After another stressful few hours dashing here, there and everywhere inside CID, Annie was more than ready to go to the Railway Arms for a quiet drink. Or to meet up with a few of her gal pals for a little while before heading home for a good nights sleep.
Alas, she knew that was about the last thing to happen tonight.
Her and Ray were heading over to Chris' to try and come up with a decent plan to nail the bastard commonly known as Mike Smith; they were now more than sure it was him and only him responsible for everything from the numerous murders in the city to the disappearances of Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler.
Strolling over to one of the more unnoticeable police cars (in other words, a car no one would expect a bunch of coppers to be travelling in - a rather cute light green MK II Mini) Annie sighed, pulling her short strands of brunette hair away from her eyes; she was exhausted and anxious for the most part, not to mention really glad that the hellish day was over. Instead of getting an over abundance of work done, she spent most of her time trying to avoid DI Norton who had taken a shine to her in a very big way.
He'd spent most of his day suavely walking over to her, circling her, getting rather too close for comfort so she could feel his rather minty breath on the back of her neck. It was true that he was quite a nice looking guy; he had high cheek bones with dark hair that laid across them ever so slightly and charming eyes but he was one of these men who were aware of their good looks, resulting in a very arrogant and conceited man.
And that was certainly not what Annie Cartwright liked in a gentleman.
In fact, that was the reason why she'd fallen for Sam; he was perfectly middle of the road. Well, not in as many roads. He was mysterious (sometimes too much so) but always respected her like an equal not like a 'dozy plonk'.
It was very hard to come across someone like Sam - someone who wasn't either a total egomaniacal jerk or, on the other hand, someone who thought women were not capable of the same kind of thought as men.
Then again, by the time she got to the car, she was rather glad that she may not be considered to be capable of the same kind of thinking as Ray. Even Chris who had returned to his usual, dopey state.
"Give me the keys 'ere, div!"
"No, Ray, my 'ouse we're goin' to - I should drive!"
"Ow'd you work that out, you plonker?"
"Coz you don't even know where me 'ouse is!"
Sheepishly, Ray dropped the motor keys into Chris' open palm, rolling his eyes in indignation. Chris, once sure that Ray wouldn't notice, beamed triumphantly over to Annie who sat on the backseat, the DS sitting up front with the winner of the last petty bout.
There were a few moments of silence. Ray, although bruised with defeat, spoke up. "You'd better 'ave some cold beer at your 'ouse!"
Chris, taking a smooth turn, nodded. "Yeah, I think I have a couple of cans of Party Seven at least."
"Great." DC Cartwright mumbled charmlessly; she could just see this turning into a 'lads night in' as such.
Just what she wanted.
- - - - - - - - - -
"So, we're just gonna sit 'ere, for the rest of our lives without sayin' a word?"
Gene Hunt's voice pierced through the atmosphere as he exhaled another large gasp of smoke. His head was resting uncomfortably against the cool plastered wall, still throbbing from the attack. Where as he was patience with Sam, giving him time to explain exactly what that scum Morgan had meant by the last name of Williams, his patience was wearing thin. Fast.
DI Tyler lifted his head from his knees, tipping his gaze to one side. What exactly had Gene meant by 'rest of our lives'? Did he honestly think they were going to die in there?
Sam refused to believe that the Gov - of all people - would consider this to be the end; they'd been in tighter spots before. This shouldn't be the end.
It couldn't be the end. There were so many things left unsaid, so many things not done. Trivial little things like decorating the flat, making it seem more like home. Giving Annie one last kiss...
Beep. Beep. Beep
"Doctor, is there any chance that my boy will wake up?"
"I don't know I'm afraid, Mrs. Tyler. He keeps fighting yet it never amounts to anything. Maybe you ought to consider..."
"No!" Sam clawed away from his mind tricks; he didn't want to hear it. His Mother wouldn't ever give up on him, he knew that. Yet, he didn't know if his life in 2006 had ever been real; maybe this was him finally snapping? Perhaps the pressure had gotten too unbearable?
"Well, Tyler, I'd really appreciate it if you started bloody talkin' before I came over there and made you talk!"
Gene's tone, harsh and clear, made Sam jump a little; under the circumstances, the Governor had managed to stay pretty calm. However, he knew there was only so much a man could take.
"You wanna know about Hyde so bloody badly, huh? You wanna know what that place was meant to be like?" Sam's voice was hushed yet stubborn. He was starting to get as angry as the Gov; maybe he was in more of a mood to fight that he'd first expected?
"What do you mean 'meant'? You flamin' well lived there!"
"Only by myth."
