Frank finally gets to the end of Jack Marshall’s CCTV footage. There is no sign of Jack leaving or entering his house on the night that Danny was killed. They have examined every angle, but they can’t find a blind spot. Ellie turns to Frank.
‘He’s innocent,’ she says in amazement.
While she’s dashing off an email to let Hardy know, a call comes through from Bob Daniels. There is what he describes as ‘unrest’ outside the Sea Brigade hut. Ellie sends her email and runs from the station, Frank at her heels.
The men have gathered on the unmade road outside the hut. The angry mob of villagers wield camera phones, the twenty-first-century equivalent of pitchforks and flaming torches. Ellie recognises these men as individuals – they are school dads, shopkeepers, uncles, blokes from the five-a-side league – but collectively, they are terrifying, loaded with violence, faces twisted in hate. She has never seen anything like this in Broadchurch before. Bob, unusually ill-at-ease in his uniform, looks like he wants to join his mates on the other side of the divide.
Tonight is when the Sea Brigade usually meet, and although Jack has put on his uniform and opened the doors, not a single boy is in attendance. It is a huge misjudgement. What looks, now, to Ellie, like an innocent man refusing to let allegations get the better of him, has been interpreted by the mob as provocation. The men throw accusations like stones. The press, naturally, are loving every second. The angrier the men get, the more the cameras click. A scruffy photographer has his lens virtually up Nige Carter’s nose as he snarls threats.
Ellie has called for backup but the first car on the scene is not a police vehicle but her own battered family car and her husband is at the wheel.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asks Joe. Mark Latimer emerges from the passenger side. A vein pulses on his forehead like a worm trapped under his skin.
‘I couldn’t stop him,’ says Joe. ‘And then, I couldn’t let him come on his own.’ But he is helpless as Mark shoulders his way through the rabble to the front. Ellie’s pulse quickens. Where the hell is her backup?
If Mark loses his temper, this lot will be on Jack like hounds on a fox.
‘There’s no meeting here tonight, Jack,’ Nige Carter shouts. A fleck of spittle flies out of his mouth and lands at Jack’s feet. ‘No boys are coming. We don’t feel safe with that.’
‘You don’t even have kids, Nigel,’ says Jack. His tone is one of weariness, almost boredom. He doesn’t help himself. Ellie wills him to show some emotion other than arrogance. ‘You didn’t even get a badge for knots.’
‘I can speak for those that do,’ counters Nige.
‘Not really, Nige,’ says Mark Latimer with a quiet control that astonishes Ellie. ‘Boys,’ he addresses the crowd. ‘Stand down, eh?’
If they don’t quite fall silent, they at least begin to mumble their abuse rather than shout it.
‘You don’t need to be involved, mate!’ says Nige. ‘We’re doing this for you!’
‘Get back!’ Mark raises his voice in a warning shot and this time everyone obeys. Joe puts his palms up in pacification.
‘They’re saying a lot of stuff about you, Jack.’ Mark speaks evenly but a muscle at the side of his mouth is in spasm, his face betraying the exhaustion and the emotions that toil on him.
‘I am not what they’re calling me,’ says Jack. ‘And I did not go near your boy.’
‘You had Dan’s phone.’ An upward flick at the end of Mark’s statement turns it into a question.
‘He left it in the bottom of the delivery bag. I swear.’
‘You been to prison though, ain’t you? Eh?’ says Mark.
Jack straightens his back. ‘There was a girl. We had a relationship. She was fifteen, nearly sixteen. The same age as Beth when you met her.’ Mark takes a few seconds to swallow and digest this. ‘Mark, we married, we had a son together.’
Mark’s suspicious again. ‘Yeah, where’s he now, then? Why aren’t they with you?’
‘He died, the day after his sixth birthday.’ Jack drops his voice so that only those closest can hear. ‘Car accident. She was driving. They both went through the windscreen. She survived; he didn’t. The grief ripped us apart. So I came here. New start.’ His eyes take on that distant look that has frustrated them so much throughout the course of this investigation, but where Ellie previously saw evasion or disconnectedness she now sees a man staring into his own past. ‘They’re saying I wanted to hug the boys because I’m a paedophile. It was never that. I missed my boy. I missed touching him, holding him. I miss my boy every day. What sort of world is this, Mark, where it’s wrong to seek affection? I would never harm Danny. We’re the same, Mark. No parent should outlive their child. Your boy, he was a good boy.’
Mark struggles to control his face. Nobody speaks. Waves slap against the harbour wall. Even the cameras hold fire for a few seconds. Finally, the silence is broken by Joe, who takes a tentative step into a lion’s den.
‘You OK, Mark?’
Mark knuckles away a tear but then answers in a roar. ‘Go home, boys!’ he shouts so loudly that a nearby seagull takes flight. ‘The lot of you. Now.’
They retreat and then disperse, but the threats keep coming, angry voices riding the early evening breeze. It’s obvious that the temporary ceasefire is for Mark’s benefit. The two men look at each other, united in membership of the club every parent dreads joining.
‘You’re not safe here, Jack. You’re dead, mate.’ Mark’s words are harsh, but his tone is soft. He is passing on the threat rather than making it.
Jack stands his ground. ‘This is my home now.’
‘People have made up their minds,’ says Mark. ‘You want to stay safe? Get as far from here as you can.’
He leaves Jack standing proud but pathetic in his Brigade leader’s uniform, outside the hut Ellie knows he will never fill again. Jack must know it too, but he is too proud to show it. There is something military about his bearing: ramrod spine, eyes front, shoulders pulled back.
The photographers get one last shot of him, then down their cameras and go to the pub.
The dusk and the drizzle have driven the vigilantes home. Only Nige Carter is still out, his engine idling on the edge of the caravan park. For a long time, he watches the rain obscure caravan number 3 before the wipers reveal it again. Then something inside him propels him out of the van. He is at the caravan in three long strides, beating the door with large fists.
Susan Wright does not look surprised to see him although her welcome is cool: she folds her arms and blocks the doorway.
‘Can’t live without me?’ she scowls.
‘I’m not staying.’ Nige is virtually running on the spot in his impatience to leave. ‘There’s things that’re happening, I need to see to. So I want you to take that and go.’ He holds out a thick A4 envelope. ‘Five hundred quid.’
‘Is that what I’m worth? You’re lucky I’ve got a sense of humour,’ she says, but she doesn’t crack a smile. She stares him out, as calm as he is agitated. If her plan is to tip him over the edge, it works. His arms begin to flail.
‘See that van?’ he shouts. ‘I’ve got a crossbow in that van. I’m not messing around here.’
Susan looks at him evenly. ‘I don’t think you should be saying those sorts of things to me, Nigel. We need to find a way of working this out together.’
Nige knows when he’s beaten. He climbs back into the van and slams the door, throwing the envelope down on the passenger seat. He makes a messy three-point turn on the sand and drives off.
Susan stands in her doorway until Vince breaks her trance, winding his way around her legs.