"How are you feeling this morning?"
A young nurse Alex hadn't encountered before breezed into her room to do her morning obs and despite her seemingly limitless positivity, Alex couldn't help taking a shine to her.
"Heard you had a bit of a rough night."
Alex let out a tiny expulsion of laughter, the most she could manage with the still-swirling threats of a migraine circulating in her head. "You could put it something like that," she said.
The red flags had started late the previous evening – back in the twenty-first century they'd been familiar, and she would have spotted them much faster. The tingling in one hand that moved to one side of her face, the little flashes of light at the edges of her vision and the gentle but persistent throbbing sensation in her head that she'd naively put down to dehydration and fluorescent hospital lighting. By midnight however, there was no mistaking it and she was contending with a full-blown migraine with very little in the way of pain-relief due to the reduction in her prescription and her own stubbornness against asking for help. In the early hours of the morning, it had seemed to calm down, giving her the capacity to at least sit up and communicate, which was more than she was capable of a few hours prior.
Obediently, Alex opened her mouth for the thermometer and waited for the nurse's assessment. "That's looking a lot better," she commented. "It's come right down – I don't think there'll be any problem with sending you home today."
"That's good," Alex said. "I'm not sure my – my…" She sighed, both embarrassed and confused. What word could she choose for Gene? "My lift wouldn't be too impressed if he had to change plans all of a sudden." She immediately felt guilty: he was so much more than a lift home, and if the nurse's quietly amused expression was anything to go by, she knew it too.
"Some of the other nurses were quite taken with your lift," she confided. "I've not seen him, I've been on leave, but the gossip in the staffroom is quite something…"
Alex's cheeks warmed. "He's my DCI – I – it was his baby." She stumbled over the words, furious with herself that after all this time, she still didn't have a clear understanding of what she and Gene had.
"It's none of their business, or mine," said the nurse, shaking her head. "You don't seem sure though. Look, if what they're saying is true, and most of their tall tales are usually based on truth in any case, then you're a lucky woman. There's plenty out there in the world who haven't got a tall, strong, handsome man on their side. Especially not one who'd leave his coat behind for you, at the end of November." She winked and gave Alex a small smile.
She was hardly out of the room before she bobbed her head back in. "Ms Drake, you've a visitor out here, who's asking for your permission before we let him in."
Alex frowned. Permission? She didn't know anyone who'd ask her permission before coming to visit her – she didn't think anyone else in this world would care enough to come at all. "Who is it?"
The nurse stepped back into the corridor momentarily, then returned. "Says his name's DS Carling, Ms Drake. Will you let him in, or not? Entirely your decision."
Although her stomach flipped at the very thought of seeing him, Alex silently agreed to allow him access to her room.
She pulled her blankets up higher around herself, self-conscious of being in her pyjamas and looking anything less than her usual level of DI-strength. "I suppose you've come to have a good laugh, and see if the Guv was telling the truth?" She tried to say it sharply, but her voice was desperate instead.
Ray immediately looked away. "No, actually. I… came to see if you was alright."
She immediately frowned in confusion. For the first time since he'd come in, she realised he was holding something behind his back. "Ray, what are you carrying?"
"Oh – I… I brought you these." Shamefaced, he revealed a bouquet of flowers which he handed to her clumsily before dropping his gaze again.
Alex looked down at the blooms. Lustrous white lilies with their bold orange stamens and waxy dark leaves, and pale pink roses, every one of them perfect on their thorny stems. "I don't know what to say – I suppose I have to ask, why?"
He shoved his hands in his pockets and forced himself to look at her. His shoulders were rounded and tensed. "Because I feel awful for bein' such a dick to you," he said quietly. "I know I've always picked on you a bit for bein' DI and a woman –"
"– That's just you though, I didn't take it to heart," Alex interjected.
"No, but I took it too far, and when the Guv said what 'appened..." He paused, his face sombre. "I 'aven't seen 'im so upset since 'e lost Tyler."
The gravity of those words hit Alex squarely in the chest. She was glad of having the flowers to concentrate on. She stroked the lily petals with a fingertip, her mind spinning.
"I'm sorry for what happened, Ma'am," he said sincerely. "I just came to say that... an' that I 'ope you're feelin' better soon because this DI lark is bloody 'ard work and you can 'ave it back any time you like."
