Archive of Our Own ^beta

The whole thing starts about two months after the Winterman case wraps up.

Well, no. If she's honest (and Ellie tries to be, scrapes herself raw with her own honesty these days) it started a long time before that. But it starts in a way she's got to face up to when Hardy arrives at an early-morning shout looking… off.

Not that she's particularly bright-eyed herself; she got the call at dawn to come up to Bastard Turner's farm — something about grand larceny — and she's already had half her coffee and not feeling the effects one bit. But Hardy's looking off in a way that doesn't make her want to take his pulse, which is unusual in and of itself.

"You all right?" she asks, not really listening to whatever grunt he makes in acknowledgement. His stubble has got tidied up, his neck shaved so that it all looks like a halfway respectable beard. He's wearing a grey suit with a darker grey button-up she's never seen before, but it doesn't look fresh, exactly. It almost seems like—

"No," she says, suspicion growing along with her grin as she watches him blush. It's a comprehensive one: starts at his neck — more visible now — and goes clear up to his hairline. His very messy hairline, even messier than usual. "Really?"

"What are you talking about?" he demands, running the words together the way he does when he's guilty of something.

"Oh, nothing," she says, grabbing their drinks off the window sill where she stashed them. "Just thinking how you're awfully poshed up for seven in the morning."

"Had a photoshoot for Vogue," he snaps. "Which one's mine?"

She keeps tight hold of both cups. "What's her name?"

"I don't name my cups of tea." But he crumples like a wet paper bag as she continues to stare at him. "Zoe Taylor. Teaches maths at St. Antony's Academy, lives at 153 Burnet Court, she's got a 2015 Honda City and two cats, no criminal record."

"Names of cats?" she says, not budging.

"I wasn't shagging the cats, Miller," he says, and takes her cup. She lets him, and gets her vengeance when he makes a gagging noise at the first sip. "Fucking coffee, Christ alive."

It's not as though she isn't aware. Other people have been making her aware ever since he got back.

There was that druid, for instance, a few months ago. Someone was graffiti-ing dicks along the breaker wall. Not even very good dicks — a few lines and semicircles — but it had started getting a bit much for everyone so Hardy arranged a nice little stakeout one Thursday night to see if they could catch the bugger in the act.

"Best of luck," Ellie told him, grabbing her coat and purse. "I'm off home."

He pouted at her. It looked a lot like his default scowl, but their nine months spent together had birthed some sort of monstrous connection, and the intervening two years hadn't severed it no matter how much he tried to pretend it had. She knew an Alec Hardy Pout when she was presented with one. "Are you not coming with?"

"Unlike you, I have a five-year-old who, strangely, does expect his mum to spend time with him at some point during the day, if only to tuck him in. Have a great time. Take Harford!" She made a game-show gesture to Katie, sat at her desk across from her with a wide-eyed look on her face. DC Katie Harford was so new she squeaked, one of those fast-tracked children that made Ellie grit her teeth and remind herself that it was a good thing that women were able to get all these wonderful opportunities now.

"Erm, I didn't — yep, that sounds great," Katie said, as Hardy swung around to squint at her.

"Fine, get your coat." Hardy stalked off toward the lift, and that was the last Ellie saw or heard from them until the next morning, when they came in with a cheerful and exceptionally stoned young white woman with dreadlocks and a nose ring.

"'S'actually a septum piercing, is the techno…logical term," she hiccuped, leaning on the interview table and smiling blearily at Hardy. "I've got a lot of piercings, actually. Would you like to see?"

"No," said Hardy. He'd refused to go get some sleep and leave the interview to Ellie, though he had shown enough human feeling to let Katie (who'd actually made the collar and got a black eye from the elbow of one Miss Artemis Guinevere, née Ingrid Jones, for her trouble) go home for the day.

"Are you sure?" Miss Jones asked, batting her eyes. "You look so beautiful in the early morning light, you know. Like Lleu Llaw Gyffes." Miller bit her lip as Hardy blinked for a few seconds, clearly trying to slot himself back into a world which now contained a description of himself as a beautiful Welsh god. "Have you ever had your palm read?"

The interview got suspended when the tox report they'd done on Miss Jones at the scene indicated she was several times the legal limit. So even though she was more than willing to continue sexually harassing Hardy, they had to wait for her to sleep it off.

"You need to sleep it off, too," Ellie said, bullying Hardy into his coat and down toward the front entrance. "Get some sleep and a shower and — oh look, here's your ride!"

Hardy looked to where she was pointing and balked. "She's not got a driver's permit. Or a car."

Sure enough, Daisy was waiting patiently on the front steps, right where Ellie'd asked her to be. They'd only met a handful of times since that first time on the pier, but they were already firm friends (or as her father put it, "in cahoots"). "Is this what it's like when you have to bail people out?" Daisy asks, taking Hardy by the arm. He accepted the handoff peaceably enough, which was a sure sign of exhaustion; he was swaying like a mast with its topgallant sail still unfurled, about to tip the whole ship over.

"Bailing someone out is less humiliating, probably, since your dad was in there voluntarily," she told her, then leaned to her left until she was able to catch Hardy's gaze again. "As for you, sir, get some rest and don't worry about your new girlfriend until after you've had at least eight hours' sleep."

"New girlfriend?" Daisy asked, more or less holding Hardy up while he made protesting noises that weren't quite words anymore.

"One of our suspects has taken a shine to your dad," Ellie explained. "Though it may be the drugs talking."

Daisy made a face uncannily like her father's. "Definitely the drugs talking," she said. "Although I keep telling him he should start dating, and he said he might try it. Maybe if I set up a Tinder profile or—"

"Right, we're away," Hardy announced, and Daisy laughed at him and lead him down the steps, still teasing him about how if the prospects here were that bad, maybe he should ask out this suspect of his, unless she was a murderer or something. Ellie watched them go and thought about how happy she was for Hardy, how good it was that he might want to put himself out there again.

She thought about it all day, in fact.

They wrap at the crime scene about an hour later and head toward Portsmouth; they've got a meeting with CP Abdullahi in the RASSO Unit of the CPS, who's taken on the Winterman case, and they're already running behind.

It's not exactly a high-profile crime anyhow — a single bale of wool out of the farm's shearing — but Bastard Turner's in a strop and Ellie spends a good twenty minutes before they leave talking him out of doing his own investigation, with his shotgun and his quad bike.

"You just find out what's happened to it, that's what you ought to be doing, young Ellie," he scolds her, even while his wife and son are trying to drag him back into the house. "That's two thousand pounds I'm missing! Someone ought to be locked up for this!"

Hardy waits, aggressively useless, by the car. "Bales of wool," he says as they get in. "Next we'll be sent out to investigate the theft of some haystacks."

"Oh, that's happened," she assures him, leaning over to open her glove compartment. He makes a tutting noise but moves his stork legs out of the way, and she retrieves her only slightly squashed scone from the coffee shop. "Turned out it was just the neighbor's cattle, sneaking into the paddock for a cheeky snack."

"Hmm," Hardy says, donning his glasses so he can look over his notes; she's vaguely surprised he took any. "I don't suppose there's any likely suspects? Turner doesn't seem the most popular; half the county's got a motive, according to him."

Despite the accent and the general… himness, sometimes Ellie forgets Hardy's only been here a short while, hasn't absorbed the history of this place like so much rainwater into the soil. "There's Hodgson, though that's sort of a long story," she warns.

Hardy tilts an eyebrow for her to get on with it, then.

"The story I heard," she says as she takes a bite of her scone, "Turner's dad married Hodgson's dad's sweetheart, back while Old Hodgson was serving during the war. So when he got back, Old Hodgson burned Old Turner's barn down. It's been going on back and forth ever since — the sons inherited the feud."

"Just the sons?"

"Ah, well," Ellie says, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. "This part's a bit — I dunno. Old Turner had one kid—"

"The eponymous Bastard Turner, I take it."

"Right, and Old Hodgson eventually got married himself, had a boy and a girl. The girl's not local anymore, but the sons stayed on. Bastard Turner's got three kids himself and Hodgson's got two, in their twenties or thirties. All of that lot went to school together, so—"

"Let me guess, one of Turner's and one of Hodgson's started dating." He's leaned back in his seat, head turned toward her. "And that didn't end the feud?"

"Well, it might have done," she says, wincing a bit. "Only Old Mrs. Turner — the one who was supposed to marry Old Hodgson, you know? She finds out and tells them they can't."

She sneaks a glance at him; it's fun to watch that brain of his collate everything and arrive at the answer. "Bastard Turner," he breathes, eyes wide. "You're saying Turner's actually a Hodgson?"

"Yeah, they're half-brothers. It was the biggest scandal in Broadchurch until — well."

He takes that in. "And that didn't end it? Them finding out they were related?"

"Well, it might have done," she says again, and he groans theatrically. "I think the Hodgson sister managed to build a few bridges with Turner — probably helped that she'd left town, she didn't have to deal with him every day. But the problem was—"

Hardy groans, an appreciative audience. "Tell me those stupid kids didn't get married anyway."

