Stu died in the middle of the street like a dog struck down by the wheels of misfortune. When Gene's drunk too much at Nelson's pub, when his vision doubles in on itself, he wonders what his brother felt in those final moments, how much awareness was left in his mind; if he realised it was a bad batch, speed laced with home-made chemicals and made in some prick's backyard. Stu had done it before, he'd done it a thousand times, but whoever made it miscalculated and it was Stu who paid the price. Cut off from his remaining family, Gene wonders if his brother was afraid to die alone. Nobody wants their existence gone unremarked. But Stu set himself on a path toward self-destruct and ran at it full-tilt, Gene thinks there must have been some part of himself that recognised it.

"That stuff will kill you." Sam knocks his glass aside and waves fourteen fingers in front of Gene's face. It's possible, Hunt speculates, that he drank too much.

"You say that about everything," he slurs. The floor rolls lazily, a gentle swell like an in-coming wave and Gene lurches forward, one arm tossed over his D.I's shoulders to steady himself. Tyler staggers. Artfully, Gene doesn't throw up on him.

"Steady on, guv." Wiry strength and the faint scent of soap, beneath it lies something primeval that Gene breathes in, leather or cured skin. His memory is scatter-shot. He holds onto Tyler more firmly, Sam supports him for a moment, then mutters, "I'm not carrying you home...the lads will all laugh at me."

"They do tha' already, get the stick out of your arse."

"It's not a stick, it's backbone, and I'm gonna need it reinforced if I have to drag your sorry excuse anywhere..."

Gene breathes out a laugh, trying to gather his thoughts into coherency. Elise is gone for the weekend. It's Stu's birthday, today. He needs coffee, desperately. Going home isn't ideal, and finally, Gene doesn't want to spend the night alone. "Give me a lift back to your place."

Sam's eyebrow quirks. "Can you walk?"

"I am not drunk."

"Of course not, you always walk around like a victim of palsy." Gene straightens dangerously and loosens his hold. "No, seriously," Sam elaborates, his eyes going wide, "I saw you on the dance-floor once."

Gene cuffs him lightly, palm skimming over Tyler's nape, and Sam ducks, a smile lightening his eyes. Three sheets to the wind or no, he knows that Sam always wanted to stay. Gene was happy enough to tell him, repeatedly, until his D.I listened. Tyler will put him up for the night, no questions asked, and with their strange dance of give and take, Gene will be able to breathe again. Kitted down on Tyler's bunk, he will find some measure of stillness. It's the only place Gene's been where he's slept the night through - welcomed - and because of it, silently grateful.

***************

"Here, eat this and drink that," Tyler slops the coffee onto the table then rustles over a plate of scrambled eggs and sausage. He sits down opposite with his own plate and digs in like he hasn't eaten for a week. Gene remembers dumping him in the street last night around nine - he doesn't recall what time Tyler dragged him home - as for the why, Gene doesn't examine that too closely, either, it's enough that Sam came after him. The police files Tyler stole from the collator's office are still stacked haphazardly around his flat, one group, the employment records for the factory, are balanced on top of the television.

Gene eyes the plate in front of him doubtfully, "I suspect you don't feed Cartwright this swill."

"She's better looking than you," Sam quips.

Gene takes a sip of coffee, wincing at the lack of cream before he forces himself to swallow. His vision is only double now, so Gene figures he's near-sober. "Find anything in the employment records?"

"Sketchy at best, World War Two got in the way."

"Awfully inconvenient."

Sam makes a rude gesture. "The milliner's factory was owned by..."

"Charles Sauvigon," Gene interrupts, "the man was a walking scarecrow. He used to get body tremors something fierce, Stu and I thought he'd shake himself apart."

"Do you remember any of the other workers? Anyone suspicious?"

Gene squints at him, head pounding like a jack-hammer, "You mean do I secretly know who the killer is, and have I kept it from you for shits and giggles?"

"Don't be daft, anything, and I mean anything, guv, is better than nothing."

"Charles Sauvigon died in the bomb blast," Gene says shortly, "along with 43 000 other civilians who brought it over the next fifty-seven nights. I wasn't on a first name basis with any of them, alright?" A naked bulb swings low from the ceiling, painting Sam into shades of conflicting grey.

Gene thinks, from the beginning, that was always their problem. The first time he met Tyler Gene asked him to destroy secondary evidence and Sam did. Gene, confident that he had a handle on his new D.I had relaxed, only to find himself embedded in a twelve month war of morality, where the lines were constantly redrawn. Gene knew himself to be a bent copper, but where Tyler stood on any given day was anyone's guess. Willing to fit up Tony Crane, Sam wouldn't have a bar of protecting C.I.D when Ray killed Billy Kemble, and to be blunt, it's an attitude that Gene wants to beat bloody. Sam holds himself aloof from his collegues. He prides himself on being better, on not following the pack. He has guts, coupled with a quicksilver mind, and Gene can admire that. But for all his intelligence, Tyler never realised the same unit he tried to destroy, has protected him; closed ranks and kept their mouths shut because Gene's rules are simple, they deal with their own messes internally. Sam's pulled enough weird shit to be locked up in the silly farm indefinitely, but nobody talks about it. Even Ray understands that. Gene can't decide if Sam is extraordinary thick, or if he never realised he belonged to them to begin with.

"How many other workers were in the factory when the bomb hit?"

"Nix, the raids occurred at night."

"What was he doing at the factory, then?" When Gene doesn't answer, Sam fires the questions more rapidly. "Did he sleep at the factory? Have a flat on the upper floor? Did he break curfew and do overtime?"

"Oi, Einstein, I was eleven when that bomb hit, I don't know." Gene glares at him until Tyler simmers down. His double-vision hasn't improved any, carefully, Gene knocks the scrambled eggs onto his fork and inches it towards his mouth.

Observant, Sam says with mock sincerity, "Don't stab yourself in the eye."

Killing him wouldn't be too difficult. Gene pushes the plate away and scowls at him. "Besides, Charles Sauvigon is dead. I'll go out on a limb and say he's not our child molester."

"Was Sauvigon married?"

"No, in the words of a childhood friend, he was creepy. Body shakes and a lazy eye, you never knew which way the old dolt was looking. Do you know how distracting that is? He'd be lucky if he could shag a leper, and only then if her leg had dropped off and she couldn't run away."

Sam's mouth twitches briefly, "No family or kids?"

"Plenty of kids hung around. A little miniature work-force, bringing the bread home when the daddies were at war," Gene can feel the tension rising in his shoulders; it wasn't legal but it happened, just like everywhere else. "The rich families sent the kids off to the countryside, but Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, they were the industrial towns, not a lot of wealth to be seen." Munition towns, he means.