Alex smiled, the mood in the room entirely lifted. It amused her how much he couldn't help being himself, even when he was trying to do the right thing and it felt the most unnatural thing in the world. He stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, and she was glad of feeling well enough to know exactly how to ease his mind. As long as the simmering headache would hold off, she could be of use. "Talk me through the two new cases, Ray."
His face changed in an instant. "Really?"
"Really."
"You're… you're sure? Even in 'ere, when you're..." His eyes drifted down the bed and back up again to her pyjamas.
Alex tilted her head ever so slightly to one side. "Look me up and down again and question my presence of mind, DS Carling, and I'll very easily injure myself with these rose thorns and leave you in the DI position a lot longer than you'd like." She smiled with one corner of her mouth and caught his eye. The glint she got in return was an acknowledgement that they were back on their usual, strange level-pegging.
When Ray pulled out a small notebook full of scrawled notes, she couldn't resist teasing him lightly. "What's this?" she mocked. "DS Carling would never be seen dead taking notes! Being DI has changed you, Ray..."
He pulled a face. "If I didn't write it down there's not a chance in 'ell I'd remember any of it. Tryin' to keep an 'andle on three cases while the Guv's not exactly with it, is bloody difficult!"
Alex chose not to respond to what he'd said about Gene. Ray had said it off-handedly, not realising how much he was giving away, but it struck Alex's core. Collecting herself, she returned the bulk of her focus to the two new cases, both of which she knew nothing about. "So, the second of the three?"
Ray nodded. "Got called just after six, the day after you..." He tailed off, having stopped short of saying the word.
"The day after I was admitted in here, yes," Alex said gently, pushing him past that sticking point.
"Yeah, that," he said. He swallowed hard before continuing and consulted his notes, though Alex was convinced he only did so to avoid looking her in the eyes. "Angela Smithson, bottle-blonde bird who passed for much younger than she were."
"If we can stick to the facts, Ray, not whether or not you could conceivably have the hots for the victim!" Alex chastised.
"Yes Ma'am," he said guiltily. "She were thirty, probably looked early to mid twenties all done-up."
"Much better. Where did she work?"
Ray looked down at his notes again. "NatWest. She worked in the tower on Old Broad Street and by all accounts she worked 'ard, couldn't find anyone in there what'd say a bad word about 'er. No-one noticed anythin' off about 'er before it 'appened, she weren't seein' anyone new – she were single, god knows 'ow..."
Alex was deep in thought, so let slide his parting comment about Angela Smithson's appearance. "Patsy Richards' husband, he's a banker isn't he?"
"Not this again – it's not 'im!"
"And what proof have you got of that?" Alex said hotly. She bit her tongue for the time being on asking if he knew of Peter Richards in a Masonic capacity.
Ray sighed. "He doesn't work for NatWest, he wouldn't have come across 'er! 'e works for Abbey National, I checked and confirmed it myself."
She still wasn't entirely satisfied, but nodded for him to continue. Something didn't sit right with her – she may have been otherwise distracted, that afternoon in the mortuary, but she'd still had a gut reaction that told her those injuries on Patsy Richards were the result of domestic abuse rather than a random attack. "Alright, fine. Where was she last seen, and where was she found?"
"Last seen 'eadin' down to Liverpool Street station at 'er normal finishin' time the night before. Nothin' unusual, but she never got 'ome. Obviously. She were found in Finsbury Circus Garden, beaten and stabbed. Stab wound killed 'er, would've bled out pretty quick by t'looks of it."
Alex held up a hand to stop him. "I can do without the grisly details, thanks." That migraine felt as though it was beating a return, though she wouldn't give it away while she was still able to think in straight lines and didn't want to throw up. She thought for a moment. "Well, we all know Tower 42 has a lot of critics, but I hardly think Seifert has enemies in city planning who'd murder an unknown up-and-coming bank worker just to make a point!" At Ray's slightly blank expression, she sighed. "Do you ever pay attention to the news, Ray? It didn't just pop out of the ground!" She realised a moment too late that she'd referred to the building with a name that wouldn't come into common usage for about twenty five years. "The NatWest Tower, sorry. Designed by architect Richard Seifert, who was hardly popular for adding another skyscraper to the financial district." Ray was still giving her a strange look. "Forget it, forget it," she said. "What about the other woman?"
