Chapter three has a little more of the friendship between Alex and Shaz that I alluded to in the first chapter, and a lot more of Gene's temper... Enjoy!
CID was in uproar. Two murders on their patch within twelve hours, to add to the open case involving Patsy Richards with no apparent link to speak of. No-one would admit it, but the department was slightly adrift in the absence of DI Drake. Her empty desk was in Shaz's direct eyeline, and for the first few hours of the day she found herself looking up with her mouth open to ask a question, only to remember that her idolised mentor was absent. There was no way she'd be directing her curiosity to the acting-DI instead. But it didn't take long for Shaz to perceive that it wasn't only her eyes that drifted towards the unoccupied corner of the room during the initial challenges of the parallel investigations.
At lunchtime, having had enough of her de facto demotion to typist and tea-lady, she headed to the hospital, armed with a pile of notes she'd secreted out of the station from Patsy Richards' file. If anyone could find something they'd missed, it would be DI Drake, and knowing her, she wouldn't hang around either.
Shaz's confidence waned however, on seeing her face, not so different to the pale, bereft visage she'd last seen in CID.
"This is a surprise, come in!" Alex gingerly pushed herself up on her pillows, wincing as overwrought muscles complained. "What are you doing here?"
"Luigi's ain't the same when you're the only girl in there," she replied with a shrug.
Alex narrowed her eyes, analysing the other woman's expression. "That all?"
Shaz sighed. "I think I'd forgotten 'ow things were before you came, Ma'am. I'm back makin' cups of tea and decipherin' notes that them lot could've done themselves in about five minutes." She frowned, then seemed to remember herself. "I'm not sayin' you should be rushin' back!" she said quickly, eyes wide with worry.
"I don't think there's any risk of that, Shaz," Alex replied, smiling weakly. She adjusted her hospital-issue pyjamas self-consciously, very aware of her bare face and sleep-mussed hair.
Cautiously, Shaz made her way to sit in the chair beside the bed. "Am I allowed to ask 'ow you're feelin', then?"
"Allowed?" No smile this time, but Alex felt a warmth in her eyes as she spoke. She watched as Shaz ducked her head momentarily, embarrassed. "I suppose DCI Hunt told you all what happened?" she said quietly.
To her surprise, Shaz shook her head. Her fringe came down over her eyes and she tucked it back into place, sincere eyes on Alex the whole time. "No, Ma'am. 'e's been the perfect gentleman, not said a word."
Alex took a breath through her nose and let it out slowly. "I… I didn't know, but I was pregnant. And I'm not anymore," she said. She swallowed hard, and was surprised by grateful when a cold, steadfast hand held her forearm.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, I really am. It's an 'orrible thing to 'appen, 'specially if you wasn't even aware in the firs' place. The Guv's been cut up about it, since 'e came in the mornin' after –"
"Wait – you… you knew what happened, even then?"
Shaz dropped her gaze. "Um, yes. I mean, I saw the way you was with each other, and… I saw a girl lose a baby once before. Soon as I took you that 'ot water bottle, I knew."
Alex was silent. To her credit, Shaz didn't push her to say anything for a while as she stared straight ahead with eyes unfocused while sudden waves of grief crashed around her. She blinked, and flinched as if away from the thoughts that had made themselves welcome without invitation. "It's still in the Quattro," she murmured, "I'll – I'll make sure you get it back." The mood in the room had changed, turning on a sixpence.
"It's not important. You've got more goin' on than worryin' about that, I think."
"It took the edge off for a while. Thank you."
Shaz pressed her lips together tightly in a half-smile. She'd known at the time, what the result of the hot water bottle would be – she'd seen it make a difference before, to a schoolfriend who at 15 also hadn't known she was pregnant until it was too late. Shaz had been staying over when the pain started, and the only thing she'd thought to do to help was the hot water bottle. The friend had begged Shaz not to get her parents involved, but a hot water bottle couldn't solve things forever.
"Distract me, Shaz, tell me about the case that came in last night," Alex said resolutely. "Give me anything else to think about, please."
"Well for starters, it ain't one case any more, it's two. Another murder, called in about five this mornin' and we've all been on it since 'alf six when the Guv put out a summons on the lot of us."
Although she knew it was wrong to see these tragedies as 'distractions', in a dark way this was exactly what Alex needed. Something she could sink her mind into and forget the rest of the world, just for a while. "Not another woman?" she asked, slightly fearful of the answer.
"'Fraid so, Ma'am."
