Thank you once again for the reviews I have received. Many of the reviews I have got have touched on the fact that according to the report Gene is dead in 1973… lets see…
Welcome to Chapter 7…
Chapter 7
Gene opened one eye, then the other to find himself in total darkness. The only meagre light came from the TV screen. Filling almost all of it the upper chest and head of the stupid yellow girl look out onto the room. "It's all lies. Six foot under, bashed your head, Car has hit you, now they all say you're…?" The girl left her rhyme hanging, begging Gene to finish it.
Gene stood up and stumbled over to the screen. "I'm not dead!" He screamed, livid.
"You can talk and move and write and sing, but you're now stuck here not doing a thing." The girl teased as Gene moved closer. She leaned in towards Gene and he jumped back.
"Leave me be!" Gene yelled looking at a now blank, black television screen.
Gene turned back to the settee to see only blackness with an all too real yellow girl suspended in the nothingness. Turning to look back at the TV he found it gone and only darkness advancing. "You can only be one thing Gene, awake or asleep, dead or alive, here or there." The girl whispered as if it was a secret. Gene closed his eyes, "It's just a dream!" He announced to himself.
"Six foot under, bashed your head, Car has hit you, now they all say you're dead!" The girl taunted in a sing-song voice.
Gene awoke, half blinded by sweat from his forehead. Sitting up he looked at his hands and found that they where shaking. "What the bloody hell was that?" Gene whispered to himself, recalling the girl. Even his voice was shaking with an odd resonance, several tones higher than his usual voice. Rubbing his hands over his face he stood up to find his coat and a badly needed fag. It had been the first time in a long while since he'd woken up alone. Taking a shuddering drag of smoke he hoped it would stop the pain of missing his wife. For a woman he would openly admit to taking for granted he still loved her deeply, and not just out of necessity.
Finding some scraps of food in the cupboards he made himself a pitiful breakfast of toast and coffee after he'd had a shower and an equally needed shave. Pulling on his coat over just a shirt and forgetting a tie he felt a little more like himself although he knew to expect raised eyebrows by the Lloyds of London look-alikes in CID. He still looked twice as smart as he was used to, but he wondered how long that would last since he'd never leant how to use an iron.
Gene arrived early again in CID and made his way to his desk. Not even DCI Tyler had punched in yet and Gene smiled,
That kid wouldn't last a day in 1973.
Gene switched on his computer and surprised even himself that he could remember what to do. Without warning the phone on his desk rang with an electric ring and Gene swiftly picked up. "DCI –DI Hunt." Gene corrected.
"Boss, you'd hate our temporary DCI, Morgan. He's told us we've gotta record interviews-" It was Chris and Gene felt his throat go dry. He opened his mouth to speak but not even a whisper can out.
"Yeah, and he threatened to have me suspended when I punched Kramer in the interview." Ray said in hushed tones, half ashamed, half proud.
"You just get better soon Guv. They say if we talk t'ya, it'll help. It's City verses United next week we'll let you know Guv." Chris said, "See y'soon Boss-" Suddenly the conversation cut out.
"Please hang up and try again." Said a painfully false female voice from down the line and Gene put the receiver down slowly.
"Crikey Gene, you look like a dead man." Sam said and Gene's face fell,
After what I read yesterday, that could all be too true.
"What's happened to Kramer?" Gene asked, still getting used to having to ask for information and not just getting it without asking.
"He's been charged and is enjoying a penthouse suite in the cells downstairs." Sam made the last part drip with sarcasm
Hay maybe this is my kinda Inspector after all, Gene thought, smiling to himself.
"Ace Sammy-boy." Gene said, "Glad to know I'm of help."
Sam nodded slightly.
Gene was defiantly the strangest DI he'd ever met.
Gene spent the rest of the day filling out paperwork.
Had Police work always been this boring? Gene questioned, or had he been too wrapped up in being important to notice.
It was true that most of the time he wasn't kicking in nonces or other such shady jobs of the work he'd be telling Chris not to be a div or having in kip in his office…
"Fancy a pint?" Sam asked Gene, making him start. Gene looked at the clock,
"Five at last!" Gene exclaimed and Sam rolled his eyes.
"So...?" Sam pressed. Gene didn't need asking twice. It had been the first sensible or logical thing he'd been asked since he'd got there.
"What'll it be Pet?" The girl behind the bar of The railway arms asked, she had a distinctly Northern accent, Newcastle he guessed.
"Diet coke for me Nicola, and?" Sam said turning to Gene.
"Whiskey, large." Gene said as Nicola began to sort out Sam's drink.
"What's a nice skirt like you doing in a place like this?" Gene asked as Sam moved away, nodding towards the crowd of half-cut plods.
"Waiting for my student loan, Chemistry degree." Nicola said, ignoring the sexist remark, and Gene smiled.
"I 'ad a nephew who took that, odd lad." Gene mussed and Nicola smiled at Gene's sideways anecdote.
"A tell ya, I could tell you every chemical in that," She nodded at Gene's drink, "But I wouldn't be able to tell you why it does that." She said nodding towards the rabble of drinkers, just about drunk enough to crash a car, sitting behind Gene.
"One of life's great mysteries." Gene said, smiling.
"I 'aven't seen you around before. You new?" Nicola asked and Gene nodded.
"DCI- no, DI Gene Hunt." Gene said offering his free hand across the bar.
"You sound like a man who doesn't know who he is." Nicola commented, accent gone.
"Maybe I don't." Gene mused, not meaning to say it out loud.
"Well, I tell you something Inspector, I dunno who you are, but you seem ok to me." Nicola said and Gene half smiled.
Oh if only she knew.
"I'll ask again!" Gene said throwing a punch at the suspect's face, the dust in Lost and Found swirling around his hand in a flurry.
"A told ya, I was at home, all night. I've got a wife, a kid!" The man screamed, blinded by pain.
"Far cry from your last answer!" Gene said, "Glad to get the truth!" He finished before punching the man in the stomach making the suspect double in pain.
One of his less shining and chivalrous moments by far.
"Maybe it should stay that way. Most people don't like my work face." Gene said and surprisingly Nicola laughed.
"I'm sure they don't!" She said through giggles, "But the job ain't who you are."
Gene sat in silence.
For now, what else did he have but the job?
Thank you for reading this chapter. Hope you liked it. If you did, let me know, if you didn't, tell me what was wrong! All comments gladly accepted.
Still to come on The Gene Genie, some explanations are needed and a new case teaches Gene a thing or two about policing…