"It's legal!" Which isn't a brilliant defence, but Danielle and Irving were perfectly lovely, if a bit dim, and Ellie's never really seen the harm. "I think they're in Yorkshire somewhere now; they didn't stay local, either."

"Can't imagine why not," Hardy mutters.

"But," Ellie presses on as she pulls into the carpark, "That did end the feud, sort of; there haven't been any major incidents since, at least. Mostly the two men just give each other a wide berth. So it's possible someone else did this — Bastard Turner's well-named, he's got plenty of folks round here who'd pull this sort of prank."

Hardy's expression is a picture, his features all screwed up together like a prune. "You people and your incestuous sheep-farmers," he complains.

Come to think of it, there'd been another time, more recent. Just after they'd made their arrests on the Winterman case, Beth had invited both Ellie and Hardy round for dinner — not so much a celebration as a commiseration, and a chance for all of them to get free of the kids for a bit. Which was likely the only way Ellie could've convinced Hardy to come, but she'd take what she could get.

"They'll be at that thing for ages," Beth said, shutting the door between the dining room and the living room, where their five children had all decamped to scream at each other playing some video game. (Neither Fred nor Lizzie were quite at the age where they could actually manage the controls, but they were great ones for jumping about and shouting.) "I swear, I don't understand any of those games Chlo plays, but she's already haranguing me about letting her take the Xbox with her to university."

"Yes, those young people with their video games and their instagrams an' all," Ellie teased her. "From your advanced age of thirty-three."

"Almost thirty-four, thanks."

"Has Chloe decided on where she'd like to go, then?" Hardy asked, gathering dishes from the children's places at the table. Beth made distressed noises about letting a guest clear the table for all of five seconds before giving up; Ellie, for her part, just piled her silverware on her plate and handed it over.

"A few places, none of them near enough for my liking." Beth poured out the last of the merlot equitably between the three glasses. "What about Daisy?"

Hardy, finished with his collecting for the moment, leaned back in his chair and took hold of his wineglass. He wasn't relaxed, exactly; Ellie had a suspicion that any purely social event was always going to put him on edge. But closing the Winterman case had loosened something in him, it seemed like; or maybe it was just Ellie herself, the relief at knowing they were still good at this, together. "She's been talking about schools in America, of all places. I've told her it's not like the telly makes it out, but she won't listen."

"Well, I dunno," said Beth, standing to take the decimated bowls of potatoes and jugged steak to the kitchen. Hardy followed with his tower of flatware and Ellie took charge of their wine glasses. "Mark's favourite show is the Simpsons, and I've always assumed that was a documentary."

"I've been to Florida," Ellie said, putting Beth's glass on the counter next to her and handing Hardy's back to him once he set his load down. "It's absolutely a documentary. If anything, the Simpsons undersells how mad they all are."

"I could loan you Mark's DVDs, if you'd like," Beth offered, grinning.

Hardy harrumphed and probably would've made some cutting remark, but just then his mobile went. He peered at it, made a truly hilarious face, and strode out to the front hallway like his arse was on fire. Ellie and Beth stared after him as he answered with a "Hello?" in a far more polite tone than he'd ever uttered in her presence just before the door opened and then, definitively, shut.

"What was that?" Beth hissed, gesturing for Ellie to bring over the rest of the detritus from the table. "Has he got a girlfriend?"

"He might do. Daisy mentioned something about trying him out on Tinder or something, and last week—"

"Tinder, Jesus Christ," Beth groaned. "Chloe's going to be making a profile for me if I'm not careful."

"It's sweet, sort of," Ellie said, bringing over the last of the bowls and leaning against the counter while Beth fussed with her Tupperware, putting in the leftovers. "I think our kids worry about us."

"That's the consequence, isn't it," said Beth, though there wasn't any rancour in it — not anymore. Ellie reached out and squeezed her hand; Beth squeezed back before letting go and thrusting a container of jugged steak at her. "They're going to worry about us and we're going to worry about them and we're all going to have ulcers in the next five years."

"Probably," Ellie agreed. "Though I don't know as Tom worries all that much. I don't think he'd ever try—"

"Try what?" said Hardy from directly behind her, making her jump.

"Need to put a bell on you," she muttered. Hardy gave her a flat look.

"Who was on the phone?" Beth asked, handing off another Tupperware to him.

Hardy stared down at the container for a beat longer than he ought. "No one," he lied.

"Liar," Ellie observed.

Hardy glowered. "I'm trying to remember why I thought it was a good idea to come here tonight."

"Because as much as you'd like to pretend you're a robot, you actually like people," Ellie informed him.

"Some people," he corrected.

"Well, regardless, a sizeable percentage of those people are in this house. Find out if the kids want ice cream."

Grumbling, he complied, and Beth laughed. "Alec Hardy, scourge of the online dating scene. Mind you, I can see the appeal. Sort of."

"Bollocks, can you," Ellie scoffed. "He's a walking, Scottish migraine!"

"Yeah, but he's not bad-looking. And DIs make good money, as I've heard you complain often enough," Beth pointed out. "Plus, he's… different, now, then he was. Not so wound up his own arsehole."

Ellie snorted. "You don't work with him."

"I'm just saying, I'm not entirely sorry for whatever poor woman he's got on the line. Though," and Beth pauses, listening to the distant sounds of Hardy wrangling five ice cream orders and giving colour commentary on all of them, "You've got him that wrapped round your finger, any Tinder woman's going to have her work cut out for her."

Michael Lucas has already pleaded out in the Winterman case, thank God; given his age and Leo Humphries's obvious hold over him, he won't serve more than five years. She ought to want him to serve more, probably, given what he did to Trish — but listening to him recount that night, listening to Humphries recount it, it's hard not to think there were two victims, not two assailants.

"It's all just so… messy," she sighs, as Hardy examines the display in the lobby.

"Seventh floor," he announces, and reaches his hand out to hover at her elbow the way he does sometimes when he thinks she's hanging about but understands that he can't just physically drag her from place to place. "You've still got crumbs on your face," he adds as they get in the lift.

"And you've got coffee on your jacket," she retorts as she brushes at her mouth.

"Oh, for — I'm banning food and drink at crime scenes from now on, this is ridiculous," he mutters, patting his pockets as though he's got some magic device that will remove the stain. 

Ellie digs through her handbag. "Here, hold this. And this," she says, excavating until she finds what she's looking for. "A-hah." She pulls out her prize and waves it at him.

"Why d'you have a cricket ball and a jar of olives in your bag?" he demands. "And a wee flag with a — what is that?"

She folds up the little bit of cloth. "It's the Wessex dragon. They were handing them out at the livestock festival last week; Fred cried when I went to throw it away while we were leaving so I stuffed it in here and now it's going to be your handkerchief for the purposes of this meeting."

Hardy squints at her. "That's never a dragon."

"Hold still." She stuffs the flag into his breast pocket so that only the red is showing, peeking far enough over the lip so it hides the stain. It doesn't look half-bad, actually, and she admires her handiwork for all of two seconds before he shoves her possessions back into her arms.

"Looks ridiculous," says Hardy, scowling down at his pocket but not immediately yanking the flag out, at least.

"Not my fault Anna Wintour didn't give you a pocket square for your photoshoot," Ellie says as the lift doors open with a resentful ding.

"Who?"

CP Abdullahi is young — almost shockingly so, with a bright smile and a cramped office. "Please, call me Charles," he says, gesturing to the seats across from his desk. "My apologies for the close quarters. Believe it or not, this is an improvement from my last office — I shared a space about half this size with two other barristers." He's got an Oxbridge accent that somehow doesn't annoy her; maybe it's the way he sits down and opens the file with an air of deep familiarity. "Thank you both for coming; I wanted to make sure we had everything in order for Leo Humphries's plea and case management hearing next week. It might be a bit of a zoo."

"Why?" Hardy asks.

"Do you think Humphries will try to plead not guilty?" Ellie clarifies, nudging Hardy with her foot. She's only had him back a few months, but so far getting him to remember his manners is like teaching a dog not to piddle on the carpet.

Charles makes a prevaricating motion with his hand. "It's possible, even with the confession. And I hope you'll forgive me for saying, but that's largely because you two were the arresting officers. Michael Lucas was friends with your son Tom, and was known to be in the same social circle as your daughter Daisy."

"But Michael Lucas has already accepted a plea," Ellie protests.

"And I think that's what Leo Humphries will do as well, but I have to be careful. The Latimer case—" he breaks off as he sees their expressions, hands up and palms open. "Listen, I've read the transcripts. I truly can't understand what the judge was thinking, excluding that confession, and the prosecution made a number of truly egregious… anyway. I don't think that verdict reflects poorly on your abilities, either of you. Especially given your subsequent triumph, however unofficial, in closing the Sandbrook case. Particularly considering your difficulties at the time, Mr. Hardy," he adds, fatally.

"My what," Hardy says. Ellie nudges him with her foot again.

"The heart condition. I read an article about it from your town paper — the Echo, I believe? When I took on this case, of course I looked up any local reporting, since that sort of information can be invaluable."

"My nephew worked there," Ellie chimed in, partly in the interest of full disclosure and partly to make Hardy clench his jaw. "Olly Stevens, I think he wrote that article you're talking about. He did some brilliant reporting on the Latimer case." And some very stupid shagging, but that's not likely to help Charles at present.

