The Future of a Former Detective
Alec Hardy was living in the cliffside cottage where Daniel Latimer was killed. Of course. After the murder no one wanted the isolated home, however useful it may still be. Alec thought there might be a metaphor in that, though he didn't dwell on the idea. So it had come cheap and fully furnished and it wasn't an inn and that was what mattered, really. And, yes, he had kept the furniture. He didn't suppose he would be around long enough to make it worth the bother to replace. Except the couch. Even his unsentimentality only went so far, and he burned the piece the first night he moved in. He sat and watched the flames, the embers, then the ashes until the next morning's sunrise broke him from his morose musings and sent him to bed still smelling of smoke. He woke six hours later to the afterimage of Daniel's empty eyes and the echoes of Miller's weeping and resigned himself to another day.
He hadn't even seriously considered leaving. Broadchurch was as good a place as any to spend what he knew were most likely his final months, though he knew better than to inflict himself on the village any more than necessary. After the Sandbrook exoneration and his "success" with the Latimer case, no one outright hated him. They respected him, even, which he hadn't expected. The Echo would occasionally consult him when reporting crimes, even when they were only re-reporting another area's story. Alec suspected it might be pity or an attempt to make amends for their role in dragging him back into the spotlight. Perhaps a bit of both. That was fine. He figured it made them feel better and he hadn't really anything more important to do anyway.
Reverend Coates came by on Saturdays for tea and was pleased and embarrassed to discover a religious man in Hardy. Paul well remembered his thoughtless assumption during the Latimer investigation, and was grateful that Hardy pretended to have forgotten. Paul enjoyed a level of intellectual rigor in their conversations that few of his parishioners would provide, and Alec noticed some of his observations finding their way into the sermons during the Sunday services he always attended.
He'd only seen Miller—not Miller,he would remind himself. Not anymore—a handful of times in the four months since he'd been invalided out. She'd only been to the cottage once since he'd moved in, and she hadn't been shy in voicing her disapproval of his choice. Well, choices. The house, the furniture, the isolation, and his damned stubborn, stupid selfishness in refusing a pacemaker were all roundly condemned. Alec expected no less. He wasn't surprised by her absence, Former Detective Club notwithstanding, and in fact had to admit to incredulity every time she invited him over for a meal. The Echo and Coates he could justify with guilt and duty, respectively, but it mystified him why she would continue any contact, however infrequent, with the man who had torn her family from blissful ignorance. Maybe she viewed him as a sort of companion through the same forging fires, the one who could come closest to truly understanding what the case had done to her. In any case, it wasn't really his business and he never went beyond silent speculation. Let her have her privacy. Someone should.
Still, the village itself was uncomfortable. He ignored what he was sure were whispers and furtive stares, but lingered little. He knew what he had done to them. It had been necessary, and in some cases almost self inflicted by their bloody reticence to just tell him the bloody truth in the first place, but he knew he was a reminder of sicknesses that had festered but been happily concealed. The investigation had opened a gaping wound and he had held the scalpel. Sometimes it seemed like a bloody butcher knife, really. And now they were coping in the traditional Village Way, with polite denial that anything had happened at all. He got in the way of that. He told himself he didn't care. They could damned well deal with it. Wouldn't be for long, anyway. Couldn't be.
He'd only had six attacks since he closed the Latimer case, only one bad enough to admit he needed a hospital. But he wasn't getting better. Wouldn't get better, they said. He wasn't about to top himself, but didn't see the point in hanging around any longer than necessary, either, so he faced his illness with a grim determination of its inevitable conclusion and blamed the stoicism on his Scottish upbringing. It would do.
So here he was, passing his days with books, music, the occasional visit, and a bit of telly when he couldn't be bothered with anything else but couldn't stand to be completely idle.
Here he was. "And here," he murmured to himself, "I shall stay." Until my Time Comes, he didn't complete. And he looked out the window, to the broad and endless sea, as the stars began to appear in the heavens beyond.