Broadchurch (19 page)

‘Cardiff. Moved down here thirteen years ago for the work. I met Ellie, and the rest is history. You married?’

Hardy swallows. ‘Great food. Make this yourself?’

‘Self-taught,’ says Joe. ‘Mexican’s my speciality. We should really be having margaritas.’

‘No,’ says Hardy.

‘Not margaritas?’

‘Not married. Not any more.’ It’s the first Ellie’s heard of a wife.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ says Joe. ‘What was it, pressures of work?’

‘Sort of. This job does it to you.’

‘Not to us!’ says Ellie brightly. She’ll be damned if she ends up like Hardy in any respect.

‘Any kids?’ asks Joe. Red wine has painted an exaggerated smile on his lips.

‘I’ve got a daughter,’ says Hardy, to Ellie’s astonishment. Joe’s got more out of Hardy in five bites of chimichanga than she’s managed in over a week. ‘She’s fifteen. She lives with her mother.’

She tries to imagine Hardy as a father. ‘Dad’ no more suits him than ‘Alec’. As for ‘Daddy’… forget it.

Hardy swigs his wine. She hopes that Joe will be sensitive enough to put him out of his misery and she feels a rush of love for him when he changes the subject.

‘You think you’re gonna solve this case?’

Hardy seems almost relieved to be back on the safe neutral ground of murdered children. ‘Certain.’

‘Good,’ says Joe. He pours more wine. Hardy puts his hand over his glass.

‘I’m not supposed to —’

‘Shuddup and drink.’ They’ve finished the first bottle already – nerves – and by the time Ellie comes back from the kitchen with the second, they’re
laughing
. Clearly they’ve created some private joke in the ten seconds it’s taken her to uncork the Pinot. She’s annoyed with Joe now. She wanted him to bond with Hardy, but not at her expense.

Later, when he goes to leave, she tries to get him a taxi but he’s not having any of it.

‘Walk’ll be good,’ he says. ‘See you in the morning. This was nice. Thanks, Miller.’

They manage not to laugh until he’s out of earshot.

‘I love you,
Miller
,’ slurs Joe.

‘Don’t you start,’ she says. ‘You and your new bloody little mate.’

Maggie taps away at her computer with a glass of wine to hand and her electronic cigarette resting on her mouse mat. Even Olly has finally admitted exhaustion and gone home, leaving absolute quiet behind. Olly has his own little repertoire of noises. He’s always tapping: his pen on the edge of the desk, his fingers over the keyboard or, more likely, on the screen of his phone. He bounces on his chair and makes it squeak. Maggie is always aware of him in the periphery of her hearing. Sometimes he’s an irritation, but more often than not he’s a comfort, and his absence has put her on edge.

The usual white noise of an August evening is missing, too. There is nobody on the street, no drunken arguments to reassure her that life is still going on as normal outside, not so much as a single footstep. Maggie shudders. Silence has always freaked her out. Give her hustle and bustle over silence any day. It’s when it’s quiet that the bad stuff happens.

She rises from her desk, links her fingers and stretches her arms above her head. Then she looks over the darkened newsroom. Her domain does not offer its usual comforts. This story has got under her skin in a way that no other has. Of course child murder is as bad as it gets, but Maggie hasn’t got kids so why does she feel such acute fear? Why is she taking it personally? Not even working the Yorkshire Ripper story – which is still, thirty-odd years later, the most savage and gruesome crime she’s ever covered – shook her up like this. She’s still keeping it together at work, but Lil knows how hard she’s taking it.

It’s partly because it’s happened to Beth, lovely Beth who she saw every day at work. But more than that, it’s because it’s home. It’s because whatever happens – whether they catch the killer or not – Broadchurch will never be the same after this. It has changed already. No one is unaffected, from the small business owners who won’t survive this slow summer to the parents who haven’t slept since it happened, the single blokes who find themselves suddenly drinking alone in the pub. And then there’s the children. Who knows what all of this is doing to the children?

The silence around Maggie builds and grows.

