Just to let you know, myself and the ladies in the Naughty Corner at TRA have decided that Tom Fletcher looks like Mr Davenport - the guy who played Miles in "This Life" and is also in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films. Just thought I'd let you know so you can picture him more clearly, as he is rather gorgeous in this chapter. ;-)
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Alex spent the evening half-heartedly watching the telly and listening out for the distinctive sound of the Quattro's engine. She'd been surprised that Gene hadn't been at home when she'd arrived back from work. Surely he wasn't still in Surrey? She rang Tom's house in the vague hope that he might be home but there was no answer there either.
At sometime after eleven-thirty she decided that it really was time to go to bed, despite there being no sign of Gene. As she switched off the TV, the doorbell rang and she hurried into the hall, praying that it would be him. When she opened the front door, she felt her heart leap in panic at the sight of an unfamiliar uniformed PC standing there.
"Are you DI Drake?" he asked, cautiously.
"Yes, I am. Is everything OK?" Alex dimly registered that he wasn't wearing a Met uniform and that he looked about fifteen. She watched him sag with visible relief at her reply.
"Oh thank god for that, Ma'am. I would have delivered them home hours ago but they kept making me take them to more and more pubs. They're senior officers, so I couldn't really say no." He held out his hand in introduction. "I'm PC Willloughby, Ma'am. I drove them back from Dorking. Neither of them were in any fit state to drive themselves"
Alex looked out of the door and saw the Quattro parked a little way down the street. On the pavement beside it, Tom Fletcher was sprawled in an untidy heap and Gene was leaning against his precious car, crying with laughter at Tom's attempts to get to his feet. Alex sighed, delighted that they were both safe, but not relishing the prospect of the pair of them drunk and disorderly in her care.
Gene looked up and caught sight of her. "Bolly!" he roared. "Come an' give us a hand, gorgeous girl! Fletch can't seem to get up!"
"Tha's my line, Gene…..I call her gorgeous girl. You wanna watch yourself… spent the day with me an' now you're talkin' all poncey." Tom abandoned his attempt to stand up and lay there, giggling.
With the help of PC Willoughby, Alex got them both inside the house without any further mishap. She steered them both into the sitting room and went to see the young PC out.
"Thank you so much, Willoughby." She looked at her watch. "How are you going to get home now?"
"Train, Ma'am. There's still a couple running this time of night." He flicked a glance at Tom and Gene. "I hope they're not too much trouble. They've had rather a lot to drink I'm afraid."
Alex smiled. "I'll be fine. I'm used to it. You've done very well to put up with them in that condition all evening. I hope DCI Hunt wasn't too rude to you."
Willoughby looked worried. "Well, he was a bit, but DCI Fletcher told me not to take it personally. He said he was like it with everyone. To be quite honest with you, Ma'am, it was DCI Hunt that kept suggesting another drink. I think he led DCI Fletcher astray, really. He kept saying he needed to drink it all out of his system."
Alex bit back a smile. "That doesn't surprise me in the least. It's his solution to most of life's problems."
She'd wished him a safe journey home, and returned to the sitting room to find them both sprawled on the sofa where she'd left them. They looked up at her unsteadily with near-identical naughty-boy grins on their faces.
"I think Bolly's a bit cross wi' you, Fletch" Gene nudged Tom with his elbow. "Look, she's gone all stern."
"' S not me she's cross with, 's you. I'm a ver' well-behaved young man. 'S you tha' got me this drunk."
"I din't! You were the one tha' suggested we go to tha' bar......wi' all those funny coloured shots 'n stuff."Gene thumped the arm of the sofa indignantly. "'S all your bloody fault I'm in this state."
"Yes, but you were the one tha' said we had to try them all." Tom hiccuped loudly, before leaning over and tapping his finger on Gene's chest. "Ha! See! 'S your fault!"
Alex sighed. They'd go on like this all night if she didn't put a stop to it now. "Coffee." she told them both, brightly but firmly.
