For Hardy’s second appearance at South Wessex Primary the place is packed to the rafters. They’re all the same, these school halls: the climbing frames flush to the wall, adults squatting awkwardly on child-sized chairs. He has a sudden flashback to his first press conference at Sandbrook Juniors and before he can stop himself he’s superimposed those faces on the ones before him now. He shakes his head free of the image of Cate and Richard Gillespie and concentrates instead on the residents of Broadchurch.
He takes a silent register of the ones he recognises. Liz Roper, Nige Carter, that vicar who fancies himself as a TV pundit – he’ll keep an eye on him – Becca from the hotel, Olly and Maggie and the bad penny herself, Karen White. Incredibly, ‘psychic’ Steve Connolly has the front to be here. Then there are those two people he cannot read: Susan Wright and Jack Marshall. Do they know each other? They are seated far apart, but that could be for his benefit. DS Miller’s there with her family in tow. Hardy watches her watch the crowd.
There’s a clamour of questions but he launches immediately into his prepared speech. He is not here to have a conversation on the residents’ terms.
‘Here’s what we’re up against. Multiple complex crime scenes, particularly at the beach. Lack of CCTV in key areas. Absence of witnesses seeing Danny the night he sneaked out.’ Just in time he remembers what Miller said about firing off lists and slows it down for the civilians. ‘We’ve a lot of information to process. We will get there.’
Susan Wright introduces herself by name. ‘I heard you were short-staffed.’ The idea seems to please her.
‘We have the right resources for an investigation of this size. Next question.’
‘I’ve just come from the pier and there’s a bloody great Forensics van parked up there!’ shouts a red-faced man with white hair like a dandelion. His words are immediately followed by a chorus of concerned business owners.
‘New evidence has come to light overnight and we have to examine it without contamination,’ says Hardy evenly.
‘Is that the boat that was on fire last night?’ This comes from Steve Connolly and there’s a mixture of reproach and triumph in his eyes. Hardy suppresses a flare of impatience. It’s hardly a stretch, round here, to suggest that a boat was involved.
‘You have to understand the work that’s going on there,’ says Hardy. ‘Every grain of sand has to be gone through. Every cigarette butt, stray hair, shard of plastic, fingernail, toenail, piece of skin has to be tested.’ Before he can censor the image, a silver pendant swings bright in his mind’s eye. ‘A crime scene on a beach is one of the most challenging things our officers have to deal with.’
‘It’s the image you’re giving out!’ shouts the dandelion. ‘We’re down 40 per cent on last summer. Nobody’s coming. We don’t want the name Broadchurch to become a byword for murder like Sandbrook.’
Hardy waits for the explosion but it doesn’t come. There’s merely a flash of alarm on Miller’s face and the three journalists shift in their seats. Karen White looks at him serenely and he has no doubt that his part in the Sandbrook travesty will be front-page news in the Echo, and possibly even the nationals, before the week is out. Whatever’s making them hang on to it, he hopes it stays that way for the sake of the investigation.
After the meeting, Hardy almost makes it to the car uninterrupted.
‘I told you there was a boat.’
‘Oh, great, you’re just what I need,’ Hardy rounds on an indignant Steve Connolly. ‘There’s hundreds of them around here, you got lucky.’
‘Did you look for it? Eh? Does Beth know you didn’t follow it up?’
Hardy lays his index finger gently on Connolly’s chest.
‘How about you heed my very strong advice,’ he says in a near-whisper. ‘Stay away from her. Do not get involved.’
Connolly shakes his head and walks slowly away. Hardy leans against the car. This is the phase he’s been dreading: when a case like this goes on for more than a few days, people get restless. Everyone wants to stick their oar in, develop their own pet theory. Everywhere but in the incident room, opinion begins to overwhelm fact. The media can be worst of all, he thinks, as Olly Stevens and Maggie Radcliffe march purposefully up. He takes his hand off the car door, resigned to another long conversation.
‘Here we go again,’ he greets them.
Olly’s looking extremely pleased with himself.
‘There’s something Oliver wants to tell you,’ says Maggie.
‘We always love hearing from Oliver,’ says Hardy. To his dismay, the kid beams; you can’t lay the sarcasm on thick enough for these people.
