Time to go.
The words echoed dully through Sam's broken mind as he stepped towards the TV set.
Time to go.
He felt the Test Card Girl gently, oh-so-gently nudging the small of his back with her tiny, frozen hand, urging him forward, prompting him not to turn back. Even though he could no longer see her small, pale face, he knew she was smiling.
Time … Time to go …
Time. The dying embers of his mind latched onto the word. Time. It mattered. Why? Why did it matter? How could anything matter now, here, on the edge of Oblivion?
And then something inside him clicked. A thought. A memory. Groping clumsily with numb fingers, he reached into his pocket. And there it was – the familiar gold-plated casing with the delicate chain wrapped around it. The fob watch. The last relic of Life.
Sam suddenly realised he could sense the ticking of the delicate mechanism inside the metal casement. The nerve endings in his fingers, dead and cold moments before, had enough life in them to detect the spinning of the tiny cogs, the shuddering of the tiny springs, the remorseless action of the tiny hands as they worked their way round the face.
Time. Time was ticking on. And life. Life was ticking on too. Not everything was cold. Not all souls were dead. Not all hope was lost, not while there was still the barest spark of life residing in Sam’s heart. If that battered little fob watch could carry on, then so could he.
The Test Card Girl nudged him again, but this time Sam turned on her. He felt a sudden rush of heat burst upwards though his body. It was rage. It was a refusal to die, despite all the odds stacked against him. It was defiance. It was life.
‘Keep going, Sam,’ the Girl urged him. And then the smile faltered on her face as she watched Sam’s black balloon go sailing upwards, released, discarded. Her young face clouded over, the brows pulling together into a frown. She opened her mouth to speak, to continue her exhortations for Sam to embrace oblivion, that he had no choice, that Annie was beyond all help and there was nothing he could do … but this time, Sam decided he’d heard more than enough. His fist caught the Girl square in the face. Like a professional, he followed through with his body, throwing his whole weight behind the blow. He knew that appearances could be deceptive, that that last thing this little girl was was a little girl, that she was old – very old – and that she had had this coming to her for a long, long time, the conniving, lying, evil, ice-cold little bitch.
But she was gone. Sam's punch sailed through empty air, almost unbalancing him. He span round, looked in all directions, but saw only the blasted landscape with its heaps of rubble and burnt-out cars. Glancing up, he saw that damned black balloon bobbing away against the darkening sky, sailing rapidly upwards.
He grabbed the watch from his pocket and clenched his hand around it.
‘I knew this thing mattered!’ he said out loud, kissing his fist. ‘I knew it, I knew it!’
It was life, and it was hope.
‘Annie!’ he bellowed, his voice swallowed by the cold wind. ‘Annie, it’s not over! I’m still here! I’m coming for you!’
Sam turned to the TV screen, with its sad host of dead souls marching into oblivion. He shouted at the screen, banged on the sides of the set, yelled, Don’t go in there! You don’t have to go in there! But if they heard him, those drab grey shades made no sign. In they went, into the enveloping darkness, each one carrying their little black balloon – unless it was the black balloon that was carrying them.
They were lost, all of them. Sam punched the TV in frustration, and then raced off along the valley. He had no clue where to go, how to cross the vast void that separated him from Annie. All he had was hope. And that, he realised now, was enough.
‘You always wanted to snuff out hope, didn’t you!’ Sam cried out to the Test Card Girl, wherever she might be. ‘That was always what you were about! Well to hell with you!’
He raised his fist defiantly as he ran, holding aloft the small, delicate pocket watch and the ticking, whirring, living mechanism that drove it.
‘I have a future! We have a future – me and Annie – together!’
The ground under his feet became less rough and uneven, and now Sam found he was racing along a paved pathway. He stopped to look down, and saw flat, yellow slabs beneath his feet. Looking ahead, he saw now that he was following a road of yellow bricks that plunged ahead straight across the dark wilderness. As the light failed, the road seemed to glow warmly.
‘You see?!’ Sam shrieked, almost hysterical. ‘You see that?! I did that! My hope did that!’
Sam was running again, running full pelt along the yellow brick road, yelling and whooping as if he had already won the day and rescued Annie and hurled Clive Gould back into the abyss forever. He felt invincible. He had turned back from oblivion, scorned death, chosen life, and even now was defying all the forces of darkness that stood between him and his beloved Annie.
And as he ran, he heard music, drifting in out the gathering night as if from a distant concert. It was song, mushy and echoic at first. But then, as it became more distinct, Sam recognised it – and burst out laughing.
‘You can’t plant me in your penthouse!’ he sang along, at the very tip of his lungs. ‘I’m going back to my plough!’
It was Elton. Dear, showy, flashy, gap-toothed, balding Elton with his silver jackets and star-shaped glasses and his gibberish song about dogs and toads and yellow brick roads. The music came in out of nowhere like an anthem of hope and life. It had spoken to him before, back in Joe’s Caff when he had been waiting for Annie, mingling with the hymns coming from the church across the road. Even then it had been trying to get its message through to him: don’t give up – keep on fighting – your future really does lie beyond the yellow brick road.
