Broadchurch (27 page)

Until that happens, the Latimers won’t be getting the coverage, or the justice, they deserve. Karen is still in touch with Beth, just as she is still in touch with Cate Gillespie, and she has promised her one last-ditch attempt to keep Danny in the public eye. Today she has fought back with the only weapon she knows how to wield. She looks down at the copy of the
Herald
on her lap, a first edition bought from a vendor at Waterloo station. Hardy’s bloodshot eyes stare blearily out from the front page. She’s pleased with the headline.

The minicab turns into Church Road. Black-clad mourners stream up to St Andrew’s. The bells sound one note over and over in an insistent, dolorous toll. The grey Vauxhall pulls up to the kerb in front of them. The passenger climbs slowly out of the back seat and stares up at the steeple through her veil.

Karen White folds the newspaper on her lap and reaches into her purse for the fare. Everyone else is here to bury Jack Marshall. She is here to bury Alec Hardy.

43

As the pews of St Andrew’s fill, Hardy slumps alone at his desk, a copy of the
Daily Herald
in front of him. He has been staring at it for so long that the words above his photograph keep blurring, then snapping back into horrifying focus.

TWO BOTCHED CASES 

ONE CHILD-KILLER ON THE LOOSE 

AN INNOCENT MAN DEAD 

IS THIS THE WORST COP IN BRITAIN? 

He folds the paper in half and looks helplessly around his office. Thick folders, boxes of documents and bulging files obscure every surface. The black tie that he last wore at Pippa Gillespie’s funeral swims across a sea of paper.

Operation Cogden has hit its budget ceiling. As of next week, Jenkinson is pulling back on staffing levels and forensic requests. This is how it goes when a case drags on. The bosses lose confidence and panic about explaining it to the accountants. It’s up to Hardy to get as much as he can out of his team in the next few days. He’ll break the records for overtime while he still can.

He looks down at his scrawled list of outstanding tasks and tries to prioritise. Miller can chase the forensics from the boat. They need to nail whoever smashed up Marshall’s car, double-check the alibis of everyone in the vigilante crew.

Reluctantly, Hardy winds the funeral tie around his neck. Today’s
Herald
will draw all the wrong kind of attention his way. But he must be seen to show his respects, and besides, if Danny’s killer is at the church, it will be with another death on their conscience. He wants to see who’s looking worried.

The Sea Brigade boys form a guard of honour, oars crossed above the heads of the mourners. Hardy, taller than most, has to duck under the improvised tunnel. A few of the boys are crying, but not Tom Miller.

Inside, the church is cool. There is a faint smell of incense. Sunshine illuminates the saints in the glass and the dark rosewood pews are almost full.

When Hardy walks the aisle, Beth Latimer turns as though alerted to his presence. She fixes him with a long, steady look that conveys the irony that whilst she can attend this old man’s funeral, she still can’t bury her boy. Hardy does not need reminding. He feels the irony. He lives it.

He settles into a pew with a good vantage point and takes a register. That woman with the bright red hair standing next to Olly Stevens must be Miller’s prodigal sister. She has the hardened look of an addict. Hardy searches her face for a family resemblance and finds none, but her identity is confirmed when Miller pointedly takes a pew on the other side of the church.

Many of the congregation shuffle around awkwardly, clearly unused to being inside a church. Others look at home here: Liz Roper has a kind of ownership of the place. Maggie Radcliffe arrives arm-in-arm with her partner Lil. They know what’s appropriate; they don’t gawp in touristy wonder like a lot of the others, although they exchange a look loaded with meaning that Hardy can’t interpret as they head up the aisle together. Some churches are still old-fashioned about same-sex couples but he imagines that they appeal to Paul Coates’ highly developed sense of political correctness. Maggie turns left towards the front pew, then swerves so quickly that she crashes into Lil, who nearly loses her balance. Lil whispers something in her ear; Maggie shakes her head, then nods it, as if to say she’s all right. The two women eventually settle on the far right-hand side of the church.

Hardy cranes to see what has spooked the usually unflappable Maggie. Directly underneath the pulpit sits Susan Wright, wearing a gargoyle scowl.

