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[oom] 1x07 The Man With The Child In His Eyes
The voice was perfectly clear in her head. As if he was standing in the room with her.
"Something dreadful is going to happen. I'm going to take someone."
Water dripped from the ceiling and she stood over the table, watching the white sheet pull back from the corpse on the table.
She'd never seen the face of Pierrot look quite so diabolical, his greasepaint streaked, a slash of red across his mouth, and his finger dipped in blood, drawing a question mark on her calendar.
Through the looking glass, Alex, and into the nightmare, proper.
~
Gil Hollis was an idiot, of that much she was sure. But he seemed a harmless enough idiot, even if he was a terrible witness. She'd suggested in passing to one of the higher ups that a television appeal might bring forth new witnesses, seeing as the information he'd provided was lacking, to say the least.
And it didn't help to have the spectre of dread hanging over her all morning. Some days, the surreal quality of this world was distant, intangible. She lived a normal life, or as normal as could be expected under the circumstances. Today, was not one of those days. The hallucinations today were multi-spectrum, visual, auditory and tactile. She kept hearing water falling, even felt the drops on her cheeks when looked up. She kept hearing Pierrot's voice, taunting her. Which one?
She kept seeing their faces on the morgue slab, cheeks ashen, eyes glassy and sightless. Each of them in turn. Shaz. Viv. Ray. Chris. Her mind skittered away from that vision before it could go too far.
~
As if having full blown hallucinations wasn't enough, to add to the general strangeness of her day, DCI Hunt had caught her in the kitchen for a little chat.
She'd been contemplating just how to take control of this situation, how to put her subconscious mind back on the rail. There was a case to solve. Something that appeared simple and straightforward for once. Mr. Hollis was nationally known for his charity work. He'd spent weeks on end sitting in a portable bathtub raising money for children in Africa, and he'd been robbed at gun point, and then shot and left for dead.
And out of the blue, Gene asked her on a date.
He caught her completely off guard with his question, his eyes fixed on the tips of his boot, shuffling his feet, unable to meet her gaze. Somewhere posh, trout and almonds, just the two of them, unless she didn't want to and then well, basically forget he'd asked.
All of a sudden, she felt like she was sixteen again and just found out that the boy she fancied really fancied her too, and would she please come to the Christmas formal with him?
"I prefer Dover Sole," she heard herself saying, and really did it get anymore surreal than this?
In an instant, the boy was gone and the man appeared before her. "You want sole, I can give you sole."
The moment stretched and broke, and he left, standing a little taller, head held high.
She wondered just what on earth had got into him when he returned.
"Wear something slutty."
Bastard.
~
The day only got stranger from there. She and the Guv had taken Gil Hollis through the crime scene, using some basic memory stimulation techniques. The Guv was right, he was a terrible witness, more wrapped up in reciting the tale of what had happened to him rather than focusing and reliving the experience so that they might provoke an associated memory.
That Mr. Hollis was obsessive compulsive was not making matters any easier, and the Guv's increasing frustration made her feel like a rag being worried between two terriers.
For a moment there, she thought the two were going to come to blows. Mr. Hollis had screamed at the to stop the car, insisting that he had to get out. The compulsion had him standing in the street, touching the billboard, while a crowd of local Ska boys watched, shouting their derision. DCI Hunt roared in the man's face to get his attention, and then asked a couple of pointed questions.
Blunt, but effective. And not a little impressive, she thought.
~
The stood over the map of the re-enactment. "This is where the trail goes as cold as a polar bear's knackers."
"It's an unusual MO. A man and a woman."
Ray shook his head. "Yeah. A bird doin' blags. S'very disturbin'."
Of course, Chris had to render an opinion. "You think she wears heels. Or comfortable shoes?"
"I propose, given your reaction to the gender balance of the gang, that this is their first job."
"What, new kids on the block?" Gene asked.
"Now, that is a good name for a boy band."
Shaz interrupted, handing the Guv a list.
"Chris. Take that. Dodgy second hand car dealers. East 17."
"Oh right, back street boys."
"Yeah, let's get 'em busted."
Alex put her head in her hand. "Oh, god, I'm gonna scream."
~
Hollis continued on with his story about the man and the woman. The only detail he could recall was the woman staring at him from behind the balaclava, staring with dark eyes. And the man raising his hand and shooting.
