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He recognised her by her voice.
Paul was studying the sandwiches behind the glass with the concentration of a man facing a minor but consequential moral choice when he heard it, two places behind him in the queue.
“I know, I know. Most meetings could be emails, but apparently we still have to sit through them.”
He looked up.
The voice belonged to Broadchurch. To doorways, paper cups of tea and police tape snapping in the wind. To a woman saying bloody hell inside a church as though the building ought to make allowances for context.
“I’m sure you did brilliantly. Mm-hm.” A pause. “I’m waiting for coffee. Thought I might go for a walk afterwards.”
Paul turned before he had quite decided to.
She stood two places behind him, one hand holding a phone to her ear, the other buried in the pocket of a green wool coat he had never seen before. Her hair was different. Darker, perhaps, though the light from the window caught warmer strands where it fell around her face. Longer than he remembered. Softer. She looked older than she had in Broadchurch and, impossibly, younger. Not untouched. Nothing as simple or insulting as that. But settled somehow, as though the years had stopped happening to her and begun to belong to her instead.
“I’ll see you tonight,” she said. Her expression softened. “I know. I know, I love you too.”
She ended the call, slid the phone into her pocket and looked up. Her eyes met his. Her mouth opened.
“Oh my God.”
“People often say that when they see me.”
“Oh my God, what are you doing here?”
The woman between them glanced from Ellie to Paul, apparently trying to determine whether she was witnessing a reunion or a religious experience.
“Currently?” Paul said. “Trying to choose between a cheese toastie and something claiming to contain harissa.”
“No, here. In Edinburgh.”
“Ah. That is a slightly longer answer.”
The queue moved. Neither of them did. The woman between them cleared her throat.
“Sorry.” Ellie stepped forward, still staring at him. “I can’t believe it’s you.”
“Neither can I, really.”
“You look exactly the same.”
“That sounded almost accusatory.”
“No, you do. It’s annoying.”
“You look—”
He stopped. There seemed no safe way to finish the sentence. Well was inadequate. Different sounded ominous. Happy was an intrusion.
Ellie rescued him. “Older?”
“I was going to say cold.”
“It’s Scotland in March.”
“I’d noticed.”
They reached the counter. Paul ordered the cheese toastie after all. Ellie asked for a flat white, then looked at the cakes and added a piece of lemon drizzle without any visible internal conflict.
“Are you sitting in?” he asked.
“I am now.”
She paid for both of them while he was still reaching for his wallet.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“You’re a vicar. You’re probably skint.”
“I have a salary.”
“And yet I’ve already paid.”
She carried her coffee towards a small table beside the window. Paul followed with the wooden number for his toastie, experiencing the strange sensation that the last three years had folded themselves away.
Outside, Edinburgh was silver with recent rain. People passed beneath umbrellas, shoulders raised against the wind. Ellie unwound a patterned scarf and draped it over the back of her chair.
“So,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Visiting a friend.”
She gave him the look he remembered from Broadchurch: affectionate impatience sharpened by professional habit.
“He’s ill,” Paul added. “Cancer.”
Her face changed immediately.
“Oh, Paul. I’m sorry.”
“He’s doing reasonably well. Considering.”
“What sort?”
“Bowel. He had surgery last month. I came up to spend a few days with him while his wife visits their daughter.”
“That’s good of you.”
“It’s what friends do.”
“Not all of them.”
No, he thought. Not all of them.
“And you?” he asked. “What brings you into town?”
“Physiotherapy. My back’s been giving me grief.”
“Is it serious?”
“No. Just the cumulative effect of being forty-four and having a two-year-old who thinks legs are a personal failing.”
“You have a two-year-old.”
“I do.”
The information seemed to hang between them, too large to be approached casually.
“And you live here?” he asked.
“Portobello. Near the beach.”
“Of course.”
“You didn’t think Hardy would move somewhere landlocked, did you?”
Paul stared at her.
“Hardy? You live with Alec Hardy?”
“For nearly three years.”
He tried to fit that fact around every memory he had of the two of them: Hardy standing at the back of the church with his arms folded; Ellie calling him a knob; the wordless way they had moved around one another at the end of Joe’s trial, as though each knew where the other would be without looking.
“Beth mentioned you’d moved to Scotland,” he said.
“Beth knows everything.”
“She said you two talk.”
“Every Wednesday. Wine and mutual complaining.”
“She didn’t mention the child.”
“Maybe she thought I should be allowed to announce at least one development in my own life.”
Her phone lit briefly on the table. Paul caught a photograph on the screen before it went dark: a small child with enormous brown eyes. He looked at Ellie. She had already seen him see it.
