Sorry it's been abandoned for so long :s Hope ya enjoy it anways, I made the street name for the flats up (Liar! Ok, I stole it off Life on Mars, but I don't think they're coming to sue me anytime soon)
Vince slept fitfully in his run down, trampy excuse for a bed, as the telly blared at him; not sound-wise, but with the image of a little girl holding a clown. He had left it on, in the hope that Howard would talk to him again, but nothing had happened. He had spent the whole night sat in a moth bitten chair listening to some man talk about algebra. Not understanding any of it, he soon tuned out, and had decided to just go to bed.
"Vince".
Nothing happened as the man on the bed slept. He wasn't that much of a deep sleeper, but for some reason this didn't spark any sort of waking. A sigh issued from the telly, as whoever was talking through continued, hoping Vince could hear them,
"The nurse said it might help if I talked to you. She didn't say what it would help, but I'm going to. Can you believe they had to take your ring away for it to be cleaned? Said they didn't want to risk an infection. I didn't really argue, 'cause I don't know what I would do if you did catch anything. You've never really been ill before have you? I remember you had a cold once, and you moaned constantly, coughing and sneezing everywhere. Then one night, you shut up and crawled into my bed. Quietest night of my life. You even stopped sniffing in case you thought I woke up. I wasn't asleep though. How could I, when the most gorgeous person I know was sleeping right next to me?"
He sniffed and tried to continue in that same, upbeat voice,
"Anyway, I've been given compassionate leave, so I'm going to spend most of my time here. Either that or at Naboo's. I can't go back to our flat, not with all those memories. Oh god, I'm making it sound as though you've died. You're not going to, you hear me Sir? You're going to keep fighting, and then when you wake up, you'll be getting married! Well, if you accept, but Howard Moon is a hard man to push away, you won't get a moment's peace off me. So you keep fighting ok? You keep fighting…"
The voice tailed off, until the flat was left in silence. Vince curled up in a small ball, tears cascading down his face until the sheets of the bed were drenched. He had woken up halfway through Howard's desperate, heart-wrenching monologue and hadn't said a word, knowing Howard couldn't hear him, and didn't want to say anything in case somehow it would wreck the moment, as if it would suddenly break the telly, and leave him in complete loneliness once more.
--
"Noir, get your glittery backside in the car, you're hurtin' me eyes!" The DCI bellowed as Vince sashayed into the station, wearing a glittery jacket that had gold shooting stars down the back that he had found in the wardrobe. Vince pouted at him,
"This is better than anything you could ever wear," He challenged. Gene ground his teeth and shut his eyes, "What're you doing?" Vince asked curiously,
"A number of things that my complex brain can handle, whereas yours would implode as soon as you thought more than two things" Vince stayed silent as Gene raged, not knowing whether he had meant it or not.
When someone implied he was stupid, they either smiled to show they weren't being serious or added, 'just kidding!' at the end, as Vince was extremely good at turning on the waterworks and making people feel guilty. Fair enough, he didn't particularly like the Guv, but he wanted to be liked by him. Also, being told that he was stupid was a bit of a red spot for him. Howard had sometimes joked he was a 'simpleton', and yeah, he wasn't that bright, but Howard had always told him he was clever in so many different ways, making Vince shine whenever he said that.
"Did you mean it?" He asked quietly, breaking into Gene's rant,
"Were you even listening to anything I was saying?" Gene grumbled, before saying, "You might be brighter than some of the nonce's we 'ave in 'ere". Vince's eyes sparked up before asking again,
"So what were you doing before, when you shut your eyes?" Gene growled but said,
"I started a new policy of counting to ten every time you say something I hate" Vince scrunched his nose up, thinking.
"But I've seen you doing that all morning".
"Exactly," With that he went over to his car, "Get in the car Vince, we've got a murder on Queen Mary Road, in Dalston". Alarm bells started going off in Vince's head,
"W-what? Queen M…"
"Oh shut it Gladys and go back to your knitting"
"What knitting? Who's Gladys?"
"Oh for god's sake".
--
The Guv finally swerved to a halt and Vince shakily got out, mostly because of the disturbing driving but partly because the 'factory' they had been called to would be made into a block of flats in thirty years. He and Howard would fall in love with one and rent it, not buy, because they both had a dream of buying a small house somewhere. Although Howard's house would be in the wilderness somewhere, while Vince would rather have one in France, preferably close to Disney Land.
