Trouble Getting Home – Chapter One
'Mum. Mummy. Mum. Wake up.'
'Molly?'
Alex blinked drowsily, and opened her eyes. There was a spotlight and in it, stood Molly. Her daughter, just like she had been when Alex had seen her last in 2008. School uniform and pony-tail. Only this time, Molly had an expression of worry and sadness.
'You promised me a birthday to remember, Mum. You promised you'd be here. Where are you?'
'I'm here, Molly. Look I'm here. I'm coming home. I'm waking up. The bullet has gone. I'm waking up back to you.'
Alex began to get more desperate but Molly's last words echoed round Alex's head. The spotlight began to darken and although Alex strained to see her daughter, soon all that was left were the words swirling, round and round.
'Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are…..'
BANG.
A leather-gloved hand slammed down on the smooth surface of DI Drake's paperwork laden desk, and the said DI Drake jerked awake, lifting her head up to look at the owner of the glove.
'Oh, I'm sorry, DI Drake, did I wake you from your pleasant afternoon nap? God forbid you might actually be doing some bloody work.'
Alex blinked slowly, looking round the busy CID office. She was sure it hadn't been this productive when she decided to rest her tired eyes for five minutes. Ray and Chris had been pelting each other with balls of paper when she sank her head on the desk, and she had been able to hear Shaz singing quietly along with her tape player. However, now when she looked, Ray was threatening someone down a phone, Shaz was shuffling files and Chris - well, Chris was standing next to the Guv with a piece of paper in his hand.
'Been a bit of commotion down Brookend way, Guv. Body found and is with forensics but they want us to go down to Brookend first and sort it out,' Chris reeled off, 'some sort of punch-up still going on.'
DCI Gene Hunt opened his mouth to reply, but was beaten to it by Alex, who quickly up. Having shaken off the dream about Molly, she directed Chris and Ray to deal with the punch-up while her and the Guv went down to forensics.
She turned to Gene.
'Come on then. Quattro?
'Read my mind, Bolly. Read my mind.'