"Sod coffee, Bolly. We wanna proper drink. Where's my whisky?" Gene peered at her blearily, his hair flopping over his forehead.
She shook her head. "No way. Coffee or nothing. You've both had more than enough to drink."
Gene snorted. "See! See Fletch! Tha's what I was telling you 'bout. You move in wi' a bird, an' all they do is nag at you. Don' do this, don' do that. You're lucky, you are, being a poof. You don' get any of that nonsense wi' another bloke."
Tom laughed. "'S one way of lookin' at it, I suppose. You thinking of goin' on the turn then, Gene?"
"Am I bollocks!" spluttered Gene. "If I pass out Bolly, don' you dare leave me down here alone wi' him." He grinned lopsidedly at Tom and clapped him heavily on the shoulder. "'m only jokin', Fletch. You know tha', don' you?"
Tom nodded unsteadily, and patted Gene's hand absently. Alex stifled the urge to giggle at them both.
"I would love a cup of coffee, Lexi," Tom told her, enunciating each of his words carefully, "an' so would he. He's just being a bolshie git."
When she returned with two mugs of strong coffee , she paused to listen outside the door as Gene began speaking again. He was evidently in the middle of something important and she didn't want to interrupt; not when he and Tom were clearly getting on so well.
"'S true though. Live wi' a woman an' yer life's not yer own any more. She even makes me go to the bloody supermarket wi' her! I mus' be losing my touch, 'cos tha' never happened wi' my ex-wife. She knew 'xactly where her place was. None of this feminist bollocks they all spout these days."
She heard Tom laugh. "You don' mean that! You go shopping 'cos you love her, not 'cos she makes you. An' Lexi doesn't know her place 'cos she doesn' have one, 'cept right nex' to you. She's your equal Gene, an' you know it. You moan and complain, but underneath, you don' really mind. You're an' old fraud, DCI Hunt."
Alex held her breath, only letting out when she heard Gene chuckle. "I know. She's irritating, irrational and arsey, but I don' wan' her any other way. I love her, Fletch. Never fel' like this 'bout anyone."
"Jesus, he must be really drunk if he's telling Tom how he feels about me," she thought.
"What 'bout your first wife? You mus' have loved her once?"
Alex suffered a fleeting twinge of guilt that she was blatantly eavesdropping on their conversation, but she figured they'd be too drunk to remember it anyway and she was desperately curious to hear what Gene had to say about his ex-wife.
"Thought I did. Was never like this, though. Wasn't Lillian's fault, wha' happened. Both too young. We din't know how to talk to each other 'bout stuff. Everything was OK 'til she wanted kids. Somehow it all became my bloody fault she couldn't have a baby."
"An' was it?" asked Tom, the drink making him brutally honest.
"Course it bloody wasn't!" roared Gene indignantly, making Alex jump and slop coffee on the floor. "Was no one's fault! It jus' didn't happen!" There was silence and Alex heard the clink of his lighter, before he continued, his voice low and full of self-loathing.
"It was my fault 'bout the drinking and the other women, though. There was far too much of tha'. Being married jus' makes you more attractive to some birds. They fell over themselves to shag the Gene Genie." She heard him sigh deeply. "For a few years I was a bastard to her, Fletch. I din't care. She didn't wan' me, so I made sure she knew plenty of other women did."
"What made you stop?.......Bein' a bastard, I mean."
"I did something.... something tha' made me feel......like a worthless piece of scum. Every time I looked at Lilly, thas' all I thought 'bout, so I tried to be a good husband. Give her the respec' she deserved. Sometimes I messed about a bit, now an' then, when I couldn't help it. Din' make any difference though, me tryin' to be a good boy. We'd already lost each other.
Alex moved through the door slightly so that she could see him, the hurt in his voice making her heart ache. He was leaning forward, his forearms resting on his knees, his hands dangling down between them. Neither Gene not Tom noticed her standing there.
