Fic: Jabberwocky, Part 17a
Glen Fletcher watched as the lift doors slowly parted in front of him, and then took his first steps out and onto the floor of the ICU of St. James’ Hospital. The female detective constable, Annie Cartwright, was standing at the end of the hall, talking with a WPC with large eyes and curly brown hair, the two of them flanked by two PC’s, and Gene Hunt was sitting in the small waiting area, finishing off a fag. The other two detectives, DS Carling and DC Skelton, had yet to arrive. Gene stood as Glen entered the floor, and the two of them shook hands. “All right if I pop in for a moment, just to say hello to ‘im?” Glen asked, and Gene nodded, then started to lead Glen down the hallway in an oddly determined silence. Glen cast a few unsteady glances towards the larger man, not sure if he wanted to go into the small room at all. If it hadn’t been for the barmy DI from C Division, he’d just be the black DC sent round for all of the errands, bouncing from station to station, and not Salford’s new golden boy, on loan for a particular tough and nasty case. He swallowed hard, expecting the worst, and nodded at the smile that Annie threw his way as he entered the door.
Sam was asleep, another WPC and a nurse sitting in the two chairs next to his bed. Glen slowly made his way over to the bedside, trying not to let the shock show on his face. Sam was still, incredibly, frighteningly still as he slept, a tube running from one of his arms up to a bottle that hung above the bed, his arms stretched out at his sides and the bed raised up at an angle, making it look almost as if he’d fallen asleep while sitting. Raised red scars stretched along his arms in strange patterns, the same as that on the corpses that Glen had seen photographs of, but the rest of him was covered by a hospital gown and sheets. His cheekbones and collarbones stood out far more than Glen remembered, as if he’d been wasting for far longer than the thirteen days that he’d been unconscious. Glen stretched out a hand and wrapped it around Sam’s, trying to form a handshake.
“’lo again, DI Tyler,” Glen finally found his voice, not sure of what to say to the sleeping man. “Been at Salford, for a few months now, been doing a lot there. Thanks to you, I mean. I owe you a lot…” Glen stopped as he saw Sam start to stir, and he leaned forward without intending to, searching the other man’s face. Sam’s eyes slowly fluttered open, and Glen wasn’t sure if he was responding to the handshake, or to his voice, or simply waking up of his own accord.
“Superintendent Fletcher…” he heard Sam mutter, and he gave a short laugh as he heard it.
“Not quite, Mate, just ol’ DC Fletcher. Glen. You remember me, Sir?” Sam’s eyes opened a bit wider and his still face moved into an expression of active recognition, making Glen give a small smile in return. “DI Tyler? It’s Glen Fletcher…”
“DC Fletcher?” Sam seemed confused for a moment, and then he squinted at Glen and gave a small smile. “What’re you... Gene brought you in?” Sam slowly struggled to wake, and Glen fought against a grimace when he realized how much effort it was taking him to do so.
“DCI Hunt brought me in, yeah. Working the case, just like you showed me. Pullin’ out all the stops, see, on account of how much I owe you…” Glen tried to think of something to say, but found that he couldn’t. The entire situation, not just the fact that it was his hero laying prone on the bed, but just the hospital itself, scared him slightly; he hated hospitals, and had never really been good at these types of situations, not that he’d ever been in a situation like this before, he realized. For a second, he wished that he were anywhere else, even back at one of his older stations, listening to the catcalls and jibes that were constantly thrown his way. He pushed the thought back in his mind and forced himself to concentrate on Sam instead.
“You really will pay me back,” Sam said, and Glen shook his head, finding himself giving a small laugh at this.
“You kept saying that; looks like I’ve got me chance then, don’t it?” he said, and Sam closed his eyes and smiled, then opened them again, slowly looking around the room and locking onto Gene.
“Gov. Case files,” Sam said, and Gene shook his head, moving to stand next to Glen and taking Sam’s hand in his for a moment.