“That was who I was talking to,” she said.
“Hardy?”
“No, the Pope. Yes, Hardy.”
“I meant—”
“I know.”
She picked up the phone and unlocked it.
“This is Sarah.”
The photograph filled the screen. A little girl in a cream-coloured knitted jumper filled almost the entire frame. Her brown hair fell in soft, untidy strands around her face, as though someone had made a reasonable attempt at brushing it and she had immediately undone the work. She was looking straight into the camera with enormous dark eyes, solemn and curious, her small mouth slightly open as if she had been interrupted halfway through a question.
Paul forgot to breathe. Sarah was beautiful.
Not merely pretty, though she was that too. Beautiful in the startling, almost indecent way of a child who had never yet thought to make herself smaller. Her eyes were enormous and direct, fixed on the camera with the grave confidence of someone who expected the world to listen.
“Oh,” he said.
Ellie’s face transformed. He remembered that expression. He had seen it when she spoke about Tom as a little boy, before everything. Pride attempting to disguise itself as practicality and failing completely.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “She really is.”
“She looks like you.”
“Everyone says that. I made myself a clone.”
"She has your eyes."
“And his temper.”
“You’re blaming that on Hardy?”
“I grew her. I’m allowed to allocate the defects.”
“How old is she?”
“Two years and two weeks.”
He looked from the child to Ellie.
“You had a baby.”
“That is generally how we acquired her.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
He handed the phone back, though reluctantly.
“Tell me about her.”
Ellie looked down at the photograph.
“If I start, I’ll never stop.”
“I’ve got time.”
“She’s sensitive. Clever. Talks constantly. Yesterday she asked me why children get ill.”
“Oh.”
“I told her I didn’t know, because I haven’t got all the answers. And she said children shouldn’t get ill.” Ellie looked up at him, her face helpless with wonder. “Can you imagine? Two years and two weeks old. She’s got her father and her brothers wrapped around her little finger, but she’ll cry over a bee somebody’s stepped on.”
“She sounds like you.”
“I don’t cry over bees.”
“No. You get angry on their behalf.”
“Someone has to.”
His toastie arrived. The waitress placed it between them, and Ellie immediately stole one of the crisps from the side of his plate.
“Brothers,” Paul said.
“Tom and Fred.”
“I remember their names.”
“You looked confused.”
“I’m trying to catch up with three years in the time it takes you to eat that cake.”
“You’d better ask better questions, then.”
“How are the boys?”
“Fred’s eight. Doing brilliantly at school. Still obsessed with sharks, although we’ve added aquariums, shipwrecks and The Doors.”
“The band?”
“He went through Alec’s records.”
“And Hardy allowed that?”
“Encouraged it. I had to listen to ‘Riders on the Storm’ every morning for six weeks.”
Paul smiled. “Does Fred call him Dad?”
“Dad and Alec. Interchangeably. So does Sarah. She hears the boys call him Alec, so she does it too. Usually when she’s cross with him.”
He could picture it too easily: a tiny version of Ellie shouting Alec across a kitchen while Hardy pretended not to be delighted.
“And Tom?”
“Tom’s studying photography. Can you imagine?”
“Tom?”
“Unless I’ve acquired another one without noticing.”
“I still see him as a little boy.”
“A little pain in the arse, you mean?”
Paul hesitated.
“Well.”
Ellie laughed, but the laughter softened almost immediately.
“He’s been through a lot. We’ve been through a lot with him.”
“Is he all right?”
She considered the question properly. Paul remembered that about her: she rarely offered comfort at the expense of accuracy.
“He’s getting there. He can be selfish and moody and absolutely bloody exhausting. He also calls Fred every Sunday and sends Sarah postcards from places he hasn’t visited.”
“Why?”
“She likes getting post.”
“No, why places he hasn’t visited?”
“Cheaper than travelling, apparently.”
“Where is he studying?”
“Here, in Edinburgh. He spent the whole of last summer in Broadchurch. Took his girlfriend with him.”
“His girlfriend?”
“Try to keep up.”
“And he wanted to go back?”
“It’s his home too.” She brushed crumbs from her fingers. “Joe doesn’t get to own the whole place just because of what he did.”
Paul looked out of the window. For a moment the café seemed warmer than it had been. Too warm. The glass had begun to fog in one corner.
“It’s remarkable,” he said. “You and Hardy ending up—”
“You know, it’s funny.” She leaned back. “People always say one of two things. Either, ‘I always knew. You were made for each other.’ Or, ‘You two? God, really?’”
“I may have been closer to the second.”
