by Graham, Tom
He strode to the staircase and bounded up it two steps at a time. Sam raced up after him, his nervous system tight and jangling, alert for any hint of the man in the balaclava.
On the first-floor landing they found empty corridors and silent offices. Gene edged forward, past desks cluttered with bulky typewriters and heaped in-trays of paperwork. He slipped past a set of pneumatic tubes for the ferrying of internal mail and tucked himself against a row of metal filing cabinets. He tilted his head and tasted the air like a jungle cat, his eyes narrowing, his gloved finger tensing on the steel trigger of the Magnum. Then, without warning, he rushed on up the staircase, making barely a sound in his tasselled loafers.
By the time Sam caught up with him on the second floor, his heart was hammering in his chest. He found Gene striding about boldly, peering into offices, sticking his nose round doors, swinging the Magnum in all directions as if it were an extension of his body.
Something moved, and Sam and Gene both reacted instantly. They spun round, aiming their weapons along the length of the corridor, just as Balaclava Man appeared, round-lensed glasses glinting blankly, his assault rifle raised military-style with its stock nestling high against his shoulder.
‘Freeze! Police!’ yelled Sam, years of police training kicking in automatically.
Gunfire raked the walls. Gene answered with a shot powerful enough to punch a hole the size of a dinner plate through a door panel. A second shot flung what was left of the door entirely off its hinges. Balaclava Man vanished from sight.
‘I said no warnings, Tyler,’ Gene snarled.
‘We’re coppers,’ Sam spat back. ‘This is no time to start playing Charles flamin’ Bronson.’
Gene slammed fresh rounds into the hot breech of the Magnum in a way that suggested that he thought otherwise, then strode briskly through the drifting layers of blue gun smoke. He kicked away the shattered remains of the door, smacked the gun barrel back into the housing and took aim – but the room was empty.
‘The four-eyed Murphy’s legged it,’ he whispered back at Sam. ‘Head through them offices and try and cut him off. I’ll go after him this way.’
‘Guv, I don’t think splitting up is such a g—’
‘For Christ’s sake, Tyler, do you want to play cops and robbers or not?
And, with that, Gene was gone, striding off in pursuit of his quarry.
‘Damn you, Hunt!’ hissed Sam, dashing back along the corridor and through a series of empty offices, trying to keep his bearings as to where Gene and Balaclava Man might be.
Silently, he slipped into a long, drab office and saw the shattered window from which the gunman had first opened fire on them. On the floor, he saw a splattered line of blood leading across the room. But, as he followed it, Sam saw that it wasn’t blood at all but paint – thick, shiny, blood-red paint. The trail led to a far wall, where the crude image of a hand had been daubed, the palm outwards, the fingers spread. The letters ‘RHF’ were sloppily scrawled beneath it.
We’re meant to see this, thought Sam. That’s why he lured us in here. He wanted us to see this emblem. But what the hell does it mean? What the hell is the RHF? Is it some IRA splinter group?
Whatever the truth was, now was not the time to start puzzling it out. Sam heard the harsh clatter of the assault rifle, and the shuddering, cannon-like reply of the Magnum. A door crashed open, and Sam dropped behind a desk, aiming his pistol and preparing to fire. But his trigger finger relaxed at the sight of Gene lumbering into sight, Magnum raised.
‘Where’d he go? Sam, where the hell did he go?’
Gene glared all about him, anger rising like bile at the realization that he had been cheated of his quarry, that Balaclava Man had given him the slip.
‘Bastard!’ he spat, and punched a Britt Ekland calendar off the wall.
Sam stood up from the desk and fished out his police radio. ‘Ray? Are you reading me? The gunman’s got away from us – my guess is he’ll try to make a break for it. Keep the entire building cordoned off. Seal off every street. Set up a “ring of steel”. I don’t want so much as a cockroach being able to make it out of here without being picked up, you got that? … Ray? Ray, are you there? Speak to me, Ray!’
‘I’m here, boss,’ came Ray’s voice at last.
‘Did you hear what I just said?’ asked Sam.
‘Um … Kind of,’ muttered Ray. ‘I weren’t really listening.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because I’m … sort of … looking at Chris.’
‘And what’s Chris doing?’