She was too close to it. She knew it and she had no way to put it into words.
Here was a man who had been shot and lived to come home to his family, to his children.
The dull ache in her chest cracked, releasing that repressed urge, the longing to wrap her arms around Molly and hold her so tight she could barely breathe. God she just wanted to go home.
~
They needed another witness. She convinced the Guv to make another televised appeal.
It did not go well at all.
And it was all her fault.
~
She came back to the squad room to find complete and utter chaos.
The Guv had lost it, responding to the situation in the only way he knew how, by throwing his weight around. And his fists.
The Ska boys, the ones who'd been loitering on the corner when the blag went down, one of them saw Hollis get out of his car and go behind the billboard. The same billboard Hollis had made them stop the car for.
The Guv had Ray take a "statement" from him and demanded that they Hollis back for questioning.
She was too close to it, and for some reasons, she felt that protecting Hollis meant protecting her own sanity. She'd lost all objectivity. She was out of control, and one of them was going to die for it.
~
Hollis picked a woman with dark eyes out of the lineup.
He picked WPC Granger.
In a heartbeat, he'd gone from being victim to suspect, and the Manc Lion responded with more pointless violence.
"Evidence can always be found to back up my instinct!"
Alex knew she couldn't let this get away from her again. It was slipping through her fingers and if she couldn't get it back, someone was going to die.
~
"CID detained people illegally last night. DCI Hunt used physical violence and now he's holding Gil Hollis in custody without caution. Gil has a medical condition. I'm worried he might hurt himself. I've ah... I'm just wondering how to regain control of this investigation. If I don't, I believe somebody's going to die."
"Report Hunt to your superiors. Have him removed." Evan White's response was unequivocal on the matter.
"I don't want to wade in too hard. I feel like such a Judas, and besides, there are still forensic leads to follow. If I carry on with my own sideline investigation--"
"He'll undermine it. Report Hunt. Get your control back. I'm on your side."
~
Caroline Price took over Mr. Hollis's case, and Alex had to stand there while Evan read Hunt the riot act.
She could feel the rage coming off him like the heat off a blast furnace. She couldn't even meet his gaze.
But she knew this was the right thing to do.
Caroline didn't help matters by goading him.
And then the Superintendent suspended him for a week.
~
She watched the hard line of his back through his office window as he threw some things in a box. She followed him out of the office, trying to explain.
"I know you hate me, but I have to do this, all right. It's important. I have to be in control."
"Oh I suppose I'm not. And here was me thinkin' that we're beginnin' to get along a bit."
"Oh. Gene, look I can't tell you everything. Maybe if you had a child then you'd understand."
"How do you know I don't have children?" He shouts back at her.
"What!?"
"Here. You want my job? Have my stuff." He slid the box across the top of the Quattro into her arms.
"Oh no no no no. I am not going down that path!" She slammed the box to the ground, listening to the sound of glass crunching inside. "The righteous anger. Me feeling guilty. You are a fictitious construct bemoaning his fictitious fate. And I'm! Fighting for my life!"
She lost it utterly. Slammed her hands into the hood of the car, screaming at the top of her lungs, and then burying her head in her arms to stifle the sobs that were clawing in the back of her throat. She let out a long breath, and gritted her teeth, trying to come back from that edge.
"I am so tired."
"You know what? We all are, luv," he snarled at her, getting into the car and slamming the door. "Shall we postpone dinner?"
She kicked the Quattro as he drove off, and then kicked the box of his shit, sending papers flying into the street.
~
CID was the last place on earth she wanted to be. She told them to keep him in the loop, even though he was on leave. Even Shaz gave her the eye. And she could hear them laughing uproariously even as she closed the door behind her.
They could never know she was fighting for their lives.
~
Later, Evan came by for drinks.
And he took a run at her.
Strange did not begin to sum up this day.
~
She didn't know why he'd come back by, but she was very glad that he had. He'd spotted the one clue they needed to crack this case open. Real police work! No one had to be pummelled for it, even. Amazing. That it had put one more crack in Hollis's sad story had been a bit hard to swallow, but evidence was evidence.
And the chemical toilet smell clinging to the Garfield toy was the clue they needed to unravel Hollis's story once and for all.
Poor Chris.
~
The Guv had been well-pleased to see they'd cracked it. She followed him up the steps from Luigi's
"We need to charge Hollis."
