Broadchurch (36 page)

‘She was having an affair with one of the other DSs on the team,’ he says. ‘She thought she’d celebrate.’

Maggie falls on the half-truth like a bloodhound. ‘But this was all reported at the time. The
Herald
got the story, but they said it was you. Your car. You took the blame.’

‘It happened on my watch.’

‘But she deceived you.’ Maggie couldn’t have chosen a more apposite phrase. They’re so close to working it out for themselves, he wishes they’d just take a potshot guess and spare him the ordeal. Hardy grits his teeth.

‘That detective sergeant. She was my wife. We’ve got a daughter. I didn’t want her knowing that about her mother.’

He’s expecting to see triumph on their faces. Now their scoop has a sexy angle. The worst cop in Britain is a cuckold. But Maggie looks mortified on his behalf. ‘So you took the blame. For years. The family blame you, and it’s not your fault. This is what made you ill, isn’t it?’

Hardy’s vision blurs again, but this time it’s with tears. He tilts his chin upwards, as though he can divert the water back into his eyes, and keeps his head like that until the ceiling comes back into focus. ‘Do me a favour. Tell the Gillespie family before you publish, eh? Tell them I haven’t given up on Sandbrook and that the case is still open. Then after that, do whatever you like with it. On one condition. You do. Not. Name. That. DS.’

He points at the table, using his forefinger to poke each word home.

59

‘
Miller!
’

Ellie jumps to her feet, annoyed by the muscle memory of obedience. One thing she won’t miss is being summoned like a soldier. She narrows her eyes across the room at his office. There’s still time to piss in that cup.

‘Forensics from the hut,’ he says, pen tapping at his monitor. ‘Boot print in the mud up the hill, match with a print they found inside. Man’s, size ten.’ He spins his screen. ‘What’s Nige Carter’s shoe size?’

Ellie checks the notes on her desk. ‘Ten,’ she says with a shiver. ‘So what, Susan
did
see Nige?’

The case has blown open again.

‘Are we missing something?’ says Hardy. ‘What if more than one person was involved?’ They have asked each other this question a hundred times. They are back to square one after all. Hardy picks up his mug, takes a sip of cold tea and makes a face. ‘By the way, your boy and Danny. Did they fall out?’

Ellie is wrong-footed: where the hell is
this
going? ‘No…’

‘Paul Coates, the vicar, says they did. There was a fight. He mentioned it to you.’

‘What? No, he didn’t!’ This is what Hardy does when he’s on the back foot, he lashes out and she is sick of being his punchbag. ‘Hang on, what’re you saying, you think I’ve been covering for my son?’

‘When was the last time Danny came round to your house?’

‘It’s two in the morning! I don’t know!’ She barely knows her own name any more. As she struggles to remember, she slowly realises that Danny’s visits had been growing fewer and further between. She keeps this to herself until she has time to examine it.

‘Can we borrow Tom’s computer?’ he asks. ‘Would you bring it in tomorrow?’

Anything to shut him up. He probably won’t even be here tomorrow. ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Good night.’

Then, on the drive home, it hits her with such force that she finds herself slamming on the brakes. There was that time Tom and Danny fell out at computer club. She’d forgotten it because she thought it was an innocent scrap. It
was
an innocent scrap. She stalls the car, angry that Hardy’s poison has infected her. This is what the case is doing to them. Making little boys’ fights out to be something they aren’t. The sooner they get Tom’s computer checked out, the better. She’s no techie, but maybe she can have a quick root around in his documents and history, see if there’s any cause for concern before she hands it over to IT.

Tom’s asleep under his stripy duvet when Ellie gets in. His hair is damp with sweat and his lips slightly parted. There’s a little-boyness to him that she never sees when he’s awake any more. How long will he still look like this? He starts secondary school in a couple of weeks. He’ll be a teenager soon. She bends to kiss his forehead before beginning a silent search of his bedroom.

The laptop isn’t on his desk where she expects it to be. Neither is it under his bed, or in his bag. She tells herself that the cold current of panic travelling up her spine is just a symptom of exhaustion.

In Tom’s desk drawer, she finds the mouse and the power cable from his laptop. She’s holding it in her hand and wondering if this is significant when the light from the landing is blocked. Joe stands in the doorway, bleary-eyed in pyjamas.

