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Chapter Text

Ellie Miller was swimming off Harbour Cliff Beach on a grey day, in a cold drizzle. She was freezing, and she was the only one in the water. Her spouse had disappeared, saying something about rounding up Fred and Izzy and going for gelato. She wanted to get out and dry off, but she couldn’t remember where they’d left the towels.

Hair dripping water into her eyes, she turned towards the shore, only to feel Alec’s arm around her waist. Which was peculiar, because he hadn’t been in the water a second before.

“For God’s sake, Miller!”

Her husband’s arm disappeared; the lamp on his bedside table flicked on; and she felt him sitting up in bed. Half-awake, Ellie realised that she’d been dreaming. She was still quite damp: chilled and clammy. It had happened again, then.

“Shit,” she muttered, switching on her own lamp.

Alec gave her a sympathetic glance, and he squeezed her shoulder before levering himself out of bed with a resigned “mmmph.” Whatever impulse had led him to embrace her at 2 a.m. had apparently evaporated.

“Sorry,” she said, as he retreated towards the en suite. “Hormones.”

“Aye. Not your fault.”

Ellie got up, stripped off her gown, and rummaged around in her chest of drawers for something clean. At 49, she’d been experiencing increasingly irritating perimenopause symptoms, with night sweats being the most annoying thus far. The hot flashes her mum had so often complained about rarely troubled Ellie, but her cycles had become erratic and so alarmingly heavy that she’d gone back on the pill—which she had quit after Alec's vasectomy, done soon after they'd taken custody of Izzy.

Some mornings Ellie would wake up wanting to murder her spouse and partner for no apparent reason. Some mornings she’d wake up thoroughly sick of being alive herself, again for no apparent reason. And some mornings her brain just felt swaddled in cotton wool, making detective work unusually challenging. She was tired of the whole (literally) bloody business and wished it’d end, already. She wasn’t going to have any more babies; it all seemed maddeningly pointless, not to mention disruptive.

“Here,” Alec said, emerging from the loo and tossing her a towel.

“Ta.”

Ellie was damp enough to appreciate the soft, dry cloth—though she certainly wasn’t dripping, as she had been in her dream. After rubbing herself briskly, she donned an oversized Proclaimers tee that she’d filched from Alec long ago. She faced him across the bed.

“We need to change the sheets?” he asked, kneading the back of his neck, patently weary but not complaining. She loved him for that.

“Nah,” she replied, checking her side of the bed with the palm of her hand. “It’s not that dramatic. I’ll do it tomorrow. I’m sorry for waking you up.”

“I was tryin’ to wake you up,” he admitted. “I was havin’ a nice dream. Guess I was thinkin’ about askin’ if you wanted to act it out.”

Ellie gave him a half-smile. “Interesting. I’m wide awake now. You still want to? Quick shag with an old lady?”

“You’re not old. If you are, I’m ruddy decrepit. But the mood might’ve passed. What d’you think?”

“I could be persuaded. It would at least be a more entertaining way of messing up the sheets.”

He grinned. “Fair point.”

They rarely had sex outside the weekend, these days, despite many discussions and shared good intentions. Between dealing with their investigations, dealing with their kids, and dealing with Ellie’s aging dad, the energy to be intimate was often lacking. At the moment, however, she was grateful to be reminded that her body could be a source of mutual pleasure and not just mutual frustration.

Alec came around to her side of the bed, tugging off his tee shirt and then removing the one she’d just put on. He pulled her into his arms, and they stood quietly for a minute, skin-to-skin, mentally readjusting.

“You’re hot, Miller,” he murmured, gliding a hand up and down her bare back.

“I shouldn’t be. I was freezing two minutes ago.”

“Not that kind of hot.”

He backed off a couple of inches and then, he kissed her: lightly at first, then more forcefully. She slid her arms around his waist, pushing her whole body against him. God, he felt good: warm, strong, sweetly familiar. Today was Friday; last Saturday’s lovemaking seemed like forever ago. Maybe it seemed that way to him, too.

Alec squeezed her bum with both hands.

“Ye have a lovely wee bahoochie, Eleanor,” he told her, exaggerating the Scots dialect.

She knew he was trying to make her laugh. It worked a treat.

“Oh, Lord, Hardy,” she snorted. “This bahoochie is not exactly wee.”

“It’s a right bonnie arse. All your bits are bonnie. Now stop witterin’, and let us get on with it, eh? I’m plannin’ to conduct a thorough investigation of all your bits.”

He moved his hands around to her front, gently massaging her breasts. Ellie shoved thoughts of 7 a.m.—the typical scramble with the kids and her dad and school and work—out of her mind.

“Go lie down, then,” she said. “I don’t have enough welly for a standing-up investigation of all my bits.”

“Right.”

Alec returned to his side of the bed and clicked off his lamp before stretching out, beckoning to her with a meaningful leer. Ellie switched off her own lamp and joined him, snuggling against him and kissing his scruffy cheek before reaching a hand into his pyjama bottoms. He sighed with satisfaction at her touch.

“There’s a good lass. I don’t care if we’re doin’ it standin’ or sittin’ or reclinin’ or upside down, just as long as we’re doin’ it.”

“Wanker. We’re definitely doing it. Now, tell me more about your dream.”

***

Alec’s mobile rang at 8:40, while Ellie was driving them to the office after the morning school drop-off. Despite having consumed a cup and a half of coffee, he was still feeling draggy, and his wife and partner didn’t seem particularly perky, either. But the last night’s wee-hours shag—impromptu and surprisingly prolonged—had been well worth this morning’s fatigue.

He picked up on the third ring, even though the caller’s number was unfamiliar. “Alec Hardy, NCA.”

“Detective Hardy? It’s Bennie Fallows. In Yeovil.”

Sometimes Alec could almost feel his brain grinding, struggling to unearth some bit of buried information. He’d met thousands of people over the course of his law enforcement career. They weren’t all memorable.

Ellie gave him a puzzled look, and Alec switched the call to the sedan’s Bluetooth speaker.

“I’m puttin’ you on speaker with my partner, Detective Miller, all right, Mr Fallows?”

“Fine.” The man sounded hesitant.

“Bennie Fallows?” Ellie asked. “The estate agent? Yeovil, right?”

Now Alec remembered: Fallows had been Amelia Prentiss’s landlord. The Prentiss investigation—with its shocking revelations regarding Lord and Lady Robert Montague and their illicit sex club and Amelia’s murder—had been wrapped up around Christmastime, a mere four months ago. But the Hardy-Millers had solved a couple of urgent missing persons cases since then, and there had been a whirlwind trip to Paisley for the wedding of Alec’s niece Jean. The stress of Isobel’s unexpected pacemaker implantation in March had also consumed a good bit of his mental and emotional bandwidth. It was no wonder that a few facts might slip a man’s mind.

“That’s right, ma’am,” Fallows said. “That’s right. I thought—well, I called the police already, but I still had Mr Hardy’s card, and I thought the two of you would want to know, too.”

“Know what?” Alec asked, none too politely.

“There was a body found during demolition of one of my buildings this morning. In the attic. In a cupboard that had been locked for God knows how long. The police are on their way to meet me there, but my crew chief said the thing’s so dried out that it looks like beef jerky. It can’t be recent. Old bodies are your department, aren’t they? Cold cases?”

Ellie suppressed an urge to make a sly joke about old bodies, smiling as she recalled last night. “Sometimes,” she said. “If the local police want help, and it’s actually determined to be a cold case with criminal implications, they might call us in. That would be their choice, though.”

“It’s got to be,” Fallows countered. “There’s no non-criminal reason to lock up a body in your attic, is there?”

“Generally not,” said Alec. “You say the buildin’s bein’ torn down?”

“Yep. Started out as large single-family but later subdivided into flats. Three of them, plus an attic just used for storage. Built in the ’30s. It’s been unoccupied for six months, at least. The whole parcel’s slated for demolition for a new block of shops. I didn’t own all the properties; there’s been a wait for tenants of one of the other houses to consent to being moved. They had a long lease. I always think that’s a mistake, giving a tenant a long lease. As an owner, you’re lumbered with—”

“Aye,” Alec interrupted. “Understood. Look, Mr Fallows, when you get to the site? Just tell whatever detective they send over that you’ve spoken with us this morning. They’ll decide whether they want any help after their SOCO team finishes up, and their M.E. has had a go.”

“SOCO? M.E.?” Fallows was clearly confused by the police jargon.

“Sorry,” Ellie said, eyes still on the road. “Scenes of crime officers. Medical examiner. The pathologist will obviously have to do a post-mortem. I hope you’ve stopped whatever your crew was doing there. They should leave everything as it was found.”

“Yeah. Of course. Hands off. Like I said, I’m on my way to meet the police. It’s going to mean another damned delay.”

“Most likely a bit of one, yeah,” said Ellie. “Unavoidable.”

“That’s life, I guess,” Fallows said. “That’s all I know, so far. I’ll let you go. Maybe I’ll see you sometime soon.”

“Possibly,” Alec said, noncommittally. “Thanks for callin’ us. Just tell the police everythin’ you can remember about the property and your tenants, when they question you. They’ll get to the bottom of it, or we will.”

“I believe it. The way you figured out that business about poor Amelia Prentiss. And those Montagues. My God, who’d have thought a couple of posh—”

Ellie was pulling into the station car park. She cut the voluble estate agent off with a crisp, “Right, right. Thanks so much for the call, Mr Fallows.”

“Right,” he repeated. “Right, right. Sorry. I’ll let you go. Take care, then.”

“And you,” Ellie said, cheerfully.

Fallows rang off.

Ellie unbuckled her seat belt and grimaced at her partner. “A body in the attic looking like beef jerky. Ugh.”

“Aye. Quite an unappetizin’ mental picture. If that’s remotely accurate, it has to have been there for years, to have got desiccated that way. Can’t have been wrapped in plastic or anythin’ watertight, or it would’ve rotted instead of dryin’ out. Surprised the smell didn't alert someone, regardless. Must’ve been some unusual environmental conditions, eh?”

“Must’ve been.”

They headed for the rear entrance of the Wessex Police building: the quickest access to the stairs leading to the half-vacant floor where their offices were located. Not talking, they automatically off-loaded their jackets and Ellie’s bag in their respective offices, then met in the break room. Ellie filled the kettle and plugged it in. She’d long since cured her spouse of his unfortunate habit of microwaving water and carelessly plunking in whatever teabag came most readily to hand, even if it was a used one. The dish drainer by the sink held their favourite mugs: his, a Proclaimers “Angry Cyclist” tour souvenir gifted to him by his half-brother, Jim MacDonald; hers, the beloved red “Keep Calm and Let Mum Do It” mug, a long-ago Christmas present from Tom Hardy-Miller.

“Least it won’t be Art Farris, eh?” said Alec. “If we get called in regardin’ that body, I mean.”

The irascible Somerset and Avon CID officer—bane of their existence in multiple cold case investigations—had recently been promoted to Detective Chief Inspector and relocated to the district’s headquarters in Portishead. Someone from Taunton CID would be more likely to investigate an incident in Yeovil.

“Thank God for small favours,” Ellie replied, opening the cupboard to survey the tea choices. “What d’you fancy, then? There’s this TyPhoo Extra Strong, or PG Tips. Earl Grey. Or there’s some herbal stuff. Chamomile and linden flowers, it says. Huh. Wonder who’s been drinking that?”

Rolling his eyes, Alec shrugged. “Already imbibed too much caffeine to tolerate anythin’ extra strong. I’ll be gettin’ palpitations. Can’t go the herbal, though. Best do the PG Tips.”

He was already looking up something on his mobile, as she extracted two little bags from the box and popped them into the mugs. “Hal Rice got himself promoted,” he reported. “DI, now. Still in Taunton.”

“Lovely. If we have to work on a case over there, I’d much rather have him than Art Farris.”

“That’s DCI Farris to you, Miller,” Alec growled, offering a passable imitation of the man’s pompous insistence on deference to rank.

“Full marks, Hardy,” she chuckled. “You sound just like him.”

“God forbid. Hope we get Rice, anyway. If we even get the call. That'll be Emily's decision, even if they do ask for help.”

The detectives had an excellent relationship with Emily Watson, their NCA supervisor. She tended to give them a lot of leeway selecting cold cases, but technically they were supposed to choose from an NCA-approved priority list.

"You know she'll be okay with it, love," Ellie replied. "Bound to be media attention with something so odd. Just depends on whether Taunton CID want to handle it themselves."

Alec poured the boiling water into the mugs, and Ellie retrieved a couple of spoons from a drawer while he pulled milk from the little refrigerator, sniffing as he always did before splashing some into his mug and then handing the carton to his wife.

Morning essentials sorted, they headed down the hallway that led to their offices. “Beef jerky,” Alec muttered. “For God’s sake.”

“Yeah. Bit weird.”

“More than a bit. Kind of hope we do get the nod, Miller. Been a while since we’ve had a really weird one. I’m itchin’ to work on somethin’ interestin’, instead of chasin’ after kids bein’ lured away to Birmingham to make porn, or whatever. Keep the brain cells engaged, yeah?”

“Mmmm.  You know that’s important work, though. Chasing missing kids.”

“Aye. Course it is. Just depressin’, is all.”

“Yeah,” she acknowledged. “Quite right. But still.”

They had reached Ellie’s office door. Alec put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

“Rather have the homegrown version, anyway,” he said.

“Of what? Porn?”

“Aye. Even at 2 a.m. with an old lady. See you later, Miller.”

She refrained from smacking him on the arm since he was carrying a mug of scalding tea. “Knob. The old lady might let you investigate more this weekend, if you’re nice. Give you some palpitations.”

“Cheeky wench. Lookin’ forward to it. Carry on.”

She winked at him, and he kissed her cheek before releasing her shoulders and continuing down the hall.

***

“Barrett, mate? You all right?”

David Barrett was standing in front of the block of flats where he and Peg had lived before metastatic breast cancer had ended her life. Seven years ago, now, or was it eight? They hadn’t lived in this building for all that long; they’d sold their beloved cottage only a few years before Peg’s death, downsizing for a shared retirement that had turned out to be painfully brief. Still, David remembered every square inch of that flat: the tidy kitchen, the cosy lounge, the little bedroom where he and Peg had still made love, once in a while, until almost the very end.

God, how he missed her.

Not that it was awful, living with Ellie and Hardy and Fred and Isobel—sweet Izzy, his special pal—in the “granny annexe” attached to their bungalow. The arrangement had turned out better than David had ever expected it could. Hardy, once the object of his suspicions, had surprised him; the man clearly adored Eleanor, was an attentive dad to all his kids (step or otherwise), and was generally respectful and supportive to his father-in-law.

“Barrett?”

David stopped staring at the door of his old building and turned, blinking in the late afternoon sun. The man addressing him was familiar. Sandy haired. Short. Muscular. Sixty-something. It was a K name, he knew. Keith, Kevin, Kit?

Kenny.

Ken Stroud was one of a group of older men who gathered at The King’s Arms for a few pints and a friendly game of snooker at least twice a week; it had been going on for years. Nevertheless, the man’s name had refused to register in David’s brain for an annoying amount of time before realisation finally dawned.

“Eh? Kenny?”

“Yeah, course it’s me. Barrett, mate, you feeling peaky? You look a bit off. Maybe you should sit down. Can I give you a ride someplace?”

David shook his head, as if to clear it. Stroud’s ancient Corsa was parked at the kerb; David had no memory of having seen the man pull up beside him.

In fact, he had no memory of how he’d got here. Bus, maybe. There were only a handful of operational routes in Broadchurch, but one of them could get him from the Hardy-Miller bungalow to this neighbourhood, given a bit of walking on either end.

David checked his watch. Four p.m. No need to rush home; no one would be there. Friday—he now remembered that it was Friday—was a day when Fred and Izzy went to after-school care; Alec and Ellie wouldn’t pick them up for at least another hour and a half. He had time. To do what, he wasn’t sure.

“C’mon, mate, you look knackered.” Stroud’s concern was evident from the uncharacteristic way he was now clutching David’s shoulder.

“I’m fine, Ken,” David made himself say, shrugging off the steadying hand. “Nothing wrong. Just having a bit of a wander.”

“Right. Pretty far from home, aren’t you, though? Saw you standing here staring like you’d turned into a bloomin’ statue.”

“Got bored,” David lied. “Nothing good on telly. Sun’s out; just felt like a walk.”

“If you say so, me old mucker.”

“We used to live here, the wife and me,” David mused. “Last place we lived before she passed.”

“Ah,” Stroud replied. “Walk down memory lane, was it? Man has to do that sometimes, I guess. Let me give you a lift, though. Back home, or….?”

“Got time for a quick one, down the pub?” David suggested. “Start the weekend?”

Stroud grinned.

“We could do, yeah. There’s no one expecting you? No one you need to call? Wouldn’t want anyone worrying about you.”

Stroud had a point. Ellie generally didn’t like not knowing where her dad was, and she had begun to lecture him about keeping her informed. David thought she’d been overly worried about him ever since he’d almost died from that bloody COVID, a few years back. Not that he didn’t appreciate being taken care of. But he was nearly 80; he shouldn't be treated like a baby.

Grudgingly, he dug out his mobile. “No one’s expecting me,” he said. “But I’ll text Eleanor, let her know where we’re going.”

“Good, good. Best keep that girl happy, or she might send the constables after you, eh, mate?”

Stroud opened the car door and David climbed in, irked by a transient stab of pain in his left knee. He buckled up, then voice-texted Ellie, holding the mobile near his mouth as his mate turned the key in the ignition.

“Going to the King’s for a pint with Kenny. Home for tea.”

David didn’t bother to tell his daughter that he’d ended up in front of his and Peg’s old flat, halfway across town. It wasn’t that he wanted to hide things; he just wasn’t sure how it had happened. It was a little unsettling, to be honest.

But what Eleanor didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Chapter Text

Alec wasn’t sure “beef jerky” had been the right description for the body laid out on the examining table. More mahogany-ish, he thought. But close enough.

Avon and Somerset pathologist Amanda Allen, already familiar to them from last year’s Ed Gardner case, was reviewing her postmortem with him and Ellie. DI Hal Rice had wasted no time contacting the NCA Missing Persons Unit about the mummified corpse, calling Emily Watson immediately on Friday after he’d met Bennie Fallows at the site. Rice specifically requested that she assign Hardy and Miller to investigate the cold case.

“My team’s got no bandwidth for it,” Hal told Alec on the phone later that afternoon. “Amanda says that body’s decades old, whoever it is. I can’t be chasing a case like that right now. More than happy for you and Miller to take a crack at it. Can you meet us up here at the morgue? Two p.m. on Monday?”

“Aye.”

Amanda Allen still looked far too young for her job, Alec thought. She was perky and blonde, her magenta scrubs an incongruous splash of colour in the cold light of the morgue. The corpse that appeared when she rolled back the pale blue sheet could’ve been in that cupboard 10 years or a hundred, as far as Alec could tell. The body was lying on its side with knees drawn up and arms pulled in, almost but not quite in the foetal position. A few wisps of hair that might once have been blonde remained, but otherwise, Alec could barely understand what he was looking at.

“So,” Amanda said. “Unusual problem here. Unique in my experience.”

“You can say that again,” Hal chimed in. He was leaning against a wall at the side of the room, looking rather amused. The stocky, good-natured detective was a breath of fresh air compared with dear old Art Farris, Alec thought.

“Tell us what you know so far, Amanda, please,” Ellie said. Alec could tell that his wife was fascinated rather than repulsed; he found her enthusiasm delightful if a bit surprising, considering how irritable she’d been on the drive up. But then, her moods had been ridiculously changeable, lately.

“The subject is a female,” Amanda said. “What hair there is has been dyed, blonde over white; this person was old enough to have grey hair. She has a mouthful of amalgam fillings and a couple of gold ones, which would indicate an older person, also. The dental x-rays could be useful in identifying her, down the line.”

“Good,” Alec said. “Any idea of her height? Weight?”

“I was able to straighten her out somewhat, temporarily, but she goes back into this shape automatically. I didn’t want to force things and cause damage. Best guess is she would’ve been between five feet two inches and five feet four inches tall, but you have the issue of shrinkage making the question more complicated.”

“Shrinkage?” Alec asked. “How, shrinkage?”

“Mummified bodies shrink over time. The soft tissues, first, but eventually even bone to some degree. There have been studies done to try to determine rates of shrinkage according to various environmental conditions and mummification techniques. It’s a fascinating subject.”

“Gosh,” said Ellie. “Interesting. What do you think about her weight, though? She seems so tiny.”

“I don’t think she could’ve been overweight,” Amanda replied. “More likely petite overall. Because if there had been a lot of adipose tissue, this degree of mummification would’ve been even more unlikely than it already is. I might’ve expected to see some level of saponification … maybe a leathery epidermis over saponified internal organs. But there’s not a lot of adipocere here; she’s quite dry almost throughout.”

“Ugh,” said Ellie. “I’ve read about things like that. Never had a case where it applied.”

“Grave wax, yeah?” Alec asked.

Amanda nodded. “Gold star, detective. It’s been called that, among other things. Quite amazing, the variety of ways a body can decay. At any rate, not really relevant in this case.”

Ellie peered down at the corpse, frowning. “Can you draw any conclusions regarding how long this woman was in that cupboard? Any estimate at all, of when she died?”

Amanda shook her head. “Not yet. It’s going to take some more analysis. I’m thinking about contacting the mummy experts over at University of Liverpool; they’ve done some really interesting work. They might have decent advice. Meanwhile I’m doing DNA sequencing later this afternoon; it’s possible we’ll get lucky and we’ll get a hit in the Missing Persons DNA Database. Or even the national database. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“That’d make life too easy,” Ellie quipped.