"You can do that. I'm on leave."
"Are you waiting for a grovelling apology to serve your wounded male ego?"
"If you care to drop to your knees in front of me, I will not object."
And then the bullets started flying.
The next thing she knew, she was flat on her belly with Gene pressed along her back, plaster raining down around their ears.
It was Hollis. He'd gone off the deep end and he was calling the Guv out. Gene wouldn't listen to her. She felt his gloved hand slip through her fingers, and she followed. She couldn't let him die.
No, her words would save him. If he could save her, then she could save him. She was in control. She did talk to him then, as he had the gun trained on Gene. She reached him through the fog of despair. He threw the gun and ran.
And Shaz gave chase on foot.
They caught up to him behind the billboard. Shaz had been stabbed in the gut. Alex fell to her knees by the young woman's side, Chris not far behind. Alex tried to administer first aid. But the wound was bleeding so freely. Shaz's skin was growing cold under her hands.
Alex heard the words on Shaz's lips, heard the terror in her voice. "Chris! Tell him to go away! I don't like clowns!"
"Shaz! You have to fight him! No matter how much it hurts, you have to fight him!"
She did chest compressions, counting under her breath, frantic as she watched the life bleed away from her eyes.
Chris. God, Chris.
The Guv pulled him away. She watched the moment unspool before her eyes. Heard them put Hollis on his knees in his handcuffs. Heard them beat him to a blood pulp.
No. No.
She kept going, kept giving CPR, believing with every fibre of her being that Shaz would not die here in this street. And she did it. The young woman took a ragged breath and another and another, coughing. Breathing.
It was too late for Gil Hollis. Chris and Ray had beaten him to a pulp, with the Guv holding off Viv the whole while.
Gene tried to put his hands on her and she'd shoved him away. Through it all, it hadn't mattered. He'd tried for her, maybe just for a shot at getting into her knickers, but when it came down to it, he was still the neanderthal beast of a man she'd read about in Tyler's reports. Why did she ever think it could ever be any other way?
~
Back in her flat, the telly played her a memory of her father reading to her from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
For the first time in weeks, she felt like she had a handle on things. She was in control and she was going to get back home to Molly.
"Something dreadful is going to happen. I'm going to take someone."
Water dripped from the ceiling and she stood over the table, watching the white sheet pull back from the corpse on the table.
She'd never seen the face of Pierrot look quite so diabolical, his greasepaint streaked, a slash of red across his mouth, and his finger dipped in blood, drawing a question mark on her calendar.
Through the looking glass, Alex, and into the nightmare, proper.
~
Gil Hollis was an idiot, of that much she was sure. But he seemed a harmless enough idiot, even if he was a terrible witness. She'd suggested in passing to one of the higher ups that a television appeal might bring forth new witnesses, seeing as the information he'd provided was lacking, to say the least.
And it didn't help to have the spectre of dread hanging over her all morning. Some days, the surreal quality of this world was distant, intangible. She lived a normal life, or as normal as could be expected under the circumstances. Today, was not one of those days. The hallucinations today were multi-spectrum, visual, auditory and tactile. She kept hearing water falling, even felt the drops on her cheeks when looked up. She kept hearing Pierrot's voice, taunting her. Which one?
She kept seeing their faces on the morgue slab, cheeks ashen, eyes glassy and sightless. Each of them in turn. Shaz. Viv. Ray. Chris. Her mind skittered away from that vision before it could go too far.
~
As if having full blown hallucinations wasn't enough, to add to the general strangeness of her day, DCI Hunt had caught her in the kitchen for a little chat.
She'd been contemplating just how to take control of this situation, how to put her subconscious mind back on the rail. There was a case to solve. Something that appeared simple and straightforward for once. Mr. Hollis was nationally known for his charity work. He'd spent weeks on end sitting in a portable bathtub raising money for children in Africa, and he'd been robbed at gun point, and then shot and left for dead.
And out of the blue, Gene asked her on a date.
He caught her completely off guard with his question, his eyes fixed on the tips of his boot, shuffling his feet, unable to meet her gaze. Somewhere posh, trout and almonds, just the two of them, unless she didn't want to and then well, basically forget he'd asked.
All of a sudden, she felt like she was sixteen again and just found out that the boy she fancied really fancied her too, and would she please come to the Christmas formal with him?