"Karen Edgeley, twenty-four. Lived with 'er parents on the Barbican estate. Came from money – parents are a barrister and a professor at LSE."
"Did they have any known enemies?" Alex cut in, trying to find any pieces that fit together to get them any closer to catching a killer.
Ray smirked. "A bird who sent down criminals, and a fancy-arse professor with more money than sense? Yeah, I'd guess they 'ad a few."
"Oh, take it seriously, Ray! You know full well what I meant," she said crossly, frustrated with herself for not spotting the blindingly obvious before speaking. "Where did she work, then?"
"She didn't. Parents' money saw to 'er every want. Quite the little socialite by the sounds of it. She were off into the West End on the night she went missin', parents weren't home when she left but they said she would'a got the Metropolitan Line and changed for Central at Liverpool Street."
"Surely that's a connection to the other one, Angela Smithson! That's where she was last seen, wasn't it?"
"Well, yeah, but Edgelely shouldn't have been above ground there, she should'a been well below street-level."
Alex raised an eyebrow. "But you think she was on street level there, don't you?"
Ray nodded. "She were found in an alleyway off Bishopsgate, beaten and strangled."
Internally, Alex fumed that the eighties was so far off catching up to modern standards of CCTV, where tapes would be found that answered the question of when and possibly why, this young woman wound up being murdered on street level when she should have been on a train far below it – and why no-one nearby stepped up to help her. However, she did spot another link. "Wasn't Patsy Richards strangled? No –" she said quickly – "I'm not saying anything about the husband. I don't have the energy for that argument. All I'm saying is you need to get the spacing between the finger marks on both women's throats measured. It could at least prove or rule out if we're looking for the same killer for those two. Whether Smithson is linked remains to be seen."
Ray blinked a few times, like he was seeing the wood for the trees after a long time walking in circles. It looked somewhat painful, but he quietly thanked her and scribbled down what she'd said. "You're in a bloody 'ospital bed and saw more outta that lot than I 'ave in three days," he said. He rounded his shoulders in defeat and frowned.
"Fresh set of eyes," she said kindly. "If you've been trying to lead and spot everything, it was never going to happen. You are doing a good job, Ray," she reassured. At that moment, a searing pain emerged in the left-side of her face. She squeezed her eyes shut and put a hand to her head.
"You alrigh', Ma'am?" Ray checked nervously. "Alex?"
She nodded stiffly. "Migraine," she replied quietly. "I had it most of the night, and I guess it's making a reappearance for a while."
"Should I… get someone?"
"No, I'll be fine. Just – switch the lights off, if you don't mind, so we can carry on?"
Ray let out an incredulous laugh. "You've got to be jokin', the Guv'd 'ave me back in uniform this afternoon, if 'e thought I'd been givin' you grief! I'll leave you be, Ma'am."
"Alright, okay," Alex murmured. She suddenly remembered something. "I know you don't think there's anything in it, but get a formal interview with Peter Richards, please. And record it, I want to hear it as well as read the transcript. I'm not trying to be a pain in the arse, Ray, I'm looking at it from a different perspective while you all keep looking for connections between those second two women." She breathed deliberately against the throes of the headache. "And Ray? Go easy on Shaz. She's a good pair of eyes."
Ray slipped back into CID unnoticed; it unsettled him not to receive the commonplace earbashing from the Guv that should have accompanied going AWOL in the middle of a weighty investigation. He'd been gone for nearly two hours, but it seemed the Guv's office had remained closed off the whole time. God only knew what was going on behind that door – Ray was not about to go barging in there to find out. He stood for a moment in front of the three separate pinboards that housed the information on each murdered woman. He scratched his unshaven face with fingertips pink from nail-biting, thinking hard. All he'd discussed with Alex ran in circles in his mind. Looking over at Shaz, tapping away diligently as was all she did since he'd been temporarily promoted, he knew that Alex had been right. She'd been the one to pull Shaz out from behind her desk in the first place, and it hadn't done any harm. So, although it felt like the least natural decision he'd ever made, he cleared his throat and called across to the WPC.
"Granger, come and take a look at these, would you?"