Hal chuckled. “Yeah. But at least we can be sure she can’t have been locked in there any earlier than 1938, because that’s when the place was built. Fallows told me that.”

“I don’t think it’s been as long as that, but hold that thought,” said Amanda. “We can determine a few more things about her, fairly easily. Cause of death, almost certainly.”

“Which was?” Alec asked, a bit abruptly. He was half entertained by Amanda’s slow unveiling of the facts and half impatient just to get to the meat of things. (Though perhaps “meat” wasn’t the most apt metaphor at the moment.)

The doctor aimed a ring light at the corpse’s head, which was turned to the right. She pointed.

“There was a significant blow to the back of the head, which punctured the skin and cracked the skull. Upon magnification I could see that there was almost certainly something pointed involved.”

“Someone hit her with something sharp?” Ellie asked.

“Possibly,” Amanda replied. “Also possible that she fell on something with a sharp corner, with a fair amount of force. Perhaps she was pushed, though the bone I’ve been able to examine is osteoporotic, which again probably indicates an older person with a more fragile skull. It could’ve just been a spontaneous fall. Whatever happened, there would’ve been a brain bleed and then death sometime thereafter. Perhaps within a few hours; perhaps more quickly. Hard to say.”

Ellie shook her head. “Poor old girl.”

“Mmmm,” Amanda agreed. “Not a nice way to go.”

“You said ‘almost certainly’ it was the blow to the head,” Alec said. “Meanin’ you’re not certain that’s how she died? What else could’ve been goin’ on?”

Hal piped up. “We found remnants of a stocking tied round her neck. Amanda says the hyoid bone wasn’t broken, and obviously the skin of the neck is degraded like all the rest of her, so it’s hard for us to tell for sure whether the head injury killed her, or if someone did away with her by garrotting her with the stocking. What was left of it was fairly loose when SOCO examined, but of course the body’s shrunken up.”

“Weird,” Ellie said. “Seems like overkill, literally.”

Amanda nodded. “It is strange. And we can’t tell for sure what came first: the blow to the head and then the strangling, or the other way round. Possibly she was being garrotted and lost consciousness and fell. Possibly she fell, or was pushed, or was hit with something pointy, and then someone finished her off with the stocking.”

“We need a better estimate of how long she’s been dead, or it’s goin’ to be a nightmare figurin’ out who she is,” Alec grumbled.

“Obviously,” said Amanda. “But her clothing might give some clues. Come take a look.”

After respectfully re-covering the corpse, the doctor led them to another, smaller metal table. It held several evidence bags. Hal stepped forward to narrate.

“We’ll be sending you the whole SOCO report, and Fallows says he’s willing to give you a tour of the place. It’ll help you understand how she could’ve got into this state. Something about the ductwork. But you’ll have to get over there as soon as you can—because we’ve given him permission to go on with the demolition once you sign off.”

“Fine,” Ellie said. “We can make that happen. I’m surprised you’re letting it go on so soon.”

“SOCO went over the whole place this weekend with the proverbial fine-toothed comb,” Rice replied. “Every cupboard; every nook and cranny. The contractors know to go slowly with the demolition and call us if they find anything in the walls or under the floorboards. They’re saving the hardwood flooring for reuse anyway, so they’re motivated to be careful. It’s not a wrecking-ball situation, at least not until they finish that bit.”

“We’re not digging up the garden?” Ellie cracked.

“Nah,” said Hal. “If there’s bodies out there, they’ll be found as the new construction goes forward. I don’t think it’s particularly likely. More likely someone had a grudge against this old girl in particular, and did away with her and hid her up here.”

Amanda cleared her throat. “The personal effects?” she prodded.

“Yeah, sorry, doc,” Hal grinned, picking up one of the two largest evidence bags.

“So,” he continued. “Our vic wasn’t wearing knickers when found, or a bra, or anything on her feet. Only a nightgown underneath a dressing gown. This is the nightgown, or what’s left of it. Practically in shreds. Grey cloth of some sort; maybe white once. No tag.”

“Can you take it out?” Ellie asked.

“Rather have you refer to the SOCO photos,” Hal said. “Not kidding, the thing’s falling apart, and stained with bodily fluids; I’d rather we not handle it.”

“Natural fibres,” Amanda said. “Under the scope, looks like cotton. But it’s just a simple shift; not a lot to help us, style-wise, in terms of period.”

“No joy there, then,” Alec said. “Let’s move on.”

“Please,” Elle prompted, looking straight at him.

“Please,” Alec sighed.

Hal picked up the other large bag, which held something navy blue with white piping on the collar. The garment had been carefully folded so a tag was visible.

“Here’s the dressing gown,” he said. “It’s in much better shape than the nightie, because it’s nylon, apparently, which held up a lot better. Lasts forever, that stuff. But still fragile. I’d refer you to the SOCO photos for a better look.”

“Can I see?” Ellie asked, reaching for the bag. “Just want a look at the tag.”

Hal handed it to her, and she carried it back to the examining table and held it under the ring light.

“This came from Woolworth’s,” Ellie pronounced, after a moment.

“How d’you know?” asked Alec.

“Because my mum had lots of clothes from there with this same label. Winfield.”

“Must be ancient, then,” Amanda piped up. “No Woolworths have been open around here for a long time.”

Hal was swiping on his mobile. “2009, they closed all the stores in the UK. Hmmm.”

“Helpful, maybe,” said Alec. “But this could be a lot older, couldn’t it? Might not’ve been new at all when the woman was killed. You said nylon lasts forever. If our victim was frugal, or just poor, she might’ve been wearin’ this for a long time.”

Ellie chuckled. “God, I think mum wore the same dressing gown for at least 20 years. Bless her.”

Shrugging, Hal reached for the evidence bag and led them back over to the small table, where he replaced the larger bag and picked up a small one. “Here’s the stocking, or what's left of it. Amanda thinks this is also nylon, and it’s an old style. A stocking, not tights.”

“Not all nylon,” Amanda added. “There’s something stretchy involved. We need a better analysis, but whatever it is, could be helpful. Because all-nylon would’ve indicated an older period, probably something before the 1960s.”

“Any brand information?” Alec asked.

“Generic, unfortunately, as far as we can tell,” Hal replied. “And the victim wasn’t wearing the other stocking, or a garter belt. So this might not have belonged to her. Might’ve belonged to the killer. The only other thing found on the body was this wedding ring.”

He pointed at the smallest bag on the table. “You’re welcome to handle it,” he continued. “But it’s unremarkable. No engraving.”

“So tiny,” Ellie observed, picking up the bag and holding it up for Alec to see. “She must’ve been a small woman even without shrinkage. Or at least a person with small hands.”

“Agreed,” Amanda said, nodding. “Plus the dressing gown label says ‘extra small’. Which would’ve probably made it easier for the killer to do away with her, whatever happened, if she was truly petite. I’ll try to find out more for you. Early days.”

A brief silence fell. All four of the room’s live inhabitants were staring at the examining table, wondering what had happened to produce the sad remains that were mercifully concealed by the blue sheet.

“Any more questions?” Hal prodded. “Busy day. I’ll send over the SOCO report as soon as it’s sewn up. Probably tomorrow.”

Alec looked at Ellie, who shrugged. He nodded in return.

“I think that’s all, for now,” she said. “What will you do with her, Amanda?”

“Cold storage for a while. Not forever, obviously. If you two don’t figure out who she was … well, St. Mary’s is where the coroner’s little plot is, for unidentified victims. Might be where this one’s headed. Requiescat in pace, either way.”

Alec gazed at her, his expression thoughtful. Amanda Allen still looked far too young to be a medical examiner, but perhaps that was more a reflection of his age than of hers. In any case, she was clearly quite competent—and also quite thoughtful about the implications of her grim work.

“Amen,” he said.

***

“Tell you what, detectives, you see all kinds in the real estate business. But this is a whole new level of weird. Good thing we’re tearing this place down; it’d be hard to let it now. It’s always hard to rent out places where there’s been a corpse.”

Bennie Fallows had provided the detectives with hard hats from the boot of his grey Mercedes, and he was wearing one himself. The 60-something man was talkative and energetic: blue-eyed, ruddy, and bald. Ellie thought he might be wearing the same thing as he had when they’d interviewed him during the Amelia Prentiss investigation. The same style, at any rate: crisp chinos and an Oxford shirt.

The attic he led them to appeared mostly intact. Some of the plasterboard had been removed, but the flooring was still in place: just unfinished planking over joists, rather than the vintage hardwood that Fallows had told them characterised the actual flats. They’d entered the building through a tiny foyer giving access to the main-floor flat, plus a stairwell that led down to a garden flat, and up to another flat on the second storey. The attic itself was only accessible from the upstairs unit, through a narrow staircase behind a kitchen door.

“It’s a strange layout, isn’t it?” Ellie observed, as they stood in the centre of the dusty, dim attic, which was lit only by a couple of bare bulbs hanging from the wooden beams overhead.

“Bit strange, yeah,” agreed Fallows. “But you know how it is in these places that’ve been chopped up for multifamily use. You see weird layouts. All of that was done before I ever acquired the property. I’ve always assumed someone had the idea of making a little flat up here and then didn’t finish. Would’ve been illegal; not enough head room unless they dormered it out. But I guess that’s why there are walls, and this cupboard. Doesn’t matter now.”

“You acquired the place when?” Alec asked, revolving slowly to take in the bare beams and the dingy cream plasterboard that stopped about five feet up, due to the slant of the roof. The space was empty except for a couple of large wooden trunks whose lids were gaping open.

“2010,” Fallows readily replied. “Looked it up; knew you’d ask. I’ve had it completely leased out since then. But the current deal’s been pending for a while; I wrapped up all the existing leases last autumn. We were thinking construction would start sooner than it has. Like I said, difficulties getting tenants to vacate a different property on the same parcel. Not one I owned.”

Ellie nodded, not eager to let the witness natter on about his professional troubles. “So you said. We’d like to see inside the cupboard, please.”

Crossing the small space, Fallows led them to a wooden door that had been olive green at some point—though most of the paint was flaking off in long shards, exposing several other layers of colour. It was flush with the plasterboard on either side; the cupboard had been built into the wall. He pointed at a black metal plate with a round hole, where a knob had once presumably been mounted. A rusty hasp was hanging loose from the doorframe, but the corresponding staple was lying on the floor; its loop appeared to have been bent.

“No idea what happened to the doorknob,” Fallows explained. “There was a padlock; my crew head had to pry the staple loose to get in. We always check all the cupboards and drawers of any property before we demolish it.”

“But you didn’t open this up when you took possession of the house?” Ellie asked.

“Nah. Probably should’ve done, but no. We weren’t ever intending that anyone should use this space. We just installed a new lock on the door at the bottom of the stairs and didn’t give the key to the second-floor tenant. Didn’t want anyone up here; it’s a liability issue. There was other storage they could use, in the basement. Now that we’re tearing the thing down, the crew head just thought it best to take a gander.”

“I see,” said Ellie. “What happened to the padlock?”

“Oh, your lot took it, when they were in here investigating. I don’t know what they thought it would tell them, but I don’t have it.”

Fallows stuck his finger in the hole in the doorknob plate and tugged; the door swung open without resistance, creaking a bit on its hinges. The dusty space inside was small: about two feet deep and five feet wide, with nearly half the width taken up by vertical metal ductwork. The cupboard had plasterboard walls, with a ceiling no more than five feet off the floor. Ellie tried to imagine what it must’ve been like to cram a body into it. Even if the woman had been petite, it might not have been an easy task.

She devoutly hoped the victim had already been dead before having the door slammed on her, sealing her into the dusty blackness.

Alec peered in. “There was nothing else in here but the corpse? Anything else up here that’s been moved?”

“I wasn’t here when they took the body out,” Fallows replied. “You’d have to ask your people if anything else was in there. But I was up here before they came, and there was nothing else but these old  trunks, that I could see. Both empty. Just the kind of junk people leave behind.”

“Right,” said Ellie, pointing at the ductwork. “And that’s part of the ventilation system?”

“Yup,” Fallows said. “Hot air that vents upwards. And there are leaks in that ductwork, and the floor’s not completely solid either. I heard one of your lot telling that detective maybe that’s why the body dried out. Something about pressurisation? Sucking warm air through here?”

The detectives hadn’t had a chance to examine the SOCO report, which had arrived by email around lunchtime, shortly before they’d had to leave for Yeovil. But what Fallows was describing could make some sense, Ellie thought. It was plausible, if unlikely.

“Interesting,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Fallows. “Bizarre. And obviously we had no idea there was a body here. Must’ve been for ages.”

“Maybe,” Alec responded, noncommittally. “You never heard any complaints about an odd smell?”

“Never.”

Alec stuck his head into the space and looked around, but there was nothing of interest; any evidence had presumably been sorted by SOCO.

He straightened up. “What can you tell us about tenants who lived here, while you’ve managed the place?”

“Knew you’d ask. I’ve got some records for you in the Mercedes.”

“Good,” said Alec. “Give us the high-level summary. As well as you can recall. I realise it’s been 13 years.”

Fallows nodded. “That’s why I pulled the records. I don’t trust my memory. I manage a lot of properties. Don’t own them all, of course. But it’s a lot to keep track of. People don’t realise that this is a complicated profession. I could tell you stories—”

“The tenants?” Ellie prompted, firmly.

“Right, right. Well. Most recent tenant in the garden level was a primary school teacher. Holy Trinity, I think; it’d be in the records. She had the flat for five years, more or less. Didn’t really know her. Before that, there was an older man in that unit. Widowed pensioner. He was the tenant before I took possession; I inherited him. Died on a walking holiday to the Lake District. Didn’t have family to speak of, so we were lumbered with having to clear the place out. Which was not a picnic, I can tell you. Probably why I actually remember him. Mr Dailey. Almost a hoarder.”

“I see,” she said. “Who else do you remember?”

“Married couple in the flat on the ground floor; the Brownes. No kids. They’ve been with us for seven or eight years. I was sorry to have to terminate their lease last year, but we were able to find them a nice spot in one of our other properties. Before that, a couple of spinsters had it. Do people still use that word, spinsters? I’m probably being politically incorrect. Anyway, that flat was empty when I acquired the place. I rented it to them. I suspect they were in a relationship, but of course you’re never sure. Long as they pay their rent, I don’t care. Rhea and Iris, they were. It’s in the records. They relocated, and then we let it to the Brownes.”

Ellie had extracted a notebook from her bag and was taking notes. Fallows was moving towards the stairs. “You want to walk while we talk? If you're done up here, I can show you the flats, if you want.”

“Aye,” Alec said.

Fallows began to descend; there was no railing, and the treads were shallow. Not to code, Ellie surmised, looking down into the stairwell. Maybe Fallows’ theory about someone trying to make living space in the attic, on the sly, had been correct.

“Watch your step, Miller,” Alec advised his partner. “It’ll be steep, goin’ down.”

She scowled. “Obviously,” she snapped, unaccountably irked by his protectiveness. She pointedly jammed the notebook back into her bag.

“Watch yourself, then,” she said before starting down, pressing her palms into the walls for balance.

Ellie heard her husband’s quiet sigh as he followed her, and she immediately regretted having been so curt with him. Bloody hormones. She hoped it was merely that, and that it would all pass—sooner rather than later.

Fallows led them into the kitchen of the second-storey flat, then closed the door behind them. “I had the same tenant in here the whole time I owned the place. Ronnie Magnuson.”

Something about Fallows’ tone raised Ellie’s antennae. “What can you tell us about him?”

“Interesting bloke. Late with the rent, sometimes, but he always paid up in the end. He was here when I bought the place, just like Mr Dailey. Drove a lorry, or so he told us.”

Ellie had resumed scrawling notes. “What was he like? To the best of your recollection?”

“Oh, it hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen him. Had to pay him a visit when we didn’t renew the lease last autumn. He wasn’t happy about having to go; demanded that I come have a chat. Got a bit shirty with me. Course he wasn’t going to talk me out of anything, but it was unpleasant.”

“He threaten you?” asked Alec.

“Wouldn’t necessarily say that, but … he was a big guy. Fit. In his 50s I guess, so not that much younger than me, but let’s just say I wouldn’t have wanted to meet him in a dark alley. Not if I was on his bad side.”

“Mmm,” said Ellie.

“I offered to help him find a flat in one of our other properties, but he wasn’t having it. I don’t know where he went.”

“I see,” Ellie said.

Fallows shrugged good naturedly. “I can’t blame him for being unhappy with us. I don’t honestly know anything bad about him, other than he was a slow payer, sometimes. But it takes all kinds.”

With that pragmatic statement, the man began leading them through the rest of the house. All of it appeared to be in fairly good nick; the demolition had barely begun when the corpse had been discovered. A crew was busy removing the oak flooring from the garden flat. Everything struck Ellie as unremarkable; there were hardly any touches of vintage character left, beyond the hardwood floors. The age of the appliances indicated that renovations had been done during the past few decades—she assumed when Fallows had taken possession.

“What was it like here when you bought it?” she asked him, as they paused in the sunny lounge of the main-floor unit. A bay window overlooked the leafy street outside, which was fairly quiet on this Tuesday afternoon. Ellie wondered how many of the mature plane trees would be sacrificed to the upcoming development.

“The flats hadn’t been redecorated for donkey’s years,” Fallows replied. “Course, the rents reflected that. I did some renovations, brought it up to our general standards. Paint. New appliances. It was inconvenient for Magnuson and Mr Dailey, but they survived.”

“And the prior owner left because?” Alec asked.

Shrugging, Fallows shook his head. “Never met her. Woman name of Smallwood. The deal was negotiated through a third party. I was just told she’d inherited the place and managed it for a long time before she got tired of being a landlord. The agent implied she might be getting up there in years, but I never met her. She had a weird first name. I didn’t think to check the records before I drove over here today, but I remember it was weird. A ‘V’ name.”

“Vera?” Ellie guessed. “Victoria? Vanessa?”

“Those names aren’t weird, Miller,” Alec muttered.

“Oh, pooh. You try, then.”

She smiled at him, her tone playful. She knew she’d been unduly short with him about the stairs, and she’d been snappish yesterday on the drive they’d taken up to Taunton to discuss the autopsy. It pained her to be unpredictably irritable; it was so different from her customary personality. Though she thought she was a far cry from being as routinely grouchy as Alec Hardy had been with her—and practically everyone else—for the first few years of their professional relationship. On balance, he was still way ahead. If a person could call it that.

Alec smiled back at her, looking almost grateful. “Violetta?”

“Verity!” Fallows cried. “It was Verity. Verity Smallwood. No idea what’s become of her. Guess you two will have to try to find out.”

“That’s what we do,” Ellie said, cheerfully. “We’re in the finding-out business, aren’t we? We’re definitely going to try to find out what happened here. Thank you for giving us so much of your time today. It’s been helpful.”

“Always glad to cooperate with the police,” Fallows replied. “Is there anything else?”

She glanced at her husband; he shook his head.

“Not for now,” Ellie said. “You know where to find us if you think of anything more. Don’t hesitate to reach out. Good luck with your project.”

“Right. Thanks.”

Fallows led them out the front door and over to his Mercedes, collecting their hard hats and tossing them into the boot. He handed Ellie a box of folders.

“Copies of all my renters’ records for this place. There might be other stuff that’s older. Stuff we received during the purchase. I’ll have to look in storage.”

“Thanks,” said Alec. “That would be helpful.”

“I’ll let you know,” Fallows said, starting to move back towards the house. “Safe travels.”

The detectives headed across the street, where Ellie’s blue sedan was parked at the kerb. She dropped her bag and Fallows’ folders onto the back seat before starting to climb into the driver’s side, ready to take her typical spot behind the wheel.

Alec had followed her rather than getting in on the passenger’s side. He blocked her access, lightly combing through her helmet-flattened hair with his fingers before bending to press a long kiss to her forehead.

“You all right?” he asked.

The two of them had conducted countless interviews together. This one hadn’t been particularly stressful. But Ellie didn’t think he was talking about the interview. She shrugged, then nodded. She was all right. Mostly.

“I mean, in general,” Alec clarified, as if reading her mind. His hands were still cradling her head; she had an absurd and fleeting sensation that he was holding everything together up there.

She smiled at him before enfolding him in a hug that was tight, but brief. Neither of them had ever been all that chuffed about public displays of affection, and they were standing in the street.

“I’m okay, sweetheart. Thanks. Sorry I’ve been so—”

“Not your fault,” he said. “Forget it. Let’s go.”

They climbed in and buckled up, and she pulled out. The dashboard clock read 4:27; they’d need to pick up the kids at after-school and then rustle up something fast. Everyone would be starving by the time they sat down to dinner. They always were.

“Got our work cut out for us, Miller,” Alec said. “Lots of tenants, lots of possibilities, lots of rocks to turn over, eh?”

“Quite right.”

She drove, thinking. “I’ll bet none of that from today was even relevant. Regarding the tenants. Bet this happened longer ago than Fallows’ time.”

“Seems likely, aye. But we have to start somewhere. We can get Carrie onto lookin’ for the prior owner. Odd name like that, maybe it won’t be too difficult. And start lookin’ for missin’ elderly women in the area over the past few decades, in general.”

“Definitely. First thing tomorrow.”

Carrie Bennett, their research support assistant at NCA Southampton, was brilliant at unearthing information by trawling various databases and media reports, and she was an ace at locating hard-to-find witnesses. She had been invaluable to the detectives since their first day at the agency.

Ellie fell silent as they headed south on the A37. It might be an interesting case, at that. A good opportunity to spend productive time with her husband, without the pressure of an urgent missing persons scenario. She could do without job pressure for a while, because home life was currently challenging. Fred’s Year 6 exams, the dreaded SATs, were coming up, raising the general anxiety level of the entire household. Ellie was still keeping an eagle eye on Isobel, wanting to be sure the newly implanted pacemaker was working as it should. The little girl’s language delay, though not extreme for a child with Down, just complicated matters; she couldn’t always provide details about her symptoms.

