Chapter Text
They were taking down the case board, and everyone was too exhausted to chat, even Rose, thank fuck. It’d been a hard one. One of the few actually frigid fucking cases that slipped by Akram, the kind where everyone who cared was dead and justice wasn’t going to offer anything to anyone except Moira, who can stick a successful solve on her stats report.
Akram was packing up the boxes for the crown office-- a prosecutor will still have to review the case, mark it as their own dead-fucking-end.
And then the elevator dinged and they all stopped what they were doing to look back at the door to their dungeon. Everyone who should be here was here: Carl, Akram, Rose, Hardy.
Three sets of footsteps descend the stairs and when they clear the low ceiling, the visitors are finally revealed.
Doctor Rachel Irving, Moira, and DI Hamish-- a man fairly new to the department. He was built like a fucking brick wall with a heavy brow and thick, meaty hands, who should, by rights of fucking archetype, be working violent crimes, but was instead relegated to children and family services.
Rachel being there raises his hackles. Rachel and Moira being within eyesight of each other makes him feel like he’s under surveillance, like there’s a test that only one of them wants him to pass. But why is she here? He’s been going to Doctor Sonnenberg-- one of the conditions Rachel had set on them being friends because they’d crossed too many boundaries to be doctor and patient.
It feels like a fucking ambush. He crosses his arms over his chest.
“To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“I’d like you to come upstairs with me Carl.”
He leaned back against his desk, crossing his arms. “Would you now?”
It’s just to gauge their reaction, to get some more texture on why they’re down here. It couldn’t be for the case. One dull, successful solve doesn’t bring the chief down to the basement. So there’s some other motive here. Something to do with him if they dragged Rachel in.
“Can we have a moment then?”
He thinks about fighting back, but he doesn’t have that much control over the team and Moira is their boss. They file out with curious glances back. Carl watches them go, biting his tongue and calculating how much righteous indignation he can squeeze out of their abandonment later.
Once they’re all squeezed into the elevator, and the doors are closing, Moir approaches him. He stands his ground, trying to think of what he’d done to piss her off this time. He’s been on remarkably good behavior. Some people couldn’t stop remarking it.
She reached up, envelops him in a hug and he can’t help but tense against it. Moira is not a fucking hugger. In all the years they’ve known each other, he can count on one hand the number of times they’ve touched. It’s bewildering because this is the type of shit that happens when someone gets killed on the job, but everyone’s here. Everyone’s fine, and she doesn’t--
“It’s Jasper,” she said.
He flinches, and realizes her arms are rigid and that’s not the least bit fucking helpful and in the sudden panic of no, stop he shoves her, hard away from him. He wants to say something, wants to rebuff this with the usual, reflexive fuck off.
But all that can leave his twisting fucking mouth is a huff of dismissal.
Jasper’s fine. Jasper’s touring universities with Gemma and their friends. Jasper’s moving out in six months for one of those universities and Carl’s fine about that. He is. He’s fucking fine--
“Jasper’s what?”
“I don’t have the details yet—”
“Jasper’s what.”
“Dead,” DI Hamish said from behind Moira.
“Fuck you,” Carl said instantly, his mind is racing but he doesn’t have any fucking thoughts to run with. Everything’s narrowing down in focus and he can’t think, this doesn’t make sense. Rachel’s not saying anything. Her eyes are red and her face is drawn.
And it’s not true, but, “Where?”
Moira reaches out again, trying to take his shoulders, and he bats her arms away. “When?”
“He was found at four o’clock this morning,” Hamish said, and the fucker’s voice is deep and solid and inescapable. “He didn’t have his ID on him, so it took a while for the system to catch up.”
“So it’s not him,” Carl said.
“Carl—” Moira tried.
“How the fuck are you coming down here talking about-- saying Jasper’s-- and you don’t even have an ID?” He wants to laugh, but it’s stuck in his chest. The incompetence, the fucking audacity, the god damn--
“Victoria made the ID. The local police got a warrant for his phone and she was saved as ‘Mom’.”
And he was ‘Carl’ or occasionally ‘the fucking prick’ with a bunch of knife emojis.
But this is ridiculous. “Victoria’s not even in Scotland, she’s in Switzerland or some fucking—”
“They made ID over video. She’s on a flight back right now.”
It made no fucking sense. Nothing made sense. Jasper was with five other kids. Someone would have called him. Jasper was supposed to call him last night, but they’d missed their check-ins a few times already. He’d been having fun and Carl had been working, and of the two of them, Jasper had been more worried about missing the routine calls.
He didn’t want to ask. It would be admitting, on some level that it had happened, that this, currently, was happening. But Rachel was crying, and she hadn’t spoken yet and he trusted her. She… she wouldn’t--
“How?” he asked her. Only her.
And she pressed a hand over her mouth for a moment, as if she had to swallow the pressure it would take for her to speak.
“He drowned?” she said at last, her voice lilting up.
But fuck that. “Is it a fucking question?”
She shook her head, looking down and away, shrinking into her overlarge sweater.
And Carl turned on Hamish and Moira. “Jasper can swim. He’s a fucking great fucking swimmer.
“It seems he’d been drinking. Heavily.” Hamish said calmly. He hadn’t moved yet, just planted himself where he was, watching Carl carefully.
And that’s why he was here, wasn’t he? Big enough to stop Carl from hurting someone, and conveniently experienced in death notifications involving children. Oh he’d be so fucking angry if this was real, if this was happening, if he could breathe--
The world was narrowing. He had to get his phone. He has to call Jasper.
He turned, scrambling at the casefiles, looking for his phone, but his knees are weak and he crumbles like a fucking-- like he’s going to fucking pass out. Fuck. Fuck.
And then he’s being lifted, bodily off the floor on dropped onto a chair. His chair. “Okay,” DI Hamish said softly. “Breathe. Just breathe.”
And Rachel was there too, kneeling at his side. “I’m so sorry, Carl,” she said. “I’m so—”
“Get out,” he whispered.
Her finger tightened on the edge of the table where she’d steadied herself. “All of you,” he said woodenly. “Get the fuck out.”