"Capable"
A/N: Finally I can quote Dragnet (to a point): The story you're about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. Aside from a few facts that I've made up or twisted, what happens to the 'murderer' in this story is what happened with one of my dad's best friends years ago. I thought the idea of that anyone, (yes anyone, even your best friend) being able to commit to killing someone really fit well with what Alec believes when he states that anyone can commit murder.
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The woman's body had been long since removed from the tiled office floor from where it had fallen, but the smell of blood still lingered sickeningly in the air. The floor had been rigorously mopped as well, but a red stain still seemed to cling faintly to it.
It had been a pistol's bullet to the head that had done the deed. A brutal weapon for a brutal killing—a murder, some were hesitantly calling it, but there simply wasn't enough evidence to call it that yet.
The woman's coworkers, however, were all claiming the same thing:
John O'Bailey had marched into the office at three that afternoon, drawn a loaded pistol, and shot Freya O'Bailey in the back of the head. The single bullet had been instantly fatal. Then before they could grab him O'Bailey had turned and fled, losing the police long before the first of them showed up at the scene.
All Alec could do for a long moment was stare at that spot of floor, hardly able to grasp the story. This wasn't the first case he had worked but it was one of his first murders. At only twenty-five Alec Hardy was already showing he could easily become one of the best coppers at the Glasgow police force; determined and driven, he was quick on his feet and sharp as a needle, and had the particular gift of being able to spot a lie even from the faintest of body language.
He noticed that his own team members weren't quite able to meet his eye, trying their hardest to shift away their gazes or asking their questions elsewhere. They were avoiding him, probably afraid of setting him off. (Formidable as he was, it was well known that he had a temper to match.)
It was common knowledge, after all, that John O'Bailey and Alec Hardy had been best friends for years.
The chief was sending out teams to look for the missing man, allowing them their own weapons in case the suspect decided to fight back.
Suspect. The word made Alec feel sick to his stomach. John.
"He won't cause you trouble coming in, sir." He had to nearly bite his tongue to address his superior respectively, when all he really wanted to do was call him a few choice words.
DI Douglas looked at him shrewdly, knowing as well as anyone else Alec's friendship with O'Bailey. "You have some information to add to this case, Hardy?"
Alec managed another respectful nod. "His wife was divorcing him."
Freya. Freya, how could you? You knew what he's like!
Clearly, she hadn't known him well enough, even after nearly seven years of marriage. None of the O'Bailey family were ones you wanted to cross. Freya had learned that too late.
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Walking along one of the back alleyways in the heart of the city Alec cursed to himself, furious at John. He knew why the latter had not stayed at the scene of the shooting.
He knew where John would be, too.
Ten years. Ten years they had known each other. They'd met in school, the loud practical joker and the quiet book reader; odd at first, it quickly became something of a laugh for others who saw them together, taken aback by the friendship. Alec was much more quiet around others, barely speaking to classmates, and withdrawn in large crowds. John was boisterous and loud, always grinning and laughing, getting in trouble with the teachers. Their different temperaments did nothing to hamper their getting along, however, and they'd remained close friends even following graduation. Alec, always having been interested in novels that dealt with crime, went on to the Academy. John went on to a car shop where he worked on body work, an interest he had picked up from his dad.
The O'Bailey family had taken Alec in like their own blood, which as a fifteen-year-old had equally gratified and dismayed him. His own parents were always fighting, finding even the smallest things that they could nitpick about, having very little time for their only son. Following his finding John as a friend, Alec spent as little time at his own house as he could, hating his parents' oppressive household; most of all he hated his mother's listlessness with her lot in life. She was soft-spoken and deeply religious, always quoting some Biblical verse or proverb (which was the one thing Alec's atheist father hated most about his wife) and always seemed able to make some excuse after one of their fights that her life was the 'Lord's Way'. This opinion was the main reasons Alec never stepped foot in church, even if he was fully aware and brought up on scripture and the stories in the Bible.
The O'Bailey's were a religious family as well, but in their own ways. They went to church, yes, but they truly lived by the Bible rather than simply following it in church. Divorce was not allowed. You were respectful to ladies and your elders. So many little rules that somehow allowed the family to work better rather than tear them apart.
Every O'Bailey in the family was also well known to follow through on promises or threats. They held to their word fanatically, which made them either fantastically loyal friends or dangerous enemies.