And then there was David Barrett. Who was no picnic, as Fallows might put it.

Thank God for Alec Hardy, Ellie thought, abruptly. Thank God for his steadiness, his absolute reliability. He’d always had her back—even at the beginning, when he’d been the grouchy one.

She looked over at him. His head was pressed against the headrest, and he was staring out the passenger side window at nothing in particular.

“You ever really know anyone named Violetta, Hardy? Someone from your deep dark Scottish past?”

“God, no,” he said, turning to face her. “There’s no one named Violetta in Paisley. Or Glasgow, for that matter. Or Edinburgh. I dunno where that came from. Weird.”

She grinned at him. “No weirder than ‘Verity,’ though, is it? Verity Smallwood. Sounds like a character from a bodice ripper.”

Alec chucked. “Maybe her parents were romantics. Or Puritans. Sort of name they favoured, innit? Purity, Felicity, Verity. Maybe she’ll be helpful, when we find her. If the name’s accurate.”

“Why would that be?”

“Because ‘Verity’ means ‘truth’.”

***

Dinner—Bolognese sauce from the freezer over penne, and a hastily assembled salad—was over. As usual, they'd eaten in the kitchen rather than the more formal dining room. Fred had already retreated upstairs to study. Alec was helping Izzy load the dishwasher; he kept up a running commentary regarding the proper orientation of plates and glasses.

Ellie sat at the table across from her dad, flipping through news articles on her mobile. David was also messing with his phone; she heard snatches of what seemed to be videos, though she couldn’t make out the specifics.

“Dunno why Tony doesn’t do something about all these bloody immigrants,” David grumbled. “Heard he’s putting them on ships now cause there’s noplace for them to stay on land.”

“Tony who?” Ellie asked.

“Tony Blair. Tony ruddy Blair. The PM of the United Kingdom, Eleanor.”

She looked up. “Dad. Tony Blair is not the PM. Tony Blair hasn’t been the prime minister for 15 years. More.”

He stared at her, disturbingly unsure. “He’s not?”

“No.”

“Who is, then?”

“Rishi Sunak.” She Googled for an image, then shoved her mobile over to him. He stared at it for a moment before sliding it back, still looking a bit vacant.

“Don’t recognise him. But there was that other one, wasn’t there? The podgy one? Igor something?”

“Boris,” Ellie said. “Boris Johnson.”

Alec straightened up and shut the dishwasher door. “Half a dozen of them since Tony Blair, Barrett. It’s a bloody revolvin’ door at Number 10, innit?”

Ellie was swiping again, showing her father more images. “Look, Dad. See? Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris, Liz Truss, and Rishi.”

The man shrugged. “Yeah. I remember now. Poor old queen having to get used to all of them. At least she sticks around, eh? Looks like living forever. Bless the old girl.”

“Da, Da. I have maths.” Izzy was tugging at Alec’s shirt. He ignored her for a second, staring at his father-in-law.

“You know she died, yeah?” he asked. “Queen Elizabeth. She died last autumn. We watched the funeral on telly. Remember?”

“Coronation’s next week,” Ellie added. “King Charles. C’mon Dad. You know.”

“Oh. Right. Right. She died. Poor old girl. It’s Charles and that Camilla, now. Right. Should’ve stuck with Diana. Always liked Diana. She was plucky.”

Izzy was still tugging on Alec’s shirt. “What’s plucky, Da?”

He picked her up, hugging her tightly and then putting her down. “Brave. Strong. Like you, darlin’. C’mon, then. If you have a maths paper, we’d better take a look.”

David went back to watching videos. Ellie looked up at Alec, worry plain on her face. Whatever was going on with her dad, she was beginning to wonder if a professional evaluation might be prudent. This wasn’t like he’d been when he’d had that UTI last year and was completely gaga for a few days. This was more subtle, and almost more unsettling.

Alec shook his head at her. The gesture was tiny, but the meaning was clear enough: He was worried, too.

"Da!" Isobel insisted, now pulling on his hand.

"Sorry, darlin'," Alec replied. "Show me, then."

Ellie sighed, and shrugged, and watched as Izzy led him out of the room.

Chapter Text

Alec’s mobile rang at 8:47 on Thursday, while he and Ellie were still working on the morning tea routine in the break room. He wasn’t at all surprised to see that the caller was Carrie Bennett, who seemed to have some sort of radar regarding when the duo had arrived at the Wessex Police building.

“Bennett?” he answered, immediately flipping the call to speaker. “At it bright and early, I see.”

“Always. You have Miller with you?”

“Aye. Makin’ tea. Got you on speaker. What’s the word?”

Carrie sighed, a bit theatrically. “Alas, nothing good. No DNA hits for your victim in either the Missing Persons Database or NDNAD.”

Alec and Ellie hadn’t counted on much from that quarter, but it was always worth a shot. The Missing Persons DNA Database consisted of samples from family members looking for lost relatives; the National DNA Database was made up of DNA from people who had been arrested and not found innocent, going as far back as 1995. Apparently the dead woman had no participating relatives and hadn’t been convicted of a crime—or at least not in the past 30 years or so.

“Oh, well,” Ellie said. “It would’ve been too easy, wouldn’t it?”

“Guess so,” Carrie replied. “I’ve teed up your search for relevant outstanding mispers, too, but I’ve only just begun. You’re really sure you want me to confine it to Avon and Somerset? Practically speaking, she could’ve come from anywhere.”

“Aye.” Alec said. “But you have to start somewhere. If we get no hits locally, we can widen the net. I’m hopin’ Dr Allen will be able to get us a better estimate of how old the person was at the time of death, and how long that body was in that cupboard.”

Ellie dunked her teabag up and down before squeezing it against the spoon and then tossing it into the bin. “Let’s say she was probably at least 50, considering the grey hair and the osteoporosis, and we think she disappeared at least 13 years ago because that’s when Fallows acquired the place. He didn’t seem to think it could’ve happened since then. She was wearing a dressing gown that couldn’t have been bought any later than 2009, for what it’s worth.”

Alec shrugged. “Clothin’ doesn’t signify, though, Miller. It’s a basic style, accordin’ to those SOCO photos. She could’ve acquired that the day Woolworth’s closed and still been wearin’ it years later. Or she could’ve bought it a long time before that and worn it for years until she was killed. It doesn’t prove much about when she was killed, does it?”

Grinning, Ellie waved her mobile at him; she’d been swiping while he was talking. “But this website says the Winfield brand didn’t launch until 1963. Discontinued in 1983. Ha.”

“Oi, Miller, that is outstanding. That is some excellent web-surfin’. There’s an actual Woolworths Museum?”

“Nah. Historical website run by some rabid fans of the brand. You have to love rabid fans, sometimes.”

“So we’re narrowing it down now to what?” asked Carrie. “1963 to 1990 or something like that?”

“Let’s say 2010, for now,” Alec said. “She could’ve been wearin’ the thing for a long time. People do. Could even need to extend on the back end eventually, since we don’t have an estimated date of death. Just because Fallows doesn’t believe it happened on his watch … we don’t know that, do we?”

“It’s still pretty nebulous,” Carrie complained. “We definitely need a better fix on when the murder happened.”

“Frustratin’,” Alec agreed, sloshing milk into his mug. “I think we just confine the initial review to Avon and Somerset, females 50 and older, missin’ between 1963 and 2010. We can always broaden it out if we need to. I tend to think it happened before Fallows bought the place, too, so our person ought to be within that window—presumin’ she was ever even reported missin’. Some people aren’t.”

Ellie nodded grimly. Trying to solve cold cases involving an unidentified body could be nearly impossible if the victim’s absence had never been reported to the police. They’d run across the problem a few times before, with varying results—including some failures-to-solve.

“It’s going to be a sizable list, Hardy,” said Carrie. “I can run it, but you’re not going to want to spend much time on it unless you can narrow it down.”

“Aye. Understood. Just do it and let us know whether we’re dealin’ with 50 women or 500. Miller looked up the Avon and Somerset police stats already; averages about 50 mispers a year that aren’t resolved. We need to sift that for the older women. Least the older ones don’t tend to go missin’ as often as the younger ones; it’s gonna be a small percentage of the total.”

“Fine,” Carrie said. “It’s your funeral. Give me a day or two. Anything else you want me to work on? Other than trying to find that landlady you mentioned yesterday?”

Ellie piped up. “Could you check real estate records for us? Tell us everyone who’s owned that place since it was built, and when Verity Smallwood took possession? See if there’s a record of when it was converted to flats?”

“Shouldn’t be too difficult, unless they didn’t file for permits when they did the construction. I’ll work on it.”

“Lovely,” said Ellie. “Thanks, Carrie. You’re the best. But you know that already.”

“Obviously,” Carrie said. She rang off, not waiting for a further response.

Ellie picked up her mug and led her husband down the hall and into her office. They generally alternated morning strategy sessions in their respective spaces; it was her turn today. She slid behind her desk, and Alec lowered himself into the well-worn visitor’s chair.

“I’m not feeling great about this,” she said, sipping. “I’m tired already, and we haven’t even started.”

“C’mon, Miller. Where’s that old Wessex spunk? At least it’s somethin’ different.”

“I’m fresh out of spunk. If I have to talk Fred down from one more freak-out about those bloody exams, I’m going to go mental. Between him and Dad, I dunno what to think.”

Alec sighed. “Least your da hasn’t done anythin’ weird for a few days, eh? As for Fred—they’re just teachin’ to the test, now. Have been since Christmas. It’s too much pressure on the kids. Everyone needs to stop actin’ like it’s a life-or-death scenario. We’ve had enough of those to know the difference.”

“I know, I know. I hate it. They all work each other up, too. The kids and the teachers. The teachers have more at stake than the kids. But there’s no way out but through. As you’ve told me enough times.”

“Extra credit for appropriate use of a platitude,” Alec said, raising his mug in a modest salute.

“Thanks.”

They drank silently for a moment. Ellie pulled a legal pad and biro out of a desk drawer, passing them  to Alec and then extracting her small notebook from her bag. She flipped to the section where she’d taken notes on the Fallows interview.

“So,” she said. “Given what we do have from that visit to the scene on Tuesday, which isn’t nearly enough? How do you think we should move forward? I don’t feel like we even have enough to make a decent evidence board.”

“I say we start by tryin’ to track down the man who lived in the upper flat at the time Fallows bought the place. He’d be the only link between the recent past and the time before Fallows acquired it, wouldn’t he?”

She scanned her notes. “The main-floor people all came in after Fallows took over, yeah. And the hoarder in the garden flat’s dead. So Ronnie Magnuson would be the only person who’d have been there under the prior landlord.”

“Verity Smallwood,” said Alec.

“Yep,” she replied. “Verity Smallwood. Landlady and bodice-ripper heroine. I hope Carrie can find her quickly.”

Alec snorted. “Not sure about that bodice-ripper bit, Miller. But you’re right; we have to talk to her, if we can.”

“Just trying to keep it light. All we need is a bout of ‘broody Alec Hardy,’ musing on man’s inhumanity to man, as shown by bodies that end up looking like beef jerky.”

“You’re woundin’ me, Miller,” he grinned. “ ‘M not broody. I’m cerebral.”

“I’ll get you a tee shirt with it on. So what’s Mr Cerebral think we should do first?”

“You never got me the ‘Worst Cop in Britain’ shirt, El, so I’m not holdin’ out much hope for this one. But all jokin’ aside: Let’s try to find Magnuson while Carrie works on findin’ Verity. Regardless of all the question marks, I’m still feelin’ like the body must’ve been shut up in that cupboard before Fallows ever laid eyes on the place. Which means it’d be a waste of time interviewin’ the more recent tenants. If we get information indicatin’ that the death was more recent, or if there was some other connection to the recent people, we could always talk to them.”

“Agreed.”

Alec gulped what was left of his tea before saying, “Let’s just see what Magnuson knows. See if he has any notion about where Verity Smallwood went after she sold the place. Ask what she was like, and if he knows anythin’ about other tenants. And ask whether he ever forced that lock that Fallows put on his kitchen door and took an unauthorised expedition to the upper regions, eh?”

Ellie smiled, picturing the scenario. “Good point. Maybe he got curious.”

“Anythin’s possible,” Alec agreed. “And meanwhile let’s hope Amanda gives us better information about when the victim died.”

“Mmm. Definitely. What should we call her, do you think? We can’t just keep calling her ‘the victim.’ Jane Doe, again?”

Nicknaming unidentified victims was an old habit for the detectives, forcing them to see the subjects of their cases as real people rather than mere puzzles to be solved.

Alec shook his head. “Nah. We can do better. We could call her Nefertiti. Due to the mummification situation.”

The black humour made Ellie chuckle. “Bit exotic for Yeovil. Nefertiti in a dressing gown from Woolworths?”

“Fair point. Violetta, then. If the name’s gonna be floatin’ around in the ether, might as well make some use of it.”

“Fine. Good. Violetta, she is.”

Alec’s mobile rang. “It’s Fallows,” he said, checking the screen.

“Mr Fallows,” he answered abruptly, switching to speaker. “I’m here with Miller. You remembered somethin’ else? Found somethin’?”

Ellie shot him a pointed glance. “Good morning, Mr Fallows,” she said, exaggeratedly cheerful.

“Morning,” Alec added, making a bare attempt at civility. “What d’you have for us?”

“Morning, detectives. I didn’t remember anything, but I did find something. I went down to storage and located the box of records Verity Smallwood turned over when we acquired the property. It seems to go back to 1970.”

“Interestin’,” Alec said. “Wonder what was happenin’ in that house between 1938 and 1970? Were there any construction records in there? Anythin’ about the conversion to flats? Nothin’ older than 1970?”

“Sorry, but no. This is all I found that’s relevant. If she had other records, she didn’t leave them with us.”

“Well, it’ll be good to have what you’ve got,” Ellie assured him. “Should we come by for it?”

Fallows’ response was casual. “You could do. The box is at our offices in the High Street. Number 47, second storey. Or I could ship it to you, if you’re not in a rush.”

“We’ll come for it,” Alec said. “One o’clock this afternoon suit you?”

“Fine. I might not be here, but the receptionist will take care of you. I hope it’s helpful.”

Ellie smiled warmly, even though Fallows wasn’t in the room. “I’m sure it will be very useful, Mr Fallows. Thank you for taking the time to look for it. We appreciate it.”

“Aye,” Alec added. “Thanks for doin’ that. We’ll be in touch.”

“My pleasure,” Fallows said, ringing off.

“See, it’s not that difficult to be nice to people,” Ellie told her spouse. “It pays off in the end.”

“I’m always nice, Miller. I’m too nice. I just don’t always keep it on display. Besides, you haven’t been Little Miss Sunshine yourself, lately.”

She smiled at the reference to one of Izzy’s favourite books; a well-worn hand-me-down from Daisy Hardy’s childhood library.

“Touche,” she said. “We’re even. Guess we’re headed back to Yeovil, then. Oooh, we’ll be there at lunchtime, too. We could go to the Great Lyde. They do that fabulous lamb curry.”

Alec rose, stretching. “I swear, El, you know the menu of every pub within 50 miles.”

Ellie reached for her orange jacket—it was a cool day, for May, and drizzly—and she shrugged it on before picking up her big leather bag and slinging it over her shoulder. She smirked at him.

“Only 50?”

***

The detectives ran into a massive traffic jam on the A37 on the way back from Yeovil; a lorry had skidded on the rain-slicked road and then jack-knifed, blocking traffic in both directions. They were forced to take a series of unfamiliar, poorly marked B roads before they could return to their preferred route, getting disoriented twice when they ran into dead zones and lost connection to the internet and, thus, their source of directions.

Arriving in Broadchurch after 4 p.m., itching to examine the contents of Fallows’ box, they had to leave the office almost immediately. Izzy’s Learning Support Assistant, Alice Neely, had developed a migraine and texted Ellie to ask if they could pick the child up from after-school earlier than planned.

Given the stressful afternoon, dinner was takeaway again: Thai, this time. In another lifetime, Ellie and Alec would’ve brought the box of records home and attacked it as soon as everyone had finished eating. But both of them had spent years working on trying to be present for the family when they were at home, as long as their current investigation didn’t involve pressing, life-or-death consequences.

Which the long-dead Violetta certainly didn’t.

Even before the plates were cleared, Fred excused himself and relocated to the dining room. He was now hunched over his laptop, labouring away at a practice test for the maths portion of next week’s exams. Ellie could feel the boy’s frustration simmering, even as she and Alec finished tidying the kitchen. She longed to wrap her son in a huge, comforting hug, but that was the last thing he wanted at the moment, she knew. So she merely ripped open a packet of Jammie Dodgers from her secret stash at the back of the cutlery drawer, placed three of the biscuits on a small plate, and delivered them to him, setting them discreetly at his elbow and gently squeezing his shoulders before continuing into the lounge.

The boy didn’t look up, but he muttered, “Thanks, mum.”

David, who’d been lingering in the kitchen with his mobile, now followed her into the cosy room, where Isobel was already absorbed in an episode of Peppa Pig. The streaming controller was too much for her to manage, but she knew how to work the DVD player, and on the rare nights when there was no homework, Peppa was generally her preferred entertainment.

“Watching Paddington again, is it?” David asked heartily before sitting down on the sofa next to the little girl. He put an arm around her shoulders, and she snuggled in as usual.

“What is Paddington?” Izzy asked, clearly puzzled, though she didn’t take her eyes from the TV.

“Your programme. Paddington.”

“That’s Peppa, Grandda,” she corrected him.

Ellie, who’d been about to settle herself in her favourite flowered armchair, paused. “Paddington is a bear. Peppa is a pig. Luce and I used to watch Paddington when we were little. A long time ago. Remember?”

The man stared at the screen for a moment, recognition dawning. “Yeah. Righto.”

“You really can’t tell a bear from a pig?” Ellie asked.

She hated the impatience in her tone. She hoped her father didn’t recognise the undercurrent of fear.

“Course it’s a pig, Eleanor,” David retorted, sounding equally irked. “Bears don’t snort like that.”

Isobel snorted, Peppa-style, and patted her grandfather’s knee. “Course it’s a pig, Mum,” she echoed.

“You know how many kiddie programmes I’ve seen in my life, Ellie? Starting with those bloody Wombles? Do you always remember the names of everyone on telly? If you’d had your brain crammed with programmes for 80 years you might forget a few names, too. Christ on a bike.”

Izzy looked up, scandalised. “Grandda said a swear.”

“Never mind, love,” Ellie sighed. “Just watch Peppa. Sorry, Dad.”

Alec walked in, a tumbler of single malt in one hand and Ellie’s glass of Riesling, which she’d abandoned in the kitchen, in the other.

“What’s goin’ on in here?” he asked, handing it to her.

She hadn’t intended to drink the rest of the wine, but she sat down heavily in the armchair and drained it in one go.

“Nothing,” she said.

***

The detectives had time to do a preliminary examination of Fallows’—actually, Verity Smallwood’s—box of files on Friday morning. They rushed a bit; Amanda Allen had invited them to an 11 a.m. video call with her and Dr Neill Cranmer, a forensic anthropologist, archaeologist, and Egyptologist at the University of Liverpool.

Thirty-two renters, including singles and couples, had lived at 19 Bellview Road between 1970 and 2010; the average length of stay appeared to be around three years, though a few remained considerably longer. The last recorded main-floor tenant had moved out in 1997, causing Alec and Ellie to speculate that Verity herself might’ve been living there after that time. It was the nicest of the three flats—large and sunny—and it also commanded the highest rent, at least between 1970 and ’97. Similarly, there was no rental record for the garden-level unit from 1974 to 1997; starting in 1998, however, it was steadily occupied.

“I’ll bet she was living in the garden unit herself, and then something made her move,” Ellie speculated, as they finished their notes and headed for Interview Room 3, the station’s “soft room,” where they planned to log in for the video call.

“She could’ve made more money rentin’ the main floor out, Miller,” Alec said, following her down the back stairs. “Wonder why she wouldn’t have kept doin’ that?”

“Maybe she got tired of living belowground,” Ellie replied. “Hopefully one of the people on that tenant list can tell us more. We’ll have to make a spreadsheet this afternoon showing all the units and who was where, when; it’s all a jumble. We have to try to figure out whether any of those tenants could’ve been Violetta, or if someone unrelated to the property ended up in that cupboard somehow.”

“Aye.”

Ellie led him into Room 3, and they settled themselves on the nondescript sofa, placing her laptop on the coffee table and adjusting the lighting. They’d used this room for video calls enough times to know what worked best. The usual shuffle with cameras and mics ensued, but in a few minutes all four participants were present.

Amanda was behind a desk, wearing a pink jumper instead of her typical scrubs; her long blonde hair was loose rather than pinned up in her normal no-nonsense bun. Neill Cranmer, occupying a chair at her side, sported classic academic’s garb: a pale blue button-down shirt and a tan corduroy blazer. Floppy iron-grey hair and round tortoiseshell glasses reinforced his professorial aura.

Both of them were sitting in what the detectives presumed was Amanda’s office, though they’d never seen her in anything but the morgue. The wall behind them was hung with a plethora of small watercolour landscapes. Alec wondered if the art served as a respite from Amanda’s sober work—a daily dose of beauty to mitigate the bleakness.

“So Dr Cranmer has been my bezzie for the past couple of days,” Amanda explained. “He drove all the way down here to take a look at our victim.”

“I couldn’t not,” the man added. “She presented a unique opportunity.”

“The doctor’s done years of research on the mummification process and the effect of environment on decay,” Amanda continued. “We’ve spent a good while re-examining the corpse and taking additional measurements, and reviewing the information about the site from the SOCO report.”