‘Ell, it’s half two in the morning,’ he whispers. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Where’s his computer?’

For a former paramedic, Joe has never had much concept of urgency. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know where it is. If we go through his room now, we’ll wake him up.’

Reluctantly Ellie follows him into the bedroom and flops on the bed. Still in search mode, she notices the peeling wallpaper and the unpainted plaster that she hasn’t seen for months. Joe tries to snuggle into her. ‘Do it tomorrow,’ he mumbles into her neck. Ellie shoves him so hard he nearly falls off the bed.

‘That’s your answer to everything! Do it bloody tomorrow!’

‘What have
I
done?’

‘Yes, what
have
you done? You can’t even finish decorating this room! Six months!’

Joe’s hurt turns to anger. ‘For God’s sake. Go to sleep, Ell.’ He flicks the light off.

Ellie has never been so tired, but sleep won’t come. Where is Tom’s computer? Where the hell is it?

It is three o’clock in the morning. Hardy is in his office, refreshing his inbox every minute as if that will make Ruth Clarkson’s email arrive sooner. The empty CID is in darkness before him. There is no point in going back to the Traders. There isn’t even much point trying to doze on the sofa in the corner. He’s got, what, seven hours until he’s off the case – off the force – for ever.

The email entitled
Tom Miller Email Transcripts
finally lands in Hardy’s inbox at 3.14 a.m.

Hardy clicks it open and reads. He compares it with the data from Danny’s laptop. The connection is made, so obvious that he’s furious with himself for not seeing it before. There is a brief bright burst of euphoria, swiftly followed by dread.

This is going to break as many hearts as it heals.

For the first time in his career, DI Alec Hardy hopes desperately that he is wrong.

60

Height, weight, eyes, ears, nose. Pulse, temperature, oxygen. Hardy sits passively in the Chief Medical Officer’s surgery, staring blankly at the anatomical posters on the opposing wall. The stethoscope slides cold across his chest. His medical file is as thick as a Russian novel. With an expensive pen, the doctor writes the final chapter.

Because he has nowhere else to go, Hardy heads back to the police station, and is half-surprised when his pass card still allows him access. In CID it is business as usual; the team are checking the shoe size of everyone who has been involved, even fleetingly, with the investigation. The list of men with size ten feet is small but growing. Paul Coates. Nige Carter. Steve Connolly. There are only two people left in the frame that they haven’t accounted for.

He is working up to the phone call when Jenkinson summons him to her office. ‘You’re done,’ she says. ‘Office clear by the end of the day, please.’

Hardy does the calculations: eight more hours. He can still do this.

Joe Miller lies on his belly along Tom’s bedroom floor, spitting dustballs as he fumbles under the bed. He retrieves a half-made model aeroplane, torn magazines, a shrivelled apple core and half a dozen odd socks, but no computer.

When Tom sees his dad’s legs sticking out from under his bed, he can’t hide his terror.

‘Dad,
out
!’ he screams.

Joe wriggles backwards and props himself up on one elbow. ‘Mate, where’s your laptop? Mum needs it for the investigation.’

‘I lost it.’ Tom shrinks into himself as a dishevelled Joe gets to his feet. ‘Ah, a week back? Maybe longer?’

Joe looks him in the eye. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘You’ve both had a lot on your mind.’ It sounds feeble, like the excuse it is.

‘Don’t lie to me, Tom.’ Joe puts his hand on Tom’s shoulder and searches his face. There is the threat of a threat in his voice. ‘Where’s the computer?’

Ellie staggers into the station like a zombie. She was kept awake all night by the creeping feeling that Tom
is
hiding something from them. Susan Wright’s description of Tom echoes in Ellie’s head:
lying little shit.
Despite this, she is confident that he’s guilty of something innocent. He’s probably lost it, or swapped it, or he’s bypassed the parental controls and looked at a website he shouldn’t have. Ellie laughs bitterly to herself: it has really come to something when you take comfort in the idea of your child watching Internet pornography.