"I prefer Dover Sole," she heard herself saying, and really did it get anymore surreal than this?
In an instant, the boy was gone and the man appeared before her. "You want sole, I can give you sole."
The moment stretched and broke, and he left, standing a little taller, head held high.
She wondered just what on earth had got into him when he returned.
"Wear something slutty."
Bastard.
~
The day only got stranger from there. She and the Guv had taken Gil Hollis through the crime scene, using some basic memory stimulation techniques. The Guv was right, he was a terrible witness, more wrapped up in reciting the tale of what had happened to him rather than focusing and reliving the experience so that they might provoke an associated memory.
That Mr. Hollis was obsessive compulsive was not making matters any easier, and the Guv's increasing frustration made her feel like a rag being worried between two terriers.
For a moment there, she thought the two were going to come to blows. Mr. Hollis had screamed at the to stop the car, insisting that he had to get out. The compulsion had him standing in the street, touching the billboard, while a crowd of local Ska boys watched, shouting their derision. DCI Hunt roared in the man's face to get his attention, and then asked a couple of pointed questions.
Blunt, but effective. And not a little impressive, she thought.
~
The stood over the map of the re-enactment. "This is where the trail goes as cold as a polar bear's knackers."
"It's an unusual MO. A man and a woman."
Ray shook his head. "Yeah. A bird doin' blags. S'very disturbin'."
Of course, Chris had to render an opinion. "You think she wears heels. Or comfortable shoes?"
"I propose, given your reaction to the gender balance of the gang, that this is their first job."
"What, new kids on the block?" Gene asked.
"Now, that is a good name for a boy band."
Shaz interrupted, handing the Guv a list.
"Chris. Take that. Dodgy second hand car dealers. East 17."
"Oh right, back street boys."
"Yeah, let's get 'em busted."
Alex put her head in her hand. "Oh, god, I'm gonna scream."
~
Hollis continued on with his story about the man and the woman. The only detail he could recall was the woman staring at him from behind the balaclava, staring with dark eyes. And the man raising his hand and shooting.
She was too close to it. She knew it and she had no way to put it into words.
Here was a man who had been shot and lived to come home to his family, to his children.
The dull ache in her chest cracked, releasing that repressed urge, the longing to wrap her arms around Molly and hold her so tight she could barely breathe. God she just wanted to go home.
~
They needed another witness. She convinced the Guv to make another televised appeal.
It did not go well at all.
And it was all her fault.
~
She came back to the squad room to find complete and utter chaos.
The Guv had lost it, responding to the situation in the only way he knew how, by throwing his weight around. And his fists.
The Ska boys, the ones who'd been loitering on the corner when the blag went down, one of them saw Hollis get out of his car and go behind the billboard. The same billboard Hollis had made them stop the car for.
The Guv had Ray take a "statement" from him and demanded that they Hollis back for questioning.
She was too close to it, and for some reasons, she felt that protecting Hollis meant protecting her own sanity. She'd lost all objectivity. She was out of control, and one of them was going to die for it.
~
Hollis picked a woman with dark eyes out of the lineup.
He picked WPC Granger.
In a heartbeat, he'd gone from being victim to suspect, and the Manc Lion responded with more pointless violence.
"Evidence can always be found to back up my instinct!"
Alex knew she couldn't let this get away from her again. It was slipping through her fingers and if she couldn't get it back, someone was going to die.
~
"CID detained people illegally last night. DCI Hunt used physical violence and now he's holding Gil Hollis in custody without caution. Gil has a medical condition. I'm worried he might hurt himself. I've ah... I'm just wondering how to regain control of this investigation. If I don't, I believe somebody's going to die."
"Report Hunt to your superiors. Have him removed." Evan White's response was unequivocal on the matter.
"I don't want to wade in too hard. I feel like such a Judas, and besides, there are still forensic leads to follow. If I carry on with my own sideline investigation--"
"He'll undermine it. Report Hunt. Get your control back. I'm on your side."
~
Caroline Price took over Mr. Hollis's case, and Alex had to stand there while Evan read Hunt the riot act.
She could feel the rage coming off him like the heat off a blast furnace. She couldn't even meet his gaze.
But she knew this was the right thing to do.
Caroline didn't help matters by goading him.