"Why din't you get divorced sooner?" queried Tom. "S'no point stayin' with someone if you don' love them."
"Well, her bein' Catholic din' help. The words 'Forgive me Father, 'm gettin' a divorce', don' exactly score many brownie points wi' The Man upstairs, apparently."
Gene sighed heavily, shaking his head. 'Wasn' that simple back then, anyway. You got married, an' you stayed married, no matter what. Everyone stuck by a woman if her husband was a bastard, plenty of tea and sympathy, but if she left him, or threw him out, tha' was another matter. She'd have broken the rules. Made it all public, an' you din't do that."
He flopped back against the cushions again, taking a long drag on his cigarette and pausing to blow the smoke out through his nose before he began again.
"You couldn't be a divorced woman, livin' on your own. Tha' made all the others nervous. You might have taken their husbands from them, see, so Lillian stayed wi' me, put up wi' it, lived separate lives. She played by the rules for years, 'til she met someone else, an' that was that. I was out on my bloody ear."
"So you gonna get married to Lexi an' live happily ever after, now you've found her?" asked Tom, reaching over and taking the cigarette from Gene. "She's gonna bloody kill you for smoking in here," he remarked as he took a drag and blew smoke rings into the air.
"Show-off!" snorted Gene. "Is tha' how you pull? 'Cos if it is...... I have to tell you, 's bloody poncey......anyway, Alex is not goin' to kill me. 's my sitting room, I can do what I like in here. She made it for me." He paused to peer blearily at Tom. "Best open the window a bit, though. Let the smoke out."
"Okey Dokey." Tom levered himself to his feet, grabbing onto Gene's thigh in the process.
"Oi! Watch where you're putting you hands, DCI Fletcher!"
Tom turned and grinned wickedly at Gene. "Now, tha's how I pull, DCI Hunt. Everyone says I've got lovely hands."
"Tha's what Bolly says 'bout mine.....You've got lovely hands, Gene. Lovely long fingers" He laughed "Mind you, I'm normally doing something fairly filthy to her wi' them at the time."
Tom pretended to block his ears, and nearly fell into the fireplace in the process. "Not listening! I don't wanna know 'bout stuff like tha'. I wanna know if I should buy a new hat for the wedding." He gave up trying to open the French windows and sank down into the nearest chair instead.
Gene shrugged. "Don' know. She doesn' wanna get married. Feels weird to me though, livin' wi' a bird an' not bein' married. Still, 'm on the straight an' narrow, now. Not messing this one up. No-one else……jus' Alex…….my beautiful Alex."
He looked up and saw her standing in the doorway and his face transformed at the sight of her. "Alex! We were jus' talkin' 'bout you! Come here!" He patted the sofa cushions beside him, grinning at her in delight.
She laughed, shaking her head. "I think Tom needs to go to bed, and so do you, Gene. Come on, upstairs, both of you."
Gene grinned wickedly and raised his eyebrows at Tom. "Lexi wants both of us upstairs, Fletch. Now there's a once in a life time offer." He fixed Alex with a stern look and wagged his index finger at her admonishingly. "He's not gonna take you up on it, Bolly. You're not his type."
Alex traded a look with Tom and began to laugh. "Let's not even start on that particular topic of conversation. Just drink your coffee and come to bloody bed, Gene, I'm so tired I can hardly stand up."
"You definitely won' be able to when I've finished wi' you," he growled, eyeing her lecherously, his eyes hooded with exhaustion.
Tom heaved himself up, swaying unsteadily. "An' that, I believe, is my cue to make myself scarce."
Alex caught his arm. "The spare bed's made up for you, Tom. You're welcome to stay."
He shook his head. "Thanks Lexi, but, you an' Gene… you know.. I'll jus' be in the way."
Alex inclined her head back towards the sofa. "I don't really think you will. He's not going anywhere."
