Tom Graham: Life on Mars: Blood, Bullets and Blue Stratos

‘As you know,’ he intoned, ‘the gunman we so valiantly risked our arses trying to apprehend yesterday managed to elude us. Not only that, he also managed to elude the Keystone Kops outside and their impenetrable “ring of steel”, all of which means I’ve been getting it in the neck from Special Branch for not leaving the operation to them . They’re saying – and I quote – that we made a “right pigging balls-up”. Black mark for A-Division. Black mark for me . And me not well pleased, children, me not well pleased at all.’

He stopped pacing and glowered intensely at Sam for a moment, daring him to come out with an ‘I told you so, Guv’. But Sam knew when to keep it buttoned.

After a few moments, Gene resumed pacing and said, ‘On the plus side, however, our keen cub reporter Annie Cartwright has supplied us with a useful lead. Go on, luv, tell us what you got.’

On cue, Annie produced some typewritten pages and read from them: ‘Michael and Cait Deery. Husband and wife. Irish nationals residing somewhere in Manchester. There’s been a Home Office file on them for months now. It seems pretty certain they’re acting as couriers between Ireland and the mainland, shipping in firearms, ammunition and plastic explosives to supply IRA cells.’

‘If the Home Office know about them, why haven’t they been arrested?’ asked Sam.

‘Because they’re more valuable left alone to do their thing,’ said Gene. ‘The contacts they meet, the people they deal with. It might all just reveal the whole chain, connecting bomb factories in Dublin to attacks being planned on the mainland.’

‘How sure are we that they were anything to do with what happened at the council records office?’

‘For want of anything better to go on I’m working on the assumption that the Deerys are involved,’ said Gene. ‘If there’s an IRA unit at work on our patch, we’ll find it through them. And bagging an IRA unit might just make up for yesterday’s fiasco. Um, excuse me, DI Tyler, but did somebody drop the marmalade in your pants this morning? What’s that gormless face for?’

‘You’re working on the assumption that what happened yesterday was the work of the IRA,’ said Sam.

Gene sighed. ‘Oh, God, Sam, not this Old Mother ’Ubbard again!’

‘I know you’re resistant to my line of reasoning …’

‘To put it poncily.’

‘But I’m telling you, Guv, we’re going to find out sooner or later that what kicked off yesterday had precious little to do with the IRA.’

‘A bomb, a bloke in a balaclava and a certain negativity expressed towards the British constabulary – now, I’m the first to admit I’m not Sherlock bloody Holmes, but—’

‘I’ve already told you, Guv, I’m not convinced,’ said Sam. ‘That bomb in the toilet – it was a message of some kind. It meant something. It was more symbolic than a genuine threat.’

‘Unlike this ,’ snapped Gene, raising a balled fist in front of Sam’s face.

Sam ignored him and carried on: ‘And what about the red hand painted on the wall, and the letters RHF?’

‘And what about the report I found on my desk this morning from Bomb Disposal?’ countered Gene. ‘They’ve examined the explosives from the khazi and confirmed it’s a classic bit of IRA kit.’

‘Maybe it is,’ said Sam, shrugging. ‘But I’m still sceptical.’

‘I don’t care what you are,’ barked Gene. ‘ I’m still head honcho round here and until you convince me otherwise I’m going to pursue this investigation on the not unreasonable assumption that it’s the Paddies we’re after and not the bloody RHF. What is the bloody RHF anyway, for God’s sake? Royal Horticultural Faggots?’

‘Red Hand something?’ suggested Annie, suddenly. ‘Just a guess. What do you reckon?’

‘Red Hand something – of course!’ cried Sam. ‘Of course !’

‘Red Hand something?’ said Gene, looking unimpressed. ‘So what’s the F stand for?’

‘ I know what F stands for,’ put in Ray suddenly, sticking his head round the door and winking at Annie. He flapped a sheet of paper onto Gene’s desk. ‘Here you go, Guv. The Deerys’ address. Dowell Road on the other side of town.’

‘Nice work, Raymondo,’ said Gene. ‘Right, playmates, let’s start proving to Special Branch that we know how to behave like proper grown-up coppers. Annie, see if you can find out what the letter F stands for. It sounds like a task of about your level. Use Chris’s wooden bricks with the letters on ’em if it helps. Sam, you’re coming with me. We’re going to pop round the Deerys’ place and see if anything’s cooking.’

‘Want me to drive, Guv?’ Sam asked.

Gene looked blankly at him and said, ‘And why the hell would I want you to drive?’

‘Well, you know, seeing as you’ve … You’ve had a couple of, um …’

Sam was going to say something about the Scotch glass on Gene’s desk, then reminded himself that nobody gave a toss about that sort of thing, not here. There was some part of him, some corner of his brain, that would always be 2006, no matter how long he lived in 1973.

‘Sorry, Guv. Forget I said anything.’

‘I always do,’ said Gene, jangling his car keys and grabbing his coat.

They sat in the Cortina at the end of Dowell Road. Number 14, the home of Michael and Cait Deery, was a just another unremarkable semidetached among many, with a trim little garden and a Vauxhall Cresta parked in the driveway.

‘Are we going in?’ asked Sam.

Gene flexed his hand on the wheel, making the leather of his driving glove creak ominously.

‘Nope, we’re staying put,’ he said. ‘If the Deerys are middlemen in the IRA chain, let’s sit back and observe, just like the Home Office recommended. Sooner or later they’ll lead us to the terrorist cell they’re supplying.’

‘Guv, I know you’re not interested in this, but I don’t think what happened yesterday—’

‘—was the work of the IRA. I know, Sam. You think it was part of the Pinky Palm Brigade’s campaign against khazis. Maybe it was. Fact remains, our boys across the water have pissed rather too heavily in the hornets’ nest and stirred up trouble. If we can blag an IRA unit by trailing the Deerys, that scores me and my department a handful of much-needed Brownie points.’

‘Um, Guv, I didn’t quite follow all that. What did you mean about “pissing in the hornets’ nest”?’

Gene turned his head and stared at him, and then said, as if speaking to a deaf idiot, ‘Bloody. Sunday. You. Dozy. Pillock.’

Bloody Sunday. Of course. For Sam, Bloody Sunday was something very much from the past, like the Apollo moon landing or Blue Peter in black and white. But here, in the world of Gene Hunt, it was fresh news, a raw and open wound. In 1972 – only last year – the British Paras opened fire on a civil-rights march in … Belfast, was it? Or Ulster? Or Derry? Damn it, he couldn’t remember. Wherever it had taken place, it had left a dozen or more dead and brought the IRA right out on the offensive. The repercussions of ‘pissing in the hornets’ nest’ would still be reverberating in the far future – even in 2006, when a young detective from CID, recently recovered from a life-threatening accident that had left him in a coma, would inexplicably jump from a rooftop to his death.

Sam shook these thoughts from his head. He was here now – in 1973 – with a job to do, a duty to fulfil, a life to lead. The future was history. All that mattered was the here and now.

‘You know, Sam,’ said Gene, ‘now we’ve got a cosy moment together, just the two of us, I’d like to have a little chat with you about summat.’