“Most sensible people were. But the truth is, it’s all been so…” She searched for the word. “Ordinary.”
“Ordinary?”
“He chose me. I chose him. And then we worked bloody hard to make something out of it.”
“True love requires work.”
“Oh, it’s back-breaking labour.”
Paul laughed.
“But it’s worth it,” she said. “I couldn’t have done all this without him. Obviously there wouldn’t be a Sarah, but the boys too. He and Fred think the world of each other.”
“I remember Fred following him around.”
“Still does. Only now he corrects Alec’s facts and objects to his driving.”
“Does Hardy enjoy that?”
“Enormously. You can tell by the way his left eye starts twitching.”
She smiled down at her coffee.
“Alec always says he doesn’t love Fred any less than Sarah or Daisy. Differently, but never less. And I believe him.”
Her spoon moved once through the remains of foam.
“The children don’t have to believe him. They can feel it.”
Paul said nothing.
He thought of Joe asking for photographs of Fred. Joe asking him to tell Tom that he loved him. Joe saying he would be home soon, as though love were a right of access rather than the sum of everything he had done. Ellie glanced at her watch and sat back abruptly.
“God, listen to me. I’ve done nothing but talk about myself.”
“You warned me you wouldn’t stop.”
“And yet you made no attempt to save yourself. How are you?”
“I’m all right.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer people give.”
“Not after making me buy you a sandwich."
“You bought it before I had a chance to object.”
“Exactly. You owe me honesty.”
Paul folded his paper napkin in half.
“I’ve got a parish outside Bristol.”
“You’re still a vicar, then.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I didn’t know if you’d left Broadchurch or left all of it.”
“Broadchurch. Not all of it.”
“Do you like the new place?”
He took slightly too long to answer.
“Some days.”
“But?”
“There may be changes coming.”
“What sort of changes?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Back to Broadchurch?”
“I didn’t say that.”
The corner of Ellie’s mouth lifted, but she allowed him his silence.
“I’m glad you didn’t leave it all,” she said.
“So am I.”
He was not certain it was entirely true. Ellie examined him for a moment. The mischief had gone from her expression.
“Joe’s in Liverpool,” she said.
Paul’s fingers stopped against the side of his cup.
“What?”
“He’s married. Or as good as. A primary-school teacher with two children.”
“How do you know?”
“Alec.”
“How does Alec know?”
“He has his ways.”
“Ellie—”
“Wherever Joe goes, Alec Hardy will know about it.” She said it without embarrassment or apology. “It’s how he looks after us. And how he manages his own fear, I suppose. At least that part he can control.”
“And you’re comfortable with that?”
“I don’t interfere. But honestly…” She picked up her spoon again. “I don’t particularly care.”
Paul studied her.
“Really?”
“Joe will trip over his own feet eventually. He always does. I only hope he doesn’t hurt anyone when it happens.”
She set the spoon neatly on the saucer.
“I’ve mourned the life I thought I had. I’ve mourned the illusion of a man I genuinely loved. Whatever happens to him now isn’t my responsibility. As long as he stays away from my children.”
Paul looked towards the window. A bus passed through the wet street, briefly filling the glass with red.
“I felt guilty for years,” he said.
Ellie didn’t ask what he meant.
“I thought he was penitent. That’s what I told myself.”
“He was good at telling people what they needed to hear.”
“No.” Paul rubbed one thumb against the other. “He didn’t tell me. That was the worst of it. I saw what I wanted to see.”
She waited.
“I think he was frightened. Lonely. Sorry for himself. And I mistook that for remorse.”
“You weren’t the only one who mistook things in him.”
“I should have known the difference.”
“Why?”
“Because it was my job.”
“You’re a vicar, Paul. Not a human lie detector.”
“But I wanted to believe I was reaching him.” He looked down at his hands. “He asked for me, and I felt useful. Important, perhaps. I thought I might be the person who led him to repentance.”
Ellie said nothing.
“Then he pleaded not guilty, and I kept going back. I told myself I could persuade him to change his plea. Stop the trial. Spare all of you. But every time I went, it became more important that I prove I hadn’t been wrong about him in the first place.”
“You were wrong.”
“I know.”
“So was I.”
The words were quiet. Not bitter. That made them worse.
“I was angry when I found out,” she continued.
“You had every right.”
“It felt like you’d chosen him.”
Paul swallowed. “Perhaps I did.”
“No. You chose what you thought was right. You were wrong. That isn’t the same thing.”
“I lied to Beth about where I was.”
“Yes.”
“I let you all believe I was entirely on your side.”
“Were you on his?”
“I thought a priest wasn’t supposed to have a side.”
“And now?”
