After her fruitless visit to Jack Marshall’s paper shop, Karen decides to take Olly with her when she goes to see Nige Carter. It’s a smart move: the welcome is warm. ‘Olly, all right?’ Nige pauses from loading the van with tools – he must be exhausted, covering all of Mark’s calls – to shake Karen’s hand. He gives her a sweet, slightly gormless smile. He reminds her of an Alsatian puppy, taking up too much space, eager to please, not particularly bright.
‘Blimey,’ he says. ‘Never had so many visitors in a day.’
‘Who else has been round?’ she asks.
‘No one,’ he says, suddenly wary. Now he looks Karen up and down properly. She’s newly conscious of the formality of her work clothes and wonders if she ought to have dressed down, taken off the tailored jacket, put on a hoody or something. ‘Don’t think I should be talking to papers.’
‘She’s all right,’ says Olly. ‘I’m chaperoning.’ Karen allows herself a private smile at the thought of this.
‘All right,’ says Nige. ‘Quick though.’
She opens with flattery. ‘Everybody says you’re the go-to men in the town. Not rip-off merchants.’
‘Soon run out of customers if you did,’ smiles Nige. ‘We turn up when we say and don’t overcharge. Down to Mark.’
‘And they’re a close family.’
‘Oh yeah.’ He grins. ‘Always off somewhere together. That’s Beth, outdoors girl, dragging them up hills whether Mark likes it or not!’
‘Compromise, that’s what being married’s all about,’ says Karen, thanking her lucky stars she’s single.
‘Yeah, well, nothing’s perfect,’ says Nige, then realises how that sounds in the circumstances. His grin vanishes.
‘And you knew Danny well, obviously.’
It’s a moment before Nige can speak. ‘He’d come out with us sometimes, in the holidays. He liked it, so did the customers, we’d have a laugh. Same when I babysat. I’d take Call of Duty over, we’d sit and shoot away.’ He shakes his head in sad bewilderment. ‘You go about your day and then you remember he’s not here. Listen, I’ve gotta go. Hey, Olly, how’s your mum now?’
The blush from this morning returns to Olly’s cheeks.
‘Umm, yeah, all right,’ he mumbles. It’s clear that he doesn’t want to talk about it, but Nige is thick-skinned.
‘All sorted, is it?’
‘Pretty much.’ Olly addresses the pavement, looking as though he’d quite like it to swallow him whole.
Mark still isn’t back and Beth has cleaned the house from top to bottom. With all the housework done, and unable to stand another second of daytime television, she puts on her coat and is out of the door, ignoring Chloe’s demands about where she’s off to and Liz’s offer to go with her.
She is going mad inside, turning over the night before Danny’s murder and wishing now that she had woken up when Mark came in, just so the police would get off their backs. She can see what they’re doing: they’re trying to drive a wedge between them. It is not only pointless but it’s cruel. As if they aren’t going through enough. She wants to know that the police are on their side.
It feels good to walk. She takes the shortcut through the field: long grass whispers either side of the path. Walking in the other direction is a thickset man about her own age, body-warmer and gold-framed glasses. As they get close she can tell that he’s looking at her the way they did in the supermarket, part sympathy, part voyeurism. What’s different about this one is the way he holds steady and even offers her a shy smile. Beth’s appreciation at this acknowledgement, this tiny mark of respect, turns to unease as he keeps on staring. She hurries into town and although she doesn’t look back, she knows he’s still watching her.
It’s only half a mile to the tourist office, the place where Beth used to work. Where she still works. It occurs to her she hasn’t actually called in her absence and she wonders who did that for her, who is making the arrangements. The machine of her life is ticking over without her effort or consent.
Tourist Information shares premises, and a front door, with the Broadchurch Echo. Beth didn’t know about this condolence book they’d set up and it’s a shock to find Danny is waiting for her at the door, a blown-up picture from last year’s sports day. It almost makes her lose her nerve, but she pushes in anyway.
At her entrance the talking stops, laying bare the hum of the machines and the photocopier churning something out in the background. Her colleagues sit in appalled silence as she dumps her bag and sits at her desk.
‘Hiya,’ she says. ‘Can I help anyone? No? Shall I restock the leaflet racks?’ Janet gulps at her and stares like she’s a freak. And Beth feels like a freak. This is the opposite of what she came here for.
Maggie Radcliffe is at her side. ‘Sweetheart, what are you doing?’ she asks. ‘You shouldn’t be here. You’ve had a terrible thing happen.’
‘I want to be useful,’ Beth snaps.
‘Let me drop you back home,’ says Maggie.
‘I’m not going home.’ Beth’s fervency embarrasses everyone except her. ‘I’ve just come from home. I can’t stay in that house.’
‘Oh, darling,’ says Maggie. ‘My heart is breaking for you.’
‘I don’t need bloody broken hearts!’ says Beth. She shakes Maggie off and heads out the fire exit, into the side alleyway. Someone follows her. She doesn’t look back to see who it is. One more gentle hand and she’ll bite it off. She walks the length of the High Street, cheeks burning, and keeps going until she reaches the bench at the top of the town.
Up there, she lets out all her breath. Getting out of the house has solved nothing. Danny and the loss of him follow her everywhere she goes. If anything, it’s worse here. It’s not safe to look anywhere. To the left, there’s the beach where they found him. Ahead, the sea where he sailed and fished. To her right, the hill where they flew kites. Behind her the town, the school and home. Grief is like a splinter deep in every fingertip; to touch anything is torture.
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ says someone.
It’s the man from the field earlier. Has he been following her? Beth flinches, then realises she doesn’t actually care. What’s the worst he can do to her? She shrugs and he puts himself gently at the other end of the bench.
‘I love this view,’ he says. Beth waits for it. One, two, three… ‘I’m sorry if it’s rude, but I know who you are. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you. But you’ll get through it.’
‘And you know, do you?’ When she shakes her head, he tilts his to one side in sympathy. It’s as though he’s parroting her body language.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve got a message for you. From Danny.’
It’s the cruellest thing anyone’s ever said to her, and it’s made worse by the way he’s got the gall to maintain eye contact.
‘Don’t you dare,’ says Beth. ‘Stop speaking to me! Get away from me!’
‘I’m not trying to upset you! I just had to tell you! Please!’ His words hound Beth back to the house she can’t stand to be in.