Fic: Neutral Men, Part 1 (Ashes to Ashes)
Ashes to Ashes fic, set post-finale and extremely SPOILERY :)
Series Title: Neutral Men (1/6?)
Chapter Title: The Devil Wears Primark
Rating: Teen, for Gene's rude language and insinuations, and a bit of minor violence.
Characters: Gene, Jim Keats, iPhone guy
Summary: Three weeks after Gene says goodbye to his team at the Railway Arms, he has another barmy DI to contend with, more villains to catch, another ragtag team to pull together. The last thing he wants is a repeat visit from Jim Keats. But what does Keats himself want from Gene? And what is he offering in return?
Note: This fic plays with the idea that Jim Keats is not literally the Devil incarnate. His boss, however, might be ;) The series as a whole focusses on who and what Keats really is, and what that means for Gene and his world. And now here's the fic before I get any more boring and pompous ;)
xxxxxx
Neutral Men
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.
Oscar Wilde
Neutral men are the devil's allies.
Edwin Hubbel Chapin
Part 1: The Devil Wears Primark
O miserable man, what a deformed monster has sin made you! God made you "little lower than the angels"; sin has made you little better than the devils.
Joseph Alleine
“Look, I’m telling you, I don’t belong here! I want to go home!” Daniel Connor was, and probably always would be, a stubborn little git. There was no changing that; unfortunately, after three weeks of the same whiny litany, it was becoming boring. Gene Hunt was extremely close to alleviating that boredom with Connor’s kidneys - or spleen, ribs, face - whichever met his boot first.
“You want to go home?” he snarled, grabbing his DI by the collar and pulling him up to eye-level, noses almost touching.
“Yes,” Connor managed, half-throttled. He was lucky it was only half.
“Well I want Elizabeth Taylor to march in here in a thong and give me a Thai massage, but it’s not going to happen, is it?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, because she’s in her bleeding seventies and she wouldn’t get her zimmerframe through the door, you barmy old fart!”
Gene dropped the exasperating man to the floor, lips pursed in disgust. “Don’t be blasphemous. Elizabeth Taylor is a lovely woman in her prime, never let me hear you say different.”
Connor scrambled to his feet, backing away from Gene, which was both flattering and annoying - annoying because it put him out of kicking range.
“If I hear you whining about wanting to go home to your mother once more, Danny-boy, I’ll nail you to the wall upside-down and naked and use you as a dartboard, with the piles up your scraggy arse as the bullseye, got it?”
Connor perched on the edge of his desk, arms folded, lower lip sticking out at least half an inch, eyes downcast. Gene grabbed the lip between finger and thumb and pulled it out a bit further, just enough to hurt.
“I said, have you got that, Detective Inspector Pouting-Like-A-Girl Nancyboy?”
“Uhh!” said Connor, trying in vain to retract his lip.
“That’s ‘uhh, Guv’,” Gene growled, and released him with a short slap to the face, lighter than he deserved. Turning his back on Connor, he addressed the rest of his team.
“For those of us who aren’t whiny, sulky little mother’s boys, let’s get back to the case in hand. Before I go on, does anybody else intend to start blubbing?”
A general mutter of ‘no, Guv’.
“Good. Now, this particular nasty bastard,” he pinned up the grim-looking mugshot of a dishevelled, unwashed, black-haired man in his thirties, “is already well-known to police. Can anybody tell me why?”
A young man with a ridiculous peroxide blonde spiky haircut put up his hand.
“DC Billy Idol, at the back there,” Gene acknowledged.
“Suspect in a previous murder inquiry, Guv. Two teenage girls in Piccadilly, ten years ago.”
“Right. I’m glad somebody’s paying attention. Now, why wasn’t this vicious child-murdering scumbag sent to prison? Somebody else this time. Don't be shy.”
A thin, middle-aged detective sergeant with greying hair spoke up. “Not enough evidence for the police to charge him, Guv.”
“You what?” Gene was momentarily distracted by some plonk scurrying into the room like a squirrel with its backside on fire. No respect, plonks these days.
“I mean…too much southern-nancy fannying about, Guv,” the sergeant corrected himself.
“Exactly. But we, being of a different and altogether more manly approach to criminal investigation, are going to nail this evil piece of Cockney scum - and I'm about to tell you how.”
Gene broke off with an irritated sigh. The plonk at the door was now waving a bit of paper at him, her pink face apologetic, but insistent.
“What?”
“Sorry, sir, but there’s somebody to see you. From Discipline and Complaints, sir.”
“I. Am. Working. Tell him come back later with a bottle of single malt and a packet of pork scratchings, then maybe - just maybe - I'll talk to him.”
The plonk looked unhappy. “He insisted. He said it was important. There’s a note for you.” She handed over the bit of paper. Gene unfolded it, green eyes narrowing as he studied the few choice words inside:
I’M COMING FOR YOU, HUNT.