The last riddled statement that the Inspector had dealt his superior officer confused the latter greatly. He hadn't heard the word myth in years (decades if he was being truthful). He'd often hear his teachers babble on about Greek Mythology before setting a ridiculous amount of reading homework to do for the next lesson.
But, because Gene Hunt 'didn't do' reading, he didn't do the homework. Simple.
"What d'ya mean by that?" DCI Hunt was perplexed and rightly so.
Sam exhaled, shaking his head in annoyance. How had it ever come to this? "I...I don't remember a single thing about Hyde."
"What? Not at all?"
"Nope."
Gene shifted his weight, sitting up. "You can't just erase your entire past like that."
"I don't...I didn't. I don't even know if 'Hyde' was my past."
Sam's stammering reversed Gene's memories to his DI's first day with him in CID. He remembered their first fight, in his office, that ended rather abruptly with a big fist to the gut. Oh how times had changed.
"You 'ad a concussion, apparently. That's what a PC Plod reckoned, anyway."
Tyler sat up harder against the wall; his ribs were starting to bother him again. "Yeah, apparently."
Gene snorted sceptically. "C'mon, you must remember summat about Hyde? At least about this whole 'Williams' thing?"
Sam shook his head coldly. "Nope."
"Then why the bloody 'ell is Morgan sayin' this?!"
That had done it - Gene had cracked. He slammed his fist against the concrete floor, regretting the decision although glad that Sam's head shot up; he could now see the younger officers face as he'd got his lighter out, pinching another cigarette from the packet.
He could see Sam's eyes narrowing, his words spitting distaste. "I don't know! I told you - I remember nothing!"
"Piss off, Tyler. You know exactly what 'e's on about! Why the 'ell don't you just tell me?"
There was an awkward pause between the two men. Sam appeared unhinged, his head motioning downwards; he couldn't tell his boss the truth, he just couldn't.
"Or is it that you don't just trust me?"
Gene's voice was icy, almost frozen. Sam's body shook, as if someone had just prematurely walked over his grave.
"Of course I trust you!"
"Prove it." Hunt's voice dropped, almost to inaudible levels.
"Prove it?"
"Yes."
"Prove what?"
"Tell me about the surname Williams...your supposed surname."
"I told you. I don't know."
Gene snorted dramatically, shaking his head in disgust. "Yes you do...you should have told me by now."
"The only reason I'm not telling you is coz I don't fucking well know!"
"I don't believe you. Do you want to know why I don't believe you? Coz you lied to us about spying on us, being under cover for that bastard..."
"Coz I didn't know that either!" Tyler stood to his feet, beginning to pace; it was preoccupying his mind from the idea of smacking Gene square in the face. "I wouldn't have lied to you like that."
"I'm starting to doubt you now, Tyler." Gene stated, standing to his feet. "You can't just expect me to believe that you've forgotten everything about 'Hyde'..."
"Ok, Gov, you wanna know the truth? I'll give you the fucking truth! I got told that my last name wasn't Tyler from that smug bastard, that my last name is Williams."
DCI Hunt rolled his eyes, standing directing in front of his DI; it was as if he'd heard this whole sob story millions of times before.
"I got told that my parents were not who I thought they were. I got told that my real parents died in a coach crash when I was a kid and that I kept waking up in cold sweats in a fucking hospital bed, screaming for them. So yeah, when you get told that your whole life is a lie, it does tend to screw your head up and you don't tell people, especially not your boss who you know will rip the shit out of you for it!"
Gene took a step back, his hands loosely hanging on his hips as he sighed away from the other man. He gazed back to the Inspector, after a few prolonged moments of contemplation, his DI's hands clutching his head as his eyes sparkled dully with tears; the pain was etched onto his face, like a sculptor carving into limestone.
Sam snivelled, looking away from his Chief, sitting solemnly back down against the wall. That was enough, that was it; Gene Hunt couldn't learn anymore about his past. That had nearly torn him in two.
"Why would I rip seven types of shit out of you for that, Sam?" Gene spoke, very humbly, his eyes attached to the floor. "You can't help your past, or change it. Hell, I know that better than anyone in the whole of Manchester."
Tyler glanced up, only for a split second. The Gov had calmed down significantly, actually wanting to listen to his woes. "The thing...the thing is, I don't even know if that was my past. That's all I've been told and I certainly don't remember Hyde." Sam cleared his throat, his voice lowering. "You have to believe me on that one."
"HOW CAN YOU NOT REMEMBER HYDE?!" a voice bellowed, it's owner barging into the room, shocking both coppers equally. "Hyde was your life, Sam, until you threw it all away in this dump!"
Morgan backed the DI into one of the four corners of the perfectly square room. Sam felt his heart beat faster and faster, as he saw the hate rise like poison in the other man's stiff eyes.