"Sauvigon employed children?" Sam asks with studied care.

"If he did, it was off the record."

Sam's attention is already fixed elsewhere, the frenetic pace of his earlier questions slowed to a near-halt. He's thinking, Gene knows. He watches Tyler carefully for a moment then stands up, making his way toward the tiny bathroom. Tyler doesn't trust his instincts, he doesn't trust emotion. Whereas for Gene 'gut-feeling' is the bed-rock of policing. He's been chipping away at Tyler's perimeter fence for a while now, watching with satisfaction every time Sam slips a little further from gay-boy science. He's carving himself a niche, a meeting ground where they can both relate. It doesn't occur to Gene - not until years later - that Sam had done the exact same thing.

The flat is empty when Gene steps out of the shower. He dries off briskly and pulls on yesterday's clothes, breathing in the scent of alcohol. His coat is in the other room, tossed over the torture rack that Tyler calls a bed. Shrugging it on, Gene grabs his keys and walks out the door.

************

 Excerpt - Notes taken from D.C.I Alex Drake, PhD Criminal Psychology, relating to trauma-study case 9D, ### #####, (name blanked to protect the identity of the serving police officer), dated July 3rd, 2008.

....Of peculiar interest is ### #####  placement of events leading up to the wager's job in the tunnel, and his brief mention of Samuel Williams, a slain police officer who was murdered six months later in 1973.  It should be noted that the circumstances of his death were highly suspect.  Williams was an undercover agent.  All records pertaining to his assignment, alias, and brief have been purged by the Home Office in subsequent years.  There are no identifying photos and no eye-witnesses.
William's body was discovered at 46a Jordan Grove, an abandoned factory made infamous by multiple murders.  Officially, he was the third victim of the Mad Hatter.  Given the discrepancies in the killer's choice of victim, however, this now seems incendiary.  More likely, Samuel Williams' cover had been compromised and he was the victim of retaliatory action, by members of the same Police Force he had once prosecuted.  (see notes regarding the execution of U.C John Horton, circa 1971).  Investigating officer, D.C.I Gene Hunt, maintained Williams knew who his killer was (re Mad Hatter) until his own death in 1986.
### #####  usurpation of this obscure role in history is a pivotal clue to his state of mind. 
Undercover agents are by necessity isolated from the frame-work of human support.  Ostracised, they rely on increasing levels of mendacity to operate in hostile environments.  It is understood ### ##### ended a one-year affair with a fellow police officer shortly before he suffered severe trauma.  It is also understood that he could 'hear' the real world whilst in a coma.  These feelings of isolation and entrapment would slot into the identity he would later assume....

**************

"Anyone seen a short-haired man? Has a strange fascination with police radios?"

Various heads look up, their expressions blank. Ray Carling drops the phone he was working on and waves a desultory finger, "The ponce checked in about an hour ago, guv, said he was looking up a lead."

Sam doesn't own a car. The population is dense enough that everything is readily available by foot, but at least the stupid git had taken a police vehicle and radio. "Where's Chris?"

"Catching up on some kip, said he was out all night."

Which only leaves Cartwright. Sam must have partnered himself with Nancy Drew, satisfied, Gene ignores Ray's sneer. "Has anyone managed to identify that god-forsaken child yet?" The whole room hunkers down in preparation for a snit. The first vic is a sticking point. Without a name, location, without the how and when of where he disappeared, it feels like they're trying to juggle three daggers and a plot-plant with one arm tied, while balancing on a camel. The only thing they have to go on is their physical similarity - both victims were practically posterboys for the Aryan race. Short of telling the mothers to lock up any blond-haired nippers, Gene doesn't know what else to do. Gene sweeps his eyes over the unit contemptuously, "Fine, the first one who manages it wins a Party Seven. Pull the surveillance team off the factory and get those plods knocking on doors, we've wasted enough time already. Oi, not you Raymondo, you and I are going to start cracking heads together." Ray flexes his knuckles, eyes glinting with anticipation.

Carling's eager for bloodshed, like a dimmer echo of himself. He's the type of copper you want in a tight corner, a mongrel who worships the ground Gene walks on, loyal to the fault. Gene needs that unquestioning obedience, the easy road where hierarchy is set in stone. Carling is safe. He doesn't argue or fight. He doesn't make Gene work for every scrap of evidence. Ray doesn't challenge him or irritate him until he finally toes the line.

Carling draws back on his cigarette and follows him out the office door, his voice venomous. "What did Morgan's report say?"

"Basic physical description of the child, weight 72.4 pounds, height fifty-five inches tall, average body for an eleven year old male. He was last seen on the 19th of October. Robson was spotted cutting across a football field on his way home from class. Well-liked if quiet, no problems at home." Or so Mrs. Robson said, the old bat hadn't shed a tear at the morgue and if that's not indicative of a 'problem,' then Gene will kiss Litton's arse. "The father did a runner a couple years back. Mrs. Robson raised him by herself." It makes Pauley vulnerable, half-starved for approval he would have been desperate for a male role-model. Familiarity with the victim, Gene thinks, or a stalker. Someone who watched and planned out every moment they would spend with the child, someone who had glorified in Pauley's slow death. There was a two week gap between the murders, time enough to savour and relive it, to meticulously plan out the next. Take into account the serial killer kept both boys alive for up to three days, then his abduction/kill ratio was well above the fast-track. The rapes themselves were heinous, tearing of the anal passage and a breaching of the sigmoid colon, the boys were under-developed, still in their early growth cycles, he'd practically fucked into their lower intestines and then slit the stomach open. Gene stares out the window.

The killer had objectified them, as if the two boys weren't real to him.

The escalation from alcohol to drugs - what did Sam say to Reginald Carver, back in Lost and Found? - Trying to send them someplace better. The killer had only taken care of them when they were corpses, smoothed their hair back and tidied up their shirts, but he left them exposed from the waist down, didn't attempt to cover the nature of his crime. Over twenty years in the job and Gene knows most times, there is a rudimentary effort to hide the body, even if it's only newspaper scattered over a corpse - or a shallow grave. Basic fear at work, the crims trying to buy themselves time before the body is discovered. Their killer though, he didn't give a rat's arse. There was sick fascination here. Sexual perversity a common thread between the killings, but Gene thinks the murderer enjoys the end. It's not getting his rocks off that matters. It's that moment when death fast approaches.

"Guv!" Phyllis holds a hand out as they pass the watch-house, voice a whip-lash. Her mouth is an angry slash, there's a manilla envelop on the desk, addressed to C.I.D, the contents of which is two photographs. Gene feels his gut roil, hand curling into a closed fist.

