The Soldier, The Detective and the Gap in Time

[smallhobbit]

Title: The Soldier, the Detective and the Gap in Time
Fandom: Life on Mars/The Devil's Whore
Rating: Green Cortina
Word Count: 1,650 approx
Disclaimer  I own neither Life on Mars or The Devil's Whore.  My apologies to C S Lewis for borrowing one of his ideas
My thanks to my beta jinxed100 for her usual fast work and for the original idea
Summary This is what happens when the soldier and the detective meet

There were days when Phyllis thought she would have been better off staying in bed.  Today was one of them.  On the other side of the desk was a strangely dressed man who had dragged along a young woman in a torn dress.  The man was demanding that she be hanged because she was a devil’s whore.  It wouldn’t be the first time that a couple had come in the worse for drink, thinking that the best way to spend a Friday night was winding the desk sergeant up by playing games.  (They soon discovered that a night in the cells was not the best way to spend Friday night).  However this was Tuesday morning and neither party appeared to have been drinking.

Fortunately for Phyllis, DI Tyler chose that moment to enter the station.  The man took one look at Sam, let go of the woman and swung his fist at him. Fortunately for Sam, Gene had followed him in and with Ray’s assistance they overpowered the man.

“Get him into a cell,” panted Gene.

Ray and one of the constables dragged the struggling man off.

“Put him in cell 3,” Phyllis yelled.  “His name’s Joliffe.”

Having recovered his breath Gene turned his attention to Sam.  Much to his surprise the woman was holding him and trying to stem his nose bleed with her shawl.  All of a sudden she looked directly at Sam, screamed and dropped him.  Sam groaned as his head hit the floor.

“Forgive me.  I – I – I thought you were my husband,” the woman sobbed.

Gene’s eyebrows shot up.  Never one to turn his back on a lady in distress he offered her his arm and, as an afterthought, used his other arm to help Sam off the floor.

“I think we’d better discuss this in my office,” he said.

The three of them made slow progress towards CID.  As they approached the door it opened and Chris shot out.

“Guv, Boss, the Boss is in CID and he’s really irate and he’s looking very strange,” he informed them.  “Oh, Boss, you’re here looking normal, ‘cept you’ve got a nose bleed – so why are you wearing strange clothes in there?”

At this point Gene began to unconsciously echo Phyllis’ thoughts, in that he would have been better off staying in bed.  It should be noted that it was his own bed he was thinking of, not Phyllis’, which really would have ruined his day.

They entered CID to discover a man brandishing a rapier at anyone who dared to approach him.  One or two of the detectives present were trying to reason with him, whilst the rest had decided that DI Tyler was clearly having one of his “off” days and were sensibly keeping their distance.

The man looked round and seeing them exclaimed, “My lady, you are safe?”  Then noticing the blood on her shawl added, “You have been hurt.  I will kill whoever did this to you.”

“It’s okay,” said Sam, “it’s mine.”

It is not necessarily a good idea to tell an extremely angry man brandishing a rapier that it’s your blood that he can see on what is, quite possibly, his wife’s shawl.  And in this case it definitely wasn’t a good idea.  The man crossed the room with a few quick paces and held his rapier to Sam’s throat.  By now Gene had lost patience.  He grabbed the back of the man’s coat and pulling him back from Sam, pushed him into his office.  Sam and the woman followed him in.

“Right,” said Gene as he slammed the man into the filing cabinet, “I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing in my station and I don’t really care, but I am not having you threaten my inspector.”

Much to Gene’s surprise the man suddenly pushed backwards and spun round.  Gene was prepared to throw a punch, but the man, although looking threatening, stood still.  Looking the man full in the face, Gene could see why there was confusion between him and Sam.  At the same time, his gut instinct told him that whatever bizarre explanations the man provided (and Gene had got used to the bizarre in the course of the past year) they were probably going to be true.

“My name is Edward Sexby,” the man said.  “I do not know how we came to be here, but I do know that someone has hurt my wife - her dress is torn – and no-one touches my wife!”

“Edward, it was Master Joliffe who ripped my dress, not one of these men.”

“But why is his blood on your shawl?” Sexby said, pointing at Sam.  “And who is he?  I seem to think I know him.”