"He did," says Hardy, with just enough inflection on that last word to make it almost a question. "Shame he's buggered off to London now, what a loss." She nudged him again.

"It is a loss, if you don't mind my saying; one of the central arguments the defence used in the Latimer case was accusing the two of you of having an affair during the investigation; but as the article points out, you were hardly in a condition at the time to carry on any sort of — well. My apologies for being so blunt."

Ellie leans forward before Hardy can say anything. "It's fine, but you don't think this case will be impacted by all that nonsense?"

"It oughtn't," Charles says, shrugging. "But if you continue working together, this will be at least a… consideration for every CPS who works with you. At least for a little while."

Hardy crosses his arms and says nothing, but Ellie can't leave it. "How long's 'a little while?' The Latimer case was two years ago."

"A while longer than that," Charles tells them, offering an apologetic smile.

She read that article, weeks after it had come out — well after the trial ended, after Hardy had buggered off home. Beth had made some offhand comment about it and she went digging through the Echo's archives until she found it: nice splashy header the way Maggie liked, alongside a picture of Hardy glaring at the camera. It was borderline snide, the way most of Olly's articles about Hardy were, but it mentioned the recent surgery and the previous stays in hospital, how he'd somehow managed to stay alive at least long enough to close Sandbrook, by some miracle.

There were no quotes from Hardy himself, but Ellie was suspicious.

He gave you this story, didn't he.
broadchurchecho.co.uk/1yb4erzvcfhz

hi auntie el

london is great how r u

Oliver Stevens, you are not so
old I can't wallop you.

he may have provided some details

but when I asked for a proper interview

he said fuck off

so I included that bit

about how a shag would've killed him

don't know if it helped any with the jury

or if they even saw it

but ¯\_( ツ )_/¯

So you think that it would have
"helped" the jury if they thought the
reason we weren't shagging is
because my vagina would have
killed him???

please don't say vagina to me ever again

and I dunno but he wanted that story
printed asap

he's a twat

but not as big a twat as I used to think

Ringing endorsement, that is.

from a hardbitten ace reporter like me?

too right it is

They go through the Winterman evidence piece by piece — Ellie remembers what Jocelyn said about the brick wall, and it seems like the one they've got here is pretty solid. Charles must think so too, because he spends quite a lot of time smiling at Hardy whenever he says something rude.

"Well, I think we'll do fine on the day. Again, I appreciate you taking the time." He stands up and extends his hand; Hardy takes it first, and Charles leans a bit over his desk. "It was a pleasure meeting you both; your reputations precede you."

Ellie winces at that, but Hardy just snorts. "Aye, like a bad smell, I'm sure."

Charles laughs. "Not at all, though I'll admit I was told you were a bit more… unkempt than you seem to be in person. I expected a bad suit and a kipper tie or something, but…" He gives Hardy a once-over that has absolutely sod all to do with his clothes. "Clearly you've been slandered. The suit — Deke and Skinner?"

"Erm, Suits Plus," Hardy says, frowning.

"Ah," Charles says, barely fazed. Ellie likes him enormously. "Well, you wear it well." He shakes her hand in turn.

"I got mine at Peacocks, in Bridport," she offers. "Two for one sale."

Hardy coughs; she can't look over at him right now, but she knows that if she did he'd be scowling to keep from smiling. "Good to know," says Charles brightly, and they make their exit.

"Did you see his shoes? What's he asking me about suits for?" Hardy demands as they get into the lift.

Ellie gapes at him. "Because he was flirting with you, you great big numpty," she says. "Did you… not notice, or something?"

"What? No he wasn't," Hardy scoffs, then seems to mull it over as they walk to the car. "Was he?"

Just then her phone rings; it's Bob down at the station. "We've just got a call that someone's trying to break into the Vicarage," he says. "I've sent Katie and little Alan, but they've not yet apprehended anyone in the act."

"And you want us to babysit your PCs, is that it?"

"Not babysit. More like, supervise. Lend them the benefit of your vast wisdom, your many years of experience—"

"All right, stop shovelling it on, and it's not that many years."

Hardy waves at her impatiently. "What's going on?"

"We'll be there in five minutes," she tells Bob.

She hasn't been up to the Vicarage proper since a few days after Mum's funeral; Lucy and Dad had been at it hammer and tongs the whole week and Ellie finally dragged Lucy out for a walk to the churchyard to check over the gravestone, placed earlier that day.

"You need to stop pecking pieces out of each other," she lectured as they tramped up the hillside.

"Why, because he might pop his clogs soon and I'll regret being a bit stroppy with him?" Lucy sniped back, wrapping her coat more tightly around her. "I didn't with Mum, you know."

"Yes, I know." Ellie slumped down on the bench along the far wall. You could see most of Broadchurch from here, and the cliffs rearing up in the distance like a line of horses, ready to plunge into the sea.

Lucy sat next to her, huddling close. "So," she said, a sly note in her voice, "I saw Alec Hardy at the funeral. With some young blonde slag—"

"His daughter," Ellie said, pinching her viciously on the thigh. Lucy yelped and squirmed away, but then they were both laughing; the first time they'd laughed in each other's company since that awful phone call two weeks ago, Lucy in hysterics and Ellie with a lump of lead in her belly as she promised to sort out the logistics, help Dad find a proper casket. "Daisy's lovely, you'd like her."

"If she's his daughter, reckon I'd have to," Lucy replied, her eyes half-shut against the wind and the sun. "Nice of him to come all the way just for our mum's funeral." When Ellie didn't rise to the bait, she dug her elbow into her arm. "Wasn't it."

"Fine, fine, he moved back about a month and a half ago. Got his old job and everything."

Lucy continued to dig her elbow in. "I can't believe you didn't tell me, El. Harder Hardy's back in town and you don't say a word!"

"Don't call him that," Ellie ordered, which had exactly the effect that all her demands of her sister had had in the past forty years.

"So did he come back for you? I always thought he had a thing for you, you know. And it's been two years! Mind you, last I heard he kept getting bowled over by a stiff breeze, but if you think you can get him stiff—"

"I'm chucking you in the sea, next word comes out of your mouth," Ellie threatened, which made Lucy snicker but at least got her to shut up. "Besides, Daisy's got him all sorted — she's set him up on some online dating site or other."

"Oh my god, which one?" Lucy whipped out her phone and started pulling up a truly startling number of dating apps, most of which Ellie'd never even heard of. And of the ones she had, a few seemed a bit out of place.

"Why d'you even have Grindr?" she asked, looking over Lucy's shoulder. "Isn't that for blokes?"

"No harm in looking," Lucy sang, swiping through to another app whose name Ellie didn't catch. "Besides, you'd not believe the quality of dick pics on that — oh, hello," she said, and there was Hardy's profile, big as life — or at least as big as Lucy's cracked iPhone screen.

The picture was what she remembered most clearly later on; Hardy sat on his sofa, his head half-turned to look out the window. Ellie suspected Daisy had taken the photo without her dad knowing; there was a slight blur to his knee that suggested it was tapping, his tie askew in a way that wasn't artful so much as careless. But he still looked—

"Well, there's a man I'd swipe right on," Lucy said, and proceeded to do so.

"Is that good?"

"If he swipes right on my profile, it is." Lucy held her phone away as Ellie made a grab for it.

"You are not shagging my boss!"

"Why not? You had your chance!"

Ellie gave up, contenting herself with a disgusted expression. "Fine, shag away. Just don't give him a heart attack."

"No promises," said Lucy. "What, are you jealous?"

Ellie sighed and looked out across the town, toward the cliffs and — just barely visible — a small white house tucked away on the far hill. She could remember being a little girl and looking up the difference between envy and jealousy once, because Vicar Branley had been wittering on during a sermon about how envy was a sin, but he never mentioned jealousy. Twelve-year-old Ellie had wondered if the words were different, if the feelings were different.

They were: envy was the desire to have something someone else had, while jealousy was when you were worried about losing something you already had yourself. "No," she said, with perfect honesty.

By the time they get to the Vicarage, it's all over. "I'm so sorry, ma'am," Alan's saying over and over, clutching his hat in his hands and looking near tears. Vicar Peggy, wearing a bright blue jumper today that says WORKING FOR GOD DOESN'T PAY MUCH, BUT THE RETIREMENT PLAN IS OUT OF THIS WORLD across the chest, is making soothing noises, the way you do to a distressed child. Which isn't far off, when it comes to Alan.

Stood next to them is PC Katie Harford, shifting from foot to foot like she needs a wee before she sets her shoulders and comes down to meet them. Ellie's impressed — Katie took her demotion on the chin but has kept going, with the kind of grim perseverance she recognises all too well. She just hopes Katie never contracts the matching heart disease. "Someone called 999 to report a break-in," she tells them, "But Vicar Jones reckons they just saw her mucking with the garage door."

"Aren't we supposed to call her Vicar Peggy?" Ellie asks, as the woman in question catches sight of them.

"Yes, ma'am," Katie says, in the exact tone you use when you mean "Over my dead body, ma'am." Ellie might actually like her by the end of the year.

