‘Is she alright?’
‘She’s still in surgery. There’s a phone call for you. You can take it at the desk.’
The Chief Super talks briefly and then starts shouting. The shouting goes on a lot longer. Something about walking out on the aftermath of a major job and what happened and why the hell did he feel the need to shoot his DI anyway? Gene says little because he’s not given the chance. He has to be back at Fenchurch East within half an hour or his job’s gone.
He still goes to find a doctor first. No news, but she seems to be fighting. They have his number.
Viv looks at him from behind the front desk. He stops and looks back but nothing’s said. The look on his face is mirrored by every other one he passes on the way up to the Super’s office. No one’s sure.
‘Gene.’
‘Sir.’
He is not asked to sit down.
‘Care to explain?’
He outlines the job. He keeps it brief because that wasn’t really the question. His boss shows no expression, no solidarity.
‘You did a good job. Carnegie and his gang are in custody, as you know. We’ll get as many names out of them as we can.’
‘We’. Not him.
‘Thank you, sir.’
There’s a brief hesitation.
‘You need to go home, Gene.’
‘I’m fine, sir.’
He gets a sigh for that one. The suggestion wasn’t about his health.
‘Don’t make me, DCI Hunt. Just go home. Be back here tomorrow at eleven. The Commissioner himself is coming in.’
Gene works his jaw for a moment. This isn’t good.
‘It was an accident. Sir.’
‘Tomorrow, Gene. That’ll be all.’
He stops by his office. They’re all there. All looking at him, with doubt written on their faces. His eyes move from one to the other and he wonders whether he deserves this. The years he’s put into them and he never gets the benefit of the doubt. But then, maybe he deserves it for different reasons.
‘They want to talk to all of us, Guv. Proper enquiry.’
‘Just answer their questions, Raymondo.’
‘Yeah, but- -‘
‘But what?’
‘...nothin’, Guv.’
He knows what. They all heard him say he’d kill her. No one was there when it happened. No one can stand up for him.
‘Find Jeanette. If possible, by tomorrow.’
Silence. He makes an effort not to swallow. This is no time to be showing fear.
‘We can’t, Guv. We’ve been taken off active duty until next week. Until they’ve sorted it all out.’
Of course they have. He nods and the hand shoved in his pocket clenches into a fist.
‘Well then. I’ll see you all next week.’ It’s a dismissal and they all turn to pick up coats and scarves. ‘You did a good job today, you lot. I’m proud to call you my team.’
Faces smile and the air relaxes. He walks to Chris and claps a hand on his shoulder, holds it there and squeezes for just a second. The lad smiles and it’s better. He did well. And they all see it.
‘Mush, then. Have a few for me.’
‘Not comin’ for a drink, Guv?’
‘Not tonight.’
~ ~ ~
He goes back to the hospital. No change. So he goes out and starts looking. But nothing’s going his way tonight. Jeanette is nowhere to be found and no one will talk to him. Either word’s got out or he’s just picked a bad night to try and shake some answers down; either way, all the snouts that went to ground before this job have obviously decided they like the quiet life. None of the gangster pubs want him in there and no one’s seen a small, blonde Irish girl.
Hospital. He doesn’t want to go home. It’s not any less busy but this time he’s not there long before they come tell him that she made it though surgery. The bullet’s out and they’ve stopped the bleeding in her gut. She’s stable. He lets relief flood him, while something in his mind is insisting this isn’t right. She hasn’t come back.
‘Is she awake?’
‘No, and she won’t be for a while. Tomorrow, maybe. There’s no reason for her to stay unconscious. The sedation will wear off in its own time and then you can talk to her.’
‘I’ll stay. She might wake up in the night.’
The doctor is about to protest but, eventually, doesn’t. Maybe it’s because Gene’s not going anywhere.
‘...you can wait in the doctor’s lounge. There’s a couch in there.’
He shakes the man’s hand. He won’t sleep but it’s a nice thought.