***********

"Alright, amaze me with your newfangled Hyde ways. Shine the light on science, Sammy-boy, and dazzle away, because I swear to god and all that's unholy, this is giving me the flamin' shits!" The windows in Sam's flat rattles. Skelton had come back with the toxicology report earlier, the rat poison used in the LSD was a generic brand, available at most stores, and this psychotic prick is baiting them. The photographs lies between them, already dusted for prints in what Gene knows to be a vain hope.

Sam switches back and forth between the two photos. "I thought Gene Genie always got his man."

"Yes and then I reverse over him five or six times with a lorry truck just to be sure. If that doesn't kill the blighter, I let Chris fart on him. The point is, Sherlock, I want to get my man quickly."

Sam discards the more gruesome portrait of Pauley Robson and instead, focuses his attention on the photograph of the factory.

Gene paces silently, a single malt held loosely in his hand. Tyler had gone back to Hyde earlier to interview Robson's school-mates, unwilling to drag the kids into the police station, he'd taken Annie with him as part of a softly-softly approach. His notes, written in short-hand and as illegible as chicken scratchings, are scattered on the kitchen table. After the tunnel, after Tyler revealed himself to be a U.C and after the dust finally settled, Hunt had once called him by his formal name. 'Williams' felt wrong on his tongue, almost alien. Too sibilant. Too soft. Sam's reaction had been adamantly defiant. He out-right refuses to answer the surname and Gene, after calling him 'Tyler' for over a year, had let it drop. The breakfast plates from the morning are stashed in the sink. The bed that Gene slept in remains unmade. There's a coloured photograph of a little boy, face hidden by an oversized bobbies hat that sits framed in one corner of Tyler's room. A nephew? Something about the jaw-line, the faint twist of a smile. The photograph is too recent for it to be Tyler as a child, and for a man with no children, the momento is down-right weird.

Sam fits the killer's profile, Gene thinks unbidden, then strikes the thought from his mind. However insane he may be, Tyler is no murderer.

The employment records for the milliner's factory, once filed on top of the television set, are now missing.

"Our 'hatter' just made a mistake, you know. He took the photograph from the fence-line, so he could frame the factory and prove he knew the kill site. The windows of the building, sign, and a telephone pole are all visible." Sam stretches out, kicking one ankle over the other, and rubs at his eyes with a loose fist, "Photographs are taken from your eye-line. Match up those points of reference with the distance from the fence, and we can tell the suspects height."

"Ah-huh, and if our killer is two foot six, that will eliminate most of Manchester." It's a start. The plods have been dragging in every known sex offender on the register, having an exact height will weed out more than half. Sam shrugs without rancour and flips between the photographs again.

Pauley's still alive in the second shot. Naked, his hands are bound in front of him with masking tape. There's moisture on his cheeks that Gene tries to think of as sweat. His limbs look pale and coltish, mouth overly swollen. "You do realize these photographs are addressed to you?" Sam says quietly.

Coldness swamps Gene. "The envelop was addressed to C.I.D."

Tyler looks at him speculatively. "You are the face of C.I.D." Sam tosses a newspaper across the table, its pages fluttering like a startled crow. Gene, still nursing his whisky, let's the paper drop without ceremony.

It's Jackie Queen's by-line from the hostage job - Gene stands in the centre, flanked by Chris and Ray - both of them trying to look gravely professional while Gene scowls at the camera. Jackie had written Gene as a hero, the centre-piece of a drama, trying to make amends for a previous hatchet job. In the article, Tyler didn't even rate a mention by name. The core members of A-division, larger than life and in print, are splashed across its front page. Minus one.

Sam's eyes are predatory sharp. "Why didn't you mention the physical similarities between Stuart and the victims?"

His D.I is like a fine blade. You don't see the edges until Sam is slicing under the skin. The muscles of his body lock into rigidity. "How the fuck do you know what Stu looked like?"

Tyler sits up sharply, lazy deception gone in the space between breaths. "You've been drinking your body-weight in whisky since this case started," Sam snaps, "the killing ground is a factory you used to frequent and this nutter is sending you momentos in the mail. Don't tell me it's not personal."

"You checked in with Morgan, didn't you, on your way to Hyde? Had to let Frank know you'd be interviewing kids on his playground." Undercover agent. Morgan's crew would have profiled and researched Gene before they sent Sam in - and the rage is like living hellfire. "Was Stu's photo in my dossier?"

Bewilderment passes across Sam's face before he yells, "Will you forget about bloody Hyde!!!"

Gene throws his whisky glass. He grew up on the streets of Manchester in 1941 with a ham-fisted father and a mother who didn't give a toss about either son. You don't fight fair. You fight to win, and Gene is as dirty as they come. Tyler ducks the glass tumbler but catches the alcohol in his eyes and Hunt hits him once, across the cheek, cutting the skin open. Sam hits the ground and twists to face him, scrambling backward on his arse, "Wait, guv, Gene, wait!"

"I could have you in the looney-bin tomorrow, Sam. You talk to police radios when you think no one is watching, and your amnesia is bloody selective. They'd lock you away on my say-so and no one in this station would argue." It's not a threat Gene's used before, nor is it an action he would seriously take, but the words are out of his mouth before he can reconsider.

Tyler doesn't take the suggestion kindly, from his position on the floor he kicks upward, catching Gene in the knee-cap, and hollers, "I'm trying to help, you moron!"

Beneath the anger there was a flash of hurt and Gene didn't imagine it. "What is that, an oxymoron? You just tried to maim me you overly emotional poof! Words and actions, Sammy, on occasion they're meant to match." He hops, undignified, trying to stretch his leg out and put weight on the knee without crashing to the ground.

"What, like sending me to an asylum?" Sam snaps.

"How'd you know about Stu?" Gene grates out.

"I deduced it, you wanker, or haven't you seen the shiny badge...it's real and everything. You mentioned your brother once, six months ago, and suddenly your dropping his name into every conversation like gadfly. Are you done hitting me now?"

"No. I'm thinking about it."

Sam glares at him, touching his fingers to the cut across his cheek and wiping away blood. He sits forward, knees drawn up, elbows balanced on top, hands dangling between his legs like an overgrown street-tough. "I'm buying you a stress-ball," he mutters savagely.

"What?"

"Rubber ball. You squeeze it every time you want to take a pop at someone."

"Any good as a projectile?"

Sam squints at him.

__________________________

CLICK OF THE SWITCH - A VISION OF THE FUTURE.