“Kinky,” Gene observed. He turned the note over. It wasn’t signed. “Did he give you his name, this bringer of perverted tidings?”
The WPC nodded. “He said he was from D&C, sir, but - well, he looked a bit rough around the edges, to me.”
“I asked for his name, love, not a critique of gentleman’s fashion.”
She flinched under his steely gaze, mumbling, “Keats, sir. He said his name was DI Keats.”
xxxxxxxx
Gene stood behind his desk, pouring himself a large whisky. He certainly remembered Detective Chief Inspector Jim Keats - aka The Man From D&C. Keats, the slimy, sneaky stationery-rogerer who had so nearly filched Gene’s team from under his nose. At least Ray, Chris, Shaz and Bolly were out of Keats’ grubby clutches now; although - not that Gene would ever admit it - he missed them: his new team wasn’t completely satisfactory. Connor appeared to be more than half bonkers, with his wittering about being a DCI back home, claiming to see visions, moaning about how things were supposed to be better - and what in hell was an I-phone, anyway? And as for that kid with the Billy Idol haircut...Gene shook his head. Young coppers these days; not worth the taxpayer’s money, half of them. And then there were creepy cretins like Keats, smarmy bureaucrats trying to destroy everything that was good and just about policing. Gene shuddered, swallowing half the whisky at a gulp.
“All right,” he called, opening his office door, “let him in.”
Keats had spent the last few minutes hammering on, and occasionally throwing his skinny-arsed weight against, the double doors outside CID, doors in front of which Gene had recently placed a couple of his heaviest men. If he was going to have conversation with Dodgy Jimbo Keats, he wanted the man off-balance and out of sorts from the start.
“Oh dear, Jim,” he remarked, as a dishevelled-looking figure finally stumbled inside and fell on his face, Gene’s men having stepped aside abruptly, allowing physics to take its course. “Doors must have stuck. Sorry about that.” He swaggered closer, watching the interloper carefully as he got unsteadily to his feet. Keats looked as though he’d been dragged through a dirty puddle, chased through a hedge by a pack of rabid rottweilers, and thrown in the Thames to finish off. Must be raining cat and dogs outside. As well as soggy, Keats' long coat was ragged and torn, his horn-rimmed glasses broken and lopsided.
“Where've you been, Jimbo? Visiting your mother for a bit of home comfort?” Gene asked. “Doesn't look as though she was very pleased to see you. Looks more like she did the decent, public-spirited thing and tried to run you over with her car. As well she might - it's her fault you exist.”
“You think this is a joke?” Keats rasped. He stumbled closer. Gene took an involuntary step back; not that he was frightened of Keats, but there was something…wrong about him. Off. He was walking in a weird, jerky fashion, and every so often a nerve in his face would twitch.
“You’re the expert on jokes, Jim, being such a good one yourself.”
A few of Gene’s men tittered. Connor was a notable exception. He was looking at Keats curiously. He seemed even more interested when Keats rasped,
“You don’t know what it cost me to get back here. The things I had to do, just to be the one to tell you, personally…”
“Tell me what?” Gene growled. Bravado. He wished he’d brought his whisky out with him. There was something about Keats he couldn’t quite put his finger on, couldn't quite remember. An unpleasant little niggling fact. Was he a fan of musical theatre? A junkie? A United fan? Or something even worse...no, there wasn't anything worse.
“Tell me what?” he repeated, sharply, but Keats wasn’t looking at him any more. He was staring at Connor.
“Another one…” he muttered.
“Another what? Prat?”
Keats was still staring at Connor, and he started laughing as he did, a high-pitched, off-key hyena caterwaul that jangled on your nerves. Not a hyena though, not exactly. More like the sound a jackal would make if it could laugh. Don’t be stupid, Genie, the Guv told himself. How do you know what a jackal sounds like? A daft thought, but somehow Keats always made him feel off-kilter, as though he’d just taken something profoundly hallucinogenic. As though a hundred bizarre things could happen when this man was in the room, and none of them any good.
“Are you all right?” Connor was saying, and Gene swung around, almost touched, but the DI was talking to Keats, not him. Connor took hold of Keats’ arm, and it required all Gene’s self-control not to yell, don’t touch him, for Christ’s sake!
“Put him down, Danny-boy. You don’t know where he’s been.”
“The man’s having some sort of seizure…”
Several people jumped when Keats broke out into another cackle, louder and longer this time, as though Gene’s remark was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, so funny that it was, in fact, killing him. “Where…I’ve…been,” he kept gasping, between peals of wheezy merriment, “where…I’ve…been!”
There was a long silence. Even Connor had backed off, looking alarmed. “Yes, well,” Gene said, eventually. “Come into my office, Jimbo. I'll see if I've got a nice bottle of valium for you in the bottom of me filing cabinet.”