"Vince, wake up!" The Guv yelled, making Vince jump and shake his head, to get rid of any home-sickness plagueing him and bounced towards Gene, Chris and Ray. The latter looking pissed off that the colourful DI had joined them.
"So what happened?" Vince asked. Ray rolled his eyes at the obvious question which Chris answered, with a cheerful smile at Vince,
"Some bloke got jumped on finishing his work, blood all over the place" Vince nodded, bracing himself. It was bad enough when everyone saw him throw up when he had some blood on him, but if there was so much blood he might actually faint, he didn't think he would ever be allowed to forget that. He looked up to the building nostalgically,
"What kind of factory was- I, I mean is, it?"
"Cotton mill," Annie said, having come up to them when Vince was asking the question, "It's an 'orrible one in there boss," She stopped as Vince looked curiously at the woman attatched to Annie's arm, sobbing, "This is Tina, she was the one who found him" Vince nodded and smiled at her,
"Don't worry Tina, we'll get to the bottom of it. Did'ya know him?" She nodded, sniffing in with shuddering gasps,
"His name's Jimmy Saunders, he worked late all the time, thought it was the future. Only the coolies were ready to do that" Vince gasped at her comment. How racist was everyone in 1973? Vince almost giggled at the thought of declaring he was engaged to a man. What would have happened if Howard was black? He shuddered. He'd probably be beaten into the ground.
"Vince! Get a move on!" He turned to see the guv gritting his teeth and yelling. Rolling his eyes, the DI followed him. What was with this guy? Why did he insist on being so...so... mean? Well, he wasn't all bad, Vince thought, climbing some very familiar steps, he had yet to completely beat the stuffing out of him.
As they stepped into the huge room, full of cotton looms, Vince gasped. This was their floor. Thinking extremely hard, Vince managed to stutter out the floor plan,
"There were three flats on this floor, and next to this must have been the...the bedroom, and then..." They approached the body, which was sprawled directly where his and Howard's bed would be.
"Oh my God.." Vince murmered. Howard might be in their flat right now, maybe getting some fresh clothes or something. And now there was a body on the bed, dripping blood on the carpet and duvet cover Howard was so proud of and kept very clean. A wave of nausia swept upon him, and, although he hated himself for it, couldn't help but surrender to the darkness and just let his body crumple onto the floor, or at least he would have, if Gene hadn't have been stood right behind him,
"Woah, what's wrong with you? Vince, come on, chop chop, rise and shine! Jesus," He grumbled to himself, having to lower his DI to the ground, "It's only a bit of blood. The WPCs make less fuss than you".
--
Vince had been woken up by a huge jug of freezing cold water being tipped on his face. Gasping and choking, he sat up, sopping wet.
"You nonce!" He yelled at Ray, who appeared to have taken great pleasure in it, "My hair's ruined! It'll never be the same again!" With that, he leapt up, attempting to grab Ray by the neck or something, but the sight of the body was still fresh in his mind, and he wobbled slightly, threatening to fall yet again,
"When you two have quite finished!" Gene broke in angrily, but gently pushed Vince upright, "We have a murderer to catch!" Vince glared at Ray, and stormed off. Stumbling down the stairs, he stopped, clutching the bannister for support and gasping, for a moment almost being able to smell Howard's warm, homely scent. However, he could hear the others stomping down the stairs so got a hold of himself and brought his mind to a more pressing matter. His hair. Walking down the stairs he sighed, digging into his pocket for the comb and can of hairspray he kept with him. Getting to the bottom, he was spraying it everywhere, when Ray barged into him,
"What's this?" He asked disgustedly
"Hairspray," Vince answered, "I need to boost my hair back to it's former glory" Ray rolled his eyes and as he walked away Vince was sure he heard him mutter, 'poof', but didn't let it bother him. He was right after all. When Chris came down, Vince grabbed onto his arm,
"Boss?" Chris asked
"Ray doesn't like me does he?" He asked, in an almost broken-hearted tone,
"Well, I mean..." Chris was struggling, "He was going for the Inspector when you came, so you sorta..." He trailed off, "Nah, he hates your guts Boss" Vince nodded, expecting it,
"And you? What do you think of me Chris?" The young constable shrugged,
"I dunno. I don't understand most of what you do, or why you have to keep goin' against the guv" Vince grinned, remembering what Howard had said to him,
"I've gotta keep fighting Chris" He then proceeded to attack his hair with spray once more, making someone behind him choke,
"Noir, I don't know what the hell you're doing, but stop it!" He appeared out of the spray, coughing, "Right, I've got a hunch about who did it. I reckon it was Ted Bannister" Vince raised his eyebrows. They had quickly gone through the crowd of workers, Ted seeming to be the one who was more involved in the factory than anyone.