Gene was slumped sideways on the cushions, asleep and already snoring gently. Alex pulled the throw over him and turned the table lamp off.
"We'll leave him there to sleep it off I think, don't you? I'll see you in the morning, Tom."
"Night, Lexi".
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Alex woke in the early hours as Gene climbed into bed beside her, wrapping an arm and a leg over her and cuddling into her back. "I'm freezing, Alex. You left me on the bloody sofa," he mumbled into her neck, trailing sloppy kisses over her shoulder, before promptly falling asleep again.
When the alarm went off, she left him sleeping and went to make tea for them all. Tom was already awake and eating cereal in the kitchen, looking surprisingly chirpy considering the state he'd been in the night before.
"So how did it go?" asked Alex, taking Gene's replacement red mug out of the cupboard. She'd managed to find an exact match at a stall on Chapel Street Market. Tom raised an eyebrow as he watched her spooning sugar liberally into it.
"He won't have a hangover, as such, but he does need sugar to stop him being grumpy." she explained. "Would you believe he's cut down on the amount he used to have."
Tom laughed. "You have got to be joking. Any more and his tea'd be like syrup!"
Alex grinned. "It was. Honestly Tom, he's cut down on lots of things. Drink, fags. He's lost nearly two stone – don't tell me you haven't noticed."
Tom feigned nonchalance. "Not really, although I do have to admit, he's looking particularly gorgeous at the moment. Especially yesterday in that black suit of his. Was that your doing?"
Alex nodded. "Of course. I found a tailor in the East End who used to work on Saville Row. Beautiful suits at a fraction of the price. I do like a well-fitting suit on a man. It shows them off to their very best advantage." She dropped two teabags into the teapot and poured boiling water over them. "Anyway, enough of that. How was the funeral? I hope Gene was nice to you"
"It was OK, all things considered and, yes, he was very nice to me, in his own inimitable way. He had a few words with me when I told him that I didn't think I could face them all at the church, but to be fair, I was being a bit of a drama queen."
"What kind of words?" asked Alex in trepidation.
"Well…. "Get out my bloody car and show them that you're still in possession of a pair of bollocks, you pathetic, nancy-arsed excuse of a poof" springs to mind, although I have to admit that my particular favourite was, "So what if you take it up the arse. Doesn't mean your old man should treat you like a piece of shit on his shoe."
Tom grinned at Alex's horrified face. "I know!" he joked, deliberately misunderstanding why she was so shocked. "And from a man like Gene as well. It's rather sweet, isn't it, although I think that last one must have been uttered after we'd had a drink or three, because my father was standing about two feet from us at the time."
Alex closed her eyes in disbelief. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Tom didn't seem too upset by it all though.
"Oh my God. I'm so, so sorry, Tom."
"Don't be! I'm not. It was worth it just to see the expression on Dad's face when Gene introduced himself to him, about two seconds later."
"So what did your father do? He's a retired Superintendent, isn't he?"
"Yes he is, and he's also screamingly middle-class, so naturally he ignored it all and made polite and meaningless conversation with us both for ten minutes or so until he found an excuse to escape. My Mother, however, thought that Gene was utterly charming and invited us back to tea, at which point my Dad nearly collapsed with apoplexy at the very thought."
"And did you go for tea?" asked Alex faintly.
"Of course we did" grinned Tom. "We ate sponge cake and drank tea for a bit, and then we got stuck into the contents of the drinks cabinet. He'd made some excuse about staying at to help tidy up so it was just the three of us. Mum got tipsy on sherry, helped along by Gene's outrageous flattery, of course and when Dad got back from the Holt's, we were all well away. He put up with it for a bit before calling in a favour from the local station, and low and behold, PC Willoughby quickly arrived to drive us home."
"Via a great many pubs and bars."
"Yes. A great many." Tom finished his cereal and put the bowl in the sink. "I must go, Lexi. I need to change before I go into work. Thank Gene for me, won't you? He really is an angel underneath all that vitriol. You know he very nearly apologised to me for all that stuff he said in his office. Didn't actually use the word "sorry" of course, but he did a damn good job of implying it."
