Read the book: «Life on Mars: A Fistful of Knuckles»

CHAPTER ONE: WORLD OF SPORT

Sam Tyler stood alone on the high roof of the CID building, the uncaring wind roaring in from across the city and battering him.

That’s where I’m going to die, he thought. Right down there.

Inching forward, he peered over.

An eight storey drop. The cold air rushing over me as I fall. Glimpses of sky, of glass, of buildings out there on the horizon, flashing by as I fall – and then the shattering impact as I slam into the concrete.

Sam found himself edging his feet further over the brink, as if the abyss was drawing him into itself.

Thirty-three years from now, I’ll run across this rooftop … and jump from this very spot … and die, right there … right down there.

A pair of uniformed coppers strolled casually across the exact spot Sam was looking at, their voices just audible;

‘What do you say to a bird with two black eyes?’

‘I dunno. What do you say to a bird with two black eyes?’

‘You shouldn’t have to say nuffing, you’ve told her twice already.’

As the coppers’ coarse laughter reached him, Sam leant forward, teetering, almost daring himself to fall. His thoughts were reeling.

The year is 1973, but I remember 2006 … the future is also the past … I can recall my own death, leaping from this rooftop, and yet here I am, more alive than I’ve ever been …

Sam shut his eyes and tried to clear his mind of the turmoil. He focused on the here and now, on the physical reality of where he was; he felt the bite of the Manchester wind as it cut through his jacket, the sharp sting of the early autumnal cold already hinting at the harsh winter to come, the roar of his blood as it pounded through his ears, the steady beating of his own heart. These things were real. The world he was in was real. That was all that mattered.

Annie’s real too. And she is what matters most of all.

He had stood here before, on this very brink, back when he’d first arrived in this strange time and place. Looking for a way home, he had believed he would find it here. His plan had been to jump, to jolt himself back into 2006, and escape the alien planet of 1973 upon which he was marooned.

But as he had stood there, nerving himself for the plunge, Annie had suddenly appeared, her hair blowing across her anxious face as she reached out her hand to him.

‘We all feel like jumping sometimes, Sam,’ she had said. ‘Only we don’t, me and you – coz we’re not cowards.’

‘No – we’re not,’ he said to himself now, bracing his body against the anger of the wind. ‘We’re many things, but we’re not that.’

And so, that time around, he had not jumped. He had saved that jump for the future. But it would not be cowardice that would drive him to hurl himself from this precipice, nor would it be despair. He would jump for a reason. He would jump so that he could escape the emptiness of existence in 2006 and return here, to the strange, maddening, exhilarating world of ‘73. He would jump so he could be with Annie.

I was right to come back here, he told himself. I belong here. 1973 is my home. No doubts – no regrets – I made the right choice to come back.

If he had made the right choice to come back here, why did he feel, deep inside, that there would be no happily ever after for him and Annie? Why did he fear that what lay ahead was not life but darkness and death – and maybe something worse than death?

He knew the source of his fear. It came from her, the blank-faced brat who had floated out of his TV screen whispering words of doom and despair ever since he had pitched up here. The Test Card Girl, that incessant gremlin from the deep pit of his subconscious, would not let him go. She haunted him, taunted him, forever wheedling him to give up and die.

‘You have no future,’ she told him, over and over. ‘You have nothing to look forward to but misery and hopelessness and oblivion …’

Sam felt himself slowly falling forwards, giving himself up to the lure of the drop. At once, he pulled himself back, stumbling away from the edge, his heart racing. He drew in huge lungfuls of cold air and forced his tumultuous thoughts to calm down.

‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ he told himself, looking out across the grey Manchester cityscape spread out all around him. ‘Everything’s going to work out fine …’

Movement caught his eye. Three dark specks were travelling slowly and steadily across the autumnal skyline, passing over the city towards him. It was a trio of light aircraft, flying in formation, trailing behind them banners printed with bright red letters. Sam peered and squinted, trying to make out the word on the first banner.

‘World …’

He shielded his eyes and tried to decipher the second banner.

‘Of …’

World of – what? Leather? Opportunity? Adventures?

Before the third plane’s banner came into view, a man suddenly began speaking in a cheery and familiar voice directly behind Sam’s back.

‘Hello, and a very warm welcome to World of Sport.’

Sam spun round. The rooftop had transformed into a TV studio, with typewriters clacking and reporters bustling; behind a desk sat a man smiling warmly beneath his moustache – a man whose face and voice were straight out of Sam’s memories of childhood Saturdays.