It's falling it's falling, And outside the buildings are tumbling down
And inside a child lies on the ground, He says he'd do it again
And what am I to do, What in the world am I to say?
There's nothing else to do, He says he'll change the world someday

"Rejoice, fellow citizens, because I think this band is worth keeping an eye on!" The radio fades in, out, in again. 

This morning I fell out of bed, When I woke up to what he has said
Because now, everything is crazy....*

Bono's slow croon is replaced by the announcer's overly cheerful tone, "U2's October has finally hit the charts, and personally, I think this is going to be one of the hits of 1981!" She can't keep her eyes open, warmth bleeds down one side of her face, and her legs feel trapped. She coughs, a sharp staccato. The fog outside the car window is like a living entity. "Ma'am, can you tell me your name?" A bobby shakes her gently by the shoulder.

Alex jerks back to awareness, voice rasping. "D.C.I Drake."

He straightens imperceptibly. Her vehicle is trapped, caught in a six-car pile-up on the motorway. A bus lies over-turned on one side, fog-lights paint the landscape into a muted yellow. It's strangely ethereal, like a half-remembered dream. "That's good, ma'am," he smiles at her encouragingly, "can you step out of the vehicle for me?"

She wiggles her toes, cautious of any sudden movement. She's been blacking in and out since her head struck the steering wheel. "'M fine."

"Excellent, but still, let me help." He bobs down further and Alex freezes, her eyes widening incredulously. He's wearing a police hat, the old-styled one that sits canonical on top of his head. He meets her eyes, smile wavering until Alex accepts his hand. Her car is totalled, pretzeled between two larger vehicles. The fog obscures everything past a two meter radius, but she can hear the muted horns of banked up traffic, the red-blue flicker of emergency lights. Underscoring both is the distant cry of children. The bus, she thinks.

"Well, you know how make first impressions don't you, sweetheart?" a voice barks sarcastically, "First day on the job and you cause a six-car pile-up on the bloomin' motorway."

She turns in a half-circle, wiping blood from her fingers, my car's in the middle, Alex wants to protest, but the words die on her lips. "You're not real," she blurts out.

"You know, if I had a less forceful personality, I'd be suffering a complex by now," Gene Hunt says.

The fog swirls, coalesces, then parts. She catches a brief glimpse of a dark-eyed boy, standing beside the overturned bus. One arm is cradled protectively against his chest, and Alex can see the dull glint of exposed bone from a compound fracture. He's pale with shock. Alex staggers under a wave of vertigo, trying to keep her breakfast down. She bends double, hands on her knees, breathing slow. By the time she looks up again the fog has shifted sinuously and the boy has vanished from sight.

"They have a name for this - folie a` deux - induced delusional disorder, DSM, section 297.3. It's transference, when the delusions of one are adopted by another, that's it, two months spent poring over trauma profiles and I wake up stuck in his bloody world." She's raving, words falling from her tongue in a rapid-fire stream. She's not normally prone to hysteria, but then she's not accustomed to waking up in the constructed reality of a suicide jumper either. She wants to hit out, push against the boundaries of perception . Hunt stares at her like she's something unfortunate he scraped off his shoe. "You're not real," she reiterates.

"Same song different tune, although the packaging is more pleasing," he leers at her deliberately. "Alex Drake? Did your parents want a little boy instead?"

The sexual innuendo means nothing to him, his eyes are agate, but the tone though, that speaks volumes. It's not real, Alex reminds herself. He's psyching her out and watching for the reactions and it means nothing to him; it means even less to her, "I'm researching the death of Samuel Williams." Tyler's name has never been mentioned in any historical reports, and if she's going to play the game, then she might as well play it in full. "I understood you were a primary suspect at one time." Alex smiles at him sweetly.

From the opposite side of the desk, Gene Hunt's expression runs through a gamut of emotion.

In Tyler's audio tapes, D.C.I Hunt had a ruffian charm and she had listened to the descriptions of 1970s police life with a mixture of curiosity and nostalgic humour. Faced with the 'reality' of him though, Hunt's physicality is alarming. This is a man who had systematically broken every bone in a suspect's hand with a phone handle. Provoking him may not be smart, but at least it would induce a reaction. You're not real - Alex is silently mouthing those three words like a mantra - if she's dreaming this, then her daughter's in the twisted remains of their crashed Audi and Alex needs to wake up.

DS Skelton shifts uneasily in his seat, there are fine lines around his eyes, eight years on and he's finally matured into his own skin.

Hunt stands abruptly, chair skidding across the floor and overturning. He stalks from the room without a word. Alex relaxes her shoulders and glances at Chris.

"I guess sexism does have it's place, miss," he says shrewdly, "if you were anyone other than a bird, the guv would have knocked your teeth down your throat by now."

Her heart is pounding. Molly, she thinks. There's no way in hell she's going to be stuck here, no way she's going to play this scenario the same way Tyler did. Alex knows she's not insane. She knows this is just a dream. She knows this is folie a` deux, she has the clinical explanation for what's occurring, it's a way for her mind to work out the inconsistencies in Tyler's story. Unlike Sam, Alex leans back in her seat and tells D.S Skelton the truth, starting from the very beginning, because it's not real and it's not like they can lock her up because of it.

After the first ten minutes, Chris' complexion turns waxy and he motions toward a tape recorder. "Do you mind?" Alex waves her consent, and Skelton turns it on, murmuring the date softly, "October 12th, 1981, oh nine hundred hours, D.S Chris Skelton and criminal psychologist Alexandra Drake are both present, this interview is not for police purposes."

Amused, Alex corrects, "It's July 4th. I mean, at least it was July 4th." In the real world, Ruth Tyler was going to turn off her son's life-support in a few days.

Alex's own name and job description are the same - a police psychologist who's been newly appointed to London Met - it makes it easier to operate in a world of make-believe, Alex supposes, like Alice in Wonderland, no one's so much as raised an eyebrow at her presence.

Chris studies her, his expression open. Alex remembers the affection in Tyler's voice when talking about him; Chris hasn't developed the poker face most copper's adopt, and he answers without sarcasm, "I guess time runs a little differently here, then."

Everything is relative, Alex thinks.

_____________________________________

 MANCHESTER, NOVEMBER 4TH, 1973.

 Gene's thinking about pouring himself another glass, to replace the one he wasted when Tyler shifts the whisky bottle away. "I'm not sleeping on the couch again. You can go home sober..."

"Tea then, your coffee tastes like a sewer," his knee is stinging, vaguely, he hears Tyler say under his breath, "...and find yourself a better crutch."

