Broadchurch (40 page)

‘It’s Joe Miller.’ Four faces wear the same stunned expression; for a few seconds they are frozen in shock.

‘Oh my God.’ Chloe looks to her parents.

‘It can’t be,’ says Liz. ‘They only live across the field.’

Beth begins to rock back and forth. Mark drops his head to his knees, linking his hands behind his neck.

‘He’s confessed,’ says Hardy. ‘He and Danny had been meeting secretly for a few months.’

Mark flips. The women on the sofa shrink backwards as he kicks over the coffee table. The whole house shivers as he throws a chair against the wall. Beth, Chloe and Liz are screaming at him to stop, but he’s gone, the front door slamming so hard that Danny’s picture leaps from the wall. Beth darts to pick it up: her fingertips trace the contours of his face before she hangs it again. She turns around slowly.

‘
Ellie
.’ It’s an accusation.

‘She didn’t know,’ says Hardy, but he can see she doesn’t believe him.

The hotel on the edge of town is part of a chain; simple, functional, anonymous. Ellie places a sleeping Fred on to one of the two double beds. She has a sudden picture of Joe carrying a tiny Fred in a sling and is momentarily convinced, 110 per cent sure, she would bet her life, that Joe is innocent. Her good, kind man, her doting dad, he is incapable of killing a child. Then she pictures his face as she last saw it and knows it is true. She tucks Fred under the shiny counterpane and hopes that he is young enough to forget what he and Joe used to mean to each other.

‘This is nice,’ she says to Tom, drawing the chintzy curtains against the view of the car park. ‘It’s an adventure. You hungry? We could get chips. Sit on the bed, watch telly, eat chips out the packet…’

Tom isn’t fooled for a second.

‘There’s something you need to know.’ Ellie pats the bed and Tom sits next to her. She feels like a surgeon about to operate without anaesthetic.

‘They’ve, we’ve, found out who killed Danny. And…’ She digs her fingernails into her palm. ‘Sweetheart, it was your dad.’

‘
No
.’ She watches Tom repeat the process she began in the police station. ‘He wouldn’t do that. He
didn’t
.’ His denial tears at her heart.

‘He did.’ She is crying already. ‘And I don’t know why and it’s nothing we did and I can’t explain it and I am so sorry, you should not have to go through this. But I am here with you and I will never leave you and I’m sorry. Tom, I have to ask you.’ Bile floods her mouth; she swallows it. ‘Did your dad ever touch you, or do anything you felt uncomfortable with?’

‘No! Mum, he’s not like that.’ Tom’s disgust is unfeigned. ‘I promise, I’d tell you. He didn’t, ever.’

‘OK. Thank you.’ She pulls him closer: their tears mingle. ‘Tom, why did you send Danny those threatening emails?’

‘He said he didn’t want to be my friend any more. Said he had a new friend. I was angry.’ He screws his face up as the connection is finally made. ‘That was Dad, wasn’t it?’

A storm tide of anger surges inside Ellie. They worked so hard to raise Tom happy, independent, and enthusiastic. And now, with one blow, Joe has undermined all of it. All the bloody flash cards and home cooking and storybooks and co-sleeping in the world can’t insure against something like this.

‘Yes, love.’ She kisses the top of his head. ‘You know I love you.’

‘More than chocolate?’ If she can give the correct response to his call, then that at least will be normal. She forces a smile.

‘More than chocolate.’

‘I don’t understand. Why would he kill Danny?’

Make it stop, thinks Ellie,
please
make it stop. ‘I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t understand either and I really wish I did.’

Tom cries into her shoulder while Ellie rocks him. On the other bed, Fred turns over in his sleep. The knife has gone in: it is up to her to minimise the scar tissue. Silently she dedicates the rest of her life to getting her boys through this. The three of them are on their own now.

There is a night-before-Christmas hush on Broadchurch High Street. Blinds and shutters are pulled down and the signs in shop windows are turned to
CLOSED
.

The local media are out in force for the briefing; they stand at the foot of the police station steps, taking light readings for their cameras and checking the batteries on their phones. Karen White is the only national journalist, press or broadcast. When she sees Hardy she gets a shock: his bones protrude through his skin and his eyes look loose in their deep-grey sockets.

