DISCLAIMER: I still don't own anything that you might recognise here. All is property of BBC and I'm merely borrowing it, not with a big success may I add.
A/N: An infinite, huge THANK YOU to tardis-mole for his help with some medical stuff, without him this story could have never been continued. I also what to thank my beta Elfinium again for all her hard work.
By the time they arrived, a crowd had already gathered. Peoples' curiosity was drawing them to the scene like flies to rotting food. Gene drove the Cortina straight through the crowd. They were forced to jumped out of the way to avoid being run over.
"Oi, you lot, shift" Hunt shouted and skidded the car to a stop in front of the ruined grocery shop. Jumping out he sent Chris and Ray to deal with the crowd while he followed Sam Tyler into the shop.
Inside, the scene was one of destruction. It showed no structure or any purpose other than just mindless vandalism. Annie was standing next to a body lying on the floor. She looked visibly shaken, but was still trying to calm the distressed owner.
"Annie, luv, don't worry, we are here now. We'll take over." Gene came to stand beside her. He knelt next to the body. "Did he go feral?"
"I…I… don't know Guv." Annie stammered. Sam put a hand on her shoulder for reassurance. "The shopkeeper said the boy entered the shop and seemed calm. He was looking to buy some beer but quickly started to get impatient and agitated. When I arrived he was already trashing the place and then he went into a seizure."
"It's ok, Annie." Sam reassured her gently "Calm down, we are going to sort this out and find what happened."
"I can tell you what 'appened straight away." Gene grunted angrily "This guy was a junkie. Probably had too strong a fix or was withdrawing cold turkey and couldn't take it." Gene got up with a grunt and brushed some imaginary dust from his trousers. "Now, I don't care how they live their miserable lives, but when they start disturbing the peace of the people in my city, that becomes my problem!" He turned to the paramedics who had arrived on the scene a bit too late to be of any use. "Take him to the morgue!"
The three police officers left the shop in silence. Chris and Ray, were still trying to break up the crowd and send people away.
"Come on folks, there is nothing to see here! Go home, eat dinner and watch TV!" Chris was trying to shoo them off, while Ray was standing in front of the shop window to block the view inside.
"Oi, bugger off!" Gene Hunt shouted to the assembled people. "It's just a dead body, nothing much to see. 'S not even bloody."
"That's just the thing Guv." Sam was trying to get Gene's attention. "There is no blood anywhere on his body, coming out of his nose or mouth, nothing to suggest anything that could have killed him."
"Yeah, except the drugs he used." Hunt pointed out.
"They don't kill this way. Drugs kill either really slowly, or cause a quick heart attack, but not like this." Sam reasoned with his DCI.
"I still say it's the drugs. You said there is a new drug in town." Gene would not give up. "Let's go to the office and do some work."
When 'A' Division arrived back at the station, the front desk was in uproar. Phyllis was arguing with a tall guy dressed all in black, his raven hair was slicked back and he wore a goatee.
"Sir, I can't release Billy Clarke without asking DCI Hunt for permission." Phyllis was trying to stay calm and polite, but it was obvious that her patience was wearing thin after repeating the same argument a dozen times over. Her discomfort was increased further by the intense look of the man. She was trying to avoid looking into his eyes, which seemed impossible to look at for long without starting to feel lost and dizzy.
"Now, Madam, we can either do this in a nice and polite way, or I will come back later with a court order for his release because you are holding him here unreasonably." The man in the black suit said confidently.
"Who the 'ell are you?" DCI Hunt demanded slamming his hands on the desk.
"I'm Billy's lawyer." The man produced a black leather wallet from the inside pocket of his suit and showed it to Gene and Phyllis.
"Billy don't have lawyer!" Gene said. "He doesn't even know what the word means."
"Well he has now. His family called my office and asked me to represent him."
Through all this DI Sam Tyler was unusually quiet. He was staring at the man who introduced himself as Billy Clarke's lawyer. His head felt heavy and the drums inside his skull were becoming louder and more frantic. All the blood had drained from his face and he felt sick. Breathing heavily to push the nausea back, he leaned on the desk for support, something solid to remind him of something that was real. 'This isn't happening! It's not possible! This isn't real!' He kept on telling himself over and over again.
"You alright Tyler?" Gene asked him. The Guv was angry because he could do nothing except release Clarke and hand him over to this dandy wearing a goatee. What kind of man wears goatee in 1973 anyway? A lawyer, he thought, probably a fairy too.
"Yeah, yeah…" Sam exhaled quickly. "I'm ok, just need a bit of air. If you will excuse me..?" Without waiting for an answer, he left the room, needing to be as far away from the man as possible. Leaving Gene Hunt to deal with a frustrated Phyllis and supposed lawyer, Sam hurried towards the bathroom, his favourite place to escape. Not really paying attention on where he was walking, he ran into Annie in the corridor.
"Sam, are you ok?" She asked with concern studying his pale face. "You look, like you have seen a ghost."
"I feel like it too." He answered her, distracted. "What about you? Are you ok?"
"Yeah, one of the girls here gave me something, she said it will calm me nerves." She smiled at him.
"What's going on Annie? I haven't seen you for some time then the moment we parked you were off without even talking to me."
"That's because I've been avoiding ya again, Sam." Annie answered cheekily.
"'Please shag me, I'm in coma', didn't work before. If I say 'Please shag me, my wife shot me', will it work this time?" He joked and smiled at her, but the result was the opposite.
