Beth and Mark drive to the hospital in near silence, exchanging half-hearted reassurances that this thing with Nige is a mistake, yet another example of police ineptitude, another black mark against DI Hardy’s name. They tell each other that Nige will be out again by the time they get back to Broadchurch. But they aren’t convincing each other. How can they, when they can’t convince themselves? Suspicion is the first resort for both of them now.
When the hospital comes into view, Beth is thrust into the moment she’s been dreading. They haven’t been here since Danny was born. She is paralysed.
‘I feel disloyal,’ she says, hand on the buckle of her seat belt. ‘And I don’t know if I want to see it. I want to want it, but I don’t. My heart’s still full of Danny. There’s no room for another baby.’
‘There will be —’ begins Mark.
‘Mark, stop telling me how I’m going to feel,’ she says. ‘’Cause you have no idea, and no ability to understand. Shutting this out is not an option for me. I can’t do that boxing things off like you do. I have to carry a life in me. For another six months. Feeding off me, breathing from me, sharing my blood. I can’t let Danny go.’
Mark thumbs the line of her cheekbone. ‘Don’t load it with everything. Just let it be what it is.’
She nods for his benefit. She knows that he’s right, but her heart hasn’t caught up with her head yet. The longer this goes on, the more she fears that it never will.
White light pulses in the dark room; the monitor hums. The sonographer is brisk as she administers the cold slick of gel on Beth’s belly. She prods and probes for what seems like a suspiciously long time. Beth is unexpectedly gripped by the conviction that something is wrong and the equally sudden and certain knowledge that she cannot survive the loss of this baby.
‘All’s well,’ says the sonographer. ‘Everything’s where it should be. Do you want to look at the screen?’
Beth’s instinct is to say no, but Mark says yes for both of them and slowly the monitor is turned their way. She is almost afraid to look at the screen but Mark holds her hand and together they watch in wonder as the monochrome swirl of pixels coalesce into the first picture of their unborn child. The rest of the world – all the shit, all the grief, the relentless distrust – melts away. Beth laughs with delight to see the thin crescent moon of the skull, the zip of the spine. The baby’s heart is a cursor, blinking fast and strong.
‘It’s a fighter, this one,’ says the sonographer.
Something swells from nowhere inside Beth, warming her through from her core. Not happiness: it’s too complicated and too soon for that. But the familiar and strange ache of love is unmistakable.
Ellie jumps as the rat-a-tat-tat on the door breaks the tension in the interview room. Hardy beckons her into the corridor.
‘Susan Wright says Nigel Carter is her son?’ she echoes. ‘And she’s accusing him of murder? What the hell is going on between them?’ But there’s a connection now, two incompatible jigsaw pieces turning out to be a perfect fit when turned upside down.
They go back to their respective interviewees.
When Susan learns that Nigel has blown their secret, Ellie observes something that could almost be happiness.
‘That’s the first time he’s even acknowledged it.’ Finally, Susan’s face softens and her shoulders drop. ‘They took him away from me, when everything happened. Twenty-five years. Then the law changed. You could request contact. It took me eighteen months to find him. The woman who adopted him, she never told him. She hid the contact request letters from him. So I tried tracking him down in other ways. He didn’t know anything about being adopted till I told him. That’s not right. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have done it like that. He reacted badly. He didn’t want anything to do with me. He pushed me away, avoided me. Tried to pay me off. When that didn’t work, he threatened me with that crossbow.’ Ellie used to interpret Susan’s monotone as detachment: now she hears the limitless patience of a mother. ‘He’ll come round. I can wait. Whatever it takes. He’s my boy.’
‘Does he know about your family?’ asks Ellie.
Susan narrows her eyes. ‘You don’t tell him.’ Her voice is low and scraping: it is like a knife to Ellie’s throat: if they were alone, Ellie would be terrified. She understands now why Maggie took Susan’s threat to heart.
She rubs her eyes. She’s so close now to understanding Susan’s actions, but one wrong word and she’ll clam up again. ‘Susan, here’s what I’m having trouble with: if you’re his mum and you want to be reconciled with him, why tell us you saw him on the beach that night? Because I’m a mum, and whatever my child had done, I’d want to protect him.’
‘I am protecting him. I told you because… I’m scared. For him. Because it’s not his fault.’ Susan’s whole face begins to tremble. ‘If he’s his father’s son, what is he capable of? What might he have done? I can’t just let it happen. Not again.’