thought had crept back into his scrambled mind. Sensation had returned to his fingers, his hand, his arm; breath returned to his lungs – and then, with a gasp, he had suddenly got to his feet and found that he was most definitely not in Kansas any more, but somewhere far, far away, well and truly over the rainbow. He was in a strange and alien world called 1973.
And, having worked so hard to escape from that world, Sam had discovered that in reality it was the one place he felt he most belonged. Unlike in 2006, here he felt alive.
But I’m not alive, he thought to himself. In 2006, I’m dead. I jumped from a roof. I died. Which makes me – what? A ghost? A lost soul? Is this heaven? Or hell? Or something in between? Or …?
He shook his head to clear it, refusing to submit to these overwhelming speculations. He wasn’t a philosopher: he was just a copper. He couldn’t answer these huge questions of ultimate reality; all he knew was that he was here, in 1973, and that it felt good. He had a job, a purpose – and he had Annie. WDC Annie Cartwright was the bright beacon at the heart of his world, the one thing more than any other that had drawn him back to this time when he’d had his chance to escape for ever. Being with her, he felt more alive than he had ever done – and that was good enough for Sam.
‘Here we are, Sammo. And you say I never take you anywhere classy.’
The Cortina was nosing its way through the front gates of Kersey’s Scrap Yard. On all sides stood mountains of mangled metal, cast in the raking, golden light of the sunset.
‘This place is an Aladdin’s cave!’ said Gene, glancing about at the heaps of wreckage. ‘Alfa Romeos. A couple of Audis stacked up over there. A tasty little Datsun just rustin’ away.’
‘Not just motors, Guv.’
Sam indicated at a mound of bulky washing machines piled carelessly amid the dead motors.
‘Who the hell chucks away deluxe twin-tubs?’ Gene tutted, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘They’ve got to be worth the best part of a hundred nicker apiece.’
Passing through this mountainous landscape of scrap, Sam spied a pair of mint-coloured Austin 1300s parked up ahead.
‘Patrol cars,’ he said. ‘Looks like uniform’s beaten us to it.’
Gene slewed the Cortina to a needlessly dramatic halt alongside the two Austins, showering them with dust. He flung open the door and strode manfully out, Sam following close behind. Together, they passed a parked lorry with a big open back for transporting junk. Lodged on the dashboard of the cab was a custom-made licence plate bearing the lorry’s name: Matilda.
Just across from the truck stood the crusher itself, a looming contraption of battered metal and massive pistons, standing still and silent with its half-digested load of ovens just visible, crunched within it. Several uniformed officers had climbed up and were trying to peer inside.
‘Don’t tamper with anything!’ Sam called to them, flourishing his ID. ‘If there really is a body inside that thing then this is a crime scene, gentlemen.’
‘Crime scene? It’s a ruddy mess, is what it is,’ one of the PCs called back, clambering down from the crusher. ‘You can see tufts of hair and what looks like a bit of a hand.’
‘Sounds like the missus,’ said Gene. He glanced across at a man in filthy overalls standing anxiously nearby. ‘Are you Kersey? DCI Hunt. Tell me what happened.’
‘Shook me right up,’ Kersey stammered. His hands were still shaking. ‘Never seen the like, not in nigh on twenty year.’
‘Take your time, Mr Kersey,’ said Sam.
Kersey took a breath. ‘We got all this junk delivered in. Old ovens from Friar’s Brook. They’re knocking down the kitchens and boiler rooms over there and shipping ’em to us as scrap. The lads had just finished unloading the ovens from Matilda, and I was starting to munch ’em up before Gertrude arrives with a stack of pipes and fridges—’
‘Gertrude’s the name of your other lorry, I take it?’ enquired Sam.
‘No, it’s his mother, she’s built like an ox,’ Gene put in, sourly. Then, to Kersey: ‘Keep talking. You were just starting to munch up the junk …’
‘I’d just started, when I see all this red stuff running out.’
Sam nodded thoughtfully: ‘So, Mr Kersey, you saw what you thought was blood coming out and you switched off the crusher straightaway?’
‘Course.’
‘Did you touch anything? Move anything? Poke around inside?’
‘Did I ’eck as like! I don’t wanna see what’s in there! I just shut her down and called the law, sharpish.’
‘Good man, you did the right thing. All of your co-workers are accounted for?’ Kersey nodded. ‘And you don’t have a pet dog or anything roaming about the place?’
‘There’s cats and foxes and God knows what all hanging about the yard, sure,’ Kersey said. ‘But I never had ’em go in the crusher before. They got more sense, specially them foxes. It’s a fella in there, you mark my words.’
‘And you have no idea who it might be?’
‘Nope. Or how he got in there. Or why.’
‘Right, then!’ Gene declared suddenly. ‘Let’s get that crusher opened up so we can have a look. You boys, stop monkeying about up there and get your arses off that thing.’ The constables began scrambling back down to the ground. ‘Kersey, throw the lever and open her up.’
‘I – I’m not sure I want to,’ stammered Kersey. His face was ashen.
‘It wasn’t a request, Kersey, it was a polite but firm instruction.’
Kersey froze. He’d seen more than enough blood for one day.
‘Think of it like opening a present on Christmas morning,’ said Gene, not very helpfully. ‘A great big lovely present full of mushed up body parts. That’s what I’m getting you, Tyler.’
Kersey looked to Sam for help.
‘Show me what to do,’ Sam told him. ‘You don’t have to watch.’
‘Turn it on with the key,’ Kersey said. ‘Then release that handle, slowly.’
Even as he spoke, Kersey was backing away, his face turning from white to green.
‘Everybody stand clear,’ Sam announced. ‘You all ready? On the count of three.’
‘It’s not Apollo 12, Tyler,’ grumbled Gene. ‘Just get on with it, you big fanny.’
Sam turned the starter key. The crusher’s mighty pistons rattled and roared into life. Black smoke belched from the motors. He glanced around, just to ensure no one was getting too close – and at that moment a sudden flash of reflected light caught his eye. Matilda’s sister truck was pulling up, just beyond the parked Cortina and the patrol cars; like its counterpart, it too had a custom-made licence plate propped up against the windscreen, which bore the name Gertrude.
But it wasn’t the sun reflecting on the lorry that caught Sam’s attention: it was the sudden flash of light on the crowbar wielded by a masked man who was rushing out from behind a heap of smashed cars. The man jumped onto the lorry’s running board, threw open the door and began battering at the driver inside the cab.
‘Guv!’ Sam shouted. His voice was drowned out by the bellowing of the crusher. ‘Guv! Look!’
But nobody could hear him.
Gertrude swerved left and right, then the driver’s door flew open and the driver himself tumbled out, battered and bleeding.
Leaving the crusher running, Sam bolted towards the hijacked lorry.