“Now I think that may be something priests tell themselves when choosing would cost too much.”
Ellie absorbed that without rushing to contradict him.
“After the verdict,” he said, “when he came to the church, I gave him to Mark and Nige.”
“You brought him to us.”
“I arranged for him to be abducted.”
“That too.”
“I told myself I was protecting you. The boys. The Latimers.” He could still hear Joe calling his name as the doors closed. “Sometimes I wonder if I wanted to punish him for making a fool of me.”
Ellie considered it.
“Probably both.”
He looked at her.
“You’re not going to tell me it was the right thing?”
“Would you believe me if I did?”
“No.”
“Then why waste a perfectly good lie?”
Despite himself, he smiled.
“You helped us get him out,” she said.
“After helping him through the trial.”
“You prayed with a guilty man. You didn’t kill Danny.”
“I gave him comfort.”
“Maybe he didn’t deserve comfort.”
“He didn’t.”
“That’s not the same as saying you were wrong to give it.”
Paul looked at her.
“I hated that you went,” she said. “I still don’t know if I forgive you for keeping it from us. But I don’t want to live in a world where being guilty means nobody will sit beside you.”
“Even him?”
“Don’t push it.”
He lowered his head.
“You don’t get to make what Joe did into your failure, Paul.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. You’ve been carrying his guilt around because you think you should’ve seen through him. Join the bloody queue.”
“Ellie—”
“He’s taken enough from enough people. Don’t give him your vocation as well.”
For a moment, the sounds of the café seemed to recede: cups knocking against saucers, the hiss of steam, a child complaining near the door.
“I’m not sure I know how to put it down,” he said.
Ellie watched him.
“Do you know my husband once studied literature?”
Paul blinked.
“Your… husband?”
She waved one hand dismissively, but her smile was pure mischief.
“Last September. It was just paperwork, really.”
“You married Hardy?”
“Mhm.”
“And you weren’t going to mention it?”
“I just did.”
Paul stared at her.
“Anyway,” she continued, enjoying herself now, “he studied literature once. They threw him out.”
“They threw him out?”
“He failed Latin. But he still reads a lot, and he carries all these sentences around in his head.”
“That does sound like Hardy.”
“There’s one he quotes. A Japanese writer whose name I will not attempt. It goes, ‘Freedom is like the air at a mountain peak. Neither can be endured by the weak.’”
Paul was quiet.
“Joe is free,” Ellie said. “But he’s also an extraordinarily weak man. I don’t think he’ll do anything good with that freedom.” She leaned forward slightly. “But that isn’t my responsibility anymore. And it isn’t yours.”
Outside, a fine rain had begun again, almost too light to see except where it disturbed the puddles. Paul thought of Joe in Liverpool, constructing another life from borrowed pieces. A woman. Two children. A home whose rooms did not yet know him.
Then he looked at Ellie.
She had not escaped consequence. She had endured it. Built inside it. Her freedom had not been the open door of a courtroom but this: a green coat, a job, three children who knew they were loved, a difficult man waiting at home. A life made through ordinary choices, repeated until they became a family.
“Does Hardy know you use his literary quotations in cafés?” he asked.
“Absolutely not. He’d become unbearable.”
“More unbearable?”
“You see my problem.”
He laughed. The rain thickened against the glass.
“How long are you here?” Ellie asked.
“Until Sunday.”
“Come to dinner on Friday.”
Paul thought he had misheard her.
“What?”
“Dinner. At ours. Sarah loves visitors.”
“Your husband will be delighted.”
“My husband will complain for forty minutes and then refill your wine twice.”
“That does sound like him.”
“Come, Paul.”
He hesitated.
“Are you sure?”
“No, I routinely invite people to my house and hope they’ll have the decency not to turn up.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“You won’t. We’re having curry. There’s always too much.”
“You haven’t asked Hardy.”
“I don’t require written authorisation to invite someone for dinner.”
“Does he know that?”
“We covered it in the wedding vows.”
Paul smiled.
“All right.”
“Friday. Seven.”
“What should I bring?”
“Nothing.”
He gave her a look.
“Wine,” she conceded. “But nothing awful. Alec’s become insufferable about it.”
She picked up her scarf and wound it around her neck. The green coat made her look almost luminous against the grey window.
Paul realised that she had not invited him because someone was dead or frightened or in need of counsel. She did not want absolution. She did not need him to explain suffering or carry any part of hers. She wanted him to eat curry. To meet her daughter. To sit at a table inside the life she had made after she no longer needed him to help her survive.
Ellie stood and slipped her phone into her pocket.
“Don’t be a stranger.”