"Really? That's pretty good going for him. I'm glad. You mean a great deal to him Tom. You remind of someone he used to know."
"Sam?" Tom's eyes were sad.
Alex nodded. "He told you about him, then."
"Oh yes. He told me all about Sam. How I'm just as ridiculously annoying as he was, apparently. I'm full of "gay-boy science" too, except that, and I quote, "you actually are a bender, Fletch, but Sam just behaved like some sodding limp-wristed pansy."
Alex winced. "Just try and see it as his way of letting you know he cares."
"Better than punching me, I suppose. I thought boys grew out of this stuff once we'd left the playground behind, but apparently not." He kissed her on the cheek as he gathered up his coat. "See you, Lexi."
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Gene let out a deep sigh and swigged from his Lucozade bottle. "Christ, I feel like shit this morning," he growled.
"You look like shit." replied Alex tersely, but her smile belied her words.
"Cheers, Bolly. Kick a bloke while he's down why don't you," he huffed, leaning his head back in his seat and closing his eyes.
After a while he opened one eye. "You sure she said wait outside the pub and not actually in it? Only I could do with a drink. Hair of the dog and all that."
"She said outside, Gene. If you weren't up for this, I could have brought Ray with me instead."
"Bad idea, Alex. Ray had curry for dinner last night. Take it from me, you wouldn't want to be sat in a car with him this morning."
Alex ignored him, leaning forward in her seat. "That's her! Over the other side of the road."
They watched as a skinny young girl of about seventeen made her way cautiously along the pavement, glancing round nervously. She paused for a minute in a doorway opposite the Quattro, watching the empty street anxiously.
"What's she waiting for? Silly tart. Why doesn't she just get in the bloody car."
Alex rolled her eyes. Gene really was incredibly grumpy that morning despite three mugs of super-sweetened tea. She watched as Tracy Cooke took another nervous look up and down the street before starting to cross the road.
She really didn't have time to take in what happened next. A car rounded the corner, accelerating hard, aiming straight at Tracy. Alex watched as the girl froze in the middle of the road, panic-stricken.
"Run!" screamed Alex.
"Get out of the bloody way!" roared Gene. Before either of them could move, the car hit her, head on. Alex watched in horror as her body crashed across the car bonnet and over the roof, before hitting the tarmac behind with a sickening thud.
Alex was out of the car in seconds, racing across to where Tracy lay, her body twisted at an unnatural angle. She could hear Gene shouting into the radio for an ambulance, giving control the licence number of the car. She blocked it all out, trying to concentrate only on the wreck of a human being that lay in the road.
Alex knew as soon as she looked at Tracy that it was hopeless. The ambulance wouldn't reach her in time. Blood trickled steadily from the back of her skull. Alex grabbed her hand and squeezed, desperately hoping that she would feel the contact and realise that she wasn't dying alone.
"Tracy? Can you hear me? It's DI Drake. It's OK. The ambulance is on it's way." She felt Gene's hand on her shoulder and looked up at him. His eyes asked a question and she shook her head briefly. She saw him close his eyes in painful resignation, moving away from them both. Things like this never got any easier no matter how long you'd been a copper.
When she looked back at Tracy, she was shocked to see that her eyes were open, and she held Alex's hand in a vice-like grip. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. She shook from head to foot.
"Cold" she managed to whisper, swallowing awkwardly.
Alex heard Gene return, and he crouched down beside her, tucking the blanket that he kept in the boot of his car gently round the shivering girl. "There you go, love. You rest easy now. You'll be safe soon." His hand gripped Alex's shoulder, lending her his strength as she comforted the dying girl.
Tracy closed her eyes, the breath rushing from her in ragged gasps. Her fingers tightened on Alex's again and her eyes snapped open. "Police" she croaked.
