Tom Miller, alone in his bedroom, can’t settle on anything. He has abandoned his book for a magazine, the magazine for his Nintendo DS, but even that can’t hold his focus. It is mid-afternoon, that annoying time of day when it’s too late to join in anyone’s daytime plans and too early to see if they want to meet up after tea, and in any case, no one’s really allowed out late any more.
Downstairs, the sounds of the CBeebies channel and the dishwasher being loaded tell him that Fred and Joe are in. With an expression of resignation, he checks the parking space in front of the house for his mother’s car. It’s empty, but he sees something else that has him spring into life. He clears the stairs quicker than a skateboarder on a ramp, and is out of the front door in seconds. Joe, wiping down the high chair in the kitchen, doesn’t register Tom’s exit. Only Fred sees him go.
‘Paul!’ he shouts to the man walking towards the church. ‘I need to ask you something!’
Paul Coates’ face, set in a grimace, is wearing a smile by the time he turns to face Tom.
‘Sure. Go ahead. Unless it’s difficult, in which case I’m just going to run away from you.’
Tom grins. ‘If someone deletes something from a hard drive, is it gone for ever?’ He scratches his nose. ‘My dad accidentally deleted something.’
Coates considers Tom for a second. ‘No,’ he says. ‘There are recovery programs. If those don’t work, the right tech expert could probably get it back. So no, not totally gone.’
‘OK. Thanks,’ says Tom, but he looks far from pleased with the answer.
Back in his room, he spends five minutes trawling through the recycle bin of his laptop, shaking his head at the screen and occasionally looking over his shoulder. The noise of the dishwasher can provide cover for a creeping parent. Eventually he slams the lid closed and slides the computer into his camouflage backpack, although he doesn’t bother to pack the lead or the mouse.
This time he lets Joe know that he’s going out. ‘Jayden’s going to the arcade,’ he says. ‘He’s waiting at the top of the alley.’
It’s the first time Tom’s been anywhere on his own since Danny went missing. ‘Tell you what, me and Fred’ll walk you to the alley,’ frowns Joe. Overprotectiveness is the default setting of all the parents in Broadchurch now, even the ones who used to pride themselves on giving their children old-fashioned freedom.
While Joe is getting his coat, Tom quickly and deliberately upends Fred’s orange juice all over him, hair, clothes, the lot. Fred wails, more in bewilderment than discomfort. ‘I couldn’t stop him,’ says Tom, when Joe charges in. Fred needs a dunk in the bath and a complete change of clothes.
‘I can’t leave Jayden on his own,’ says Tom.
Joe looks from son to son. Fred screams louder. ‘OK, fine,’ he says, but he doesn’t look happy about it.
At the end of the field, Tom bears left, away from the direction of the amusement arcade and towards Harbour Cliff Beach. Occasionally he adjusts his backpack to test for the reassuring heft of the laptop inside it. Frequently he looks over his shoulder, but whenever he sees someone else – a dog walker, another boy on a bike, a couple out rambling – he puts his head down and walks on. It is clear that he wants to be alone.
He is on the other side of the caravan park, en route to Briar Cliff, by the time he finds seclusion in a grassy dune. He wriggles out of his rucksack and sets it down. He turns slowly in a circle to check he is definitely alone. Then, from his pocket, he retrieves a small claw hammer. He taps it gently on his palm and stoops to unzip his rucksack.
A loud panting noise shocks Tom into dropping the hammer; it misses his foot by an inch and is immediately half-buried in the sand. His fear turns to delight when a large brown dog bounds over the edge of the dune and licks his hand. Tom laughs out loud, and wraps his arm around the dog’s neck.
Susan Wright looms into view, a lead in her hand.
‘He likes you.’ Tom’s face is nine-tenths smile as he wraps his arms around Vince’s neck.
‘He’s so nice,’ says Tom. ‘I’m not allowed a dog. My little brother’s allergic.’
‘You wanna be careful,’ says Susan. ‘This is near where that boy died.’
Tom buries his face a little deeper into the dog’s fur. ‘He was my friend.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ says Susan Wright. She checks for onlookers. The coast is literally clear, the woman, the boy and the dog the only living things in sight. She appears to weigh up a decision. ‘Wanna come and feed Vince with me?’ She nods to the third caravan back from the beach. ‘He’ll love you for ever.’ Tom hesitates, looking Susan up and down, but is persuaded by Vince, who nuzzles his cheek and paws at his clothes. Tom nods. He appears to have forgotten the hammer sticking out of the sand, and if Susan notices it she does nothing about it. The smile she gives Tom does not reach her eyes.
The cliffs loom high above them, clouds scudding fast behind, giving the impression that the rock face is constantly falling forward but never hitting the ground. When they arrive at the caravan, they find an envelope taped to the glass front door. Susan tears it off, and open, in one movement, reading its contents in seconds. She turns up her nose but otherwise her expression does not change.