The congregation sing ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’ as the coffin is brought to the altar. On top of the casket is a ship in a bottle and the photograph of Jack that accompanied Olly Stevens’ tribute in the
Echo
. Liz Roper cries loudest of all, noisy racking sobs that she manages to subdue by the time the hymn comes to an end.

Hardy folds his arms as Reverend Paul Coates takes the pulpit, his white vestments billowing around him. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for – signs of anxiety, guilt or evasion, the usual – but what he gets is a man coming to life in front of his audience.

‘We’re assembled here today to share our grief and to celebrate the life of Jack Gerald Marshall,’ says Coates. ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’ Will they fuck, thinks Hardy.

‘Jack Marshall was a good man. As has been made clear since his death, an innocent man. The local newsagent and Sea Brigade master, who kept children secure on land and safe at sea. So how are we here? We let him be smeared and intimidated. We weren’t there when he needed us. So today, in celebrating Jack, we also have to admit: some of us failed him.’ He trains his gaze on Hardy, so obviously that heads turn in his direction. ‘Just as we failed Danny Latimer. The second commandment tells us: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” In this, the darkest of times, we have to be better. If we’re not a community of neighbours, we’re nothing.’

Hardy hopes his anger isn’t showing on his face. Coates knows perfectly well that he was a lone voice of support for Marshall, but by repeatedly using the word ‘we’, he sides with those who pointed the finger at Jack and cast the stones, creating alliance where really there is none. The crafty bastard. He wonders how the background checks are going on Coates and makes a mental note to prioritise them.

At the end of the service, there’s a satellite delay on the congregation’s ‘Amen’ as the heathens hastily tack their prayers on to the tails of those who know the protocol.

Miller joins him on the short walk to the Traders Hotel for the wake.

‘So,’ he begins, embarrassed by the mascara that dirties her cheeks. ‘Keep an —’

‘— eye on everyone, say if I see anything out of the ordinary. I’ve got it,’ she recites.

Hardy bridles: if she would only bloody listen, he wouldn’t have to repeat himself.

In the packed bar, he’s on high alert. He notices that Paul Coates is about the only other person who doesn’t seem to have an alcoholic drink in his hand. To keep control while all about him lose it? He’s certainly revelling in the new attention, shaking hands with strangers who thank him for a beautiful service.

‘Holding a wake for Jack here,’ Coates says to Becca Fisher as she takes his empty glass. ‘It’s very Christian of you.’

‘Which is funny, ’cause I’m a total heathen,’ she says with a wink. Their shared laughter suggests a deeper relationship than Hardy was aware of. If he had known the bar was set that low, he might have made a move himself. There’s no accounting for taste.

There is a lull in the chatter, a subtle shift in atmosphere that always occurs when the Latimers enter a room. There’s an added frisson this time, perceptible, Hardy supposes, only to those who know about Mark’s affair with Becca. Beth’s head is high as she approaches the bar. ‘I’ll have a white wine, and a beer for my
husband
,’ she says. Becca only nods. Mark looks like he wants to vaporise.

Coates’ smooth progress through the crowd has taken him out of the bar and into the atrium. Hardy finds him halfway up the stairs, in earnest conversation with Tom Miller, who’s sitting on the top step. An alarm bell sounds in his head and he pushes towards them.

He has barely taken his first step when the image of the vicar and the boy begins to swim before his eyes. Not now, not here, he thinks. Short of a televised press conference, he can’t think of a worse place to have an attack. He tries to apply mind over matter but his vision doubles and his legs buckle. He falls against a table of drinks that crash to the floor. All conversation is silenced: there’s a sarcastic cheer and someone makes a jibe about one too many. Hardy, dripping with someone else’s beer, steadies himself with immense effort. By the time his focus returns to the stairs, Paul Coates has gone. He looks around for Miller: she’s nowhere to be seen, but he hauls himself up the stairs and sits next to Tom. If he picks up on anything that gives him concern, they’ll do this properly, by the book.

‘Do you get along with Paul?’ he asks.

‘I suppose.’ Tom looks uncomfortable.

‘Did Danny get along with him? Did they ever talk in private? Or meet, outside of computer club?’

Tom opens his mouth to speak but Joe Miller joins them, his face set to Protective Parent: whatever Tom was going to say, he won’t say it now.

‘Just talking,’ says Hardy.

‘I hope so,’ says Joe. ‘He’s just lost his best friend.’

