TWENTIETH CENTURY

by apollyon rises

PROLOGUE

the sons and brothers, fighting for another cause
anything to give their lives some meaning.

Eight o'clock, in any mother's mind, was a bit on the late side to be playing out and about in the street.

Patricia Hollis was one of these mothers. At twenty-seven, she'd had Michael when she was fresh out of formal education but had been lucky enough to have the backbone of her family—and Michael's father, Danny—to support her. The four of them – Michael's little sister, Francesca, included – lived a relatively calm life, with Danny working as one of London's many bus drivers and both Michael and Francesca enrolled in school. Patricia stayed at home, as was expected, and spent her days washing and cleaning and her afternoons and evenings cooking and chasing after the kids.

Francesca was playing with the Zippy toy Danny had given her last Christmas, and Patricia was content to let her talk to herself and pretend that her toy was talking back. The whereabouts of Michael, however, was something she wasn't quite confident about: she'd let him go out to play with some boys from down the road three hours ago and told him to come back by seven, but the clock on the wall said it was eight o'clock which meant he should've been home an hour ago.

"Where's Mikey, Fran?" she cooed, pausing from where she was stirring the pasta to glance down at her youngest child. "Where's your big brother?"

The four year old blinked at her mother. "Unno," she replied cheerily, and then returned to playing with Zippy.

Her mother frowned, concerned. Michael was always home on time. . . and if not, he was never more than ten minutes late with grass stains and mud on his knees from where he'd been kicking a football around. Looking towards the front door, she saw no sign of him and picked Francesca up, balancing the four year old on her hip as she went to check outside.

"Michael?"

Stratham Road was deserted.

Perhaps he was having dinner at Molly's or Heather's. Patricia crossed over the road to Heather's and rapped lightly on the door. It didn't take long for the plump blonde to open the door and beam at her.

"Alright, love? What can I do fer you—how're the lil'uns?"

"I'm alright, thanks—have you seen Mikey?"

Heather frowned. "Jamie came in about an hour ago, said Mike had gone off to fetch the ball. . . haven't seen him since about six though."

Patricia shifted, nodding faintly. "If you see him, could you tell him his mum's lookin' fer him?"

"O'course, lovely. Have a nice evening, won't you?"

"You too, Heath. Thanks."

The door closed and Patricia tried Molly's and Trudy's too, to no avail. When it was nearing half-past eight, she returned to her house and phoned around the street asking if anyone had seen her son. All mothers confirmed that he'd gone to get the ball when it rolled into Stratham Rise, and that they and their kids hadn't laid eyes on him since.

At the suggestion of Trudy, Patricia phoned the police. It rang twice before it was answered.

"Fenchurch East Station, how can I help?"

She wavered slightly, biting her lip and clutching the receiver as if it might blow away from her at any moment. "I—I'd. . . like to report my son as missing."

"What's your name, miss?"

"P-Patricia. Hollis."

"And the name of your son?"

"Michael. We call him Mikey, but he's called Michael."

The officer cleared their throat. "How long has he been missing for?"

"He was supposed to be home by seven. . . but he's late, and he's never late. No one's seen him since six o'clock."

"Can I have your address, please?"

It took a few seconds for Patricia to process this. "O-oh, yes, of course. 15 Stratham Road."

"Officers will be on their way, Mrs Hollis. Thank you for calling."

The line went dead.

Several missing children had been filed in the last three days and, at Alex's insistence and constant nagging, Gene Hunt had informed the troops that they wouldn't be going home or taking any toilet breaks until they'd figured out what was going on.

This meant, naturally, that Alex was to stand by the whiteboard and profile the children whilst CID stared at her blankly and Hunt snorted and made unnecessary comments every-so-often.

"So," she began brightly, marker in one hand and five pictures of the children spread out over the board, "What do these children have in common?"

Chris stared at the pictures for a long time. "Er. . . they're all boys, ma'am?"

At least it was an observation, Alex reminded herself, which is more than can be said for the rest of my constructs. There's hope for Chris after all.

"Well-spotted, Chris! What does this tell you?"

A long silence followed her question and she shifted, sighing loudly. "Come on – don't all shout at once."

"But, ma'am, we weren't shouting—"

"—yes, Chris, I know. It's just a saying." She resisted the urge to sigh again.

More silence.

"It means," snapped a voice coming from the direction of the Manc Lion's office, "that we have a few lads who like to run around and cause their mams grief, Bolly."

Cue another sigh. She didn't need to turn and look in order to know it was Gene. "Five boys between the ages of eight and ten go missing in three days and you don't think that's odd?" Her gaze locked onto his and she tilted her chin defiantly.

Gene snorted, swaggering towards her. "Boys will be boys," he retorted.

"Children don't up and run for no reason, Hunt. Especially not children this young." She watched the way he absorbed the information, the way his eyes flickered over her face momentarily before he weighed it all up in his head and stepped away.

"Well, Drake, since you're so convinced that you know everything in the bloody universe, why don't I hand you my badge and let you lead this investigation? Kids go missing, Bolls, that's the reality of life—even kids as young as this. Who knows? Maybe their mams didn't cook 'em what they wanted fer dinner and they did a runner—fact is, this is London an' people go missing every day."

Her jaw clenched slightly and she pointed at the five photos again. "These are children and children don't do runners, Gene. This isn't one of those open and shut cases—"

"—open and closed, actually," he interrupted smugly, amused at the irritation that crossed her face.

"—regardless, it's not one of those easy cases that you seem to love so much. This has layers—"

"—like an onion," Chris provided helpfully, but although Shaz smiled, his comment went unnoticed by the two senior officers.

"—and these children are missing. You're making the team stay late to solve this, so let them solve it and let these boys go back to their families. . . back to the people that love them." Her mind tripped to Molly, and she exhaled heavily, turning away from him and back to the board.

Sniffing heavily, the DCI clapped his hands and turned to his colleagues. "You heard the lady—mush! I am goin' to my office to play a bit o'Pong and have a think about why these kiddies are runnin' away. Don't knock if you need me."

Moving to stalk back to his office, the appearance of Viv at the door of CID made him pause and he jerked his head as the go-ahead for the PC. "Yes?"

"Another boy missing, guv," the male replied, handing him the form. "Hasn't been since six, his mum's worried sick. I said we'd send someone over to start the procedures."

"Correction," Gene said after two seconds of silence, "Me an' Mother Theresa over there are goin' to this lady's house. Pong can wait until I return—Raymondo, man the ship while I'm gone. Chris, do whatever it is you do an' Shaz, stick to the paperwork. If you're feelin' adventurous, see if any of you can work out Mother Theresa's mumbo jumbo psychiatry bollocks on the board."

He grunted lightly and then turned to Alex. "You comin', Bolls?"

As they made their way to the Quattro, she had only one thing to say to him. "It's psychology, not psychiatry."

"S'all the same bollocks to me, Bolls."

notes: this is my first ashes to ashes fic, so any comments and criticism would be loved. i'm not sure if i've got the gang in character. . . therefore i'd love pointers on how to improve them and stuff. i'm doing a lot of research into the plot, but if i offend anyone later on, i really don't mean to. there isn't a lot of information about paedophilia on the internet, but i'm trying my best. thanks in advance. (: ohoh—the lyrics at the beginning are from violence by the pet shop boys. . . who happen to be my favourite band in the world. the title is also the name of a pet shop boys song, which i recommend listening to (as well as anything by the pet shop boys): twentieth century. . . and none of the characters belong to me, either.