‘I found this on Jack Marshall,’ he says, producing an envelope from his bag. Inside is a photocopied page of newsprint bearing a decades-old picture of the shopkeeper. ‘He was in prison before he came here. He’s got a previous conviction for underage sex.’
Karen White watches Olly and Maggie from a distance, relishing DI Hardy’s expression when he realises that the press are one step ahead of him. The time feels right to pitch the story to Len Danvers again.
The phone call does not get off to a good start. ‘We’re chocka with domestic crime at the moment,’ he says. ‘And I specifically told you not to go.’
‘I’m on leave,’ she reminds him. ‘Len, this is heartland stuff. And the police are struggling. I don’t think this’ll be done in a day or two.’
‘Why will our readers care?’ he asks. She knows what he wants to hear and for once she can serve it to him on a plate.
‘Model family, two kids. Dad’s a plumber, quiet estate, idyllic market town, definition of normal. The mum’s very photogenic. English Rose. But… something might be up with the marriage.’
‘Trouble in paradise?’ says Len, and she knows that when he talks in headlines he’s already made the decision. ‘Go on, then. Get me an exclusive with the mum, nice photo and I’ll look at it. But you’re paying your own hotel bills.’
She exits through the school hall. It’s empty now apart from a woman staring forlornly at a basket full of footballs. Karen flips through her mind’s index until she locates her: Liz Roper, Danny’s grandmother, although she doesn’t look nearly old enough.
‘How are you coping?’ asks Karen. Liz looks up: clearly, she’s already used to strangers knowing who she is.
‘Me, I’m tough as old boots. It’s the others I worry about.’
In voicing her strength Liz has exposed her jugular: no one has thought about her.
‘You must miss him,’ says Karen, and Liz wells up.
‘My Geoff taught him how to kick one of these,’ she says, gesturing towards the footballs. ‘Two years old and he could dribble a ball from one end of the garden to the next. He was a little star.’ She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. I’m the strong one in all this. I just want them to catch the sod who did it.’ She gives Karen a watery smile. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember your name.’ It’s the polite cover for someone who has met more new people in the last few days than in the previous decade.
‘I’m Karen. I work for the Herald.’
Liz recoils, as Karen knew she would. ‘We’re not talking to the press.’
‘I know. But can I say one thing? Be sure you’re getting the best advice. I’d hate for Danny to be ignored.’
She lets her hand rest briefly on Liz’s, then leaves her crying over the pile of scuffed footballs.
Beth pegs washing on the line in the back garden. Boys from Danny’s class play kickabout in the playing field. She’s battling the urge to vault the fence, run into the melee of boys, grab one – any one – and hold him so tight that she can feel his heart beat. Usually the football pitch is a kids-only zone, but today a handful of parents stand nervous sentinel on the sidelines.
Steve Connolly, chatting to Beth over her fence, attracts concerned glances. One father covertly takes a picture of him on his mobile phone. Everyone’s a witness now. Steve doesn’t notice; his focus is all on Beth, polite but insistent. ‘A few days ago I told the police about evidence they should look for,’ he says. ‘But they didn’t listen and it was burned before they got to it, so it’s harder for them to analyse it properly.’
He’s talking about the boat they found on fire, he must be. Everyone knows about it. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because I can help! I can help.’ Steve presses both hands to his chest in an almost priestly gesture. ‘But for that to happen I need to be taken seriously, and that’s not happening right now.’
Beth doesn’t know what to think. She drops her eyes. At the top of the laundry basket is the red dress she was wearing the day she saw Danny lying on the beach. She hangs it out even though she knows she will never wear it again.
‘What if you’re wrong?’
Steve shakes his head. ‘I’ve got no reason to lie to you. Beth, I wish, I wish, we’d never had cause to meet. But what I have told you is genuine. And you need to convince the police.’
Doubt and hope wrestle inside Beth. The things Steve deals in are too big for her to grasp, just as there is too much grief for her to process. It’s not that she doesn’t believe in them. It’s that she has never, until now, given it much thought. Her old, lovely life had no room for philosophy, and there were no ghosts.
Her life is suddenly all about trusting men she doesn’t know. Spilling confidences to the vicar. Depending on DI Hardy. And now this strange, serious man who says he has a line to Danny. She looks him straight in the eye. His return gaze is unflinching.
‘OK,’ she says.
With trust in her husband betrayed, it is strange men Beth puts her faith in now.