Gene wonders if Sam does that on purpose, layer the meanings on top of one another until they're interchangeable. Gene doesn't know if Sam's referring to the drinking or his own swollen kneecap, and refuses to acknowledge the dig either way. Instead, he stares at Pauley's image, the photo spread on top of Jackie Queen's by-line. Hunt hadn't known Tyler had saved the article before now, along with a few LPs that Sam is beginning to collect, it's one of the scant personal touches inside the flat, as if history is beginning to creep into the vacant spaces.

"Stu and I never worked the milliner's factory, we fenced stolen goods and sold them at a profit down the road."

Stu had wanted too though, wanted to work an 'honest' job. Gene had taken one look at Charles Sauvigon and kept his brother as far away from his evil clutches as possible. Gene was eleven and already old, looking after his younger sibling was his entire world. "Black market trade was easy enough to fund. Fitz was bombing the shit out of Manchester and Liverpool, the second phase of the Blitz, and if you didn't mind getting your hands dirty you could find all manner of things in the rubble."

"So you went from thieving to policing. Good to see you touch base on all walks of life, guv." Sam's eyes are sharp.

Gene has seen him use this technique before, minor interruptions that allow a person to gather their thoughts, to find the space to push through the next confession. Gene smiles at him bitterly, "Know thy enemy, Sam, if you want to catch a crook...." He blows smoke at the ceiling, eyes half-lidded, "It was widely rumoured that good old Charles didn't employ kids because of the shortage of men, or even because he could stint them on the pay-checks, but because he had a thing for hiding the sausage with the highly illegal. He liked them blond."

"Rumoured?"

"Speculation doesn't help much, does it, and nobody was reporting anything. I kept Stu away from that place."

"But you raided it the night the bomb hit."

"Course I did, found Sauvigon's body on the upper floor of the north-west corner, pants around his ankles. I guess he died in flagrante, a little death that became a whole lot messier - too good for the likes of him."

"And his 'partner'?"

"Not a wisp. Sauvigon's skull was caved in when part of the roof came down, he took the hard knocks, whoever was under him was protected....if that's the right word."

"Alright, speculate, was Sauvigon violent? Did he mistreat the lads?"

"He was screwing them up the jacksie, that's quite miscreant."

"Charles was a child molester," Sam corrects, "not a child killer. They're two different breeds. Charles would have had one victim and he would have stayed with him until the kid moved from pre-pubescence to early maturity, the boy would have been dumped the moment he took on the characteristics of a young adult, if Sauvigon had lived that long. Think about it. If it was more than one child from the factory then those rumours would have spread - enough to get him banged up in the local cell - one child equals one lover and that's how Sauvigon would have thought of it, as love not as a crime. It's how child molester's justify themselves. Was Charles Sauvigon violent?"

Gene stubs out his cigarette, tries to think back, to recall. "No," he admits grudgingly, "He wasn't a bruiser."

Sam sits beside him, his cheek is striated, violet and red where Gene's wedding ring had cut him. "Then the boy probably loved him, the killer's recreating the scene, living it over again, except in his mind it's the children who die, every single time."

He knows what Sam is trying to say, he even agrees with it, but there's some small part of him that wants to speak up for the victims - for whoever that first child was - that history doesn't always repeat itself in an endless loop, and that sometimes, one plus one doesn't add up to two. Gene taps his finger against Pauley's image. "This photo wasn't taken at the factory."

"You noticed that, too."

_______________________

LONDON MET, OCTOBER 12TH, 1981

Alex's voice is dry, too long spent talking and she has a concussion to boot. She sips from a glass of water, turning the cup around in her hand and continues. "...D.C.I Tyler's audio tape ended in the tunnel, with Hunt caught in an ambush. Sam woke up before the situation was resolved and three weeks later he was in a coma again."

"Why so long? I mean, three weeks. He wasn't out of our sight longer than three minutes."

Chris is deceptively easy to talk to, he's been scribbling down notes but for the most part he remains quiet. He is a good copper, Alex thinks distractedly, his questions progressing down a linear path. "Bureaucracy - it took three weeks before the paperwork was cleared - medically and emotionally they had to be certain Tyler was ready to return to work. On the audio tapes his story ended with D.C.I Hunt about to be shot."

"That's not where it ended for us." For a figment of her imagination, Chris is adamantly persistent.

Alex feels a smile curve her mouth, "You're telling me you're real? That Sam Tyler travelled back in time to 1973? That you met him? Do you have any idea how insane that is? He's physically in a coma, he never left 2006. You can't be in two different places at once."

"Like Schrodinger's Cat, alive and dead at the same time...existing in two different states, isn't that the exact wording they use?" Chris' expression hardens, "I'm not a nonce Ms. Drake. D.I Tyler has been dead for eight years and you just said he was alive where you came from."

Not for much sooner. Alex shifts the argument in a different direction, "You've accepted the entire story with a little too much ease."

"We used to think he was mad, everyone did, but nobody at the station talked about it," Chris bites at his lip, the pen tapping rapidly against his note-pad. "D.I Tyler would say weird things and because they were weird, you remembered them....afterward....afterward they made sense."

"Like what?"

"Oh, Watergate for one," Chris drawls, his eyes shift away, focusing somewhere behind her, "after that bombshell hit...well, let's just say in the grand scheme of things, we're willing to listen." She doesn't register the presence until Hunt moves, he must never have left the room to begin with, like most fighters he's surprisingly light on his feet.

They'd played her, Alex thinks, the oldest trick in the book, a willing ear and earnest eyes. Uncomfortable, she turns around to keep both men in the periphery of her vision. She's not trying to hide anything, she's told the truth from the start. Hunt and Skelton are historical figures but this entire scenario is false, she won't be drawn into it. Alex fixes her attention on Hunt. "You thought it was real and it never occurred to you to look Tyler up, afterwards? For your own curiousity? You didn't want to go knocking on his door and say hi? He must be twelve by now, isn't he?"

"No," Gene answers fiercely.

Alex rattled him before. Now, she softens her voice, "What's the matter Mr. Hunt? Don't you like children? A little too frail for your tastes?"

"Oh, you're good sweetheart, I'll give you that," Gene leans over the desk, knuckles planted on top. "Tyler's twelve, what do you think I could possibly say to him? Let him grow up in peace - with his aunties and his mum - he doesn't need the likes of me hovering around." The guv refused to react in a way Alex would have predicted and for a moment, she almost regrets her line of attack; Hunt disabuses her of the notion immediately, "Now, for the harmony of this station and for future reference, I don't hit women. But I have no problem calling Cartwright in, it'll be the best entertainment all week. D.I Carling could probably sell ringside seats. You try to bait me again, love, and Nancy Drew will be tearing your hair out and flashing your titties to the entire station. Clear?"