“Rounded ‘em all up, Cartwright’s going to be here with you until noon, and she’s got them with her, all right? Always a demanding little shite, aren’t you?” Gene tapped his knuckles lightly against Sam’s shoulder, and Sam smiled at him.
“Good. Need to catch ‘im, can’t let anyone else…” Sam closed his eyes as his voice trailed off, and Gene stretched out his hand again and let it close over Sam’s shoulder. He paused for a moment to make sure that Sam was only sleeping, and then turned to the nurse and the WPC sitting in the chairs, raising a questioning eyebrow at them. The nurse gave a nervous smile, obviously slightly afraid of Gene; Glen didn’t blame her: Hunt was an imposing figure, and a force to be reckoned with.
“He’s stirred a few times like that, but mostly he’s just sleeping. Probably be the same for a few days, the past week’s taken a lot out of him.” The nurse stood, trying to meet Gene in the eye, and Glen felt a slight twinge of admiration for her, knowing that she’d probably spent the past five minutes mustering up the courage to do so. “Dr. Denslow’s said that he’s to stay here for the rest of the day, and if he stays this stable, we’ll move him to the private room tomorrow afternoon. Dr. Barrie agreed to the orders, Sir. Nothing much else to say, really, one of the doctors can fill you in better than I can.”
Gene nodded at the nurse, and then Annie entered the room, followed closely by Ray and Chris. Chris was hanging back towards the door, and for a second, Glen thought he saw fear on his face. He filed that thought away into the back of his mind, and backed away as Ray moved forward.
“He awake, then?” Ray asked, and Glen moved further back, nodding slightly at Sam.
“He was, but only for a moment. Seemed to recognize me, though,” Glen said.
“Considering how hard it is to tell you lot apart, I’d say that’s a good sign,” Ray said, and Glen bit back the urge to throw an angry remark in Ray’s face, knowing that it was neither the time, nor the place. “No offense,” Ray added, and Glen felt his hackles lower back down slightly, taking the few words as an apology; he figured he had a very slim chance of getting a better one out of Ray. He walked back towards the door and shook hands with Chris and Annie, and then followed Chris out of the door. Ray followed them out into the hall, and the three of them lit cigarettes, watching as the two PC’s swapped places with a new guard, and as the two WPC’s slowly exited. They fell into a strained silence as they waited for Gene to leave the room.
Back inside the room, Annie pulled off her coat and threw it over the back of one of the chairs, and then lifted up a very large handbag and pulled out the case files. Gene nodded at her, and then stole another glance at Sam. “Right. Fletcher’s coming with us, we’re going to see if we can’t muster up some actual facts about Tyler’s past, and about that hideous art thing from Hyde; even if Sam wasn’t from that poncy shithole, there’s still a chance that the two could be related. As soon as Ray comes in to take his shift, I want you to get back onto tracking down that damned bird from the studio, all right?”
Annie nodded at him, “I’ve got as much information on her as I could find, and photographs of Barrie, as well; there’s a chance she’s still in the city for a few days, from what I’ve heard, and even if she isn’t, it shouldn’t take me too long to get down to Liverpool and back; I’ll track her as far as needs be, Gov,” Annie gave him a determined smile as she said this, and Gene nodded at her, glad that she’d finally managed to make leeway in the search for the missing secretary. Even if they couldn’t get prints on Barrie for another few days, a positive ID of him as the mystery artist that visited Myers would be more than enough for them to bring him in for questioning, if not for more. Gene mentally crossed his fingers as he looked back at Sam’s sleeping form.
“Good,” he nodded towards Sam. “Now, he’s asked for the damned case files to be brought in, and he wants to be briefed over every detail, but I don’t want you going over anything without one of those birds,” he pointed towards the nurse, who obviously had to work to keep from cringing as he did so, “in the room with you. Don’t let the daft twat tire himself out over it, all right?” Annie nodded. Gene gave a small smile and added, “And he’ll probably fight you on that.” Annie smiled back at him and nodded again, and then Gene gave a small grunt of understanding and slowly moved to leave the room, casting one last glance back at Sam before he did so.