"No need to be so rude." She snapped and stormed off along the corridor.
"Shit!" He murmured, he was losing his touch with women, but he was in shock, so it was probably a good excuse. He had forgotten about UNIT and the Doctor in the '70s. But the puzzling thing was, he should have remembered being in Manchester in the middle of decade and he didn't. Something was meddling not only with his head, but with time and with the people around here. Strangely enough, he felt protective of the people in this city, and he was determined to find out what the threat was.
His deep reverie was broken by a furious DCI Gene Hunt, who took him by the lapels of his leather jacket and slammed his back into the wall with the force of a hurricane.
"The parents of this kid, and the boy 'imself didn't know we were holding him 'ere unreasonably. Am I right to assume that you, Mr by-the-book-righteous-bastard decided to open their eyes?" Gene Hunt spat in Sam's face.
"He has the right to know, we can't just decide who we want to keep in custody!" Sam shouted back, trying to shrug the Guv off.
"In this nick, I decide if we hold someone in a cell or not! Not some holier-than-thou copper from Hyde!" Gene spat before letting go of his jacket. "I'm done with this place for today, but the first thing tomorrow I want to see you in the morgue with the results on the last death!" He turned his back on the DI and poked his head through the door to CID. "Skelton, Carling it's beer time!"
"Guv, I'm not coming. There is tons of paperwork to be done, and files to be looked through." Sam sighed.
"Suit yourself Sammy-boy, but you are not making me do paperwork. I'm not a paper mole like you." Gene said dismissively "By the way, what did you do to Cartwright? She was fuming."
"Nothing!" Sam said defensively "I guess I've just been spending way too much time with you."
He tried to work on the files and reports after the second death in less than 24 hours, but the empty room was making him feel uneasy. It was too… silent, leaving him with too much opportunity to think with nothing to distract him. He could not stop his thoughts going back to Clarkes' lawyer, it couldn't be just a coincidence, but what was he supposed to do now?
The only other person he could see still there, apart from himself, was Phyllis. She was obviously bored, staring off into the distance and tapping her pen on the desk, making a poor attempt to look as if she was doing some work. Phyllis' tapping and the monotonous ticking of the clock on the wall were the only noise. Each tick of the clock hung ominously in the air measuring the passing of the time, making him, for the first time, conscious of his now human persona and how little time he had.
His wandering thoughts and state of mind made it impossible to concentrate on any work. Making the decision to follow Gene's example, he sighed in frustration and left the uncompleted paperwork on the desk.
"I'm done here for today!" He said to Phyllis when he passed her on the way out. "I'm going to the pub for a drink. See you tomorrow."
She just grunted in acknowledgment and looked at the clock to see how much time she had left before her shift was over.
The Railway Arms was the 'A' Division's place of escape from the problems of the world. It still was early so the pub wasn't full apart from the occasional costumer and of course 'A' Division who never missed a night. The barman, a dark skinned Jamaican was polishing a glass that already sparkled, but he kept on scrubbing it with a towel anyway, probably just to have something to do.
"What can I offer you today, Mon brave?" Nelson asked as Sam arrived. "You seem pensive tonight."
"Give me something strong and make it double!" He ordered and cast an eye to the table where Gene, Chris and Ray were sitting with a few officers from the CID, a couple were playing darts. "Actually, make that a big-double-double!"
Nelson put a glass full of scotch in front of him and resumed the silent polishing of the same glass, leaving Sam to drink in peace.
"Who am I Nelson?" He asked aloud.
"I don't understand? You are Sam Tyler." Nelson answered curtly, he was a barman, and therefore he was quite used to questions like this from inebriated customers.
"No, but Nelson, who am I really? You said Sam Tyler but what is in a name Nelson? "He persisted not really sure why Nelson would know anyway."The name is nothing but a means to distance ourselves from the others. I've been calling myself Koshei, the Master, Harold Saxon and now you lot are calling me Sam Tyler. But who out of all those people am I really?"
"I can't even pretend to understand what you are on about Sam. You lost me there, but I can tell you one thing. What we do and how we live is who we are. Our actions and our way of treating others around us define us for who we are. And who are you right now is DI Sam Tyler, a good man and a good police officer." Nelson replied, for once not looking too startled by the apparent madness of Sam's words.
"But what if that's not who I am? What if in the past I was this Master from the future, who killed and plotted…" He asked taking big gulps from his glass determined to get himself drunk this time.
"That's your past Mon brave, maybe now you are here to redeem yourself. Maybe you are being given second chance in a new place and a new time to start anew. Every person deserves a second chance. My granddad used to sell illegal alcohol in Jamaica so he could feed his family, that didn't make him bad man. Then he came here and started afresh, opened a bar and worked legally to the end." Nelson said this proudly. He put the glass on the bar. "Now why don't you go and play some darts with the Guv and the other guys, eh?"
"No, thanks Nelson, I'll decline the offer! I feel quite good where I am." Sam said staring into the distance with his glass in hand. "You don't think it's insane when I talk about being from the future and calling myself the Master?" He asked raising an eyebrow.
"I'm here to listen to people talking about a lot of crazy stuff Sam, I'm used to tuning the cryptic stuff out." He smiled and turned around to tend to the other customers and clean the recently emptied glasses.
Please R&R thanks. Is not so hard to press the purple button after you read it, is it? I'll appreciate your review even if it has to say that you didn't like this chapter or story as a whole.