don’t want to be in this damned dream any more, you filthy little bitch!’
‘Awake, asleep, whatever.’ The girl shrugged. ‘And calling me names won’t help you, Sam. Look at that vast universe out there. You can’t just wish it away. What will happen to you, Sam? Do you think you can carry on like this for ever, drifting in the gaps between this world and that one? You all have to move on one day. You, and your guv’nor, and your little friends in CID, and Annie too.’
‘I’m not going anywhere! I’m staying here, in nineteen-bloody-seventy-bloody-three with Annie! I am staying! We are staying!’
‘You think so? You think that you’ll keep hold of your darling Annie when that thing drags itself out of the darkness and comes for her? Will you go with her to the horrid place he’ll take her to? Could you even find that place? And, if you did, what then? Oh, Sam, it’s all so complicated. So complicated – and so hopeless! Better to give up on it all.’
Sam’s thoughts were crashing about inside his mind like waves tormented by a storm. Tears were flooding down his face now. He looked for answers, comebacks, words of defiance, but all he could find was a numb, silent horror deep within him. He knew the girl was telling him the truth. He knew that whatever it was that was prowling through the darkness towards his darling Annie was beyond his powers to defy. It would find her, it would drag her away – and there was nothing Sam could do to prevent it.
He felt small, cold fingers gently taking hold of his hand.
‘I can help you, Sam. I can make you fall asleep so that all this nastiness and confusion is forgotten. No pain, Sam, just rest. Hold onto my hand and I’ll lead to you to a place where you can go to sleep.’
‘I’m asleep already.’
‘Not deeply enough. Hold onto my hand.’
‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here. I’m staying with my Annie.’
‘You know that’s hopeless, Sam. Hold onto my hand. I’ll take you away. And whatever happens to Annie – well, Sam, you’ll never know. It’ll be better that way. Better not to know, not never ever ever. Hold onto my hand, Sam. Hold onto my hand.’
But Sam had had enough. His mind was reeling from all this vertiginous metaphysics. He thrust the Test Card Girl’s hand away and shoved past her, blundering into Mrs Slocombe’s display of ladies’ apparel. Comically huge brassieres and girdles fell across him. He dashed them aside and raced for the doors at the back of the set. Slamming into them, he felt them sag under his weight. They were just painted plywood, braced at the back and fixed down with stage weights. Sam battered at the doors, but they would not open. They shook and lurched and groaned and shuddered, but still they stood firm.
Sam hammered at them with all his strength. He began shouting. He was still shouting when he found himself face down on the floor of his flat in a pool of spilt brown ale, the TV grandly playing the national anthem and primly reminding him to please turn off his set.
CHAPTER FOUR: ANNIE CARTWRIGHT, GIRL DETECTIVE
Monday morning. Sam arrived at the grey, slablike building that housed CID. Reaching the concrete steps that led up to it, he paused, taking in the pale sky, the first rays of the sun, the high-up scraps of ragged grey cloud.
A normal sky. A normal Manchester morning.
He breathed in the air.
Car fumes – the whiff of distant cigarette smoke – normal, all so normal …
He patted a concrete wall.
Normal.
He patted himself, felt his body solid and real beneath his leather jacket and slacks.
Normal. Everything’s normal. If this is death, then death is normal. It’s just normal.
And permanent? Would all this seeming normality last? And if so, for how long?
That’s a question nobody can answer. Not knowing why you’re here, and how long you’ve got – not knowing the answers to the big questions is well, it’s just normal.
‘Situation normal,’ he said to himself. ‘Everything might have changed for me but, in some ways, nothing’s changed at all.’
The mantra started up in his head once again: I’m not a philosopher, I’m just a copper. I’m not a philosopher, I’m just a copper.
It blotted out the crazy dreams of the night before. It smothered Sam’s suspicion that nothing about him was real, that it was all just illusion. It muffled the ice-cold terror within him that awful things were going to happen, that horror and pain were just over the horizon, that hell itself was drawing near.
I’m just a copper. I’m just a simple copper. I do my job and nick the bad guys and keep my head down because I’m just an oh-so-simple copper.
Up in A-Division, Sam found all the desks empty, all the phones unmanned. Everybody – Chris, Ray, a motley assortment of blokes from the department, and even Annie – was clustered together on one side of the room. What had attracted them was a huge white contraption, about which a rep in a pinstriped suit fussed and tinkered.
‘What’s all this?’ Sam asked.
‘A new gadget, ordered in on trial,’ said Annie. And then, looking intently at him, she frowned and added, ‘You all right, Sam?’
‘Bad night’s sleep, that’s all,’ he smiled. Her eyes were bright and clear, her skin was gently flushed around the cheeks, her hair was glossy. Not bad, he thought. Not bad at all, seeing as she’s supposed to be dead.
I’m just a copper. I don’t understand these things. Annie’s alive. We’re all alive. That’ll do for me – and to hell with the crazy bloody nightmares!
‘They want to start sticking these new machines in the offices all over, Boss,’ put in Ray, speaking without taking the fag from his gob. ‘Not that the Guv’s too keen on it.’
He nodded towards Gene’s office, where the man himself was visible as a brooding, lurking shape behind frosted glass.
‘I’m sure your guv’nor will change his tune when he sees what this little beauty can do,’ said the rep. With a knowing smile, he pressed a button and the cumbersome device clanked and juddered, emitting a sudden sweep of light.
‘Look out Boss, the bloody Martians have landed!’ grinned Chris, turning to Sam.
‘Not Martians, sir,’ grinned the rep proudly. ‘The future.’
‘The future’s not always such a great place to be,’ put in Sam.
The rep turned that oily smile towards him: ‘Ahh – there speaks a man who’s stuck in the past. But let me see if I can bring you up to date, sir. Look.’
The machine slowly disgorged a sheet of paper that reeked of chemicals. The rep swept up the sheet and flourished it proudly.
‘See