"Vicar Peggy?" Hardy asks, making a face.

"Have you not met her yet?" He gives Ellie a blank look, and she bites her cheeks. "You're in for a real treat."

"Ellie, my dear!" Peggy calls out as she comes bustling down the pathway. "So much fuss, I'm mortified, but it's so good to see the constabulary in action!"

"Mother of God," Hardy mutters; Ellie suspects he's trying to hide behind her, which is like trying to hide an albatross behind a penguin.

"Now, I'll not chastise you for missing last week's service, since I heard all about Tom's simply marvellous performance at his football match in Budmouth, but I do hope we'll see you this Sunday? Along with your charming friend — ah, but he needs no introduction!" Peggy holds out both hands and Hardy, clearly compelled by forces greater than himself, takes them. "The renowned Detective Inspector Hardy, whose first name shall ne'er cross these lips! Such a joy to meet you at last."

Ellie fancies she can hear Hardy's teeth rattle, but he manages, "At last?" when she finally lets go.

"Oh, yes," says Peggy, "I made dear Vicar Paul write me up a précis of the whole congregation before he left — I lived nearby when I was a girl, you know, but things change so awfully in forty years, and of course you two made for some delightful reading. Or rather not delightful, not all of it, of course, my apologies, but Ellie, I don't think I've told you yet, but you should know Paul thought you were absolutely the monkey's eyebrows."

"Thank you," Ellie says, fairly sure she's been given a compliment.

"And he found you a most invigorating skeptic in our ranks, Mr. Hardy," she adds. "As I'm sure I will, too! I must say, I feel positively cocooned in safety. If there was someone trying to break in, you'd soon have them turning tail!"

"Officer Harford mentioned you had some trouble with your garage, and that might have been what made someone call it in," Ellie says. "Can I ask what the trouble was?"

"Oh, these dratted remotes," says Peggy dismissively. "I had an early morning call and when I came back here, the bloody thing wouldn't work — pardon my language — and I had to pull the thing open manually, and of course it is rather heavy, so I'm sure someone took one look at the mad old lady grunting away trying to lift a garage door and thought, 'There's a ruffian and no mistake!'"

"But you did get it open," Ellie observes. "And closed again."

"Yes, thank you — once I was able to gain entry via the garage, it was simple enough to retrieve a battery — dear Paul left a good deal of those indispensable sorts of things you always forget to buy at the shops but suddenly need at—" she checks her watch, "One-fifteen in the afternoon!"

"So, no breaking and entering," Hardy confirms.

"I did enter, in point of fact, Detective Inspector," Peggy admits, "But I haven't broken a thing. However, if I must submit myself to the firm hand of the Law, I can think of no better officer to submit to." And she winks at him.

Hardy looks close to an aneurysm, so Ellie tells her no arrest is necessary and that she'll see her day after tomorrow. Peggy beams at them again and waves goodbye as they start back down the path.

"So is this going to happen every time?" Ellie asks as they arrive at the carpark.

"Every time what, Miller?" he asks, blinking innocently at her from over the top of her car.

"Every time you show up to work in last night's clothes, sir," she shoots back, blinking even more innocently. "It's like being around a bag of catnip."

"Good thing you're immune."

"Just get in, Casanova," she sighs.

It's not like Ellie resents it — she's dated a few times herself these past couple of years, even had something a bit serious when Elliot came back to town last summer.

Elliot had been her boyfriend at school, before he'd left for uni and never came back. She'd lost track of him, but they would catch sight of each other when he came to visit his parents. This time, he stayed on for a few months; his dad was recovering from a broken hip and Elliot was a venture capitalist now, something Ellie refused to understand but apparently meant that Elliot could work from wherever he pleased. And Broadchurch pleased him, for a little while.

Of course Ellie had done her due diligence on him before agreeing to so much as a coffee; checked HOLMES for any arrests, looked into any possible allegations by ex-girlfriends. An appalling breach of privacy, but when she confessed it to him on their fourth date he just laughed.

"The shit you've been through, love, I'd worry if you didn't." He was good with Tom, brilliant with Fred; made fun of Ellie's love of scotch eggs but cooked her the best omelettes she'd ever tasted. He was her plus-one to Maggie and Jocelyn's wedding and danced with her the whole night, swinging her round and round until they were both dizzy and laughing.

"Do you ever think about how the right people can come into your life at the wrong time?" he murmured in her ear, holding her close. "How you can meet someone and know they'll always be important, even if you don't understand why? And then they're gone, and you think you'll never get them back, but then…" He smiled down at her. "You get another chance."

Ellie opened her mouth to say yes, but the word wouldn't come.

She broke up with him a few days later. They hugged goodbye at his doorway and as she walked away, she thought it ought to feel worse, to leave someone behind. It ought to feel like it had the last time.

She drives them over to Hodgson's farm next; she doesn't want to suspect Hodgson, exactly, but she's dealt with this bloody feud half her life and she knows it will save time in the long run.

But she's barely got time to put on her boots (Tom's boots, actually, nicked from the hall closet when she'd heard about their first shout this morning) before Hodgson himself comes out the front door, resplendent in his signature bright blue anorak. "Hadn't even called you yet," he calls. "You're getting better every year, Eleanor, and that's truth."

"Thanks, Mr. Hodgson," she says, unsettled by this spate of compliments she's getting today. "Er, what were you going to call us about?"

"Come see for yourself," he says, gesturing toward the barn with his pipe. He leads the way with a surprisingly quick stride, considering the cane. "We only just finished yesterday afternoon — it's been a late year for shearing, what with the help being short an' all." He looks Hardy over with a jaundiced eye, then turns back to Ellie. "Your Tom should come out next year, he's a fine strapping lad nowadays, from what I sees. Do him good."

"I'll ask if he'd be interested," Ellie promises.

"Interested! Ain't a question of interested, is it. Needs doing. And like I say, took too long this year — nearly lost a few of the older ewes to the heat before we could do as was right by them. Now then, mind yourselves, Peter's just about to—"

But his next words are lost in the noise of what Petey does, in fact, do — namely, opens the barn door with a great clatter and screech of the hinges, followed by a rumble of hooves and the unmistakable sound of a hundred head of sheep all trying to get out as quickly as possible. The flock surges toward them and Ellie gets herself behind Hodgson as quick as she can, yanking Hardy behind herself so that the sheep part like water around a violently multicoloured rock, giving them no more than a cursory glance as they amble past. Along the edges she can see Spock and McCoy racing to keep the stragglers to a minimum, while their youngest sheepdog Janeway trots at Petey's side.

"Hiya, Ellie," Petey calls as they go past, down the path and into the far pasture.

"Hiya," she responds, and tugs sternly on Hardy's sleeve — still in her grip — when she hears him mutter, "God's sake."

"Right, come along this way and mind the dung," Hodgson says, and they make their way warily into the barn. At the far end stand five bales of wool similar to the ones in Bastard Turner's barn, lined up tidily along the back wall.

"Are you by any chance missing a bale, Mr. Hodgson?" Ellie asks as they get closer.

"Well, in a manner of speaking, I am," he says, "And in a manner of speaking, I ain't." And he points at the bale right at the end; at first glance, it looks like all the others.

"What is it?" says Hardy.

She ignores him, examining the bale more closely. "Mr. Hodgson, have you been cross-breeding your flock this year?"

"No, and that's the worry of it," he replies, coming up beside her. "Now I'll tell you sure as sure, we had five bales last night and here's five bales today, but this one right here never was shorn from any sheep of mine."

"Right," Ellie says. "I don't suppose you have any CCTV cameras out here?"

Hodgson's face breaks out in a smile. "Bless you, Eleanor, what would we need that for? McCoy and Spock would tear out the throats of any of them as tried getting at the flock, and even young Janeway's got a bit of the blood lust. We've had no need of cameras before this."

"And I suppose you didn't hear or see anything last night?"

"I was dead to the world by eight. We were bailing right up until supper-time — that's why the flock was all buttoned up tight in here. But the sprogs might've heard something."

"All right. We'll look round, yeah?"

"My thanks, and do me a favour." Hodgson leans in, his hands braced against the handle of his cane. "Don't let him know about this until you've sorted it out. My gout's been acting up and I'm in no mood for him coming round and raging with his shotgun an' all, if you understand me."

"We'll get to the bottom of this as soon as we can," Ellie promises, and Hodgson takes her hand in his — soft from the lanolin but strong in the way old men are often strong, like their muscles have been replaced by teak. He shakes it once and makes his way out through the open doors, leaving her with Hardy, who's still stood awkwardly in the middle of the barn.

"Care to explain—" and after a moment's hesitation, he waves his hands around vaguely, "Any of this?"

He's far too easy to annoy. "Can't you tell the difference, sir?" she asks, stood between the fourth and fifth bale.

"One's a pile of wool smelling of sheep shit," he guesses, "And the other's a pile of wool smelling of sheep shit."

"I'd've thought a Scot would be better educated," she says, shaking her head. "Most shepherds around here hold Leicesters or Leicester crosses, but the Hodgsons hold Ryeland sheep, which are these bales. This bale," she gestures at the fifth, "Is Suffolk. Which aren't common around here, either; the only farm that holds them is—"

"The Turner farm," Hardy finishes, looking exasperated. "So what we've got is the stupidest crime in existence."