When Gene entered the hallway, he found Glen, Ray, and Chris waiting for him, and gestured for them to follow him toward the lifts. The four of them slowly and silently filed out, and Gene cast a stormy glance down the hallway towards the offices as he did so. He was absolutely certain Barrie was their man, but there was no touching him without a ton of hard evidence; if ever there was a case where he needed Sam, this was it. Gene closed his eyes and tried to push that idea away, glad that Sam seemed to want in on the case as much as he needed him on it. He and the other three detectives had left the hospital and entered the Cortina before he spoke again.
“I want new statements taken from the disappearance and dump sites on all four of the victims, and from everyone that was around Tyler’s flat about the time he was taken. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, including those that’ve already given their statements. I don’t give a shit if you end up questioning stray soddin’ cats, I want something, even the smallest lead. Fletcher and Skelton, that’s your lot today. I’ve already got a dozen plod ready to help you out with that, and you’ll keep going until four o’clock, when Skelton takes his shift with Sam and Fletcher meets me in my office. Understood?” Gene’s voice was incredibly hard, the determination in it filling the air of the car, and Chris and Glen both nodded in response.
“Good,” Gene turned to look at Ray after pausing to twist the Cortina madly around a corner curb. “Ray, I want you on the horn with every single soddin’ department in the Lancashire Constabulary; you up for a little play-acting?” Gene swerved madly around a screeching pack of middle aged women, screaming back at them from the window, “Stay on the pavement and off the road, you lousy bitches!” He cast a glance at Ray as they continued to roar towards the station.
“Play-actin,’ Gov?” Ray asked, staring at Gene with a deeply confused look.
“You’re a journo, one of the type that thinks he’s a hard-core prick with an axe to grind, and you’re looking into the history of a DI Sam Tyler.” Gene assigned the role quickly and easily as Ray continued to stare at him, realization dawning behind his eyes.
“You want me to try and suss out where the boss came from, that it?” Ray asked, and Gene nodded.
“If he was at any station other than Hyde, I want to know about it, and then I want you to let me know before you head over for your shift, so that I can get the ball rolling on getting the real case history sent down to us, pronto. Those bastards in Discipline and Complaints have no clue how big of a thorn they’re being in our sides, and I’m about to spend my morning lettin’ ‘em know. Emphatically, as ol’ Gladys might say,” Gene gritted his teeth and tried to keep from ramming into a wall as the Cortina screeched around another corner and eventually found its way into the station’s car park.
The four of them piled out of the car and made their way up the steps, and Glen and Chris quickly met with Phyllis to determine which PC’s were sectioned off to help them with their statement-taking. Ray followed Gene up the stairs, bypassing the lift and instead racing upwards towards CID’s offices. Ray immediately made for his desk, and Gene headed for his office, both men panting slightly from the speed of their movements as they picked up the handsets of their phones.
“You been doing good at Salford, I hear,” Chris tried to strike up small talk with Glen as they headed towards the Trafford Arms, where Gerry Macrae had been last seen before his disappearance. Chris had been struck by the fact that it was the same pub that Gene, Annie, and Sam had all gone undercover in at the end of March, and was determined not to dwell on Sam’s condition, or on all of the memories that it had dredged up. Making conversation with Glen seemed like the best place to start that particular course of action.
Glen nodded in response. “It’s all right. Wouldn’t mind a transfer back here, on a more permanent basis, like,” he said, turning the car around a corner much more gently than Gene had taken the turns in the Cortina. Driving normally, after the hectic ride in the Cortina, was helping to settle his thoughts and concentrate on the investigation. “Was there any connection between the four victims, aside from the fact that they all looked sommat like DI Tyler?”
“None that we could find. Some married, some not, none were related by pubs they frequented, or by jobs, or anything else like that. Even went so far as to find out who they supported for football; no go. Nothing the same except for their looks, and the fact that they were all working class, like,” Chris stared out of the passenger side window of the car as he responded to Glen, trying to think of any other facts on the case that Glen might not have been briefed on. He, Ray, Annie and Gene had been fairly thorough, and he drew a blank as he tried to think of something.
