Life on Mars: Blood, Bullets and Blue Stratos

by Graham, Tom

  ‘Name, Cowper. Say your name. Say your chuffin’ name!’

  Cowper opened his mouth, paused for few moments, and then, with a joyless smile, said quietly, ‘You’ll start bashing me again whether I cooperate or not. That disinclines me to make things easier for you.’

  ‘Bashing?’ breathed Gene, bringing his face close to Cowper’s. ‘Who said anything about bashing? I don’t bash. I’m not a basher. I’m more a sort of … Well, hard to put into words, really. It’s simpler if I demonstrate.’

  Gene moved suddenly and with surprising speed. In the blink of an eye, his powerful hand was clamped vicelike around Cowper’s genitals. Cowper scrambled awkwardly to his feet, his cheeks and forehead flushing in agony, the chair clattering over behind him. Gene tightened his grip as if he were squeezing juice from a lemon, and then, in a well-honed manoeuvre, gave such a ferocious twist that it sent Cowper sprawling to the floor, sweating and gasping.

  ‘Bet you’re wishing you’d agree to have a brief present now, am I right?’ said Gene, sniffing the palm of his hand and then wiping it contemptuously on the back of Cowper’s shirt. ‘On your feet.’

  Cowper groaned and moved. With effort, he began to drag himself upright. But suddenly Gene launched a ferocious kick to his chin that snapped Cowper’s head backwards and sent him slamming into the wall. His glasses shot off and skittered away across the floor.

  ‘I said on your feet, you idle sod!’ Gene barked.

  This time, Cowper glowered up at him hatefully, a reddening bruise starting to spread across his chin. His mouth worked silently for a moment, then out fell a fragment of tooth.

  ‘You’d have waited six months for that on the NHS,’ said Gene. ‘Now, get yourself off the floor. And pick that chair up. I won’t have my interview room looking like a tip.’

  Slowly, painfully, Cowper set the chair back on its legs, all the time keeping his eyes on Gene in expectation of another blow. But Gene was controlled now, his breathing regular, the volcano of his temper once more under some sort of control.

  ‘Put your specs back on,’ Gene ordered.

  Hunched and stiff-jointed like a man three times his age, Cowper hobbled over to where his John Lennon glasses lay on the floor. As he reached down for them, Sam noticed that Cowper’s hands were shaking.

  He’s getting scared now, thought Sam. Gene’s getting to him. But damn it! This isn’t any way to carry out an interview.

  It was only with effort that Cowper managed to hook his spectacles back over his ears and settle them on his nose. He looked across at Gene, then at Sam, and then back at Gene – and allowed a slow, insolent smile to tug at his lips.

  Have I read Cowper wrong? Sam wondered, watching that smile. Is he in mild shock? Is that why his hands were shaking? Is he prepared to endure anything Gene dishes out to him and still keep his mouth shut? Or is that smile all a front?

  ‘Right, then,’ said Gene. ‘You’ve got your eyes back. Now, sit yourself down.’

  Cowper did so, wincing.

  ‘Lovely. Now then, let’s try over again. My name’s DCI Gene Hunt. This is my colleague, DI Sam Tyler. And who, pray, might you be, young man?’

  Cowper made a weak, gravelly, croaky noise.

  ‘Speak up, son, I got waxy sylph-likes.’

  ‘Brett … Brett Cowper.’

  ‘Brrrett Cowper,’ Gene declared, deliciously rolling the r. ‘We got there in the end. Brrrett Cowper. What an enchanting name. I can’t imagine why you’ve been so shy about sharing it.’

  ‘You’re not Irish, are you?’ put in Sam.

  ‘English. London.’

  ‘So what’s your connection with Michael and Cait Deery?’

  Cowper gave Sam a sullen look. ‘What’s my connection? Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘Well, what is obvious is that the Deerys are supplying you with IRA weapons and explosives,’ said Gene. ‘And if your name was Paddy O’Reilly and you had a voice loik dat noyce Val Doonican fella I’d have no hesitation in banging you up as a Provo. My colleague, however, has suspicions that you’re something else entirely, something with a fancy logo and letters I can’t remember.’

  ‘The RHF,’ said Sam. ‘You painted those letters in red on the council office wall, along with a red hand. What’s all that about? What does it mean?’

