Tom Graham - Life on Mars - A Fistful of Knuckles

‘The guv’nor is driving!’ growled Gene, planting himself behind the wheel and furiously revving the engine. He stamped on the gas and the Cortina lurched forward.

Sam grappled horribly with Stella as she hissed insults at him and demanded the personal attentions of the guv. But when she realised Gene was not going to relinquish his role and skipper of the Cortina, she fell into a sulk. It gave Sam precious time to get his breath back.

But the moment they reached the station, it all kicked off again. Gene wrenched on the handbrake like he meant to snap the handle and stormed round the back, grabbing Sam with both hands and hurling him out of the way. Sam fell against the hard pavement and saw Stella going crazy, aiming for Gene’s eyes with two-footed rabbit kicks from her stilettos. But Gene got hold of her waist, dragged her out, and flung him over his shoulder, marching off with her like a Viking bringing home a plundered wench.

They burst into the CID room, Gene red-faced and striding, Stella thrashing and screaming abuse, Sam panting and trying to keep up. Chris’s eyes bugged halfway out of his head at the sight; Ray’s mouth dropped open so that his chewing gum fell into his typewriter; Annie sprung up from her seat, looking confused, not sure if what she was witnessing was an actual arrest or some sort of blokey prank.

‘I got me some cheesecake,’ Gene declared to his team as he lumbered by, slapping Stella’s arse so powerfully that the sound of it echoed round the office like a gunshot.

‘Call that a slap?!’ Stella yelled at him as he carried her away down the corridor. ‘Harder! Harder, you fairy !’

Gene booted open the door of the Lost & Found Room and disappeared inside. Sam paused, exchanging silent looks with his open-mouthed colleagues.

‘It’s like a caveman’s wedding,’ he said. ‘Back to work, everyone. Me and the guv have got it all under control. Everything’s fine.’

Nobody believed that any more than Sam himself did. Nervously, he turned and followed Gene into the Lost & Found room.

Her hands cuffed behind her back, Stella sat, panting and sweating, on a wooden chair, surrounded by abandoned bicycles, unclaimed briefcases, and all the rest of Manchester’s unwanted bric-a-brac that had found its way here over the years. Sam tried to keep his attention away from the way Stella was sitting; like a low-rent, fag-stained Sharon Stone, she had her legs open just that bit too far. Her blonde hair had tumbled over one eye. Her breasts rose and fell heavily beneath the zebra-patterned fabric of her top; she was Moll Flanders meets Bet Lynch on a bad day.

Gene fished out a packet of Embassy No.6’s from his jacket pocket.

‘You crumpled my fags, you fruitcake,’ he accused her, carefully removing a wonky fag from the packet. ‘That, toots, is crossing the bloody line.’

He lit up and drew on the nicotine like it was the elixir of life itself.

‘Right,’ said Sam at last. ‘Let’s all calm down. I don’t think any of us have got the energy for any more messing about.’

‘Speak for yourself, young ‘un,’ said Stella, her eyes fixed on Gene. Her lipstick was smeared across one cheek, her Dusty Springfield mascara was all over her face, and yet, dishevelled as she was, there was still a fierce fire burning in her eyes and in her blood. ‘You brought me here to pump me with questions. Well then – get pumping.’

Sam sighed and said calmly: ‘Stella, there’s no need for all this. All we want from you is information about-’

‘Not you, girly-bollocks,’ Stella interrupted, still staring at Gene. ‘ Him. The real man. The guv’nor.’

Gene lounged against the wall, the fag smouldering in his gob, and silently narrowed his eyes at her.

‘You want to pump me?’ Stella glared. ‘Then pump me. Like only you know how.’

For several highly charged seconds, Gene fixed her with his stare. The air was thick with the mingled aromas of Gene’s Brut and Stella’s Charlie. Once again, Sam felt he was intruding on a private moment between these two – a ghastly, stomach-churning private moment he would rather not witness. It was like being in a seedy backstreet club. It was worse than the coroner with the whelks.

Gene exhausted his cigarette and heeled it into the floor. Then, very much taking his time, he began to pace slowly up and down behind Stella’s back.

‘Denzil Obi,’ he said, his voice low, his manner controlled. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me what you know about him.’

‘He were a nice enough lad,’ said Stella. ‘In his way.’

‘Meaning?’

‘He didn’t have a good start in life. Had to make his way as best he could.’

‘Bit of a Jack-the-lad, was he?’

Stella shrugged. Gene paced.

‘He had ambitions to become a boxer,’ Gene said. ‘What can you tell me about that?’

‘He weren’t a bad welterweight. Nifty. Bit of a rough diamond, but with work he could have gone places.’

‘It’s not the places he could have gone that interest me but the places he came from. The Black Widow had a seedy past, didn’t he. Illegal fights. Bare-knuckle bouts. He must have rubbed shoulders with some right horrible bastards.’

‘Most like,’ said Stella.

‘And pissed a few of ‘em off in the process.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Any ideas who?’

‘Nope.’

‘’Course you do.’

‘I’m legit, Mr DCI. I know nothing about the underworld.’

‘Pull the other one, luv, it lights up and plays Leo Sayer.’

‘I don’t associate with villains,’ protested Stella. ‘Not willingly, anyway. I’m straight.’

‘Straight? Straight?! ’ Gene grasped her by the hair and twister he head round. ‘You’re as kinky as a bloody corkscrew, and in more ways than one. Names! I want bloody names! Denzil Obi got on the wrong side of someone – who was it? Give me a name!’

‘Make me.’

‘I said give me a name!

‘And I said make me !’

‘ Give me a name! Give me a name !’ And now Gene began to punctuate his words with a series of slaps. ‘Give!’ – Slap ! – ‘Me!’ – Slap ! – ‘A’ – Slap ! – ‘Blood!’ – Slap ! – ‘Ee name!’ – Slap, slap !

Sam’s instinct was to intervene, but he restrained himself. Nobody would thank him for stepping in, least of all Stella. What was going on between these two was something too murky, too unsavoury for Sam to get involved with. He was better off out of it. He didn’t want to be soiled.

Gene yanked Stella’s face closer to his own and hissed into it: ‘Big fellas getting handy – that’s what gets your juices bubbling, isn’t it. That’s why you run that seedy gym. Watching blokes beating eight buckets of shite out of each other turns you right on, don’t it!’

‘Oh yes!’ The words came out of her as a gasp.

‘And getting on the receiving end of it tweaks your dial even more!’

‘Oh yes … !’

‘You dirty randy kinky scrubber,’ Gene snarled, and he hauled her up from the chair. One of her white stilettos went skittering across the floor. He gripped her by the shoulders and shook her; Stella’s head lolled about wildly, her hair falling all over her face, her manacled hands clenching and flexing behind her back.

‘You want the rough stuff? Eh?’ he barked.

‘As rough as you can make it, Guv’nor.’

‘Careful what you wish for … you might just get it.’

Stella was panting hard, pushing her heaving breasts into Gene’s barrel chest: ‘You’re … You’re …’

‘Speak up, petal!’

‘You’re getting close to making me … making me …’ She was breathing so hard she could barely get the words out. ‘… Making me talk.’