"And how are you gonna prove that? You pulled forensics out!" He had indeed done this, pushing the man out of the way who was photographing the body,
"No shit Sherlock! And anyway, I've got one golden rule with cases like this. Whoever spoke first did it," Vince frowned, confused, "Get over here" Gene growled, pulling him by the collar over to a huge crowd of workers who expected to be able to get in and work today. When they approached, the workers all stopped talking, apart from one, who turned to face the officers and said,
"It was robbery you know. Load of blokes round here knew Saunders had money" Gene grinned triumphantly at Vince,
"Is that right Mr Bannister?"
--
"Why are we bothering to keep all of the workers in?" Vince asked, determined to annoy the guv with his endless questions until he got an answer, "All you're doing is asking where they live and if they knew Saunders. That's hardly gonna help is it?" Gene turned to face him. They had been walking down the corridor, in the direction of the canteen (where they had been keeping all the workers) and Gene had had enough,
"Tell you what, since you're obviously getting rather bored with this enquiry, asking the same tedious question again and again, how about you have something else, to keep you busy" That last part wasn't a question, but an order. Snarling, completely sick of 19 bloody 73, Vince just turned on his heel and stormed off down the corridor. Why did the guv have to be so horrible? Couldn't he tell how hard it was for Vince to adjust to all this? Well, obviously not, Vince thought with a laugh, he doesn't know I'm from the future.
No sooner had he thought all this he was vaguely aware of the sounds of thumping boots down the corridor. In his head, Vince quickly ran through everyone in the station and what shoes they were wearing that day. Wasn't the guv wearing huge....?
THUMP
A fist connected with the back of Vince's head. Dazed, but still concious he turned to find that it was indeed the guv who had punched him. Rubbing his head, he managed to blink away tears before the DCI saw them, but was still so shocked that he didn't do anything back. Gene seemed slightly disappointed at this, and leant forward, growling in Vince's ear,
"Next time you dare question the way I do things or refuse to do what I tell you, I will make sure you will never be able to walk again. Capice?" Vince nodded, the back of his head throbbing, trying to get some air back into his lungs, as he was finding it very difficult to breathe.
"Right. So, while me and Ray handle the factory murder, you and Chris can get to work on the weapons found inside the boot of a car we stopped for speeding. Meanwhile, you!" He yelled at Vince, who was attempting to creep away again, "Follow!" He snarled at Vince, who scurried after him, rather frightened of what the guv had in store.
Gene went to his office and sat down behind his desk, feet swung up to go on the table. The other officers in C division were already in there, some (Particularly Ray) rolled their eyes to see Vince come in, and hop up to sit on a small, hip length bookshelf. He looked around at all the serious faces and furrowed his eyebrows,
"What're we all doing here?" he asked, and just at that moment, another man came into the office. He looked around as though he was King of the office, and waltzed up to Gene with a very smug grin plastered on his face.
"Morning Gene, thought you might like to see the headlines of the paper" He threw it to the guv who caught it with a very sallow look on his face and glanced at the paper. From where Vince was, he couldn't see what was on it, but it was presumeably about that man,
"Well it makes nice publicity don't it Litton?" The guv said, adressing the man Vince guessed whose last name was Litton, it wouldn't be like Gene to use someone's first name, "Crime squad manageing to prevent a crime rather than going in and shooting everyone" Litton's smug smile was wiped off his face as Gene sat there, completely unimpressed. He turned to go, but was stopped by a giggle from the corner.
"What?" He asked Vince, who bit his lip as the tall man loomed over him, "Did you find that amusing?" Vince shook his head, but said,
"I'm just laughing at your outfit. I mean, what's going on there?" He exlaimed, pointing at some weird bow tie on Litton's suit, "How moth eaten do you look?" Vince trilled, and curled his toes inwards as the man looked to be about ready to throw a mean punch. Amazingly, Gene was suddenly in between the two of them and said,
"Listen Litton, we're busy, so if you wanna beat my DI to a pulp, by all means do, but wait until after we've solved a murder. Which I think is slightly better than meeting the mayor of some small village" He spat, throwing the newspaper back at Litton.