In Gene’s office, Keats dropped into a chair without being invited, though to be fair, it didn’t look as though he'd had much choice - a light wind could have knocked him over. He coughed, a wet rattle of a sound, as if his throat were full of rainwater. Ignoring this, Gene topped up his own whisky without offering his guest any, unable to tell whether Keats’ glance at the bottle was disgusted or wistful or both, but pleased that he was in some way dissatisfied.
“Up to your old tricks, Jim?” Gene asked, sitting down.
“Cold.” Keats was clearly talking to himself, rather than Gene. “Cold,” he muttered again, distractedly, pulling his tattered coat more tightly around himself. “Always too cold.”
When it became clear that Keats wasn’t going to say anything else without prompting, Gene made an attempt at pleasant conversation. “That’s a crap suit you’re wearing,” he said. “Where’d you get it from, a car boot sale? A budget supermarket? Gone down in the world, have we?”
Glassy eyes weaved up to his face. “That’s not funny. No, it is funny, but I’m not laughing, Hunt. You know why?”
“Enlighten me.” Gene lit a fag. Keats licked his lips, staring at the lighter’s flame. Taking pity, Gene waved it towards him, indicating the offer of a cigarette. To his surprise Keats shuffled back in his seat, looking furious.
“Petty,” he wheezed. “You petty bastard, do you think you can mock me? Do you?”
His head slumped forward on his chest; Gene thought he’d fainted from an excess of twattiness until, with equal suddenness, he sat up and said quite pleasantly,
“I told you we’d meet again, Gene. Do you remember?”
Gene didn't remember, not clearly, anyway. It sounded like the sort of thing the slimy git would say, though.
“I've been trying hard to forget everything I ever came unwillingly to know about you, Jimbo.”
Keats let out a long, hissing breath.
“You don’t remember. Oh, how sad. The great Gene Hunt, patron of so many tormented coppers who pass through his calloused but tender hands, and he doesn’t even know it.” Keats was on his feet, leaning across the desk, hands reaching as if to grab for Gene’s throat. “You’re pathetic!” he shrieked. “Pathetic! It isn’t fair! Why do they deserve it? Why do you?”
Gene was getting used to mad people in his office; he seemed to be cursed with barmy DIs, after all - Sam, Bolly, and now sulky-bollocks Connor, who was shaping up to be the worst of the lot. Nonetheless, Keats’ slavering and spitting was making him uncomfortable. He felt…contaminated by the man’s presence. Not afraid, of course. The Manc Lion laughed in the face of fear. He made an effort to laugh in the face of Jim Keats, as well, but it didn’t quite come off.
“Tell me!” his unwanted guest was howling now. “Tell me one good, honest, logical, rational reason why I can’t have what you have?”
Gene glanced down at his near-empty glass. “Buy your own,” he said.
Keats snatched the glass, raised it high in the air and threw it back onto the desk. It shattered, splattering them both with single malt and pinprick shards. Gene leapt to his feet, indignant, then froze when he saw what Keats was doing: picking up the largest piece of glass, drawing its jagged edge across his own palm. A deep cut appeared; a cut that somehow failed to bleed. Keats prodded it as if hoping that it would, shaking his head when a single tiny, near-black glob of liquid oozed out, followed by a drizzle of what appeared to be stagnant water.
“Nothing left,” he muttered. “Almost nothing.”
Gene swallowed hard before grabbing a replacement glass and the half-full whisky bottle. “What’re you talking about, there’s plenty left.”
The response was a kind of sad hooting noise, like an owl in the last stages of syphilis.
“Have you ever thought about doing the club circuit?” Gene wondered, pouring. “You’d bring the house down. The Amazing Jimbo Keats and his animal impersonations. Very original.”
Keats slowly removed his broken glasses. His hands were shaking; he sat down again, folding them in front of him.
“Guv?” a knock at the door; Gene jumped. So did Keats, funnily enough. “What?” Gene barked.
It was Connor’s voice; Connor who had never, until now, called Gene ‘Guv’ without prompting. “Everything all right in there?”
“We’re fine, Danny-boy. I believe DCI - DI - Keats is about to take his leave of us. Aren’t you, Jimbo?”
“I haven’t said what I came to say,” Keats replied, adding, apparently to himself, “I need to pull myself together. It's all coming apart.”
“See a doctor,” Gene advised. “Maybe he can put it back together again. You’ve said bugger-all that makes any sense, but the floorshow was quite amusing, so thanks for that. Off you trot. You’re not welcome in my station, or have you forgotten?”
Keats sat back slowly in his chair. “I haven’t,” he said, thoughtfully.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Nothing, Gene. I came to give you a warning.”
“Resorting to threats now? I got your little note, by the way.”