Shaz started in surprise, then looked up. She cocked her head slightly. "You serious?"
"I've got better ways to amuse myself than take the piss out of you, Granger," he said. "Takin' the piss out of Skelton, for example. I need a fresh pair of eyes to spot anythin' linkin' these women."
Shaz stood up from her desk and smoothed her skirt anxiously. She'd been turning these cases over and over in her mind every opportunity she'd had. And since she'd had so much mindless typing to get on with, there'd been a lot of thinking time.
"Go get 'em, baby," Chris whispered as she passed him, shooting her a discreet thumbs-up.
She looked down at the floor, and tucked her fringe behind her ear before looking up again. It felt like every pair of eyes in the room was on her, judging her before she'd even opened her mouth. Her stomach flipped, and she concentrated hard on the faith DI Drake always seemed to have in her, no matter what.
"Alright," she murmured. She scanned the three boards, hovering over the photos of the bodies in situ and then in the morgue. She examined the scruffily-written ideas beside each one, and yearned for the return of DI Drake's neat block capital print. "Well whoever strangled these two, they 'ad similar-sized 'ands – could be the same person?" There were a few mutters around the room and her heart sped up.
"Shut up lads. I'll get the spacing between the fingers measured, Shaz, so we'll be closer to knowin'," Ray said, speaking directly to her for the first time without his usual derision. She didn't need to know that he'd already had the instruction from Drake. He saw a face stare back at him that seemed stunned to receive something other than an insult. "Keep goin'."
"Have we got a height for Patsy Richards?" she asked, peering at the notes beside and below the photo of her body. "The other two are five-seven and five-eight, so if she's somewhere roun' that, that's somethin' linkin' 'em. The three of 'em look about a size ten, straight up an' down; I mean if you look at just the bodies they could be the same woman."
Chris was flipping pages in Patsy Richards' file. "Five-seven an' 'alf," he said triumphantly.
Ray rounded on the men in the room. "Took a plonk – sorry Shaz – to spot the blindin'ly bloody obvious!" He pushed the three boards together. "From 'ere on in, we're treating these three as one case. We might 'ave ourselves a serial killer."
Having heard the two words no detective ever wanted to hear, Gene snapped out of his thoughts and shouted for Ray to come into the office.
"Carling, get in 'ere!"
Ray stood before his Guv with a fixed expression. They were finally getting somewhere with this investigation, so why did he feel like he was about to get a bollocking the likes of which he'd never had in his life?
"What're you doin' throwin' around words like serial killer in my CID?" Gene said, standing up and leaning his fists on the desk.
"What're you doin', not throwin' anythin' around at all?" Ray said bravely, standing up straight and looking the Guv directly in the eyes.
Gene scowled. "I'll remind you, Ray, that you might be DI for now, but I am still your senior officer, an' you should be speakin' to me with a bit o' respect!" He took a deep breath through his nose and stared unflinchingly at his long-standing colleague.
"I'm gonna be honest with you, Guv, so if you're thinkin' of smackin' me one for it, save it 'til I'm finished, alright?"
A terse nod was all the reply given.
"I 'aven't seen you like this since Tyler died," he said quietly, letting that sink in before carrying on. "You won't like me sayin' this, but DI Drake deserves better than sittin' in that hospital on 'er own with a stormin' migraine, when you're sat in 'ere, not solvin' three murders an' feelin' sorry for yourself instead of 'oldin' 'er 'and. I know it's grim, what 'appened wi' Drake, and I'm sorry as anythin', Guv. But you can't change it now. You can only change what 'appens next."
There was a long silence, during which Ray expected a stream of insults about sounding like a fairy, or a hailstorm of fists in his face for calling it as he saw it. He'd way overstepped the mark of what a DI could say to their DCI, even if they had more than fifteen years' prior history.
"I'm not gonna 'it you," Gene said at last, sitting back down in his chair. "I'm also not gonna feed your ego by tellin' you that you're right. Can't 'ave you thinkin' you're right, now can I?"
Ray gave a weak half-smile. "No, Guv."
"You carry on, make sure that lot are puttin' the work in, yeah? And, Ray?"
"Yes Guv?"
"Talkin' like Tyler don't suit you." He offered his DI a nod of genuine acknowledgement in place of a 'thank-you' and grabbed his keys, cigarettes and coat before leaving CID without another word.
