Broadchurch (20 page)

Karen doesn’t have time to wonder what he’s up to: she is distracted by the message on her own screen. It’s a text from Cate Gillespie:

Saw today’s paper. I cried my heart out for that poor mother.

Thank you for mentioning Pippa; it keeps her memory alive.

It’s so good to know you’re still fighting our corner.

Keep in touch. C x

Olly drives home so quickly that he almost takes the bend into their street on two wheels. He parks a few doors down from his house because the space directly outside is blocked by a huge van, a removals lorry really. Two gigantic men, all in black like nightclub bouncers, are taking the HD television and putting it in the back. He looks over their shoulders and cries in dismay to see his bike and his scooter impounded, along with his entire DVD library. He glances at the car where his laptop lies on the back seat. He knows from last time, and the time before that, that they’re not legally allowed to take anything he needs for work. They better not have had the printer.

‘Don’t be brave, son,’ says the taller of the two bailiffs, as though Olly was dancing around him with his fists up. Olly has no intention of being brave; not in that sense, anyway. But it does take courage to ring the only person who might be able to help them out.

‘They’re here again,’ he says when Ellie picks up. ‘They’ve taken my Vespa this time.’

‘Oh, Oliver,’ she says. ‘Is she still in Bournemouth?’

He looks through the net curtains to see a thin figure inside. ‘She’s here,’ he says. ‘Ellie, I hate to ask, but is there any way you could —’

‘No.’ She cuts him dead.

‘She’s really sorry,’ he improvises.

‘Is she bollocks,’ says Ellie. ‘I’m sorry, this is tough love. I’m sorry about your stuff, but I can’t keep bailing her out. Not after she —’ She stops herself mid-sentence.

‘I wish you’d talk to her. You’ve never fallen out like this before.’

Ellie’s tone is uncharacteristically harsh. ‘Oliver, I’m in the middle of a murder investigation, and I haven’t got any money
left
. I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.’

The line goes dead.

Olly follows the smaller bailiff back into the house. Lucy is twisting her fingers in the now empty sitting room. Wires dangle from the wall where the television has been taken. She looks helpless as they take the Sky box, but as they unplug the wireless router she springs into life.

‘Don’t take that!’ she says, trying to grab it from the bailiff. ‘It’s not worth anything! What’ll you get for that, couple of quid on eBay?’

Olly prises it from her fingers and hands it to the bailiff.

‘Take it,’ he says. ‘Just fucking take it.’

Once the repo men are gone, he rounds on Lucy.

‘For God’s sake!’ he says. ‘You said you’d fixed it!’

‘It’s a mix-up,’ says Lucy. ‘They’ve got it wrong… oh, don’t do that face, you look like your bloody father when you do that.’

For a moment Olly looks as though he’s going to hit her. Then the fight goes out of him.

‘Mum, when is this going to stop?’ he asks. ‘Why don’t you understand the trouble we’re in?’

31

Ellie Miller lies in the dark watching her digital alarm clock chew its way through the numbers. Saturday night turns into Sunday morning. One, two, three, four a.m. come and go. She is exhausted but the unaccustomed stimulant of guilt keeps her awake. She has done the wrong thing by two people she cares about.

One is minor – or, if not minor, then spontaneous at least. Olly caught her off guard but she mustn’t let Lucy ruin their relationship too. The way she let Beth down runs deeper. It is unforgivable that she had to find out about Hardy’s history from journalists. Now Ellie grills herself remorselessly about exactly why she kept the information back. Was she really waiting to find the right time, or was she just afraid of Beth’s face when she told her? It was naivety or cowardice: both are unforgivable. She knows she won’t sleep until she’s sorted it. She heaves herself on to one side and retrieves her phone from the bedside table. Joe stirs and mumbles beside her so she mutes the keypad and turns down the brightness. She writes to Olly first.

Didn’t mean to be snappy. Stress of the case.

I hope you know I’m always here for you, no matter what’s going on between me and your mum.

Auntie E. Xx

The one to Beth is harder to write.

I should have told you about the Sandbrook thing and I’m sorry.

I did the wrong thing for the right reasons; I was trying to protect you but I should’ve been straight with you.