Alex was back in police-mode, cogs turning in her mind. "Are they linked?"
Shaz fiddled with the strap of her bag nervously. "Not that any of us – any of them, I should say – can see. I've barely 'ad a look in. I – I snuck out the notes on Patsy Richards in case you were feelin' up to it. Don't feel like you 'ave to or nothin', it was just in case… Maybe you'll see somethin' they missed."
"Pass them over," Alex replied without a moment's hesitation.
She combed through the file carefully, assessing the details she'd missed from viewing the body in the morgue and the further information that had been recorded afterwards. Nothing stood out as unusual; it didn't surprise her that her suspicions that Patsy Richards' husband had something to do with her murder had not been followed up.
"Sorry, Shaz, I can't see anything odd about these. Is there a transcript for the formal interview with Peter Richards? I know you've been busy doing all the admin work for that lot," she added, rolling her eyes.
"Um, there's not been one, Ma'am."
"What?" Alex sat bolt upright, and swore under her breath, then out loud, at the pain this caused. "For Christ's sake!" she exclaimed as she sat back against her pillows and wished her medication wasn't being carefully reduced.
She said nothing of it to Shaz, but considering the husband's occupation, Alex strongly suspected he could be in the Masons. With Ray a fully signed-up member of the 'funny handshake brigade' (as Shaz so elegantly labelled them) it was a solid possibility that he was protecting him from something by encouraging Gene to look the other way. It made her blood boil.
"I'll get him interviewed if I have to do it myself," she said firmly, although inwardly she wasn't sure of the practicality of that at all.
"'ere, Ma'am, can I ask you somethin'?"
Alex gave her a strange look but gestured for her to continue.
"Did the Guv really leave 'is coat be'ind, the other night? Chris and Ray gave 'im 'ell for it."
She should have known this was coming. For all their faults, Chris and Ray were fairly observant and would have noticed Gene without his coat in an instant, especially in late November. Alex glanced around the room, constructing her answer mentally before trying to speak. "I can't be sure. I mean – I can't remember anything clearly because of all the medication – but I think I might have asked him to leave it. I probably said all sorts," she said, covering her face with her hands for a moment. "It felt a bit like being very, very drunk."
"You can't choose who makes you feel safe in this world, Ma'am," Shaz said wisely. "I know if it were me, I'd 'ave wanted somethin' of Chris' for sure. The Guv might've took some flack but 'e never once looked as if 'e regretted 'is decision. It were bloody cold out yesterday and 'e never said a word." She paused for a moment. "'e thinks the world o' you. 'e keeps lookin' over at your empty desk when 'e don't know the answers. And you know that 'e works fine wi' Ray, but there's somethin' sad about 'im when you're not 'is DI."
Alex didn't know what to say. Her heart rate picked up and she couldn't stop the corners of her lips turning upwards even though she half-wanted to cry. She rubbed a hand across her mouth, trying to cover her expression.
Shaz looked at her watch. "Oh shit, is that the time?! I need to go, sorry Ma'am."
"I think the Guv might see his way to let you off, if you tell him where you've been. And don't tell him about those notes you 'borrowed' from the station files!" She shot her colleague a conspiratorial glance.
"It's not the Guv I'm worryin' about. Ray'll do 'is nut when I walk in there late!" She omitted to mention that their DCI might not even notice if she turned up late for the afternoon's work, such was his preoccupation with matters outside of CID.
Alex wrinkled her nose. "Urgh, he's got such ideas above his station! Acting-DI, and even if he made it all the way it wouldn't give him permission to treat you like that."
Gene's office door was ajar. He could hear Ray briefing the team on the second of the two new murders, and he was quietly proud of how far his junior officer had come since the days in Manchester when his purpose in the station was to throw punches when asked. Not that Gene would ever be such a ponce as to tell Ray that he was proud of him. But as he continued to listen, the tone of the discussion changed.
"… feels bloody good to have the job that bimbo Drake nicked off me, at last! I mean for God's sake, we've got three murders unsolved and where's she? Sittin' at 'ome reapplyin' her lipstick while we get on with the work, and then she'll totter back in on them shoes of 'ers and play like it was 'er catch all along!"
Gene slammed a fist down on his desk and stood up forcefully. Ray, with his back to the office, hadn't noticed, and carried on disparaging Alex's absence. Gene strode out of his office and put two hands on Ray's shoulders to turn the man around.