Her curls flowed messily across the pillow: she was sleeping peacefully when Gene arrived but it was clear she hadn't started that way. A stubborn crease between her eyebrows betrayed the truth in what Ray had said. She looked at peace, but she wasn't comfortable.
Cautiously, he leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Not 'alf as pretty with a frown, Bollyknickers," he murmured. "I don't like to see you hurting." He took his usual position in the chair, gazing at her until he plucked up enough courage to gently stroke the frown from her face, easing her expression of malaise.
Instinctively, she turned in her sleep and curled towards him. He took off his coat and spread it carefully on top of her blankets.
"Ray threw me out," he whispered, strangely happy to speak to her like this. "Gettin' all powerful as Actin'-DI, I think. We need you back fightin' fit, Alex. Use that brain to work out what the 'ell's goin' on out there." Her palm was outstretched, an unconscious choice that presented the perfect opportunity to hold her hand. It shocked him when even in her sleep, she closed her fingers around his hand. "But none o' that yet, my love," he said, his voice barely louder than a breath by the time he reached the final word. "Right now, you rest up, and then we'll go 'ome.
Alex snuffled in her sleep, and stirred enough that Gene wasn't sure whether to let go of her hand in case he accidentally woke her. But she slept on, and he relaxed into his protective position by the side of the bed.
Walking into CID, Alex smiled. She looked down at the newborn in her arms, cocooned in white blankets and felt her heart swell with something she couldn't name. There weren't enough words for this feeling: for returning to her workplace to awkward smiles and nods of encouragement as she'd carried her baby through the station; for overhearing the comments made to and about Gene Hunt, needling him about settling down and finally having his own flesh and blood to take care of; and for feeling his protective hand around her shoulders as he gazed fondly down at the tiny bundle.
"Reckon we did alright, Bolls?" he said warmly.
"Reckon we did, Guv," she said with a smile.
"Ma'am? There's someone 'ere to see you," said Shaz, nodding towards the door.
Alex turned to look, and swayed on her feet in shock.
Caroline Price stood at the door with a recognition in her eyes that took Alex's breath away. She came over and with the gentlest touch, lifted a fold of blanket that had slipped down over the baby's eyes. Blue eyes, like Gene's, surrounded by thick, dark eyelashes.
"Alex, darling, she's beautiful," said Caroline.
Alex struggled to blink away tears and the rising tide of emotions that threatened to spill out of her.
"I'm so proud of you, my darling girl," she added, moving her hand from the baby's fine scattering of blonde hair to instead cup Alex's cheek. "I'm so, so proud."
A tear slipped down Alex's cheek, and her mother caught it with a fingertip. "Mum..." she said softly. The word felt strange in her mouth after so long. "Would you like to hold her?"
She was passing the baby over when the doors crashed open and another voice cut through the room.
"Mum!?" Alex whipped around, but she'd know that voice anywhere. Molly. "I knew it, I knew you didn't love me enough to come back to me!" Her face was contorted with anger. "Now you've got him and your shiny new family!"
"Molly! Molls, come back!" Alex cried. Her legs were heavy: she couldn't follow quickly enough and by the time she was out in the corridor, those dark blonde, beautifully messy plaits were disappearing around the corner. Alex sank down onto her knees in defeat. "Molly..."
Alex woke up in tears, already crying so much that she could barely breathe. The first thing she was aware of was fighting for breath, the second was her heart thundering in her ears, and the third… The third was Gene, gathering her into his arms without a word, like it was an impulse he couldn't control. She couldn't get the images out of her head: a baby, her mother, Gene, Molly. Molly, and the look of abject disgust. Molly, and the words that were knives in Alex's heart. Molly, running as fast as she could, away from her. Molly. Alex's sobs intensified until her face and hands tingled from the hyperventilation.
Gene held her tighter to his chest, feeling her shudder in his arms. "It's alright, Alex. You're safe, you're alright now," he said, somehow firm and soft at the same time. "It was a dream, Bolls. Whatever it was, you're safe now. I'm here."
Please do let me know what you think with a review - I had to redeem Ray in some capacity! And I may have brought a lump to my own throat writing Alex's dream... What did you think?