Dickie Davies shuffled the sheaf of papers on his desk and announced brightly: ‘And in a full line up this afternoon we’ve got exclusive live coverage from CID A-Division, including all the latest shoddy police practice, professional incompetence and casual sexism from regulars Ray Carling and Chris Skelton – plenty of action there – plus we’ll be bringing you the highlights of the week’s heavy-drinking, chain smoking, and nig-nog baiting from DCI Gene Hunt, so make sure you stay tuned for all that.’

Dickie Davies now raised his eyes to stare directly at Sam, the good-natured light going out of them.

‘But right now we’re going over live to the rooftop of Manchester CID where Detective Inspector Sam Tyler is once again trying to convince himself that he has any sort of a future with Annie Cartwright. Of course, the two of them have about as much chance of being happy together as Evel Knievel has of clearing a jump without breaking every bone in his back … and deep down Tyler knows it. But until he stops kidding himself and starts facing up to the awful reality of the situation, then I’m going to have to keep on popping up like this and having words with him.’

Dickie stood up from behind his desk, and as he did his moustache vanished, his body shrank, his suit became a black dress, and his face morphed in the small, round, pale face of a twelve year old girl, with a big teardrop painted on each cheek.

‘Awful things are going to happen,’ the Test Card Girl said sadly. ‘You should never have come back here.’

The TV sports’ studio melted away. There was just Sam and the Test Card Girl, high up atop CID, the city of Manchester spread out all about them and the grey sky reeling over their heads.

Sam clenched his fists and said: ‘You don’t scare me anymore. I know what you are. I know what you’re playing at.’

‘I’m just telling you the truth, Sam …’

‘Oh no you’re not. You’re trying to mess with my head. But you’re nothing! You’re not even real!’

‘But I’m very real, Sam. And so is the horrible fate that’s in store for you and Annie.’

‘I’m done listening to you. You’re just a bad dream. Go back to where you came from.’

The Test Card Girl listened mournfully, shaking her head with infinite sadness. She hugged her little teddy bear doll, rocking it – and then, quite suddenly, she hurled it over the edge of the roof.

‘And there it goes,’ she said. ‘Better off out of it. Better off dead than facing what you and Annie have to face …’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Sam said. ‘You won’t make me give up. You won’t make me despair.’

‘It’s not looking good, Sam. It’s all going to end in tears. Your tears. For ever. And ever. And ever.’

‘I’m not listening.’

‘Shall I tell you what’s going to happen?’

‘Get out of my head!’

‘Don’t you want to know the truth, Sam? Don’t you want to know what I know … about Annie?’

‘I said get out!’

‘She has a past, Sam. Like you have a past. But it’s a very different sort of story from yours, Sam. Shall I tell you about it? Shall I? Shall I, Sam? Shall I?’

‘Damn you, get out of my head!’ Sam bellowed, and at that moment the air was ripped apart by a deafening roar. Dark shadows swept across him; glancing up, he saw the trio of planes shriek overhead, recklessly low, their banners streaming behind them – but now the lettering had changed. It read: Terry Barnard’s Fairground.

When he looked back down, the rooftop was empty. He was alone again. The planes dragged their advertisement for the fairground away across the rooftops of Manchester. The wind cut through him like a knife. Looking down, he saw that his hands were shaking.

‘Don’t let her get to you,’ he gently told himself. ‘The little bitch isn’t real. She’s just messing with your mind.’

Suddenly, the door to the roof flew open and an overexcited Chris Skelton burst out.

‘You see that, Boss!’ he cried, pointing at the planes as they veered away. ‘Pretty nifty, eh? You reckon we could get one of them for CID? Eyes in the sky! Do they come with guns on? Now that’s the future of policing, Boss. You think they’d train me up?’

He grinned at Sam, the huge, round-ended collars of his blue nylon shirt flapping and fretting like cherub wings in the harsh Manchester wind. But as he read Sam’s expression, his grin faltered.

‘Hey, boss, you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Sam, sticking his hands in his pockets and clenching them into fists to stop them shaking. ‘I just … needed a few minutes alone to think about stuff.’

‘No time for thinking, Boss. The guv’s yelling for you. We got a shout.’

From far below, the Cortina’s horn brayed angrily for Sam to move his arse – pronto. The Guv was impatient. There was a big, bad city out there that needed its sheriff.

‘Dead body in a bedsit in Greeton Street,’ Chris said. ‘A big bloke, beaten to a pulp, ‘pparently. Very nasty. Sounds like a good ‘un.’

The Cortina honked again, more threateningly. Only Gene Hunt could be so expressive with a car horn. This time, Sam obeyed his guv’s summons; he moved his arse – pronto.

