Chapter Three

The sun shone in through the window and flickered across Alex's eyes. She stirred, rubbing her eyes as though to get rid of the sunlight and blinked a few times.

"Wha…" she muttered, trying to get her bearings. There she was, in her chair, in her office, a long coat draped across her to keep her warm. With a sigh she got to her feet, folded up the coat, straightened out the kinks in her neck and trudged to the door of Gene's office.

"Blimey, is that how you look when you turn up for work every morning?" asked Gene.

Alex yawned.

"What time is it?" she asked, "I'd check my watch but all I ever get is nine-o-six."

"For once, your watch is right," said Gene.

"My God, how long was I asleep?" Alex rubbed her forehead.

"Ten hours straight," Gene told her.

"Must have been the wine," Alex sighed. She placed Gene's coat on his desk. "Thank you… for this," she smiled, "I appreciate the thought."

"I might not be very good at slaying dragons but Gene Hunt is nothing if not chivalrous," commented Gene. He looked at Alex. "So what's first on that list thing of yours?"

"I'm adding 'washing' and 'breakfast' to the list," Alex told him, "and then I'm going to see Simon."

"Oh yeah?" Gene raised an eyebrow, "ask him if he's got any size eleven boots while you're there."

"You're going to have to get along with him, you know," said Alex, "sooner or later you'll run out of shoe shop jokes and have to work with the man."

"Then let's make it later rather than sooner," said Gene.

Alex stepped back towards the doorway.

"I'm off for breakfast," she said, "don't forget we need to find somewhere to stay tonight."

"My coat not good enough for you?" asked Gene.

Alex gave a cheeky smile.

"Too many lumps," she said, "You left your hip flask in the pocket."

After a rudimentary wash in the ladies' and an attempt at finding something edible in the canteen Alex made her way to hospital to find out what had become of Simon.

"He's in here," a young nurse showed Alex to the doorway of a hospital room. Alex peered in and saw him laying in bed, one foot in plaster and a soppy grin across his face.

"Why did he have to stay in?" she asked, "it was only a couple of broken toes, wasn't it?"

"Originally, yes," the nurse said sheepishly, "but he went a little…" she demonstrated 'loopy' by crossing her eyes and circling her finger around one side of her head.

"Oh," Alex said in surprise, "I see."

"He's had a sedative which knocked him out for a few hours," the nurse explained, "He woke up a little while ago but he's still a little bit…"

"Happy?" suggested Alex.

The nurse gave her a warm smile.

"He'll be fine when it wears off," she said and began to walk away.

"Thank you," said Alex. She took a deep breath, staring at the stranger in his bed. She felt a nervous twitch take over her toe, which she scuffed along the floor. She felt so many emotions take her over at once. Anticipation of talking to this man who'd found himself in a similar situation to Alex, sadness at not being able to help him, fear of saying too much. She rubbed her eyes and sighed. "Come on, Alex," she admonished herself, "get on with it. You haven't got all day."

Her heels clicked along the floor as she entered the room and drew closer to Shoebury. He looked up at her, struggling to focus at first. The dopey grin changed into a look of confusion.

"You?" he frowned, "you from the office… what are you doing here? Have you put my ceiling back yet?"

Alex sat down beside his bed and shuffled a little closer.

"Hello, Simon," she began, "I don't think we were properly introduced yesterday." She held out her hand. "My name is Alex Drake. We're going to be working together."

"Where?" frowned Simon.

"At Fenchurch East," Alex said patently.

"Oh no we're not," said Simon, "I may have three broken toes… and I may have taken many… many pills, but I know this joke has gone way too far."

"Simon," Alex began patiently, "I think you might be suffering from a little bit of amnesia. I'm here to help you get your memory back. I thought if we… talked a little about your past and what happened yesterday then things might start to become a little clearer for you."

"I doubt it," Simon scratched his head.

"Well, humour me," Alex gave him a charming smile, "let's start with something easy. What year were you born?"

"Nineteen seventy eight," said Simon.

"Seventy eight," Alex repeated, adding a little more quietly, "so you'd be seven." She looked at him intently. "Let's work on your memory…. Talk a bit about your childhood. Did anything… traumatic happen when you were a child?"

Simon chewed on his lip thoughtfully.

"The school bully stole my shoes and told me to grow another pair," he said.

"How about when you were around six or seven?" asked Alex, "maybe eight? Was there a family tragedy? An accident of some sort? Were you very sick or hurt, maybe?"