Perhaps the music was all in Sam’s mind. Perhaps the bleak landscape that surrounded him, and the road beneath his feet, and the TV screen with its sad parade of lost souls were all just in his mind too. Perhaps the Test Card Girl was nothing but the projection of his fears, and Annie the projection of his hopes, and the mighty Gene Hunt had been the embodiment of all his confused, contradictory, post-twentieth century concerns about manhood and masculinity. Perhaps it was all nothing but images on the movie screen of his own mind, a sunken dream though which he passed, oblivious to outer reality. Perhaps everything Sam saw and heard and felt and encountered was just the product of a mind that was mad, or dead, or in a coma.
What did it matter what he was anymore? This shifting, insane kaleidoscope of 1973 kitsch seasoned with touches of existential horror was the world he had pitched up – the world of Gene Hunt. And that world was now Sam’s own. It was his home – his manor – his life, and nobody was going to take that away from him, not without one hell of a fight.
He strode on, his head up and his shoulders back, following the yellow brick road. In time, Elton John faded away. All he could hear was the moaning of the wind as it gusted in off the desolate, open plains, and the tip-tap of his boots striking the road. The sky grew darker as the light faded along the distant horizon, until the only illumination came from the dim, golden glow of the road itself. It plunged ahead, a yellow streak cutting across an infinite darkness, and Sam followed it.
And then something inside him, some sixth sense, told him he was no longer alone. He glanced back over his shoulder as the road stretched out behind him. Far away, almost lost in the distance, there were signs of movement. Something was coming up the road behind him, following him.
Sam’s instinct was to run. But run where? He had no choice but to follow the glowing path, and as far as he could see it led on interminably. All he would do is exhaust himself. And yet, he could not bear to stand and wait, delaying his search for Annie, prolonging her agony at the hands of Gould, simply to face whatever it was that pursued him.
Maybe whatever it is back there isn’t pursuing me, Sam thought. Perhaps it’s just another traveller on the road, like me – another rebellious soul who has refused Oblivion and struck out across the void.
It was an encouraging thought. But Sam knew he couldn’t afford to drop his guard, not out in here in this strange, wild zone that was off all the maps and far from help. If he was following the yellow brick road of his own psyche, he knew from experience that any denizens he might encounter along the way could well be bigger and uglier and far more dangerous than the villains he went up against in CID. And if what was happening to him now was no dream, no inner vision, but actual reality, then God alone knew what horrors inhabited this dreadful place.
Sam squinted and peered. The movement on the road behind slowly resolved from a vague blur to three slightly less vague blurs. Three figures. Three men.
His throat tightened. Fear gripped him. Even though they were nothing more than blank shapes moving against the golden glow of the road, Sam knew exactly who and what those three men were. And he knew their names.
Carroll, Walsh, Darby … They’re still hunting me, even here.
The panicky urge to run rose up in him again, but he fought against it. Gould’s three lackeys were still a long, long way back along the road. If Sam kept up a brisk pace he had every chance of staying ahead of them without wearing his energies out with a wild sprint.
And how long can I go before I need to rest? How long before I need to sleep?
He shook these thoughts from his mind. They were bridges he would have to cross when he came to them. For now, his best safety lay in walking.
He picked up his pace and got moving. Time and again he glanced back, and was somewhat relieved to see that Carroll, Walsh and Darby did not seem to be gaining on him. Their distance remained constant. Sam and the three dead killers were all moving along the road at the same speed.
Mist rolled in, and Sam found he could see no more than three or four feet in any direction. Losing sight of the monstrosities on his trail did not ease his nerves – if anything, it made him jumpier. His imagination began torturing him with images of skull-faced zombies springing suddenly out of the fog and bringing him down, tearing him limb from limb, gorging on handfuls of his intestines, eating him alive.
Too many George Romero films, you fool, Sam chided himself. Grow up. Stay focused. Don’t freak yourself out.
The road narrowed, and the yellow bricks began to lose their lustre, becoming duller and darker as he progressed, until at last he found himself walking what seemed to be tiles of burned, blackened glass.
Up ahead, just penetrating the mist, lights appeared.
Is this it? Sam thought. Is this the Emerald City my yellow brick has brought me to?
He edged forward warily. Getting closer, the lights resolved themselves from a blurry haze of light into letters.
It’s a sign. And I’ve seen it before.
It was just as he remembered it, a set of gaudy light bulbs spelling out the words House of Diamonds. Beneath, black and menacing, yawned an open doorway and a set of steep stairs that plunged sharply down, leading to Clive Gould’s private casino. But unlike last time, there was no sign of Perry, no bouncers, no cars parked nearby, no garage with Tony Cartwright hanging upside down from a chain above a drum of oil.
Sam inched to the top of the stairs and peered down into the inky void. The air was oppressively cold.
‘Gould?’ Sam called out. His voice was swallowed by the darkness and the cold. ‘Annie?’
He knew, of course, that nobody would answer. He had not been brought here to stand on the doorstep, or to turn back and face the three dead men following up behind him. His future really did lie beyond the yellow brick, down there, at the foot of those steps, in the icy heart of that darkness.
Cautiously, Sam took the first step.