He grabbed Sam by the collar, hoisting him a little into the air, although not very much; Sam was heavier than you'd think. Plus, Morgan's arms were not as strong as they used to be, with all of the years of active service he'd been through.
"PUT HIM DOWN - NOW!" Gene's voice splintered the atmosphere, through the almost silence of Sam's struggling and uncomfortable grunts; he'd just about had enough of Morgan's attitude.
Spinning the fellow yet opposing DCI around, Hunt punched him square in the jaw, knocking him flying against the wall. Sam gasped, grateful for Gene's thug like actions, at least on this occasion.
Sam sprinted over to the door, without a second to waste. He jerked the handle several times, pulling as hard as he could. "Shit, it's locked!"
"Now what the 'ell do we do?"
The duo slumped against the cold, unforgiving wall once again. They were trapped and back to square one, yet again, now with a new room mate who was bound to cause more than enough problems.
- - - - - - - - - -
After a fairly short ride the car pulled up hurriedly yet unevenly onto the path. It had to be said that Chris wasn't the most cautious of drivers; he wasn't intentionally reckless like the Gov. Yet, he wasn't vigilant like Sam either.
Skelton - like Sam and Annie - lived alone in a flat. Annie glanced up at the building, shaking a little; it looked more than a little worse for wear, even more so than DI Tyler's set of apartments. Nearly all of the windows were covered with rotting cardboard, the thin material decaying because of violent rain storms from months ago. It seemed that no one could really be bothered to change any of them as if the place was merely forgotten about.
Even by the people who were unfortunate enough to live there.
Annie and Ray glanced at each other; both seemed appalled by the surroundings. DS Carling vaguely remembered a conversation he'd had with the younger man many months back. He explained how desperate he was to break away from his Mum's house, how instead of being mollycoddled and pampered daily, he wanted to live his life as a swingin' bachelor like he always envisaged that he was; bringing girls back from the Arms at all times of the morning (well, at least until closing time).
All three coppers made their way up the stairs, Annie shrieking several times at the appearance of rats and other creepy crawly things; she hated the place already. And that was before heading into DC Skelton's flat!
Unfortunately for both her and Ray, Chris' flat was no cleaner. Annie thought her home looked like a bombsite after her morning of briefly raiding the cupboard for a clean outfit!
It looked like Chris hadn't even dusted the place since arriving there; it was simply filthy. If she'd had enough guts to do so, Annie would have ran her finger along the table tops and knackered TV monitor, collecting masses of grey and black particles of fluff as she went along.
However, she decided against it; it was too filthy for words.
Chris invited his mates to sit on the sofa which both Annie and Ray were seriously contemplating. At last, after a short amount of deliberation, they perched themselves on the edge of the seat as close to the front of the cushion as possible.
The young constable made his way into the kitchen, peering in his rather bare cupboards; the doors were barely hanging on as it was. And, the ones that were, appeared chipped and broken. "What would you like to drink?"
Annie grimaced; she could barely stand the thought of being in the house for any length of time, let alone having anything to eat or drink from there. "Uh, no ta Chris, I'm ok at the minute."
Ray, seemingly unfazed by the whole idea, shrugged his shoulders. "A beer, mate, please." It possibly hadn't clicked with him that the glass would be as dirty as the rest of the place.
Annie shuddered; this was certainly going to be a long evening. Chris was nancying about in the kitchen, dragging glasses and bowls from another of his cupboards. She could just about see him pouring a packet of crisps into one of the plastic blue bowls, stumbling about with them as he waltzed into the living room.
"Now, 'eres a bowl of cheese and onion, and 'eres plain ones." Skelton announced, plonking the bowls onto the glass table before taking a seat next to Ray on a rickety chair that once belonged to his Grandmother. The eaten wood wobbled under his weight as he held his arms in the air to balance himself out.
Ray - rather impressed that there was a selection of snacks - took a handful of both flavour of crisps, munching them in his mouth as if there was no tomorrow.
"Oh, by the way, I should probably tell you that they're both five months out of date. Still crunchy though, don't ya think, mate?" Skelton spoke, mimicking his superior officers actions.
With that, Ray's face turned literally green. He ran over to the window, emptying his stomach contents rather quickly. As Chris blindly kept eating, Annie screwed her nose up; she already wanted to leave and she'd only been there for about five minutes!
"Right, so, 'ave either of you got a plan?" DC Cartwright questioned; she was now really determined to get this shambles of a meeting over with.
Just as Ray was about to rejoin the others, wiping traces of spittle from his bottom lip, a controlled yet eager knock came at the door.
To be continued...