"Still a crime," she points out. "A bale can sell for upwards of two thousand pounds, and that's money both families need." She looks down at his shoes. "How about you go interview the family, see if anyone saw or heard anything last night, and I'll nose around and see if I can find any tracks. These things weigh fifteen stone at least, so it's likely someone drove it over and drove Hodgson's fifth bale away."

"Fine," Hardy mutters, turning round and trudging off after Hodgson.

"They can't all be dismembered MPs," she calls after him.

She says that every time he gets in a sulk about their more everyday sorts of crimes: the petrol thefts and the late-night pub brawls, flytipping and poaching. She can still remember the first time they had to coordinate with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency over an alleged "molestation of an historical shipwreck" just off the coast, how green Hardy'd got at just the thought he'd have to get on a boat. He's got more used to it over the past few months, but she has to keep him humble.

Still, it had been a shock to see him on the telly last year, holding a short and decidedly un-sweet press conference about the DeLongbourne murder. Ellie had read a bit about it in the paper, but she hadn't realised it was Hardy's investigation. She sat and watched him scowl his way through a half-dozen questions before his chief super took over.

Even then she watched him in the background, shifting uneasily as the reporters droned on. He still looked thin and pale, but the hollows of his cheeks had filled out a bit and his suit actually fitted him now, instead of hanging off him like so much dry cleaning. She watched the whole thing and then went online to look for more interviews, watching each of them as though she might find something she'd been missing.

SOCO won't thank her for dragging them all the way out to Hodgson's farm, nor will Accounts when she tries to explain the expense, so she takes photos and collects what evidence as catches her eye. There are no convenient fibres caught in the bale, other than the ones from the sheep, and she doesn't find any buttons or muddy bootprints about. There are some half-scuffed dolly tracks leading to and from the back entrance, right next to a set of nice fresh tyre treads just outside. She even finds the dolly, stood demurely in what looks to be its regular spot amongst the other farm equipment, but she's got little hope they'll be able to get any decent fingerprints.

Hardy's already done by the time she squelches her way out of the paddock; he's using the roof of her car as a desk to scribble a few more notes, squinting through his glasses in the afternoon light. He doesn't turn toward her as she approaches, but he does say, "Any progress on the crime of the century?"

"Don't sneer," she chides, tramping over to the boot to swap out her regular shoes. "Found some tracks, but my advice is we check the family's vehicles first."

That gives Hardy pause, and he sits next to her on the ledge of the car boot. "Why's that? The dogs," he adds, before she can answer.

"Yeah, what's that Sherlock Holmes quote, the mysterious case of the dog at midnight?"

"The curious incident of the dog in the night-time," Hardy amends.

"Should've known you were a Sherlock Holmes fanboy," she teases. "But yeah, those dogs are well-trained; they wouldn't have just let someone in, let alone stayed quiet while whoever it was shifted those bales."

"Do you not need machinery to move those about?"

"Not unless you're stacking them on a lorry — if you wanted to stow a bale on the back of a van, say, you'd just need two strong lads. Or one, if he's really determined. Mind you, even with the bailing canvas, you'd get the lanolin all over everything, and it wouldn't half smell."

"That much I've sussed out for myself," says Hardy, plucking at his trousers which are now streaked and shiny.

"Dishwashing liquid is what you'll want for that," she advises. "What's bothering me is where the Hodgsons' missing bale might've got to. Unless Bastard Turner does have it, and hid it from us. Did the sprogs have anything useful?"

"Not really. The shearing's been a bit of a," he makes a great show of referencing his notebook, reading out, "Clusterfuck, according to Hodgson's granddaughter Clara; they had some of their relatives coming in to help, so people have been in and out all week. Nobody heard anything especially, but that leaves us a window between ten last night and five-thirty this morning."

"And Turner's window is between nine and five," Ellie muses. "Lots of overlap, there. What if our suspect goes to Turner's farm first, takes a bale, then comes up here, makes the switch, but runs out of time before they can take that one back to the Turners'? They might be waiting until tonight to complete the swap."

"Turner'll likely be ready for them, him and his shotgun. We should have Anna double-check his permit for that, by the way."

"Not if we set up surveillance," Ellie says. "Let Turner know we'll have someone doing a stakeout, keep him and his family down at the house. Someone shows up, we make an arrest, no shotguns necessary."

"We?" Hardy asks, leaning away from her to give her a proper fisheye over the tops of his glasses. "Is this you volunteering for surveillance? Sure you've got room in your schedule this time?"

Ellie scrunches her nose at him. "Sure you've got room in yours? Mind you, if you've got another date with Miss Tyler tonight, I'd suggest changing beforehand. Your clothes are in a right state."

"Miss Taylor, and no, I don't." He's still looking at her, as if he wants to say something else, but just then her mobile goes.

It's Tom. "Mum, do you know where my boots are?"

"Your football boots or your boot boots?" she asks. Hardy stands up when she does, moving out of the way as she shuts the hatch.

"My boot boots. Grandad says he wants to take me up to that pond he was talking about tomorrow. The one near Yeovil, where he and Gran used to fish?"

"And you're getting all your things together now?" she cheers. "I'm such a good mum!"

Tom huffs. "Yes, Mum, you are. I can't find my boots anywhere."

"Well, that's where I become a slightly less good mum."

He cottons on quick enough to heave an enormous sigh. "Can't you buy your own pair? This is like the third time," Tom says, sounding like a disappointed parent. She's got a suspicion he's imitating her, in fact.

"You stole your lad's boots?" Hardy asks, from where he's lurking by the passenger side door.

"All right, all right, I'll come quietly, officers," she mutters as she gets in the driver's seat. "Listen, I'm on my way home now after I drop off Hardy, and I'll bring takeaway as restitution for my crimes. Also, I'll be heading out again for a surveillance shift at around, what, ten?" she asks Hardy, who shrugs. "Helpful. Yeah, ten, so once Fred's down I want you to keep the noise level to a dull roar."

"Can we get Thai?"

She wraps up the call just as they pull into Hardy's drive; he unbuckles his seatbelt but doesn't get out right away. "Everything all right?" she asks.

"Not wild about leaving Daisy on her own two nights running," he says, rubbing his eyes. "But on the other hand, it cuts back on the number of Simpsons episodes I've got to watch with her."

"She's taken a liking to them, then?"

"The phrase 'cowabunga, dude,' is uttered multiple times a day now," he says, climbing out of the car. "At this rate I'll be packing her bags to ship her off to the States myself."

The first time Ellie met Daisy, that freezing-as-bollocks day on the pier in March, Daisy announced that she was going to find her dad "a nice seafaring woman" now that they were definitely going to move to Broadchurch.

"Oh, it's definite, is it?" Hardy demanded, looking constipatedly pleased — Ellie'd never seen that look on his face, but she suspected it was his default expression when talking to his daughter.

They were settled at the corner table of the cafe, the bay windows showing off the forlorn outdoor seating and beyond that, the sand and the sea, with the cliffs towering overhead. Tom had Fred on his lap while they watched something on Tom's phone, but Daisy was wide-eyed and enthusiastic about everything, and her father looked perilously close to smiling.

"Yes, it is," Daisy told Hardy. "And we'll walk up and down the pier until we meet a fisherwoman or a lobsterwoman—"

"I hate to crush your dreams," Ellie said, "But there's no lobsters along this coast."

Daisy, who she already could tell was a hard one to put down for long, thought a moment before brightening. "A pirate!" she exclaimed, loud enough to make Tom and Fred look up from whatever they were watching. "You could marry a pirate, Dad. Bet you'd look brilliant with an eyepatch."

"I'm not marrying anyone who lives on a boat, and certainly not some woman who lives on a boat and runs a criminal empire," Hardy said definitively. He caught Ellie's eye and it was a smile, a strange and strangely beautiful thing. "A man's got to have standards, aye?"

"Oh, aye," Ellie replied in her flattest, most Dorset accent. The kids laughed, bright and loud in the mostly-empty cafe. It was that moment Ellie remembered best about the day. Their children's laughter; their own tentative happiness.

Ellie gets takeaway from Thai Society and from the chippie, since Fred — and Dad — fuss at anything spicier than a tart lemon. They manage to have an actual family dinner, which is still rare enough to be a treat.

"And whose fault is that?" Dad asks, poking at his chips.

"Mine, Dad, all mine," Ellie agrees. "See, Tom, I am modelling excellent behaviour — never argue with your elders."

"You argue with Grandad all the time."

"Though not for much longer," says Dad, dabbing his mouth with his napkin.

"You don't have to sound so pleased," Ellie says, taking another helping of pad thai. "And the retirement home's a ten minute walk from here, it's not like you won't be popping round at all hours."

"It's a retirement community," Dad corrects her, "And it means I'll have my own life again. I won't be always at your beck and call. They have pottery classes, you know. And cricket. Which reminds me, did you ever find my cricket ball in your car?"

"It's also got Pamela," says Tom, grinning.