Keats shook his head impatiently, as though he didn’t have time for this. He could have saved himself a few minutes by leaving out the screeching and spitting, Gene thought, unsympathetically. “The note wasn't from me. I came to give you a friendly warning. My superior was…unsatisfied with my report about you. He considered it a bit light on the important details. I got into a spot of trouble over it, frankly. I was...demoted.” He plucked sadly at his cheap, torn clothing.
“My heart bleeds.”
“You know who my superior is, don’t you?”
“Coco the Clown?”
“I’m serious!” Keats hissed.
Gene shrugged, nursed his drink. “Some overweight, overpaid, pencil-pushing armchair lover at D&C.”
Keats looked at him, shaking his head. “Shit,” he said, without heat or force. “I hate you, Hunt. I really, really hate you. Why are you making this so hard for me?”
Gene shrugged. “All part of the service, Jim.”
Keats peered at him a moment longer, looking right inside him, it seemed. His eyes were full of a cold flame that was trying to burn all the way through to Gene’s soul. Where had that unpleasant meta-whatsit come from?
“I report directly to the Deputy Chief Constable,” he said finally, wearily.
“Bully for you.”
“…who is coming here. To see you, Hunt. To finish you, to bring you down, in person, today.”
“Is he now. Tell you what, I'll put the kettle on while you change into your best frilly knickers for him.”
“Such arrogance…” Keats’ eyes were empty except for that burning light; it seemed very far inside him, like a fire at the end of a long, black tunnel. Gene had noticed it before, and it had made his insides shrivel, but never like this. He’s going to tell me something, was the thought reverberating inside his head, he’s going to tell me something and I don’t want to know. I don’t ever want to know. Stop him, there had to be a way to stop him…
Keats was smirking now; he had seen Gene’s fear, despite his best efforts, and it pleased him. He leaned forward, reached out and, horribly, touched his fingertips to Gene’s face. It was like being branded.
“You’re sweating,” he said, in a satisfied tone. “You’re not afraid of my superior, but you’re afraid of me.” A harsh cackle. “I suppose I must have made a subconscious impression on you, after all!”
Gene poured another drink. If he told himself his hands weren’t trembling, then it must be true. Keats was watching him with feral hunger.
“The things I wish I could show you,” he sighed, “remind you about…beautiful, awful things - if only it weren’t against the rules. I hoped this time you might hang on to it, I really did.”
“What’s against the rules, Jimbo,” Gene was pulling himself together, the whisky settling his writhing stomach, “is molesting a fellow officer in a French manner.” He shoved Keats’ feverish hand away from his face. “I don’t care if it’s awful or beautiful or a twelve-inch gut-buster, I don’t want you showing it to me, especially not when I’ve just had me breakfast. You’re leaving. Now.”
Keats made no move. Gene grabbed him by the throat. “I said, now.”
He reached up and placed his long, thin hand on Gene’s thick wrist, wrapping his hot fingers around it almost absent-mindedly, without making any attempt to drag Gene’s hand away from his collar. “You should have let me have them,” he said. “Even one of them might have been enough. Ray. Ray at least should have been mine.”
“Ray preferred to stay with his Guv, where he belonged,” Gene barked, “because he knew I’d look after him. They all did.”
“But they’re not with you now, are they, Gene?” As though urging him to work something out. It grated on Gene’s nerves.
“They’ve moved on,” he muttered. He let go of Keats’ collar. “Chris went back to Manchester. Took Shaz with him. Ray got promoted, well-deserved - he's their DCI now. Alex…Alex went abroad. Somewhere bright and cheerful when she could walk around in a bikini all day, overexciting the locals. They’re fine. They’re happy. They’re a long way away from you.”
“Keep in touch, do they?” Another nerve-jangling snicker.
Gene felt bile rising in his throat. He struggled to remember, looking anywhere but into those burning eyes. Had there been a letter, a postcard? He glanced at his notice board, and there it was: postcard from Alex. Somewhere warm and sunny. Palm trees, cool breeze. Good; that was good.
Keats followed his gaze; smile widening, he gave the smallest shake of his head. “All right, they’re well and happy. Well done, congratulations.” He slow-clapped. “But you couldn’t keep them forever. And you won’t be able to keep that one, either.” He nodded towards the door. Connor was still standing outside, a little way off, pretending to be on the phone while trying to listen to their conversation.
Gene snorted. “Think I want him?”
“Yes. I think you do. I think you want to save them all, the great and sainted Gene Stephen Hunt. All except one, eh? One who wasn't good enough for your precious kingdom,” he spat. “But you won't win. Not this time. Not without my help.”
Gene snorted. The day he let Keats help him was the day hell froze over. “Any why would that be, James?”
Keats’ smile was serpentine. “Because my superior intends to transfer the folks at Fenchurch East to his department. All of them.” Dark, dancing eyes met Gene’s. “He's coming, Hunt, and this time, he wants you.”
xxxx
Go on to Part 2: The Devil Wears a Smile
Series Title: Neutral Men (1/6?)
