Chapter Eleven

Gene Hunt is of a different era who grew up in the social atmosphere of the 1970s-1980s in Lancashire, Manchester; his interactions with DI Maya Roy, which highlight the changes rather neatly. Gene can simply appreciate her as a competent officer and someone who knows Sam better than he does apart from PCSO Liz Cartwright, without the show of racism and sexism that would accompany his uncle's 1973 persona.

The case is nicknamed as 'How We Smashed Johari's Window' which precludes former Greater Manchester Police 'A' Division officers being presumably now elderly people. Gene may have to face some uncomfortable truths from his and mate DCI Sam Tyler's childhood in order to piece their early experiences together.

Starting up the Scorpio Ultima stroding straight out of his house considering breakfast with a takeaway portion of chips wearing his leather jacket. Anything to get these corrupt ageing police officers bang to rights.

"In my office, PCSO Cartwright!" Gene said brightly, swallowing to remove the nasty feeling in his throat. "Look... I will ensure that this investigation is carried out in as transparent -"

Inside his office he automatically slung his leather jacket over his chair, reached in a drawer for the last known files on former Greater Manchester Police officers who worked here in the 1970s and tried to find his footing in Microsoft Word after gathering NARPO database information sheets on them printed out.

He patted her arm awkwardly, "No need for all this, Lizzie eh?"

She turned her face to him like some glossy magazine close-up, wide brown eyes swimming with tears, the hurt on her face as if proximity to his own raw secrets stung her.

Once she had seated herself, he perched on the edge of his desk, being careful not to knock the shiny slim desktop screen, keyboard and mouse off.

Liz was wiping frantically across her eyes. "I'm sorry, Boss" she said, soggily, "It's just; I would have thought he'd have told me about what else these nasty policemen did to his father years ago."

"Yes, well, you and Sam know, they were not always that predictable, looking at them from our modern copper eyes." DS Gene Hunt was typing away, highlighting the incidents to catalogue for Discipline and Complaints to review despite their historical status. "Now make us both a cup of tea and get some Kit-Kat Chunkys on the side, eh? There's a good girl."

Gene snapped the pencil he'd picked up in half "Tea first, then talk, Cartwright and don't remind me of those bent past it Sheriffs!" feeling mad about the mess, former A Division officers have left in their legacy at Greater Manchester Police's main Stopford House station premises.

His hand typed on the desktop keyboard. Because he never liked them even when these officers were last active; during his first years in the Force. He felt the chips hadn't settled down - it was nothing a portion of chip shop chippies wouldn't cure. He picked up a Pepsi Max from the vending machine, tasting like pick 'n' mix and full of clean childhood memories.

The day passed into another archive database fact finding assignment, when lunchtime hit, he ordered his favourite takeaway meat feast pizza from Dominos. Except Gene'd been so pleased with that, with little bits of knowledge these old coppers had no name for, that he'd never sat down and tried to assemble the whole crossword. He tried to find the words or the ways to change how it was.

"Well, yeah, Raymond-o. Under the circumstances, I think it probably is."

Gene had been finding himself telling DS Ray Carling all day quite seriously that, yes, they did need those forms, how the hell would they keep track of the historical police corruption cases without it?

"Come on Boss, you must be pleased as I am that your old soft mate transferred back to Traffic Cops and..." But Ray didn't finish what he was going to say.

"Oi! Leave my admin alone, Carling!" glaring down any commentary from the Action Man of the CID unit on the seventh floor of Stopford House. "It's called by-the-book responsible powers that be, to get these elderly bent and expired police officers red handed!"

Outside the road was messy with the first leaves of autumn, sliding treacherously under his snake skinned booted feet. September – the month when things started to die.

Gene opened the Scorpio and got inside.

But instead he climbed over the gear stick and onto the back passenger seat. Fell asleep there.

DS Gene Hunt woke up the next morning, drooling on the raven black leather.

Frank Bannister had died in a manner as inconvenient as ex DCI Gerry Hunt was at leading the original 1974 case. A man with Down's syndrome, he had been cared for by parent Ted Bannister whom worked for Cresta's Textiles; also brought up on the state benefits since his birth in 1950 and had spent the tax-payers' money to obvious benefit for his additional needs. He had been fed, clothed and taught to screw the tops on tubes of paint and, at the age of twenty four, had the temerity to be assaulted by a local gangster in part of a turf war against the paint factory who used to employ him at the time.

This had occupied police time, but was nothing in comparison to the mess he had made when murdered with a crowbar, presumably by those he had testified against. CID officers at the time used an adult with chromosome 21 features as bait against DC Milton Carling who called him disablist hate names; too abusive to mention for office gossip.

DS Gene Hunt raised his hand to his mouth to better yell after the retreating Detective Constables "And tell my old mentor, DSI Harry Woolf I want the report tomorrow e-mailed in triplicate, I don't care if he misses his bloody golf engagement!"

Gene thought that finally, after two decades of tough stances, he wasn't as hard as he made himself out to be.

