Having overcome a whole pile of qualms at killing off the lead detective from my intended crime novel series (because it was the only way I could realistically see this working, and have reassured myself that this really can be an AU rather than anything serious) here's a sneak peek ....
The day had already been too long, thought Detective Inspector Charlotte Carter to herself wearily, as she walked down the corridor of Parkside Police Station, skimming the agenda and the reports for the meeting she was already almost late for. More and more of her time seemed to be taken up thesedays with routine paperwork and administration, and less and less of it on actual, well, policing and catching criminals. She supposed this was the downside of promotion - there were fewer people to whom she could pass the buck of such tedium, and furthermore she also had the responsibility of protecting the DCs and DSs under her from bearing the brunt of it.
So pre-occupied was she by the details of one particular scheme involving better policing of cyclists jumping red lights and cycling at night without functional, or indeed any, lights that she failed to notice the person coming in the opposite direction down the corridor, into whom she barrelled at some speed. Her nascent apology died in her mouth as she looked up to see the person with whom she had collided. The last time she had seen Alex, he had been a miserable drunken wreck, and she had been there hoping to arrest him on suspicion of a string of murders. But somehow there had not been enough evidence to tie him to the scene of any of the crimes, he had had perfect (and thus, in her eyes, exceedingly suspect) alibis for several of the occasions and in the end, partially influenced by the knowledge of how JD would react, she'd let him go without charge.
That he'd then moved, without a by-your-leave, to take up a lectureship in Oxford had merely confirmed his guilt in her eyes. This was irrational, as JD had pointed out to her several times, all the while nursing a glass of his favoured single malt. Alex's departure seemed somehow to have unhinged him rather. JD's wife, Mairi, had left him shortly thereafter for a trial separation that Charlotte had always suspected of being far from trial. In one way Mairi had got what she wanted - pregnancy - but in another she had known that, without Alex, JD would only ever be a faded replica of the man she'd fallen in love with and married.
And so she'd left. And JD (Detective Inspector Jack Daniel Shaw, to give him his full title) had taken compassionate leave, and had gone to Corsica. And, at the end of investigating a strange series of murders in Ajaccio, had ended up killing himself. Charlotte had found herself promoted to fill his shoes, and had tried to get over the strange sense of loss she felt.
But now Alex was back, to what end she had no idea. But she had a horrible feeling that she was about to find out. And an even more horrible feeling that she wasn't all that sorry to see him back.