“Sounds fascinatin’,” Alec said.

“It really does,” Ellie chimed in. “Tell us about your conclusions, doctor. We’re all ears.”

“Oh, please. Call me Neill. No need to stand on ceremony.”

Ellie beamed at him. “Neill, then. Please, go on.”

“I believe this person would’ve been no more than 5 feet 3 inches tall, in life, and probably would not have weighed more than 8 stone at the time of her death. Likely less than that.”

“We thought she must’ve been small,” said Ellie.

“In light of the condition of her bones, and the condition and style of her dental work, I’d also estimate that she was about 70 years old when she died. Give or take five years on either side. And it doesn’t appear that she ever bore children.”

“Good,” Ellie said. “That’ll be helpful.”

“Time of death, though, doctor?” Alec pressed. “That’s what we’re strugglin’ with in terms of this investigation.”

“I can’t be specific, completely. You understand. It’s nothing like a regular forensic investigation.”

Amanda chuckled. “That’s an understatement.”

Nodding eagerly, the man continued. “Still, given what we know about the environmental conditions and her size, and the pattern of decay, and factoring in the degraded state of her nightie and the added clue of her dressing gown’s probable age—Amanda said you called about that, by the way, good work—I think it’s fairly safe to say that this woman died 20 to 30 years ago. If you forced me to stick a date on it, I’d say 1997 to 2003, but that’s somewhat speculative.”

Ellie scribbled notes rapidly. If what Cranmer was telling them was at all accurate, he had just made their jobs considerably easier.

“Any further thoughts about her health, or her cause of death?” asked Alec. “Anythin’ you can tell us could be helpful in identifyin’ her.”

“I don’t have any reason to doubt Amanda’s conclusions about the cause of death,” Cranmer said. “I couldn’t tell a lot from a preliminary examination of the internal organs; nothing looked particularly amiss there, though of course it’s all desiccated. We might try a CT scan on her, if you wanted to have her shifted to an appropriate facility.”

“I can’t guarantee that you’d learn much,” Amanda added. “But it’s an option, if you’re struggling to identify her any other way.”

“It wouldn’t necessarily help,” Cranmer agreed. “Given the condition of the corpse, it might be difficult to interpret the scans. There’d be no way of knowing until it was tried.”

“I see,” Ellie said.

“Not to be crass about it, but there could be expense involved,” Amanda said. “It wouldn’t be part of our regular police budget to do something like that for a case so old. You might have to get approval from NCA. Unless Neill wanted to take her on as an academic research project?”

The professor shrugged. “I would not say it was beyond the realm of possibility. Though I’d probably have to pitch it to my colleagues, as well. It’s not exactly in our wheelhouse. Certainly fascinating, however, or I wouldn’t have come.”

“Understood,” Alec said. “Let’s hold the possibility of scannin’ aside while Miller and I work on it. If that goes nowhere, we could revisit the idea. Long as Amanda’s willin’ to keep the victim in storage.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem, detective,” the M.E. replied. “We’ll keep her on ice for a bit. Metaphorically speaking.”

“Neill, we’re very grateful for your input,” Ellie said. “It’ll go a long way towards helping us solve this. Get some closure for her family. Properly lay her to rest.”

“Aye,” agreed Alec. “Thank you for comin’. Anythin’ else strike you as interestin’ about her? Other thoughts?”

The professor shrugged. “Other than the position she was found in, not really. She was obviously crammed in there by someone. Tiny as she was, she barely fit, from those photos I looked at. Which is why she ended up as folded as she is. I guess whoever did it must have applied some force. But it’s odd your people didn’t find blood up there, on the floor or the stairs. Or so Amanda tells me.”

“That’s right,” the pathologist said. “If she was killed up there, Luminol should’ve shown blood traces. But there was nothing up there, or on the stairs, according to SOCO. A few splodges in the kitchen of the upper flat, but blood on a kitchen floor’s nothing unusual. People cut themselves, or they spill blood from meat they’re cooking. What they found was pretty degraded after all these years; they couldn’t determine if it was human or animal blood.”

Ellie sighed. “Someone must’ve wrapped her head in something, then, wherever she was killed, and dragged her up there. Rather than killing her up there. I can’t imagine, honestly. Those stairs are steep. Narrow.”

“And if they wrapped her,” Alec added, “that begs the question what happened to whatever they did it with? Because it wasn’t around her head when SOCO found her, was it?”

Amanda shook her head. “Nothing noted in the report.”

“They’ve set you a pretty puzzle,” Cranmer said. “Nearly as good as some of the things we find in ancient sarcophagi. I’ll be very interested to hear how you work it out.”

“Assumin’ we work it out,” Alec muttered.

“Oh, I have faith in the two of you,” Amanda assured him. “Just take it one day at a time.”

“Quite right, doctor,” said Ellie, smiling at the platitude and subtly elbowing her partner. “Quite right.”

***

Conference Room B of the Broadchurch police station was on the same floor as the detectives’ offices, and little-used. They co-opted it for an evidence board in the Violetta case, since it offered more wall area than the magnetic whiteboards in either of their offices. They’d spent a good portion of the afternoon working on a spreadsheet based on the rental records in Fallows’ box, trying to get a handle on everyone who’d lived at the property during the time the victim might’ve been killed, according to Dr Cranmer’s estimate. They’d also called Carrie Bennett, asking her to narrow down her misper search to the target time frame and age of victim.

Ellie was using magnets to stick a variety of SOCO photos and property images to the board when Alec’s mobile rang at half-four.

“Huh,” he muttered, checking the screen. “It’s Paul.”

“Coates?”

“Yup.”

Alec’s friendship with the former vicar of St Bede’s—now running a halfway house in Bristol—had developed over time, mostly based on their mutual interest in what Ellie generally deemed “the existential stuff.” Their relationship had deepened in the aftermath of Alec’s near-death experience last year, when he’d been in dire need of a sounding board regarding all things spiritual.

“Afternoon, Rev,” he answered, sincere warmth in his tone. “Good to hear from you.”

For once, Alec didn’t shift the call automatically to speaker; he wasn’t sure if Paul wanted a more private discussion, as he sometimes did.

“Alec. Sorry to bother you. Are you working? Tell me if this is a bad time.”

“Nah. Workin’ on a case with Miller. We’re makin’ an evidence board in a conference room. I can talk.”

“Hullo, Ellie,” Paul said, not realising that she couldn’t hear him.

“You want me to put this on speaker, or is this man-talk?” Alec asked, only half joking.

Paul seemed to hesitate a moment before saying, “Oh, put her on. It’s fine. Maybe she’ll have some advice.”

Alec could tell that his wife was itching to be looped in, and he wasted no time in turning the speaker on.

“Okay, we’re both listenin’,” said Alec. “What’s on your mind?”

“Paul, it's always lovely to hear from you!” Ellie added. “Is everything all right? Everything good with you and Holly and Arun?”

For the past several months, Paul had been filling them in on his burgeoning romance with Holly Patel, a young widow with a toddler. They’d met through his work; she was the sister of one of the halfway house’s residents, a recovering alcoholic. Increasingly freaked out by his own feelings, Paul had called Alec numerous times for advice. He’d been guest preacher at last month’s Easter service at St Bede’s, and he’d brought Holly and little Arun along with him. The detectives had been impressed by the woman’s obvious intelligence, kind demeanour, and wry sense of humour.

“Everything’s good,” Paul said. “Better than good.”

“Wonderful. Oh, Paul, that’s wonderful. I’m so glad.” Ellie wasn’t lying. She’d never been thrilled about Paul’s relationship with Becca Fisher, and she didn’t think he’d really been with anyone in the intervening years—though she didn’t know that for sure.

“It’s so good that I now …. Uh, that’s why I’m calling.”

Alec frowned a bit, and he moved away from the evidence board to sit in one of the conference room’s plastic chairs. Ellie followed suit.

A few moments of silence followed. “Mate,” said Alec, finally, “you called us. If you have somethin’ to say, buck up and say it.”

“I’m thinking about proposing. To Holly.”

Slightly gobsmacked, the detectives glanced at each other. As far as they knew, the couple had met in early January. This was only May.

“Gosh,” Ellie said, stalling for time. “Really?”

“Yeah. I know it’s sudden.”

And then words started tumbling out, the man’s eagerness and longing abundantly clear. “I know it’s sudden, but I’ve never met anyone like her. I want to be with her all the time. I love her. I love Arun. I’m not afraid to say that, because it’s as true as anything I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m almost 41 years old; I’ve been waiting forever for this. I’ve been alone since Becca. I didn’t realise what a big hole there was in my life until Holly showed up. She’s a little younger, but not that much younger. She wants more children. We believe the same thing about a lot of things. The same priorities. I feel like there’s no time to waste. I just … I love her.”

Paul stopped. There was silence again, before he said, “Sorry. Too much information?’

“No,” Ellie said, hurriedly. “No, Paul, it’s not. Not at all.”

“How long since her husband died, did you say?” Alec asked, struggling to remember. He knew some heart ailment had tragically killed Holly’s husband, a graduate student at the University of Bristol.

“Almost four years ago. She was pregnant with Arun at the time.”

“So sad,” Ellie murmured.

“Yeah,” Paul agreed. “Terrible. She’s strong, though. She’s been through a lot, but sometimes that makes people stronger. I see it all the time in my work.”

“Rev, you’ve been through your fair share, eh? Kickin’ the bottle, and all?”

“Yes.”

Several more moments of awkward silence passed before Alec asked, “What d’you think she’s thinkin’?”

“About what?” Paul asked. “Marriage?”

“Aye. You wouldn’t want to be askin’ and then find out that nothin’ like that was on her mind.”

“We’ve touched on the subject. I think … I feel like she wants it.”

“With you?” Alec pressed.

“Yes. With me.”

If Ellie hadn’t been in the room, Alec might’ve gone further, asking the man if there was a sexual relationship unfolding as well as a romantic one. But he was feeling oddly shy at the moment.

“Are you askin’ for my permission, or are you askin’ me to talk you out of it?” he inquired.

“I don’t know! I guess I’m asking you to tell me I haven’t gone completely batty.”

“Doesn’t sound like it to me,” Ellie said. “She’s lovely, Paul. And from what I could see over Easter, she certainly seems … smitten. She’d be fortunate to have you, and so would her little boy.”

Alec took a breath. “You know what you’re takin’ on. Instant family. Alcoholic brother-in-law. Her parents?”

Questions about the health of aging parents were increasingly on both detectives’ minds, for obvious reasons.

“Her father’s dead. Her mum’s all right. Lives alone. Seems healthy enough.”

 “She likes you, I hope? The mother?” Ellie asked.

“Seems to. I like her.”

“That’s definitely a plus,” Ellie said, a bit lamely.

Paul cleared his throat and then dove in again. “I know what I’m doing. I think. I know it’s forever. All the text from the marriage ceremony, ‘as long as we both shall live?’ Everything the two of you promised to each other at your wedding? I believe all that. I know Holly believes all that. If we do it … that’s it. It’s permanent.”

Alec found himself unexpectedly tearing up. He remembered how he’d felt when he’d stood at the altar with Ellie at St Bede’s nearly six years ago, repeating vows dictated by Paul Coates. Like the reverend, he’d never been so sure of anything in his life.

He was still sure. He took his wife’s hand, and she smiled up at him, squeezing it.

“Then you should marry her,” Alec said, simply. “Ask her. Give her some security about where it’s all goin’. If that’s what you truly feel.”

“It’s not like you have to rush to the altar the next day,” Ellie added. “You can take some more time. If you want to.”

“I know, I know,” Paul said. “You don’t think it’s daft, though?”

Alec laughed a bit, then. “You sound sane to me, Rev. You’ve been prayin’ about this, I presume?”

“Of course. I started doing that the night of our first date, honestly. I think I knew, even then.”

“Wow,” Ellie said.

“I know. Okay. Good.”

“Good,” Alec echoed. “Let us know how it goes. When are you thinkin’ about doin’ it? Soon?”

“Her birthday’s next week. I was thinking I’d do it then.”

“Lovely,” said Ellie. “You must call us right away. We’ll be on pins and needles waiting to hear the good news.”

“Maybe not immediately,” Paul said.

“No,” she laughed. “You might be a little busy just afterwards. But as soon as possible, please.”

“Yes. I will. I promise. Thanks. Alec?”

“Aye?”

“Pray for me, would you? For us?”

Paul was always nagging Alec about praying; the vicar knew Ellie didn’t do it, or only rarely. Alec, on the other hand, still did, at least sometimes. In this case, the humility in his friend’s voice touched his heart, and a couple of the tears that had pooled in his eyes leaked out.

“Aye. I will.”

“I’ll make him,” Ellie joked.

“Thanks. I’ll want you both at the wedding. I’ll want you to stand up with me, Alec, please. When the time comes. I don’t know when, or where, for sure, yet.”

“Mate, wherever, whenever, I’d be honoured. We’ll be there.”

“Okay. Good. Thanks. Have a good weekend, please.”

“You too, Paul,” Ellie said. “Good luck.”

“Talk soon,” Paul responded, and he rang off.

They sat quietly for a bit, side-by-side in the hard plastic chairs under the unflattering fluorescent lights, the grisly photos on the evidence board momentarily forgotten. They were still holding hands.

“Wow,” Ellie whispered.

“Yeah.”

She reached up to wipe his tears with her fingers. “You’re a sweet man, Alec Hardy.”

Normally when she accused him of this, Alec protested. His sweetness, or lack thereof, had been a topic of discussion numerous times before. Now, he merely shrugged, giving her a self-deprecating smile.

“You are,” she assured him. “You’re a good friend, and a sweet man, and I’m so glad I married you.”

“No regrets?”

“None. Not a single one. You?”

“None.”

“Not even when I’m hormonal?”

“Not even then.”

He stood and pulled her into his arms, rubbing her back. She slid her fingers into his hair, pushing his head forward gently so she could kiss him, not caring that the blinds to the interior windows of Room B were wide open.

“Glad I married you too, Eleanor Barrett,” he murmured, coming out of the kiss. “And it’s good you’re still happy about it. Because I’m never lettin’ you go.”

Chapter Text

By Monday at noon, the whiteboard in Conference Room B had been populated with a considerable amount of information. Ellie had completed their spreadsheet listing tenants of interest: people who’d lived at 19 Bellview Road between 1990 and 2010, with occupancy for each flat recorded by rows of years. She and Alec wanted to cast a fairly wide net, extending somewhat beyond Neill Cranmer’s estimated time frame for Violetta’s death.

Verity Smallwood had requested birth dates as part of her standard renter’s agreement. Wherever the woman was now, the detectives were grateful for her attention to detail, since it allowed them to narrow down potential victims.

Occupants of the second-storey flat during the target time frame included two older women, both of whom had lived alone: Maria Dieters (in residence from 1990 to 1994) and Ivy Carlisle (a tenant between 1995 and 2000). Interestingly, the flat appeared to have been vacant in 2001 and 2002, unless a file had been missing from the box. Ronnie Magnuson hadn’t moved in until 2003, and according to Fallows, he’d stayed until Fallows terminated his lease in late 2022.

The main-floor flat had been occupied by a couple, John and Joan Barton, between 1990 and 1992, followed by a man named Mick Reilly, who’d only stayed for one year. During 1994, that flat had housed a pair of women: Rose Ryan and Kate Sellars. Like Reilly, they’d stayed for only a year. A Lydia Lockhart moved in in 1995; she’d apparently stayed for three years. Renter files were unavailable for the main-floor flat starting in 1998, and Alec and Ellie continued to speculate that Verity might have been living there herself. Either her, or someone who was getting a free ride or paying under the table. Or perhaps the relevant files had simply been misplaced.

The garden-level flat had had one tenant, a Robert Merrifield, from 1970 to ’74, according to the files in the box. But then no tenants were recorded for a long stretch—not until Constance Morris moved in during 1998. She stayed for four years and was followed by Jenny Jefferson, who had been the tenant between 2002 and 2003. Cliff Dailey, the would-be hoarder, had then taken possession; according to Fallows, he was still renting the garden flat at the time of his death in 2017.

Taking a break, munching ham sandwiches and crisps that they’d brought from home, the detectives surveyed their progress.

"Big crowd,” Alec observed. “Might have to delegate some research to Carrie.”

“Yeah,” said Ellie. “It’s hard to determine who might be significant. We ought to be able to rule out some of these people as being Violetta pretty quickly, though; some of them would surely be dead by now. Don’t you think?”

“You’ve got the mind for calculatin’ ages in your head, Miller,” said Alec. “Not one of my best skills.”

“You have plenty of skills,” she replied, giving him a sly smile. “Exhibit A: Last night, 11 p.m.”

He smirked, polishing off his sammie, and then he stood, dragging his hand across her shoulders on his way back to the evidence board.

“You start recappin’ last night, Miller, and neither of us is goin’ to be able to concentrate on our work.”

“Ha. Good, though, wasn’t it?”

“Aye. Spectacular. Stop witterin’ about shaggin, or I’ll be forced to close the blinds and rip off all your clothin’.”

Alec was kidding. Mostly. Sex on duty—in the office or elsewhere—was explicitly against regulations, and though he wasn’t above flouting a few rules, he took this one seriously. But lewd innuendo, and ardent snogging, and a few other related activities—all of that was fair game, as far as he was concerned.

“Fine,” Ellie laughed, reaching for a pad that she’d covered with notes from the box of files. “Fine. You’re no fun.”

“I’m fun. Solvin’ this will be fun. C’mon.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s work out the ages. You record them as I give them to you. Let’s use one colour for the ages they were when they lived there, and a different colour for the ages they would be now.”

“Go on.”

She began with the second-story residents. “Maria Dieters was 60 when she moved in, in 1990. Sixty-four when she moved out. She’d be 93 today. Ivy Carlisle was 64 when she moved in; her last recorded rent was in 2000, when she’d have been 69. She’d be 92 now.”

“They could both be alive,” Alec said, scribbling.

“Possibly,” said Ellie. “Not too likely, but it’s possible. And then there’s our man Ronnie, who was apparently 37 when he moved in upstairs and stayed just about forever. He’d be 57 now.”

“We have to talk to him, El,” Alec said. “He was there for a long time; he’d have known Verity well, if she was livin’ on-site. And he’d have been the closest to the attic. He might’ve gone up there and seen somethin’.”

 “Yeah, he might,” Ellie agreed. “Obviously. The problem is running him to ground. The contact information I found for him last week seems to be current, but he’s still not answering calls or returning them. I guess we’re going to have to go over to Yeovil and stalk him for a bit. Find out if he’s off doing long hauls in his lorry, or if he’s just avoiding us.”

Alec grimaced, as if the prospect were anything but pleasant. “Wonderin’ if we need backup for that, considerin’ the way Fallows described him. Plus he’s got form, Miller.”

“Not for anything violent, though,” she said, recapping information she’d discovered through database searches on Friday. “Fraud. Forgery. HMP Exeter for four years before he moved into the Bellview Road flat. No police record after that.”

“What if we ask Hal to organise surveillance for a few days, once we’ve verified with Magnuson’s employer that he’s in town?” Alec suggested. “Ask him to liaise with the uniforms down in Yeovil? If they see Magnuson, they can gently impress upon him the advisability of returnin’ our calls. Threaten him with an interview under caution, even.”

Ellie considered, munching the last of her crisps. “We could do. Or we could just go ourselves. The Great Lyde has mushroom risotto on the menu now; saw it when we were there last week.”

“Don’t be temptin’ me with your culinary side trips, Miller. We’ve got a full enough plate as it is. So to speak. I’ll ring up Hal. See whether he can help. Avon and Somerset is his area, after all.”

“Fine.”

“Go on, then,” Alec prompted. “On to the main-floor people?”

“Right. So, John and Joan Barton were both 25 in 1990 when they moved in. They’d be 58 now. Mick Reilley, who was there during 1993, was 40; he’d be 70. And then Rose Ryan and Kate Sellars for a year; looks like Rose was 30, and Kate was 31. They were there 29 years ago, so ….”

“Fifty-nine and 60, now,” he finished, writing on the board. “See, even I can calculate if it’s easy enough.”

“Gold star,” she grinned. “Moving on. Next there’s Lydia Lockhart, who was 65 when Verity let the main-floor flat to her in 1995. She stayed for three years, apparently. She’d be 93 now.”

“Interestin,” Alec observed, looking at the numbers he’d scribbled in. “Seems like Verity had a penchant for rentin’ to older women. We’ve got Maria Dieters, Ivy Carlisle, and now this Lydia—any of them could be our victim, from their ages when they were livin’ there and Cranmer’s death estimates.”

“Yup,” Ellie said. “But not Constance Morris from the garden flat. She was just 40 in 1998 when she moved in. She’d be … let me think a sec … she’d be 65 now.”

Alec wrote the information on the board and took a step back and surveyed the whole spreadsheet. “Overlappin’ with Ivy Carlisle, then,” he observed.

“Yeah. Maybe a good witness. And after that, starting in 2002, Jenny Jefferson was in the garden flat for a couple of years. She was 69 when she moved in. She’d be 90 now.”

“Potentially also Violetta, Miller. She’s within Cranmer’s estimate, too. That makes four of them. Damn.”

“Too many possibilities,” Ellie sighed. “We’ll have to try to work out who’s known to be dead, and who’s still around to give evidence. The Bartons and Mick Reilly and Rose and Kate might be able to talk about Maria Dieters. Ivy and Lydia were there at the same time and could talk about each other, if they’re even alive. Constance Morris overlapped with Ivy. And Ronnie with Jenny. And obviously Verity Smallwood with the whole lot of them. Oh, I wish Carrie could find her.”