She has worked herself up into a fever of speculation when the telephone on her desk shrills. Maggie rushes to answer it, her pulse fast in her fingertips. It’s Lil, asking when she’s going to be home. She can’t quite hide her disappointment when Maggie tells her it’s going to be another late one. She’s been dropping hints lately about Maggie taking early retirement. She’s been with the same newspaper group for over thirty years, and a bloody good pension awaits her. Maggie has always insisted they’ll have to drag her out of the
Broadchurch Echo
kicking and screaming (that’s actually happened to a few of her colleagues in the provincial press lately, even generous redundancy not enough to soften the blow of a closing paper). But now, for the first time, alone in a darkened newsroom, Maggie gives retirement serious consideration. She is tired, and she is constantly anxious.

Maybe. But not now. She will see this story through to its conclusion. She takes a sip of her wine and a drag of her fag, palms her dry eyes and returns to the screen. A loud noise, like the bang of a door or something falling, makes her jump in her seat. Creeping out of her office, her eyes are unaccustomed to the relative darkness and she peers into the pitch. Turning on the main lights confirms that she’s alone. She smiles to herself, visibly relieved. The lights are flicked off, and she goes back to her computer.

‘Why’re you so bothered about me?’

Maggie wheels around to see Susan Wright standing in the corner of her office. Small eyes glitter dangerously in an otherwise expressionless face. Maggie’s heart hurls itself against her ribs.

‘How did you get in here?’ Maggie asks, though she knows the answer. She’s always had an open-door policy at the
Echo
– the best stories about a community come
from
the community, after all – and too late, she sees the folly of it. There’s a murderer on the loose, for Christ’s sake. Why wasn’t it bolted from top to bottom? She curses her own naivety as she presses herself against the far wall.

Susan takes a step closer. ‘You’re gonna stop asking questions about me.’

‘Why would I do that?’ A tremble in Maggie’s voice undermines the words.

Susan curls her lip. ‘I know about you.’

Maggie might be afraid, but she isn’t fazed by this one-size-fits-all threat. There’s not that much to know and nothing she’s ashamed of. Is that all you’ve got? she thinks, and she’s about to say it when Susan leans forward. Instinctively Maggie recoils from the whiff of stale tobacco. Now Susan’s breath is hot in Maggie’s ear. ‘I know men who would rape you.’

She lets her threat – as convincing as it is unexpected – hang heavy in the air between them for a long time. Images of the Ripper case, never too far from her subconscious, assault Maggie’s memory and her breathing turns shallow. Susan doesn’t blink. ‘And if you start asking questions, or go to the police, they’ll come after your
mate
as well.’

Without another word, Susan disappears back into the darkness. Heavy footsteps echo as she crosses the newsroom. The door bangs closed behind her.

Maggie is left shaking and alone. She picks up the phone to call Ellie Miller. She’s got Broadchurch CID on speed-dial. It only takes one button but her forefinger quivers above it for nearly a minute and eventually she has to accept that she can’t do it. She can’t take a chance. Lil knew, when they got together, that late nights, cancelled holidays and a large wine bill were part of the deal, but she didn’t ask for any of this.

She drops the receiver back in its cradle and a tear oozes its way out of her eye. Maggie is crying with shame as well as fear. She doesn’t recognise herself. It’s this bloody story. It has changed her on a deeper level than she realised.

No one and nothing around here will ever be the same again.

The wine was a mistake. It’s all Hardy can do to put one foot in front of the other. On the High Street a lone figure emerges from the
Broadchurch Echo
office but his vision blurs before he can even determine whether it’s a man or a woman. Somehow he makes it through the hotel reception and up the stairs without being intercepted. He’s drenched in sweat by the time he crashes into the bedroom and through to the en suite where his medication is.

Vertigo turns the little bathroom into a hall of mirrors, walls seeming to curve and the surfaces to tilt at crazy angles. Vision failing, he feels for the blister pack of pills but it’s empty. Where are the spares? Where the fuck are his spare pills? Hardy’s last thought, as he gives into gravity, is of the packet in his desk drawer at work. He cracks the back of his head on the bath as he falls. Darkness is instant and total.

30

There is a pure white line of light above Hardy. An angel appears before him, a dazzling aureole edging her golden hair. Then the angel speaks with an Australian accent. ‘It’s all right,’ says Becca Fisher. ‘We’re getting you to the hospital.’ The white light suddenly reveals itself as the neon strip on an ambulance ceiling and Hardy tries to protest. Once they get him into hospital that’s it, it’s over. They’ll take one look at his records and they won’t let him out again. But the words won’t come, and he goes under again.