“Joliffe hit him and made his nose bleed.  I thought it was you he had hit and went to help you.  But then I discovered it was another.”

“At which point,” added Gene, “she very sensibly dropped him.  It had only been a tap, he was just being a Jessie.”

Sexby looked at Sam, “Why did you not hit him back?”

Sam started to splutter a reply, but Sexby had been distracted by Gene who was having a quick drink out of his hipflask.  The Guv had a feeling that today was going to prove the sort of day that was only bearable when he was full of whisky.

Seeing Sexby looking at him he offered the flask.  “Want a slug?” he asked.

Sexby accepted, “This is good, much better than I have had before.”

“This is my wife.  May I introduce to you Mistress Angelica Sexby,” he said as he passed the flask to her.  She took a swig and smiled at Gene before returning the flask to him.

Sam was starting to feel ignored, “I hate to break up this party ...”

“Just ‘cos you didn’t get offered a drink,” interrupted Gene.

Sam chose to ignore his comment.  “We still don’t know what you’re doing here, Mr and Mrs Sexby.”

Sexby gave Sam a haughty look.  “I am Colonel Sexby and as I told your senior officer I do not know how we came to be here.”

Gene smiled at Sexby, “Ignore him.  He banged his head when your wife dropped him.  He’ll be better in a bit.”

“I may be able to explain something,” Angelica began.  “Joliffe dragged me into a house, saying he would bring me before the magistrates himself as no-one else would do it.  We could hear someone following us so he pushed me into a large wardrobe that stood in the hallway and closed the doors.  He forced me to the back of the wardrobe, only there was no back, and then he pulled me through this strange building until we reached the place where you found us.”

“Aye,” Sexby took up the tale.  “I was close on their heels, but went past the wardrobe when I entered the house.  I realised that I had lost them and on retracing my footsteps found the wardrobe and opened the doors, expecting to find that coward hiding inside.  I entered the wardrobe and came through into a room full of all kinds of strange objects.”

“Lost and Found,” chorused Sam and Gene in unison.

“Right, Colonel and Mrs Sexby,” said Gene as he stood up.  “Let’s see if you’re telling the truth.”

He led the way to Lost and Found.  As they entered Angelica exclaimed in delight “I remember this room, so many different things.”

“How did you get in here?” Sam asked.

Sexby looked at him, grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him into a chair.  “Did you not hear what we said?  We came in through a wardrobe.”

Sam found it disconcerting to be looking so closely at someone whose eye colour was the same as his.  Apart from the scars it was like looking in a mirror, but one that reversed the face.  It seemed as if Sexby had been struck with the same thought, for he was looking intently at him.

“Oy, you two!  When you’ve quite finished staring into each other’s eyes, could you give us a hand here?  It’s bad enough having one of you who acts strangely at times, without having a duplicate as well.  We need to find our side of the wardrobe,” Gene said emphatically.

They started to look around for anything resembling an entrance, but Sexby soon became distracted by all the objects that were lying around.  He picked up a whip and started cracking it.

“Mind what you do with that,” Sam cautioned, and then squawked as the whip caught him across the backside.

“Sexby,” Angelica admonished.

“Yes, milady,” Sexby replied and winked at her.

Meanwhile Gene was investigating a draught that was coming from a gap between two filing cabinets.

“It must be here,” he said.  “I can’t find anywhere else that’s possible, but this doesn’t seem very large.”

The others went over to take a look.  Sexby stood with his back to the gap. 

“Yes,” he said.  “This was what I saw when I first entered.  We must go back, Angelica.  But what about Joliffe?”

“We’ll give you time to get away at your end and then push him back through as well.  We don’t want him here.” Gene replied.

“We would prefer not to have him either.  But he cannot remain with you.”

Sexby shook hands with Gene and Sam.  “Until we meet again.” And with that he was gone.

Sam looked doubtfully at Gene, “What?  I’ve had a nose bleed, banged my head, been threatened with a sword and whipped.  I’m sore in all sorts of places and he thinks we’ll see him again.”

Gene grinned back, “Well, you never know.  In the meantime, we’ll take you home, give you a bath and I can tend to your wounds.”