~ ~ ~
She’s not awake by morning. He has to go home to get bathed and changed for the meeting. He moves on autopilot, going through the motions. He still can’t find her.
‘Take a seat, DCI Hunt.’
Sir David McNee is hardly an unknown quantity. He’s been outspoken on Operation Countryman, the investigation into corruption in the Met. But it doesn’t mean he likes bent coppers either. Gene eyes him as he sits and tries not to feel the tiredness that has started distorting the world.
‘How is DI Drake?’
‘Out of surgery. Hasn’t woken up, sir.’
‘You’ve taken a keen interest.’
‘She’s my DI, sir.’
‘And yet, you were heard to say, not forty eight hours ago, that you would kill her.’
‘We’d had an argument.’
‘Quite.’
The man looks down at his notes. Gene feels sets of eyes on him and doesn’t flinch.
‘Maybe you should explain from the beginning, DCI Hunt.’
So he does. He tells them about Mac’s dying words, how they’ve been following up on Operation Rose. How they uncovered Lafferty and the guns and the death of Rock-Salmon Doyle leading them to Tiny Tim Rivens. How he let it out that bent coppers were behind a blag and got a belly full of strychnine for his troubles. It all makes sense, right up to the point of the shooting.
‘There was a bloke. He had a gun on DI Drake. He was going to shoot her, so I got there first.’
‘We’re waiting on a fingerprint match for him. You’re telling me you don’t know his name? Carnegie has given us one but says he believes it was an alias.’
‘No idea, sir. I’d never seen him before.’
‘Well, the fingerprints will be back quickly. And then?’
He explains about Jeanette. How Alex fell all wrong. The silence in the room when he stops is deafening.
‘You must understand, DCI Hunt. No one else saw this girl. You were heard threatening the life of DI Drake.’
His palms are starting to sweat.
‘We only have your word that she was there at all. Unless this woman is found, or DI Drake wakes up to corroborate your story, I’m afraid we can’t let you back to work.’
It sounds so innocuous. He’s tempted not to ask the difficult question but he has to know.
‘And if you don’t find her? If Drake doesn’t wake up soon?’
There is more silence. No one meets his eyes for a long moment. He keeps his on McNee and eventually, they’re met.
‘We’ll be investigating, DCI Hunt.’ His voice is calm but there’s iron underneath and in his gaze. No one gave this man his job by accident. ‘Until we’re finished, go home.’
Gene holds his eyes for a moment longer. Then he stands and leaves the room, saying nothing more. He doesn’t offer over his warrant card and they don’t ask for it. Over his dead body are they taking that away from him.
CID is empty. He takes a few things from his office and leaves without looking back. By the front desk, he pauses until Viv appears from the evidence room.
‘Skip.’
‘All sorted, Guv?’
They both know it would never be that easy.
‘Will you do me a favour?’
Viv half-smiles.
‘I’ve got your number, Guv.’
~ ~ ~
She still hasn’t woken up. He still can’t find Jeanette. He can’t sleep properly and even Scotch is starting to make him feel ill. He divides his time between looking for the woman, the hospital and pacing the floor of his living room, a big circle that fills his days. Three days later, he finds out that Chris, Ray and Shaz have all given their statements. That night, he packs a bag.
It’s 3am the next time the phone rings.
‘Guv.’
‘Skip.’
‘I haven’t spoken to you, Guv.’
‘Course not.’
‘But if you were thinking of taking a holiday, now might be a good time.’
‘How soon should I be thinking of leaving?’
‘If the squad car full of senior uniformed officers that just left is anything to go by, sir, I’d suggest you’ve got about enough time to get dressed.’
‘...I owe ya, Viv.’
‘Pints're on you when you get back.’
He’s already dressed. The bag’s already in the car. He just has a couple of stops to make first and then...then he won’t be the DCI of Fenchurch East any more.
He tries not to think about it as the engine of the Quattro roars into life. This is no time to dwell. This is time to run.