Chapter Title: The Devil Wears Primark
Rating: Teen, for Gene's rude language and insinuations, and a bit of minor violence.
Characters: Gene, Jim Keats, iPhone guy
Summary: Three weeks after Gene says goodbye to his team at the Railway Arms, he has another barmy DI to contend with, more villains to catch, another ragtag team to pull together. The last thing he wants is a repeat visit from Jim Keats. But what does Keats himself want from Gene? And what is he offering in return?
Note: This fic plays with the idea that Jim Keats is not literally the Devil incarnate. His boss, however, might be ;) The series as a whole focusses on who and what Keats really is, and what that means for Gene and his world. And now here's the fic before I get any more boring and pompous ;)
xxxxxx
Neutral Men
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.
Oscar Wilde
Neutral men are the devil's allies.
Edwin Hubbel Chapin
Part 1: The Devil Wears Primark
O miserable man, what a deformed monster has sin made you! God made you "little lower than the angels"; sin has made you little better than the devils.
Joseph Alleine
“Look, I’m telling you, I don’t belong here! I want to go home!” Daniel Connor was, and probably always would be, a stubborn little git. There was no changing that; unfortunately, after three weeks of the same whiny litany, it was becoming boring. Gene Hunt was extremely close to alleviating that boredom with Connor’s kidneys - or spleen, ribs, face - whichever met his boot first.
“You want to go home?” he snarled, grabbing his DI by the collar and pulling him up to eye-level, noses almost touching.
“Yes,” Connor managed, half-throttled. He was lucky it was only half.
“Well I want Elizabeth Taylor to march in here in a thong and give me a Thai massage, but it’s not going to happen, is it?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, because she’s in her bleeding seventies and she wouldn’t get her zimmerframe through the door, you barmy old fart!”
Gene dropped the exasperating man to the floor, lips pursed in disgust. “Don’t be blasphemous. Elizabeth Taylor is a lovely woman in her prime, never let me hear you say different.”
Connor scrambled to his feet, backing away from Gene, which was both flattering and annoying - annoying because it put him out of kicking range.
“If I hear you whining about wanting to go home to your mother once more, Danny-boy, I’ll nail you to the wall upside-down and naked and use you as a dartboard, with the piles up your scraggy arse as the bullseye, got it?”
Connor perched on the edge of his desk, arms folded, lower lip sticking out at least half an inch, eyes downcast. Gene grabbed the lip between finger and thumb and pulled it out a bit further, just enough to hurt.
“I said, have you got that, Detective Inspector Pouting-Like-A-Girl Nancyboy?”
“Uhh!” said Connor, trying in vain to retract his lip.
“That’s ‘uhh, Guv’,” Gene growled, and released him with a short slap to the face, lighter than he deserved. Turning his back on Connor, he addressed the rest of his team.
“For those of us who aren’t whiny, sulky little mother’s boys, let’s get back to the case in hand. Before I go on, does anybody else intend to start blubbing?”
A general mutter of ‘no, Guv’.
“Good. Now, this particular nasty bastard,” he pinned up the grim-looking mugshot of a dishevelled, unwashed, black-haired man in his thirties, “is already well-known to police. Can anybody tell me why?”
A young man with a ridiculous peroxide blonde spiky haircut put up his hand.
“DC Billy Idol, at the back there,” Gene acknowledged.
“Suspect in a previous murder inquiry, Guv. Two teenage girls in Piccadilly, ten years ago.”
“Right. I’m glad somebody’s paying attention. Now, why wasn’t this vicious child-murdering scumbag sent to prison? Somebody else this time. Don't be shy.”
A thin, middle-aged detective sergeant with greying hair spoke up. “Not enough evidence for the police to charge him, Guv.”
“You what?” Gene was momentarily distracted by some plonk scurrying into the room like a squirrel with its backside on fire. No respect, plonks these days.
“I mean…too much southern-nancy fannying about, Guv,” the sergeant corrected himself.
“Exactly. But we, being of a different and altogether more manly approach to criminal investigation, are going to nail this evil piece of Cockney scum - and I'm about to tell you how.”
Gene broke off with an irritated sigh. The plonk at the door was now waving a bit of paper at him, her pink face apologetic, but insistent.
“What?”
“Sorry, sir, but there’s somebody to see you. From Discipline and Complaints, sir.”
“I. Am. Working. Tell him come back later with a bottle of single malt and a packet of pork scratchings, then maybe - just maybe - I'll talk to him.”
The plonk looked unhappy. “He insisted. He said it was important. There’s a note for you.” She handed over the bit of paper. Gene unfolded it, green eyes narrowing as he studied the few choice words inside:
I’M COMING FOR YOU, HUNT.