Alex arches her neck, trying to remain calm.

Hunt's eyes rake over her dispassionately. "You're not like Sam, are you? Tyler thought he was hallucinating but there was some part of him that doubted it, otherwise why keep his mouth shut? But you made up your mind the instant you arrived here, singing like a sky-lark."

"I'm a police psychologist," Alex says calmly, "and I know exactly what this is."

Skelton looks between them uneasily. "Pretend for a moment, Ms. Drake, that it is real. You have the year 1973 and the year 2006 lined up side by side like two pieces of string. But they're out of kilter, three weeks in the future is the same as three minutes in a tunnel, that's a hell of a discrepancy, they're not synched up all, are they? That gap between time would widen, wouldn't it, as the years progress? If Ruth Tyler turns off the machine in 2008, at what point would D.I Tyler die in 1973?"

She can't answer the question, she doesn't know how. "You have an interest in science, Chris?"

"I watch Star Trek," he answers defensively.

Gene stirs, shifting his weight, "Home Office footed the bill to send him back to university - electrics and surveillance - he's our resident expert."

"You're not real," Alex replies tightly. It doesn't seem fair, Tyler only had Cartwright to contend with, Sam wasn't ganged up on by two of them. Alex had interviewed any number of Tyler's colleagues in the present, but questioning the physical manifestation of Sam's 'delusion' is a little more unorthodox. "What was he like?" she asks out of habit.

Chris shrugs, "The boss was all over the gaff, if the guv said the sky was blue then D.I Tyler would come back with flow-charts and graphs trying to prove it was green...he questioned everything." Skelton picks at the seam of his trousers, then offers quietly, "We buried him with his family at Stevren's Cemetery."

"You buried Sam Tyler with his family?"

"Well, Sam Williams.... I mean, they said it was his real name."

"Who said?"

"Frank Morgan."

She feels like she's running in circles, Alex rubs at her forehead and moans, "Frank Morgan was never in the police force."

Chris stares at her likes she insane, "Begging your pardon, skip, but everyone in A-division met D.C.I Morgan."

There's no point arguing existentialism with a delusion, Alex thinks wildly. "What about you, Detective Chief Inspector? How would you describe your D.I?"

For a moment Alex thinks Hunt won't answer her question. He stands a little to one side, dressed in a long black trench-coat and a shabby suit, his entire body preternaturally still. "Sam was never easy on his knees," Gene says shortly, and walks out the door.

____________________ 

MANCHESTER, NOVEMBER 5TH, 1973.

"No there, in the corner, you can see the very edge of the window design."

Annie squints, then looks doubtfully between the two of them. "So it's not a casement window like the factory."

"It's an oriel, it pushes out from the wall like a false balcony, narrow through the body and ending in a diamond point. That's an old design, Annie, it wouldn't be common on a house unless it's two or three levels high."

Her eyes widen suspiciously, "Don't you dare say it, sir. You can't ask the plods to march through Manchester peering through people's windows, they probably don't even know what an oriel window looks like, besides, didn't you think the killer resided in Hyde?"

"I don't care if they look it up in an architecture book," Gene interrupts, "but pass the sketching along to the lads and have them keep an eye out. There's been too much bloody theorizing in this case and not enough maiming. I'm getting sick of it."

"Annie," Sam touches her wrist lightly, "Pauley wasn't gagged, wherever this house is, it's not surrounded by nosy neighbours."

She nods once and licks her lips, the photograph held between her fingertips, eyes fixed on the cut across Tyler's cheek. "Are you alright, sir?"

"Good to go," he smiles faintly.

Gene clears his throat. "You're coming with me," he says roughly. He walks slowly until his D.I steps into line with him, then quickens his pace, "You really think our killer is linked to the bombing raid in '41?"

"Yes."

There's no doubt in Sam's voice, in the end, that's good enough for Hunt. "Okay then, we're going to have a chat with Nicholas Sean," when Sam glances over, Gene adds, "he's a childhood chum, worked the milliner factory for two months."

"The same bloke who called Sauvigon 'creepy'?"

Gene nods, "That's the one. He might have a better grasp on who worked there and who didn't, it can't hurt to ask."

Sam tucks his hands into his pocket nonchalantly, "Is he blond, by any chance?"

Gene eyeballs him. "Cut that line of thought out right now, Dorothy. Not all of my old mates are bent, he's a banker, respectable, and not into murdering lambs. If you keep on trying to arrest them at the rate you do, I won't have any friends left." Tyler snorts and bumps into him, a brief press of shoulder and arm, a flash of warmth down the length of Hunt's side. Gene allows it to pass without comment, then says reluctantly, "I called the surveillance team off the factory last night."

There's a hitch in Sam's step, his eyebrows draw together fiercely, "It's too early for that."

"Bollocks, we can't waste the manpower, our 'hatter' is already selecting his next victim, do you want to explain to the mother why we couldn't save her son?"

"People, places in time, they hold power over our perception, the factory is important to him, guv, he's going to go back there."

"You sit in the dark then. But don't you dare waste my men when they could be out hunting this faggotty queen down," Gene ignores Tyler's wince at his choice of insult and hisses. "Sitting on our laurels and waiting doesn't help this case any. If the papers catch wind of it, the press will crucify you for neglecting your job."

They've been working sixteen hour days since the first victim was found, his team is already strung out and under pressure for results as it is, the top brass breathing down Hunt's neck with their grinding axes raised high. Gene slams the car door shut and fires the engine.

Nicholas Sean is, by chance, flaxen-haired, and Gene can feel Tyler shooting daggers at him when the banker shakes his hand with an easy grin. "Nick, good to see you," Gene motions behind him, "the lad with the sour pout is my D.I, but don't let the expression bother you, unless they're six-foot two and leggy, he has an intolerance for anything blond."

There's a significant pause before Nick shrugs, "What happened to Ray Carling? I thought he was up for promotion?"

Gene forces himself not to look at Tyler. "The position was filled unexpectedly."

Nick takes a seat behind his desk, interlacing his fingers, "Unless your D.I's opening an account, I presume this is business?"

Gene bares his teeth in an imitation of a smile. "The milliner's factory in 1941, how many kids did Sauvigon employ?"

"That was thirty-two years ago," Nick protests, his eyes going wide.

"Just try."

Nick knots one hand in his hair and grimaces, "Half a dozen maybe, give or take."

"Did Sauvigon single any of them out? Treat them special?" Tyler shifts position, stepping into the periphery of Gene's eye-sight.

Nick ignores him entirely, directing his answer to Gene. "Not that I recall, he was always hanging around, standing too close but....I don't think so..."