When the door slammed shut, Gene gave Vince an odd look, but said nothing, before turning to the other officers and saying,
"Right you lot, we're gonna get this murder nailed today! Got it? I want Bannister cuffed by tea time!"
--
Vince pulled Annie by her hands up the stairs to the cotton factory.
"Vince slow down! Why are going here?" He looked over his shoulder as they ascended and answered,
"'Cause the guv said he was going to try and find the knife that killed Saunders. So that means he'll probably be..."
"Planting one in Ted Bannister's locker?" Annie interrupted. Vince grinned,
"You read my mind". As they got nearer the right floor, they could hear the faint sounds of lockers crashing open. Vince jumped the last few steps and got into the room to find it looking like a torture chamber for lockers.
"Guv!" Vince shouted over, seeing the obnoxious prick in the middle of the chaos. The man waved happily (But rather sarcastically), "What're you doing?! What if you wrecked any evidence in there?"
"Oh, I think I may just have a stroke. Wake up Vince, no-one cares about evidence" Vince rolled his eyes and started a small stroll of the room, circling various places, much like a dog would when it's found something interesting there before. Gene sniffed and turned to Ray,
"'Ave we found it yet?" He barked impatiently. When the DS shook his head, the guv ground his teeth and turned back to Vince, to find him lying on his stomach. Rolling his eyes, Gene walked over to him, about to give him a good kick when he realised the DI hadn't blacked out, but was fully concious and appeared to be thinking hard, staring under a machine,
"Can you see it?" He shouted up to Annie, who stood on tip-toe to look over the machine, leaning over slightly,
"Yeah! Right there!" Annie shouted back, pointing to a dark patch on the floor behind the machine. Standing back up, Vince shimmied round the side of the machine saying casually,
"Eurgh, it was horrible down there, well wet..." He paused, looked around, adding two and two together, "The murderer wanted to clean up after himself," Vince whispered slowly, "So he mopped it all up, thinking we couldn't trace any of his footsteps. But he missed a bit..." He trailed off, pointing at the dark red patch on the floor. Bending closer to it and examining harder, he found he could just see a shoe print in it,
"How do we get this?" He mused to himself, jumping in fright as Annie came next to him with a peice of cloth and a conical,
"Just put the cloth over it and roll the conical over that" Annie explained, as Vince looked confused. Gene had a weird, half-appreciative half-disgusted look as the young female police officer did it. When they peeled the cloth back and there was a fully legible shoe print, Vince grinned victoriously at the guv,
"Don't you smirk at me you smart-arse. Right, Cartwright, get down to the station, tell Phyllis we need to collect shoe sizes" They had gathered all the workers of the factory into the station and were proccessing all of their details,
"Yes sir" Annie answered, and with a smile at Vince she was out.
"I still think it was Ted Bannister" Gene grumbled as they walked out.
He had kept this up all through the enquiry, every interview. Tina, the one who found Saunders, was apparently carrying Bannister's son's, Derek, baby. She had raged about how mad everyone would be about the factory being shut, and how Saunders was a prick and no-one liked him. One thing that made Gene sit up was that she declared,
"Ted was right to lay one on him" Both officers had glanced at each other with raised eyebrows. However, Vince could tell Bannister hadn't done it after the interview with him. A thought that Gene didn't share. Saunders had apparently gone running, and Ted was well... obese. The man was about 57, whereas Saunders was no older than 25. Ted had admitted to punching the victim, but he had been in the pub all night, when Saunders was supposedly murdered around half ten. None of it made sense, but Gene wouldn't admit it.
"Can I drive?" Vince asked, enthusiastically, like a small child would ask their parent, innocently, but completely seriously. The guv turned to him and glared,
"Are you crazy? Do you know how much this costs? And you said you can't even drive!" Vince shuffled up in his seat,
"Well, half. Howard's teaching me!" He trilled proudly, for once the mention of his boyfriend, no- the mention of his fiance, didn't make him feel depressed and vulnerable, just a bit sad, but mostly proud. He paled as he realised he'd mentioned him in front of Gene, but then laughed at himself. The guv wouldn't know he loved him, all he said was someone was teaching him to drive.
Gene had just ignored everything his DI had said, so it didn't really matter, and soon they were back at the station, Vince nursing a stinging hand after he tried to turn the radio station over, which had resulted in Gene slappng his hand. Hard.
"That hurt" Vince whined, hoping that if he sounded as child-like as possible Gene might take pity on him and be nice. Yeah right.
