Over dinner, Dean keeps calling Beth Mrs Latimer, which makes her feel like Mark’s mum. Everything about the evening is weirdly formal: the candles in the middle of the dining table; that they are at the dining table at all. Beth seems as keen to impress Dean as he is to impress her and she doesn’t know why they’re all trying so hard, because he’s just a normal boy. Not posh, not rough. Just normal. Like them. She knows that the effort he’s making is for Chloe and she appreciates it. He’s lovely looking, too, and then there’s the motorbike. She’d probably have been after him herself at Chloe’s age.
After the meal’s over, Dean shyly gives Beth a present. ‘It’s for all of you. For letting me in, and for the future,’ he says. She peels the wrapping paper to reveal a cuddly rabbit. ‘It’s for the new baby.’ She can’t help it; tears overwhelm her. Dean is mortified.
‘I’m sorry,’ he stumbles over his apology. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Mark speaks for all of them. ‘It’s all right, mate. It’s all a bit muddled in together.’
‘Yeah,’ says Dean. He drags his fork across a plate he’s already cleaned. ‘He was a good lad, Dan.’ Beth smiles. Sometimes, it’s as simple as that, someone who knew Danny remembering him the right way. It means more than all the clumsy condolences, the I’m-sorry-for-your-losses.
‘Have you heard any more about Nige?’ Beth asks Mark.
‘I asked Pete, but he said there was no news.’
‘It’s not Nige, Dad,’ says Chloe. ‘Don’t go thinking that. It won’t be.’
‘This is what happens,’ says Mark miserably. ‘Not just Danny, but the way it’s making us look at each other, not trusting anyone. I dunno how we come back from that, even when it’s all done.’
When it’s all done, thinks Beth. It doesn’t feel like they’re making any progress at all; in fact, it feels like they’re going backwards. How long until they start thinking in terms of if?
‘Chloe’s right,’ says Dean. ‘It can’t be Nige. Him and Dan got on really well. I saw it every time we went out catching animals.’ One glance at Mark tells Beth that this is news to him, too. Dean picks up on their shock. ‘They’d come up to the farm and we’d go out from there, late evening? Danny said it was OK. Nige said you knew? They both said you knew.’
Mark’s face is cold. ‘No,’ he says. ‘We didn’t know.’
Nige Carter saunters down Broadchurch High Street with the unhurried pace of an innocent man. Or maybe it’s the slow, deliberate gait of someone who knows he’s being followed, because without warning, he darts into a half-hidden alleyway and sprints. He zigzags at speed through the network of footpaths that lace the town together, finally emerging near the caravan park. Hood up, he creeps along the back of the trailers, past the burbling tellies and the boiling pans.
When Susan Wright comes home, a pint of milk dangling from her right forefinger, she finds Nige sitting on her sofa, his arm around Vince’s neck.
‘I’ve got a life here,’ he snarls at her. ‘I’ve got a family.’
‘Keep going, boy. Get it all out. God you’re the spit of your father.’
‘I don’t want to hear anything about him.’ The words hiss through Nige’s clenched teeth.
‘He got things wrong,’ Susan attempts to soothe him. ‘He got confused. But deep down he was a good man. Like you’re a good boy. Nigel, you’re in trouble, and I understand.’
‘You don’t understand anything. How could you tell them it was me?’
‘Because it was.’
Nige draws a knife. ‘If you don’t go, within the hour, I will gut this dog while you sleep.’ He grins manically through his tears.
Susan studies him. ‘If I go, I won’t come back. We’ll never see each other again. I can do that. I’ve done it plenty of times.’
Nige stands. ‘You contact the police and say you made a mistake. It wasn’t me you saw. And then you go.’
They are in deadlock.
‘You’re the spit of him, Nigel,’ says Susan sadly. ‘You’ve got him in you. And it was you I saw.’
After Nige has thrown down his knife and gone, Susan sits for a while in the empty caravan before getting to her feet. With a practised hand she removes the clothes from the hangers and the shoes from the cupboard. She picks up all she needs: bag, shoes, dog food. She moves swiftly and mechanically, pausing only for a second over a battered leather photograph album, which she throws into the suitcase without opening. She has packed so little that there is still room to spare when she zips it up. Vince looks up at her. We’re on the move again then, his face seems to say.
‘Come on,’ she says, attaching the dog’s lead to his collar. They are up on the cliff pathway before anyone sees them go.
Two minutes later, the uniformed officer whose job it was to keep track of her pulls up outside caravan number 3 to find the cupboards swept bare and the frosted-glass door swinging open.
By this time, Nige Carter is almost home. He keeps to the alleyways and, rather than be seen in the cul-de-sac, he vaults the fence into his back garden. Faye has dozed off on the sofa in front of Emmerdale. With great tenderness, Nige takes the blanket from the back of the sofa and tucks his mother in. He lifts the corner of the net curtain and sweeps the street for police. Seeing nothing, he closes the front door gently behind him. No one stops him as he climbs into the cab of Mark Latimer’s van and takes the long straight road out of Broadchurch.