"You're lucky, DI Carling, that we've worked together a long time, long enough for me to know full well that you rarely mean what you say when you don't know when to close your damn mouth." Gene's voice was low and dangerous, his face close to his Acting-DI's. "Otherwise, you'd be gettin' the strongest right 'ook you've ever 'ad on that face o' yours, and you wouldn't be showin' your face in my CID again."
Ray shifted uncomfortably where he stood.
"I don' suppose you've got the balls to say any of that to DI Drake's face, 'ave you Ray? 'specially not where she is – because she's not at home, she's still in the flamin' 'ospital!" He was shouting, the control he'd kept for scare entirely spent. The rest of the team was deathly silent. It was uncomfortable viewing, the Guv so out of control that he spewed words like poisoned arrows. "She's not reapplyin' her bloody lipstick, the woman can barely move!"
"'m sorry Guv," Ray mumbled, but Gene wasn't convinced.
"Sorry?! You know why she's in there? You were so quick to take the piss about 'er having woman's problems – and she was havin' a fucking miscarriage!"
There was a ripple of muttering as this sunk in, and as it did so, Gene realised what he'd done. He'd betrayed Alex's trust. From the start, he had insisted that the others didn't need to know, and he'd been right. What business was it of theirs? She was going to hate him when she found out. He breathed hard and fast, rubbed the back of his neck before heading briefly into his office for his coat, keys and cigarettes.
"Guv, where you goin'?" Emboldened by the softer interactions she'd had with her DCI of late, it was Shaz who dared force her way into his tirade, though her words fell on deaf ears.
He was so far down a one-way street, there was no way out. He had to finish what he'd started. He glared wildly around the room at the blank, confused male faces that were trained on him. "She 'ad a miscarriage, and it would'a been my baby, alright? Save you all 'avin' a gossip, tryin' to drag 'er name right through the mud." From a dangerous growl to a roar, to a defeated quietness that no-one in CID had ever heard from him before. "So you can 'ave guesses among yourselves where I'm goin', whether it's clockin' off time or not."
Alex nearly jumped out of her skin when Gene came bursting through the door of her room. And still, there was something strangely comforting about the way he strode in like he owned the place.
"Luigi's will be going out of business, if you're not there buying up the Scotch every night," she teased.
But by the look of him, Gene hadn't taken in a word. On hearing her voice, he turned and looked at her with an expression of glazed surprise, as though he had only just realised she was there.
Alex furrowed her brow. "Gene?" she said, her voice full of concern. "Gene, sit down, what's wrong?"
A muscle in his jaw tensed as he sat down. She reached for one of his hands but he wouldn't let her take it, pulling away sharply. He wouldn't look at her: instead his gaze was fixed straight ahead. It unsettled Alex deeply and she began mentally rifling through her reserves of psychological knowledge for something that would grab his attention and ground him. She had to pull him out of his head. Of course, there was the option of kissing his cheek, but she wasn't entirely sure that he was aware enough not to shove her away. She sat up slowly, blinking away the stars in her eyes from being horizontal for so long, and turned so that she sat on the side of the bed, her legs dangling over the side. After a moment, she lifted the lapel of his suit and placed her hand over his heart. The effect was instantaneous.
"Bolly, what're you doin'?"
"Oh, so you're finally back in the room?" she challenged. "I could ask you a similar question – what on earth happened to make you come in here like you weren't on this planet?"
Gene scrubbed his jaw with one hand. He wanted to keep her hand over his heart, hold it for a while and just be close to her. But once he told her what he'd done, she wouldn't want him anymore. This purgatory with her questioning was hideous but it was better than knowing what her response would be. Hadn't Tyler had some stupid little story to describe situations like this? He was sure he could remember his friend trotting out some story about a philosopher and a cat. But the bullet needed biting. "I've ballsed it all up, Bolls, and you're not going to like it."
Alex rolled her eyes. "I rarely like your decisions, Gene, but I hardly think it's worthy of you trying to block me out again."
"No, I – Alex, I mean you're not going to like me. I told the lot of 'em what happened, why you're in 'ere and… why I'm 'ere with you when it's not even 'alf four yet. They were spouting some shite and it made me so bloody angry, I –"
"Gene, stop," she said, the very image of composed and collected.
He gave her an odd look. "You're 'sposed to be 'ittin' the ceilin'."
"Why?"
"That's what 'appens. I cock up, and 'er ind – whoever's closest loses their rag."