Glen allowed a few minutes of silence to pass, and then tried to make conversation. “He’s pretty bad, then, is Tyler?” Glen asked, and Chris shot him a worried look.
“No. Better. Lot better,” Chris said, trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince Glen. His mum had seemed so much better each time that they let her out of hospital… He shoved the thought away and tried to focus on the case details again, hoping that Fletcher wouldn’t bring it up again. Glen nodded at this, and then tried to start the conversation up again.
“I owe him a lot, you know,” Glen said, and Chris took a moment to stare at Glen, and then looked back out the window, nodding slowly.
“Yeah. Knows his stuff. Hard to believe he might’nt even know where he’s from, yeah?”
Glen nodded. “Just a week on the Malone-Woolf case, and I came away a better copper than I’d been for years. Real inspiring, even if he is a bit off his nut.”
“Too right. I used to think I’d never amount to anything, you know, but after a few weeks, it was like I was actually learning. Like I ‘ad something to, you know, contribute, an’ all.” Chris’ voice grew quieter as he said it, a sharp, harsh edge developing in his words. “All the more reason to nick this bastard as soon as we can; we’re not just getting’ ‘im for the city, we’re getting’ ‘im for the boss.”
“So, do you know, I mean, have they said Tyler’s gonna be all right, when he’s gonna be out of there?”
Chris stared blankly out the window for a few seconds that seemed to stretch on forever. His voice was incredibly soft and almost shaking when he replied. “They say he’ll be all right. They always say that, though, don’t they?”
Glen shot a worried glance at Chris, and then decided to change the subject; he didn’t much care for the direction that the current conversation seemed to be taking. He let a few more moments of silence creep slowly past, and then started to set his mind on the investigation. “So it’s the same line of questioning all over again? Anyone see anything, anyone hear anything, what can you tell us about the victim?”
Chris nodded, “Same as before.”
“No other leads, then, other than this doctor bloke?” Glen was a little frightened of the fact that Gene’s team hadn’t been able to nail a collar in the time that they’d had, and even more frightened of the idea that one of their own could be trapped, completely helpless, under the care of the nutter that had placed him in hospital in the first place. The idea sent shivers down his spine, and he forced them away as he stared at the road in front of them.
“None. Except for this sculpture, the one we told you about, from Hyde.” Chris seemed to focus more on the current subject.
“So what did it look like, this thing in the museum?” Glen asked, wondering if he’d be able to piece together anything, and doubting that he would. His own knowledge of art tended to end with the fact that Picasso was the bloke that had started the bizarre abstract things that kept floating around since the early 20th century, and that Michelangelo was the name of the man that had painted the church in Rome with the angry, bearded white God creating man with a look on his face that highly resembled a copper fingering a collar over an interrogation table.
“All twisted metal and fabric and shite. Looked almost like it had a badge welded into it,” Chris tried to recall exactly what the sculpture had looked like, and Glen’s face took on a twist of confusion.
“What, like a police badge? Type that’s issued with your warrant card?” Glen cast an inquisitive look at Chris as they pulled up next to the Trafford Arms.
“Exactly like. Elizabeth Re… Rex? Regina? Whatever it’s supposed to be, Elizabeth ‘Queen.’ In the circle, like.”
As Glen stopped the car, he turned and stared at Chris, “Has anyone followed up on that? Have any coppers in the area had new badges issued to them, because the old ones were lost or damaged?”
Chris turned and gave Glen a wide-eyed look. “No. No, we didn’t even think of that! I mean, they don’t jus’ have ‘em stockpiled in stores, do they? You’re in deep shit if you lose one, an’ all…” Chris gave Glen a wide smile. “Blimey! Second we get back, you should bring that up to the Gov. Might lead to a new line of inquiry!” Chris felt a slight surge of joy rush through him at the prospect of something, anything that could possibly help them latch onto a new lead, a lead that might take them to the killer.