Alex nodded. "That's right Tracy. We're police officers. Don't talk now. Save your strength."
Tracy shook her head painfully. "Policeman" she insisted, clenching her teeth, her whole body going into spasms. Her eyes closed, rolling up into her head. She coughed once, and bright red blood ran from the corner of her mouth. Alex felt her grip slacken and her agonised breathing ceased abruptly.
Alex let go of her hand, tucking it back under the blanket as she pulled a fold of it up over the dead girl's face. She sat next to the body as she listened to the ambulance sirens get louder and louder. She could hear Gene talking to the small crowd that had gathered at the side of the road, keeping them back on the pavement. Only when the ambulance men unloaded the stretcher, did she get slowly to her feet and walk back towards the car, ducking under the tape that was being stretched across the road by the newly arrived uniformed officers.
Gene was busy directing operations but as she walked past him, he reached out and touched her arm briefly. She gave him a grateful smile before grabbing her notebook and starting to take witness statements.
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"So we've got nothing! Sweet FA!" Gene slammed down the file containing the forensic report on the van that had contained Lisa's body. He slumped back into his chair angrily. "They are one bastard step ahead of us, every single time!"
Alex knew that he'd been hoping for some sort of lead from forensics as they had nothing else to go on. She searched through her desk drawer for a packet biscuits that she knew had been in there on Sunday morning. She closed the bottom drawer and pulled out the middle one thinking that maybe she'd put them in there by mistake. A white A4 envelope met her eyes. "Alex" was scrawled across it in the now familiar black marker pen. Alex felt a flutter of apprehension grip her stomach. How the hell did these letters get into CID without anyone noticing them?
Gene rested his head in his hands with a resigned sigh. "If you're looking for those chocolate digestives, Bolly, we ate half of them yesterday while you were poncing around wi' the Super and the Scotland Yard boys. The rest of the packet's in my office. Make me some tea and I might share them wi' you."
"Bad news, Guv?" Ray was back from a tour of the local area, noting which dealers were out and which particular areas they were working. It would seem that in the last few weeks they'd all been given an ultimatum;buy from one particular supplier or end up very dead. So far, three had chosen the latter option and all the others were consequently toeing the line.
Alex nodded. "I'm afraid so Ray. The van's clean. Forensics reckon that they taped plastic sheets up and took them with them when they dumped it. There's no trace of fibres, no fingerprints, nothing. The whole cab's been wiped clean, the number plates were fake, the chassis number was filed off. All we really know for certain is that it was stolen. There's nothing on Lisa's body either. No fibres because her nails were too short, nothing distinctive about the way they tied the ligature round her neck."
"They knew exactly what we'd be looking for," fumed Gene. "They seem to know every damn move we make! How the hell did they know that Tracy Cooke was meeting us this morning? No-one we've talked to knows anything about it. The letters have no post marks on them so we can't trace where they were sent from, no-one saw them being delivered to the station either. They're beating us at our own bloody game! "
Alex laid the envelope on his desk with a grim smile. "I've just found this in my desk. It definitely wasn't there yesterday."
Gene slit it open and took out a single piece of paper and a photograph. He read it quickly, his face clouding with rage. The photo was a grainy black and white shot of Tracy's lifeless body being lifted onto a stretcher. The note with it was chillingly simple.
"Sorted. Watch yourself Alex, or you'll be next."
Alex read the words but didn't take in their significance as a thought niggled at her. Something in the wording resonated with her, but just as she reached tenuously for the memory, Chris bounded in, all smiles and eagerness like a puppy let off the lead.
"Ready, Boss?"
He beamed at her and Alex snapped back to the present as she remembered that she'd agreed to help him choose Shaz's engagement ring that afternoon. Gene was staring at her, his face impassive, but she could see the fear in his eyes.
"I'll be fine." she told him, leaning in close to him and stroking his cheek gently, not caring who else saw. "I'll see you later."
