FicWad

So Sam found himself at home, alone, at four in the afternoon. Daytime TV was still in full swing, he hadn't any new emails, and the mere thought of setting up his games console gave him a headache. So he resorted to what had become his usual escape from forced inactivity: he took a walk.

That gave him plenty of time to mull over the picture of Chris and Annie. He had known about the man, had even known his history. He had, after all, been lectured about it to exhaustion during his retirement reception. A whole series of former superiors and colleagues had heaped congratulations on him for lasting that long. So that might well have been the source of the character in Sam's imagination. And Mrs Skelton had been a fairly well-known person around the station as well, and Sam had met her.

And the dates fit. At that point in time, the real Chris Skelton would have been a Detective Constable. So maybe Sam'd just used facts and gossip about these two people he already knew subconsciously to reconstruct them in his fantasy world. Yes, that had to be it.

"What's it say about you that you imagined your boss's wife as your girlfriend, then?"

Not girlfriend, Gene. Confidante. She certainly projected that even at sixty.

"You keep on believing that."

Hang on, where've we ended up?

Sam had stopped paying attention to where his feet were taking him. Somehow, they had carried him toward an old haunt he had never actually visited. He was now looking up at the faded sign of the Railway Arms.

The exterior hadn't really changed, only faded with the years, but the current licensing plaque near the door proclaimed that it was still a pub. Sam tried the door. It was open.

The interior was as hauntingly familiar as the exterior. Nobody in here had cared much about updating, then. The only modern objects were various commercials and the widescreen TV, sat in the same location that Sam had mounted another TV, a long time ago. Correction: where he had mounted it in his imagination. In this location it was a bit hard to tell the difference.

"Can I help you, sir?"

The décor was so familiar that Sam had been expecting Nelson's exaggerated Jamaican accent. Therefore he initially didn't react to the landlord's soft Mancunian inflection. Only after the man repeated his entreaty did the words penetrate. "Oh, sorry. Diet Coke, please."

A small bottle and glass were promptly placed before him. "You new here?"

"Sort of." The empty words were out before Sam could stop himself. Then again, it couldn't hurt to ask. "I think I may have been here before. Do you know anybody named Nelson? He used to tend bar here."

The barman frowned in consideration, then shook his head. "Not that I know of. Maybe the guy in here before me might have. But he took over fifteen years ago."

"He was Jamaican, used to really exaggerate his accent."

"Nope, sorry, sir. Can't help you there."

"That's okay. I was just curious. Maybe I was somewhere else. It was a long time ago."

So there was no definite answer whether Nelson had existed or not. Maybe that would have been too much to hope for.

Sam stayed in the pub a while longer, chatting on about its history with the barman. It had been the police boozer for a long time. Didn't see that many policemen in here nowadays, though, only a few of the retired officers.

When the regulars started to come in, Sam judged that it would be about time to head home. He still had quite a long walk ahead of him, after all. When he went out the door he almost bumped into another customer, a fairly heavyset man with a full but grey moustache, coming into the pub.

"Mind where you're going, Bo-y."

"Sorry, sir." Sam muttered the apology, then went on his way. He did not see the man he had bumped into staring after him.

He got home tired from the walk but content. The familiar environment of the Railway Arms had worked miracles to relax him, despite the initial sense of displacement. Maybe taking it easy wasn't such bad advice after all.

He turned on the telly, hoping to still catch some of the news, but it was in the middle of a long item about the progress of the development for the London Olympics. Not interesting. He started flipping channels; past some inane comedy and a soap, on to an image of a little girl in a red dress playing tic-tac-toe with a green and yellow clown.

His heart suddenly beating somewhere in the region of his Adam's apple, Sam fumbled with the remote control to switch the set off. What was she doing here, in reality? No, no, no, there had to be a rational explanation. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down, but his attention was drawn by an insistent sound. Three beeps, a short pause, and three beeps again.

Why was he hearing things again? He put his hands over his ears, in the hope that that would stop it, but even with his ears covered he could still hear it.

Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep.

Sam slowly lowered his arms again. He listened more intently for the sound now. Maybe it would contain a clue for what was going on.

Beep beep beep. Bzzt Bzzt. Beep beep beep. Bzzt Bzzt.

His mobile. He recognised the humming tone of the mobile in vibrate mode. He took it out of the pocket of his jacket. It was also the source of the beeps.

He stared at it a little longer, trying to figure out who would be calling him at this hour. Then he pressed the 'answer' button. "Hello?"

His mother's voice came over the line. "Sam? What's going on, sweetheart?"

Sam quickly hung up. This was all too similar to his experiences in the coma. It couldn't be right. He switched the phone off for good measure, then pulled the plug from his TV.

Gene, I could really use some of those 'insightful' comments right now. The guv's down-to-earth wit would help ground him a bit, hopefully.

But Gene remained silent.

Sam turned off the lights and curled up on the couch. His heart was still racing, and he was breaking out in sweat. What was happening? Was he going crazy?

He lay there are long time, wondering. At some point, he must have fallen asleep, however, because he was woken the following morning by the alarm clock in the bedroom going off.

By daylight everything seemed much more normal again. But last night had been absolute hell, and Sam didn't want to go through something like that again. He had to find out, now. What was going on? Maybe if he could talk to DCS Skelton he could find out something more. That would have to mean finding them first, of course.

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