“Kinky,” Gene observed. He turned the note over. It wasn’t signed. “Did he give you his name, this bringer of perverted tidings?”
The WPC nodded. “He said he was from D&C, sir, but - well, he looked a bit rough around the edges, to me.”
“I asked for his name, love, not a critique of gentleman’s fashion.”
She flinched under his steely gaze, mumbling, “Keats, sir. He said his name was DI Keats.”
xxxxxxxx
Gene stood behind his desk, pouring himself a large whisky. He certainly remembered Detective Chief Inspector Jim Keats - aka The Man From D&C. Keats, the slimy, sneaky stationery-rogerer who had so nearly filched Gene’s team from under his nose. At least Ray, Chris, Shaz and Bolly were out of Keats’ grubby clutches now; although - not that Gene would ever admit it - he missed them: his new team wasn’t completely satisfactory. Connor appeared to be more than half bonkers, with his wittering about being a DCI back home, claiming to see visions, moaning about how things were supposed to be better - and what in hell was an I-phone, anyway? And as for that kid with the Billy Idol haircut...Gene shook his head. Young coppers these days; not worth the taxpayer’s money, half of them. And then there were creepy cretins like Keats, smarmy bureaucrats trying to destroy everything that was good and just about policing. Gene shuddered, swallowing half the whisky at a gulp.
“All right,” he called, opening his office door, “let him in.”
Keats had spent the last few minutes hammering on, and occasionally throwing his skinny-arsed weight against, the double doors outside CID, doors in front of which Gene had recently placed a couple of his heaviest men. If he was going to have conversation with Dodgy Jimbo Keats, he wanted the man off-balance and out of sorts from the start.
“Oh dear, Jim,” he remarked, as a dishevelled-looking figure finally stumbled inside and fell on his face, Gene’s men having stepped aside abruptly, allowing physics to take its course. “Doors must have stuck. Sorry about that.” He swaggered closer, watching the interloper carefully as he got unsteadily to his feet. Keats looked as though he’d been dragged through a dirty puddle, chased through a hedge by a pack of rabid rottweilers, and thrown in the Thames to finish off. Must be raining cat and dogs outside. As well as soggy, Keats' long coat was ragged and torn, his horn-rimmed glasses broken and lopsided.
“Where've you been, Jimbo? Visiting your mother for a bit of home comfort?” Gene asked. “Doesn't look as though she was very pleased to see you. Looks more like she did the decent, public-spirited thing and tried to run you over with her car. As well she might - it's her fault you exist.”
“You think this is a joke?” Keats rasped. He stumbled closer. Gene took an involuntary step back; not that he was frightened of Keats, but there was something…wrong about him. Off. He was walking in a weird, jerky fashion, and every so often a nerve in his face would twitch.
“You’re the expert on jokes, Jim, being such a good one yourself.”
A few of Gene’s men tittered. Connor was a notable exception. He was looking at Keats curiously. He seemed even more interested when Keats rasped,
“You don’t know what it cost me to get back here. The things I had to do, just to be the one to tell you, personally…”
“Tell me what?” Gene growled. Bravado. He wished he’d brought his whisky out with him. There was something about Keats he couldn’t quite put his finger on, couldn't quite remember. An unpleasant little niggling fact. Was he a fan of musical theatre? A junkie? A United fan? Or something even worse...no, there wasn't anything worse.
“Tell me what?” he repeated, sharply, but Keats wasn’t looking at him any more. He was staring at Connor.
“Another one…” he muttered.
“Another what? Prat?”
Keats was still staring at Connor, and he started laughing as he did, a high-pitched, off-key hyena caterwaul that jangled on your nerves. Not a hyena though, not exactly. More like the sound a jackal would make if it could laugh. Don’t be stupid, Genie, the Guv told himself. How do you know what a jackal sounds like? A daft thought, but somehow Keats always made him feel off-kilter, as though he’d just taken something profoundly hallucinogenic. As though a hundred bizarre things could happen when this man was in the room, and none of them any good.
“Are you all right?” Connor was saying, and Gene swung around, almost touched, but the DI was talking to Keats, not him. Connor took hold of Keats’ arm, and it required all Gene’s self-control not to yell, don’t touch him, for Christ’s sake!
“Put him down, Danny-boy. You don’t know where he’s been.”
“The man’s having some sort of seizure…”
Several people jumped when Keats broke out into another cackle, louder and longer this time, as though Gene’s remark was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, so funny that it was, in fact, killing him. “Where…I’ve…been,” he kept gasping, between peals of wheezy merriment, “where…I’ve…been!”
There was a long silence. Even Connor had backed off, looking alarmed. “Yes, well,” Gene said, eventually. “Come into my office, Jimbo. I'll see if I've got a nice bottle of valium for you in the bottom of me filing cabinet.”