Alex's jaw dropped, she hoped imperceptibly. "What?" she whispered. He'd been about to say and 'her indoors' loses her rag. She was silent for a moment as she processed this. "I don't expect an immediate answer, but is that what your wife used to do?" Silence. "It's alright," she said quietly. "Gene, it's alright. I wouldn't have chosen for them to find out like that, but I think we both know it never would have stayed a secret. It might complicate things when I return to work, but –"
"Yeah."
"Hm?" Alex raised one eyebrow.
"As in, yeah, that's what she were like."
"Let me hold your hand," Alex said. "Please."
With a resigned sigh, Gene offered her a broad, calloused hand.
"I hope that when we argue, it's not like that," she murmured.
Gene's eyes twinkled. "Definitely not. When you're going off like a firework, it's all I can do to keep arguing back. There's somethin' very appealing about you tryin' to tell me I'm not right all the time. Even if you're wrong, obviously."
"Oh, obviously." She said it sardonically, sending him up something rotten. Well, if he liked it so much when she challenged his line of thinking… It felt as though they had turned a corner – one that Alex hadn't even known that they were approaching. "I'll repeat what I said when you came in, though – Luigi's will be out of business soon if you're not in there every night – especially if you're drinking like that instead!" She shot an amused glance at him as he pulled out a hip flask and a carton of cigarettes, one from inside his suit jacket and the other from an outer coat pocket.
Gene took a long drink from the flask, turning the cigarette carton fondly in the other hand, absent-mindedly. "Cheeky mare," he remarked. "I have other ways of keepin' 'im in business. Where d'you think I fill these from, the tap?"
At that moment, a nurse knocked at the door and bustled into the room on her rounds. She glared disapprovingly at the flask and the cigarettes but said nothing to Gene, focusing all of her attention on her patient.
"Long as nothing changes, Ms Drake, Doctor's happy for you to be discharged tomorrow," she announced at last, undoing the velcro on the blood pressure cuff around Alex's left forearm.
Alex smiled. "That's good news, thank you," she said.
The nurse cast a beady eye over Alex's left hand, particularly focusing on the bare ring finger. "You're single, aren't you?" It wasn't so much a question as an observation which forced heat uninvited onto Alex's cheeks. "You can't be discharged alone at this stage – is there someone else I can make a call to? Your parents, perhaps?"
Alex's smile had disappeared. "No, no parents," she said in a small voice, her mind filled with images of the Prices' car going up in a mushroom cloud of flames. All at once, a firm hand encapsulated hers and a gruff Mancunian accent dismissed the nurse from the room.
"Prying cow," Gene muttered, scowling. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
Having long since given up her 2008 pretensions around smoking indoors (there was nothing she could say that would change anyone's mind in 1982) she instead picked a hole in his quick dismissal of the nurse. "That might be the case, but now what do I do? She's not going to release my discharge papers while I'm going home to an empty flat!"
"Discharge papers? What you on about, Madam Fruitcake? They'll just wave you out the door and Bob's your uncle."
"Never mind," Alex said, remembering that NHS protocols weren't quite so tight as they were in the twenty-first century.
Gene carried on, unaware of Alex's incredulous expression. "You 'appy to wait until clockin' off time tomorrow, or d'you want me come early for you?"
She gasped. "No, you – you really don't have to – who said you were going to be my appropriate adult, anyway?"
"I didn' think you needed t'ask. Thought it would'a been obvious wi' that brain o' yours." Gene seemed puzzled by her rebuttal.
"I'd never be so forward as to assume that!" Alex argued. It was all moving too fast in her head; frustratingly, she could feel tears threatening in the corners of her eyes and that familiar ache in the back of her throat. "I wasn't going to ask you – You're Gene Hunt, for God's sake! I thought… I thought you wouldn't want to." A bold tear tracked down her cheek and she swiped it roughly away.
"Bolls," he said meaningfully. "I know I've been prattin' around and not bein' honest wi' you, and I was a right dick after we spent that night together. But this… It's as much my mess as yours. And… I swear to God if you tell the lads I've said this… Look, I care about you, alrigh'? A lot. I want you to be alright. I want to take you 'ome and make sure you're doin' okay."
Alex's breath caught in her throat. "I don't know what to say."
Gene dropped his soft tone and returned to the one she was more accustomed to, brisk and to-the-point. "Don't say anythin', you don't always 'ave to have a bloody speech prepared, woman!" He kissed her so quickly that it took her by surprise, and lingered for a moment. "Say yes," he said clumsily, still half-touching her lips with his.
Incapable of speech, she simply nodded, her cheeks damp beyond anything an uncoordinated swipe could ever fix.