The next day, Dan could not keep his mind in his work, leaving his team to complete the majority of the basic paperwork required after a case; that the case was about Woodall's abduction and subsequent death made it even more difficult to concentrate, as Dan kept replaying the last moments of Scott's life in his mind. Instead, and to keep his currently fragile emotions about the case down to a minimum, he immersed himself in thoughts about Jim Keats.
The man was clearly deranged and, if those last chilling words were anything to go by; he was willing to do anything to get to Dan, which unnerved him extremely. However, this was also where he found himself at a bit of a loss; that this man wanted him was clear, but for what was a different matter. Dan felt as though he hadn't done much at all since his arrival just over a fortnight ago, although it felt like a lot longer to him. This was what puzzled him about Keats: how could he know so much about him, or was it just a bigheaded claim?
Dan knew he would have much preferred it if it was just a claim, but there was definitely something suspicious about Keats: the devilish glint in his eye, his strange mannerisms and his seemingly unfaltering knowledge made Dan sure that he wasn't calling his bluff.
But that still begged the question of why... And how? Why did this man want to work with Dan? And how did he know so much about him if he'd only been here for such a small amount of time? That led to the final, most important question whizzing around Dan's brain: who was the mysterious Jim Keats?
After clocking off earlier than he normally would do, considering he often stayed late to finish up some paperwork that the rest of the team had overlooked, Dan made his way out of the station via the back entrance, in the hope of taking a different route home so that he could avoid the street on which he'd met Keats the night before.
As he turned to bolt the metal door behind him, he heard the chilling voice of Jim Keats say, somewhere close by, "Perhaps we should take a walk you and me, we didn't get time yesterday to talk properly."
Dan whirled around to face him, noticing his trench-coated figure hunched by the flight of stairs that lead to the roof. He deliberately placed one foot on the lowest step: his meaning was not lost on Dan.
"No way am I going up there with you!" he exclaimed, eyeing up the man of his nightmares distrustfully. "How do I know you're not just going to throw me off?"
"You can trust me Dan," Keats sneered maliciously, although to someone else it might look as though he was smiling. "Besides, that's not my decision to make..."
Dan considered his next move carefully, no matter how distrustful he was of this man, he still found him intriguing. He seemed the complete opposite of Gene Hunt: with Gene, what you got was what you got, everything he was and everything he believed in appeared to be on the surface, forever on show. You knew where you stood with Gene, good or bad, and he made sure you knew it. Keats on the other hand was a lot more complicated. His thoughts were hidden, his true nature buried so that you didn't know where you stood. His intentions were disguised and his words were intriguing, leaving you to make a decision that, either way, could only be blamed on you. Dan knew that he was either trustworthy or underhand, never in the middle, and there was only one way to find out which, and therefore finally answer the questions that had been bugging him for so long.
Dan had never been on the roof of CID before, despite wondering what the view must have been like. He was so used to the '2010 view' as he called it, that he had steered clear of observing the city in the 80s. Now he was up here, Dan missed the familiar buildings such as the 'Gherkin' and the HSBC Tower, although the BT tower was a familiar and reassuring presence.
"It's beautiful isn't it?" Keats murmured, his eyes flashing dangerously as he beheld the holy city.
Dan followed his line of sight, sweeping his gaze across the sea of skyscrapers, before nodding, mesmerised by the differences between this and his beloved London, the one he remembered.
"It's a shame it's not real isn't it?" Keats mused, his eyes still focused on the buildings before them before momentarily flicking his penetrating stare to Dan's face to observe his expression.
Having been slow to look at his face, Keats missed the flash of confusion pass across Dan's face.
"It seems pretty real to me," he remarked, aiming to seem cool and collected on the outside so that Keats couldn't detect the apprehension and confusion raging on the inside.
"The imagination has an uncanny ability to create locations in the most vivid detail."
"Hmm," mused Dan. "Clever that it can recreate the late 80s though isn't it? I mean, it's distinctly 80s, down to every last shop on the high street."
"You were alive in the 80s," Keats tried. "Your subconscious has pieced together the bits you remember to make it feel like the 80s, a comfortable memory for you to reside in until you've recovered enough to return to the real world."
"How the hell do you know that I'm not in the real world?" Dan exclaimed, forgetting to be secretive about the truth of his appearance here.
"I know everything about you Dan, I told you that," Keats whispered menacingly, although Dan could tell that he thought he was speaking in a reassuring way. "I can help you get back there Dan, if you'll trust me... I can get you back so you can get Malone, I can get you back to Emily, to your stapler..."
Dan thought about this very seriously: his wish to see Malone nicked was extremely large and overpowering, but he felt an overwhelming sense of loyalty to this place, the people that had accepted him without a second thought and, if he was admitting the truth, to Gene. Dan knew, in his heart, that he could not have survived Malone's attack, that the 'real world' no longer existed to him.
"You can't get me back," he said eventually, shaking his head. "I couldn't have survived that attack."
"You did Dan," Keats urged, almost ferociously, and Dan felt the hairs on the back of neck stand up again, warning him against this feral man. "This place isn't real. If you jumped off this very building you wouldn't die Dan, you'd wake up in a hospital bed in 2010."
The promise was a great one, and Dan knew what he risked by carrying through with it. Slowly, he made his way over to the ledge, the flight of stairs positioned directly behind him. He shifted so that his toes peeped out over the edge. He spoke, his back turned to Keats but his face craning round to speak directly to him;
"So you're saying that if I jump, I won't die, right? I'll just wake up in 2010, my world, the one I should be in?" Keats nodded sensing he was about to jump. "What if I don't want to go back? What if I want to stay here? Okay, I logically should be back there, I shouldn't be in 1988, but I logically can't be back there can I? I couldn't have survived."