"Do you remember their names?"

"Four of them, two of the other boys didn't make it through the Blitz," Nick grabs a pen and paper, scribbling James Berrin, Colin Harper, Leonard Sirl, Anthony... in neat hand-print. "I can't remember his surname," he provides softly. "I think it was Remick."

"You ought to come down to the Arms one night, I'm buying," Gene studies the paper then passes it to Tyler, he claps Nick on the shoulder lightly, "Do you know how old the boys were?"

"You're paying for the entire night," Nick heckles. "Colin was lucky if he was nine or ten, and that's pushing it. Anthony was the oldest at fifteen."

Nine, Gene thinks, Colin would have been the same age as Stuart. Stu, three little letters that shorten a name, sliced in half and long buried. Sam stands at an angle, re-reading the names silently before he asks Nick frankly. "You own any property outside of Manchester, Mr. Sean?"

"Shut it," Gene snaps.

Tyler ignores him, "Answer the question, sir."

"I own my grandmother's house near Leeds, she passed away last year and left me the deed, is that a problem?" Nick stands upright, tension flooding through his frame, "Are you formally questioning me?"

"No," Tyler puts the same amount of insolence into the word as Nick had when ignoring him, "it's just a general enquiry."

"Sure it is," Nick turns his attention on Gene, lip curled in distaste, "your boy lacks manners, Hunt. I help you out for old time's sake and he puts the boot in, what sort of gimmick is that?"

"An inquisitive one. I'll have a word in his ear outside," Gene stands up and proffers his hand for a brisk shake. He waits until they're both standing in the rain beside the cortina before he makes do on his promise and boxes Sam smartly over the left ear. "I told you not to cast aspersions on my friends."

Tyler scowls at him, "Your so-called friend has all the charm of the Mongol army at Samarkand. He worked the milliner's factory, Gene, that puts him on the short-list just as easily as the four names he provided."

"You think he's guilty because he doesn't like you? Most people at the station don't like you, myself included."

Sam jostles the police radio, "Phyllis, I need addresses for four Caucasian males, priority for anyone still residing in Manchester or Hyde, names as follows..."

Gene tunes him out, only filtering back in again when the radio squawks with Phyllis' reply. "Neatly divided, boss, hits on all four, two live in Manchester and two in Hyde, who do you want to start with first?"

Sam thumps his head against the car-seat and groans plaintively, "Fuck me, it couldn't be easy for once could it."

Deliberately, Gene rakes his eyes over his D.I's body, "I've had better offers than you, Gladys."

"Not in the last ten years, you haven't," Sam doesn't bother opening his eyes, before he depresses the radio again. "Phyllis, I swear to god I'll worship at your altar if you say yes - but are any of those addresses listed in a secluded area, off the beaten track?"

"Sorry, boss, it's residential across the board."

"I'm going to hack that bloody altar to the ground and stomp on it."

There's a smoky laugh across the airwaves, a final sign-off before Phyllis disappears. "Lads today, hey guv, they've no staying power."

He's not going anywhere, Gene thinks, listening to the easy banter between them. It's taken the better part of a crazy year, but Tyler has finally settled in. Hunt snatches the radio from Tyler's hand, "Phyllis, love, first off send some of the uniformed boys over to those addresses, make sure they're arty-farty and know what an oriel window looks like. Secondly, see if any of those names own dual property."

"Wilco, sir."

"It's a long-shot," Sam murmurs, "Oriel windows are ornamental, not the type that normally grace the front wall of a housing estate. Mansions or churches yes, your average Joe-Blow, not so much."

"We'll widen the search then," Gene scratches at his jaw, voice tightening with discomfit, "Give Morgan a call, see if he's willing to put some of his plods into snooping around Hyde."

Sam grins at him, "You burying the hatchet, guv?"

"I want this bastard caught."

 LONDON MET, OCTOBER 15TH, 1981

"You still think you're living in a world of make-believe, Bob?"

"It's Alex."

"Don't blame me, your parents started it, so, where art thou, Bob?"

With more patience than Alex thought she possessed, she places her pen down and directs a withering stare at D.C.I Hunt. "I didn't think you were the type to read Shakespeare."

"I'm a fan of cliffsnotes. So out with it, then, have you decided I am your secret male fantasy?"

"You're not real," Alex answers by rote.

"Now you're just being petulant."

He stares at her flatly. Hunt's like a glacier, Alex thinks, overly large and in your face and completely untouchable, a slick surface where nothing takes hold. He stays close to her, teases her, but Alex never once felt like he actually likes her. He's waiting patiently, biding his time, but for what Alex doesn't know.

For the first three days, Alex locked herself in her flat and refused to go to work, that lasted brilliantly until Hunt knocked the door down and dragged her out, literally, by the hair. In truth, Alex was grateful, she was starting to go insane staring at those four walls, profiling criminals in an imaginary world is of on use to anyone, but it does help pass the time, researching the Mad Hatter, with people who had lived and breathed through the case, is unsettling in the extreme. Alex is more than a little afraid that this is how it begins - how Sam became embroiled in this world in the first place - by passing time the only way he knew how. "This is folie a` deux, which means the delusion originated with Sam Tyler, so the question you really need to ask, guv, is this: are you Sam's version of a male fantasy?"

Gene opens his mouth then closes it rapidly, he blinks twice, "I didn't want to hear that."

Satisfied, Alex smirks.

"Why don't you think it's real?" Gene asks doggedly.

"Frank Morgan," Alex answers without hesitation. "He doesn't make any kind of sense. My turn, why were you the prime suspect in William's death?"

He flickers, there's no other word for it. "Sam's cheek was torn up. The pattern matched a ring I was wearing. It happened only a day before his death and the coroner didn't know any better." There's no qualifier, Hunt doesn't say he didn't do it, doesn't try to insist on his innocence, the words are spoken like bullets, harsh consonants fired at a rat-tat-tat pace, like examining the words for any length is unacceptable. "Did you research Frank Morgan in the glorious world of 2008?"

"Yes, not a copper, not a doctor, not a chemist or a teacher. He was an actor, played a minor, if vital, part in a famous film and died in 1949," Alex taps her fingers against her legal pad. "After Williams' death, the Mad Hatter never killed again?"

"He killed a cop. Every policeman in England was gunning for him, he took to the ground like a bloody gopher and vanished like a ghost."

Alex winces, "That's....I think you're mixing your...."