Tom leaps to his feet. ‘I wish everyone would stop saying that! He wasn’t my best friend. I hated him. And if you really want to know, I’m glad he’s dead.’

Tom bursts into tears and flees the room, shoving his way past a frail-looking woman in a black veiled hat. Joe’s anger turns to mortification, red spots appearing high on his cheeks. A second later, he’s down the stairs as fast as the crowd will allow, following Tom out of the front door. Hardy is too wrecked to chase after them. He shouldn’t have approached Tom. But he hardly goaded him into his outburst. He runs his identity parade through his head. The men stand four abreast now, then he lets his mind’s eye drop to take in a little boy’s figure.

It’s probably the pressure of the case getting to Tom. The pressure of having lost his friend and barely seeing his mother for weeks. Or is it? The way this case is going, Hardy can’t afford to rule anything out.

He turns his attention back to Paul Coates.

The journalists have been watching Hardy watch the crowd. Karen White is particularly interested in his interest in Paul Coates. He can’t take his eyes off him.

‘Look at that,’ says Karen to Maggie. ‘I think our dog has found a new bone.’

‘Paul
Coates
?’ says Maggie. ‘No…’

‘You watch,’ says Karen. ‘He’ll go after that vicar now whether he’s guilty or not. Once Alec Hardy’s got an idea in his head, that’s it. He gets so obsessed with one aspect of a case that he gets tunnel vision. He can never see two sides to a story, that’s his problem.’

‘Hmmm,’ says Maggie with a smirk. ‘Actually, I know someone else like that.’

Karen looks around the crowd, but she has no idea who Maggie might mean. When she looks back, Paul Coates has disappeared.

On the way to St Andrew’s, she passes the veiled woman waiting, presumably for her cab to Taunton, at the bus stop. Shame she’s not press: they could have shared a cab back to Taunton and split the expenses. The woman steps towards her on spindly legs.

‘Karen White?’ she says. Maybe she
is
press after all. Karen’s smile is wide.

‘Sorry, do we know each other?’

The woman peels back her veil by way of reply. Karen gives an involuntary gasp. The woman’s hair is a sleek blonde chignon but her skin is pitted, countless flecks of shiny pink scar tissue lacerating white flesh. The planes of her face are familiar but fugitive, like Karen’s looking at the sister, or the mother, of someone she has met only once. It’s hard to tell; she is distorted, like something that has melted and then reset. Karen makes these assessments in seconds, and only then does she notice the fury blazing in the woman’s eyes. She tilts her head back. By the time Karen realises what’s happening, it’s too late: a warm globule of stale saliva lands on her cheek.

‘You people
disgust
me,’ she says. She is trembling all over.

The grey Vauxhall pulls up at the bus stop. The driver opens the passenger door and Rowena Marshall gets in without a backward glance.

44

People keep telling Beth that time heals. But what happens if time has broken? Some hours pass in a blink: some minutes last for ever. Her mind feels like one of those Salvador Dalí paintings where all the clocks have melted. Since Danny was ripped from her, time has lost its shape. Chloe is in charge of her own teenage life. Even in grief she lives out the long lazy unstructured days of the summer holiday. When Mark goes back to work his life will have a different kind of spontaneity, the rapid response of emergency call-outs. But Danny: his life was still hers to shape her own around. The circadian rhythm of school, football, swimming. Breakfast, lunch, tea. These things still defined her day far more than work.

A baby would solve this. A baby would give time shape again, measured out in her own swollen belly and then enslavement to its routines. It would give her a reason to get up in the morning. It would give meaning to the constant waking at night.

Ellie wakes up late to find the house empty and a note from Joe saying he’s taken the boys to the park. Tom, apparently, has been awake since six. This doesn’t feel right. Fred’s normally up with the dawn but Tom used to be someone you had to shake awake, pulling the covers off him. He has refused counselling so far but it remains on offer for all Danny’s classmates and Ellie wonders if they should ask him again. She barely sees Tom from one day to the next at the moment. She checks the clock: half an hour until she’s due in. Five minutes later, she’s showered and dressed. Within ten, she’s at the skate park, coffee in hand.

Joe is impossible to miss in his Dad Coat. ‘Another nine!’ he shouts, as Tom rounds the half-pipe. ‘Dead heat! Goes to another round.’