‘Sitting on a bomb. As in, right on it. Right on it, boss. With his arse.’
Sam and Gene exchanged a blank look, then Gene grabbed the radio.
‘Speak, Raymondo – and this time, start making some chuffing sense.’
They found Ray down on the ground floor, hovering about in a corridor and anxiously chewing his Juicy Fruits.
‘We thought you might need a spot of backup,’ he said, ‘so we followed you in here. And then Chris got nervous – said he needed the khazi …’
‘The khazi? You mean this one here?’ asked Gene. Ray nodded. Gene said, ‘It’s the ladies.’
‘I know. I think he found the idea … exciting.’
Sam opened the door and went in. Chris was in one of the cubicles, sitting on the toilet seat, staring at him with a face sweaty and bloodless from terror. His bare knees were shaking.
Gene pushed his way in, loomed over Chris, and, after a few silent moments said flatly, ‘Explain.’
‘I got caught short,’ Chris stammered. ‘All this running about, it went to me guts. So I came in here for a … you know.’
‘Get on with it.’
‘I’d just sat down, Guv – I didn’t even get a chance to start ’coz, like, I suddenly realized …’
He looked down. So did everyone else. There were wires visible just under the rim of the toilet seat, one black and one red, running away into the bowl.
‘I heard a click,’ said Chris, ‘and then I saw the wires, and that’s when I knew …’
‘Looks like we’ve found our explosive device, folks,’ said Gene. ‘Chris – I never want to have say these words to you ever again, but open your legs for me, nice and slowly.’
Shaking and sweating, Chris nervously obliged. Gene peered into the toilet bowl.
‘What can you see down there, Guv?’ asked Ray.
‘Shipyard confetti,’ Gene replied.
‘That ain’t true, Guv,’ whined Chris. ‘I haven’t dropped anything yet, I’ve kept it all in.’
‘That’s not a euphemism, you pillock – that’s the kind of bomb you’re sitting on,’ said Gene. ‘There’s a wad of explosives down there the size of a house brick; it’s been packed with nails and metal splinters and ball bearings – a little concoction the IRA call “shipyard confetti”. You’ve primed the detonator by plonking your cheeks on the seat, Chris.’
‘Oh my God! Get me out of here, Guv! Please!’
‘You’ll just have to wait for Bomb Disposal,’ said Gene. ‘If you try to stand up you’ll trigger the mechanism and next thing you know you’ll get half a ton of metalwork shooting right up your Fray Bentos.’
‘I really needed to go when I came in here,’ grizzled Chris, ‘and now I really, really need to go, like, urgent, like.’
‘Shit on it, you might defuse it,’ said Gene. ‘Ray, stop standing about like a spare prannet and get this place sealed off. Our gunman’s probably a mile away by now but have the whole area shut down just in case.’
‘Will do, Guv.’
‘And get onto those lazy sods at Bomb Disposal and tell ’em to get their arses down here double pronto!’ Gene called after Ray as he hurried away. ‘I do not intend to lose one of my officers today, even if it is just this dopey doughnut.’
‘Sit tight, Chris,’ said Sam. ‘You’ll be okay as long as you don’t move.’
‘You’re not going to leave me here, are you?’ Chris cried.
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‘And give up spending time with you in the ladies’ bogs?’ asked Gene. ‘After all the years I’ve dreamt of this moment?’
‘We’ll stay with you, Chris, don’t worry,’ said Sam, patting Chris’s shoulder. ‘Gene, I don’t get it. This doesn’t feel like the IRA.’
‘It bloody does to me,’ put in Chris.
‘Not their usual way of operating, I’ll grant you that,’ said Gene.
‘We’ve been lured in here on purpose,’ said Sam. ‘This booby trap here, it’s meant to make a point. And that gunman, he wanted us to see what I found upstairs – a red hand, Gene, painted on the wall, and the letters RHF. Mean anything to you?’
‘Sam, as your superior officer, may I suggest that we discuss the finer details of this situation at a more conducive moment? Right now, I’m more worried about the ruddy great bomb primed to explode under our colleague’s rear quarters.’
‘Don’t keep mentioning it,’ Chris wailed.
‘Hard not to, Christopher, it does rather dominate.’