“Aye,” replied Alec. “Let’s just research who’s still alive. Anyone who’s alive can't be Violetta. Anyone who's died and been properly buried can’t be, either. Anyone who’s missin’—if any of those women are—then we start talkin’ to relatives. Tryin’ to find a DNA match. And if none of them turns out to be her, we’ll have to ask Carrie to broaden out the misper search. Because that woman was obviously somebody, tenant or no.”

“Agreed. It’s a plan.”

Ellie stood, stretching her stiff muscles; she’d been staring at files and notes for far too long this morning. Gathering up their sandwich wrappers and paper napkins, she noticed that her husband hadn’t touched his crisps. How the man could resist a nice little packet of Walker’s Cheese and Onion was beyond her. But this was a typical pattern: the more into a case he got, the less he tended to eat. She was going to have to start pushing the protein shakes again. It was annoying. She had enough to worry about; she didn’t need to be worrying about his health, too.

Alec pointed at the packet as if reading her mind. “Couldn’t manage the crisps. I’ll have a shake later, El, so no need to start naggin’ me about eatin’. You want those?”

She binned the rubbish, considering. She certainly didn’t need them. Savoury-crunchy-salty wasn’t going to solve any of her problems, was it? Not for longer than five minutes, anyway. Nevertheless, Ellie picked up the familiar blue packet and ripped it open.

“Aye,” she said.

***

The whole family had been dreading Tuesday, May 9, for weeks. It was the beginning of Fred’s four-day series of assessment tests, starting with spelling papers and proceeding through reading and maths. Like his mum, Fred Hardy-Miller was good at maths, but spelling and punctuation—the subjects of today’s assessments—were the bane of the boy’s academic existence.

He picked at his breakfast, ignoring the eggs Alec had scrambled for him and choking down a triangle of buttered toast and half a glass of orange juice. David, normally absorbed in morning news on his mobile, noticed and gave the boy a sympathetic smile. The clock on the kitchen wall read 8:05; they’d need to leave for school in 10 minutes.

“Try to eat some more, boy,” David encouraged him. “Need to keep up your strength.”

Surprised by the kindness in her father’s tone, Ellie looked up from her Weetabix. “Quite right, lovey. I know it’s hard, but try to get some protein in there. It’ll help you think.”

Fred grudgingly took a bite of his tepid eggs and put the fork back down. “Can’t,” he replied. “Can we just go now? I want it to start so it can be over.”

Izzy slid off her booster seat—even at seven, she was still small enough to need one—and carried her empty cereal bowl to the sink, where Alec was rinsing his own plate. “Here, Da.”

“Thanks, darlin’,” he said, opening the dishwasher so she could deposit the bowl and spoon as she’d been taught.

Ellie rose and draped her arm around her son’s hunched shoulders. “It’s not quite time to go yet. Soon.”

“It’s so stupid,” Fred said. “Spelling is what spell-check is for. Grammar is what grammar-check is for.”

Ellie had a hard time arguing with his logic. She slid a hand up and down his back. “It’s always good to have a base level of competence, though. On your own. At any rate, there’s no….”

A sudden hot flush crept up her chest and into her neck, and her heartbeat began to accelerate. Damn. This was all she needed. The sensation spread to her face; tiny beads of sweat were forming at the hairline. Ellie suppressed the urge to run to the fridge and climb in.

“… there’s no point fighting it,” she completed her sentence. “Try to keep it all in perspective. Just do your best. No matter what happens this week, you’re a smart kid. Everything will work out all right.”

“That’s what you always say,” Fred shot back, rising from his chair and dumping the remains of his meal into the bin. “It doesn’t help, mum. Plus you look like a tomato. Weird.”

Ellie went to the freezer, pulling out a gel bead pack and pressing it to her forehead for a moment, then against her neck, then between her wrists. She forced herself to breathe calmly, tamping down the anxiety that always accompanied this stupid phenomenon. What she really wanted was a cold shower, but there was no time. The hot flashes almost never happened; why the hell did she have to have one right now?

“Sorry, El,” Alec murmured from across the room. “Let me take the kids to school and come back for you after you’ve cooled off a bit.”

“No!” she barked. “I’m fine. We’ll go together. Izzy, go get your backpack. Fred, you sure you have whatever you need? Pencil case and all your supplies?”

Fred glared at her. “Yes! We sorted it last night! Remember? Could you just bloody leave me alone?”

Ellie didn’t know whether to shout back, try to embrace the boy, or merely walk away. Displays of temper were rare for Fred, whose core personality was sunny like his mum’s. At least, it had been, until the past couple of years of school had started ramping up the stress.

“Son,” said Alec, his voice quiet but firm. “Don’t shout at your mum like that. She’s only tryin’ to help.”

“Well, she’s not. Can we please go?”

Izzy, teary-eyed and apparently frightened by the raised voices, crossed the room quickly and wrapped Fred in a hug. The boy had grown several inches since she’d joined the family, and the petite child’s arms barely reached his waist, but the empathy in her  gesture was unmistakable.

“Don’t worry, Freddie,” she said, pressing her head into his chest. “You’ll do good.”

Fred went rigid, and Ellie thought he might be about to shout at Isobel, too. Instead, the boy put his arms around her shoulders, curling over to rest his cheek against her fine, strawberry blonde hair.

“I’ll try,” he said, softly. “Thanks, Iz.”

Fred looked up, still holding the little girl.

“Sorry, mum,” he whispered.

Ellie forced a smile. “Not to worry, lovey. You’re just stressed. It’ll all be over soon.”

Isobel broke free and looked around uncertainly.

“You all right, darlin’?” Alec asked, squatting in front of her. “Don’t be upset by the shoutin’. Just a bit of a discussion. Everythin’s okay.”

“Okay, Da,” she sighed.

He gave her a quick squeeze. “Go fetch your backpack, then. Time we were leavin’.”

"Okay!"

Isobel ran for the hallway. Alec followed, leaving Ellie alone in the kitchen with her father and her son.

“You still look like a tomato,” Fred observed.

David nodded. “You’re pretty red, Eleanor,” he agreed. As if she needed confirmation.

“Thanks a lot, Dad. Listen, Fred. When it gets difficult today, if it does? Just remember that this tomato loves you, okay?”

“Even more than chocolate?”

The affirmation had been part of Ellie’s parenting toolbox since Tom was a tot. “Definitely more than a Flake,” she said. “But maybe only just as much as a KitKat.”

Fred grinned. It was the biggest smile Ellie had seen on his face in days.

“I’ll take it. Thanks, mum. I’m ready now. Let’s go.”

***

Hal Rice and the assigned Yeovil officers came through, locating Ronnie Magnuson as he entered his flat on Tuesday evening and persuading him to come to the local HQ for a Wednesday morning interview. Alec and Ellie left Broadchurch shortly after 10, headed north on the A3066, in the wake of a relatively frustrating call from Carrie Bennett.

“I can’t find any outstanding misper cases who exactly fit the profile in terms of age, location, and probable time of disappearance,” she’d told them. “I’ve sent you a couple who are outside possibilities, but I think one’s too old, and one’s not old enough. And there’s no luck with Verity Smallwood, either. There are records up through 2010, right after she sold that place to Bennie Fallows, and then she just seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.”

“Not possible, Bennett,” Alec growled. “She has to be somewhere, unless she’s dropped dead. Even then, she’d be somewhere.”

“No idea,” said Carrie. “I’ve requested her phone records, and I’m working on getting her financial records for you, too. I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Carrie,” Ellie said. “What did you find out about the property itself? Anything?”

“Yeah. I’m emailing you a report. High-level summary: 19 Bellview Road was built in 1938 for a man named Charles Rainer. He lived there with his family until 1952, when he sold the place to Michael and Mildred Smallwood.”

“Relatives of Verity?” asked Alec.

“Her parents. Michael Smallwood was apparently a small-time contractor. His wife kept the books. They had Verity in 1957. And then a son, name of Alan, five years later.”

Ellie was scribbling in her little notebook, even though she knew the information would be in Carrie’s report. “We’ll try to find him, if we can’t find Verity,” she said. “What else?”

“Michael Smallwood pulled construction permits in 1969 to convert the home to flats. Which I guess happened, according to what’s in the box Fallows gave you?”

“Aye. The rental files start in 1970.”

“Well, he wasn’t around to reap the financial benefit for very long, because he died in 1973. The wife followed in 1985, and Verity inherited, according to the property records. No one else’s name noted.”

“Not a split with her brother?” Ellie asked, surprised. “He wasn’t listed?”

“Not that I can tell, though I haven’t examined the probate documents. I can dig them up, if you want me to; it’ll take some time.”

“Of course,” said Ellie. “It could be helpful. Not rushing you. When you’re able.”

“It’s on my list. And then … this is a bit interesting … I have no record of Verity living elsewhere any time thereafter. 19 Bellview Road was still Michael Smallwood’s address when he died, and Mildred Smallwood’s address of record as well. Verity must’ve been there the whole time. At least as far as I can determine.”

“We thought so,” Alec said. “Makes sense, because there always seems to be a period when there’s not a rental record for one of the flats. She must’ve been there, as you said. At first with the whole family and then eventually maybe only with the brother?”

“Haven’t had a chance to research that yet,” said Carrie. “Let me know if the brother’s location turns out to be relevant, and I’ll work on it. A bit busy here at present.”

“Of course,” Ellie said. “What you’ve found already is definite progress.”

“How are you doing with those tenants?” Carrie asked.

Ellie checked the time on her mobile; they’d need to leave soon if they were going to make their 11 a.m. interview with Magnuson. “Working on it,” she said. “Early days. We’re headed to Yeovil to talk to Magnuson in a bit. We did find obituaries for Maria Dieters and Lydia Lockhart; they’re definitely dead, not missing. Still working on the other two older women who lived there. And we have calls out to several other tenants.”

“Good, good,” Carrie replied.

Alec added, “At least if you didn’t find anyone in the misper records who fits the profile, it seems less likely that the victim was some random person without a connection to the property.”

“Well, unless she came from outside Avon and Somerset,” said Carrie. “I can broaden the search parameters, if you want?”

“Maybe,” he said. “If we rule out Jenny Jefferson and Ivy Carlisle, we can start expandin’ the general search. Let’s just keep workin’ on what we have. Let us know when you have anythin’ new about the landlady. I’m findin’ it suspicious that she’s untraceable. No records, no obituary.”

“Yeah,” Carrie agreed. “Something’s off. Well, enjoy your trip to beautiful Yeovil, then. I hope the man tells you something useful. If there’s nothing else?”

Alec glanced up at Ellie, who shrugged. “Nothin’ else,” he said. “Keep up the good work, Bennett.”

“Always,” she said, and she rang off.

The subsequent trip was uneventful, if scenic. Spring was putting on its annual show as they drove through the rolling countryside, with verdant farm fields and thickets of mature trees interspersed with bright swathes of bluebells and buttercups. A construction-related delay as the A37 entered town meant that they made it to the Horsey Street station with just five minutes to spare. DI Hal Rice was waiting for them in the lobby, looking a little anxious. He led them through the corridors, glancing over his shoulder as they walked.

“Your man’s here already. Seems like a pleasant chap.”

The inspector’s sarcasm was palpable.

“Lovely,” Ellie said. “We always enjoy a nice chat with a pleasant chap.”

“I’ll watch through the two-way, if you don’t mind,” Hal said. “I have a few minutes, and I’m kind of curious as to how this is going to play out. I’ve put you in Room 2. I’ll have a PC bring him in for you.”

“Thanks,” Alec said, entering the interview room. Ellie was right behind him.

Other than the lack of windows, Room 2 was reminiscent of the primary interview rooms in Broadchurch: same plain table and chairs, same scuffed floors and walls, same ancient recording equipment. The detectives seated themselves on one side of the table, and Hal went out; less than a minute later, a constable escorted Ronnie Magnuson into the room.

Fallows had described the witness accurately: 50-something and fit. He was nearly as tall as Alec, and his tight jeans and tight black tee shirt emphasised his muscular physique. His dark brown hair—no greys in evidence—was pulled back into a short, tight ponytail. Magnuson’s right earlobe was pierced with a couple of small gold hoops, and his left wrist was encircled by a dark blue tattoo that appeared to be a representation of barbed wire.

“Thanks for comin’ in, Mr Magnuson,” Alec said, coolly. “I’m Alec Hardy and this is my partner, Detective Ellie Miller. As we mentioned in our messages, we’re workin’ on a cold case for the National Crime Agency. Have a seat, please.”

His face impassive, Magnuson slid into one of the two vacant chairs. This wasn’t an interview under caution, so no solicitor was present; the PC left the room, closing the door behind her.

“You mind if we record?” Alec asked. “Just routine.”

Magnuson shrugged, looking bored. “Suit yourself. You’ll end up making it say whatever you want anyway. Coppers always do.”

“It’s voluntary,” Ellie said, mildly. “We’re only looking for information.”

“Yeah. Right. Whatever you say. Get on with it.”

Ellie started the machine and gave a time stamp, and she and Alec both adjusted themselves in their chairs, settling in.

“You’re a hard man to get in touch with, Mr Magnuson,” Alec began. “Any particular reason you’ve been avoidin’ us? We don’t generally have to ask the local constabulary to chase down a witness durin’ a cold case investigation.”

“I’ve been out of town.”

“Fair enough,” Alec said. “But your employer tells us you’ve only been doin’ local runs for the past week. So we can’t help but feel as though you’re ignorin’ our calls.”

“Yeah. Well. Busy. If you had my history you wouldn’t be in a hurry to come into the nick, either. Cold case or no cold case.”

“Your history?” asked Ellie, all innocence.

“My police record. Which I’m sure you know all about. This have anything to do with that?”

“Not necessarily,” Ellie said. “Why don’t you tell us about it in your own words?’

“Got into trouble for forging checks. Made a fake driving license for a friend. Got caught. Served my time. End of.”

Magnuson leant back in his chair, his long legs extended under the table. He folded his hands behind his head, elbows akimbo, as if daring the detectives to ask further questions.

“Nothin’ to add to that?” Alec prodded.

“Nothing. I got out 20 years ago. Since then I’m just your typical lorry driver. Clean as a whistle. You can check. I’ll bet you already did. What’s all this about, anyway?”

“We have some questions related to your time living at 19 Bellview Road,” said Ellie. “Your residence between 2003 and late last year. That’s correct, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Something going on there? Fallows is tearing it down. Kicked me out.”

“A body was found in a cupboard in the attic during demolition,” she replied. “Right up the stairs from where you used to live.”

Magnuson’s expression didn’t change—which both of the detectives found odd, on the face of it. But perhaps he’d seen some of the news coverage already.

“Huh. A body? That so?”

“Aye,” said Alec. “They were right up there over your head. Any ideas about that?”

“No. Never smelled anything. Weird.”  

“Don’t suppose you got rid of someone and just sealed them up, up there?” asked Alec, wryly.

Magnuson snorted with derision. “Wouldn’t do anything so daft. Wouldn’t want a corpse above my head. Jesus.”

“Fair enough. Ever go up there and poke around?” Alec asked.

“Why would I? Fallows had it locked. I had no need to go up there. There was storage in the basement.”

“I see.”

Ellie picked up the questioning. “What about before Fallows took over, though? When Verity Smallwood was your landlord? Was it locked then?”

Magnuson stretched his arms and straightened his spine. He then folded the arms across his chest.

“Yeah. Always was. Fallows just switched out the lock when he took over.”

The three of them stared at each other for a moment before Ellie started again. “Tell us about how you came to rent the flat.”

“Got out of prison, found a new job, saw the advert, liked the look of the place. Moved in and stayed.”

“You didn’t know anyone else there at the time?” she asked. “Anyone who recommended it to you?”

“Not a soul.”

Alec leant in, getting closer to the witness. “Tell us about it, then. Who else was livin’ there? Small place; you must’ve known the other people fairly well.”

“Oh, there was an old lady in the garden flat. Jenny something. Can’t remember. Didn’t know her very well. I’d see her in the foyer sometimes. See her son take her out sometimes. We weren’t social, you know? And then there was Mr Dailey after she moved out.”

“She did move? Jenny?” Alec asked. “She didn’t die?”

“Verity told me she was moving in with her son. That’s all I know. It’s not like we were mates.”

“I see,” said Alec.

“There were other people since then,” Magnuson volunteered. “A married couple on the main floor. A pair of lezzies before them; Rhea and Iris. They were cool. A schoolteacher in the garden flat after Mr Dailey. Didn’t know any of them all that well. I’m on the road so much.”

“Understandable,” Ellie said. “You must’ve known your landlady well, though. You spent a lot of years in the same place. What was she like?”

For the first time, a trace of a smile appeared on Magnuson’s face. “Verity? Oh, Verity was smart. Very smart. Not just book smart. Canny. Took me in after I’d been in jail. Not many might’ve done that.”

“You got on, then?” asked Ellie.

“Yeah. She was fine. Minded her own business and stayed out of mine. Made sure things got fixed if something broke down. Kept the place in good nick.”

“Would you say you were friends?” she pressed.

The man squirmed a bit, then shook his head. “Verity? I wouldn’t say that. She was my landlady, not my best mate.”

“Any idea where she went after she sold the place to Bennie Fallows?” asked Alec.

“She said something about retiring to the Isle of Wight. Dunno if she did it.”

“You weren’t in touch after that?” Alec asked.

“Nah. She left, Fallows came in, just someone different to write the checks to. That’s all.”

Ellie leant in. “You really have no idea where Verity Smallwood is now?”

“Not a clue. You’re the detectives. I expect you can find her. Ask her about that body in the attic. Damn. What a twist. How long do you think she was up there?”

“It’s an ongoin’ investigation,” said Alec, evading the question.

“Why do you think it was a woman?” Ellie added. They’d managed to keep the corpse’s sex out of the news reports, thus far.

“You said, didn’t you?”

“Nope,” Alec said, flatly. “You assumed. Why is that, Mr Magnuson?”

The witness looked unbothered. “Wild guess. Maybe thought a woman would fit better in a cupboard. Just guessing.”

“I see,” Ellie said, letting herself sound as unconvinced as she, in fact, was.

The three of them stared at each other again. “What were you doin’ before you started servin’ at Her Majesty’s pleasure?” Alec asked him.

“Driving a lorry.”

“For the same firm you’re with now?”

“Nah. Lumber deliveries for Sweetins. Local building supplies place. Wholesale trade. Out of business now; the smaller guys can’t compete with the big chain stores.”

“No, I suppose it’s difficult,” Ellie said. “Were they involved in your … extracurricular activities?”

Magnuson laughed. “God, no. Old man Sweetin was as straight as a die. That was all me being entrepreneurial. Just a stupid kid.”

The detectives glanced at each other, nearly out of questions. “Did Verity ever talk about any of the tenants who lived in the house before you?” asked Alec. “The person who lived in the upstairs flat before you, for instance?”

“Nope. We didn’t have discussions like that. It was clean when I moved in; that’s all I cared about. I don’t know anything about who was there before. Can we wrap this up, please? I’m supposed to be hauling a custom-built yacht up to Hull.”

Alec rose, signalling the end of the discussion. Ellie time-stamped the recording before shutting off the machine and standing up.

“That’s all for now, Mr Magnuson,” she said. “Next time we call you, be a little more prompt about getting back to us, if you would?”

Alec shoved a business card at him. “And get in touch if you think of somethin’ related. Anythin’ at all.”

Magnuson took the card and deposited it in his back pocket. “Yeah. Okay. I can go, then?”

“Aye.”

As if by magic, a PC appeared at the door; Hal had obviously sent her. “I’ll see you out, sir,” she said, and he followed her out of the room.

Hal appeared shortly thereafter. “Likeable fellow,” he deadpanned.

“Yeah. Charmin’.”

“You believe him?” the DI asked. “Seemed a little fishy when you mentioned the corpse. Most people would flinch. He didn’t bat an eyelid.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Ellie sighed. “Maybe Ronnie’s not most people.”

“I don’t like him,” Alec said, bluntly. “Pretty sure he’s hidin’ somethin’. If not about the body, then about Verity Smallwood. Only time he smiled durin’ the whole conversation was when we mentioned her name.”

“I noticed that, too,” Hal said. “Maybe he knew her better than he says?”

“Maybe so,” Alec replied. “Maybe he did. We’re goin’ to have to try to find out.”

***

The only other event of note on that Wednesday was Fred’s tearful dinnertime confession that he hadn’t been able to finish all the parts of his reading assessment. Ellie found this strange; the boy read fairly well, and she’d have characterised his comprehension as above-average. Once again he needed bracing up at breakfast the next day, though at least the remaining assessments involved maths, his best subject.

Thursday morning’s “Wessex Today” radio programme, playing in the sedan as Ellie drove to work with Alec after the school drop-off, included an interview with two disgruntled Year 6 parents from Weymouth, decrying the unusual difficulty of this year’s reading exam. A representative of the head teachers’ association was also interviewed; she said objections would be raised at a national level.

“We’ve had reports from around the country, and there’s been a massive amount of related posting on social media,” the woman said. “When tears are flowing in the classroom, we have to be concerned about lasting negative impact on our pupils.”

“Heads will roll,” Alec muttered. “Maybe.”

“They ought to,” Ellie replied. “If it’s really as bad as they say. If it was just Fred complaining I might not take it so seriously, but if everyone’s having trouble, something’s not right.”

“Aye. You know it’ll be Isobel havin’ to take some sort of tests next year. End of Year 2 gets the testin’, yeah?”

“I guess. God, we’ll have to talk with Zoe about how they’re going to accommodate her. I haven’t thought about that at all.”

Zoe Taylor Johnson, Alec’s long-ago girlfriend, was the lead early years teacher at Broadchurch Primary, and a close collaborator in Isobel’s education. She not only helped them navigate the school system but also assisted in finding extracurricular resources for families dealing with Down Syndrome.

