A/N: This won't be my finest piece, but I very much hope you enjoy- I've missed A2A since joining the Life on Mars community, but I'm peeking back in. Please, please review, it'd make me very happy indeed.
Mac's blood hasn't yet been cleaned off the floor of the corridor. It's been almost a week, a bloody long and gruelling week at that, with accusations flying and offices and ranks divided, but this one stain on the Force remains, spread over the tiles a few metres from the pink blob marking where Jarvis died. The cleaners had no problems mopping his entrails up. Mac's were another matter, seemingly.
Gene won't walk past that spot. Takes the long route out, past the changing rooms and the filing rooms. It's not just the reminder, it's the feeling that something of Mac is still there; Mac's presence in the building is still palpable, still physical. The corridor itself is only used by those who didn't know Mac now, or those in a hurry.
He orders Alex to interview the other people at Jarvis' party, has her take Chris along. Shaz is also ordered in, on the pretext of gaining experience. Maybe it'll get him a drink at Luigi's later, for recognising that Shaz is a capable member of the departmen, but it's simply because the girl will bring more pertinent insight to the case than Chris ever will, and that's what he needs at this moment in time, to understand the finer details of Mac and Jarvis' arrangements and cover-ups, as much for his own masochistic curiosity as to ensure this never happens again. He has to know how someone who was once a force for good turned so rotten, where the opportunities lay.
For now, he's got a personally assigned errand to run.
Mrs Mackintosh is at Jarvis' house when he arrives, examining the rooms filled with artwork, her hand in Victoria's, a pale girl with lips red and sore from constant chewing. Gene's met them before, he danced with Mrs Mackintosh at some point at some do, although the memories are somewhat hazed with drink; how they found out about Jarvis' address, he's not sure, but he suspects friends of her husband's might have played a part.
"Found these in his drawer, sir," a plod says behind him, and Gene turns just in time to have a wad of papers shoved into his chest. "They're the transactions and such between SuperMac and Jarvis."
"Right… ta." He puts them in his pocket. He'll look at them back at the station.
"Impressionist… abstract… French Revolution… renaissance…" Mrs Mackintosh is mumbling a list of terms under her breath as she trails from one painting to another, Victoria clinging on silently. "Italian… must be seventeenth century…"
"Sorry, love," someone says, reaching past her to retrieve the painting she's looking at. "Need to load these up. Police property now."
"Yes, of course," Mrs Mackintosh says, in a voice completely devoid of emotion. "Take them away. Put them to good use."
Suddenly there's a wail from the other side of the room, and Gene swerves round to the sight of Victoria standing trembling from head to toe, hand outstretched, face crumpling as she stares at the picture of her with her father, smiling benignly, her hand on Mac's shoulder.
Mrs Mackintosh runs across the room and scoops Victoria into her arms, rocking her from side to side as the girl sobs helplessly into her mother's jacket, clutching at her sleeves with shaking hands. She catches Gene's eye over her daughter's shoulder, and Gene looks down at his feet, not entirely sure why, after so many years of comforting angry relatives, he can't bear to see the look in Mrs Mackintosh's eyes.
"DCI Hunt, would you take Victoria outside for some air, please?" Mrs Mackintosh says quietly, gently unhooking her daughter's hands from her jacket; Gene steps forward, sliding his arm around Victoria's shoulders, and guides her out towards the back door, rubbing gently between her shoulder blades as the girl shudders with sobs.
He looks back, and Mrs Mackintosh is slashing furiously at the painted face of her husband, hacking at the canvas with her fingernails, scratching and gouging until nothing is left of him, only the inch of shoulder where Victoria's neat little fingers rest.
One of the PCs takes Victoria off for a drink and something small to eat, telling her gently that Mum's just got to sort something out with the people taking the pictures away, she'll be along in five minutes and they can go home then. Gene decides it's a tactful moment to vanish. Maybe Alex will have got somewhere with the party-goers by now.
Alright, so he'd quite like to see Alex. It's been a long day and he needs a bit of banter to cheer himself up, her incessant psycho-babble and bloody brains to remind him why he needs to keep going. He floors the Quattro out of the driveway, down back to the main road, and doesn't take his foot off the accelerator until he has to brake furiously to avoid becoming part of a hedge. Bloody country roads.
He switches the radio on when he gets back into London, as loud as is possible without deafening himself. Perhaps that's why, when he pulls up a street away from the station, he doesn't hear the footsteps approaching the car as he parks up, nor the click of the door opening, until hands grab him and shove a cloth over his face and the world flickers and goes dark before he can struggle free.
"I understand you were there when Mac died." The larch stands over him, one foot on Gene's chest, and it would be bloody scary if not for all the stupid ceremonial togs and tassels they've all got on. In fact, they look like- and are- a bunch of loonies. Which isn't so comforting in itself.
"Yes," he grinds out through gritted teeth, eyes fixed on the knife dangling inches from his face, held lightly in a silk-gloved hand. "'E shot 'imself. Nothing to do with me."
"You were investigating him, so our sources tell us. Investigating him to his detriment. That's hardly availing him of future danger, is it, Hunt? Creating it?"
"Ray Carling? He yer source?"
"No, no. There are so many Masons in the police force, we can pick and choose who we want information from. Mac only brought Carling in because he was your right hand man. Thought he'd prove useful, when he's about as much use as a chocolate teapot." The larch snorts derisively. "In fact, you were more useful than him. Until you turned against us."