Chris buried his face in his hands and started to rock backwards and forwards.
‘Chris, sit still,’ said Sam. ‘You’re safe as long as you don’t move.’
Peering at the two visible wires, Gene mused, ‘Red wire … black wire …’
‘Don’t even think about it, Gene,’ said Sam.
‘It’s fifty–fifty. Worth a punt, you reckon?’
‘Leave it to Bomb Disposal. That’s what they do.’
‘Bomb Disposal!’ Gene scoffed. ‘If them nobbers can defuse one of these things then how hard can it be?’
‘Gene, don’t start tampering. I mean it.’
‘I can’t stay here,’ Chris was moaning into his hands.
‘Keep calm, Chris,’ said Sam, trying to sound calm himself. Gene was eenie-meenie-miney-mowing between the red wire and the black one.
‘I don’t want to die like this,’ Chris cried.
‘Nobody’s going to die, Chris! Gene, leave them bloody wires! Chris, keep still!’
But panic was starting to set in. Chris was shaking, rocking, staring out through his fingers with wild eyes. Sam planted his hands on Chris’s shoulders to keep him where he was, but that just seemed to make things worse, as Chris howled that he was too young to die and began fighting to get out. He clawed at Sam and shoved him away, leaping up from the seat and instantly tripping over the trousers that were coiled around his ankles.
Sam heard himself cry out, ‘Chris, no!’ and instinctively threw himself backwards, covering his face with his arms, bracing his body for the shattering impact of the explosion, the agony of a thousand nails ripping into his flesh at high speed.
But no explosion came. There was just silence, and the sound of Chris stumbling and tripping frantically away along the corridor outside.
Lowering his arms, Sam found himself looking up at Gene, who was holding the snapped end of the red wire in his gloved hand.
‘If only I had the same luck with the gee-gees,’ Gene said.
CHAPTER THREE
A NIGHT AT THE ARMS
‘Bombs, bullets, and bogs that go bang in the night,’ intoned Gene. ‘It’s a tough ol’ world out there. But somehow, ladies, we’ve made it through another day. Time to get hammered.’
No arguments there.
Gene, Sam, Ray and Chris bundled out of the hard Manchester night and in through the swing doors of the Railway Arms. The moment he crossed the threshold, Sam felt the familiar warmth and stink of the place enclosing him, reassuring him, like a boozy, nicotine-saturated placenta. The cold, grey world outside was held firmly at bay. He glanced about at the crumpled dog ends smouldering in the heaped ashtrays, filling the air with the rich and manly incense of Senior Service, Embassy Gold, Player’s No. 6. The bar glittered with its array of welcoming poisons – the friendly faces of Courage, Whitbread and Flowers on draught; the rich, dusky promise of Guinness, Mackeson and Watney’s Cream Label; and there, primping and preening in that foul hinterland of pissy lagers, stood the shameless nonce drinks, off-limits to real men: Harp and Skol and the androgynous abomination of Double Diamond. All the world seemed to be contained in that wondrous selection of kegs and bottles.
And, stationed as ever behind the bar, like a skipper at the helm of his ship, was Nelson, all gleaming teeth and proud dreadlocks and overflowing Jamaican charm. He looked up as Gene, Sam, Ray and Chris bundled noisily into his pub, and, like an actor on cue, he immediately fell into his regular routine. He grinned like a big, black Cheshire cat, planted his heavily bejewelled hands in readiness on the beer pumps, and sang out, ‘Well, here dey are again, da boys in blue. You must really love dis place.’
‘Home from home,’ growled Gene, planting himself at the bar. ‘You got four horribly sober coppers on your premises, Nelson. Remedy the situation – pronto.’
‘Sober coppers?’ said Nelson from behind the bar, rubbing his chin and raising his eyes in a mime of deep thinking. ‘Sober coppers? Now dare’s a thought.’
Ray lounged casually beside Gene, fishing an untipped Woodbine from behind his ear and sparking it up. Chris hovered uncertainly nearby, still quiet and withdrawn after his morning of undignified trouserless adventures.