Let’s talk soon. Call whenever you want to. Ell. Xx

As soon as she is satisfied, her eyelids grow heavy with the release of a guilty conscience eased. She sets the phone down, the messages waiting patiently to be sent in the morning. The last time she remembers looking at the clock it is 5.14 a.m.

She wakes again at 9.10. It’s hot outside and the world is up early. Soft Sunday sounds float through the open bedroom window: birdsong, the kids in the garden, a distant lawnmower. Not that Ellie will get to potter around today. She is due in the station at ten: Beth and Mark are taking part in a press conference that evening and Hardy wants all hands on deck. Ellie hits the send button on last night’s apologies, then stands under the shower and tries to wake up.

Joe is on his hands and knees in the sitting room, wiping slug trails from the rug. She runs a hand over the velour of his head, and he reaches up to catch her hand and hold it there for a moment.

‘Hey, I was thinking about taking Tom to church this morning,’ he says.

‘Church?’ They don’t really do spirituality. ‘Why?’

He looks almost shy. ‘I don’t know. Just… felt… the thing. Know what I mean?’

It’s funny but she does. ‘You take the boys,’ she says. ‘I’ll see if Hardy will give me special dispensation.’

She’s used to the boss looking rough but he’s taken it to a new level this morning. She circles him slowly and freezes when she sees the back of his head. His hair is matted with blood and are those
stitches
? He didn’t have that much to drink last night, surely?

‘Jesus, what happened to you? You look terrible, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘Slipped in the shower last night,’ he says in a tone that closes the conversation. ‘Seen the
Herald
?’

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know the Latimers had done that. We had Pete out on backup statements, must’ve happened then.’

‘They’ve opened the floodgates,’ says Hardy. There’s resignation where she was expecting fury, as though he’d been anticipating this all along. ‘Media officer’s been deluged with calls. As you know, we’ve called a conference for this evening, a family statement. Try and keep as much control as we can. Meantime, I need full background on Jack Marshall, Steve Connolly and Paul Coates. Anyone without alibis goes to the top of our list.’

‘I’ll get Nish and Frank on it,’ says Ellie. ‘Can I ask a favour?’ she adds, bracing herself for Hardy’s rebuttal. ‘I was thinking of going to church…’

‘Good idea. Everyone all together. Chance to check on who’s behaving normally.’

That wasn’t the idea, but never mind.

Ellie picks Joe and the boys up on the way to St Andrew’s. It’s a beautiful morning; hot and hazy. The bells are ringing and butterflies throng the buddleia at the roadsides. She falls into step behind the Latimers, who are looking fixedly ahead.

There’s a wall of photographers, like something outside a courtroom. They’re all shouting at Beth like she’s Princess Diana.

‘Beth! Beth! Over here!’

Beth is a rabbit in the headlights. Mark’s doing his best – ‘Will you let us through, lads?’ – but they’re not taking that for an answer. Beth can’t take this and she doesn’t deserve it. Ellie goes on to autopilot: she’s acting like a copper but also as a friend.

‘Away, now, or I’ll have you all arrested.’ She shoves her warrant card up close to the nearest lens.

‘We’re not breaking the law,’ says the ratty little man behind the camera.

‘Have a bit of bloody decency,’ she says. She puts herself between the family and the photographers. Let them get a picture of her, another angry mum, she doesn’t care. It’s not her family that’s been ripped apart. She lets the Latimers creep past behind her. One photographer raises his camera.

‘Lenses down. Or I kick you in the balls. Each one of you.’ She turns to Tom. ‘You didn’t hear me say that.’ She turns back to the photographers. ‘But I really will.’

‘Your mum’s awesome,’ says Chloe behind her.

‘I know,’ replies Tom.

Beth looks at Ellie with gratitude. ‘Come for lunch today,’ she says, as they file into the nave. ‘Nige is cooking.’

The olive branch is welcome but unexpected. ‘You sure?’

‘Like we always do,’ says Mark firmly.

Ellie says yes, even though she’s supposed to be working. Hardy can’t force her to do more overtime – although, knowing him, he’d have her spying on her friends over Sunday lunch.