Alec had been aware of John's rocky marriage for quite some time; only a few years out of graduation, John had married Freya Holding, and for a while everything seemed to go smoothly for them. Alec had spent quite a bit over at their household himself, always welcome to dinner or a quiet afternoon, and had become close to Freya as well. Just a month ago, he remembered now, he had been invited to dinner at their house—right before it all went to hell for the couple.
Freya had been caught cheating on John, in their own bed—and to add insult to injury she had not seemed repentant at all but had filed for divorce. John had allowed her to, angry enough that he didn't care about breaking one of the 'O'Bailey Rules'; but the last thing Alec had heard about the situation was two days ago, when John had called him and told him that Freya was attempting to take everything in the divorce, looking for an attorney so that she could.
He slipped through an old crumbling door now, shaking the thoughts out of his head. He was a cop here, Alec reminded himself; he was here to arrest his closest friend, not be a shoulder to lean on.
And John had known, when he'd left the scene, that it would be Alec who would go after him.
"John?"
Movement in the shadows of the abandoned building showed where he was hiding. Quiet, Alec made his way over, struggling to contain his rising sense of fury. Now that he was able to see his friend he couldn't help the disgust he felt, or the anger.
John's face was set as he stepped out into view. He'd known he'd sentenced himself to jail even before he'd pulled the trigger, and still he'd done it. "Alec."
His own eyes dark, Alec glared at him for a long moment. "You murdered her, John."
"I warned her." John's vice did not waver, nor did his eyes shine with remorse. He was unrepentant. "She told me she was looking for a solicitor. I told her straight up if she tried to take everything I'd kill her."
"That doesn't make it right!" Alec snapped furiously. The accusation hung heavy and cloying in the air, driving a wedge between them like nothing ever had before. "You still killed her!"
John seemed to shrink a little in the face of Alec's fury; still no remorse, not for the murder, but because he still hated upsetting a friend. He remained silent for a long moment. "I'll come quietly."
"You sure as hell will," Alec growled; his anger had given him strength—without hesitation he had drawn handcuffs from his pocket and slipped them onto John's wrists. Still John did not protest.
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Within hours John O'Bailey was charged with the murder of Freya O'Bailey nee Holding, his wife. He denied nothing. He was placed in a cell at the Glasgow prison to await his trial, dressed in plain white clothes. He was still unrepentant for the death he had caused.
Alec visited him once before he was convicted. Arms crossed, he glared at his friend, but there was something like bewilderment in his expression—something that John was able to pick up on. He sighed.
"Go ahead and ask me, Alec. I know you want to."
"How could you just go and kill her, John?"
It was that question, more than any other, that was bothering him the most. What could possibly make it alright to go and kill somebody? He understood the O'Bailey-mentality, and he knew that Freya had been asking for it when she went ahead with the divorce… but to shoot someone in cold blood…
His best friend. A murderer.
Bloody hell.
John only shrugged. "I don't know. She shouldn't have gone that far."
Alec swallowed, trying to tell himself that the burning in his eyes was simply because of allergies. "I would have trusted you to watch my bairns, John. I would have trusted you with anything. I did."
John nodded, understanding. He always did. "Tell my parents something for me?"
Alec hesitated for just a moment, but knew he would agree anyway. Even now, he couldn't refuse. "Aye."
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That night, late after the end of his day, Alec walked slowly into his flat, feeling like a hundred years old. His feet shuffled heavily on the wood floors, and he threw his coat carelessly over the nearest chair.
Shaking, he fell into the nearest chair, trying to steady his thumping heart. Despite his physical exhaustion he felt wide awake; a wound gaped deep in his gut that felt like it could swallow him whole. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold the tears back that had been building for hours.
Nothing at the Academy had prepared him for this. They said that murders could happen in your own household, or that they could be done by your closest friends; but somehow Alec had been arrogant enough to believe something like that could never happen to him.
Anyone was capable of murder. John was proof of that. John, who was one of the gentlest people Alec had known.
Put away for who knew how long because he was willing to take someone else's life for no good reason.
The blinders were fully blown away, and finally Alec Hardy saw for the first time that the world was a dark and frightening place—and felt very small and very afraid.
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Over fifteen years later, he would meet a brown-haired, gentle-eyed woman, claiming to be a copper, over the body of a murdered boy. And he saw immediately that she was very much blind to what horrors the world was capable of, this Ellie Miller. He envied and pitied her this naivety simultaneously, remembering a time when he had had a similar outlook.
He wanted to say something about John O'Bailey when he told her anyone was capable of murder, to drive the point home. He didn't.
He regretted that after he arrested her husband.