In Gene’s office, Keats dropped into a chair without being invited, though to be fair, it didn’t look as though he'd had much choice - a light wind could have knocked him over. He coughed, a wet rattle of a sound, as if his throat were full of rainwater. Ignoring this, Gene topped up his own whisky without offering his guest any, unable to tell whether Keats’ glance at the bottle was disgusted or wistful or both, but pleased that he was in some way dissatisfied.
“Up to your old tricks, Jim?” Gene asked, sitting down.
“Cold.” Keats was clearly talking to himself, rather than Gene. “Cold,” he muttered again, distractedly, pulling his tattered coat more tightly around himself. “Always too cold.”
When it became clear that Keats wasn’t going to say anything else without prompting, Gene made an attempt at pleasant conversation. “That’s a crap suit you’re wearing,” he said. “Where’d you get it from, a car boot sale? A budget supermarket? Gone down in the world, have we?”
Glassy eyes weaved up to his face. “That’s not funny. No, it is funny, but I’m not laughing, Hunt. You know why?”
“Enlighten me.” Gene lit a fag. Keats licked his lips, staring at the lighter’s flame. Taking pity, Gene waved it towards him, indicating the offer of a cigarette. To his surprise Keats shuffled back in his seat, looking furious.
“Petty,” he wheezed. “You petty bastard, do you think you can mock me? Do you?”
His head slumped forward on his chest; Gene thought he’d fainted from an excess of twattiness until, with equal suddenness, he sat up and said quite pleasantly,
“I told you we’d meet again, Gene. Do you remember?”
Gene didn't remember, not clearly, anyway. It sounded like the sort of thing the slimy git would say, though.
“I've been trying hard to forget everything I ever came unwillingly to know about you, Jimbo.”
Keats let out a long, hissing breath.
“You don’t remember. Oh, how sad. The great Gene Hunt, patron of so many tormented coppers who pass through his calloused but tender hands, and he doesn’t even know it.” Keats was on his feet, leaning across the desk, hands reaching as if to grab for Gene’s throat. “You’re pathetic!” he shrieked. “Pathetic! It isn’t fair! Why do they deserve it? Why do you?”
Gene was getting used to mad people in his office; he seemed to be cursed with barmy DIs, after all - Sam, Bolly, and now sulky-bollocks Connor, who was shaping up to be the worst of the lot. Nonetheless, Keats’ slavering and spitting was making him uncomfortable. He felt…contaminated by the man’s presence. Not afraid, of course. The Manc Lion laughed in the face of fear. He made an effort to laugh in the face of Jim Keats, as well, but it didn’t quite come off.
“Tell me!” his unwanted guest was howling now. “Tell me one good, honest, logical, rational reason why I can’t have what you have?”
Gene glanced down at his near-empty glass. “Buy your own,” he said.
Keats snatched the glass, raised it high in the air and threw it back onto the desk. It shattered, splattering them both with single malt and pinprick shards. Gene leapt to his feet, indignant, then froze when he saw what Keats was doing: picking up the largest piece of glass, drawing its jagged edge across his own palm. A deep cut appeared; a cut that somehow failed to bleed. Keats prodded it as if hoping that it would, shaking his head when a single tiny, near-black glob of liquid oozed out, followed by a drizzle of what appeared to be stagnant water.
“Nothing left,” he muttered. “Almost nothing.”
Gene swallowed hard before grabbing a replacement glass and the half-full whisky bottle. “What’re you talking about, there’s plenty left.”
The response was a kind of sad hooting noise, like an owl in the last stages of syphilis.
“Have you ever thought about doing the club circuit?” Gene wondered, pouring. “You’d bring the house down. The Amazing Jimbo Keats and his animal impersonations. Very original.”
Keats slowly removed his broken glasses. His hands were shaking; he sat down again, folding them in front of him.
“Guv?” a knock at the door; Gene jumped. So did Keats, funnily enough. “What?” Gene barked.
It was Connor’s voice; Connor who had never, until now, called Gene ‘Guv’ without prompting. “Everything all right in there?”
“We’re fine, Danny-boy. I believe DCI - DI - Keats is about to take his leave of us. Aren’t you, Jimbo?”
“I haven’t said what I came to say,” Keats replied, adding, apparently to himself, “I need to pull myself together. It's all coming apart.”
“See a doctor,” Gene advised. “Maybe he can put it back together again. You’ve said bugger-all that makes any sense, but the floorshow was quite amusing, so thanks for that. Off you trot. You’re not welcome in my station, or have you forgotten?”
Keats sat back slowly in his chair. “I haven’t,” he said, thoughtfully.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Nothing, Gene. I came to give you a warning.”
“Resorting to threats now? I got your little note, by the way.”