She beckons Tom through the door and checks behind her one more time before closing it. No one sees him go in. The curtains are drawn. Inside, there are tatty pine cupboards, messy worktops and no photographs anywhere. It does not look like Susan and Vince have many visitors: she has to clear a space on the cluttered banquette for Tom to sit down. She shows Tom where the dog’s food is kept, in a big plastic box underneath the fire extinguisher. When Vince has finished eating, he engages Tom in a game of tug-of-war with an old rope. She watches them in silence before setting down a plate of biscuits.
‘You can take him out for a walk any time you like, now you know where we are.’ She pushes the biscuits towards Tom and leaves her fingers on the edge of the plate until he takes one. ‘Did you really know that boy that died?’ she says. ‘It can’t have been nice for you.’
Tom nods through a mouthful of custard cream. ‘My mum’s in the police. She’s a detective on the case.’
‘Is she now?’ Susan stands up. She seems to fill the tiny space; she stands before the window and everything darkens a shade. ‘Come over here, Tom. I want to show you something. Come on, don’t be shy.’
Reluctantly Tom ends his game with the dog and lets Susan put her hand on his shoulder and steer him towards a slim cupboard by the front door that is fastened with a shiny new padlock. She rattles the key in the lock and pulls the door. There, slanted against the wall, is a skateboard whose yellow underside is painted with a distinctive geometric blue pattern.
‘It’s Danny’s,’ says Tom. He is bewildered rather than afraid.
‘That’s right,’ Susan is close behind him. ‘I’ve been looking after it. But if you were his friend, I think it’s only right that you should have it. Don’t you think?’
‘Right, I’m not having this,’ says Mark. ‘We’re going out.’
Beth and Chloe look up from the daytime TV show they’ve been watching for two hours, although Beth couldn’t describe anything that’s happened in it.
‘Where are we going?’ says Chloe.
‘It’s a surprise,’ says Mark. There’s a spark in his eye that Beth hasn’t seen for a long time. He’s up to something, and in a good way. He keeps the mystery going as he marches them towards the seafront. A boy on a skateboard whizzes past on the opposite pavement.
Danny! Hope dances wildly in Beth’s chest. She whips around to catch him but it’s only Tom Miller – she recognises his camouflage backpack – winding his way along the pavement. The Danny reflex is still strong in her cruel subconscious. Tears prick. She barely looks at her surroundings after that, so it’s with horrified surprise that she learns where Mark is taking them.
‘Here we are,’ he says with a flourish outside the amusement arcade.
‘Are you serious?’ asks Chloe.
‘Trust me.’ Mark is well prepared, taking pound coins from a little bag in his pocket. ‘Fiver each. Don’t spend it all at once. You’ll get most value out of the 2p machines.’ Beth opens her mouth to protest. ‘Trust me,’ he repeats.
She wants to, but she can’t trust her own judgement these days, let alone anyone else’s. Is this appropriate? Or is it deeply fucked-up? What will people think? But Mark and Chloe are already inside and she would rather be with them than out here on her own, tortured by the sight of a little boy with a mop of dark brown hair begging his mum for another go on the dolphin ride. She forces herself in.
Like the rest of the tourist spots this summer, the arcade is half-empty and Beth’s grateful for that. There are only a handful of people and nobody they know. She starts off humouring Chloe who is in turn humouring Mark. She is going through the motions: feeding coppers into the cascade machines and watching them fall. But as Chloe and Mark stalk the various piles, taking bets on which one will fall first, a little miracle happens. Chloe starts to have fun and it’s infectious. She spends her last pound on an Air Hockey tournament. Beth takes a moment to notice what fun she’s having and that’s when Chloe slams the puck into the goal. She holds her fingers to her forehead in an L for Loser, laughing. Beth had forgotten how pretty Chloe is when she laughs. She catches Mark’s eye and beams over a silent thank you. It’s still too soon for a happy room at home, but he’s done his best to create that space for her somewhere new.
He draws them both into a bear hug and utters the immortal word, ‘Chips.’ A few minutes later the three of them sit side by side on the sea wall, lunch on their laps.
‘Was that good, or was that good?’ asks Mark.
‘It was good,’ Chloe admits.
‘We used to do this all the time, when you were little,’ says Mark. ‘When it was pissing down with rain. All four of us.’ He uses the old number without thinking and it’s as if the wind has died down. They sit in silence for a few minutes.
‘Danny would’ve spent it all on the grabbers,’ says Chloe.
‘And lost,’ says Mark.
Beth arrives at her decision suddenly and with such powerful certainty that she is astonished there was ever any room for doubt.
‘We’ll have to take the baby in, when it’s born,’ she says into her chips. ‘It’ll love all that noise and flashing lights.’
In her peripheral vision she can see the smile that passes between Chloe and Mark.
‘Yeah,’ says Mark. ‘We’ll have to do that.’