"Grow up you girl and get out of the car" Gene shouted, making Vince leap out, terrified, as when he walked past Gene the DCI raised his hand, about to scratch his head, but to Vince it looked very much like he was about to hit him.
--
"I just got this Guv!" Chris exlaimed, hurrying down the Guv's office where he and Vince were, of course, arguing. They both stopped, Vince turning his head and cocking it slightly, looking like a curious tabby cat, while Gene looked at Chris in the eye and tried to stare him out.
"What it it Chris?" Gene asked, sounding extremely bored.
"I got someone who saw some bloke running away from the factory on the night Saunders was murdered, and they got together with Steve, does those drawing for the christmas parties? Anyway, the came up with this," With that he produced the peice of paper he had been holding and held it out for the other two to see,
"That reminds me of someone, but I honestly can't think of who..." Vince said, thoughtfully. Gene clapped him (Extremely hard) on the back and said,
"You need your eyes checking Vincey boy! Do you want me to tell you who it is?" Vince bit his lip in thought. Why did his brain fail him now? Finally he sighed and said, dully,
"Go on then"
"That right there looks an awful lot like Ted Bannister"
--
Vince hadn't managed to convince the guv not to smash the door down, so he could only watch as the older man slammed his way into the house of Ted Bannister. Hearing a lot of commotion, and a smash told him that Gene had ripped his shoe off the ground, and hearing a triumphant yell, he guessed there was some sort of stain on the bottom.
He turned away from the car and leant against it, looking into the sky, thinking,
"Vince, you have got to be one of the most impractical people I have ever had the fortune to meet"
Howard said this grinning at Vince, who was trying and failing to catch maltesers in his mouth, whilst tottering about in high heels, while also trying to carry an umbrella in the pouring rain. He stopped for a moment and gave him a look of contenment as Howard wordlessly took the brolly from him and put his arm around the smaller man's shoulder. Vince stopped trying to catch the sweets and leant in, sighing as the rain falling off the side of the umbrella passed them and he didn't get wet at all.
"Howard?" Vince asked sweetly, looking up and smiling softly, eyes gleaming, "Do you think we'll ever be this happy again? Like, proper happy?"
Howard furrowed his eyebrows at the absurd question, but thought. Vince felt his boyfriend's hand gently stroke his side as he walked, contemplating,
"Well....if we're always going to be together, like you say we are..."
"And you do!" Vince jumped in, slightly stung,
"And I do," Howard agreed, smiling, "then yes Vince, we'll be this happy again. Proper happy"
Vince shook his head, so lost in his memories that he didn't realise Gene was stood behind him, and prodded him painfully in the side, making the younger man jump, and scowl at his DCI.
--
"So Ted, you killed him, then decided to wash away the evidence? However," Gene puffed out importantly, "You missed a spot" Ted gave him a dirty look and said,
"I didn't kill him. I swear to god, I'm not a killer" Vince leant forward,
"I believe you Ted, but it's all adding up against you here. You've gotta give me something so the guv doesn't skip around for a month, making me make his tea and tie his shoelaces"
"Ooh, now there's an idea" Gene said, grinning maliciously. During this, Ted had lowered his head, thinking extremely carefully. Did he want the factory to close? Obviously not, but would he rather face a lifetime in jail? Away from his family? That thought penetrated him like ice. He couldn't do that. His family meant more to him than anything else.
"I found him" Ted whispered, making both officers look up, gleams in both their eyes,
"What?" Gene asked, while Vince grinned,
"I went back to the factory and he was lying there. He got caught on the machine. So I tidied and made it look like he'd been murdered" Vince raised an eyebrow, but weirdly it was Gene who leant forward, understanding,
"You wanted to save the factory" Ted nodded,
"It has to be saved. If word got out one of our machines went faulty they might..."
"Turn it into a block of flats?" Vince suggested. Ted nodded again and Vince smiled tearfully, thinking of Howard. Always thinking of Howard. He was going to get back. He knew one of these cases would get him back. Just solve the right one and he'd get back.
Ok, first off, sorry for the really weird, jumping from clue to clue, for example, I wrote something about a car with stolen weapons, intending to write something about it later on, but not lol, so ignore stuff that doesn't make sense ;). I know it doesn't end how it should, those who watch Life on Mars, but I was really tired (So, sorry for spelling mistakes) and I couldn't really remember much of this ep. tbh, so please don't complain about the storyline :) Please review, it makes my life worth living lol.