Chapter One – January 2014

"Bollocks!" bellowed a rough, angry Scottish voice from the Detective Chief Inspector's office. Muffled as it was by the closed door, it still inspired a momentary pause of surprise in the flow of the early morning's routine.

DI Peter Carlisle sank into his chair and glanced curiously across the office at the closed doors, then around at the northern English town of Kendal's constabulary as the hustle and bustle of the everyday gradually returned to normal. He sucked his tongue into the roof of his mouth. The place stank of burned coffee and stale cigarettes but he barely registered it, so acquainted was he with its precise perfume. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, staring at the thick file on his desk for a moment with a despairing determination before he heard DI Bryan Blythe's familiar footfalls.

"Why, hello and good morning, DI Blythe," Peter drawled, throwing his feet up onto the desk with a smirk and a cocked eyebrow deliberately designed to provoke a reaction from his easily irritated partner. Blythe scowled at him obediently and Peter chuckled to himself as he absently plucked at the coffee cup before him on the desk. He grimaced as it sloshed day-old liquid over the rim and onto his fingers. Shrugging, he licked each one dry.

Blythe opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a passing DC. "Any idea what that was all about?" the DC said, looking at Blythe but speaking to Carlisle. He yanked a thumb towards the DCI's office.

"Not at all," Carlisle responded with a nonchalant shrug and wiped his fingers on his coat. The copper nodded and walked back to his desk while Blythe's eyebrows shot up in silent inquiry.

Carlisle shrugged again. "Someone's in the DCI's," he said with a dismissive jerk of his head towards the doors across the station. His eyes trailed back down to the heavy sheaf of files on his desk. "It seems we've got work to do, don't we, Blythe?"

"That we do. What have we got?" Blythe grabbed a rolling chair from a neighboring desk and pulled it toward Carlisle's, pushing a hand through his short blond hair. He swung his leg over the seat and perched in it, back facing forward. His close-set hazel eyes lit up, resembling the overeager terrier Carlisle often mentally likened him to.

Carlisle couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. "You never fail to inspire me with your willingness to slog through the enticing buffet of burglaries and speed sellers," he snarked acerbically in his solid Scottish brogue, sweeping a hand to indicate the files strewn across his desk. As he did he spied a passing DC carrying a cardboard box of doughnuts and perked up straight away. Dropping his feet back down on the floor, he stretched out a long-fingered hand and snatched one from the box. At the colleague's quiet "hey!" of protestation he tried - and failed - to look suitably abashed before he stuffed the glazed treat into his mouth.

Blythe's beady eyes flashed at the droll dismissal in Carlisle's tone. "Just because you don't take anything seriously since you lost…." he began with the air of a man itching to build up a head of steam, but Carlisle had heard plenty.

"Blythe," he snapped in warning, his cocoa eyes hardening to amber, "that's enough."

Blythe regarded Carlisle for a moment, unable to keep the simmering disdain he felt for the DI from showing in his eyes. "Whatever you say…..partner." The younger man lingered on the last word, rolling it around in his mouth and painting it with a note just barely this side of contempt.

Carlisle stared back at Blythe in silence, his tongue working the space behind his front teeth. He'd be damned if he'd let the younger DI think he'd schooled him. Never mind that Blythe was right, Carlisle thought to himself, and then pushed the thought away. He'd never admit to regretting a decision – no, let's call it as it was, a deal - that he'd made in lustful haste and which had ended up biting him in the arse in so many ways.

The two men held each others gaze for long moments until Carlisle dropped his first, curtly switched gears, and reached for the top file from the pile stacked up on his desk. He snatched it up and slid it across his desktop with a smirk. "So. Here's a little something to keep you occupied."

In the wake of his curse, former Detective Inspector Alec Hardy sat down heavily in the chair across Detective Chief Inspector Arthur Stanley's desk and curled his fingers around the lion's head armrests. The chair – ornately carved in some heavy, dark wood Alec didn't recognize - seemed clumsy and out of place in the otherwise spartan office.

"I'm sorry, Alec. Truly sorry," Stanley was saying, but Hardy didn't hear him. Invalided out was still thumping through his head.