The suggestion that Tom is somehow involved in Danny’s death is obviously ludicrous. Hardy has finally lost the plot: with so little time left, he is inventing straws for the express purpose of clutching at them. Nige has done a runner, as has Susan Wright, the only person who could put him at the scene, and Hardy is panicking, tying mismatched loose ends together for the sake of it. She glances up at his office: the blinds are open but the light isn’t on, meaning he must still be in with the doctor. Ellie wishes she could play the boss at his own game if only to show him how stupid he’s being, but she has exhausted every lead she’s had. She scrolls through the case files on her computer for confirmation: there isn’t a single box unchecked. She rewinds the case in her mind’s eye, looking for inspiration.

It occurs to her that there is one interview that was never entered on the system.

Ellie deliberates for a long time whether to pursue it now, then something inside her propels her into action. If it takes the heat off Tom, until they can get to the bottom of what he’s hiding, it’s worth a shot. She writes a cheque that will eat up all her overtime and puts it in her handbag.

It is the first time in months that Ellie has been to Lucy’s house, and it’s in a shocking state. It has the bare, temporary appearance of a squat. Lucy doesn’t look much better. She’s dyed her hair again, a bright bus red presumably intended to make her look young and funky. It puts ten years on her, but her face lights up when Ellie hands over the money.

‘Oh, my little baby sis, you never let me down.’ She goes to hug Ellie, who remains rigid, hands still in pockets.

‘Look, we’re running out of time,’ she says. ‘My boss is on his way out and I’m scared to death another child is gonna get hurt, so you just tell me what you saw.’

Lucy pockets the cheque, as though afraid Ellie will snatch it away mid-sentence. ‘Night of Danny’s death, I was up really late. I took a break at around four,’ she says. She doesn’t have to explain what she was taking a break from: the only question is whether it was the online slot machines, poker or bingo, and Ellie couldn’t care less about that. All she wants is the statement. ‘I was looking out the window down the road and I saw a man in the distance, dark clothes, bald head under a little black hat, and he was shoving what looked like a bag full of clothes into someone’s bin. The bin truck was just coming up the road.’

The description matches Susan Wright’s statement. It matches Nige. Ellie puts a hand on the wall to steady herself. Dismissing Lucy has been an unforgivable oversight, possibly a career-ending fuck-up. If Lucy’s telling the truth – and Ellie’s gut tells her that she is – then Ellie has let Danny and his family down in the worst possible way. With huge effort, Ellie keeps her cool. She tells Lucy to come into the station when she’s cleaned herself up, to make it formal and give them a proper description.

Frank stops Ellie on the way in to CID and tells her that Hardy’s been given until the end of the day. She finds the boss in his office; he is still there, but only just. His complexion is working its way through a variety of mineral tones: if yesterday was chalk, today he is granite.

‘Sir,’ she says, shifting her weight from foot to foot. ‘I was talking to my sister. She saw a man on the night of Danny’s murder, throwing a bag of clothes into a dustbin. She gave me a description: height, build, short hair, possibly bald. It matches Nige.’

Hardy is agog. ‘Why’s she coming up with this
now
?’

Ellie can’t meet his eye. ‘I think something jogged her memory.’

Hardy’s not as fired up by this statement from Lucy as she thought he would be. The fight has gone out of him already; she’s surprised and then disappointed.

‘Did you find your boy’s computer?’ he asks.

Why, after what she’s just told him, is he still on about this? ‘He says it was stolen.’

‘Do you believe him?’

It breaks her heart to say no.

‘I called Tom and Joe,’ says Hardy. ‘They’re coming in.’

Ellie gasps. ‘When were you going to tell me?’

Before Hardy can justify himself, there’s a knock on the door. ‘Ellie?’ says one of the female PCs. ‘There’s someone outside wanting to talk.’

Kevin Green is looking haunted on the harbourside. If it weren’t for his red T-shirt with the Royal Mail logo, Ellie wouldn’t have recognised him. Even now it takes her a while to pinpoint him as the postman Jack Marshall reckoned he saw arguing with Danny at the beginning of the summer. So much has happened since then. His appearance has changed, too: he’s lost weight and his previously clean-shaven face is covered by a ragged beard. What can he possibly want now?

‘I was lying,’ blurts Kevin. ‘I
did
have a row with Danny a few weeks before he died. Someone had keyed my van, left this big long line. And he was the only one about that time in the morning. I thought it was him.’

The repercussions of this lie come screaming at Ellie: taking Kevin at his word made a liar of Jack Marshall, for a start. Would they have gone after him so hard if they had believed him on this?