When he wakes up, his head throbs violently and there’s a sharp pain in the back of his hand where the drip’s going in. Becca Fisher is at his bedside: Hardy is suddenly acutely aware that he’s naked beneath a hospital gown.

‘Nine stitches,’ she says, setting aside her newspaper. ‘Took quite a crack. How’re you going?’

‘What am I doing here?’ he croaks. ‘What’re
you
doing here?’

‘You passed out. I found you on the bathroom floor. The person in the room under you heard the noise. Luckily.’ She holds up his wallet and his heart contracts painfully: she’s got it open on the little girl’s picture. Suddenly nudity seems like the preferable option. ‘This your daughter? She’s pretty.’ She doesn’t give him a chance to answer. ‘I was looking for your next of kin. I couldn’t find any, so I told them I was your wife. Look, I’m glad you’re OK and awake but I have to get back.’

Hardy thinks quickly. If they still think she’s his wife, maybe they’ll let him go with her. He tries to get out of bed. It’s much harder than he imagined. The pain in his head doubles, as though he’s left part of his skull behind on the pillow. He stumbles a little and tries to clutch at her hand.

‘You can’t tell anyone about this. This is my
life
,’ he begs. ‘Promise. They’ll take me off the case. I
need
to finish this case, Becca.’

He’s almost surprised to see her give it real consideration. She glances at the newspaper on the bed and whatever she sees seems to make up her mind.

‘On one condition: you get some proper medical help. ’Cause next time, someone might not find you.’

‘Thank you,’ he nods. He’ll agree to anything right now. Becca gets up to leave. ‘Can I have the paper?’

She hands him her copy of the
Daily Herald
on her way out.

MY DANNY, shouts the front page. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MOTHER OF TRAGIC DORSET BOY. Danny’s face beams out. Karen White’s picture accompanies her byline, the hack’s holy grail. He hopes she’s happy with herself.

Hardy opens the paper to find a double-page spread dominated not by Danny’s picture but by Beth’s, eyelashes batting at the lens. WHO WOULD TAKE MY BEAUTIFUL BOY FROM ME? she pleads in big block letters.

His eye is drawn to the boxed-off text on the right-hand page and his cracked skull feels like it is going to fall away from his brain.

DANNY: SANDBROOK LINK

There’s a ten-line précis of what happened at the trial and a picture of Pippa, in case they all needed reminding.

So this is what Karen White was waiting for: save it all up for one big splash. The gloves are off: the word is out. In a fucked-up way, it’s almost a relief. He grudgingly admires Karen White’s dedication to the Sandbrook families. She’s a pain in his arse, but you can’t say she doesn’t care. She’d probably make a good copper.

Sometimes a story comes together perfectly. Karen’s phone vibrates with messages of congratulation from colleagues, swiftly followed by ill-disguised attempts to steal her contacts. She’s doubly glad now she got to Olly Stevens first. His head might be turned by any one of the reporters currently on the 8.03 from Waterloo. To make sure, she invites him to breakfast in the Traders.

‘It’s great,’ he says over his eggs Benedict. ‘Captures Beth just right. But you know Maggie’s going to be pretty miffed.’

Karen’s not so sure. Maggie, like her, has Beth Latimer’s best interests at heart and will be well aware that one line in a national like the
Herald
is worth twenty pages in the
Echo
.

‘I’ll talk to her,’ says Karen. ‘Beth and Mark were desperate for people to know about the case. Think of the witnesses who might come forward. You’ll have to lean on Ellie, see if you can get an idea of how busy their phones are today.’

There’s the usual uncomfortable silence that arises whenever Karen suggests that Ollie exploit his relationship with the DS on the case. ‘Well,’ he says eventually, ‘Hardy certainly isn’t going to talk to us now.’ But he’s smiling. ‘So you’re the golden girl on your newsdesk, are you?’

‘The boss is officially happy,’ says Karen. Danvers didn’t actually tell her off, which is the next best thing. ‘And the rest of the papers are scrambling to catch up in the later editions. But the
Herald
has to own the story now. They’re asking what’s the follow-up? Who’s in the frame? We should talk about Jack Marshall.’

Their phones both beep at the same time. Olly glances at his and his face goes white. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he says, pushing back his chair and leaving the remainder of his breakfast untouched.