Keats shook his head impatiently, as though he didn’t have time for this. He could have saved himself a few minutes by leaving out the screeching and spitting, Gene thought, unsympathetically. “The note wasn't from me. I came to give you a friendly warning. My superior was…unsatisfied with my report about you. He considered it a bit light on the important details. I got into a spot of trouble over it, frankly. I was...demoted.” He plucked sadly at his cheap, torn clothing.
“My heart bleeds.”
“You know who my superior is, don’t you?”
“Coco the Clown?”
“I’m serious!” Keats hissed.
Gene shrugged, nursed his drink. “Some overweight, overpaid, pencil-pushing armchair lover at D&C.”
Keats looked at him, shaking his head. “Shit,” he said, without heat or force. “I hate you, Hunt. I really, really hate you. Why are you making this so hard for me?”
Gene shrugged. “All part of the service, Jim.”
Keats peered at him a moment longer, looking right inside him, it seemed. His eyes were full of a cold flame that was trying to burn all the way through to Gene’s soul. Where had that unpleasant meta-whatsit come from?
“I report directly to the Deputy Chief Constable,” he said finally, wearily.
“Bully for you.”
“…who is coming here. To see you, Hunt. To finish you, to bring you down, in person, today.”
“Is he now. Tell you what, I'll put the kettle on while you change into your best frilly knickers for him.”
“Such arrogance…” Keats’ eyes were empty except for that burning light; it seemed very far inside him, like a fire at the end of a long, black tunnel. Gene had noticed it before, and it had made his insides shrivel, but never like this. He’s going to tell me something, was the thought reverberating inside his head, he’s going to tell me something and I don’t want to know. I don’t ever want to know. Stop him, there had to be a way to stop him…
Keats was smirking now; he had seen Gene’s fear, despite his best efforts, and it pleased him. He leaned forward, reached out and, horribly, touched his fingertips to Gene’s face. It was like being branded.
“You’re sweating,” he said, in a satisfied tone. “You’re not afraid of my superior, but you’re afraid of me.” A harsh cackle. “I suppose I must have made a subconscious impression on you, after all!”
Gene poured another drink. If he told himself his hands weren’t trembling, then it must be true. Keats was watching him with feral hunger.
“The things I wish I could show you,” he sighed, “remind you about…beautiful, awful things - if only it weren’t against the rules. I hoped this time you might hang on to it, I really did.”
“What’s against the rules, Jimbo,” Gene was pulling himself together, the whisky settling his writhing stomach, “is molesting a fellow officer in a French manner.” He shoved Keats’ feverish hand away from his face. “I don’t care if it’s awful or beautiful or a twelve-inch gut-buster, I don’t want you showing it to me, especially not when I’ve just had me breakfast. You’re leaving. Now.”
Keats made no move. Gene grabbed him by the throat. “I said, now.”
He reached up and placed his long, thin hand on Gene’s thick wrist, wrapping his hot fingers around it almost absent-mindedly, without making any attempt to drag Gene’s hand away from his collar. “You should have let me have them,” he said. “Even one of them might have been enough. Ray. Ray at least should have been mine.”
“Ray preferred to stay with his Guv, where he belonged,” Gene barked, “because he knew I’d look after him. They all did.”
“But they’re not with you now, are they, Gene?” As though urging him to work something out. It grated on Gene’s nerves.
“They’ve moved on,” he muttered. He let go of Keats’ collar. “Chris went back to Manchester. Took Shaz with him. Ray got promoted, well-deserved - he's their DCI now. Alex…Alex went abroad. Somewhere bright and cheerful when she could walk around in a bikini all day, overexciting the locals. They’re fine. They’re happy. They’re a long way away from you.”
“Keep in touch, do they?” Another nerve-jangling snicker.
Gene felt bile rising in his throat. He struggled to remember, looking anywhere but into those burning eyes. Had there been a letter, a postcard? He glanced at his notice board, and there it was: postcard from Alex. Somewhere warm and sunny. Palm trees, cool breeze. Good; that was good.
Keats followed his gaze; smile widening, he gave the smallest shake of his head. “All right, they’re well and happy. Well done, congratulations.” He slow-clapped. “But you couldn’t keep them forever. And you won’t be able to keep that one, either.” He nodded towards the door. Connor was still standing outside, a little way off, pretending to be on the phone while trying to listen to their conversation.
Gene snorted. “Think I want him?”
“Yes. I think you do. I think you want to save them all, the great and sainted Gene Stephen Hunt. All except one, eh? One who wasn't good enough for your precious kingdom,” he spat. “But you won't win. Not this time. Not without my help.”
Gene snorted. The day he let Keats help him was the day hell froze over. “Any why would that be, James?”
Keats’ smile was serpentine. “Because my superior intends to transfer the folks at Fenchurch East to his department. All of them.” Dark, dancing eyes met Gene’s. “He's coming, Hunt, and this time, he wants you.”
xxxx
Go on to Part 2: The Devil Wears a Smile