"But I'm well now!" Hardy protested, pointing to his chest. A long scar across his breastbone was the only indicator of the pacemaker surgery he'd underwent the previous fall after solving the widely publicized Daniel Latimer case in the tiny West Dorset town of Broadchurch. The surgery had regulated his atrial fibrillation and saved his life. The fringe from his thick crop of auburn hair slipped into his eyes and he ran a finger along it, pushing it back into place in a gesture borne of long-entrenched habit.

"It doesn't look like they want to take a chance on having you…" the DCI paused, gesturing in the air and glancing away from Hardy's accusatory gaze before finishing his sentence, "…having you, you know….relapse or something."

"That's horseshit," Hardy hissed before he could stop himself, so he added a grudging "…Sir." The office suddenly seemed claustrophobic and sweat broke out on his upper lip. A tide of impotent frustration swept through him, clawing at his guts, and he concentrated on breathing in and out evenly. It was something he'd learned to do as a preventative measure when his heart had been given to racing out of control. The habit had stuck with him even after the surgery had stablized his irregular heartbeat and given him a second chance at life.

He closed his eyes a moment and leaned back in the ridiculous chair while he struggled to modulate his tone to a more reasonable level. Jesus bloody Christ, he swore to himself, it was hot in here. "Sir," he tried again, "I know I've been invalided out, but they made that decision before I received treatment. I've had surgery and I've been medically cleared for duty."

"Alec," Stanley said gently, looking across at the painfully thin, slightly disheveled man wearing an ill-fitting suit. "How long has it been since your surgery?"

Hardy let out a breath. "Six months. Give or take."

"Well, then." Stanley shifted in his seat and sent Alec a look, one Hardy recognized immediately. The mix of tolerance and pity was one he'd seen on many faces since his surgery and seeing it again on Stanley's rasped up raw and painful against Hardy's every nerve. He steeled himself for what would come next.

"You're still recovering," Stanley continued. "Perhaps it's too early to be getting back into the game quite yet?"

"I solved the Broadchurch case. Surely that counts for something."

"That was before you were invalided out."

Hardy ground his teeth. He knew he shouldn't say it, but it came out anyway, and in a rasping, accusatory manner. "What's the real reason for this, Sir? Is it still bloody Sandbrook?"

"Really, Alec?" Stanley tented his fingers and leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, the look of tolerance and pity replaced with a fixed glare. "It has much less to do with Sandbrook than it does with the simple reality that you are in no way ready to return to duty. If you get another chance with any constabulary – and I mean if - it won't be for at least another six months." He stood and opened the door, a slight movement of his head indicating the entryway. "Go home, Alec."

Stanley waited until Hardy's stubbornly infuriated gaze finally fell away into one of surrender. Alec stood and picked up his coat, shrugging it on with as much dignity as he could muster. He squared his shoulders and walked out of the station without looking back.

Detective Emmett Carver opened one eye and immediately shut it again, rolling over to turn his back against the early morning northern California sun streaming in through the blinds. Still half-asleep and already grouchy – a morning person he was not - he groped at his waist and tugged the tangled sheet out from underneath his hip, using it to cover his face and block out more of the maddening light. He closed his eyes on a sigh and sunk back into a semi-drowse.

Bzzzzt.

Emmett shifted and sighed in his sleep.

Bzzzzzzzt.

He stirred, stretched. What the…..

Bzzzzzzzzzztt.

"Damn it," Emmett growled, rolling back over and giving up on his quest for slumber. His eyes still partially closed against the sun, Carver felt around on the nightstand and fumbled blindly for his phone. Just as he wrapped his fingers around it, it buzzed again. Carver swore as it slipped out of his grasp and tumbled to the floor.

Buuzzzzzzzzzztttt.

He scooped it up and hit the answer key with a sharp punch. "What?" he barked into the phone in a voice still gritty with sleep, rolling off the bed as he spoke.

As he came to his feet the movement sent a familar sharp pain coiling down Carver's spine and he swallowed back an unintended grunt of agony. Wincing, he clutched at the band of tight muscles along his lower spine and kneaded them as he clasped the phone to his ear and paced the room. As he listened, though, he came to an abrupt halt and his hand dropped from his back. The look of exasperation on his face shifted into dread. When he spoke again it was slower, subdued. "Fine. All right. I'll be….yes. Give me fifteen."

He punched the disconnect and looked down unseeingly at the phone in his hand. "Sonofabitch," he groaned, dropping his chin onto his chest. His eyes closed. "Sonofabitch."