‘You know who you are and where you are,’ Sam told himself, looking his reflection firmly in the eye. ‘You are where you belong. Right here. This is your home.’
His home. Nineteen seventy-three. How strange and alien it had felt when he had first crash-landed here, alone and disoriented like a man from Mars. He had hunted through his pockets for the familiar props of the twenty-first century – the mobile, the BlackBerry, the sheaf of plastic debit cards – and found nothing but ten-pence pieces the size of doubloons and an ID card informing him that he was no longer a DCI but a detective inspector transferred down to Manchester from Hyde. He had tugged at his winged shirt collars and the tops of the Chelsea boots that he found himself wearing, and blundered like a zombie through the once-familiar police station that should have been buzzing with PC terminals and air-conditioning units but was now heavy with the clacking of typewriters and the sparking-up of cigarette lighters.
‘This is my office – here!’ he had bellowed, surrounded by blank, uncomprehending faces. ‘This is my department! What have you done with it?’
The answer had not come from the men staring at him. It had come in the form of a deep, phlegmy rumble, and the sound of heavy feet scraping across the floor. The man had turned, and there, lurking like an ogre in the smoke-filled den of his office, had been his new DCI – Gene Hunt, the guv – the shaven stubble of his neck red and inflamed from the raw alcohol that passed as aftershave, his belly bulging at the buttons of his nylon shirt, his stained fingers forever reaching for the next packet of fags, or the next glass of Scotch, or the next villain’s windpipe. He had introduced Sam to his new department with a breathtaking blow to the stomach – ‘Don’t you ever waltz into my kingdom acting king of the jungle!’ – and oriented him in Time and Space with a little less technical detail than Einstein or Hawking. ‘It’s 1973. Almost dinnertime. I’m ’avin’ hoops.’ And Sam, slowly but surely, had come to realize that he could be happy here. This place had life – hot, stinking, roaring, filthy, balls-to-the-wall life.
It also had Annie.
Sam ran water into the basin and splashed it across his face, thinking of Annie Cartwright. From the very moment he’d first met her, he had felt a connection, a conviction that, of all the strange characters populating his new world, she was the one he could trust the most. And in time she had become the bright heart of his universe around which everything else orbited. It was her as much as anything else in this place that he had missed so bitterly when he had returned to 2006, and it was her face that had been foremost in his mind when he had leapt so joyfully from the rooftop and plunged back into 1973. The future – his future – was with her. No question of that. He had thrown away his own time and his old life to ensure that.
And yet, night after night, the dreams battered away at him, always telling him the same thing: that he had no future, least of all with Annie; that coming back here had been a terrible mistake, far more catastrophic than he could imagine; that what life he had here in 1973 was destined to end in ruin and pain and utter despair.
‘Just dreams,’ he told his reflection. ‘Meaningless.’
But something deep within him seemed to say, Ah, but you know that’s not the case.
‘I have a future.’
You know that’s not true.
‘And it’s with Annie. We’ll be together. And we’ll be happy.’
Sam, Sam, you can’t kid yourself for ever.
‘We’ll make it, me and Annie – no one, and nothing, is going to stop us.’
Bash! Bash! Bash!
A fist pounded massively at the door like gunfire.
‘Who the hell is it?’ Sam shouted.
An all-too-familiar voice bellowed through the keyhole back at him. ‘Sorry to interrupt any intimate encounters you might be enjoying with Madam Palm and her five daughters, Sammy, but I just thought you might find the time to nick a few villains.’
Sam sighed, padded over to the front door and opened it. Filling the doorway loomed a barrel-chested grizzly bear dressed in a camelhair coat and off-white tasselled loafers. The reek of stale Woodbines and Blue Stratos shimmered about him like a heat haze. His black, string-backed driving gloves creaked as his implacable hands flexed and clenched. Peering down at Sam as if unsure whether to ignore him completely or batter him into the ground like a tent peg, this rock-solid, monstrous, nylon-clad Viking narrowed his cold eyes and jutted out his unbreakable chin.
This was him. This was the man. This was the guv. This was DCI Gene Hunt. Up close to him like this, eclipsed by his massive shadow, Sam felt vulnerable and absurd dressed in nothing but a T-shirt and shorts.
‘Fetchin’ little outfit, Sambo,’ Hunt intoned. ‘Are you trying to seduce me?’
‘Actually, Guv, I was contemplating a metaphysical dilemma.’
‘I hope you flushed afterwards.’ He swept past Sam and planted himself in the middle of the flat. The room seemed too small to contain him. He glared around him, his brooding glance seeming almost powerful enough to shatter windows. He rolled his shoulders, stuck out his chest and tilted his head, making the vertebrae of his neck give off an audible crack. ‘Excuse the early-morning house call, Tyler, but duty is calling. We got a shout. A to-do. A right bleedin’ incident.’
‘What sort of incident?’ asked Sam, hopping into his trousers.
‘Terrorists.’
‘IRA?’
‘No – disgruntled Avon ladies. Of course it’s the bloody IRA, Sam. Now zip your knickers up and get yourself decent.’
‘Any chance of you giving me a few details about what’s happening, Guv?’ asked Sam, shrugging on his black leather jacket. ‘Or have we got another couple of hours of sarcasm to get through first?’
‘Don’t get shirty, Mildred,’ said Gene, turning on his heel and leading the way out through the door. ‘I’ll fill you in on the way. It’ll take your mind off my driving.’
CHAPTER TWO
A MESSAGE IN RED
Tyres screamed. Grey, urban streets flashed past. Gene floored the gas as Sam floored an imaginary brake pedal.
‘Right, pay attention,’ Gene ordered, flinging the wheel recklessly back and forth as he weaved through the traffic. ‘We got a warning phoned through a little under an hour ago saying there was a pack of high explosives rigged up and ready to go pop in the local council records office.’
‘Was an IRA codeword given?’ asked Sam.
‘No, but we’re not taking any chances,’ said Gene. ‘There’s been a lot of angry Paddies on the move recently. We’ve been waiting for something like this to happen, so we’re assuming it’s the real thing.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Sam. ‘But what about Bomb Disposal?’
Gene shrugged.
‘And