But Sam felt distant. He had no heart for drinking with the boys tonight, not even after the deadly events of that morning. Cheating death had pumped Gene and Ray up nicely, leaving them feeling indestructible, like a couple of fag-stained Mancunian James Bonds. Chris had been badly shaken up, but was stronger and more resilient than even he himself believed, and would soon be back to his usual youthful self. But for Sam, the whole business with the shootout and the bomb had heightened his sense of vulnerability. It had stirred up deep and yet nameless feelings that he could not share with the boys. Annie was the one who would understand him. And, if she didn’t understand, then she would at least listen to him without constantly interrupting and taking the piss.
He had tried to make his excuses and avoid coming out with the lads tonight, but his presence at the Railway Arms this evening had proved to be non-negotiable. In the end, it was easier just to give in than keep arguing.
‘You go ahead and join them for a drink, Sam,’ Annie had told him, leaning across his desk in CID. ‘I’ll drop by the Arms later, once you boys have wetted your whistles.’
The sudden close proximity to her had made Sam’s heart turn over. She was fetchingly turned out in a salmon-pink waistcoat neatly buttoned over a cream turtleneck sweater; nothing showy, nothing sexy – practical work clothes for a day at CID – and yet somehow all the more alluring for their ordinariness.
‘But I want to talk to you, Annie,’ Sam had said.
‘Then talk to me.’
She subtly flicked her chestnut hair and the abundant curls above her shoulders bounced gracefully. Sam swallowed.
‘I can’t talk here,’ he said.
‘Okay. We’ll talk later, at the pub.’
‘At the pub? With Gene and Ray looking over our shoulders? And Chris banging on about his near-death experience in the toilet?’
‘I see what you mean.’
‘We need some real time, Annie. You-and-me time.’
‘Then we’ll make time, Sam – one way or another.’
At that moment, Annie had looked up at him with such a sweet and serious expression that Sam had felt the sudden reckless compulsion to lean forward and kiss her. And, if the boys in the department shrieked and wolf-whistled like a pack of adolescent schoolboys, so what?
But his nerve failed him and he hesitated. By then the moment had passed and Annie had turned and headed back to her desk, the opportunity – as ever – lost. As she walked away from him, Sam had felt that same pang of loss he always experienced when she was away from him. To be apart from her was far harder than being apart from the world he’d once come from – the yet-to-be world of 2006 that existed only in his memory, the world he had striven so painfully to return to, believing it to be home, only to find when he got b
ack there that it was a foreign country, devoid of feeling and vitality, a place without meaning, without colour, without life. The shoddy, backward, nicotine-stained world of 1973, for all its faults and flaws, was at least alive – and, what was more, it had Annie in it, the bright, steady light at the centre of his strange and dislocated life.
But, even so, something was troubling him. It was a feeling he could not put into words, a vague but persistent sense that something was calling to him, summoning him, urging him to move on. It continually preyed on his mind. In the thick of his police work he could forget all about it, focus solely on his job – but the moment he glimpsed Annie the feeling would return.
And now, in the aftermath of their brush with death, those same feelings had returned with a vengeance. Here in the smoky confines of the Railway Arms, with Nelson grinning knowingly at him from behind the bar, he felt that sense of longing deep within him, a feeling like homesickness, or nostalgia, but at the same time unlike them. Indescribable. Unfathomable.
Sam’s reverie was shattered as Nelson slammed down four pints of bitter.
‘Here ya go, gentlemen,’ he grinned. ‘That’ll put hair on ya chest.’
‘Hear that, boys?’ said Gene, lifting his pint. ‘I’ll make a man of you all yet.’
‘Not if you get us shot first,’ Sam said, looking wearily into the froth of his beer. ‘You’re a liability, Guv, the way you carry on.’
‘Oh, do put a sock in it, Samuel. If I’d listened to you this morning, we’d all still be sitting around waiting for Bomb Disposal to show their faces.’
‘You’re not the sheriff of Dodge City, Guv. You can’t just go running in, blazing away, whenever you feel like it.’
Gene glugged his pint, licked away a beer moustache, thought for a moment, and said, ‘Actually, Sam – I can.’
‘No, you can’t. Running around like Clint Eastwood puts everyone in danger. You’ve got a duty of care to fellow officers as well as the public.’
‘I sometimes wonder why you got into this job, boss,’ Ray put in, halfway through his pint already. ‘It’s almost like you don’t enjoy it.’