Ellie Miller lies in the dark watching her digital alarm clock chew its way through the numbers. Saturday night turns into Sunday morning. One, two, three, four a.m. come and go. She is exhausted but the unaccustomed stimulant of guilt keeps her awake. She has done the wrong thing by two people she cares about.
One is minor – or, if not minor, then spontaneous at least. Olly caught her off guard but she mustn’t let Lucy ruin their relationship too. The way she let Beth down runs deeper. It is unforgivable that she had to find out about Hardy’s history from journalists. Now Ellie grills herself remorselessly about exactly why she kept the information back. Was she really waiting to find the right time, or was she just afraid of Beth’s face when she told her? It was naivety or cowardice: both are unforgivable. She knows she won’t sleep until she’s sorted it. She heaves herself on to one side and retrieves her phone from the bedside table. Joe stirs and mumbles beside her so she mutes the keypad and turns down the brightness. She writes to Olly first.
Didn’t mean to be snappy. Stress of the case.
I hope you know I’m always here for you, no matter what’s going on between me and your mum.
Auntie E. Xx
The one to Beth is harder to write.
I should have told you about the Sandbrook thing and I’m sorry.
I did the wrong thing for the right reasons; I was trying to protect you but I should’ve been straight with you.
Let’s talk soon. Call whenever you want to. Ell. Xx
As soon as she is satisfied, her eyelids grow heavy with the release of a guilty conscience eased. She sets the phone down, the messages waiting patiently to be sent in the morning. The last time she remembers looking at the clock it is 5.14 a.m.
She wakes again at 9.10. It’s hot outside and the world is up early. Soft Sunday sounds float through the open bedroom window: birdsong, the kids in the garden, a distant lawnmower. Not that Ellie will get to potter around today. She is due in the station at ten: Beth and Mark are taking part in a press conference that evening and Hardy wants all hands on deck. Ellie hits the send button on last night’s apologies, then stands under the shower and tries to wake up.
Joe is on his hands and knees in the sitting room, wiping slug trails from the rug. She runs a hand over the velour of his head, and he reaches up to catch her hand and hold it there for a moment.
‘Hey, I was thinking about taking Tom to church this morning,’ he says.
‘Church?’ They don’t really do spirituality. ‘Why?’
He looks almost shy. ‘I don’t know. Just… felt… the thing. Know what I mean?’
It’s funny but she does. ‘You take the boys,’ she says. ‘I’ll see if Hardy will give me special dispensation.’
She’s used to the boss looking rough but he’s taken it to a new level this morning. She circles him slowly and freezes when she sees the back of his head. His hair is matted with blood and are those stitches? He didn’t have that much to drink last night, surely?
‘Jesus, what happened to you? You look terrible, if you don’t mind me saying.’
‘Slipped in the shower last night,’ he says in a tone that closes the conversation. ‘Seen the Herald?’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know the Latimers had done that. We had Pete out on backup statements, must’ve happened then.’
‘They’ve opened the floodgates,’ says Hardy. There’s resignation where she was expecting fury, as though he’d been anticipating this all along. ‘Media officer’s been deluged with calls. As you know, we’ve called a conference for this evening, a family statement. Try and keep as much control as we can. Meantime, I need full background on Jack Marshall, Steve Connolly and Paul Coates. Anyone without alibis goes to the top of our list.’
‘I’ll get Nish and Frank on it,’ says Ellie. ‘Can I ask a favour?’ she adds, bracing herself for Hardy’s rebuttal. ‘I was thinking of going to church…’
‘Good idea. Everyone all together. Chance to check on who’s behaving normally.’
That wasn’t the idea, but never mind.
Ellie picks Joe and the boys up on the way to St Andrew’s. It’s a beautiful morning; hot and hazy. The bells are ringing and butterflies throng the buddleia at the roadsides. She falls into step behind the Latimers, who are looking fixedly ahead.
There’s a wall of photographers, like something outside a courtroom. They’re all shouting at Beth like she’s Princess Diana.
‘Beth! Beth! Over here!’
Beth is a rabbit in the headlights. Mark’s doing his best – ‘Will you let us through, lads?’ – but they’re not taking that for an answer. Beth can’t take this and she doesn’t deserve it. Ellie goes on to autopilot: she’s acting like a copper but also as a friend.
‘Away, now, or I’ll have you all arrested.’ She shoves her warrant card up close to the nearest lens.
‘We’re not breaking the law,’ says the ratty little man behind the camera.
‘Have a bit of bloody decency,’ she says. She puts herself between the family and the photographers. Let them get a picture of her, another angry mum, she doesn’t care. It’s not her family that’s been ripped apart. She lets the Latimers creep past behind her. One photographer raises his camera.
‘Lenses down. Or I kick you in the balls. Each one of you.’ She turns to Tom. ‘You didn’t hear me say that.’ She turns back to the photographers. ‘But I really will.’
‘Your mum’s awesome,’ says Chloe behind her.
‘I know,’ replies Tom.
Beth looks at Ellie with gratitude. ‘Come for lunch today,’ she says, as they file into the nave. ‘Nige is cooking.’
The olive branch is welcome but unexpected. ‘You sure?’
‘Like we always do,’ says Mark firmly.
Ellie says yes, even though she’s supposed to be working. Hardy can’t force her to do more overtime – although, knowing him, he’d have her spying on her friends over Sunday lunch.
She has never seen the church so busy, not even for weddings or funerals. When Paul Coates comes out of the vestry in his robes, Ellie starts; she’s used to seeing the dog collar but not the whole flowing Gandalf bit. He looks nervy and excited, like a pub singer who suddenly finds himself playing Wembley Stadium.
Becca Fisher’s high heels clack on the flagstones; after Beth stares her down, she tucks herself discreetly in the corner.
Jack Marshall genuflects before taking a seat with a good view of the altar. Nige, one row in front of the Latimers, turns around to catch Mark’s eye, then looks meaningfully at Jack. They know something, or they think they do. Ellie resolves to have a word with them at lunch. Between Mark’s temper and Nige’s lack of control, she doesn’t like how this could pan out. She thinks about the split lip and the pub fight. She remembers now a football-pitch disagreement that would have turned into a brawl if Joe and Bob hadn’t been there to calm Mark down, and recasts that moment in the light of what she has since learned about Mark. If he can lose it over trivial things, what might he be capable of in grief?
All heads turn when Hardy walks in, looking like something that’s just crawled out of the graveyard. It’s his first public appearance since Karen White’s piece in the Herald. Someone tuts loudly and an old woman in the next pew actually hisses.
‘Didn’t know he was religious,’ says Joe.
‘Didn’t know we were,’ Ellie flashes back.
She was expecting to start with a hymn or a prayer or some incense or something, but Reverend Paul seems to have gone off-script. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he says as he takes the pulpit. Electric candles glow softly on either side. ‘I was thinking how to start. I found this, in Corinthians: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We are knocked down, but we are not destroyed.” As a community, the hardest thing for us is to remember, we have not been abandoned by God. We are not destroyed. Nor will we be.’
Ellie’s mobile vibrates in her pocket. She knows it’s bad form to use your phone in church but she slides it out as surreptitiously as she can. It’s a text from Hardy. In the last few minutes, SOCO have confirmed that the hairs in the boat are Danny’s.