"I was hurt when the bully stole my shoes," Simon pouted.

"How about family matters?" Alex pressed, "did you… discover anything shocking about your parents? Did they get divorced or pass away? Did they cause you a terrible trauma?"

Simon began to reply 'No' but stopped himself as a memory struck him.

"Yes," he declared, "for my birthday my parents bought me an Amiga A1000."

Alex hesitated.

"And…?"

"And I wanted an Atari 65XEP!"

Alex gave a deep sigh. This was getting her nowhere fast.

"OK, Simon," she tried, "let's talk about something more recent. Why don't you tell me what happened yesterday?"

Simon felt nauseous at the thought of the events of the day before and looked around for more pills to make life rosy again. He couldn't find any so eventually he closed his eyes and began,

"I've been trying and trying to work it out, but something somewhere doesn't make sense."

"Well, maybe I can help," Alex said quietly.

Simon shook his head.

"I doubt it," he said, "I've been going over this in my mind all night… as much of it as I was awake for anyway." For the first time, he looked Alex directly in the eye. "Look, I was at work, right? And some of the guys were having trouble getting into the system. It had been acting up all day. I went down to IT to see what was going on and they were all on a tea break so I thought I'd wait for them to get back. I sat down, dropped my iPhone on the floor, bent down to pick it up and heard this… creaking from the desk above me. Looked up in time to see the desk crack in two and a bloody great server hurtling toward me."

Alex flinched.

"Then what happened?" she whispered.

"Next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and three big guys in suits were standing round me. One of them said he'd never seen anyone get knocked out by a flying mug before. There was china all over the place. It didn't make any sense. So I tried to get to my office, but everything was different, and then I found some bastard had stolen my iPhone!"

Alex bit her lip gently.

"Simon… what year is this?" she asked quietly.

Simon scowled.

"You're taking this amnesia thing a bit too far," he said, "I know I got a server square in the head but I know it's two thousand and ten."

Alex closed her eyes for a moment.

"Two years after my death", she murmured so quietly that Simon couldn't make out what she had said. She looked back at him. "Listen, I know things are… confusing right now and nothing is making sense to you. But you have to trust us. If you trust me and DCI Hunt we'll be able to look after you. Make sure you're OK."

"DCI Hunt?" Simon repeated, "He was that caveman who kept calling me Shoe Shop Boy." He scowled. "I don't want to be anywhere near that man."

"You feel like this now but believe me, soon you'll feel very different about the Guv. Maybe not in quite the same way as I do…" she paused, "…but I've been where you are now. I… transferred from a very different place, and things here take a lot of getting used to. But stick with it, because it is worth the effort. Gene's methods… his language… his manner… you'll get used to them. You'll learn to bite back. You'll learn how to banter, you'll enjoy it, you'll love it." She paused, "you'll find yourself at home." She realised she had run out of questions and advice for now and really should get on with the rest of her list. She stood up and gave Simon one last, friendly smile. "I need to get back," she said, "I'm sure you'll be discharged soon. Take some time and I'll see you back in the office when you're ready." As she turned to leave, a bowl of something green caught her eye. "Those grapes look nice," she smiled, "where did they come from?"

Simon shrugged.

"I don't know," he said, "They were there when I woke up."

Alex gave him a friendly smile.

"Well it looks like someone is looking out for you here at least," she said. She left the room with a few of her questions answered and set off to look for somewhere to stay, for a while at least.

Simon watched her go. He wasn't sure who the strange woman was that had paid him a visit or why she was so interested but she at least seemed to be on his side. He still didn't know what was going on and he knew the second he left the hospital life would get confusing again but for the first time since he'd landed in this strange world he felt like he a friend.

A dark presence in the doorway caught his attention. Dressed in black with a long coat draping his form in fabric, a bespectacled man with dark hair entered and changed the atmosphere in a heartbeat.

"Good morning, DI Shoebury," He said pleasantly, "it's good to see you looking better." He paused long enough to scratch his calf with the opposite foot. "I hope you liked the grapes."

Shoebury frowned.

"Who are you?" he asked.

The man smiled.

"Just a well-wisher," he said. He gave him a small wave. "Get better soon."

With that he turned on his heels and left, almost as though he'd never been there.

Simon rubbed his forehead and gave a whimper.

"Nurse?" he cried, "NURSE?"

A moment later a worried nurse came skidding into the room.

"What's the matter, Mr Shoebury?" she asked patiently.

Simon looked at her weakly.

"I think it might be time for more pills," he whimpered.