‘A thirty-eight-year-old man from Broadchurch has today been charged with the murder of Daniel Latimer,’ he addresses the camera. ‘Danny’s family have been informed and ask for privacy at this time. I would ask for all members of the media not to do anything that would prejudice the suspect’s right to a fair trial. This investigation has affected the whole of the local community. Few people have been left untouched. As Senior Investigating Officer, I would respectfully ask that the town is now left alone to come to terms with what took place here. The privacy of everyone concerned should be respected. There will be no further statements. We are not looking for anyone else in relation to the crime. This has been a delicate and complex investigation and it has left its mark on a close-knit town. Now is the time for Broadchurch to be left to grieve and heal, away from the spotlight.’

He does not take questions.

Karen White falls into step with Maggie Radcliffe on the way back to the
Echo
.

‘Someone local,’ says Karen. ‘Any idea who?’

‘I want to know but at the same time I can’t bear to,’ replies Maggie.

In the newsroom, Olly is overseeing the layout of the front page, shifting text around the screen, increasing the size of the headline –
DANNY KILLER CAUGHT – and pulling Danny’s photo to the centre of the page. There’s a new confidence and decisiveness in Olly that kindles in Karen something nearer to maternal pride than to desire. She gets close enough to read. Under the sub-head LOCAL MAN CHARGED are four perfect paragraphs of concise, objective reporting. She looks up to congratulate him, but he’s on the other side of the room. His mother is in the doorway, her face sallow against her bright hair. They are too far away for Karen to hear or lip-read, but whatever she says has Olly back at his desk within seconds, gathering up his wallet, keys and phone.

‘Family emergency,’ he mutters. He throws his jacket on and he’s gone.

Karen and Maggie exchange bewildered looks. What kind of family emergency could take Olly away from the biggest story of his career? Lucy looked stricken but not ill. Something to do with his dad?

The penny drops for both of them at the same time.

A thirty-eight-year-old man has been arrested.

Uncle Joe.

Maggie sits down hard in her seat. ‘Christ,’ she says. Karen breaks the seal on her packet of cigarettes and offers one to Maggie. After a second’s hesitation, she takes one for herself.

Karen can hear Danvers’ voice as clearly as if he were standing next to her. The wife is the story. Find the wife and get her to talk.

66

Mark Latimer runs as if pursued, or pursuing. His is not the measured, purposeful stride of Beth in her running gear but a flailing, directionless lope. Only when he arrives at the Harbour Cliff Beach does he understand that this was his destination all along. He finds a deserted stretch among the rock pools and stops dead.

The sky is orange streaked with sooty black clouds, a fireball stretched across the sky. Mark rages, shaking his fist at the freak sunset. ‘
Why?
’
he asks over and over, although if there was anyone to hear him the word would not be intelligible. It comes out in an animal howl. He throws stone after stone into the choppy sea until his arm is sore. Anger flows out of him hard and fast but doesn’t diminish. When the stones are gone and there is only shingle and sand left, Mark drops to his knees and weeps. Salt water soaks his jeans and shoes.

He should go home to Beth. She needs him. Chloe needs him. But the thought of being back in that women’s world of talk and comfort repulses him. He needs to act. He makes a phone call to Bob Daniels, the only friend he has left on the force, saying he’s on his way to the station. He ends the call before Bob can ask why. It is a warm evening and his jeans dry quickly, a salty tidemark snaking around his calves.

On the harbourside, he stands a distance away from the station entrance and the abstract horror of it takes shape; Danny’s killer is somewhere in that round building.

Bob is waiting for him on the steps. A slap on the upper arm substitutes for a hug. ‘Jesus, Mark,’ he says. ‘
Joe
. I still can’t believe it.’

He shakes his head in anger and something else too: the subtext is clear: I didn’t think he had it in him. Mark knows they’re both thinking it.

‘I gotta see him,’ says Mark. ‘I need him to look me in the eye.’

What he’s asking would mean instant dismissal, and Bob’s got a family to support. Mark knows this. But he can’t help himself.

‘
Mate
.’ The word is freighted with twenty years of history: every pint they’ve shared and every game of football they’ve played. The kids, the wives, the
lives.
‘For Danny.’

Bob throws a quick glance behind him. ‘Go round the back,’ he says, shaking his head in disbelief at his own action. ‘I can buzz you in through the side door. Nobody can know about this or I’m
fucked
.’

