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

eyes, Sam once again felt a sudden stirring of his heart. He told himself to stop being so adolescent, that he was too old for such gushing, seething emotions.

      But then Annie glanced across at the bar, caught his eye, and at once her face lit up. It made Sam’s heart beat a little faster – for a brief second, he felt he was the king of the world – and he forgave himself such a schoolboy response to her. It felt too good to feel bad about.

      Annie clip-clopped over in her heeled boots and examined the four pints and four empty shot glasses crowding the bar.

      ‘Taking it easy tonight, are we?’ she said.

      ‘Nelson – another round of pints!’ ordered Gene. ‘And some sort of poofy squash for the bird.’ Turning to Sam he said, ‘Don’t let us stop you taking your pint and totty to another corner, Sam.’

      ‘Why’d you say that?’

      ‘A lifetime in the force, Sammy – it’s made me sensitive to picking up vibes. And I’m picking up vibes right now – ones that say you and her would rather be alone just now.’

      ‘Well, Guv, I would like a chance to be with Annie in private. You know, for a little tête-à-tête.’

      ‘I’ve never heard it called that,’ muttered Ray. Chris sniggered.

      ‘Here you go,’ grinned Nelson, passing over drinks. ‘A rum and Coke for the lady of my dreams, and a fresh pint o’ me finest for me good friend Samuel.’

      ‘Clear off with her and have your chinwag – you’re bugger all company tonight,’ Gene ordered. ‘Just make sure you’re both bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning – we’ve got an IRA arms-smuggling chain to break.’

      ‘The incident this morning, Guv – it wasn’t the IRA,’ said Sam.

      ‘Discuss it with WPC Crumpet,’ Gene replied flatly. ‘I’ve got a liver to abuse.’

      And, as Sam and Annie carried their drinks away, he lifted his glass in a toast to them, growled, ‘Cheerio, amigos,’ and tossed three fingers of neat whisky down his gullet.

      ‘Sometimes,’ Sam whispered as they walked away, ‘sometimes, Annie, I really do think seriously about killing him.’

      ‘The guv?’ Annie smiled back. ‘You’d have your work cut out. I reckon you’d need a silver bullet. Or a stake through the heart.’

      ‘Or an atom bomb,’ said Sam. ‘Come to think of it, he’d probably survive – him and the cockroaches.’

      ‘And he’d be radioactive. He might go all big like Godzilla.’

      ‘Oh, God, Annie, not even in jest …’

      They settled themselves into a corner, the Rolling Stones still weeping from the speaker on the wall above them.

      ‘Well then,’ said Annie, ‘here we are, having our moment, just the two of us.’

      ‘I was hoping for something a little bit more … A little less …’

      They both glanced briefly at Gene, Ray and Chris sharing a filthy joke only feet away. Ray was using his hands to describe the shape of some sort of enormous saveloy in the air.

      ‘Just carry on like they’re not there,’ said Annie. ‘Believe me, Sam, that’s what I do. Every day. You think I’d have stuck this job so long if I didn’t?’

      Sam played agitatedly with his pint glass. ‘It’s crazy, isn’t it? I’ve been going on and on about us two finding the time to sit and talk – and now we’re here, I don’t know how to say what’s on my mind.’

      ‘The job getting you down?’

      ‘It’s not the job, Annie. It’s … It’s like … Ach, I don’t know how to put this without sounding like an idiot.’

      ‘Well, say it anyway. You can’t sound more like an idiot than some people I can think of.’

      ‘I’ve been dreaming,’ said Sam at last.

      ‘Oh, aye?’

      ‘No, not like that. Stupid dreams. I’m always alone. I’m always lost, stuck somewhere I shouldn’t be, unable to get home. Everything’s broken … Like the world’s come to an end and I’m lost, and …’ He shrugged and threw up his hands. ‘I told you I’d make myself sound like an idiot.’

      ‘These dreams you keep having,’ said Annie, ‘the way they make you feel. Does that feeling stay with you, even when you wake up?’

      ‘Yes. Yes, it does.’

      ‘Is it the feeling that you ought to be somewhere else? Somewhere really important?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘But you don’t know where it is, or why you need to be there. And that feeling doesn’t go away, even when you ignore it and tell yourself it’s just the job or you’re having an off day. It keeps coming back, creeping up on you, all the time.’

      Sam leant forward, looking intently into her face. ‘Annie, it’s like you’re reading my mind.’

      ‘It’s like you’re reading mine, Sam. I know the feeling you’re talking about. I have it too.’

      ‘You do? Annie, you never said.’

      ‘Yes I did. Just now.’

      ‘But … Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

      Sam squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back. He could feel the warmth of her skin, catch the hint of her Yardley perfume, see the light reflecting from her eyes as she looked intently at him. It was a quietly intense moment – a real moment, more real by far than anything he could recall from his old life amid the laptops and iPods, satellite channels and Bluetooths.

      ‘What does it mean, Annie? Why do we feel like this?’

      He could feel it right now, and he supposed that Annie could, too. A restlessness. A deep feeling of a job to do, a train to catch, an appointment to be met, important business to be concluded. Holding Annie’s hand, he looked back across the pub towards the bar. There was Ray, grinning and joking, the empty glasses piling up in front of him; and there was Chris, looking youthful and uncertain as he squirmed from the good-humoured bullying. And, looming over them, there stood Gene – solid, rocklike, wreathed in blue fag smoke that caught the light and glowed all about him like an aura.

      But now Sam become acutely aware of Nelson standing just beyond them, pumping bitter into a pint glass and grinning at some inane comment from his CID regulars. Without changing his expression, Nelson glanced slowly up at Sam and Annie; knowingly, he tipped them both a wink.

      For a brief moment, Sam felt the sudden conviction that everything here in this crappy, filthy pub was alive with meaning – the bar, the ashtrays, the rings of sticky beer on the tables, and, even more so, the people: Chris and Ray and Gene. Annie too, and Sam himself. And Nelson most of all.

      We’re all here for a reason, Sam thought. There’s a plan at work here – and we are all part of it.

      And in the next heartbeat, everything faded back into drab normality, the sense of imminent revelation gone. Gene, Ray and Chris were just three mouthy coppers sharing a drink. Nelson was just Nelson. The pub was just yet another reeking Manchester boozer.

      ‘What’s going on in that noggin of yours, mm?’ Annie asked, leaning closer to him.

      ‘I was thinking,’ Sam breathed softly. ‘I was thinking that I thought I was here to stay. This place. This life. I thought it was home. But now I’m starting to suspect home’s somewhere else.’

      ‘Me too,’ murmured Annie.

      ‘I can’t