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[oom] 3x04 Tape Recorded Notes
"Everything has a pattern and a pattern to everything. Find the connections. Find a way out of this."
[ tape begins ]
It's happening again. It as if someone was listening to my thoughts, and playing them back to me, just like before. In the very same way, it happens. Some addict, a young man worn thin by heroin, almost invisible in his grubby grey shirt and muddy pavement brown pants, he waits until the Guv is out of sight, and then whispers to me.
("You belong 'ere.")
His voice had this odd singsong quality to it, like a broken toy winding down.
("You look like you're visitin' but you're not, are ya? You're stayin'.")
Molly, it was the strangest feeling. As if he was speaking directly to me.
And the ghost. I saw him, not half an hour ago, standing in the hall at the bottom the stairs, staring at me across Luigi's. And I saw him in the flat, last night. I dreamt I heard a murder of crows, and the wind. I felt the cold damp air, and when I opened my eyes, he was standing over me. Silently asking for my help.
And I want to help, but it's impossible. I don't even know who he is. I can't see a warrant card, or any identifying features. I can't even really place when or where his uniform is from. I know it's not the Met's, and I know it's not current issue.
Oh, the other thing I wanted to record. The dream I had, while I was lying on the kitchen floor, knocked out by chloroform. It was the most vivid, terrifying experience I've had in awhile. It felt so real.
[ long silence, before she continues speaking, slowly ]
In the dream, I'm -- I'm lying on a flat surface. Soft, but cold. My eyes are closed, but I can feel that there's a light. A pale, artificial light, not at like the sunlight. I try to take a breath, but I'm -- I can't. I'm not breathing. I'm not moving. I try to push myself up -- from some great distance. I push with all my strength, and I gasp for a breath, and I open my eyes....
I'm inside a coffin, trapped. I can feel the lid above me. I can't hear anything but this crushing silence all around me. And then, I hear his voice.
[ quiet laughter tinged with tears ]
It's always his voice, isn't it? Waking me up from my nightmares. Battering me about the head and shoulders. Loud and angry, like he could shake the sky down just by shouting at it.
I hear his voice, distorted and distant, like I'm underwater or down a well. I hear him calling me and something else. There's something heavy and wet, hitting the lid of the coffin. It's dirt, shovelfuls of dirt. They're shoveling dirt into the grave and I'm awake, I'm not dead, I can't be. I pound against the lid, but no one can hear me. They're burying me alive.
And he's shouting for me. He needs me. I can't go, he needs me.
[deep breath]
I came to with a scream dying on my lips. Gene was over me [laughter, nervous] almost as if he was trying to resuscitate me, looking so baffled. I think I scared him more than I scared myself. Honestly.
[ pause, the sound of a wine glass being refilled ]
Anyway, whatever they'd drugged me with, it gave me a terrible headache. And the dream, well, I've come to the conclusion that it was simply another way my subconscious is trying to frighten me away from the truth.
But I can see it now. Dim outlines of it, at least. The struggle between the two of them, between him and -- Keats....
[ her voice trails off. ]
I don't understand what it is between the two of them. I mean, I get the genuine sense that Jim wants to help. His methods, his whole approach, runs contrary to the culture at Fenchurch East, but he does mean well. He's driven, yes, just like Gene. But he's also not afraid to show compassion. He just feels more like my contemporary, as if he's from 2008 and not 1983.
And he has a better grasp of Gene's history than I do. I can't dispute that simple fact. Any question I ask these days is met with a cold, stony silence, or worse, childish insults, and the admonition that I just need to 'trust him'. Like the situation is far too complicated for me to understand, and him explaining it would be a waste of breath.
But he wasn't the one that held DC Gardner's head while she lay bleeding on the ground. Keats did that. We all knew how she'd ended up there, but it was hard for any of us to feel like she'd deserved that fate. She was a copper, just like Chris or Ray or me...
In the long run, she would have made a perfect case for my book. If she'd asked for help, if she'd refused to cross that line, she could have been saved. But she didn't, and for reasons understood only to her, she felt like she couldn't save herself.
[ pause ]
I wonder if Sam tried to save himself. I wonder if that's why Gene won't talk about it. If his best friend found a way out, and he felt as if Sam deserted him here.
Keats seems to think there's something more to the story, but I want to see the evidence. I want to know the truth. Speculating doesn't do anyone any good. I need answers.