  Cowper’s eyes flicked between Gene and Sam, and then, through a mask of dried blood and developing bruises, he smiled. A cold, lopsided, impertinent smile. It was enough to trigger Gene’s fuse and he lunged forward, ignoring Sam’s protests, and dragged Cowper up by his neck, bringing him close enough to kiss him. But, before he could speak, Cowper beat him to it.

  ‘Do it, fascist! You can break every bone in my body but you won’t break my will. I’m a soldier of the Red Hand Faction. All you can do is make a martyr of me. I’m ready to die for the cause of freedom. So go on then, you bastard, do it! Do it!’

  Gene threw Cowper back down into his chair. For a moment, Sam thought he would lay into him with both fists, perhaps grab hold of Cowper’s arm where Sam had shot him and rip the wound wide open. But, although Gene was breathing heavily through his nostrils like an enraged bull, he somehow restrained himself.

  ‘Keep talking, Cowper,’ he panted. ‘The Red Hand Faction – what is it? Who else is involved? What are you – a bunch of bomb-chucking Trots, is that it?’

  But Cowper suddenly began to sing – coldly, confrontationally – words to the tune of the Socialist ‘Internationale’.

  And if those cannibals keep trying

  To sacrifice us to their pride,

  They soon shall hear the bullets flying,

  We’ll shoot the generals on both sides.

  Gene shook him as if he meant to break his spine. ‘Names. I want names, not sing-a-long-a-Lenin.’

  So comrades, come rally,

  And the last fight let us face.

  The Red Hand Faction

  Unites the human race.

  Now Gene had been provoked beyond the limits of self-control. He hurled Cowper against a set of shelves. Cowper crashed to the floor, a torrent of unwanted junk cascading down onto him.

  ‘I don’t much go in for pinky anthems,’ Gene said, planting himself squarely over Cowper’s prone body, noisily cracking his knuckles. ‘I prefer Max to Marx. Good ol’ Bygraves. That’s my kind of singsong. Classics, like “The Ballad of Davy Crockett”.’

  He grasped Cowper’s hair and dragged him to his feet.

  And meet me on the corner …

  A blow to the stomach doubled Cowper up.

  And fings ain’t wot they used to be …

  A blow to the face knocked him back against the wall.

  ‘And then there’s me favourite, “The Cowpuncher’s Cantata”,’ said Gene.

  Perhaps the third blow would have broken Cowper’s jaw or shattered his already bloodied nose – perhaps Gene would have smacked away those little round glasses and pressed his thumbs against Cowper’s eyeballs – but Sam intervened. This was a police station. This was CID. This was England, damn it, not a Gestapo torture chamber. And the thought that Gene might break into a rendition of ‘You Need Hands’ was more than he could bear.

  ‘That’s enough now, Guv,’ said Sam.

  ‘Enough? I’m just getting going, Tyler. I ain’t even got on to “Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen by the Sea” yet. And he likes that one – don’t you, lad?’

  ‘I said that is enough, Gene. Lay off him. Let him speak.’

  ‘Let him speak?’ Gene snarled. ‘I don’t even feel inclined to let this shite-bag breathe. I’ve seen what bastards like him can do, Sam. Blokes blown to pieces. Women with their faces hanging off. Kiddies lying dead in the street. All so some jumped-up toerag who calls himself a soldier can say he’s struck a blow for freedom.’

  Prising Gene away, Sam pushed Cowper back into his chair. He sat there, panting and dripping blood, his hair all over his face, the wire frames of his glasses now twisted into crazy corkscrews.

 
‘Okay everybody, let’s all just calm it down now, shall we?’ said Sam, seating himself opposite Cowper once again. ‘So, Brett, you’re not working for the IRA, you’re part of this Red Hand Faction. What are you guys, then – communists?’

  Cowper snorted in derision.

  ‘Anarchists?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Students?’ prompted Gene. ‘Worse than students?’

  Slowly, Cowper raised his head and said, ‘I’ll tell you what we’re not. We’re not cowards. We’re not obedient little sheep being led to the abattoir. Nor are we lackeys of the bourgeois fascist state and its corporate plutocratic overlords, growing fat on the blood of the world’s workers.’

  Gene nodded to himself, satisfied. ‘Students, then.’

  ‘We’re not willing slaves to the elite neocolonial puppet-masters who keep jackbooted bullyboys like you dancing on the military-economic strings that dangle from the tips of their oligarchical fingers.’

  Gene frowned, said, ‘Are you getting this, Sam? Can you translate for me? My Norwegian’s a bit rusty.’