"I took down a murderer. Mac was coverin' for 'im. Dead girls, teenagers, turnin' up in my morgue because of 'im. Really the sort of bloke you 'ave a nice drink with, eh?" Gene grins through bloody lips, earning himself another punch in the face.
"He was your squire."
"He was a corrupt bastard with litres of blood on 'is 'an-" Gene breaks off with a cough at the kick to his side. "Hands," he wheezes, squirming to take some weight off the area with pain radiating through it.
"You're a traitor."
"I'm a copper."
"You don't belong here."
"Kick me out, then. Warned you I was shit in clubs."
The larch motions to the two people standing either side of Gene; Gene abruptly finds himself seated, hands bound behind the backrest of the chair, and the larch walks round in front of him, lifting a revolver to point straight at Gene's forehead. There's a throb of pain from between his eyebrows, as though the bullet were in there already.
"Should've read the rulebook, Hunt. There's definitely a rule in there that if you break the rules, you die."
"So do innocent people, at the 'ands of Masons. I was never a bloody Mason, I only joined so I could bring Mac down. You wanna shoot me, you go ahead, but Ray Carling's more loyal to me than 'e is to you gobshites, you'll spend the rest of your snivellin' soddin' lives in jail if you pull that trigger."
The larch aims.
There's a bang, and another, and all Gene knows is that someone is untying him, someone's talking to him, and the larch is screaming but he can't hear what he's saying because Alex is holding him and nothing else matters now.
"I don't exactly savour looking at your face normally, but there's something about cheek-to-cheek bruising that makes you even less palatable," Alex grins as she sits down at his bedside, plopping a bunch of grapes down on the bedside cabinet. "You look like something from The Rocky Horror Show gone wrong."
"Ta very muchly, Drake," Gene croaks, throat dry and sore from whatever they did to him when he got here. "Grapes? Why've you brought me fruit an' not proper food?"
"You'll get better quicker if you eat fruit instead of grease wrapped in carbohydrate and fat. That lot in CID are sodding unmanageable without you around." Alex picks a grape and dangles it in front of his mouth, smirking at him. "I'll save your poor little hands and feed you myself, if you so wish."
Gene sticks his tongue out and licks her fingers, making her squeal, before taking the grape in his mouth. His shit-faced grin is hidden nicely by the bruises.
"Ugh!" Alex groans, wiping her finger on a tissue from his bedside. "You bastard, Gene."
"You know it," Gene says thickly around the grape, swallowing with an effort. "Unmanageable?"
"Well. Off-task. I'll put it nicely." Alex peers at him, the corners of her mouth turning down, extending a hand as though to touch the injuries on his face, pulling it back at the last second; there's a little flicker of disappointment on his face, he's sure, but hopefully she didn't see. "Just… get better. I need someone to keep me fighting. I can't- I can't do this on my own."
"What're you on about?"
Alex barks out a laugh, but he can see the tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. "Never you mind. Just rest up, get better, come back soon. I'll see you tomorrow, Guv." She stands up, placing her hand gently on the knee of his shot leg. "And please don't make trouble for the nurses."
"Me? Make trouble?" It's hard to pull off indignant with a face like a squashed tomato, but he hopes he's managed it. Alex raises her eyebrows at him and turns to leave, giving him a perfect view of her arse as she opens the door and steps out into the corridor.
He leans over to pick the grapes up, picking two and shoving them in his mouth. He'd never say it, but the fact that she bothered has lifted his spirits considerably.
"Go and sit down, Gene. They've seen you, now you need to rest." Alex is at his side in an instant, pushing him towards his office, and he has to grab the doorframe into CID to stay in place, shoving her away as well as he can with his arms in crutches. He refuses to spend the entire of his first day back sat on his arse being useless, especially when he has an important errand to run. "Go on, you pig-headed bastard. If you bleed all over the carpet, don't bloody expect me to clean it up."
"Not sittin' down just yet. Need to talk to Viv before I crack on in 'ere."
"Then I'll get Viv to come in here. Come on, Gene, I'm trying to look after you."
"Oh, for Christ's sake…" Gene pushes past her, awkward with the crutches, and motions for her to follow him. Which she does, but with a face so thundery he's amazed there aren't storm clouds gathering around her head.
"Gene, what's this about?"
"Mac," he calls over his shoulder, and at that she shuts up and follows him, much to his relief.
"Hi, Guv," Viv says with a smile as Gene approaches, carefully parking himself to lean against the reception desk. "Feelin' better?"
"You know me, Skip, a bullet in the leg won't stop me for very long. It's that boundless energy that comes with youth an' attractiveness." Gene extends an arm to pull the Yellow Pages over, snatching Viv's pen up at the same time. "Got a favour to ask. That corridor been cleaned yet?"
Viv's smile slips. "Yeah, we tried. Couldn't quite get it out of the tiles, though… there's still a stain there. Same with Jarvis."
"Bugger that, then. Just replace the whole corridor. Time to get rid of that bastard Mac. There you go, ring them up an' tell 'em it's Fenchurch East, mention my name an' they'll do it for free." Gene rings a name and shoves the book back to Viv, clutching at the desk to stop himself falling; Alex hurries forwards to prop him up. "Ow! Gerroff, Bolls, I'm capable of bloody standin' up without you."
Alex's hand winds round his waist, holding him upright, and suddenly he finds he minds being treated like an invalid much less. "Stop being stupid, Guv. Sit down here for five minutes and then we'll go back to CID."
Viv, already dialling the number for the carpeter's, smirks behind the phone handset as they hobble off together, arms around each others' bodies. "Don't think I don't know who's got their claws into you, Guv," he murmurs, just as the dial tone starts up.