It is the greatest thing another man has ever done for Mark. He hopes his face conveys his gratitude because he doesn’t trust himself to say it. The door Bob opens leads straight down into the cells by way of a long, pale yellow corridor with a sour, antiseptic smell. Mark gives brief consideration to the logistics of getting him in here. How has Bob done it? Turned the cameras off? Neutralised an alarm system?

‘He’s in number 3,’ says Bob, sliding open a gate. ‘
Two minutes
.’

It is the only occupied cell. Mark lets the viewing panel fall open with a clang.

Joe Miller sits on the narrow bed in his white boiler suit. He looks tiny. Partly it’s a trick of perspective, framed by the hatch, but he is also somehow reduced. He is so much less than the man Mark thought he was, a pathetic little eunuch.

Mark’s face is a dark-red growling monster in widescreen. ‘You were our friend,’ he says. ‘You were in our
house.
’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Joe raises his palms. A line from the post-mortem comes rushing back to Mark: Danny was facing his attacker. This blank egg was the last face his boy ever saw. The thought nearly sends Mark falling to the floor. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Joe bleats.

Mark’s cheeks run wet with tears and spittle. ‘You not man enough to kill your own boy? You had to take mine.’

‘It was an accident,’ says Joe. ‘I put him on the beach so you’d know. I could have left him at sea.’

This is at the limit of what Mark can take. ‘Have you
heard
yourself?’

‘He only came to me in the first place because you were no sort of father to him. Because you hit him.’

‘Don’t you use me as a fucking excuse!’ Mark feels something in his throat tear with the force of his words. ‘It was only ever
once
. And I’ll suffer for that my whole life now.’ Joe is crying too. How dare he? ‘You did things to him, didn’t you? I know they’re saying you didn’t, but you must’ve.’

‘I swear, I never did,’ Joe beseeches. ‘I only ever cared for him. You have to believe that.’

Mark pushes his face against the door, metal digging into his flesh. ‘I thought I’d hate you, Joe.’ He spits the words. ‘But now I see you here, you’re not even worth that. I pity you. Because you’re nothing.’

Mark slams the viewing panel closed before Joe can see that he’s lying. He does hate Joe; hate isn’t a strong enough word for the ball of dark energy in his chest, firing violent impulses along his body. He is glad of the thick cell door, not for Joe’s sake but for Beth’s and Chloe’s and the new baby’s. Given the chance, he would kick the life out of Joe Miller.

It’s dark and wet outside now. Ellie and Tom race raindrops down the windowpane while she waits for the call to come from Hardy. She doesn’t know if she still has a right to know what’s happening. What is she now, a witness?

A hammering on the door makes them both jump and Fred murmur in his sleep.

‘It’s Lucy.’ Ellie slides back the bolt and lets her in. Everything is stripped away, the arguments and the money and the lies, because family is where you go when there is nowhere and nothing else left. They hug for a long time and then, without being told, Lucy understands that Ellie needs to go.

‘Take as long as you need,’ she says, helping Ellie into her orange coat like a child.

As she hits the edge of town she wishes she’d worn something less recognisable. The Mum Coat marks her out like a buoy in the harbour. She puts her head down and travels via the back alleyways. Even so, someone sees her crossing the road near the
Echo
, and it’s the last person in the world she needs to see right now.

‘DS Miller,’ says Karen White. Ellie’s legs flex beneath her as if to run away and she looks up and down the street for a photographer, but it looks like Karen is alone. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and Ellie can’t work out if she’s expressing sympathy or apologising for the ambush. ‘They’re all going to be after your side of the story.’ This is more like it. Ellie braces herself for the barely veiled blackmail: give me an exclusive and I’ll look after you. What Karen actually says takes Ellie’s breath away: ‘Don’t talk to anyone.’ She steps back into the shadows before Ellie has time fully to recognise the favour, let alone thank her for it.

She keeps trudging, sticking to the paths and minor roads. Her eyes stay on her feet. There is no need to look up. She could walk this town blindfold. She could draw a map from memory and name every street.

At the edge of the playing field, she stops. The church is in darkness but lights blaze in every room of her own house: she can see the indistinct figures of the SOCO team and recoils to imagine them rooting through her kitchen, her wardrobe, her life.