  ‘World revolution – is that your thing?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Our thing?’ sneered Cowper. ‘Oh, listen to the little policeman. Yes, it’s our thing, if that’s how you want to phrase it.’

  ‘So how come you’re getting access to IRA arms?’ Sam persisted. ‘They’re not handing them over out of the goodness of their hearts. The Deerys certainly aren’t sympathetic to you.’

  ‘I would say their demeanour towards you was positively chilly,’ added Gene. ‘You’ve got leverage over them. What is it?’

  Cowper closed his swollen mouth and kept it closed.

  ‘We overheard your meeting with the Deerys,’ said Sam. ‘You said you were “babysitting” for them. What does that mean? You’ve got something they want – what is it? Is it a thing, or a person? Brett, it’s in your interests to cooperate. I can’t emphasize enough just how deep the shit is that you’re in right now. Helping us is helping yourself. Now tell us, Brett – what’s the deal between you and the Deerys?’

  Silence.

  ‘Who else is in this Red Hand Faction of yours?’

  Silence.

  ‘Where are they based? Where do they stockpile their arms? Where are they planning to strike?’

  ‘You said something just now,’ Cowper said quietly. ‘Something about the depth of the shit I was in.’

  ‘It’s a technical term,’ said Gene. ‘Police jargon. It means you’re in a pickle.’

  ‘You were right to say it,’ Cowper went on, ignoring Gene and keeping his attention fixed on Sam. ‘It’s the correct phrase. The only thing I’d add is that it’s not me who’s in the shit – it’s you. It’s both of you. It’s all of you. Everyone.’

  ‘The bomb in the toilet,’ said Sam. ‘Symbolic. A message. Society’s a toilet, and your RHF buddies are going to blow it all to smithereens. Am I right?’

  ‘What a bright little fascist you are,’ said Cowper. ‘You know, thirty years ago over in Spain, the anarchists fighting Franco used to hide bombs in bunches of flowers. We thought we’d rethink that little number for our own struggle – after all, like them, we’ve got a fascist dictatorship to bring down.’

  ‘Edward Heath?’ said Gene, incredulous. ‘A fascist? He’s a plummy twat, I’ll give you that, but fair play to the fella.’

  ‘A bomb in the toilet bowl,’ Cowper continued, ‘blasting away the scum and the filth; obliterating establishment vermin such as yourselves; ridding the world of the monetarist leeches and their truncheon-swinging lickspittles, in readiness for a new age of equality and justice.’

  ‘We’re not here to listen to political speeches, Cowper,’ said Sam.

  ‘Not Mr Cowper any more?’ smiled Cowper. ‘Is that the cue for your gorilla to lay into me again?’

  ‘I’m nobody’s bloody gorilla,’ barked Gene. ‘Least of all his. I’m the guv’nor.’

  ‘So, then, your Red Hand Faction is a paramilitary terrorist organization,’ continued Sam, ‘siphoning weapons and explosives off the IRA – God knows how – and equipping itself for an armed campaign.’

  ‘We can make better use of the IRA’s munitions than they themselves can,’ said Cowper proudly. ‘We have broader aims than they do. Besides, they don’t frighten us.’

  ‘So, you’re going to teach the IRA how to really blow up civilians?’

  ‘There are no civilians,’ said Cowper. ‘Not in this war. The battlefield is right here – right here, on these very streets – and the men and women of this city are the frontline soldiers. Manchester, Liverpool, London, it’s all the same. You’re either with us or against us. Nothing in between. No opting out, no conscientious objectors. There’s a line, you understand? There’s a line, and if you’re not on this side of it, then you’re on that side of it. It’s all very, very simple.’ And, looking directly at Gene he added, ‘Black or white. Right or wrong. Nothing in between.’

  ‘Oh yes there is,’ said Gene in a low, dangerous voice. ‘There’s me. I’m in between.’

  And with that he turned and strode to the door.

  ‘Phyllis! One suspect ready for transfer to the cells.’ he boomed into the corridor.