The big bloke in the bedsit in Greeton Street had indeed been beaten to a pulp. And just as Chris had predicted, it was very nasty. DCI Gene Hunt stepped into the room carefully, so as not to get congealing blood on his off-white leather loafers. He moved about the room in his camel hair coat, his tie knotted loosely beneath the raw, aftershave-inflamed turkey flesh of his throat. Sam followed him. The bedsit’s fat, string-vested landlord watched from the open doorway.

‘What’s his name again?’ Gene asked, looking down at the dead man.

The landlord said: ‘Denzil Obi. A darkie name. He were one of them half-castes. You know, half-coloured, half-normal. Mongrel type.’

‘Mixed race,’ Sam corrected him. ‘Please – it’s not “half-caste”, it’s not “mongrel” – it’s mixed race.’

‘Don’t make no difference now,’ observed the landlord. ‘Can you take him with you, lads? I want to let the room as soon as possible, like.’

‘Meat wagon’s on the way,’ said Gene.

‘Do you boys clean up too? I mean, look at them carpets.’

‘I’ll Brasso your flamin’ knick-knacks on me way out an’ all. What state was the front door in when you found him? Had it been forced?’

‘No. I had to use my key. I came up because Denzil was behind on the rent, which weren’t like him. He were regular, you know. A good lad, for a coon.’

‘Please!’ Sam insisted irritably, speaking over his shoulder as he looked around the flat. ‘Can we knock it off with the BNP language.’

Gene shot a glance at the landlord: ‘No, I don’t know what the flamin’ chuff he’s on about either.’

The landlord scratched at the hairy dome of his stomach through the holes in his string vest. ‘I was just sayin’ that Denzil were okay, that’s all. He didn’t deserve this.’

Sam looked at the front door; it was fitted with three sturdy bolts and a spyhole for seeing who was on the other side of it.

‘Security conscious,’ said Sam.

He stepped carefully across the blood-splattered floor and examined the window.

‘No sign of this being forced either, Guv. Looks like Denzil opened the door and let his killer walk right in.’

What little furniture was in the room lay overturned. Clothes and possessions were strewn about the floor. There were bloodstains on the bed and up the walls. There were even splatters of red across the ceiling.

‘He didn’t go quietly,’ said Sam. ‘Must have been a hell of a fight.’

‘And this lad looks like he could handle himself,’ said Gene, indicating Obi’s muscular arms and torso. ‘Body builder, was he?’

‘Boxer,’ said the landlord.

‘Who beats a boxer to death?’ asked Sam, shaking his head.

‘Another boxer?’ shrugged the landlord.

‘Or a whole gang of ‘em,’ put in Gene.

Sam looked about the room: ‘Not much room in here for a lynch mob, guv. Barely enough room for the body.’

‘You saying this place is small?’ piped up the landlord, looking defensive. ‘It’s cosy. People like it.’

‘Any of your other cosy tenants hear anything?’ asked Gene. ‘This whole building must have been shaking like a fun house at the fair when this boy got walloped.’

‘No other tenants, not here. Downstairs is empty.’

‘What about the flat above this one?’

‘Just a couple of layabouts up there, but they’ve buggered off to India or something. Students.’

‘Pity,’ said Gene, flexing his hands and making his leather driving gloves creak. ‘I’m in the mood for questioning students.’

Sam peered down at what remained of Denzil Obi. He had been beaten into anonymity, his nose and eyes reduced to swollen puddings of battered flesh. His mouth had been battered into a misshapen, toothless hole. He was barely even recognizable as a human being. The only identifying mark Sam could make out was the large spider tattooed on the dead man’s neck, its spiky legs reaching up towards the remains of Denzil’s ear.

Suddenly, something else caught Sam’s attention – something inside of Denzil’s slack, gaping mouth. He leant closer.

‘You’re getting unpleasantly intimate with the victim, Tyler,’ Gene said gruffly. ‘Your little woman not keeping you satisfied?’

‘Guv, there’s something in the back of his throat.’

‘His pelvis, probably, given the pasting he’s had.’

‘No, Guv, it looks like something metallic.’

‘His fillings?’

Sam peered closer, trying to see without touching the body. Gene loomed over him.

‘Well? What is it?’

‘I can’t quite see, Guv. Whatever it is, it’s gone down his throat.’

‘Don’t be squeamish, Sammy-boy. Have a rummage.’

‘I can’t do that,’ Sam protested.

Gene loomed closer: ‘Think of it like a first date – stick your fingers in and see what you can find.’

‘For God’s sake, Guv, I’m not qualified to conduct an autopsy!’

‘You don’t need ten years in medical school to fish out a ball bearing, Sam. Dive in, he won’t bloody bite.’

