Life on Mars: Get Cartwright. Tom Graham

jaw fell open.

      ‘Annie?’ he gasped. ‘You’ve been talking to Annie?’

      The colour drained from Carroll's lined cheeks. His eyes screwed up and filled with tears.

      ‘I told her it weren’t me, I was nothing to do with what happened!’ he cried, his voice tight and constricted. ‘What the hell else could I say? And then, after she went, he turned up ...’

      ‘Gould. Clive Gould. He came for you, didn’t he?’

      Baring his yellow-stained teeth like a wild animal, Carroll suddenly thrust the gun straight at Sam.

      Sam froze.

      ‘What is going on?’ whinged the vicar, peering myopically.

      Carroll glared along the barrel of the gun, grinding his teeth furiously.

      ‘I am good!’ he growled, his throat tight and constricted. ‘I’m not perfect, but I am GOOD! It should be YOU not me, Tyler! I do NOT deserve this!’

      ‘Deserve what, Mr Carroll?’ Sam said, in a voice that he fought to keep from wavering. He tried to look past the muzzle of the pistol that was pointing right between his eyes, and instead fixed his attention on the man’s face. ‘Tell me. I’ll help you. We’ll work together. What is it you don’t deserve?’

      ‘It’s you he wants, not me!’ Carroll snarled. ‘You and her! Oh, I’d blow your head off, Tyler, I’d blow your damned head right off and stop all this … but it’s too late … too late for Pat, too late for me …’

      ‘Please, Mr Carroll, put away the gun and talk to me. I understand more than you think. I can help you. Together, we can –’

      But the vicar was marching down the aisle towards them, peevishly demanding to know what in God’s name was going on.

      ‘Stay back!’ Sam ordered.

      ‘I will do no such thing!’ the vicar snapped. ‘Not until you boys tell me what you think you’re d –’

      In the next moment, Carroll had the vicar in a head lock, the pistol jammed against the poor man’s face hard enough to send his glasses skittering away across the stone floor.

      ‘I’m not going to end up like Pat!’ Carroll howled. His voice broke, making him sound like a desperate, wailing child. ‘I’m not going to end up that way! No, no, no, no ...!’

      From outside came the clanging of police sirens. Carroll stopped howling and gritted his teeth.

      ‘Keep them out, Tyler!’ He barked. ‘Nobody comes in here! Anyone comes through that door, anyone so much as sticks his face at a window, and I start killing hostages.’

      ‘Hostages?’ an old dear piped up. ‘Does that mean none of us can go?’

      ‘I think it does,’ put in a lady with a hat like a giant powder puff.

      ‘Oh. Oh dear.’

      The vicar struggled against the headlock and issued a series of muffled cries.

      ‘What is it you want, Mr Carroll?’ Sam asked.

      ‘Keep them out, Tyler!’

      ‘I’ll keep them out, Mr Carroll, but if you don’t tell me what your demands are I can’t help you.’

      ‘I just want to be safe!’ Carroll screamed, tightening his grip on the vicar. ‘I don’t want to be left alone, not with him after me! Now keep ’em out of here! Keep everybody away!’ And then, venomously, he cried: ‘God damn you, Sam Tyler, you bastard, it should be you not me! IT SHOULD BE YOU NOT ME!’

      Sam opened his mouth to say something, but Carroll shrieked insanely, and for a moment it seemed that he was going to shoot the vicar and then turn the gun on everyone else. So Sam held up his hands and stumbled backwards, saying: ‘Okay, it’s okay, just stay calm, I’ll see no one comes in, I’ll make sure everything’s cool …’

      He backed out into the churchyard, and at Carroll’s command pushed the door closed.

       He’s seen Gould … but something happened, something terrible. It’s freaked him out. But what was it? What did Gould do? What did Carroll witness that drove him to this?

      Would Annie know? She had evidently been to see him, following up leads she had unearthed in the police files. She was drawn to the story of PC Tony Cartwright, no doubt sensing that there was far more of a connection between her and them than the sharing of surname. Did she know yet that Tony was her father? She must surely be suspecting … and at the same time, she must be doubting her sense of reality, wondering just who she is and where she is.

      He turned – and at once ran into a huge wall of camel hair.

      ‘Morning, Tyler – somebody call Siege-breakers?’

      DCI Gene Hunt loomed over him, flinging open his coat to reveal his ridiculous leather body holster, one hand already resting on the grip of his trusty Magnum, ready to draw. Behind him, the road outside the church was filling up with patrol cars and uniformed officers. Men were bustling. Radios were crackling. Police tape was fluttering like bunting between the lamp posts, cordoning off the street.

      ‘Back!’ Sam ordered.

      ‘Forward!’ Gene growled, and took a manly stride towards the doors of the church.

      ‘I said back!’

      ‘And I said ruddy forward, and I’m bigger than you!’

      Sam grabbed him by the lapels and thrust him back.

      ‘Don’t you shove me, Tyler!’

      ‘Back, Gene, back back back!’

      ‘The Gene Genie don’t have no reverse gear, you know that by now!’

      ‘You’re going to kick off a bloodbath mucking about like this! Now get BACK!’

      Sam barged Gene away. The Guv’s face fell into an expression that mixed shock, rage, and explosive indignation into one. His eyes blazed. His nostrils flared. He thrust the Magnum back into the holster and put his fists up.

      ‘You wanna duke it out, you and me, is that it, Tyler? Well come on then!’

      Raising his voice, Sam bellowed at the uniformed officers massing nearby: ‘Everybody get back! We have an armed man in there with hostages! Nobody is to approach the church, nobody is to look in the windows, nobody is to do anything! Back, back, back!’

      He waved his arms, shepherding the officers away. Gene watched him, open-mouthed.

      ‘Ordering plod about is my jurisdiction, Tyler!’

      ‘For God’s sake, Guv, just grow up!’

      ‘Oh, so you’re calling me a kid an’ all now, are you? You’re picking the wrong day to tangle my todger. This is Sunday. I shouldn’t even be here. I am royally miffed! I should be home with me tinnies and me feet up waiting for The Big Match. The Genie doth resteth on the seventh day, an’ all that. It was only coz I was hunting in the Cortina for me spare fags that I caught news of this shout on the radio, and being the conscientious DCI that I am, I decided to –’

      ‘Stop whinging and get back along with everyone else. That fella in there’s on the edge. He’s ready to start blowing the heads off a vicar and his flock at the drop of a hat. So if you don’t want blood on your hands, Guv, get you and your off-white loafers right back!’

      Sam shoved and elbowed Gene back through the church yard and onto the pavement.

      Annie pushed her way through the bustle of uniforms to get to Sam.

      ‘You were mad running in there like that!’ she scolded him.