The scenery flew by in a blue as Alec drove as fast as humanly possible while tapping out a frustrated rhythm on his steering wheel. He and Miller had been planning to bring in Jack Marshall for questioning since the latest information regarding his past had come to light. He had thought that Jack Marshall's past had been known to only a select few people. He shouldn't have been surprised that Broadchurch had once again disappointed him. And how in the hell Rebecca had heard about it he couldn't even fathom. But when he received her phone call about how a mob of townspeople had gathered at Jack's house he had sprinted from the office like his life depended on it. He could tell she was trying to be as calm as possible, probably in an attempt to not aggravate his arrhythmia. But he could hear the slight undercurrent of panic in her voice and it made him almost frantic with concern.
Bloody fool, he thought, clenching his jaw so hard he could hear his teeth grinding. What was she thinking, going to see him like that? Just because she doesn't believe he's the murderer doesn't mean he isn't the bloody murderer. But he knew her well enough by now to know that she wouldn't have considered the danger of the situation at all. She would believe the best in anyone, give them the benefit of the doubt, and stand in their corner if she thought them innocent. Truth be told Alec didn't actually believe that Jack was responsible for the crime. But that didn't mean that the rest of the town would feel the same way, especially when catching wind of his tainted past. His frown deepened and his pressed the accelerator down even harder.
When he reached the house he was dismayed to see that it was actually worse than he had thought. There was a line of cars already filling up most of the gravel driveway, and a small crowd was gathered out front of the small ramshackle house.
Alec pushed through the crowd of angry, murmuring people and made his way to the front of the yard. He wasn't surprised to see Rebecca facing the crowd, her arms folded, standing in front of Jack Marshall like a mother bear protecting her cub. She was calm, although her face was red, yet she exuded a sense of righteous anger that seemed to radiate off of her.
She looks like a sodding tiger, he thought. She had always seemed so gentle to him, delicate. Now here she was, standing down a huge crowd of angry friends and acquaintances. It took balls, that did. He had, of course, known she must have had a backbone of steel to have gone through what she had in the past. But he had yet to see it, she saved all her smiles for him. Now he was seeing the iron behind it all. It filled him with a whole new respect for her.
Although it didn't make him any less frustrated with her.
Cursing under his breath, he walked over to her and gently yet firmly grabbed her arm at the elbow. "What do you think you're doing?" He hissed, "don't you have any sense of self preservation?"
She looked up at him and winked. "Not really, no. Did you know your accent comes out even stronger when you're angry? It's very arousing."
"You...what?" he asked, completely thrown off balance.
"He ought to be thrown in jail, right now!" someone from the crowd yelled. The murmur of voices grew louder, sounding like an angry swarm of bees.
"Everybody just calm down," Alec called out.
"He's a bloody pedo!" Someone else yelled.
"At least let him explain himself!" Rebecca retorted back angrily. "You've all known Jack for years, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves!"
"I'm not explaining myself to this lot," Jack piped up. "None of their business, is it?"
Marc Latimer stepped forward. "Would you explain it to me, Jack?" he asked quietly. "I've known you for years. He was my son." His voice was strained with emotion. "You at least owe me that."
Jack nodded to him, and Marc walked up and they began conversing quietly. Rebecca stood aside to let Alec join them. After a few minutes Marc clasped his hand on Jack's shoulder and turned to the waiting crowd.
"Go home lads," he said.
A couple of the men started to protest loudly, but Marc cut them off. "Go home lads," he repeated. "Everything's all right here."
They started to filter away, Marc nodded to Jack and headed back to his own car.
"I'll still need you to come up to the station later," Alec told Jack gently as Rebecca walked back over. Jack nodded wearily, reached over to squeeze Rebecca's hand, and headed back into his house.
Once he was gone, Rebecca bent over and breathed out heavily. "I'm glad that went okay. I was quite afraid it wouldn't, for a few minutes there."
"I wish you would be more careful," Alec said as they both crossed the yard and headed down the driveway.
"And I wish you would kiss me," she replied playfully. "I'm hoping at least one of our wishes will come true."
He growled and without hesitation pulled her to him, driven by instinct rather than any sane bit of logic. He crushed her lips to hers and his tongue met hers in a hot, tangled, clash of churning emotions. She moaned and bit his lip and he thought that if they didn't stop this kiss soon he was going to have her right then and there in the middle of the driveway.
As if sensing this, she pulled away, gracing him with a wry grin. "You better get back to work, Detective Inspector. Before someone throws a bucket of water on us."
He turned around. Luckily no one was paying them the slightest bit of attention. Everyone seemed to be trying their best to get back to the lives. He turned back to her, sighing regretfully. "I do need to get back to the station." He pointed a finger at her sternly. "But you need to be more careful. I was almost out of my mind with worry on the way over here."
She furrowed her eyebrows. "I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention. I would have spared you that, if I could. But they were all lathering over him like rabid animals. I couldn't leave him to face that alone."
"Bollocks." He rubbed his eyes. "I don't know whether I want to have a row with you or shag you," he said breathlessly. "Dammit woman, you make my head a fucking confusing mess."
She smiled. "Does it make you feel any better to know that you do the same to me?"
His heart skipped, and he knew it had nothing to do with the arrhythmia. He allowed himself a small grin. "It does, yeah."
She nodded. "Good," she replied, turning and walking back to her car. She hesitated for a moment before turning back to Alec with a worried expression on her face. "You'll catch him, right?" she asked tentatively. "Before something else like this happens?"
He nodded. "I will. I promise."
Mollified she turned back and walked back to her car.
...
It was a promise, unfortunately, Alec couldn't keep.
The next morning Jack Marshall killed himself.
Alec and Ellie were the first on sight, at the beach where it had happened. He felt a growing sense of despair, that this was the second person this town had swallowed up. There was a ball of dread knotted in his stomach. He knew what he had to do next.
And he knew he had to be the one to do it.
He didn't bother to call, he just showed up at her flat, knocking on the door despite the early hour. She opened the door and stood there, in the same clothes she had been in yesterday and despite the state of her hair it was obvious that she had barely gotten any sleep.
"It's Jack, isn't it," she asked, her voice steady.
He nodded. "We found him this morning. It looks like he took his own life."
She continued to stand there for another moment before she started to fall. Alec's instincts kicked in an instant before and he caught her in his arms. She clung to him as sobs racked her body and he lowered them both to the floor. Alec knew how tightly she held her emotions to her heart, and that she allowed herself to break down in front of him, that she trusted him that much, filled him with a sense of dizzying wonder. He stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head as her face was buried in his chest.
He wished more than anything he could take away every tear, every single moment of pain she was experiencing. It broke his own heart to watch her suffer.
That was the exact moment he realized that he loved her.
~*~ To be continued