‘Guv, this is a crime scene, and we’re going to act professionally, and we’re not going to start mucking about with the body, and we’re not going to-’

Gene ripped off his driving glove, elbowed Sam aside, and thrust his hand into Obi’s mouth. After a spot of blind fumbling, he produced something and held it up with bloodied fingers. It was a bullet.

‘Blimey …’ murmured the landlord. ‘Is that what did him in?’

‘If it is, then Denzil Obi choked to death,’ said Gene. ‘This round hasn’t been fired.’

Sam squinted closely at the bullet. It was indeed perfectly intact.

‘Somebody shoved it down his throat,’ he said.

‘Either that or the coon got peckish,’ said Gene. And then, with enough sarcasm to sink a battleship: ‘Sorry, Tyler. Mixed. Race.’

The coroner peeled off his latex gloves, dropped them into a pedal bin, and belched like a walrus.

‘Beg pardon. I had whelks,’ he said, patting his flabby chest and growling out more gas.

This put into Sam’s mind the ghastly image of the fat coroner’s digestive system clogged with semi-digested seafood. He felt his own stomach heave uncomfortably. How the hell could the coroner talk like that, here of all places? Damn it all, they were at a morgue not a restaurant!

Unmoved and unconcerned, Gene Hunt lounged against a wall, his arms folded, his manner casual: ‘So Doc, what’s the story with Rocky Marciano? Anything for us to go on?’

‘Denzil Obi’s been dead about two or three days,’ said the coroner. ‘He suffered a prolonged and powerful attack, almost exclusively to the face and head. Massive fractures to the parietal and zygomatic regions.’

‘That bit and that bit,’ translated Gene for Sam’s benefit, pointing to the side of his head and then his cheek.

‘Nice to see you’re picking up the lingo, Inspector,’ said the coroner, impressed.

‘I’m not just looks and charm,’ growled Gene. ‘So what was the weapon used? Iron bar was it? Baseball bat?’

‘Interestingly, no. The nature of the skull fractures are inconclusive, but the contusions to the face and head bear very clear imprints of a human fist. Punch marks, gentlemen.’

‘Well that makes sense,’ put in Sam. ‘Denzil Obi was a boxer. Are you sure these weren’t old bruises?’

The coroner smiled condescendingly and said: ‘I flatter myself, young man, that I can tell an old contusion from a cause of death. Denzil Obi was punched – repeatedly, and with impressive force,’ he fought to suppress another deep, whelky belch, ‘until he died from cerebral haemorrhaging.’

‘But … whoever did this must have hands the size of anvils!’ Sam said.

Again, the coroner shook his head: ‘Quite the opposite. A broad fist wouldn’t inflict quite this degree of concentrated damage; the force of the blows would be more widely dissipated. The man who killed Obi had small hands – small, with strongly condensed bone structure, rock solid, packed tight. I measured the bruises; the man who inflicted them has fists slightly less than three inches across the knuckles – about the same length as your index finger, Inspector Tyler. Every punch would have been like an intensely focused hammer blow.’

‘One bloke, you reckon?’ asked Gene. ‘Just one bloke to overpower Obi and beat him to death?’

‘It’s perfectly feasible,’ said the coroner. ‘I could find no evidence that the victim was restrained in any way during the attack, and all the injuries he sustained are consistent with an attack from a single assailant. One man attacked him. One man killed him.’

Gene pulled a sceptical, pouting expression, but the coroner smiled and went on. ‘A single blow, powerful enough and delivered in the right place, could leave even a professional boxer reeling. If the victim was dazed and semi-conscious, his assailant could rain blows on him unresisted. In this case, though, Obi didn’t go quietly. He fought back – at least for a while. His hands were freshly cut and bruised. The struggle may have lasted some minutes.’ He grunted up a noisy bubble of stinking air. ‘Like the struggle between me and these whelks. Excuse me, gentlemen – if I don’t get some liver salts down me I’m going to be the next one on the slab.’

‘But what about the bullet?’ asked Sam as the coroner pushed past him.

‘Shoved down his throat after he died,’ the coroner called back as he strode away down the corridor. ‘A tantalizing mystery for you sleuths to puzzle over.’

And then, with one last resounding belch, he was gone, leaving Sam and Gene alone.

‘Denzil was a boxer,’ said Sam. ‘Whoever killed him was a boxer too – somebody who knows what they’re doing with their fists.’

‘Most likely,’ said Gene. ‘A boxer with a grudge – and very small hands.’

Without warning, Gene reached out and roughly grabbed Sam’s hand.

‘Guv, what the hell are you doing?!’

