Empty Space
For a while he wished he hadn't thrown away that cutting about Tyler. Gene Hunt didn't need comfort and he didn't need company but a reminder of a friendly face would have been nice. Nowadays when the Manc Lion surveyed his domain all he saw was a blank noticeboard and a bunch of useless tossers in the outer room.
After his initial bluster the new DI turned out to be an OK copper. Mouthy but a bit beige, like his coat. His name was Craddock and Gene tried calling him 'Fanny' once or twice, but he didn't get the joke so where was the fun in that? Turned out he ate paperwork for breakfast, once he stopped ranting about servers and networks and rams and mice and got stuck in with a pen and paper, so he wasn't a complete waste of air.
Soon enough there was another female on the team, a DS whose obedience bordered on the subservient which Gene found disconcerting. Her name was Tracey Whatnough, which was fuel for endless hilarity among the likes of Poirot, but Gene didn't have the heart for nicknames any more.
She wasn't a bad-looking bird in the dark with the light behind her – tallish, darkish, curvyish – but when she turned round, you'd see a long nose and long teeth and the illusion would vanish. She caused ructions by having to sit up front in the Merc. The first time Gene took her out on a shout sitting in the back she turned green and he had to chuck her out sharpish before she chucked up all over his leather upholstery. Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye while he was driving and something in his memory would flicker…His DI should be sitting in that seat.
Gene Hunt became the Guv again. He turned his back on his office where that bit of blank space made him feel obscurely uncomfortable. He could have covered it with a nice pair from page 3, but somehow he knew he'd feel a damn sight more uncomfortable if he did that. With a bit of softly, softly and a lot of loudly, loudly he set about the endless task of getting these idiots to pull their heads out of their arses and do some proper police work. And after a while it began to work.
But they didn't challenge him. And they didn't drink with him. They were all a bit wary of their DCI.
After Luigi buggered off some floppy-haired ponce moved into the bar across the road and threw out most of the furniture. He filled it with barrels for tables, turned off the lights and tried to flog overpriced plonk to City traders by the light of arsy little candles in glasses. But Fenchurch was too far East for the boys in braces and after a few lonely weeks behind the bar, and an awful lot of arsy little candles, the floppy-haired ponce – actually Neil from Kettering – was only too happy to switch the lights back on and sell house rubbish to the good, the bad and the ugly of Fenchurch East. He couldn't be bullied or insulted into selling anything other than bottled beer though.
Eventually something resembling a team started to appear out of the whole sorry mess. Craddock bought himself a new coat, not beige. Tracey started to defy Gene and put on her seatbelt in the Merc. When a new DC came along – a brash, acne-scarred kid who thought he was God's gift but jumped a mile at loud noises – it was Craddock who took him under his wing. Looked like the new DI was there for the duration.
Gene found himself losing his taste for Neil's bottled lager and the slightly constrained company of his colleagues and started spending more time in his office of an evening, when the station was peaceful. Snakeskins on the desk, single malt at the ready, he'd light a cheroot and gaze into the empty space ahead of him as the smoke curled and shifted into shapes…faces. And if he thought he saw one face much more often than others…it was time for Gene Hunt to allow himself to remember.
He was dying for a pint.