Ellie blinks. "Pamela? Who's Pamela?"

"No one," says Dad, not nearly loud enough to drown out Tom's gleeful, "Grandad's girlfriend."

"She most certainly isn't," Dad protests, his face a little too red to be convincing.

"I'm hearing about everybody's girlfriends today," Ellie says, pouring herself more wine. "Have you got one too, Tom?" She squints at Fred. "What about you?"

"GIRLFRIEND!" Fred shouts, and launches a bit of fried fish at his brother.

"I mean, there's — um, someone I like," Tom stammers, "But it's not anything — anyway, Grandad met Pamela at Choir, she's seventy-one and used to be a secretary at a bank in Lyme. Two grandkids in Australia—"

Dad's face is almost purple by now. "Young man, this is completely inappropriate!"

"Ignore him," Ellie commands. "Does she like gardening?"

"Loves it, and she has a dog." To Tom, that is still a mark in favour, regardless of any other factors.

"Does she wear any particularly obnoxious perfume?"

"Not that I could tell," Tom shrugs, "But I've only met her the once, when he took us over to sign the rental papers and she 'happened to be passing by.' She seems nice."

"Then I heartily give you my blessing, Dad," Ellie says. "Though it seems a bit of a risk, moving all that way. What if it doesn't work out?"

Dad gives her an odd look. "Glass houses, Ellie, you just think about that." And he gets up from the table and shuffles off to his room, the door shutting with an emphatic click.

"That's us told," Ellie says, although she's got no idea what he means. She sets Fred free from the tyranny of his high chair and he races off to the living room; she can hear the Bluey theme song starting up.

"Is he actually cross?" Tom asks her. "We were only joking. And like you said, it's not like he's moving all that far."

"Don't worry about it, if he's cross he'll be cross with me, not you," Ellie advises, gathering up the plates and handing them off. "But I don't want you go off to some university just because there's some girl you fancy."

"I won't," Tom promises, turning the tap on to start the dishes. "In fact, I'm not — totally sure I want to go to university."

Ellie sighs, because now is not the moment she'd have chosen to have this argument. "Tom—"

"Look, I know, but — you didn't go! There's lots of jobs I can get in town, especially if you let me work next summer holiday. Maybe at the cafe, or the—"

"Tom, you're fifteen, that's a bit young to be deciding if you want to spend the rest of your life here," Ellie says. She rubs his arm up and down, soothing.

"How old were you when you decided?"

She thwaps him. "All right, don't be a smartarse."

"Besides, if Grandad goes and I go, then it's just you and Fred," Tom says, eyes glued to the plate in his hands. "It's not like you've got anyone taking care of you. Except Uncle Hardy, I guess."

"God forbid I have Uncle Hardy taking care of me," Ellie says, taking the clean plate and wiping it dry.

"I mean, he sort of does, doesn't he? He cares about you, anyway. And he scares all the guys at school — Kyle was saying how he found out who'd stolen those… you know," Tom mutters, remarkably prudish considering the actual porn he'd been grounded for just a few months prior. "He told Kyle he'd cut his cock off if he ever messed with Daisy again."

"Well, that's not very nice," Ellie observes, although personally she thinks it serves Kyle right.

Tom reaches for another plate, scrubbing it clean. "Yeah, but who needs nice?"

She manages to get Fred down without a fight by eight and spends the next two hours getting thoroughly beaten at Scrabble by her eldest, despite her own blatant cheating. "Scrummy is absolutely a word," she says as the doorbell rings.

"It is not," Tom says, waving their battered old dictionary at her.

"It is," she retorts, and jerks open the door to let Hardy in. "Scrummy means—"

He's dressed more sensibly now, his blue jumper over his requisite shirt and tie, with his trench coat flapping in the breeze. Something that's been winding tighter and tighter in her chest all day unwinds all at once, seeing him like that, and she can't remember what she was about to say.

"Um, come in," she says instead, waving him inside. "I'll just get my coat and let Tom know."

But Tom's already putting the game away. "I won't add up the final score because it'll be embarrassing for you," he says, and submits patiently to her peck on the cheek and her protests that she'd been this close to beating him. "Be careful," he adds, and Ellie's about to tell him that she's always careful when she realises he's looking over her shoulder to the doorway, where Hardy's waiting for her.

"I will," Hardy says, and holds his hand out toward Ellie's elbow as she walks to the door, never quite touching.

Hardy's never threatened to cut her cock off, for any number of reasons, but they've shouted at each other at least once a day since he came back — she's got a theory that they would have shouted at each other every day when they'd first met, but with his heart condition it might've killed him and so he'd settled for a sort of simmering sulk those nine months.

Now, he'll shout at her for going five miles over the speed limit, or not bringing enough booties to crime scenes, or not filling out her overtime sheets correctly. She hits right back, of course; it's not at all appropriate but she long since gave up on propriety when it came to Alec Hardy.

The only time he gave her a proper bollocking was a month or so after her mum died; they'd been called into a domestic that had turned even uglier than normal, a husband's drunken rage taken out on his wife and two little boys. The eldest Upton son had got the worst of it, shielding his mum and brother: for his trouble he got his arm broken in two places, a fractured skull and possibly the loss of vision in his left eye. Ellie didn't think twice about slipping her number to the sobbing mum, and when she interviewed Jamie the next morning she put her information into his phone herself.

"Only thing he didn't break," Jamie rasped, trying for a smile. "You going to arrest him?"

In the end they didn't arrest him: James Upton's body was found floating in the bay three days later. The coroner ruled it death by drowning, and Ellie was on the phone for weeks with Jamie or Georgia, while they tried to sort out the mess left behind.

Hardy was furious about it; he ranted at her for a good hour when he found out what she'd done, about protocol and boundaries and how much more difficult she was making his job and hers. She let him go for almost twenty minutes before she gave up and shouted back; Bob came twice into Hardy's office to ask if everything was all right.

"I don't like saying it," he said the second time, "But you're starting to scare the constables."

"He's only starting to scare them?" Ellie demanded, but Bob just shook his head and left. She turned back to Hardy, ready to resume hostilities — only to find him slumped in his chair, looking older than she'd ever seen him.

"I understand why you did it, Miller," he said, so quiet she could hardly hear him. "But there's got to be a line somewhere."

"Where was ours?" she demanded. "You arrested my husband, remember? Investigated him, interrogated him, testified against him. It's not like we weren't in daily contact. You think some crown prosecutor is going to accuse me of having an affair with Georgia Upton? Is that why you stopped calling the minute you could?" She regretted it the moment she said it, flinched at the sound of her own words bouncing round the room.

Hardy didn't reply; instead he got up, took his coat off the back of his chair and folded it neatly over his arm. "I'm going home," he said, and he sounded so tired that for a moment she forgot how angry she was.

"Hardy—"

"That wasn't the reason," he said, not looking at her, as he opened the door and walked through.

But before they get halfway to Turner's, there's a callout from Control. "Can someone pop over to Hodgson's Farm?" says Anna, crackling a bit on the radio. "Some sort of argy-bargy happening over there — apparently Bastard Turner's turned up with his shotgun."

"That license is expired, by the way," Hardy says as Ellie answers to let Control know they're en route.

"So we'll at least get to arrest someone tonight."

When they arrive, there's a good dozen vehicles — including several quad bikes she recognises from Turner's — parked all over the drive, and they can hear shouting from the house. "Might need backup," says Hardy, looking out over the closing darkness.

"Fuck that," Ellie replies, and marches inside.

It's absolute chaos, though she's glad to see that someone's managed to take the shotgun off Turner already — Petey's got hold of it, the cartridges in his hand. "Thought it might be a good idea," he says with a broad wink, as Janeway whuffs at his side.

"Too right," she says as she takes in the scene. Bastard Turner's stood over Hodgson at the table, both of them red-faced as they hurl accusations at each other, while family members hover in a loose circle in various stages of embarrassment. Sat in an armchair in the corner is Old Mrs. Hodgson, ignoring the din and having what looks to be a very civilised conversation with one of her granddaughters.

"All right, at the risk of invoking a cliche, what's all this, then?" Ellie asks, pitching her voice to be heard above the cacophony. Turner and Hodgson pause for a moment, but any chance at getting an explanation dies as they instead unleash their indignation on her.

"Man's stark raving and you lot allowed him a gun? Not decent, Eleanor, and that's truth!"

"Letting thieves prey on the good folk round here, and what are you doing about it? Sod all, from what I can see! Had to come here myself to find my property—"

"And what about my property, Bastard? What are you playing at—"

"And what I want to know—"

"What I'd like to know is—"

"What are the police for!"

"That's enough, both of you," Ellie says, ushering them back toward the table. "Sit down and stop bellowing." She looks round for Hardy and spots him near the door, looking over Turner's shotgun with absolutely zero interest in what's going on. Why she even bothers, she has no idea.

Fortunately, Hodgson and Bastard Turner are looking to her, not Hardy, and so she puts her hands on her hips and says, "Right, you're going to answer my questions and we're going to have no more shouting unless it's me doing the shouting. Mr. Turner, what brought you and yours over here at this time of night? We told you we were sorting it. You couldn't wait a whole day before flying off the handle?"