"Shut it!" Gene explodes, his face is livid, colour flaming up his neck and cheeks, his eyes cobalt blue. "After the morgue, I tried to find Morgan. Everyone knew him, but everyone was kind of vague about him, the same way they were vague about Sam's placement in Hyde. He was reassigned after Sam's funeral and vanished, couldn't find his name or his posting anywhere. I found his middle name though, found Eris littered throughout history everywhere. Both of your parents would have got along famously, Alex, Frank Morgan having such a girlie middle name like that."

His hands are clenched into fists, chest heaving. Alex holds up her hand, murmurs, "Sorry, sorry..." until their voices overlap.

"...I want to know why my D.I died. I want to put a bullet in the man who did it, I want him dead, Alex, before I pass away, too..."

You won't, Alex thinks, you never did. Gene Hunt died with the mystery of Williams' death firmly embedded in his grave.

Eris was a goddess of paradoxes and war, delighting in small torments, like a little girl pulling the wings off a butterfly, a trickster who changes form. Frank Morgan - the test card girl - neither one of them ever made any kind of sense, only in the fevered imaginings of a damaged brain. "This isn't real," Alex says kindly, and doesn't duck in time when Hunt strikes her full on in the stomach. "Jesus Christ," she gasps, and drops to the floor, retching.

"I don't know if I'm real, Ms. Drake, but I'm feeling pretty agitated," Gene Hunt smiles unpleasantly. "Sam was right about the factory, the killer did come back, my D.I was tortured for over twenty-four hours and I...." He stops, draws a breath and crouches down beside her, fingers curling under her chin, "After listening to Tyler's tapes, did you reopen the Mad Hatter files?"

Her eyes are squeezed shut. It hurts, it hurts like a sonofabitch, and so much for Gene Hunt's sexism, she thinks savagely. "Yes, four victims from 1949 to 1973."

His fingers loosen, "What? It was three. Darren Malisha was the first boy, his body wasn't formally identified until two months later, Pauley Robson died on the 1st of November, and Sam Tyler died four days later."

"They found the skeletal remains of a twelve year old boy, buried in the bottom of a disused well in 1991. The striated cuts to his lower ribs matched the knife pattern found on Darren Malisha's body, forensics and computer analysis confirmed it. Two victims killed by one weapon, after that, the Mad Hatter changed his choice of murder weapon, moving from a wide to a narrow blade, presumably, so he could prolong the death. One victim, seperated by over twenty-four years, it's your classic stop-gap, or broad escalation. It's not uncommon for serial killers to have a 'practice' run, a single victim that's out of time from the main murder spree; your killer had a history long before Darren Malisha, he just halted for a while until he built up to it again."

"The body from 1949," Gene asks evenly, "where was he found?"

"In Hyde, St. Christopher's school for Boys. It was an abandoned...."

"Orphanage," Gene mutters. Pauley Robson came from a broken home, Darren Malisha was a runaway, and the boy from 1949 was an orphan, of the three, he was only one the killer tried to hide, burying him in the bottom of a well. He was the only one the Mad Hatter was ashamed of. Three boys starved of affection. Gene wonders if the killer was once like that, if he had walked in their shoes, if Charles Sauvigon had spotted a weakness and manipulated it.

The Mad Hatter visited the same crime upon them. Three children seeking affection of any kind, who perished because of it, and Sam, who finally reasoned it out.

Alexandra Drake straightens, her movements overly careful. He needs to convince her, Gene thinks dispassionately, a mouthy psychologist who has an answer for everything - and who refuses to look beyond it.

 MANCHESTER, NOVEMBER 5TH, 1973

They interviewed all four men over the course of the day, dragging them in from work, or chatting to them over tea. Colin Harper and Anthony Remick both resided in Hyde, James Berrin and Leonard Sirl in Manchester. Two men were married, two were single, one of whom cared for his ailing mother. None of them owned any property outside of their chosen residences - and not one of them reacted to the name Charles Sauvigon - beyond confirming they worked for him at one stage.

Their houses were uniform red brick, knocked up against their neighbours in a neat row, built closer together than a puppy pile. None of them were insulated against sound or were decorated with ornate windows. Two of the men tensed up when Gene Hunt presented his police I.D, two remained amicably relaxed.

Colin Harper, the youngest of the four men and married, continued inside the hat-making industry and worked in a milliners on the outskirts of Hyde. Anthony Remick, single, became a teacher after graduation, pulling emergency subs since the bulk of his time was spent caring for his stricken mother. James Berrin, also single, became a union speaker, waving the red flag for all to see; he was the only suspect to remain aggressively unco-operative, and the one suspect Gene Hunt punched. Leonard Sirl owned a bakery on the corners of Heron and Murtle Streets, he had four nippers in the crib, and almost fell asleep during the interview. He also worked the most unorthodox hours, beginning around two am in the morning, when the streets were emptiest and clean.

"Do you want to spin the bottle or should I?"

Tyler does a double-take then grins, "Iny, miny, miney mo?"

Gene takes a seat on Tyler's desk, "What's your gut instinct say?"

"That we didn't ask the right questions, what about you?"

"It's telling me I'm hungry, it's a quarter to seven, deputy-dog, and I have a progress meeting with a knucklehead." Elise is home tonight. There will be a warm meal waiting for him - after he's been raked over the coals by Rathdown - a conversation that doesn't revolve around mutilated children, and a shag if Elise is feeling frisky. He'll crawl back into the office in the early hours to start this entire mess over again, chances are good, Tyler will still be here.

"Gene?" Sam's eyes are troubled, reading over the list of four names as if he can determine guilt by repetition. "Did your dad fight in the war?"

Gene freezes, he should be used to Tyler's non sequitur's, he supposes. "Yeah, he came home wounded in '39."

"The war started September 1st, didn't it? Most of those boys still had both parents in '41, they were just trying to help out while their dads were fighting."

Sam twists in his seat, a line between his eyebrows that means he's thinking or about to explode. Sam Williams was an orphan, Gene reminds himself. He's not sure if the thread Sam is currently pursuing is case related or if it's 'Tyler' going off on one of his jaunty little spells. He answers carefully, "Yeah, and if they were lucky, they still had both parents at the end of it."

"What if they didn't have both parents to begin with?" Tyler grabs a police radio and slides off the table, he makes it five steps before he stumbles, crashing into the side of Chris' desk, spooked like a cat, as if the radio had jumped up and bitten him.

"Sam?"

"It's nothing...I need...." Sam's face is bone-white, leached of all colour, "I need to find out who worked the factory the longest."

"Take Ray with you," Gene snaps, "and what frequency are you on?"

"Standard," Tyler hollers back.

"Hardly." Gene mutters to himself.

He makes love to Elise that same night, slow and leisurely, sweet as a goodbye.