She has never seen the church so busy, not even for weddings or funerals. When Paul Coates comes out of the vestry in his robes, Ellie starts; she’s used to seeing the dog collar but not the whole flowing Gandalf bit. He looks nervy and excited, like a pub singer who suddenly finds himself playing Wembley Stadium.

Becca Fisher’s high heels clack on the flagstones; after Beth stares her down, she tucks herself discreetly in the corner.

Jack Marshall genuflects before taking a seat with a good view of the altar. Nige, one row in front of the Latimers, turns around to catch Mark’s eye, then looks meaningfully at Jack. They know something, or they think they do. Ellie resolves to have a word with them at lunch. Between Mark’s temper and Nige’s lack of control, she doesn’t like how this could pan out. She thinks about the split lip and the pub fight. She remembers now a football-pitch disagreement that would have turned into a brawl if Joe and Bob hadn’t been there to calm Mark down, and recasts that moment in the light of what she has since learned about Mark. If he can lose it over trivial things, what might he be capable of in grief?

All heads turn when Hardy walks in, looking like something that’s just crawled out of the graveyard. It’s his first public appearance since Karen White’s piece in the
Herald
. Someone tuts loudly and an old woman in the next pew actually hisses.

‘Didn’t know he was religious,’ says Joe.

‘Didn’t know
we
were,’ Ellie flashes back.

She was expecting to start with a hymn or a prayer or some incense or something, but Reverend Paul seems to have gone off-script. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he says as he takes the pulpit. Electric candles glow softly on either side. ‘I was thinking how to start. I found this, in Corinthians: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We are knocked down, but we are not destroyed.” As a community, the hardest thing for us is to remember, we have not been abandoned by God. We are not destroyed. Nor will we be.’

Ellie’s mobile vibrates in her pocket. She knows it’s bad form to use your phone in church but she slides it out as surreptitiously as she can. It’s a text from Hardy. In the last few minutes, SOCO have confirmed that the hairs in the boat are Danny’s.

32

It’s barbecue weather really but Nige wants to cook a Sunday roast, so a roast it will be. The stove is rammed with saucepans, and steam curls around him. Mark pulls the dining table to its fullest extension and brings in the patio chairs. In the garden he uses the hose to rinse down the kids’ old high chair they always use for Fred Miller.

Beth lays the table with a rock-heavy heart. This evening, she and Mark are due to make a television appeal for help. What are they thinking, having everyone over, stuffing their faces, drinking wine, pretending everything is normal? She doesn’t have to reach deep for the answer. If the house is full of people, she doesn’t have to confront Mark about Becca Fisher. Whenever she thinks about it, a scream rises up from her belly, but for the time being she’s managed to suppress it. She can feel it now, crouching in the base of her throat, like a tiger waiting to pounce.

‘That’s quite a spread, Nige!’ says Liz. ‘You’ll make someone a lovely husband one day.’

‘They’ll have to catch me first, Liz,’ says Nige, as if he’s beating the girls off with a stick.

The Millers usually burst in through the patio doors waving bottles, but today they ring the front doorbell. It’s a nice gesture and Ellie’s remorse about hiding DI Hardy’s Sandbrook connection from her is plain. Beth is slowly coming round to her explanation that it was done for her own protection, and after the way she had a go at the paparazzi, their friendship is back on its old safe footing. She hugs Ellie hello and holds it for a second longer than usual to emphasise her forgiveness. It’s a relief to let the anger go.

After a couple of dropped pans and a bit of swearing, Nige is ready to serve. The Latimers and the Millers squash around the table in a parody of normality. Beth feels like she’s watching it all from outside her own body as Nige sits at the head of the table and carves the lamb, smiling goofily at the chorus of appreciation. Everyone’s talking a bit too loudly but for Beth the absence of Danny’s voice is an echoing silence, as conspicuous as an empty chair. It hurts her ears when Tom speaks, a one-sided prattle about his new Xbox game that Danny will never get to play.

Every time she looks up, Mark is staring at her and if it’s not him it’s her mum or Ellie. She feels their eyes, worse than the photographers’ lenses. She is overcome by the desire to disappear. Not to die – one look at Chloe sends that thought back to the shadows it came from – but to go away for a while. Out of this life and into someone else’s.