A/N Erm... I'm quite nervous about posting this second part as the first chapter got such a fantastic response. You know when I said I'd probably not chosen a sensible way to write it? Read on for proof...
Everything We Apprehend
Chapter Two
October 1981
She looked quite pale, stood there leaning against the railing and gazing silently out to the water. With her head bowed and only her profile visible he couldn't quite work out what had just happened but something had shook her. Logic would say it was the unpleasant sight downstairs that had done it; a bullet hole to the forehead was not a nice way to go but she'd seen worse (Billy Dane sprung to mind; they hadn't caught up with the hitman responsible for Billy Dane's death, much to his consternation, and he briefly wondered if that was a lead worth investigating further). No, he was sure that the change to her mood had started before they'd even stumbled upon that sight; maybe on that long walk across the gangway, maybe even when he had brought the Quattro to a screeching halt alongside the 'Lady Di' itself - though the look she'd shot him at that point could have just been a reaction to his method of parking. He pursed his lips at the sight of his DI; lost in her own thoughts, whatever they may be, he doubted she even realised that he had followed her out. Sometimes it was as if she was on another planet and all he was here to do was to keep her safe, to keep pulling her back in. "Earth to Bollyknickers!"
Rather disappointingly she didn't jump in response to his sharp tone; the only visible sign that she had actually heard him was the corner of her mouth turning down ever further. "What?" Alex asked distractedly as she slowly dragged her eyes from the murky water towards him with a look that he couldn't quite place; she looked sad but there was something else there too. Something that had been lingering there in the background since the day the Prices had died but was now more prominent.
"Too much to drink last night, DI Drake?" He enquired, unwilling to venture too far into that pretty little head of hers; he had, against his own better judgement, tried to find out what had upset her about the Prices deaths (because it wasn't as if they were family or anything) but the conversation hadn't exactly been enlightening - maybe asking her about it the very night they had died hadn't been such good timing. She'd mumbled something about the little girl the Prices had left behind, which he assumed had only reminded her of her own daughter, but then she had started banging on again about how he couldn't be real and he had kind of switched off at that point, happy just to look at her rather than listen, happy to write it off whatever she was saying as a result of the copious amounts of wine she'd consumed.
"It would kill anyone, wouldn't it?" She asked sadly, arms still resting on the rail, and not rising to his bait at all. Gene groaned inwardly; now he'd have to find out what was wrong with her but as he eyed her cautiously, he finally put his finger on what had been eating at her: she looked utterly defeated. But he didn't know why. She might be smart and posh and so very easy on the eye but at times she could be completely baffling too. He could, begrudgingly, admit that she was a good addition to the team – and the way things were heading she was the kind of copper that the force wanted, not people of his ilk - but at least with Ray or Chris, or any other bloke in CID, he knew exactly where he stood - and so did they. If she wasn't prattling on about that psychiatry stuff she was sounding as if she needed to see a shrink herself.
"Wouldn't it?" She reiterated, her voice quiet but her eyes boring loudly into his, almost begging him to disagree with her, to tell her that a bullet through the head didn't mean death when the body downstairs was evidence to the contrary. It was a look he had seen before, when their little visit to the vaults at Edgehampton had seemed to be heading for a rather sticky - in more than one respect - end. And, just like then, he found that all he wanted to do was comfort her.
"I don't know, Bols," he sighed, reluctantly acknowledging to himself that he certainly wouldn't be doing this for anybody else on the team; they'd just get a bollocking. Christ, he was in real danger of going soft over her. "I guess you could survive. If you were lucky. If you fought hard enough," he said softly. She smiled at him then, at that last part, the sadness fading from her face as if his words had carefully wiped it all away. The thought that they had, that he could reach her, touch her somehow, with only words, made him happier than it should, especially when she continued to smile at him in the manner she was currently adopting.
The idea of asking her out again crossed his mind then; it hadn't gone all that badly the first time, she'd even admitted that she'd miss him - which had to be a good sign - and, despite her determination to leave that day, she hadn't actually left. He'd held back from asking again since that night as Scarman's visit, and then that awful bombing, had left a cloud hanging over all of them. But now probably wasn't the time or the place to go there either - and would she even agree? It'd been hard enough to ask her the first time around. "Right," Gene began, his voice reverting to its usual authoritative tone rather than the gentle warmth it had most recently been wrapped in, breaking the increasingly close moment between. "Dead bloke. Murdering scum to catch."
She took a long breath, her smile disappearing as she did so, before nodding her agreement. Gene watched her head back downstairs, the gentleman in him allowing her to go first, the not so gentle man in him taking the opportunity to watch her arse sway down the stairs. With his own deep - and fortifying – breath at that sight he followed her below deck.
Downstairs he found Ray, stood next to Chris, shooting a look that plainly stated his disgust at DI Drake's desertion - no doubt he'd rejoice in telling the tale, with his own explanations as to why, to the rest of the team - and his expectation that she had been hauled over the coals for it. Gene shot him a glare that neither confirmed or denied Ray's beliefs as Chris, stood over the body, holding onto a wallet with one hand, and a grim line with his mouth, spoke up.
"It's Markham, Guv."
Gene shared a surprised glance with Alex before they both moved towards the body. Now that he looked closer – the first perusal had been fleeting enough due to Bolly's disappearance – and past the blood and the gaping hole in the forehead, he could make out the vaguely familiar features of that drug pushing scum, Markham. Layton's cohort, or more precisely his very expensive lawyer, had managed to wrangle a 'get out of jail free card' (Chris shooting the man in the foot had not really helped) long before Layton himself had, much to Gene's annoyance at the time but he was suddenly feeling much better about it; in fact he felt more pleased than his profession stated he should be at the sight of a murder victim. "Well, well - some people do get what they deserve," he announced with a smile, receiving a grinning nod from his DS, but Alex flinched at his words.
