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All in all, it was shaping up to be a shite week, between Ray’s bloody incompetence, Gene’s bull-headed defense of the lazy sod, Annie’s glances of disapproval and that bloody horrible beeping at the edge of his hearing, and maybe he was dying after all but Gene was gonna beat him to death regardless if he didn’t manage to find the witness statements that Ray had likely used to wipe his arse anyway.
Sam glared around Gene’s office with open disdain. Fact was, that bloody file could be anywhere, shoved between the darts trophies or serving as a coaster for Gene’s whiskey or tucked underneath the flowers –
Flowers?
Blank with confusion, Sam drifted towards the battered settee, scrutinizing the bouquet of orange blooms with the sort of trepidation he typically reserved for letterbombs or the bitter relatives of murder suspects. Those were indeed flowers, still wrapped in paper around their stems and with a small card poking out from between a cluster of daisies. Glancing cautiously over his shoulder, Sam leaned in closer, squinting to read the card without touching anything.
Gladys, You’ve been bloody miserable this week – thought these might cheer you up.
Yours, Gene.
Sam reeled backward as though he’d just taken a punch to the gut. That would at least explain the sudden inability to breathe, he thought wildly as he continued to gawk at the heft of that bouquet, replaying the card’s brief contents in his head. Yours, Gene.
It was a joke. It had to be. Just a slightly skewed version of the jibes and insults Sam usually put up with on a daily basis. The tiger lilies were a new touch, but otherwise it was just the same shit, different pile. Nothing new to see here, move along.
Indignation swelled his brittle seams, made his hands clench at the sight of those flowers. Why the hell did he need to take it this far, anyway? Didn’t Gene get enough of a kick out of treating Sam like some fragile, mincing girl that he needed to add props to the routine? Christ, but the man was an utter bastard. A complete and insufferable wanker, clearly thinking himself a hell of a lot more clever than he really was. Seriously, if Gene had wanted to go the full mile he should have bought pink roses, done them up in a big bloody ribbon and smacked them right onto his desk for all and sundry to snigger at all day long.
Compared to that potential spectacle, this was pathetic. The orange tiger lilies were actually tasteful, almost masculine in their own way, and filled out with modest sprays of yellow and white. They seemed every inch a part of the dank atmosphere of 1973, right down to the brown-on-brown marbled print of the florist’s paper wrapping, and quite sincere in their own way. They were, really, the sorts of flowers Sam could almost conceive of receiving under more favourable circumstances… if anyone would ever think to give him flowers and actually mean it…
Frustrated, Sam forcibly quashed down the pinpricks of something like hope that were insistently climbing up his spinal nerve, taunting him with a possibility that scarcely bore thinking about. He scoffed at his own overreaction and braced himself to turn around and walk out of Gene’s office before anyone caught him gazing at a bunch of stupid flowers like the great soft Dorothy they all assumed he was any–
The thump of the swinging door being kicked in made Sam jump out of his skin, whiplash straining his neck as he turned sharply at Gene’s sudden entrance. Blind panic made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth, though as he stared helplessly at Gene he couldn’t avoid noticing the other man stall in the doorway upon spotting Sam, frozen with his hand braced on the door before he pointedly looked away and charged towards his desk, busying himself with tugging off his suit jacket and loosening his tie. ‘Found those statements yet?’ he grumbled, aiming the question at the mess of newspapers and half-empty tea cups strewn across his desk.
Sam moved his lips soundlessly, cleared his throat. ‘Um, no. I…’ he stammered, stuffed his shaking hands into his trouser pockets, ‘I was just checking in ‘ere, seeing if we ‘adn’t misplaced them…’
‘Were you, now?’ Gene dropped heavily into his chair and fixed Sam with an incredulous glare. ‘That’s some fine deductive logic you’ve got going there, Sammy-boy. Think we’ve already reckoned out that the file’s gone missing, don’t you?’
Despite his discomfort, Sam impulsively rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. ‘You’re the one who told me to look for it,’ he groused impatiently. He met Gene’s glare with a pointed sneer of his own that he found himself unable to sustain, eyes flicking inevitably back to the flowers. Back to Gene. The bloody flowers…
Coming back to Gene, his gaze froze again on catching him also looking hard at the bouquet, his lips pressed thin with a certain nauseous set to his features. Fascinated and confused, Sam stared at the rapid shifts of mood crossing Gene’s face, eyes widening when he suddenly found himself subject to Gene’s renewed scrutiny. An unspoken accusation seemed to charge the air, Sam knowing that Gene knew that Sam had noticed the flowers, the one waiting for the other to touch upon their incongruous presence in the room.
‘They’re for the missus,’ Gene finally grunted, almost defensively.