“She have her baby yet?” he asked, as Ellie pulled into the station car park.

“Not that I’ve heard. Should be soon.”

Ellie’s mobile rang as they climbed the back stairs. It was an unfamiliar number, but she’d left a lot of messages during the past few days with former tenants of 19 Bellview Road.

“Ellie Miller, NCA,” she answered, walking into her office with Alec right behind her. She removed her shoulder bag and let him peel off her orange jacket as she dealt with her phone. “Oh, yes, Ms Morris. I did leave a message. Thanks so much for returning the call.”

Alec draped the jacket over the back of her visitor’s chair and sat down, looking curious.

“I’m with my partner, Detective Hardy. Mind if I put you on speaker? Thanks.” Ellie placed the mobile on her desk, then dug her pocket recorder from the depths of her bag.

“Hello, hello?” the witness said, sounding agitated.

“We’re here,” Alec replied. “Okay with you if we record? Just routine.”

“Sure. I don’t have secrets.”

“Good,” said Alec. He paused to let Ellie give a quick time stamp, then continued.

“We have a few questions about when you lived at 19 Bellview Road, Ms Morris.”

“Oh, God,” Constance moaned. “It’s about that body, isn’t it? I saw something on telly a while back. I couldn’t believe it when they said the address. Have you found out who it was? How it happened? Did someone get locked in there and suffocate? How long were they up there, do you think? The news said the body was dried up?”

“Ma’am, if you’d just let us ask questions, it’d be helpful,” Ellie said, keeping her tone cordial. “This is an ongoing investigation, so you understand we can’t say a lot at this point.”

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just curious. Well, anyone would be.”

“Understandable,” said Ellie. “What can you tell us about how you came to be living there?”

“Oh. I had got a job not too far from there. A paralegal position at a local firm. I saw the advert on a website for rentals.”

“You weren’t workin’ with an estate agent?” Alec asked.

“No. Just got lucky. The rent was affordable and the location was good, so I took the place.”

“You were there how long?” Ellie asked.

“Gosh. I don’t remember, exactly. A while.”

“We have records sayin’ you moved in durin’ 1998,” Alec prompted.

“Well, that would’ve been right, because that’s when I got the job at Martin and Grenville. And then ... it must’ve been three or four years later when I left.”

“And you moved out because… ?” asked Ellie.

The woman sighed hugely. “I got married. Douglas had a little house, and I moved in with him.”

“I see,” Ellie said.

“It didn’t work out,” Constance said. Her tone made it plain that, secrets or not, she wasn’t eager to elaborate on her marital history.

“I’m sorry,” said Ellie.

“It was forever ago. Never mind.”

“What can you tell us about the other people livin’ in the house while you were there?” Alec asked. “What were they like? You must’ve known them fairly well. Livin’ together in a small place like that.”

“Well, the landlady lived on the main floor. Verity Smallwood. Isn’t that a mad name? It really was her name, though, I guess. She had the nicest flat.”

“What was she like?” Ellie prodded.

“Oh. She was fine. We got along okay. We only really talked much when I dropped off the rent. She was good about getting things fixed if anything went wrong. She was quiet. Never any loud music or parties, which is important when someone’s living above you. Nothing special that I remember about her. Not like…”

Constance’s voice trailed off, as though she’d stifled her general tendency to be talkative.

“Not like who?” Alec asked.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Ms Morris, we could use your cooperation. We’re tryin’ to find out what happened there, such that someone ended up dead in the attic. You understand. Your memories could be very useful in helpin’ us get closure for someone’s family.”

“I understand. It’s just… you don’t like to speak ill of the dead. I’d expect she’s dead by now.”

“Who?” Ellie asked.

“The woman who lived in the upstairs flat. Ivy something. Collins?”

“Carlisle,” said Alec. “Accordin’ to the rental records. What about her? You had a problem with her? Somethin’ that made her memorable?”

“She was older. I mean, not ancient, but older. She was a tiny little thing. I guess she must’ve been in her 60s? Oh, God, the woman complained all the time. If I ever saw her in the foyer she was complaining about the heat, or the cold, or the rent, or the price of groceries. Or the government. Or the immigrants. She complained if I had a few people in for drinks. She’d call Verity and get her to tell us to be quiet. She couldn’t have heard us, either, way up there in that flat of hers. I think she just must’ve sat in that window all day, spying on who was coming and going.”

“Sounds unpleasant,” Ellie offered.

“Oh, she was. She really was. I’d hear her rowing with Verity sometimes, too. I don’t know what about.”

“You ever discuss the situation with Ms Smallwood?” Alec asked. “Complain about it?”

“Verity said that she had had some sort of stroke and that she wasn’t completely in her right mind, and we needed to make allowances. Said she was harmless. I guess that had happened a little before I moved in? I don’t know. Ivy was always the same to me. Verity used to ask me to pick up bread or milk for her once in a while, if I was already going to the shops.”

“Interestin’,” said Alec. “Did Ivy ever talk about a husband? Children?” He was thinking about the victim’s wedding ring.

“No one ever discussed anything like that with me. I just tried to keep out of her way. She could be mean.”

“Why’d you stay as long as you did?” Ellie asked. “If it was so unpleasant?”

“It wasn’t like that the whole time. Ivy left. That would’ve been a couple years after I moved in, I think. Early 2000? Something like that.”

“Really?” asked Ellie. “You saw her move out?”

“No. Verity just said she’d left. Said some relative had taken her in, someplace in the North. I mean, someone needed to take care of her. When they get old and start losing it, someone needs to step in. It wasn’t Verity’s job, was it? Even if she was trying to be nice.”

Alec and Ellie exchanged a meaningful glance.

“Constance? May I call you Constance?” Ellie’s voice was friendly.

“Sure.”

“We need you to think hard, now. When was it, when Verity told you Ivy had left? Did you see the removal men come to take her things away?”

“It would’ve been 2000, I’m pretty sure. And now that you mention it? No. I don’t know what happened to Ivy’s things. I never saw anyone take them away. Of course I took holidays; it could’ve been done sometime while I was away, couldn’t it?”

“Aye,” Alec acknowledged. “So while you were livin’ there the rest of the time? Until the end of 2001 or some such, when you left? Did Verity let the upstairs flat to someone else, that you recall?”

He kept his tone neutral, but he couldn’t help feeling a little excited. At last, they might be getting somewhere.

“No. I don’t recall anyone else moving in during that time. I honestly don’t know what was going on. I thought maybe Verity was keeping Ivy’s things for some reason. Maybe Ivy’s family was paying her to store them until they could come and have a clear-out? No idea. We didn’t discuss it. It wasn’t my business. I was just glad she was gone.”

“I don’t suppose you ever met the tenant who moved into your flat when you left?” Ellie asked. “Another older woman? Jenny?”

“Nope. That wouldn’t be normal, would it? You move out, and someone else moves in. That’s all.”

The detectives were silent, both considering. Violetta wasn’t Lydia Lockhart, and she wasn’t Maria Dieters. They didn’t know yet whether she might’ve been Jenny Jefferson. She couldn’t have been Verity herself; the landlady had been the wrong age.

Ivy Carlisle, however, was a distinct possibility.

“Are we finished?” Constance asked. “I’m sorry. I have a dentist’s appointment.”

Ellie nodded at her spouse. “That’s all for now, Ms Morris. We truly appreciate the call and the information. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Aye,” said Alec. “If you think of anythin’ else, call us back. Anythin’ at all.”

“I will. Good luck finding out what happened.”

The witness rang off.

“We need tea,” Ellie announced immediately. “C’mon.”

“Not arguin’.”

They walked to the break room and busied themselves with mugs and water and teabags and milk. Waiting for the kettle to boil, Ellie said, “We have to call Carrie right away. Get her to research what happened to Ivy Carlisle. She certainly wasn’t on the missing persons list that Carrie pulled. But I haven’t found an obituary, either. Or one for Jenny Jefferson, for that matter.”

“Or for Verity,” said Alec.

“Yeah. Ivy must’ve had family, though, if Violetta is her. She had a wedding ring.”

“So she was probably married,” Alec mused. “Unless she was wearin’ a ring she inherited from a relative. People do that.”

“It’s possible. Not likely.”

Ellie poured, and Alec grinned at her through the rising steam.

“Ahhh, Miller, d’you smell it?”

“What? The tea?”

“Nah. Nah. This case. This bloody case. We’ve been stirrin’ the pot for days. Somethin’s finally cookin’.”

***

They heard David Barrett before they saw him through the bay window: staggering up the front walk with his arm around Kenny Stroud, belting out a sea shanty at half-eleven on Friday night.

“In Amsterdam there lived a maid, mark well what I do say… In Amsterdam there lived a maid, and she was mistress of her trade….”

Kenny joined in, providing a pleasant tenor harmony against David’s mellow baritone. “I’ll go no more a rovin’ with you fair maid. A rovin’, a rovin’ …. ”

“Oh, Lord,” Ellie groaned, getting up from the sofa and flicking off the episode of Doctor Who that she and Alec had been watching: the silly one about dinosaurs on a space ship. They’d been relaxing with a nice pinot noir at the end of the long work week, partly celebrating Fred’s completion of those damned tests. They hadn’t managed to get either of the kids settled down until after ten.

“Huh,” Alec said, following her out into the entry hall. “Your da sounds blootered. Wonder what’s goin’ on?”

Someone was pounding on the door. Ellie opened it, and the men tottered in.

“I’ll go no more a rovin’ with you fair maid!” they bellowed, finishing the chorus on a rising note.

“Hey ho, Eleanor, what’s the good word?” David shouted. Not waiting for an answer, he disentangled himself from Kenny and stumbled into the lounge, where he promptly collapsed on the sofa.

“Sorry, Ellie,” said Kenny, looking abashed and somewhat less inebriated than his mate. “Your dad wanted to walk home as usual, but I didn’t think he should go alone. Given his condition.”

“What happened?” she asked. She’d known Kenny Stroud and half a dozen of her father’s other friends, all habitual patrons of The King’s Arms and its snooker table, for donkey’s years. This behaviour was atypical.

“Not sure. He might’ve just lost count of his drinks. Wasn’t really paying attention, to be honest.”

Alec glanced into the lounge. David had rolled onto his side and curled into a ball; he was beginning to snore.

“He’s properly lashed, that’s for sure,” Alec observed. “We’re never gettin’ him into his bed at this rate. He’s goin’ to have to sleep it off on the sofa.”

Ellie gave Kenny a sober stare. “Not good, Ken,” she said.

“I know. But maybe it’s good I was able to see you. I’ve been thinking I should talk to you.”

She frowned. “About what?”

The man looked down at the floor, as if he were trying to formulate what he wanted to say, before straightening his shoulders and meeting her eyes.

“I think you ought to get him checked out. He’s been acting … well, not himself, quite.”

“How so?” Alec asked, moving close to his wife.

“Forgetting names. Mixing up news stories when we talk. Just off. Bit worried about him.”

Ellie glanced at her husband, whose face was grim. “I see," she said. "How long ago did this start, do you think?”

“Don’t know, exactly, Ellie. We all forget things, you know? We’re all of an age for it. Doesn’t mean anything. But your dad … he’s reminding me of my mum, a bit. When she started to get that way.”

“What way?”

“You know. When she started to show the dementia. You haven’t noticed anything?”

Ellie couldn’t lie. “A few things. It’s hard to know what’s just getting older and what’s something else.”

“I know.” Kenny's eyes were sympathetic. He hesitated.

“Is there somethin’ else on your mind, Stroud?” asked Alec. He’d seen such expressions often enough in the interview room to know that more was coming.

“Ran into him once a while back, in front of that block of flats on Derry Lane. He was just standing there staring at them. It was weird. I just happened to be passing. Took him back to the pub.”

“Derry Lane?” Ellie asked. “The red brick building, down past the post office?”

“Yeah. He said he used to live there.”

“With mum,” she sighed. “Yeah. They lived there before mum died. What on earth was he doing over there? It’s too far to walk. How did he even get there?”

Kenny shrugged. “He didn’t tell you he was going?”

“No. I had no idea.”

The three of them started at each other, the atmosphere tense.

“Well, thought you should know. It’s your business, but … maybe you ought to have him looked at. We think a lot of your dad, down at the King’s. Wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him.”

Alec slid his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “No,” he said. “Of course. None of us want that. Thanks for tellin’ us, and thanks for bringin’ him home tonight. We appreciate it.”

Ellie reached over and patted Kenny’s shoulder. “We really do, Kenny. Thank you. We’ll work on something.”

The man managed a relieved smile. “Good. I’m off, then.”

“You need a ride somewhere?” Alec asked. “I’d be happy to give you a lift.”

“No need. It’s a beautiful night. I’ll enjoy the walk. Have a good weekend, if that’s possible. The old boy’s going to be hung over in the morning, for sure.”

Without further comment, Kenny ambled out. They could hear him humming snatches of “The Maid of Amsterdam” as he walked away.

Heaving a huge sigh, Ellie shut the door and headed back to the lounge. She leant against the doorframe, watching her father, who was currently sleeping as though he didn’t have a care in the world. She looked up at her husband.

“Don’t say it,” she said. “Don’t say anything. I’ll call Luce in the morning. We’ll make an appointment with his GP. Straight away.”

“It doesn’t mean…” Alec began.

“I know. Don’t.”

He looked at her helplessly. There was no point denying what was staring them in the face. Something was wrong with David Barrett. How bad it was, remained to be seen. But it wasn’t nothing.

“You want a hug?” he asked, his voice gentle.

“Yeah. Please.”

Ellie came into his arms and clutched him as if she were drowning, and Alec held her as tightly as he knew how.

At the moment—on this random spring night, with Friday turning into Saturday, and the kids safe in bed, and the old man snoring away—there was nothing else to be done.

Chapter Text

Ellie strolled into her husband’s office shortly after 10 on Monday morning.

“Jenny Jefferson’s dead!” she cried triumphantly, waving her tea mug in emphasis.

She knew it wasn’t exactly nice to be crowing about someone’s death. But after last Friday night, and the unpleasant conversations she, Alec, and Lucy had had over the weekend with David—not to mention the awkwardness of explaining to Isobel what her grandda had meant by “getting lashed” and “feeling rougher than a badger’s arse”—Ellie was excited for a win at the office. At least she felt some mastery regarding her job, which was more than she could say about the current family situation.

Alec swivelled in his chair, rewarding her with a smile that was atypically broad for so early in the day.

“You found her, then? Oh, well done, Miller. What’s the story?”

Ellie sat in the visitor’s chair. “What Verity told Ronnie Magnuson was true. Jenny did relocate to move in with a son. I found him in an obituary search, listed as a survivor. The reason we hadn’t located her sooner is … she apparently met some man at a senior’s club and married him a couple years before she passed. Her name when she died was Cook, not Jefferson. And she’s well and truly dead. Buried in 2009 in Trowbridge.”

“Not crammed into a cupboard in Yeovil, then.”

“Nope. Violetta isn’t her.”

Alec kept twisting back and forth in his chair, working on his mug of tea: the TyPhoo Extra Strong, today. “Narrowin’ it down, then. Ivy’s lookin’ better all the time.”

“Yeah. Quite right.”

They relaxed for a few seconds, savouring their progress and the quiet comfort of being in this familiar space together.

“So do you think Ivy—” Ellie began.

Their mobiles pinged simultaneously, and they both automatically checked their texts. Lucy had made David an appointment with his GP for Wednesday at 2. Like the detectives, Ellie’s sister was working this morning; there had been some fairly tense discussions regarding whether David should even be left at home alone, despite the fact that he seemed fine. Or, fine-ish. David and Ellie had got into a bit of a row on Sunday afternoon, with David strenuously insisting that he “did not need a damned babysitter.” He was thus currently home in his little “granny annexe,” but everyone had agreed to stay in frequent contact during the day. It was difficult to know the right thing to do.

“Good we’re gettin’ him in,” Alec said, as Ellie responded to her sister’s message with thumbs-up and heart emojis.

“Yeah. Though I don’t know how much the GP will be able to tell us. It’s probably going to be a long slog of specialists and testing.”

“Most likely, aye. I’m sorry, El. There’s no other way.”

“I know.”

He reached across the desk to squeeze her hand. “We’ll get through it.”

“There’s not much choice, is there?” Ellie made a sincere effort to keep the sarcasm out of her tone, though Alec’s reassurance was less than reassuring. She knew he was only trying to help.

His mobile rang. “It’s Carrie,” he informed her, immediately switching the call to speaker.

“Mornin’, Bennett,” he said. “You’re late. You’re usually callin’ the second we walk in.”

“I’ve been busy. I’m allowed to be busy.”

“Of course you are, Carrie,” said Ellie. “You already do twice as much as any human being ought to be expected to do.”

“Good, you’re there, Ellie. I was about to ask. Thanks for the compliment. I hope my intel will make up for the fact that I didn’t call at 8:45. As a certain detective seems to think I ought to have done.”

“Kiddin.’  I was just kiddin’.”

Carrie chuckled. “Right. You’re such a kidder, Hardy. You’re famous for that around here.”

“Let’s not go there, Bennett,” Alec replied. “Dunno why anyone should be talkin’ about me in Southampton, anyway. Ellie and I just keep our heads down and concentrate on solvin’ our cases and makin’ NCA look good. And I presume you’re callin’ cause you have somethin’ that’ll help us do that.”

“I do, in fact.”

“Something on Verity’s whereabouts?” Ellie asked.

“Sorry, not yet. But some news about Ivy Carlisle. I’ve spent a lot of time researching Ms Carlisle. I can’t find a paper trail for her since the year 2000, but there’s no death record, either. No deposits into her bank account since 2000, but the account was never closed. No record that she ever owned a mobile, but there was an account for a land line through 2000, when someone called to close it. And regardless of what Verity told Constance Morris, there was no relative in the North who could’ve taken her in, as far as I can determine. No children, either.”

“Really?” asked Ellie.

“Really. No children recorded at all. Just a marriage to a Cyril Carlisle, which was dissolved in 1990. There’s no record that Ivy ever remarried.”

“The corpse was wearin’ a weddin’ ring,” Alec said.

“I can’t explain that,” Carrie replied. “Either she just kept it on after she divorced him, or it was someone else’s ring. In any case, she never changed her name, so maybe she was sentimental. The spouse never remarried, either. He died in 2009. Lived in Taunton.”

“Bollocks,” Ellie said, taking notes. “I was hoping we could talk to him. Even though he’d be ancient by now.”

“Not possible unless you’re planning to conduct a séance,” said Carrie. “But it begs the question … where was Ivy after she left 19 Bellview Road?”

Alec’s expression was grim. “Maybe she never left,” he said.

“Maybe she didn’t,” replied the researcher.

“There are really no relatives at all?” Ellie asked. “No one who knew her that we could interview?”

“I was getting to that. Ivy Carlisle had a sister, Poppy. No longer with us, but she had one child, a daughter, who’d have been Ivy’s niece. That woman is apparently alive and well. It took me some digging to figure it out; Poppy had been married, and the niece was married and then divorced, so there was a trail of surnames to untangle.”

“Where is she now?” asked Ellie. “Please don’t say something like New Zealand.”

Carrie laughed. “Nothing so exotic. She’s in Bournemouth. I’ll email you the particulars.”

“Out-bloody-standin’,” said Alec. “All jokin’ aside, Carrie, you’re amazin’. You ought to be runnin’ the whole damned NCA.”

“I aim to provide satisfaction,” the researcher said, rather primly.

“You do that every day,” Ellie assured her. “What’s the woman’s name?”

“Oh. Right. Her name is Violet. Violet Patterson.”

The detectives stared at each other, then burst into baffled laughter.

“Daft psychic,” Ellie hissed at her spouse, too softly for Carrie to hear.

Alec just shrugged, shaking his head.

“What?” Carrie demanded. “What’s so funny? Apparently the family had a thing for botanical names.”

“Never mind, Bennett,” Alec said. “We’ll be contactin’ her. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Let me know what happens. And I’ll let you know when I have any news about the elusive Verity Smallwood.”

“Lovely,” said Ellie. “Have a wonderful week, Carrie. You certainly deserve it, after such a brilliant start.”

“Oh, I intend to. Same to the two of you. Bye for now.”

Ellie grinned at her partner as their colleague rang off. “Violet. Violetta. Guess you’ve still got it.”

Alec’s siblings in Scotland firmly held the belief that their brother possessed some degree of “second sight.” The man himself generally pooh-poohed the notion, though Ellie wasn’t so sure; she’d seen weird things, especially related to some of his dreams. She often thought that whatever native intuition her husband possessed had simply been augmented by his near-death experience. But she hadn’t observed many manifestations of it lately.

“Maybe I’ve still got somethin’,” he muttered. “For whatever it’s worth.”

“Daft psychic,” Ellie said again, affectionately.

“All part of my irresistible charm.”

“Mmmm. I’m not even going to ask how you pulled ‘Violetta’ out of thin air. For a woman whose niece is named ‘Violet.’”

“No clue. And we don’t know for sure, yet, that the dead woman is Ivy Carlisle, do we?”

“Not quite, no. But it’s looking that way, more and more. What’s in your diary for tomorrow? Because I’m feeling like taking a day trip with my husband. Assuming Violet Patterson cooperates.”

“Then start researchin' pub menus along the route, Miller. She’s gonna cooperate.”

“And you know that how?”

Draining the last of his tea, Alec gave her a beatific smile. “Just a feelin’.”

***

Tuesday dawned partly cloudy and warm, and Kenny Stroud called at 7, offering to take David out on his boat for the day. Relieved of caregiving worries, at least for a few hours, the detectives opted for a fairly leisurely and indirect route to Bournemouth: hugging the scenic coastline through the Wessex National Landscape before turning north at Weymouth, then east at Dorchester. Ellie squeezed Alec’s knee when they passed the Tesco Superstore where the two of them had informally become engaged after an upsetting visit to his GP in Poole.