‘The length of your index finger, he said,’ growled Gene, peering at Sam’s finger. ‘It’s gonna be like Cinderella and the glass slipper; whoever owns the fist that matches your pink little manicured digit, he’s our man.’

‘I’m not playing Prince Charming for you, Guv! You’re not using my finger as a measuring stick for murderers!’

‘I thought you’d always wanted to give me the finger, Sammy-boy.’

‘Give over!’

Sam wrenched himself free from Gene’s powerful grasp.

‘Let’s at least try and behave like professional coppers, Guv,’ he said. ‘Denzil knew his killer. That would explain why he let him into the flat. They quarrelled – fought – after a few minutes, Denzil was overpowered, and the killer pummelled him to death. But why stick a bullet down his throat afterwards?’

Gene shrugged: ‘Symbolic. I dunno. We’ll ask the killer when we nick him.’

‘And how are we going to do that, guv? Where are we going to start?’

‘Somewhere conducive to contemplation, where the mighty Gene Hunt noggin can work its magic.’

‘And where’s that, guv?’ asked Sam.

Gene looked at him flatly and said: ‘Where’d you think, dumb-dumb? And you’ll be the one getting them in.’

The Railway Arms was quiet at this time of day. The atmosphere seemed poised, ready for the crush of drinkers, the clamour of manly voices, the braying of blokey laughter that would fill the place come evening time. The familiar pumps gleamed along the bar, promising Watney’s, Flowers and Courage on draught. The ashtrays sat clean and expectant, like baby birds awaiting feeding. The floor was not yet sticky underfoot with spilt beer. And Nelson, resplendent in his flowing dreadlocks and a gaudy shirt depicting the sun setting over a Caribbean island, seemed nicely mellowed, perhaps conserving his energies for the bustle and bullshit of the evening crowd.

‘Very thirtsy coppers today,’ he observed, glancing at his watch as Gene strode in through the door, Sam in his wake. ‘What’s the reason for dis early visit? Are we celebrating victories or drownin’ our woes?’

‘One of your lot just got whacked,’ announced Gene, leaning against the bar and sparking up a fag. ‘We need a moment to cogitate on the clues. Two pints of best, and make it snappy.’

‘What you mean, one o’ my lot?’ asked Nelson as he pulled the pints.

‘A black,’ said Gene, speaking around the cigarette clamped between his lips. Sam literally cringed. Gene glanced at him, ‘All right then, a ‘mixed race black’. ‘Appy now, Tyler? Whatever you call him, he was mashed to smithereens like a blood pudding under a steamroller.’

‘Is dat so?’ said Nelson, raising his eyebrows but playing it very cool. ‘Terrible. It’s a terrible world we’re livin’ in.’

‘It is,’ put in Sam. ‘There’s terrible things that get done. And said. Nelson, I apologise on behalf of my DCI. He isn’t really a pig-ignorant National Front scumbag racist, he just sounds like one.’

‘Who you calling an NF scumbag?’ retorted Gene. ‘I’m colour blind, me. I know all the words to the Melting Pot Song. Gonna get a white bloke, stick him in a black bloke …’

‘That really is enough, Gene!’ Sam silenced him, and he meant it.

But Nelson was laughing: ‘Blue Mink! Now I tink I got that stashed away some place.’

‘You see?’ growled Gene, gulping down a mouthful of beer and giving himself a froth moustache. ‘Nelson knows what’s racialist and what ain’t. The trouble with you, Tyler – well, apart from all the other troubles with you – is that you think screaming like a nancy with a stinging dick at what normal blokes say makes you some sort of saint. Well it don’t. It just makes you a mouthy get with no sense of what’s what.’

‘It’s a little thing called political correctness, Guv. It’s all to do with treating diversity with respect.’

‘“Diversity with respect”!’ sneered Gene, downing another frothy draught. ‘Kid gloves is for butlers and snooker refs, Tyler. You can’t wear ‘em in the street. Or on the beat. Now knock it off and let the mighty Genie noggin’ get to work. I got a killer to catch.’

Gene carried his pint and smouldering fag over to corner table and ensconced himself.

Sam shook his head and turned to Nelson: ‘I’m sorry you have to hear talk like that.’

‘Oh, forget it, friend!’ Nelson beamed at him, his showy Jamaican accent vanishing and being replaced with the broad tones of Burnley. ‘Water off a duck’s back. Your boss, he don’t mean no harm. He’s just repeating what he’s learnt.’

‘It’s not right, the way he talks. Where I come from, Nelson, it’s all very different.’

‘Yup,’ said Nelson. ‘And where I come from too.’