Sam blinked, could feel the frown furrowing into his brow. ‘Gladys?’ he mumbled weakly, the name slipping unconsciously off his parted lips.
‘What?’ Gene’s green eyes sharpened and narrowed, unnaturally bright against his paled complexion.
‘Your wife’s name is Gladys?’ The question spilled inevitably outward, even as Sam recoiled deeper inside for having asked. This was unimaginably worse, stranger than he could have conceived. He didn’t understand, wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know.
Silence stretched long and thin between them, crackling against their reversed polarities – Sam rooted where he stood by an excess of feeling, Gene visibly thinking so fast and hard that he didn’t speak for several short yet heavy beats. ‘Yeah,’ he said at last, dismissively airy. ‘Though that’s Mrs. Hunt to you, an’ I don’t much care for you sniffin’ at ‘er things. You want flowers, go buy yer own, you soft nancy queer.’
The words were like a bucket of cold water thrown in his face, tightening the muscles in his shoulders with a reflexive flinch that he fought to repress from sight if not sensation. ‘Ah,’ he replied softly. ‘Well, in that case I might just have to treat myself, maybe after I find that goddamned witness file.’ On that weak retort, Sam turned on his heel and propelled himself unthinkingly towards the door, desperate to get away as quickly as humanly possible.
‘Sam.’
The single syllable of his name was a low, regretful sound echoing over his shoulder. Sam froze with a hand on the door, though he didn’t look around or speak in reply. He remained poised for several breaths, listening hard and finally catching the squeak of Gene’s swivel chair and the heaving of a long sigh.
‘Jus’… never mind the bloody witness report. S’nearly beer o’clock anyway, let’s jus’ head down for a pint an’ I’ll get Chris to fetch it up sometime tomorrow.’
Sam closed his eyes, smiling mirthlessly to himself. ‘Don’t think so, Guv,’ he said quietly. ‘See you tomorrow.’
The door gave way with chilling ease, CID’s dwindling crowds parting around him as Sam moved untouched out of the squad room, through corridors that flew past his peripheral vision like passing cars until he collided with white tile, sticky with the film of sloppy cleaning, and realized he had locked himself into one of the stalls in the gents’ toilets.
Sagging back against the unsteady door, Sam closed his eyes and pressed a shaking hand over his mouth. Even alone, making any sound felt like saying too much.
Gene’s shoulder leaned heavily into the front door, letting himself and a lingering wash of orange light into his house. The setting sun drenched the papered walls with an intense glow before Gene kicked the door closed behind him, the light locked out and himself irrevocably trapped inside.
‘Gene?’ A puzzled, fine-boned face peered out from the front room. ‘What brings you ‘ome so early?’
He sighed, wiping his shoes on the tattered doormat. ‘Nothin’, love.’ Gene shifted into the sitting room and held out the bouquet of flowers clenched in his stiff hand. ‘’Ere. These are for you.’
His wife took the bouquet with tentative hands, her nostrils twitching violently with the slight curl of her thin lips. ‘Whatever for?’ she asked bluntly. ‘S’not our anniversary… oh, blimey, what’ve you done now?’
‘Dammit, woman, ‘aven’t done owt ‘cept try to give you some ruddy flowers!’ Gene planted his hands of his hips and glared at the ceiling. ‘Bloody hell, yeh try to put an effort in…’
‘Hmph.’ Gene could feel her critical eye weighing his stance as well as his words before he heard the soft thump of the bouquet landing on the settee. ‘In that case, you can put ‘em in water an’ all, was just on me way out.’
Gene’s head snapped down, watching in mild surprise as she collected her coat from the back on his armchair – a new red coat, he noted blankly, not the brown one he’d bought her last Christmas. ‘Where to?’
‘Bridge night. Always play over at Sandra’s on Thursdays.’ She tugged at the cuffs of her coat and fixed Gene with a stern glare. ‘Might be a bit o’ last night’s pie left over if you’re ‘ungry.’
Suddenly exhausted, Gene dropped into his chair, pressing his thumb and index finger hard into the corners of his eyes. ‘Fine. Off yeh go, then,’ he mumbled. He waited to hear the sound of the front door opening again, wondered if it was worth his while to look up for another glimpse of orange light or if he had already caught its last dregs before dusk.
‘Gene?’ He glanced up wearily at the sound of her voice; she lingered in the doorway, her normally stubborn features softened by uncertainty. ‘Sure there’s nothin’ I need to know about?’
Repressing an impatient sigh, Gene shook his head. ‘Yeah, nothin’ wrong, Helen, ‘ave a good night out now.’
When she left, he did glimpse a hint of darkening orange creeping through the door, like the deepest dip of a tiger lily rather than its full, open smile. It really wasn’t worth looking at all.