And then the Superintendent suspended him for a week.
~
She watched the hard line of his back through his office window as he threw some things in a box. She followed him out of the office, trying to explain.
"I know you hate me, but I have to do this, all right. It's important. I have to be in control."
"Oh I suppose I'm not. And here was me thinkin' that we're beginnin' to get along a bit."
"Oh. Gene, look I can't tell you everything. Maybe if you had a child then you'd understand."
"How do you know I don't have children?" He shouts back at her.
"What!?"
"Here. You want my job? Have my stuff." He slid the box across the top of the Quattro into her arms.
"Oh no no no no. I am not going down that path!" She slammed the box to the ground, listening to the sound of glass crunching inside. "The righteous anger. Me feeling guilty. You are a fictitious construct bemoaning his fictitious fate. And I'm! Fighting for my life!"
She lost it utterly. Slammed her hands into the hood of the car, screaming at the top of her lungs, and then burying her head in her arms to stifle the sobs that were clawing in the back of her throat. She let out a long breath, and gritted her teeth, trying to come back from that edge.
"I am so tired."
"You know what? We all are, luv," he snarled at her, getting into the car and slamming the door. "Shall we postpone dinner?"
She kicked the Quattro as he drove off, and then kicked the box of his shit, sending papers flying into the street.
~
CID was the last place on earth she wanted to be. She told them to keep him in the loop, even though he was on leave. Even Shaz gave her the eye. And she could hear them laughing uproariously even as she closed the door behind her.
They could never know she was fighting for their lives.
~
Later, Evan came by for drinks.
And he took a run at her.
Strange did not begin to sum up this day.
~
She didn't know why he'd come back by, but she was very glad that he had. He'd spotted the one clue they needed to crack this case open. Real police work! No one had to be pummelled for it, even. Amazing. That it had put one more crack in Hollis's sad story had been a bit hard to swallow, but evidence was evidence.
And the chemical toilet smell clinging to the Garfield toy was the clue they needed to unravel Hollis's story once and for all.
Poor Chris.
~
The Guv had been well-pleased to see they'd cracked it. She followed him up the steps from Luigi's
"We need to charge Hollis."
"You can do that. I'm on leave."
"Are you waiting for a grovelling apology to serve your wounded male ego?"
"If you care to drop to your knees in front of me, I will not object."
And then the bullets started flying.
The next thing she knew, she was flat on her belly with Gene pressed along her back, plaster raining down around their ears.
It was Hollis. He'd gone off the deep end and he was calling the Guv out. Gene wouldn't listen to her. She felt his gloved hand slip through her fingers, and she followed. She couldn't let him die.
No, her words would save him. If he could save her, then she could save him. She was in control. She did talk to him then, as he had the gun trained on Gene. She reached him through the fog of despair. He threw the gun and ran.
And Shaz gave chase on foot.
They caught up to him behind the billboard. Shaz had been stabbed in the gut. Alex fell to her knees by the young woman's side, Chris not far behind. Alex tried to administer first aid. But the wound was bleeding so freely. Shaz's skin was growing cold under her hands.
Alex heard the words on Shaz's lips, heard the terror in her voice. "Chris! Tell him to go away! I don't like clowns!"
"Shaz! You have to fight him! No matter how much it hurts, you have to fight him!"
She did chest compressions, counting under her breath, frantic as she watched the life bleed away from her eyes.
Chris. God, Chris.
The Guv pulled him away. She watched the moment unspool before her eyes. Heard them put Hollis on his knees in his handcuffs. Heard them beat him to a blood pulp.
No. No.
She kept going, kept giving CPR, believing with every fibre of her being that Shaz would not die here in this street. And she did it. The young woman took a ragged breath and another and another, coughing. Breathing.
It was too late for Gil Hollis. Chris and Ray had beaten him to a pulp, with the Guv holding off Viv the whole while.
Gene tried to put his hands on her and she'd shoved him away. Through it all, it hadn't mattered. He'd tried for her, maybe just for a shot at getting into her knickers, but when it came down to it, he was still the neanderthal beast of a man she'd read about in Tyler's reports. Why did she ever think it could ever be any other way?
~
Back in her flat, the telly played her a memory of her father reading to her from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
For the first time in weeks, she felt like she had a handle on things. She was in control and she was going to get back home to Molly.