"You did Dan, I promise you," Keats urged desperately, sensing the man's resolve weakening.
Dan simply shook his head, stepping safely back onto the roof. "And anyway, I don't want to go back," he said beginning to walk back down the steps, Keats following menacingly. "I'm happy here."
This man will never give up, Dan decided as, yet again, he turned to face the figure of his nightmares.
After pelting down the metal steps, desperately getting away from the roof, Dan had attempted to get as far away from Keats as was physically possible; heading down a side street that lead out onto Wynn Drive and then down an alley so he could double back and head north instead.
Dan had been pretty sure he'd lost his mysterious stalker somewhere along the way: the alley would have provided an echo of the footsteps as Keats followed him down it, but there had been no noise. It was oddly quiet.
He paced down the alley running parallel to CID and came up short. Dan's eyes narrowed imperceptibly as he faced Keats, who stepped out of the darkness. The street light half-covered his face so that shadows remained flickering around his hooded eyes, still holding that malicious twinkle, and his mouth was twisted into an evil smile.
"You can't run away from me Dan," he called hauntingly.
Dan released a breath he didn't know he'd even been holding, summoning up the last of his courage, the last of his belief that he could rid of this man. Dan was positive now, having finally faced this man in reality, that his previous suspicions were right. He trusted his gut instinct; he always had, even if, admittedly, that had sometimes led him into trouble. Fatal trouble he acknowledged with a grim smile. But he'd been given the opportunity to repair that, somehow, the opportunity to continue doing what he was best at: catching the scum, and he'd keep doing that in whatever way he could.
"I think you've provided enough evidence to argue your case there," Dan remarked dryly.
"I'll continue until you realise the truth Dan."
He sighed. "The truth, that's what it always comes down to in this world! Everyone uses that against me. Why doesn't someone, for God's sake, just tell me what's going on? Tell me the truth! I'm a big boy, I can take it... I'm not a five-old child anymore: clutching my teddy as though it's the only thing that can save me from the hardships of the world! I've dealt with shit that most people can only dream of! So for heaven's sake, just tell me what's going on. Surprise me!"
Shaking with the force of his rant, Dan stared straight into the dark, glinting eyes that bored into his skull. "What do you want with me?" he sighed, defeated.
"Join me Dan," Keats whispered, his voice laden with promise. "I can help you discover the truth, if that's what you want... It's what you deserve."
Dan turned away slightly, his head reeling with the offer.
"Gene Hunt can't offer you that," Keats called out. "He guards the truth more forcefully than he guards his officers. Poor Woodall. If his superior wasn't blinded by a deep-rooted hatred of homosexuals, you never know, he might have survived..."
"You have no right to say that!" Dan exclaimed angrily, whirling around to face Keats, his fists clenched. "Gene did everything he could to help find Scott! No-one in our office is to blame."
Keats smirked. "How long did it take to find him again? Ah yes, nearly a week. If it was my department it wouldn't take more than two days... And you can't say that Gene wasn't to blame for his death either, I heard he charged in, all guns blazing; he should have tried to talk him out of it first, appealed to his better nature. But that's not like Gene is it? He can't change, and that's a sure way to lead to the deaths of more of his officers... You're a bright man Dan; don't let yourself become the next casualty."
Dan turned away from Keats again, his words ringing in his ears. He knew the choice he faced was a simple one; choose Keats or choose Gene.
"If I die in the line of duty, doing what I was born to do, then so be it. My only regret about death is not being around long enough to know what it feels like..." he trailed off, realising the pun in his words, as the back of his neck throbbed with the memory. "And I know Gene can't change but I don't want him to. In this world, all I need is a constant. Someone, or something, that doesn't change, is exactly who, or what, their supposed to be. That's Gene."
Keats narrowed his eyes dangerously, stepping forwards slightly. "Join me Dan, and discover a world of constants. I have everything you could ever want."
He sighed, "Look, I can't decide why you're doing this... Temptations don't work on me; I have everything I could want, everything I need! I don't need you Keats, I don't trust you. I'm with Gene."
At those final three words, a figure stepped from the shadows behind Dan, facing Keats. His face shone with triumph.
"Well there you go Jimbo; he said it, so bugger off back where you came from. You failed."
"Hunt," Keats snarled, his face twisting in rage. He turned to Dan, "You'll only ever be spending your life as his lapdog Dan, you better get used to it..."
"I'll look forward to it," Dan commented dryly, watching as Keats snarled, his face contorted in anger. Just before he slipped back into the shadows of the alley, he whispered his parting words: "I'm not finished with you Hartley... One day we'll meet again."
With that he disappeared into the darkness, departing until an opportune time.
Dan turned to face Gene, slightly sheepishly. "You heard everything right?"
Gene nodded. "Everything that slime ball said, he's used at least once already, he could do with getting some more original material."
Dan grinned. "Yeah, it sounded a bit rehearsed. I would have said he practises to his mirror daily, but by the looks of him, he doesn't own one."
He smiled at Gene as they shared a laugh, but sobered up again pretty quickly. "I meant what I said you know, about everything."
"I know," Gene acknowledged gruffly. "But we're in danger of getting soppy here so shut up and get home."
"You're driving," Dan grinned nodding towards the Merc parked further down the road.
"I should bloody 'ope so," Gene smirked. "Come on then Rover."
"No way are you calling me that!" Dan spluttered with laughter. "And nor am I wearing a dog collar!"