"I saw my bale there in his barn with my own eyes!" Turner says, pointing one gnarled finger in Hodgson's face.

"And what were you doing in Hodgson's barn? Come to think of it, what made you so sure it was Hodgson in the first place? You two have managed to behave yourselves ever since Danielle and Irving got married."

At the mention of Danielle and Irving, the room temperature goes down a few degrees. "I'm not talking about them," says Turner. Hodgson just glowers down at his pipe. "But," Turner adds, "It may be that this evening I went to up to my barn, to find if there'd been any more thefts, seeing as you couldn't arse yourselves with providing police protection, and I caught sight of a bale of wool as might belong to Hodgson's braxied flock—"

There's an increase in muttering, but Ellie slams her hand on the table and it quiets down quick enough. "You're telling me someone snuck a bale of wool into your barn sometime today without you noticing?"

"We've been busy! Had to shift the flock down to the lower pasture, didn't I? Besides, no one came by all day, except family. And if you're thinking on accusing them of doing this—"

It's on the tip of Ellie's tongue to point out that almost everyone in that house is family, but there's a reason she's the one in charge of people and human relationships. "We're not accusing anyone," she says, and rips a sheet out of her notebook. "But if you could give me a list of people who came, we can ask them if they saw anything." She hands him her pen.

"Well," Turner shifts in his seat. "That's different, then."

"And you, Mr. Hodgson," Ellie says, ripping off another sheet. "You can do the same. We're just getting information, do you understand? And in the meantime," she says, addressing the rest of the crowd, "Go home or go to bed, and leave this to the police."

It takes another half-hour of bullying and cajoling, but she gets a complete list from both men, as well as their solemn vow not to tear each other's heads off for at least a few more days, until she gets to the bottom of this.

During this time Hardy's attached himself to Old Mrs. Hodgson, who's favoured him with a cup of tea, complete with saucer. She's one of those old Dorset women who start looking a bit elderly at forty and go on to look a bit elderly until they're ninety-five; when Ellie finally escorts Bastard Turner toward the front door (Hodgson trailing after them to make sure they leave), she's still chatting away with Hardy.

"Ah, here's your young lady now," Old Mrs. Hodgson says, turning to them. "Have you got it out your system, then? Both of you?"

"Yes ma'am," says Turner and Hodgson in resentful unison.

"Boys," Old Mrs. Hodgson says, with a smile up at Ellie. "Though you got results, dearie. Well done — no wonder he likes you."

"Thank you, ma'am," Ellie says, lost.

"Right, we'll be going," Hardy says as he gets up to leave, but Old Mrs. Hodgson holds his gaze as she takes his teacup.

"Think on what I said, young Alexander," she advises. "You'll only end up kicking yourself harder if you don't."

They head out and put Turner on his quad bike. "Once you've got your license back," Hardy tells him, holding the shotgun, "You can come by and get this back. Not before."

Turner glares at them both, but just kicks his bike to life and speeds off, gravel arcing out under the wheels. Ellie watches the lights wobble and dim as they roar east across the hills, listens to the noise of the farmland — insects, owls, distant sheep and more distant cars along the road — quietly overtake everything else. She wants to ask Hardy what Old Mrs. Hodgson said to him, but the set of his shoulders makes it clear he won't answer.

"I know who did it," she says instead.

"I thought you might," Hardy replies. She looks up at him; in the moonlight he almost looks like he's smiling.

Parenthood teaches you to sleep where and when you can, but even so it had been a shock to wake up next to Hardy, that miserable day in Sandbrook when they'd both been sick at heart — literally, in his case — and clawing at each other when they weren't clawing at themselves. She hadn't expected to get any rest at all, but when she opened her eyes the light was dripping ponderously through a gap in the curtains: early, but morning all the same.

Hardy was still asleep, his presence not so much felt as understood. Ellie carefully turned to check on him: he was sprawled three-quarters on his stomach, turned toward her with his face mashed in the pillow, his hair an astonishing wreck pointing every which way. His right arm was outstretched in front of him, his fingers just a few inches from her elbow.

She squeezed her eyes shut again and listened to his breathing. For so long she'd taken the simple luxury of another person in her room — in her bed — for granted. These past few months she'd not even let Fred sleep with her, telling herself she would have to get used to it, have to grow accustomed to the safety of loneliness. Now, lying next to one of the most infuriating men she'd ever met in her life, a man she might actually hate if she let herself think about it, the relief of him brought tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.

Any minute now she'd get up, take a shower, have a rummage downstairs for some scalded coffee and a rubbery croissant. Any minute now, she would leave this bed and pretend it hadn't happened. She just wanted a few more minutes of this, of them together, their raw edges finally folded away.

Which is when her alarm went, of course. She lunged for her phone and turned it off less than a second later, her heart hammering in her ribcage. She looked over at Hardy, half-worried she'd startled him to death; but he was still lying there, his one visible eye now open and watching her. He looked —

She forced herself to sit up and shuffle her feet into her slippers. Behind her, Hardy shifted round and threw the blanket off, climbing to his feet. They got ready and packed their things and didn't say a word.

Hardy, of course, doesn't want to wait until morning, so it's past midnight when they knock on their suspect's door.

"Did somebody — oh, what's the term — grass me up?" asks Peggy, shooing them both into chairs at her kitchen table while she makes tea. She's got an old sweatshirt on over her pyjamas; it reads IT'S ME, HI, I'M THE VICAR IT'S ME.

"So you had accomplices," Hardy says, his notebook at the ready. Ellie rolls her eyes.

"My dear, please don't insult either of us by pretending you're going to arrest me," Peggy says as she pours some hot water into the teapot and swirls it about. "For one thing, neither William nor Billy are going to press charges."

Hardy gapes at her. "Neither William nor Billy — are you telling me Hodgson and Turner have the same given names?"

"'William' isn't exactly uncommon, you know," Peggy replies. She puts the tea strainer into the teapot and pours in the rest of the water from the kettle. "Though there was always the suspicion that my mother did it deliberately."

"So you are Margaret Hodgson," Ellie confirms, her two lists in her hands. Margaret (sister) is written in a neat hand on one; PEG—1/2 SIS scrawled on the other.

Peggy smiles and leans against the counter, hands spread. "Just so. I used to tell my husband I married him as much to get away from the surname as anything, though he was a dear man. But I couldn't wait to leave this place when I was a girl — I wanted to find somewhere I could do some good. And I like to think I did, over the years. But this place can pull at you, if you loved it once and try to leave it." She looks at Hardy. "You know what I mean, I'm sure."

"Due respect, Vicar," Hardy replies, shifting in his seat, "We could still charge you with wasting police time."

"Yes, I daresay you could," Peggy says, unmoved. "And that might even help with my original aim, but I don't think I'd do very well in police custody. Much less prison. I'm quite delicate, you know."

Peggy's as delicate as an ox, but Ellie just says, "So all of this had an aim, did it? A purpose?"

"Of course," Peggy insists, sitting down with them. "Those two families — those two men, let's call it what it is, have hated each other since they were old enough to walk, and it's poisoned entire generations. They've got their truce now, but Danielle called me a few months ago; she's expecting."

"Oh, for God's sake," Hardy mutters.

Ellie clears her throat. "Congratulations, is what he meant."

"Is it, indeed?" Peggy looks amused. "She and Irving want to move back home. Well, how can they, with neither father speaking to the other?" She sighs and levers herself up to pull out some mugs from the cupboard. "I've tried to talk to both of them these past few weeks, but neither of them will budge on the matter. So I thought, a little prank to force the issue might do the trick. Mind you, it's been a few decades since I had to roll a wool-bale. Almost put my back out, getting them in and out the back of the van."

"You don't have a van," Ellie points out.

"Well, your friend did already guess I had accomplices," Peggy says, not sounding the least bit repentant. She pours out the tea and hands them each a mug; hers says CAREFUL! OR YOU'LL END UP IN MY NEXT SERMON while Hardy's says I WANTED TO GO JOGGING BUT PROVERBS 28:1 SAYS "THE WICKED RUN WHEN NO ONE IS CHASING THEM." Peggy's own is a cartoonish rendition of Dawn French's head. "Oh, all right, I'll go and switch them back first thing tomorrow, with or without the help of any accomplices I may or may not have had."

Ellie thinks of Petey, smiling wryly at the chaos of his family this evening, but doesn't say anything.

"To tell you the truth, this will all make for a splendid sermon on Sunday." Patty takes a sip of her tea. "I trust you'll both be attending?"

"Right, we're going," Hardy says, standing up. His tea's untouched, which Ellie knows is him making a point. "Next time you want to minister to your congregation, try not to commit any felonies in the process."

"It was rather good tea," Ellie admits as they climb back in the car. "Still, I've half a mind to arrest her for being that cheerful at—" she checks the clock on the dash— "Half midnight."

"Not a bad day, though," Hardy says, stifling a yawn. "We very nearly had a real crime on our hands. First time that's happened in a while."

"They can't all be—"

"Dismembered MPs, I know," he says, and Ellie's almost sure he's smiling now.