"Nobody deserves that," she spat, pointing to Markham. She glared at him for a long - and excruciating for Chris and Ray, caught in the middle as always - moment, daring him to contradict her. Gene was all set to remind her that Markham had made money out of destroying lives but her eyes, the colour of which he'd never been entirely sure about, were now so alive; the fire, the life, that burned there was now blazing when just moments ago it had seemed to be fading.
The noticeable change caught his breath, and his interest, distracting him momentarily. She was bloody spectacular when she was like this - and it made him feel more alive than he had for a long time – but she took his hesitation as an opportunity to claim victory and dropped her gaze to the body on the floor, crouching down beside it. Frustrated at how quickly the air between them could change, at how quickly she could change – in herself and towards him - and not a graceful loser, he settled for scowling at her, which she only ignored, and then at Ray and Chris, daring either of them to pass comment and finding no takers.
"He was on his knees," Alex said, continuing to ignore them all, as if she was talking to only herself – which wasn't unusual for her. He watched her closely, his scowl, and frustration, fading; despite his loathing of the dead man they had a job to do. "Shot at close range," she continued in a similar tone and Gene glanced to the lads to find Chris was paying close attention to her and Ray, chewing gum impatiently, pretending not to.
"Like an execution?"
It was Ray who answered the younger man's question, turning to Chris as he did so with a condescending look on his face: "Looks that way, doesn't it?"
"Get forensics down here," Gene ordered, agreeing with the assessment of the scene as his gaze fell back on Alex; she was still beside the body, apparently ignorant to what was going on around her - it struck him then that there must be something else here, something she'd noticed that he wasn't seeing. And whatever it was, it was responsible for her earlier behaviour. "And you two chase up the hitman the Cales were using," he shouted, remembering his previous thought. His DS obeyed with a nod and headed upstairs, Chris following loyally behind.
Gene slung his hands into his pockets and surveyed her, and the scene, once more. "Well?" He asked, as she stood slowly, her eyes still on Markham, and half expecting her to take great pleasure in telling him whatever insight her expensive education had gleamed from the scene that he had missed.
"It's a message," Alex mumbled softly after a moment of contemplation and completely without any triumph.
"Couldn't have just sent a letter?" He asked, not following her line of thought at all and covering with a flippant remark. He was curious though as to why she hadn't just told him what her instinct was. She jerked her head towards him, that spark prominent in her eyes once more.
"It was an anonymous tip off," she argued, her voice louder and clearer this time. "Somebody wanted the body found. Wanted me here. Wanted me to see this."
The emphasis on the 'me' part made his own anger rise and, with his earlier defeat still fresh in his mind, he hit back at her, determined not to lose and all thoughts of her insight into the case momentarily cast aside. "Let me be the one to break this to you, Bolly," he began as he leaned over towards her. "Despite what you may think - the whole world doesn't actually revolve around you."
She turned slightly on her heels to face him fully, only the body of a drug dealing city trader separating them. "This whole world," she began, waggling her fingers at that last word in a manner that only managed to annoy him further, and jutting her chin out defiantly as she did so, "Belongs to me! And this," she indicated the corpse between them with a long, slow sweep of one hand, her eyes following the trail, but she hesitated for a moment or two before finishing that sentence. "This is how it ends for me," her voice quiet again, and her gaze on the corpse, he wasn't sure if he'd been meant to hear that last part or not.
"What?!" He chewed the word out angrily and not without frustration; he didn't understand what she was saying or how it was relevant to the case. That internal siren sounded again, the one that ticked away in his head when she said those kind of things - the stuff that didn't really make any sense - and he couldn't even blame her behaviour on the booze. He supposed it was a warning that he should heed but he never did. No one ever questioned it, for that matter. Somehow they'd all just come to accept Alex Drake and the odd things she said, and did, from time to time – no matter how crazy they were.
She opened her mouth to say something, probably to argue further, but stopped short of doing so, taking a long breath instead and stepping back. "Look," she began slowly, eventually, her voice calm and professional, "Let's see what forensics come up with."
He stared at her for a beat before finally nodding his agreement; she was dodging his question and for the moment he'd let her. She offered him a brief smile before turning to leave but it was forced; she knew something about this and she didn't want him involved. He didn't watch her go, his gaze turning back to the body on the floor instead but his thoughts were still lingering on her, trying to see what she had seen. But there was just a body and a boat... Layton's boat. His guts constricted as an awful thought occurred to him, one that might explain her behaviour; what if Layton was involved in this?
Freed from prison thanks to Tim Price's legal team, it appeared that Layton had already helped that lefty lawyer blow apart his own family (though thanks to Gene's agreement to destroy the video tape, and Evan's determination to sweep the whole incident under a nice middle class rug, Layton would likely remain at large) had he then gone on to unfinished business with Markham? It was Markham who had double crossed Layton, resulting in the latter's incarceration in the first place. Would Layton extend that vengeance further, to themselves perhaps and was that what Alex had been thinking? It'd be just like her to go off on her own and try to solve this herself; infuriating, pig-headed, bloody woman.
He headed to the stairs, following her wake, but as he emerged into the weak Autumnal sun he remembered that day in the prison, and the way Layton had spoken to Alex, and his blood ran cold. What if Layton was after her? The thought of that bastard going anywhere near her made his guts ache further and he grew more determined than ever that nothing would happen to her, not while he was around to prevent it.