“It’s already been six years since we had the big talk in that car park,” said Ellie, gesturing with her head as they went by. “I can hardly believe it.”

“That was a day, eh?” he replied. “You gave me a bollockin’ about eatin’ and exercisin’ and then announced you wanted to get married. Had no idea that was comin’. Considerin’ how long I’d been bringin’ it up and how long you’d been shootin’ me down.”

“The real proposal on the pier was less stressful,” she said. “But the car park was rather memorable. Let’s hope Paul finds a better spot to pop the question.”

“Countin’ on it. Paul’s a smart man. I’m bettin’ on violins and roses.”

“Well, whatever he does, he’d better give us a full report. I’m dying to hear how it went. Holly’s lovely; I’m so happy for them.”

“Presumin’ she says yes.”

Ellie laughed. “Presuming she says yes. Do you have any doubts that she will?”

“Nah. She’s gonna say yes.”

“You have a feeling?” she prodded, still smiling.

“Aye,” he responded, drily. “I have a feelin’.”

They stopped at their favourite Italian spot in Poole for lunch overlooking the harbour; despite the appeal of trying new restaurants, Ellie was sentimental about this place, where they’d eaten on the fateful “car proposal” day. Perhaps inspired by his memory of her lecture about his weight, Alec did justice to his ravioli with sage and butter.  Ellie opted for a small pizza with rocket and ham. They took their time; the interview wasn’t scheduled until 2 p.m. This was work, but it also felt like a much-needed day out.

Arnheim Court, the witness’s residence in Bournemouth, turned out to be a tall, multi-flat brick building within walking distance of the beach and the town centre. The witness lived on the third storey. Violet Patterson was petite, with the top of her head barely reaching as high as Ellie’s shoulders. The fiftysomething woman seemed energetic and sharp. Her chestnut hair was cropped in a pixie cut, and dangly silver earrings contrasted with her casual white tee and grey trackie bottoms.

“Sorry,” she said, waving them in and leading them to a small but airy sitting room. “I’ve just got back from yoga.”

“Oh, lovely,” said Ellie. “We’re not in a rush; do you need to change?”

“Oh, no, not necessary,” she said. “Not unless I smell odious.”

“Not an issue,” said Alec, and they all sat down: the detectives side-by-side on a compact sofa upholstered with green linen, the witness in a leather armchair. She immediately stood again.

“I’m so sorry. I’m a terrible hostess. That’s what comes of living alone for too long. May I offer you tea? Or a fizzy drink? Water?”

“Thanks, but we’re fine,” Ellie said. Violet sat again.

“Mind if I record?” asked Ellie. “Just routine.”

“Go right ahead.”

She gave a time stamp before nodding at Alec, who asked the first question. “We’re tryin’ to find information about your aunt, Ivy Carlisle,” he said. “Last seen in Yeovil in 2000 or thereabouts.”

“So you said. She can’t possibly still be alive, can she? Has she done something? Or has something bad happened to her?”

“Just tryin’ to find information related to a case we’re investigatin’,” he replied. “From your questions, I’m guessin’ you don’t know anythin’ about her death.”

The witness leant back in the chair, looking unconcerned. “I honestly don’t. I haven’t thought of her for ages. She was rather awful. I can’t imagine why Uncle Cyril married her, but mum said she was better when she was young.”

“You haven’t been in touch with her?” Alec asked.

“God, no. Not since before she and Uncle Cyril split up. That must’ve been … goodness. I was at uni. 1990 or so?”

Ellie smiled, adopting her patented “trust us” voice. “Let’s go back. We’re interested in everything you know about Ivy. What she looked like, for instance.”

Instead of answering, the witness rose and crossed the room. “I need water. Are you sure I can’t get you something?”

“Water would be lovely,” Ellie said.

Not waiting for further confirmation, Violet went out. A few moments later she returned carrying three plain glass tumblers. She set them all on the glass coffee table and resumed her seat, and they all sipped, ice cubes tinkling in the quiet room, before she continued.

“So. Aunt Ivy was my mum’s younger sister. I used to see her at family gatherings when I was little. We all lived in Southampton then. She was a tiny thing.. Short and thin. All mum's family were petite; I guess I can blame their genes for me being height-challenged."

Ellie smiled. "I don't suppose you'd have a photo?"

"Wow. I don't think so. I'd have to look in some cupboards to see if there's anything in one of mum's old albums. I can do that for you later."

"We'd appreciate it," Alec said. "What sort of relationship did you have with her?"

"Oh, we weren't close. She moved to Taunton sometime after she married Uncle Cyril. He had some sort of work there, in the post office. Aunt Ivy never worked, that I can recall. She was mad about shopping, though. Always wanted to go to the shops when she visited mum. God, the trips to Woolworths….”

Ellie and Alec exchanged a glance, but didn’t interrupt. The witness was on a roll.

“Anyway,” said Violet. “I didn’t see them much. She and mum got into some sort of row. Granny had left all of her jewellery to mum, and Aunt Ivy was livid about it. Mum ended up giving her some of it just to shut her up. Granny’s wedding ring, some other things. Nothing super-valuable; it was just the idea of it, I think. They stopped talking for a long while after that. Sorry, I’m getting off track, aren’t I?  I certainly didn’t miss her. She was fairly awful, honestly.”

“Awful in what way?” asked Ellie.

“Whingy. Never satisfied with anything. Nothing good enough for her. She could act like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she had a sharp tongue. Always knew how to hit you where it hurt. Maybe that’s why she eventually blew a gasket.”

“Excuse me?” Ellie asked.

“Oh. Sorry. That wasn’t very kind. She had a stroke of some sort, a few years after she and Cyril divorced. I didn’t see her afterwards, though mum went over a few times. She was in a little flat in Yeovil, by then.”

“How’d she end up there?” asked Alec.

“Had some friends, I guess. Maybe trying to put distance between herself and Uncle Cyril? I really don’t know. I don’t know a lot. I didn’t bother to find out. I know it sounds mean, but I didn’t like her. Cyril was lovely about it, always, though.”

Ellie nodded. “Tell us about your uncle, please.”

Violet sighed and shook her head. “He was a kind man. He seemed to really love Aunt Ivy, which I honestly don’t understand. Mum didn’t know why they’d finally decided to split up, either, but I saw Uncle Cyril once in a while.”

“We understand that he’s no longer alive,” said Ellie.

“Oh, gosh, no. He died a while back. 2009? 2010? Wait, I’ll look.”

Swiping on her mobile, the witness apparently found some sort of record. “2009.”

“Any children?” asked Alec. “Anyone to settle his estate?”

“There wasn’t much of one,” Violet replied. “He had a mate as his executor; he didn’t have other relatives, besides me, and we weren’t exactly close. He left me a few quid, bless him. I think most of whatever he had went to support himself and Ivy. He did leave enough for us to see him properly buried, at any rate.”

“He was supportin’ her?” Alec asked. “After the divorce?”

“He told me so, once, yeah. I went over to have lunch with him in Taunton, a few years before mum died. He told me he’d been paying maintenance to her all along. Right up until he died, I suppose. As I said: He must’ve really cared for her despite the divorce. Can’t imagine why.”

Ellie was calculating in her head. If the man had been paying maintenance until 2009, but Ivy hadn’t been seen or heard of since 2000, where had the money been going?

Alec, clearly making the same inferences, asked, “Ms Patterson, how would that have worked? You said she’d had a stroke while she was livin’ in Yeovil. Was she competent to handle her affairs, after that?”

Taking a big sip of her water, Violet looked up at them. “Now that’s an interesting question. Mum told me she offered to handle Ivy’s finances, but apparently Ivy’s landlady stepped in. She was collecting the support money, mum said. And mum also told me the woman planned to take Ivy to the Isle of Wight, to some retirement place. I always thought that that was where she’d gone. I assumed she just must’ve died and been buried out there. I should’ve checked, but … ”

“When, Ms Patterson?” Ellie asked. “When would your mother have said this? We’re trying to get a fix on the dates.”

“it had to have been before 2002, because mum died in 2002. Heart attack.”

“You didn’t discuss this with your uncle? Your aunt’s relocation to the Isle of Wight?”

Looking regretful, Violet shook her head. “I didn’t. After that one lunch, I lost touch with him. I felt bad about that, but you know how it goes with your distant relatives. One thing and another. I probably should’ve tried to find out about Ivy, but she hadn’t given me any reason to care. I was surprised to be remembered in Cyril’s will. He was a good egg.”

Alec looked at Ellie, nodding towards her big leather bag. She knew he was entrusting this next awkward bit to her.

“Ms Patterson, I’m going to ask you to do something for us today. We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

“What?”

Ellie continued. “There was a body found not long ago in the house where your aunt lived for some time in Yeovil. Ivy would have been the right age and sex to have been a match.”

“Oh, my God. After all this time? In Yeovil? Who would’ve wanted to ….”

Her voice trailed off.

“We’re not sure that it was your aunt. Your DNA could help us confirm that it was her, or rule it out. It’s just a cheek swab. Voluntary on your part, but we—”

“Of course. Of course I will. When you say ‘a body,’ was this a natural death? Someone who’d died naturally and been found later?”

Alec shook his head. “The person in the case we’re investigatin’ was murdered, Ms Patterson. Murdered and hidden in an attic. Only discovered years later when the house was bein’ torn down. I’m sorry. I know it’s shockin’.”

He spared the witness the details regarding the peculiar state of the corpse. No need to burden a relative with it. At least, not yet.

“My God,” Violet repeated. “Poor Aunt Ivy. She was awful, but no one deserves that.”

“If it turns out to have been her,” said Ellie, “you can trust that we’ll do everything we can to find out what happened and bring the killer to justice, if we can. Allow a decent burial and give you some closure.”

The witness took another big gulp of water, a pensive expression on her face. “She was awful, but not awful enough for someone to want to kill her. I think. Only … what’s that Latin phase? Cui bono?”

Surprised, Alec grinned. “Aye. Cui bono. Who benefits?”

“It’s funny how some of the Latin from uni sticks with you, I suppose.”

“Exactly,” said Ellie. “Who benefits? That's a critical question in every murder investigation.”

Violet shook her head. “Then you’d better investigate that landlady, hadn’t you? Because as far as I can see, the only one who'd benefit by killing Aunt Ivy would’ve been her.”

***

They’d been sitting in Dr Lloyd’s surgery in Bridport for the better part of an hour: Ellie, Lucy, Alec. The doctor was closeted with David Barrett, examining him for signs of dementia or any other reason for his current issues. They’d already had to buck David up through a blood draw—the man was squeamish about needles—and collection of a urine sample.

“I really thought they’d let us stay with him,” said Lucy, tossing an unread magazine aside in disgust. “At least one of us.”

“We tried,” Ellie replied.

“Makes some sense for the GP to see him alone,” said Alec. “What he said about not wantin’ family to influence the patient, or give clues while they’re askin’ questions. Probably shouldn’t all have come.”

Ellie shot him a withering glance. “We’re here now. We can’t do anything but wait.”

Lucy stood and crossed the small room, looking out the single small window. The view was uninspiring: a full car park and the rear of the adjacent hospital. She stared for a moment, then sat again.

“What are we going to do if—”

Her thought was interrupted by the re-emergence of David and his GP, both looking sober. Lucy stood once again, gesturing at her chair; there were only three visitor’s chairs in the room. David sat heavily, which was alarming in itself; normally he’d have protested that he was fine standing up. The doctor, who was young and blond and model-handsome, took his place behind a desk that was almost too clean.

“Well, then,” he said. “Your dad and I have had a good conversation about his experiences, and he’s gone through some tests with me, and I’m also taking into account what the three of you have told me about what’s going on. Based on all of this, I would give him a diagnosis of mild to moderate cognitive decline.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” asked Ellie.

“Bloody Alzheimer’s,” her father growled. “That’s what.”

“Not necessarily,” the doctor said. “The blood and urine samples we took today will help us rule out some other possible causes for confusion, such as a UTI or thyroid issues. But given what you’ve told me about how long this has been going on, it’s possible that we won’t find anything abnormal.”

“What do you recommend regardin’ next steps?” Alec asked. “What needs to happen so we can get a better diagnosis? Presumin’ the results from today are negative?”

“I’m going to write you a referral to a memory assessment specialist in Poole. It’ll probably take a month to get in; maybe six weeks, if they’re backed up. They’ll do some more testing, and they might recommend a CT scan. And then they’ll offer some post-diagnostic support, based on the findings. They may recommend medication. Some diet modifications. An exercise program. We have good coordinators who’ll help you figure out the best course of action, going forward. We’re fortunate that our memory care services are much more organised than they used to be.”

“But you’re not really sure it’s…?” Ellie said, her voice trailing off.

“Dementia,” David spat out. “De-bloody-mentia. Might as well say the word, Eleanor. Avoidin’ it won’t make it go away.”

“We can’t be sure of anything until the specialist does the assessment,” Dr Lloyd said. “Meanwhile, I’ll give you some reading material regarding local resources.”

“There’s nothing much wrong with me,” David said. “I’m just getting old. You’ll all get there. If you’re unlucky.”

Ellie looked at her father, momentarily distracted from her own worry by the unusual bitterness in his tone. “Oh, Dad,” was all she could manage by way of reply.

“A lot can happen in a month, doctor,” said Alec. “What d'you recommend, regardin’ safety measures? In the meantime?”

“For God’s sake,” muttered David. “Safety measures. You’ve got the bad ticker, Hardy; maybe you need safety measures.”

Lucy, stepped in, putting a calming hand on her father’s shoulder. “We’re all trying to help you, Dad. We’re all in this together. We’re going to make sure you can still enjoy things without … you know. Hurting yourself.”

Ellie stared at the doctor. “Should we be leaving him alone at this point, do you think?”

The idea of having to organise 24/7 care for her father, who had so recently been able to babysit her children, was nearly overwhelming.

“For short periods, as long as you’re staying in touch with him, he’s probably fine,” the doctor said. “For hours on end, maybe not. And of course if he starts to wander, you’d need to reassess.”

“I’m right here,” muttered David. “Don’t be talking about me like I’m not.”

“Good point, Mr Barrett,” said Dr Lloyd, giving him a well-honed smile. “You need to cooperate with your family, though. You have a mobile, I presume?”

David took out his phone and waved it towards the doctor. “Course I’ve got a mobile. Everyone has a mobile.”

“Good, good. You may want to look into a personal alarm system, too. The kind that hang round your neck. Then if there’s an issue, help is just a button-push away.”

“Don’t need a bloody bell round my neck.”

The doctor emitted the tiniest of sighs. “You might consider it, to increase your family’s comfort level if nothing else.”

He turned in his chair, reaching into a drawer and rummaging through some brochures before selecting a few and handing them over to Ellie. “Reading material.”

The appointment concluded quickly after that, with Dr Lloyd handing over more paperwork and then delivering the typical advice regarding A&E for emergency situations. Regrouping in the car park, the four of them stared at each other; Ellie and Lucy had parked side-by-side. David simply grunted at them all and opened the door to Ellie’s sedan.

“Feel free to keep discussing me like I’m a ruddy infant,” he said, and he got in and slammed the door.

“Oh, God,” sighed Ellie, immediately opening the driver’s side door so her father could get some air. It was only mid-May, but the afternoon sun was intense.

Lucy reached out to hug her sister. “Sorry, El. I have dinner plans, or I’d come over and try to talk him down. Let’s not be panicky until we have something more solid, okay? Maybe it won’t be the worst.”

“No one’s panickin’,” said Alec.

“We can go any time,” David bellowed from the back seat. “Unless you’re all planning a nice long chin-wag. It’s muggy as Jurassic bloody Park in here.”

Ellie shrugged, rolling her eyes at her sister.

“Call me if anything else happens,” said Lucy. “Here, I’ll take the referral and make the appointment for him. You two have enough to be going on with.”

“Thanks, Luce,” Ellie said, handing over the paperwork.

“Check with us before settin’ dates, Lucy,” said Alec. “We’ll all be wantin’ to go.”

“You don’t have to do that,” protested Ellie. “It’s not your responsibility.”

He looked at her, his expression almost hurt. “My da ran off when I was 12, El. I never really had a da, other than Duncan helpin’ to raise me. Your da is family. Course I’m goin’ with you, unless one of us has to stay home and deal with the kids.”

Lucy gave her brother-in-law a brilliant smile. “Good show, Hardy. I’ll call them and ask for available dates and then check with you two before confirming, all right?”

“Aye,” Alec said. “Thank you.”

Lucy opened the door next to her father, who was slumped in the back seat. She leant in to give him an awkward hug.

“Keep your chin up, Dad. Love you,” they heard her say, before she shut the door again and headed over to her own car.

“You too, you two,” Lucy said, and she got in and drove away. They watched her Mazda disappearing for a moment and then climbed into the sedan, with Ellie behind the wheel per usual.

“About ruddy time,” David muttered. “It’s like a United Nations summit out there, the three of you jabbering away.”

Not dignifying the remark with a response, Ellie pulled out. She was glad they’d arranged for their longtime babysitter, Marla Telford, to fetch the kids from after-school on this particular day. She didn’t think she could face the typical chaos of the pickup routine right now: the cheery voices of children, the inevitable search for backpacks, the kids’ pleas that they be allowed to play for just five more minutes with their mates. The cyclical discussion regarding why they couldn’t stop for 99s at 5 in the afternoon.

As they made their way through town and then to the A35 for the short trip to Broadchurch, Ellie’s thoughts wandered to Ivy Carlisle: old and “not completely in her right mind,” according to Constance Morris. However disagreeable the woman may have been, she was undeniably vulnerable. Ivy had apparently been alone in the world, with no family that cared enough to confirm her well-being. Verity Smallwood might’ve taken advantage of that scenario in the worst way, financially speaking. Whether Ivy's isolation had led to her murder was another question.

Ellie was determined to find out. To get some justice for the cranky old lady in the well-worn Woolworths dressing gown.

She glanced at her dad in the rear-view mirror. Whatever was happening with him, he at least had the advantage of family who would do their best to ease his journey, no matter how rocky the road might be.

All the adults, including David, made an effort to act normal throughout the evening, not wanting to upset the children needlessly. It was a typical Wednesday night, including takeaway shepherd’s pie from The King’s Arms, homework assistance, and bedtime stories. David, who’d been subdued for hours, turned in early after saying goodnight to the kids, giving Ellie an unusually long hug at the door to his little flat. Alec had followed the two of them down the hall, thinking he should say something encouraging, though when the time came, the words eluded him.

David, his arms still around his daughter, simply thrust out his hand and shook Alec’s.

“Thanks, son,” he said, giving Ellie a final squeeze, then hastily disappearing behind his door.

They walked back to the kitchen, not speaking, then stopped as if by agreement.

“You want anythin’?” Alec asked. “A drink?”

“No.”

He leant against the fridge, searching her face. “You all right, Miller?”

“No.”

“How can I help?”

She gave him a tremulous smile. “Look into that crystal ball of yours and tell me everything’s going to be all right. Tell me it isn’t Alzheimer’s. Tell me our lives aren’t about to be turned upside down.”

“Ah, Ellie. We don’t know—”

“You can’t tell me that, can you? Because it’s going to be dementia. Alzheimer’s or something like it. God, Alec, didn’t we have enough to deal with? It’s so fucking unfair.”

Her voice was rising. He wasn’t sure whether to hug her or try to jolly her out of it.

“I know it’s—” he began.

She cut him off. “You know what’s really awful? All I can think of is myself. How my life’s going to go to shit. I’m trying to dredge up some compassion for my dad, and all I can think of is how hard this is going to be for me. How hard it’s going to be to manage taking care of him. And Fred. And Iz. And you, for God’s sake. And work. All of it. I don’t know how to do it.”

She was starting to cry. Alec couldn’t tell if they were tears of rage or sorrow or an anguished mix, but it didn’t matter. He crossed the room rapidly and enfolded her in an embrace, rocking her a little, rubbing her back. He let her cry instead of shushing her.

She had a right to cry, he thought. There was a lot to cry about.

Ellie’s shoulders jerked convulsively under his arms. It took a long time for her to get it all out. When she’d quieted, he kissed her head.

“Don’t say it’s going to be all right,” she murmured into his shoulder.

“Everythin’s goin' to be all right in the long run,” he replied. “In the short term, maybe not so much. In the long run, everythin’s always all right.”

She gazed up at him, backing off an inch or two. Those amber eyes held that familiar look. The look that showed he hadn’t forgotten what he’d seen—what he’d felt—at the end of his walk down the long, dark tunnel.

“Don’t go all Saint bloody Francis on me, okay?” she said, sniffling, trying to smile. “That’s the last thing I need right now.”

“Noted. Just let me know what you do need, Miller.”

Sighing hugely, she snuggled in again. “Just do this with me. Until it’s done. However long it takes. Just be here. Please.”

He kissed her head again.

“I’m here, Ellie. I’m goin’ to be here. No matter what happens, you’re not doin’ this alone. Long as I’m breathin’, I’m here.”

Chapter Text

The detectives worked at home for the rest of the week, unable to organise day care for David so quickly. Most of what needed doing involved phone calls, anyway. Violet Patterson had come up with a photo of her aunt and texted it to Ellie; Ivy Carlisle had indeed been petite, certainly small enough to have been the woman in the cupboard. The faded image depicted her with her sister Poppy, both of them apparently in their 30s, standing in front of a modest house that Violet identified as her childhood home. They were staring into the camera, unsmiling. Ellie showed the photo to Alec, printed it out, and slipped it into the case folder while they awaited the DNA results.

