It is eleven o’clock on an August night but Broadchurch is a ghost town. No cars pass by. No drinkers spill from the pubs. The restaurants are empty. White fairy lights twinkle on the box trees outside the Traders Hotel but the terrace is deserted.
A lone child stands at the top of the High Street, skateboard under his arm. He’s wearing a thin grey T-shirt, black jeans and blue trainers with a yellow flash. He sets down his skateboard, steps on and glides down the dead centre of the empty street. The rumble of plastic wheels on tarmac is the only sound.
But his hair is blond, not brown. This is Tom Miller, not Danny Latimer. And despite the late hour, he is not alone.
A procession of adults follow. Ellie Miller heads the sad little parade, her eyes never leaving Tom. Alec Hardy and a handful of officers watch everyone but Tom.
The Latimers are there, distraught but strong, hands held in solidarity.
Nige tags along behind Mark.
Reverend Paul Coates is not far behind, his professional, sombre face on.
Joe Miller pushes a sleeping Fred in his buggy.
Karen White walks alone.
As Tom passes, people emerge from doorways to watch him. Olly Stevens and Maggie Radcliffe stand side by side outside the Broadchurch Echo, then fall into step with the others at the rear.
Becca appears in the doorway of the Traders. She catches Mark’s eye and a look of sorrow passes between them before they can stop it. Beth notices and drops Mark’s hand. Becca lowers her gaze and steps back into the shadows.
Susan Wright and Vince watch from a distance like a witch and her familiar.
Beth turns to Ellie. ‘Tell me this’ll make a difference,’ she begs.
Ellie threads her arm through Beth’s. ‘I’m sure it will.’
Tom rounds the corner towards the harbour. Union flags and bunting flutter noisily, competing with the sea’s roar. Tom hits the cobbles and the clatter of his wheels drowns out everything else. A news crew, their camera balanced on a dolly grip, trundle after him as he passes the chip shop.
Beth blinks away tears. ‘I can’t bear to think of him, out here alone, this time of night.’
Tom cruises past the newsagent’s. Jack Marshall is outside, hair lank around his shoulders and soot dusting his collar. He mutters the Lord’s Prayer under his breath. ‘And lead us not into temptation,’ he murmurs, ‘but deliver us from Evil.’
Mark Latimer falls into step with Hardy. ‘Do you think it’s him?’ he asks.
‘I’m not speculating about anyone,’ says Hardy, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the old man.
‘You might not be, but everyone else is,’ says Mark. ‘They’ll calm down as soon as you arrest someone.’
At the jetty, Tom skids to a halt. They are now in the territory that CCTV does not cover, and they have re-enacted the last of Danny’s known movements. He jumps down from his skateboard and turns to look at his parents, who nod their pride and approval. Tom gives a weak smile of relief.
Jack Marshall’s hands are clasped so tightly in prayer that the bones glow through his skin. ‘For thine is the kingdom,’ he intones, ‘the power and the glory, now and for ever. Amen.’
Eleven thirty p.m. and CID is buzzing after the reconstruction. DS Ellie Miller is wide awake. While she was out, Frank put up a list of boats reported missing in the last month. There are no matches; nothing even comes close.
She goes through the next file. More notes from Forensics, and they’re hard going. She is the wrong kind of alert: she’s too wired to concentrate and it won’t go in. If only she had a spare hard drive that she could plug into her brain. She worries that she simply can’t retain this much information, that some vital clue will go unnoticed. She takes a deep breath and starts the file again from page one.
They’ve got the prints back on the phone that Jack Marshall gave them. Something about that phone’s been bugging Ellie since she saw it in Jack Marshall’s hand, and she realises now, realised when she saw Tom with his phone earlier. She’s puzzled because although Mark confirmed that this was Danny’s phone, she always saw Danny with a smartphone, the same as Tom’s. They even got different covers in case they got muddled up.
There’s no data to be retrieved from the bog-standard one they’ve got. No texts, contacts or call logs. It’s set to forward all calls and texts to another number – a pay-as-you-go SIM card, turned off so there’s no signal. She puts it on the grid anyway. If it turns up they need to be able to move fast. She scoots across the office on her chair to bring Hardy up to date. The wound on the back of his head has been cleaned up, but the rest of him is still a mess. His shirtsleeves have been shoved up to his elbows and sweat patches yellow his armpits.
‘Mark’s fingerprints were on the phone, but he handled it, I saw him do it, he took it off Jack at the house. And Danny’s DNA. And Jack Marshall’s, too. Although that tallies with him finding it.’
She can almost see the light bulb ignite over Hardy’s head. ‘Or Jack claimed to find it because he knew his DNA was already on it,’ he says. ‘Why does a kid his age have two phones? How could he afford this other one?’
‘The cash we found in his room?’ suggests Ellie.
‘Could that money have come from Jack Marshall?’ asks Hardy. ‘You know him, what do you think?’
Ellie doesn’t feel she knows anyone outside her own front door any more.
‘He had regular contact with Danny,’ she considers, ‘but what’s his motive? Anyway, Danny was asphyxiated. Jack’s frail. I can’t see him dragging a body two miles down the coast.’
‘Accomplice?’ Hardy fires back. ‘We don’t know there’s only one killer. You talk to your son at the end tonight?’
The last thing Ellie wants is to discuss Tom’s emotional state with Hardy.
‘A bit,’ she says. ‘He just wanted to get home.’
‘He’s a good lad,’ says Hardy, throwing a file down on to her desk. ‘Tell him from me: he did right by Danny.’
To Ellie’s shame, her eyes start to well. She can handle the relentless sarcasm and the impatience. But kindness from DI Hardy? It’s more than she can bear.