Answers are the only hope I have of ever finding my way back to you.
[ tape begins ]
It's happening again. It as if someone was listening to my thoughts, and playing them back to me, just like before. In the very same way, it happens. Some addict, a young man worn thin by heroin, almost invisible in his grubby grey shirt and muddy pavement brown pants, he waits until the Guv is out of sight, and then whispers to me.
("You belong 'ere.")
His voice had this odd singsong quality to it, like a broken toy winding down.
("You look like you're visitin' but you're not, are ya? You're stayin'.")
Molly, it was the strangest feeling. As if he was speaking directly to me.
And the ghost. I saw him, not half an hour ago, standing in the hall at the bottom the stairs, staring at me across Luigi's. And I saw him in the flat, last night. I dreamt I heard a murder of crows, and the wind. I felt the cold damp air, and when I opened my eyes, he was standing over me. Silently asking for my help.
And I want to help, but it's impossible. I don't even know who he is. I can't see a warrant card, or any identifying features. I can't even really place when or where his uniform is from. I know it's not the Met's, and I know it's not current issue.
Oh, the other thing I wanted to record. The dream I had, while I was lying on the kitchen floor, knocked out by chloroform. It was the most vivid, terrifying experience I've had in awhile. It felt so real.
[ long silence, before she continues speaking, slowly ]
In the dream, I'm -- I'm lying on a flat surface. Soft, but cold. My eyes are closed, but I can feel that there's a light. A pale, artificial light, not at like the sunlight. I try to take a breath, but I'm -- I can't. I'm not breathing. I'm not moving. I try to push myself up -- from some great distance. I push with all my strength, and I gasp for a breath, and I open my eyes....
I'm inside a coffin, trapped. I can feel the lid above me. I can't hear anything but this crushing silence all around me. And then, I hear his voice.
[ quiet laughter tinged with tears ]
It's always his voice, isn't it? Waking me up from my nightmares. Battering me about the head and shoulders. Loud and angry, like he could shake the sky down just by shouting at it.
I hear his voice, distorted and distant, like I'm underwater or down a well. I hear him calling me and something else. There's something heavy and wet, hitting the lid of the coffin. It's dirt, shovelfuls of dirt. They're shoveling dirt into the grave and I'm awake, I'm not dead, I can't be. I pound against the lid, but no one can hear me. They're burying me alive.
And he's shouting for me. He needs me. I can't go, he needs me.
[deep breath]
I came to with a scream dying on my lips. Gene was over me [laughter, nervous] almost as if he was trying to resuscitate me, looking so baffled. I think I scared him more than I scared myself. Honestly.
[ pause, the sound of a wine glass being refilled ]
Anyway, whatever they'd drugged me with, it gave me a terrible headache. And the dream, well, I've come to the conclusion that it was simply another way my subconscious is trying to frighten me away from the truth.
But I can see it now. Dim outlines of it, at least. The struggle between the two of them, between him and -- Keats....
[ her voice trails off. ]
I don't understand what it is between the two of them. I mean, I get the genuine sense that Jim wants to help. His methods, his whole approach, runs contrary to the culture at Fenchurch East, but he does mean well. He's driven, yes, just like Gene. But he's also not afraid to show compassion. He just feels more like my contemporary, as if he's from 2008 and not 1983.
And he has a better grasp of Gene's history than I do. I can't dispute that simple fact. Any question I ask these days is met with a cold, stony silence, or worse, childish insults, and the admonition that I just need to 'trust him'. Like the situation is far too complicated for me to understand, and him explaining it would be a waste of breath.
But he wasn't the one that held DC Gardner's head while she lay bleeding on the ground. Keats did that. We all knew how she'd ended up there, but it was hard for any of us to feel like she'd deserved that fate. She was a copper, just like Chris or Ray or me...
In the long run, she would have made a perfect case for my book. If she'd asked for help, if she'd refused to cross that line, she could have been saved. But she didn't, and for reasons understood only to her, she felt like she couldn't save herself.
[ pause ]
I wonder if Sam tried to save himself. I wonder if that's why Gene won't talk about it. If his best friend found a way out, and he felt as if Sam deserted him here.
Keats seems to think there's something more to the story, but I want to see the evidence. I want to know the truth. Speculating doesn't do anyone any good. I need answers.
Answers are the only hope I have of ever finding my way back to you.