Chapter Text
November 1st 1976
Music: David Bowie - Golden Years
"Three weeks in and I still can't believe it", Tanya Merchant said, her sigh more of wonder than anything else, "I never thought girls like us would be the first of anything for women".
"I believe it well enough", Helen Roper replied and her sigh wasn't one of wonder.
"Oh honey, your father still giving you trouble?", Tanya squeezed her arm.
"My father, grandfather, Richard...", Helen said and she saw the look forming on Tanya's face, "never mind all that though, let's get some coffee before shift starts".
The two women made a beeline for the coffee shop nearest the station where the girl behind the counter had their orders going as soon as they walked through the door. As they waited, Helen turned to say something to Tanya but the words were knocked from her mind when she recognised the young man sat in the corner watching her.
"I know him...", she said, more to herself than anyone else. The young man's face lit up in recognition and he raised his head in a nod of acknowledgment. Helen glanced around, just to make sure it wasn't someone else he was gesturing to.
"Coffee?", Tanya nudged her arm and held out the coffee.
"Huh? Oh, thanks", Helen took the coffee absent mindedly.
"Come on, or we'll be late. Last thing we need is to give the boys a reason to run us down", Tanya said grimly, "There's Joyce, let's catch her up". Helen followed her with a backwards glance at the man, finally placing him from something to do with the assault she and her partner had been called to the first week she'd been on patrol. The young man smiled, obviously seeing the realisation in her eyes and tapped his watch then held two fingers up.
-
"Too much coffee's no good for you", Peter Wakeford, Helen's partner, called after her as she ran over to the coffee shop, "meet you back at the corner on fifteenth by the laundrette?"
Helen waved to reassure him she had heard and hurried into the coffee shop. She had dragged out their shift, forcing them to take a late lunch by distracting Peter, and she had just made it in time for two o'clock. The man was sat there again. Helen smiled tightly at the server and sat down opposite the man.
"Are you following me?", she asked.
"Hello to you too", the man said, putting one arm over the back of the booth, "you gave me your card remember?"
Helen recognised his Irish accent immediately and the rest of their - short - exchange came back to her. He'd been nearby when the woman had been attacked for the contents of her purse and had been the only witness to say more than a few words to her. The only witness, it seemed, who hadn't thrown her card away.
"That wasn't to start following me around and playing silly games", Helen said, keeping her voice low to avoid attracting attention. Truthfully, she couldn't even say why she had come back. Except that the longer she'd gone on thinking about that case, the more she remembered feeling like someone knew more than they were saying. And like most of the crimes they came across, people weren't saying much to begin with.
"That assault", the man said, fidgeting with the edge of the menu. Helen glanced at the movement, one corner of the menu was frayed and worried, the rest almost new.
"What about it?", she asked.
"Weren't just a random mugging", the man said, putting the menu down and lifting his chin, "lot more to it than that".
"And why are we meeting in coffee shops and not discussing this at the station?", Helen asked with a sigh, feeling the purpose of this meeting slip away. The man pursed his lips and looked around the coffee shop; Helen could spot a deliberate time wasting behaviour anywhere.
"Well, nice to catch up", she said, getting up.
"Name's Colum", the man said, stopping her departure with his words and a frantic gesture.
"And?", Helen asked. Colum seemed to deflate in front of her and he waved for her to sit back down. She did, made a show of doing it slowly.
"It's bigger than just one person and it's who that person knows, you know?", Colum said. Helen thought about dismissing him for a second, after all he sounded paranoid, but there was a sadness tinging his voice that gave her pause and she nodded.
"So tell me..."
-
November 26th 1976
Late shifts always seemed to drag on for longer than the morning shifts, Helen thought, especially when they were as miserable as this evening. Peter towered at her side as they walked along East Thompson back towards the station having finished up their usual evening route. Peter always moved so he was walking on the side closest to the road whenever they were on patrol. Helen had decided a few weeks earlier that she didn't achieve much on balance by challenging him on it.
As they crossed the entrance to a small residential parking lot, Helen glanced at the barely standing wooden structure that stood over the dumpsters for the apartments. A bundle in front of them caught her eye.
"Hold up", she grabbed Peter's arm and nodded towards the dumpsters, "that rubbish or a person?"
"It's probably just someone sleeping off a heavy night", Peter said and he raised his voice, "Hey, you alright over there?"
When there was no response, Helen took her torch out and entered the parking lot, Peter right at her heels. As Helen got closer, she could see it was a person, maybe a homeless person looking for somewhere to sleep, shielded from the soft drizzle of rain by the dumpsters.
"Everything alright here?", Helen asked, reaching out and shaking the person. No response. She glanced over her shoulder at Peter who frowned and walked around from the other side.
"Need any he...", Peter's voice trailed off as Helen pulled the person's shoulder again and they rolled onto their back.
Helen leapt back, a strangled sound in the back of her throat as she found herself staring down at Colum's lifeless eyes, his face a mess of cuts and bruises. She thought she heard Peter say something about calling it in but she couldn't be sure, as the image in front of her burned it's way into her mind.