The first day Hardy was due back in CID, Ellie got in early to put up a welcome back sign in his office. It was one of those fussy ones where every letter had its own little banner, and the drawing of the apple in between WELCOME and BACK! made her suspect this was intended for primary schools more than CID bullpens, but she'd almost finished when she heard Hardy demand, "What the hell is that? Get down from there!"

"What does it look like?" she snapped, almost losing her balance on his rolly chair. She got down and scowled at him. "There, you want to keep it like that?" she asked. They stared up at the banner, which now read WELCOME 🍎 B, with the ACK! trailing forlornly.

"It's fine," Hardy said, and waved her back to her side of the desk.

The bunting stayed up longer than she'd expected, more than a month; but when she came back from her bereavement leave, it was gone.

"Chief Super came down for a chat," he said when she asked about it. "Didn't seem fair to have it up, since you didn't get her a sign."

She didn't believe a word of it. He'd probably been waiting for any excuse to get rid of the thing; it was almost nice of him, to have kept it up as long as he did. She had no reason to be hurt.

Two months later she was rummaging through his desk, Hardy barking exasperated orders to her over the phone while she shouted back that no matter how much he insisted, the specialised intake forms weren't here. "Unless you've got a secret compartment," she concluded as she wrenched open the last drawer and noticed something bright blue and red, buried under a stack of folders labeled things like "NTKE FRM - SPC 1-7"

"Aye, a great big secret compartment called the bottom drawer," Hardy snapped.

"Shut up," she said, lifting the files clear. Sure enough, folded neatly so that the W was on top, was her sign. "I found them."

The thing about Hardy is — 

The thing is — 

The thing is that he wasn't there, not for years. She was grateful he wasn't, that after the trial and closing Sandbrook he'd taken himself off and hadn't bothered her. She didn't want any more layers of herself peeled back just then, and that's all they'd ever done: scoured each other until all that was left was themselves. She needed the comfort of pretence and she'd get no pretence from Alec Hardy. So it was understandable, probably, that now some part of her kept being startled at his very presence, after so long doing without.

On the day of Mum's funeral, she spotted him through the crowd of what Dad would later call "a very respectable turnout for the old girl." He was sat quietly in one of the last rows toward the end, probably for a quick getaway, but the mere fact of him was a surprise. Daisy was reading through the programme next to him, her golden hair bound up with a black ribbon — one of Hardy's ties, she suspected. She wondered if it was the one she'd given him years ago, for another funeral.

Paul conducted the service beautifully, if a funeral could be beautiful; Beth sat with them and reached round Tom and Fred to squeeze Ellie's hand. Dad wept silently and Ellie sat there wishing she were anywhere else, wishing she were taking the boat out with Mum on a bright clear morning, wishing she were seven years old again with her parents both as large as life, wishing she were sat in the back of the church with Hardy, listening to Paul's solemn words about somebody else, anyone else.

Mum and Dad's plot was just down the hill from the church, and so they filed out sedately into the cold April afternoon, Fred asleep on Dad's shoulder and Tom a pallbearer for Mum's casket as they walked slowly toward the grave. Ellie stepped away from the procession for a moment, breathing in and out the way she learned years ago at her birthing class, where she'd first met Beth. Strange that it came in handy now.

"Miller," she heard, and she turned to find Hardy there, shoulders hunched against the faint drizzle that had started.

"Hello," she said, and shook her head. "That sounds ridiculous, somehow."

"Can we—" He took her elbow carefully, his hand gentle and warm, and led her back inside and into the empty cloak room. "Sorry, but—"

"What is it?" she asked, too confused to be irritated — another surprise, given who she was talking to.

"I have to go," said Hardy, grimacing. "They've found Beatrice Penry, right where you thought. She's been taken into custody. I'll take Daisy home, then I need to go and interview her."

"Oh," said Ellie. It was the case they'd been working on, and making good progress. She'd narrowed down Penry's location to a few villages near Bristol when she'd got the call from Dad, telling her Mum was in the hospital and it had all happened so fast after that. "Right, of course. D'you need me to—"

"God, no," said Hardy, and it was his horror that broke her, made her hiccup with laughter while he shuffled awkwardly and sputtered, "That's not what I meant — I wasn't saying—"

"It's all right," she said, wiping away the tears — the first tears she'd shed today. Funerals were supposed to be this great cathartic event, but all she felt was cold, and tired, and alone. "You know, I think I'll take that hug now."

She expected him to scoff or hesitate or outright refuse, so it was a surprise to be pulled in right away, his arms tight about her shoulders and his chin sharp against the top of her head. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, and then another.

"I could go," she said, "If you needed me."

He didn't say anything for a long while. She was so warm, she could've fallen asleep right here with him. "Your family needs you more," he murmured. "I can use that new DC, the one across from you."

"Katie," she reminded him, holding tight to the lapels of his jacket. "You spent an entire night with her on stakeout, how do you not remember—"

"All right, enough," he muttered, but he didn't let her go.

The thing about Hardy is that he wasn't there for so long, and now he is. Sometimes it feels like he's everywhere.

Hardy directs her toward the station, since they'll have to log and secure Bastard Turner's bastard shotgun. "I can do it, sir," she says. "Especially since of the two of us, I got better sleep last night." She means it to be teasing, but it comes out a bit too sharp. She hadn't slept all that well, in fact. She rarely does.

"I had a wee lie-down this afternoon, I'm not about to keel over. And besides," he says, and stops.

"Besides what?"

He heaves a great big sigh. "I doubt it'll be an issue again."

"Oh," Ellie says, then, "Oh, sorry. Erm. Sorry, so did you and her not—"

"Shut up," he advises.

"I'm just—"

"It's fine, Miller. What are you doing?" he adds, as she fusses at the radio.

Mostly she's hoping for some music or news to cover the awkwardness, but then she notices the time. "It's quarter to one," she explains, and sure enough, the familiar music is already giving way to a quiet voice, telling them that it's issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coast Guard Agencies. "My mum and Luce and me used to listen to this, nights we couldn't sleep," she says, as the newscaster warns of gales at Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, and Forties. "Her dad was a fisherman, and she said you always needed to know what the sea was up to."

"She wasn't wrong," Hardy says, his annoyance already forgot. "I never could understand it, really. Goes by so quick, all that jargon. Not to mention the names — Dogger and Humber and German Bight."

"Cromarty," Ellie supplies.

"Well, that's different." The newscaster's already past Cromarty; he's sweeping Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland and Plymouth into one forecast, telling them it will be variable two to four, mainly fair; good.

"I didn't mean to sound like I was — prying," she blurts, turning onto the high street. "About your love life, I mean. I think it's good that you're seeing people. Even if this one wasn't the right one."

"Christ, can you not let it go?"

"I'm letting it go! I just thought, it's good that you're ready to put yourself out there."

Hardy mutters something, too low to be heard over the forecast for the Irish Sea.

"What?"

"I said I'm not. Ready. I thought, maybe, but…" He trails off. "When did you know? That you were ready?"

"Are you asking me about my personal life?" Ellie asks, her eyebrows about to lift clear off her head. "You? Alec Hardy?"

"Never mind, then—"

"Sorry, sorry," she laughs. "Sorry, I just — I'm not sure I am ready. I've dated a bit, but they all feel like… when you put a shirt on backwards, or the wrong glove on the wrong hand. Uncomfortable."

"Is that what you want?" Hardy asks. "Comfortable?"

"Not really. Joe was comfortable, and look where that got me."

Hardy doesn't say anything for a bit; he never does, when she mentions Joe. It's one of the things she likes best, that he refuses to trample any further over the ruin of her marriage. "D'you know, Jocelyn Knight did my will?"

It's an odd question, but then Hardy's never been any good at segues. "When was that?"

"Just before I went in to get my Pacemaker. I thought, might not be a bad idea to have things squared away. I tramped up to her house one morning. She told me about Maggie. I didn't know it at the time, but she said she'd lost her chance with her."

"Is that where you went, that night you fucked off and left me in your little hovel?"

"Miller," Hardy sighs. "You're missing the point. She said they never told each other how they felt, and that's why they weren't together."

"Well, they are now," Ellie points out. "So they must have told each other eventually. I went to their wedding and everything. Cake was lovely."

"God's sake," Hardy mutters, as they pull into the station's carpark. "I'm trying to say…"

Ellie parks the car and turns to face him, because all at once she knows exactly what he's trying to say. Why her teeth have been set on edge since this morning — yesterday morning, now — and why Hardy's rubbing his hands on his knees, and why her own palms are prickling with sweat right now. "And I'm saying, maybe Jocelyn and Maggie just weren't ready, the first time. Or the second or third, or however long it took them. But they got there, didn't they? So, there's no use rushing things."

He looks at her, eyes dark under the streetlight. She looks back, trying to see what Charles or Zoe or Luce or that mad druid girl saw in him. But no matter how she tries, nothing there compares to the man she sees every day, has seen for years. He's not comfortable — could never be comfortable, no matter how hard he tried, and she can't imagine him trying at all. But she doesn't want comfortable; she wants relief. The kind she's only found with him.

"All right, then?" she asks.

"All right," he says, and it feels like an outstretched hand, reaching and holding.