Ellie and Beth stand with their backs to the cliffs, looking to the water. A pink sun hangs low in a golden sky. The place is almost deserted, out of fear or respect. Even the sea is discreet, the tide on the turn. Ellie, terrified of saying the wrong thing, is relieved when Beth speaks first.
‘I used to bring him down here when he was a baby,’ she says. ‘Middle of the day, just me and him. I’d pick him up and dip him in the waves, then whoosh him up, his little fat legs all wet. God he loved it, he used to laugh like mad.’ She smiles, and it’s the saddest thing Ellie’s ever seen. Without warning, Beth punches herself hard in the chest. ‘There’s nothing there, Ell. Like, I know it’s happened, but I can’t feel anything.’
‘I think it’s shock.’
‘Promise me, Ellie, ’cause I don’t know your boss from Adam…’ Ellie’s stomach flips as she realises that Beth still hasn’t made the connection between Hardy and Sandbrook. ‘But you and me go back. The boys go back. I’m counting on you to get them caught.’
‘I swear,’ says Ellie. Should she tell Beth now? Better she finds out from Ellie, from a friend, than she makes the connection on her own or she finds out from the press. Ellie draws a deep breath, but Beth’s eyes are on her, pleading.
‘He did know, didn’t he? That I love him.’
The moment is gone. How can Ellie answer a question like that with the truth about Sandbrook? She can’t kick her friend while she’s this far down. She’ll give Beth another day for things to sink in. Nothing will come out between now and the media briefing. ‘Of course he did,’ she tells Beth. ‘He was a beautiful boy. You don’t deserve this.’
Beth turns her head away. ‘I just feel like I’m very far away from myself.’
The sun hits the horizon and seems to linger there for ever.
Ellie parks outside her house in Lime Avenue. Instead of getting out of the car, she stares through the windscreen at her home. Taking five minutes here usually helps her to make the gear shift between work and home, but today those boundaries were broken and she can’t switch off. The light in Tom’s bedroom is on: Fred’s curtains are closed, meaning he’s asleep already. Gratitude that her two children are still here gives way to a sickening guilt. Ellie has survivor’s guilt by proxy: she wonders if Tom feels the real thing.
Joe must have heard Ellie’s key in the door because he’s waiting in the hall to hold her. He looks hollowed out. Ellie wraps herself in him: he smells of yoghurt and baby wipes and the familiar solid shape of him is exactly what she needs.
‘Are you all right?’ he whispers into her hair. She nods a lie into his shoulder.
‘I’m just here for a shower, then I have to get back. Does Tom know?’
Joe breaks off the hug and shakes his head. ‘He’s upstairs. I kept him away from it all.’ He covers his mouth with his hand, afraid to ask the next question. ‘Should we be worried? For other kids?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says honestly. ‘I mean, we’ll watch Tom like a hawk, but whether it’s a one-off or…’ She can’t finish her sentence: that there might be more is too horrific to contemplate.
Joe strokes her cheek. ‘I’m sorry about the job,’ he says. The contrast between the morning’s happiness and this evening’s despair is the trigger Ellie needs to break down and cry.
‘I saw him lying there,’ she says. ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’
Joe murmurs reassurances and rocks her gently.
‘Hey,’ he says, after a while. ‘Actually, no, it doesn’t matter.’
‘What?’
Joe shakes his head. ‘It can wait. You need to get on with your job.’ He’s always done this: he knows how much it infuriates her.
‘I won’t be able to concentrate on the job if I’m wondering what you’re not telling me.’
‘Lucy was round earlier.’ Joe cowers in a pantomime of fear that is only partly feigned. He’s always been slightly afraid of Lucy and that situation wasn’t helped by the last time he saw her, the two sisters in a stand-up, screaming row over the missing cash. Mind you, he was probably quite scared of Ellie as well after that. She can’t remember the last time she was so angry. ‘She banged on the door really loudly,’ says Joe. ‘Woke Fred up from his nap.’
That doesn’t sound like someone come to offer an apology, which is the only thing Ellie wants from Lucy now. ‘That’s all I fucking need. Did you tell her?’
‘I couldn’t find the words.’
She takes the stairs slowly, nursing a cowardly hope that Tom’s already asleep and that she can put this off until the morning. But he’s up, playing a game on his phone, tongue lolling in concentration. She seizes a moment to watch this version of her son, to savour the last few seconds of his childhood. Softly she creeps in and sits on the edge of his bed.
‘You know Danny wasn’t at school today?’ she says.
Instantly he picks up on her mood. Fear leaks into his voice. ‘Yeah?’
Ellie puts her son’s little hand in hers. ‘Tom, sweetheart. Danny died.’ He doesn’t react. ‘I’m sorry.’
He blinks. Ellie knows that tears are on their way and sees the effort it takes him to hold them back. ‘How?’ he eventually manages.
‘We’re not sure yet. He was found on the beach, early this morning.’
‘Do his mum and dad know?’ The solipsistic innocence of the question, the idea that she would, or could, tell Tom before Mark and Beth, breaks Ellie’s heart.
‘Yes. So… look… When someone dies unexpectedly, it leaves a big hole. It’s all right to feel sad or have a cry.’ She sounds even to herself like a pamphlet on bereavement.
‘OK. Will you… I mean, will the police want to ask me questions?’
‘Yes. Is there anything you want to tell me now?’ She walks the fine tightrope between gentle and vague. ‘Was Danny all right?’
‘Yeah. ’Course.’ He picks at the duvet. ‘Can I have a bit of time on my own now?’ he asks.
Ellie wonders when he became ashamed to cry in front of her.
‘Of course.’
By the time she’s showered and changed, Tom’s asleep. It’s dark outside. So much for making an arrest by nightfall.
Joe presses a sandwich into her hand on her way out of the door. She eats it one-handed on the drive to the station, chases it with a cup of weak tea back at her desk and goes through the list that one of the DCs has left for her of belongings recovered from Danny’s body and bedroom. Something – the lack of something – jumps out at her, making her heartbeat spike. She reads it again. No mobile phone. He definitely had one. It was the same model as Tom’s. She looks for someone to tell, but she’s alone in the office.
She sets that to one side, then starts to go through the previous night’s CCTV footage from the town centre. She makes screen grabs of the few figures who appear. Then, at 10.47, she sees an image that steals her breath. The picture is grainy but there’s no doubt that the boy whizzing down Broadchurch High Street on his skateboard is Danny Latimer. What the hell is he doing out on his own? She replays it twice.
‘Have a look at this!’ she calls. This time Hardy materialises at her shoulder, new suit on. Ellie can feel a list coming on.
‘He wasn’t abducted. He snuck out. Why? Where was he going? Who was he meeting?’
He pauses to knot his tie. Ellie beats him to the next point.
‘And where’s the skateboard?’