Footsteps came up behind him, the low clack of a woman's heels.

"These 30 year old cases, can't be left unsolved otherwise those police dinosaurs will think they've got away with their miscarriages of justice."

"Well, yes, I wasn't planning to encourage the old thugs, Liz, though thank-you for pointing it out to me." Gene logs out of his computer as he'll be due on the Interview shift happening later.

DS Gene Hunt yelled at ex DC Milton Carling to find some fucking manners, and returned to the front Custody desk to find DCI Sam Tyler and PCSO Liz Cartwright gently comforting the former police officers original victims. And yes, former DC Milton Carling was a tosser to use words like that to a distressed man, even one with Down's Syndrome on the basis of calling him a spastic years ago. There's a loud and unpleasant coughing in the background of the blue cells down in Custody.

"I think we need to explore whether this attempted murder of Ted Bannister's second son with Down's Syndrome was a hate crime."

An interview. Someone puts in a tape and presses the Record button. Sam lines up his pens.

"What, a dyslexic racist moron like you?" scoffed DS Gene Hunt "That isn't superior or nor about pride in being a man; if this happened nowadays, you'd be suspended immediately from the Police Force on the grounds of disablist hate crime." chewing his Hubba Bubba cola flavoured bubblegum to distract himself and not get too emotionally involved with this case against ageing ex police officers who worked in Greater Manchester Police CID during years 1970-1984.

Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt are horrified at what former Detective Constable Milton Carling comes out with next during the interview. He has lost some curly hair, has a greying Breville moustache, more paunch but still recognisable with hints of Dean Andrews in him, even after all these years; then all of a sudden he sits there just chewing his Wrigley's gum as if nothing ever happened.

"Word in your shell-like, pal." said DS Gene Hunt quietly under his cola flavoured breath.

"Yeah?! What about this? You're a gay fairy cop, Gene, go on you've been keeping that secret since '83 aged just 18!" threatened ex DC Milton Carling taking a swing for Gene until DC Chris Marshall Skelton intervenes using the standard safe de-escalation techniques.

"Sit down, Mr. Carling otherwise the interview will have to be suspended and you return to Custody to sleep it off." said the eager to please Detective Constable with a denim suit and a dark brown mullet with blonde highlights inside and the latest brand of trainers.

"You said, 'Fight me and you will end up like chopped liver'" to Frank Bannister who clearly had Down's Syndrome and illiteracy during an illegally not recorded interview in Lost Property. You being in a position of trust should have told your Detective Chief Inspector about this; yet you and Gene's uncle laughed him out of the station!" DCI Sam Tyler bit out with gritted shiny white teeth. "You are a first-rate fantasist who is thankfully extinct from modern policing."

He shows Carling a computer photofit, which resembles him. Carling looks scared.

"This — is your diary. We found it in your room." Gene Hunt shows him the transparent evidence bag with an old 1974 diary inside in a very dated colour. The lawyer, social worker and his psychiatrist are writing their notes down about the recorded interview.

DCI Sam Tyler was quoting one of the entries "That particular entry is not awash with ambiguity. Dated November the fourth '74. The day after the gang murder against your victim with Down's Syndrome, whom you've failed to help."

Thankfully the interview against former DC Milton Carling was finished on time after what he did when Frank Bannister came to the then 'A' Division department after a gang turf war involving the paint factory he worked in upset him.

"Right. I've gotta get down and give the tabloids a statement and if I don't get a move on, they'll be hounding celebs for Hello! magazine with a couple of Argos vouchers." said Detective Seargent Gene Hunt walking to his top of the range Ford Scorpio Ultima in silver.

It had turned out, however as he'd sorted through Frank Bannister's file from 1974 (all these habits, couldn't lose any of them and been taping their interviews) that Frank had attended a kind of social group for 'Mencap' in Little Italy where his father grew up in. It had met in the Circle bar at the old Theatre Royal, apparently, and used the theatre's on-site craft facilities for learning projects. Gene had heard of such a thing, but the woman he'd phoned had told him that years ago then new policy was focussing on getting such people out of institutions and 'into the community'.

"Our arrest rate is as good as ever – better than ever before,"

"Yes, We can still recorded interview a suspect, we haven't run out of HobNobs and the new criminology techniques are working well."

For this triumph, he could process what she'd said, the maths and logic required of him. Then it gradually dawned and he grabbed her up, hugging her and lifting her clean off her feet whilst she giggled in amazement.

"Bloody hell, PCSO Cartwright," he laughed, "You may just have earned yourself a DI badge."

Gene's been eating a yellow-and-purple wrapped chocolate bar with 'only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate' inscribed in curly writing referring to a Cadbury's Flake.

"Sam, stop playing silly buggers, it's me." Gene searched Sam's face, from the ever-anxious eyes to the thin, soft lips, his own overwhelming, gut-level recognition perplexed by the Detective Chief Inspector. "I'm your old friend" he said, at last. "We met in February. That year. 1973. Over spaghetti hoops on toast at your Mum's, remember?"