  Sam watched Cowper drag himself slowly and painfully to his feet. He scraped the sweaty hair from his face, peeling the strands from the sticky blood on his cheeks and around his mouth. Carefully – like a bookworm in his study – Cowper resettled the round glasses on his nose. Battered, bleeding and bang to rights, Brett Cowper stood tall – unrepentant, unafraid. Sam looked at him, and realized he was looking at a man every bit as motivated, fanatical, and single-minded as any IRA hitman. The Red Hand Faction were clearly deluded. They were most probably nothing more than a tinpot ragbag of misfits, political extremists and out-and-out lunatics, but they had bombs, and they had guns, and they had men like Brett Cowper to make up their numbers – men mad enough to blackmail the IRA, for God’s sake!

  This RHF might be mad, but they’re dangerous, thought Sam. They’re every bit as dangerous as the IRA. Is this the storm we’ve got brewing? Two sets of bombing campaigns to deal with at once? Two sets of terrorists? Is that what we must face? Can we face it?

  ‘I said get this joker out of my sight and banged up in a cell!’ Gene yelled again, and this time officers came running, keys jangling. ‘I’d hate to lose my temper with him. I might find myself using intemperate language, and that would never do.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LETTERS OF BLOOD

  A heavy door clanged, a key rattled in the lock, and Brett Cowper was left to ponder on the class struggle in the confines of a cell. Sam noticed that, on being escorted out of the Lost and Found Room, Cowper had left a trail of blood spots all along the tiled floor. Looking down at them, Sam felt intense discomfort; as long as coppers like Gene Hunt interrogated suspects with their fists, how could they confidently take the moral high ground over the likes of Brett Cowper? It was hard to counter accusations of fascism when officers insisted on behaving like the Gestapo.

  ‘Somebody’s doughnut’s been dripping,’ Gene intoned, suddenly looming over Sam and smearing a dot of blood with the toe of his patent-leather loafer. ‘Don’t fret, Sam. That dotty bird with the hearing aid and the mop’ll sort it out in the morning. You’ll be able to eat your dinner off that floor by the time she’s done.’

  Sam shrugged and moved away. He wasn’t in the mood to lock horns with Gene again. He was getting sick of the same old routine of trying to explain acceptable police procedure while Gene posed and postured and came back at him with insults.

  ‘Whatever, Guv,’ he said as he headed along the corridor. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Hey, don’t you walk away from me, Tyler,’ Gene said. ‘It were the crash that split him open. And it weren’t me who stuck a pellet in him, if you recall.’

  Again, Sam shrugged, but Gene wasn’t satisfied. He loped round and positioned himself in front of Sam, blocking him.

  ‘Don’t you get the hump with me,’
he said. ‘I know what’s bugging you. You’re soft, Sam. Worse than a girl – like a bloody … a bloody …’

  He cast around, struggling to find the right word.

  ‘Faggot?’ suggested Sam, his voice tired. ‘Ponce? Poofter? Nancy boy?’

  Gene stuck out his chest, raised himself grandly to his full height, and glowered.

  ‘I only tapped him in there. He weren’t cooperating. And he was getting decidedly cheeky.’

  ‘Save it, Gene – I’m not Discipline and Complaints, you don’t have to justify yourself to me.’

  ‘Nor to anyone else, neither,’ Gene said, straightening his none-too-straight tie. ‘You want angels with snow-white wings, you’ll have to wait for Christmas. Next time some murdering scumbag sets off a bomb in the local shopping centre and we’re scraping some poor kiddy’s mummy off the ceiling, ask yourself then how much respect the Brett Cowpers of the world deserve.’

  ‘Guv, like I said, I’m not D&C. Let’s see if we can dig up anything on the Red Hand Faction.’

  They swept into the CID room. It was a thrumming hive of policing. Chris was hard at work frowning blankly at a pile of paperwork that had got muddled beyond all hope. Ray was unsuccessfully hiding a tatty magazine full of big tits behind a telephone directory, which he suddenly pretended to scrutinize for a number.

  ‘The thin blue bloody line,’ Gene muttered, glaring about at his team as he strode through to his office. ‘Listen up, ladies. The Red Hand Faction. I want facts, I want figures, I want anything you can dig up about them. Who are they? Where’d they come from? Do they like broccoli? Are they leg or tit men? I want everything you can give me, capisce? I shall be waiting patiently in my boudoir. Do not disappoint.’

  He stomped into his office and back-kicked the door shut behind him.

  ‘Boudoir?’ asked Chris, looking up from his confused paperwork and frowning even deeper. ‘What’s wrong with his office?’

  ‘It’s French for “office”, you pillock,’ said Ray.

  ‘I thought that was “bureau”.’

  ‘A bureau’s a thing with drawers in it.’