Glen and Chris quickly made their way to the first of the houses on the street and started to ask the questions that they would eventually ask nearly a hundred times in the next eight hours, knowing that the twelve officers they had pulled from uniform were doing the same.
Phyllis sat at her desk, looking over her duty rosters and charge sheets, trying to figure out exactly who was going to cover for PC Chapman on traffic duty, as the old boy had called in for his shift that night. The phone rang, and she quickly picked it up and offered a mechanical, and slightly bored, “Manchester Police,” into the receiver. Her hand dropped the folder she was holding, and then she scrambled to find her daily roster and take notes at the same time. “Have someone right over, please, whatever you do, don’t touch anything, and don’t call any newspapers. Right. Thanks, Love. Don’t worry, we’ll have dozens of officers down there in two shakes.”
Within seconds, Phyllis was on the radio, pulling two cars off of the high street and sending them down to an old bombed out building at Deansgate. Once she was satisfied that she’d dispatched enough constables, she called over to forensics and sent a team over, and then immediately ran for the lifts. The doors seemed to take forever to close, and the old cage seemed to rise with a slower speed than a snail taking its time crossing a road. When the door finally opened onto CID, she rushed in, spotted Ray and fixed him with a very stern, and somewhat haunted, stare. He paused and let the handset of his phone drop, not even bothering to add an extra, “tosser” to the end of his conversation, as he’d been intending to do.
“DS Carling, where’s the Gov? We’ve got another one,” Phyllis said, and then Ray jumped up and headed towards Gene’s office, Phyllis trailing quickly after him, anger, revulsion and fear swapping back and forth across his face, making his eyes look less like a bright sky and more like the sea during a particularly violent storm. He shoved through the door, the cracked pane of glass rattling as he did so, and the two of them entered to find Gene still on the phone.
“You tell that rat-faced, poncy shit-heap that I want a response now, damn it! My entire investigation has been stonewalled by that useless tosspot, and I want an explanation before lunch time! Do you understand me, you cocksure little toe rag, or do I have to drive down there myself and…” Gene was cut off as Ray clamped his hand over the phone, pressing down on the connection forks that rose up in the handset’s cradle and clamping the line dead.
“You have exactly three seconds to tell me why you did that, Carling, before I turn you into my new favorite punch bag. One,” Gene swung his fist out and connected strongly with Ray’s ear, twisting his head to the side, and Ray snapped back up in an instant and gave Gene a hard look.
“There’s been another one, Gov,” Ray said, and Gene looked past him and saw Phyllis for the first time.
“You are bleedin’ joking me,” Gene said, his eyes widening with pure, burning hatred as he glanced between Ray and Phyllis.
“Deansgate. Same MO, looks like the body was just dumped off. I’ve already got two patrol cars and forensics on their way,” Phyllis spat out the sentence in less than a second, and Gene jumped to his feet, practically running for the coat rack by the office door and yanking it to the ground as he pulled his coat down.
“Get Fletcher, Skelton, and all of the uniform that we seconded from you for repeat questioning down there. Statements from everyone, as soon as possible, while any details are still fresh in the witnesses’ minds. Ray, come on, let move some arse,” Gene shoved past Phyllis and bolted for the stairs, Ray rushing after him, his own desk chair clattering to the ground as he ripped his coat violently off of the back of it on his way out. Phyllis took a moment to catch her breath as she watched the two of them rush out of the station. She looked around at the other detectives, who were now staring at her, and then let her features contort into a more usual look of frustration and ire.
“What the hell are you lot lookin’ at? Haven’t you got work to do? If CID’s so light on work, you can always call round the front desk, and I’ll have you take over laundry duty from my girls!” She stormed out of the offices, and then made her way briskly to the lift. It was only after the doors had closed in front of her, leaving her alone in the metal cage, that she took a moment to cross herself.