DS Gene Hunt brought his toast and beans, and squeezed ketchup over the gooey mess.

"Yeah, we did. For good reason. As far as we're concerned that old DC from what was A-Division we pulled in, retired on the grounds of historical police brutality."

It was beginning to get dark. The rain that had begun to fall on the café windows was glittering with the lights of passing cars. A couple ran in from the wet, laughing and brushing at their clothes, and Gene stroked his hand over his mouth staring fixedly at his poached eggs.

Gene couldn't quite believe himself. His dedication to the job, albeit to his own method of doing it, had always been one hundred percent. He'd never taken leave, skived off or skimped on his overtime since being a fresh faced new kid in Greater Manchester Police, 1983.

Gene walks back to his office to collect the original photograph negatives and returns to place them on the small table in Interview suite 4; ready to show to the old former DCI, 30 odd years later.

DS Hunt had a smug set to it, with the patronising smile of a school teacher. "I could ask you why you didn't arrive at your office at 8.30am on the morning of 8th February 1974. I could ask you why C-Division in Hyde had to almost arrest you yesterday for breach of the peace under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1985. I could even ask you why your office apparently had more whiskey bottles than file dividers."

"You're more like absolutely gorgeous cop." his former police officer uncle sneered at nephew Gene Hunt in a homophobic jibe disrepecting DSI Stephen Hunt, younger brother to this elderly man in front of them and father of now adult Gene. "Like father like son!"

"Interview commenced at 11:19 a.m. The suspect will state his name." said DI Maya Roy sitting inbetween DS Gene Hunt and DCI Sam Tyler at the interview table on ergonomic plastic seats.

"Ex DCI Gerry Hunt." replied the 70-73 year old man with completely grey hair shown on the CCTV camera inside the fourth interview suite.

"Also present are the suspect's lawyer, psychiatrist, and social worker." sat next to the old retired Detective Chief Inspector: seeing his uncle as he is now brings back another hidden memory of 1973 for Gene.

"I was only eight in 1973," said DS Gene Hunt "when you first knew the killer as a misunderstood toddler. Colin Raimes! ...yeah he was in nappies." remembering the very time he saw Collin Raimes aged two or three at the time with ginger curly hair in an early seventies-style street with its old-fashioned shops and cars, he runs away into Woolworths, to take some sweets and Corgi cars without paying. Some kids playing in the street as Stephen's car comes screeching round the corner.

A young Gene Hunt was sat in his father's Ford Cortina Mk3 GXL saloon in yellow witnessing WPC Phyllis Dobbs return the tiny toddler safely back to his grandmother Beryl Raimes.

"You mustn't go wandering off without a responsible grown up, okay young man?" instructed the policewoman at the scene of Edward Kremer's house, one next to the house Gene's best friend will raid in the future, 33 or 34 years later.

A young Collin Raimes nods at WPC Phyllis Dobbs feeling utterly sheepish for being naughty.

"Anything happens to this motor and I come over your room and stamp on all your toys, got it, Eugene? Good kid." then smiles affectionately at his eight year old David Bowie mullet bearing younger son closing the rear door.

The kids playing in the street in front of the car. A young Gene comes past, eating a burger and holding his beloved 313 Corgi Ford Cortina GXL in that very familiar bronze.

"Excellent work, Eugene, my boy." showing his father who wasn't a million miles from himself as a grown up. Stephen flicks some coins into the air. The kids squeal and chase after them, shouting "Thank you!" in high-pitched voices. The car radio is crackling. Little Gene grabs it and pulls the handset outside the car.

"Gene Hunt, what?" remarked the eight year old boy answering the PYE Westminster police telephone chewing a mega Drumstick lolly in similar fashion. The car, 8 year old Gene is talking on the car radio to his old man's colleagues.

It's Chris Skelton's young DC father who could be heard over the static once moved.

"Tell DI Vic Tyler we've found one of his names in the collator's office."

"Ask my old man, I'm not really supposed to be taking his radio calls..." said Gene nervously.

A creepy little ginger-haired kid is standing on the step of the house next door, watching. The killer Ed Kremer and a younger Colin Raimes wave to each other. Beryl Raimes comes along with a policewoman. Gene stares in astonishment as the younger kid goes inside.

"Get inside Collin!" ordered Beryl Raimes walking towards the terraced house carrying her shopping bags through, a blue retro Bedford CF van is parked nearby wearing vintage British Gas livery in shades of blue and white on the sides with the sliding driver's door open.

As the police car drives off, the scene — the terraced houses with a highrise block of flats in the background — is almost identical to the scene at the very beginning 33 or 34 years later.

"This will teach him some manners, he'll be seeing the inside of a loony bin," thought eight year old Gene Hunt "Daddy'll bang up a hooligan by lunch." pretending to drive the Cortina GXL and dreaming of becoming a police officer someday. Young four year old Sam only smiled at that. That was the Gene Hunt he knew. The always proud, funny and apparently tough future DCI.