By the end of the day on Friday, they had managed to contact a number of Verity’s prior tenants, including Joan Barton, Mick Reilley, and Kate Sellars. They’d even gone back several years before Ivy—now clearly their leading candidate as victim—had lived at 19 Bellview Road. They were able to collect information from a Josef Lipa (who’d occupied the main floor with his wife from 1987 to 1989), and from a brother of the deceased Lydia Lockhart, the main-floor resident from 1995 to 1997.

The witnesses were uniformly surprised to be contacted, and all of them had the same story regarding Verity Smallwood: she was pleasant, efficient, and unremarkable. Several of them mentioned that she kept the place in excellent order. None claimed to have any knowledge of where the woman might be today.

Michael Lockhart, Lydia’s much younger brother, provided an interesting tidbit when Ellie chatted with him on Thursday afternoon. “I used to visit Lyd occasionally. Take her out to dinner, you know, that kind of thing. It was all girls in that place; they seemed to get on all right.”

“Did you ever meet the upstairs tenant?” Ellie asked. “A woman by the name of Ivy Carlisle?”

“Never did, though Lyd told me they chatted sometimes. Didn’t something bad happen to her? A heart attack or something? It was so long ago; can’t remember.”

“A stroke,” said Ellie. “1997.”

“Sounds right. I remember Lyd said it was too bad, with the woman being fairly young, and all. They were about the same age, I think. I asked if the woman would have to go to a care home, but Lyd said not. Said the landlady was going to keep looking out for her. That’s going above and beyond, if you ask me. She must’ve been a saint.”

“Indeed,” Ellie said, not quite managing to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Mick Reilley gave them an unexpected gift late in the day on Friday. The detectives were hanging out in the dining room, discussing whether they ought to turn Tom’s bedroom into an office, now that it looked as though work-from-home might be more frequent due to David’s needs. They’d used Daisy’s room for that purpose during the COVID pandemic but had long since converted it into a bedroom for Isobel.

Reilley’s call, returning one from Alec, came in at quarter after 4. The man had the same “Verity was wonderful” story as all the other tenants they’d spoken with, but then he offered some new information.

“Wherever she is, I’ll bet she’s still working. She was always a busy bee, working at that timber yard and keeping the property in good nick. A lot of energy. I always admired that about her.”

“What timber yard?” Alec asked, sharply. “She had a job? Outside of managin’ the flats?”

“Yeah. She was doing some sort of secretarial work for a building supplies place. I got the impression she’d been doing it for a while.”

None of the other tenants had mentioned an outside job.

Ellie, listening on speaker, asked, “Mr Reilley, can you recall the name of the place? It could be important.”

The witness took barely a moment to consider before responding. “No. Sorry. I’m getting old, and it was ages ago. Don’t know if I ever even knew it. Honestly, if Verity hadn’t had a weird name I probably wouldn’t have remembered that, either. Much less the name of the place she worked.”

Winding up the call quickly, the detectives stared at each other across the cluttered expanse of the dining room table. Ellie began clicking on her laptop, calling up the notes from their conversation with Ronnie Magnuson.

“Magnuson drove for a building supplies place,” she said. “Sweetins. No longer in business. Wow.”

“What if they worked at the same place, Miller? What if they knew each other outside the tenant relationship?”

“We need to find out whether that’s where she worked, or if it was just a coincidence,” she replied. “I thought there was something fishy about the way he reacted to our questions about her.”

“Aye. There was somethin’.”

“Were they in it together, you think? Killed her together, took the money? Maybe they were even having an affair. Despite the age difference. People do.”

“Temptin’ hypotheses, Miller,” Alec said. “Very dramatic.”

He was now also on his laptop, looking at notes. “But it doesn’t work,” he continued. “If we think Ivy was killed in 2000, Magnuson couldn’t have been involved. He was in HMP Exeter from 1999 through 2002. Ivy was seen alive by Connie Morris after he was sent down, and he was still locked up well after the last time anyone saw her. He has an ironclad alibi.”

“Bollocks,” she sighed. “it would’ve been so neat.”

“Yeah. But still. We need Verity’s financial records. Need to find out if they were workin’ at the same place. If we can prove they knew each other before he moved in, we can work backwards from there. Dunno what’s takin’ Carrie so long.”

Ellie rolled her eyes at him. “Of course you do. Verity is presumably alive, and she hasn’t been reported missing. There are hoops to jump through to get access to the financial data of a living person, especially since this is a cold case. It’d be different if we were working a hot murder investigation. You know that. I’m sure Carrie’s on top of it.”

“I know, I know. I’m just itchin’ for some forward motion. Feels like we’re gettin’ nowhere.”

She laughed. “You say that during every case, sweetheart. It’s like a mantra.”

“You want to get me a tee-shirt with it on? They’re pilin’ up, the shirts you’re promisin’ and not deliverin'.”

He was scowling, but she knew it was fake. He’d been trying hard to keep her spirits up. 

“I like you better with your shirt off," she said, slyly.

"Fair point. Noted."

"It's almost the weekend, too. Loads of time for extracurricular activities."

"Aye." His grin turned the single syllable into something lascivious. She was rather sorry they couldn't do anything about it right now. The kids would need to be picked up soon.

"We should have Violet Patterson’s DNA results back in a few days, at least," she said, dragging the conversation back to business. "Then we’ll know for sure if Violetta is Ivy. That’d be progress, wouldn’t it?”

“That, it would. Hopin' for that.”

“You think we should talk to Magnuson again?” she asked. “Prod him about any workplace connection?”

“We could do. But he’s goin’ to deny it. If there was a prior relationship through work, he didn’t disclose it at the first interview, did he? Let’s wait until we get the financial data. Might give us more leverage if we can prove she worked at Sweetins.”

“Okay. Makes sense.”

David ambled in, looking bored. He’d been holed up in his flat watching old films on telly all day, except for puttering for an hour or so in the back garden early this morning.

“What’s for tea, Eleanor?” he asked. “I’m peckish already.”

“For heaven’s sake, Dad. It’s not even 5 yet. Probably pizza, later. Have an apple or something.”

“Don’t want a ruddy apple.”

Alec wasn’t surprised that his father-in-law was rejecting fruit; the man much preferred junkier options. All the dementia brochures stressed the benefits of a clean diet. But Alec thought he was in no position to lecture anyone about their eating habits.

“No snooker tonight, then?” he asked, instead.

“Going later,” David replied. “Someone’s picking me up. After we eat.”

“Who?” asked Ellie.

“Don’t remember. One of them. Charles?”

Ellie was well-acquainted with the snooker crowd. There was no “Charles” that she knew of.

“Charles who?” she asked, her tone a little too sharp.

Irritation and worry were mingled on her dad’s face; it was becoming a familiar expression. “Charles. Chad? Does it matter? My mate. You know. Ginger.”

Ellie took a breath, then rose from the table and gave him a quick hug. This is what their interactions would need to be, from now on, she told herself. Less arguing. More encouraging. At least, that was the gist of everything she’d been reading. After a lifetime of tiffs with the man, it was going to be a challenge.

“Chris, I think,” she said with a smile. “It’s Chris, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Chris.”

“Chris. Good. C’mon, then. Let’s find you a snack.”

***

Saturday afternoon Zoom calls were a Hardy-Miller routine, though often one or more of the intended participants didn’t make it. Daisy sometimes had weekend casework in her role as a DC with the West Mercia Police, and Tom’s position as a software engineer for a London web development firm also periodically required weekend hours. This week, however, nearly everyone was on the call: Alec, Ellie, Fred, Izzy, and the two older kids, using an assortment of laptops and mobiles to chat. David had begged off, as he often did; the calls generally coincided with his preferred naptime.

“So it’s definite,” Ellie was saying, ensconced on the sofa, awkwardly balancing her computer, Izzy, and Izzy’s storybook. “Paul proposed to Holly, and she said yes.”

“Oh, I love that for him!” replied Daisy. “Course, I didn’t know him as long as you; I was only in Broadchurch for that one year before he left. But he always seemed so kind. I couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t ever got married in the first place.”

“Because he was an alcoholic, Daize,” said Tom. “Sorta messed things up for him for a long time. And he was pretty shy, too. When Danny and I had him for computing class, you could tell he wasn’t always super comfortable talking one-on-one.”

This was a fairly long speech for Tom Hardy-Miller, who was on the shy side himself.

“I really liked her when we met at Easter,” Daisy continued. “And her little boy is so sweet. Any idea when they’ll be tying the knot? Will it be up in Bristol? They’ll want a church wedding, I guess.”

“I’d imagine so,” Alec replied, leaning forward in the armchair as he bent over his laptop. “Dunno about the time frame, but I don’t think it’ll be months and months. When they called us last night they were both buzzin’. If they’re wantin’ to have more kids, I expect they’ll be … expeditious.”

Tom laughed. “Expeditious. You kill me, Dad.”

“My extensive vocabulary is part of my charm.”

“Shit!” Fred cried, apropos of nothing. The boy was sitting on the floor next to the sofa. Ellie could see that he’d shrunk the Zoom window on his laptop so he could play a game at the same time.

Izzy looked up from her book: today, an illustrated collection of Disney Princess tales.

“Freddie said a swear,” she pointed out, calmly.

“For God’s sake, son, stop gamin’ for 15 minutes and talk to your family. Too much multitaskin’.”

Making a disgusted noise, Fred complied, re-expanding the Zoom window on his screen.

“Dad’s right, little bro,” said Tom. “Take a break and tell us what’s been going on. Bet you’re glad the SATs are over. Too bad no results until end of term in July, eh?”

“Don’t wanna talk about it. Oh, Tom, guess what, though?”

“What?”

“They’re starting a cricket team at school. Years 5 and 6. The first practice is tomorrow.”

For the first time, Fred seemed engaged in the conversation. He was athletic, just as Joe had always been. Ellie wasn’t looking forward to sorting transport for practices and matches, but she thought playing a new sport would be good for the boy—a healthy counterpoint to the academic routine. At least the primary-school format would involve a much pared-down version of the game, rather than the hours-long, or days-long, version of competitive cricket.

“That’s great, Fred!” Tom said. “Send me a link to your schedule. Maybe I can make it over to see you play.”

“Me, too,” Daisy chimed in. “That’d be fun.”

Izzy glanced up, momentarily. “He has a new bat,” she informed them.

“Cool,” Tom said.

David walked in—his hair messy from his pillow, his face set in a frown. He plunked down on the sofa next to Ellie and Isobel, and he peered into Ellie’s laptop instead of getting out his own mobile. She wondered, fleetingly, if the log-in routine might soon be beyond his capabilities.

“Hey,” he growled.

“Hi, there, Granddad,” Tom said, flashing the man an unusually large grin.

“Hey, David,” Daisy added, the warmth in her voice and the brightness of her smile signalling that there was no one in the world she’d have preferred to see.

David eyed the screen suspiciously. “You been talking about me?”

Ellie and Alec glanced at each other. They had, in fact, given Tom and Daisy a summary of Wednesday’s doctor visit earlier in the call. They’d previously shared key information with Fred and Isobel, though at a simplified level.

“Don’t be egotistical, man,” joked Tom, obviously striving to keep the mood light.

“I’m not egotistical, Thomas. I’m crazy. Didn’t you hear? The way you’re grinning at me, acting so nicey nice, I think you must’ve heard.”

Isobel dropped her book with a stricken gasp; it thudded to the floor. “We don’t say crazy!”

“No,” said Alec firmly, fixing his father-in-law with a steely glare. “We don’t use that word in this house, do we?”

There was good reason for language policing around that particular term in the Hardy-Miller family, considering its youngest member's disability. All of them knew it well.

Izzy slid off Ellie’s lap, clearly agitated, and she reached up to clutch David’s arm. “You’re not crazy, Grandda,” she told him. “You’re not. Don’t say that word.”

She was beginning to weep.

“Oh, God,” Ellie whispered. “Dad.”

David’s tough façade crumbled immediately, and he lifted Izzy onto his lap, pulling her close against his chest and patting her back. “Shhhh, Iz. Don’t cry. You’re right. I’m not crazy. I’m just old. I’m sorry, little one.”

She looked up at him, her mouth trembling, tears beading her long brown eyelashes.

“Okay,” she sighed, patting his stubbly cheek. “Don’t say that, Grandda. Not nice.”

“I won’t. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

He leant over to use Ellie’s screen. “Sorry, everyone,” he muttered.

The general apology was met with a chorus of “no worries” and “that’s okays,” and then the room went silent for a moment.

“What were you really talking about, before I came in?” David finally asked, his tone meek.

“Cricket,” Fred said.

The old man managed a smile.

“Cricket. Cricket. Good, good. Cricket’s good. Carry on.”

***

Alec and Ellie were heading back from the break room, each carrying a mug of Irish Breakfast from a new box of teabags they’d brought from home, when Ellie’s mobile rang. Leading her partner into her office, she answered as she slid into her desk chair, automatically flipping the call to speaker.

“Carrie!” she cried, sounding as though the researcher were her long-lost mate.

“Morning, Ellie. Hardy with you?”

“Aye,” he said, taking the visitor’s chair.

“Marvellous. I’m here with your Monday morning call, good news edition. You ready for it?”

“We’re always ready for some good news,” Ellie told her.

“Excellent. Good news item number one: Violet Patterson’s DNA is a match to your vic. Looks like your mummy is Ivy Carlisle. Congratulations on getting this far.”

Alec grinned at his wife across the desk; she smiled back before replying.

“Carrie, that’s fantastic! We thought she must be, but still, it’s good to get confirmation before we go any further.”

“It’s definitely her; the DNA results are consistent with an aunt-niece relationship. So we can stop looking for other possible victims.”

“Spectacular,” Alec said. “Thanks for facilitatin’. Thought we might not get results for a few more days.”

Sometimes the NCA Southampton lab was slow turning around DNA analyses in cold case investigations. Often, the techs were occupied with more pressing cases.

“I called in a favour,” Carrie responded. “I was curious, too.”

“Out-bloody-standin’,” said Alec. "Though it's not goin' to be fun informin' her neice."

"Later," Ellie said. "We'll do it later. Carrie, you mentioned more good news?” 

“Yup. Item number two: I have reports coming to you after this call regarding the financial records of Ivy Carlisle and her husband, Cyril. Much more detailed than the quick summary I was able to give you a week ago, including images of cheques. You’ll find some interesting things in there, in terms of what was going on with the spousal maintenance money.”

“Do tell,” Ellie said. “High-level summary?”

“Cyril did send payments every month; there’s a clear record. I don’t know what solicitor branch was processing that as yet; looks like he was using a firm that had multiple offices. Working on it, in case you want to contact them. At any rate, a cheque for 400 pounds was going out every month, like clockwork. Right up until the day he died in 2009.”

“Wow,” Ellie whispered. “He must’ve been sending her half his pay. Considering what people were making back then.”

“Maybe not quite half. But it was a substantial amount, absolutely.”

“What else did you find, Bennett?” Alec asked, intrigued.

“There are corresponding deposits in Ivy’s account, going way back to before she ever lived at 19 Bellview Road. But you’ll love this … starting in late 1997? There’s also a long string of debits in the form of monthly cashpoint withdrawals, for even more than the amount of the monthly maintenance. She was withdrawing not only all the money from Cyril but also a good chunk of her state pension allowance.”

“And there’s no way of knowing where it was going,” said Ellie. “Is there?”

“Nope. Just cash withdrawals by Ivy, or by someone who had her PIN. If the landlady had control of the finances … you draw your own conclusions.”

“Aye,” Alec said. “You certainly do, don’t you?”

“Mmm. So here’s another point of interest. After 2000? Cyril was still sending the cheques, but there was no more action in Ivy’s account. Everything just stopped. No more cheque deposits from the state pension, no more deposits of cheques from Cyril, no more transactions, period.”

Ellie scowled. “Someone was intercepting payments, then. If Ivy wasn’t reported dead, and she wasn’t doing direct deposit…”

“Then all it took was some signature flimflam on the paper cheques to divert the funds,” Alec finished. “I think she’d still have been able to get the pension as physical cheques, back then. Oho, Verity, you naughty girl.”

Carrie laughed. “Value judgement. But the picture you’re painting does seem to be the most likely one. So maybe our Ms Smallwood had some motive for killing the vic. Cutting out the middle man, so to speak. Eliminating anything she was actually spending to support the woman. Not to mention the hassle of functioning as her carer. Anyway, I’ll send the report download link after we finish here. You’ll enjoy it.”

“Lookin’ forward to that,” said Alec. “Any more good news? Like Verity’s current address and mobile number?”

“Unfortunately, no. But here’s good news item number three: I’ve tracked down the brother. Alan Smallwood. He’s in Frome. Ex-Army; served in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. The military record indicates he enlisted quite young: 1987. He’d have been in his early 20s.”

Ellie was clicking on her keyboard, checking her notes. “Wait. Wait a sec. That was right after his mum died. Wonder what made him take off like that? What could’ve been so bad that Northern Ireland looked better?”

“No idea, Ellie,” Carrie said. “You can ask him; I’ve sent you his contact information. He took an accountancy course after he got out; he has his own firm now.”

“Good for him,” Alec said. “Bet he’s goin’ to have some interestin’ things to say about our Miss Verity.”

“Let’s just hope he’s willing to talk,” said Ellie. “If there was bad blood, he might shut us down completely.”

“Well, I’m keeping a good thought for you,” Carrie replied. “You tend to be … persuasive.”

Laughing, Ellie said, “Many thanks. Any more good news?”

“Nope. That’s your quota for the day, if not for the entire week. The ball’s in your court now. As they say.”

“Ta, then. Once again, incredible work.”

“Aye,” agreed Alec. “Thanks, Bennett.”

“My pleasure. I’ll be in touch.” She rang off.

Ellie picked up her tea, which had cooled somewhat, and took a gulp. “Frome,” she said. “I haven’t been to Frome for ages. I don’t know any of the pubs in Frome.”

“Reason enough for a drive up there. Just have to find a day when the witness is willin’ to talk and your sister can watch your da.”

Ellie sighed. “She was nice enough to take him today. I don’t want to overdo it with her. It’s good Marla has some bandwidth, too, but … after the neurologist gives an opinion, we’re going to have to work out some sort of system. I still can’t believe it’s happening, you know?”

“I know, El. We’ll organise somethin’ more concrete. The memory care coordinator ought to be able to help, once we they assign us one. Presumin’ they do. Meanwhile we just cobble it together, eh? And remember … just because your da lives with us, doesn’t mean that he’s more your responsibility than he is Lucy’s. She’s his daughter, too. She’s not doin’ you a favour by watchin’ him. She’s just doin’ her part.”

“Quite right. Thanks for reminding me, love. I spent so many years worrying about her, back when she was so out of control. This responsible version … it's bit of a surprise, sometimes. A good one.”

“Aye. No need for hashin’ it all out now in any case,” he said, briskly. “Your da’s fine today. Safe at home with your sister. We need to be compartmentalisin’, Miller. We’ll go barmy, otherwise.”

She smiled. “Can’t have that, can we?”

“Nah. Best not.”

Ellie went back to clicking madly. He sipped.

“Downloadin’ the Carlisle financials?” he asked, after a moment. 

“Nope. Looking up the best pub food in Frome.”

***

The top lunch option in the charming town of Frome turned out not to be a pub at all, but rather a European café, Bistrot Marie. Prior to their Thursday afternoon interview with Alan Smallwood, who seemed rather willing to speak with them, the detectives made the hour-and-a-half drive via A roads, selecting the fastest and most direct routing. Frome boasted a population of 28,000 souls, with a greater-than-average share of listed buildings; the architecture spanned multiple centuries. The detectives enjoyed their meal seated at a table in the front window of the sunny little restaurant, with an excellent view of a prominent Gothic church.

“It’s good Marla could swap her babysitting around so she could be with Dad today,” Ellie said, working on her croque monsieur. “I was afraid we were going to have to reschedule.”

Alec chewed a bite of Florentine galette—a dish he’d never tried before, involving buckwheat crepes, cheese, spinach, and soft-cooked eggs—before responding. He was making a sincere effort to eat better, even when he wasn’t very interested. He didn’t want Ellie to be fretting about his health, considering everything else on her mind.

“Between your da and the kids, it’s a jugglin’ act,” he acknowledged. “We need to be efficient with Alan Smallwood, too, because I promised Fred we’d be at the cricket practice after school.”

“I hope he’s talky, then,” said Ellie. “I hope he knows where his sister is. It’s driving me crazy that we can’t find her, especially now that we know Ivy died in that house under her watch. I can’t imagine that she wasn’t involved.”

“Aye. Though we don’t know for certain where the victim died, do we? We only know where she was hidden. Maybe the brother will have some fresh information. Because right now we still can’t prove that Verity did anything wrong. It’s all circumstantial. We can’t even prove she was takin’ Ivy’s money, until we get a look at her own bank records.”

“Let’s just hope Alan doesn’t have the same story about the woman being wonderful,” Ellie concluded. “That wouldn’t be helpful at all.”

They met the witness at half-one in the offices of his firm, Smallwood Acountancy Ltd., which was located in a nicely renovated Victorian building within walking distance of the bistro. The proprietor, in his early 60s, was greying but well-toned, with rigid posture that reminded the detectives he was ex-military. He wore a subtly pinstriped charcoal-grey suit that Ellie suspected was bespoke, with a crisp dress shirt of pale yellow and a red paisley tie. It seemed a bit much for Frome, but men’s sartorial choices weren’t exactly her forte.

After offering them tea that they declined, Smallwood settled himself behind a heavy antique desk in his corner office. The detectives sat in leather visitor’s chairs. Light poured in from two large windows, helping to mitigate the weighty masculine vibe of the furnishings, which included numerous golf-themed watercolours, several barristers’ bookcases, and three massive wooden filing cabinets.

“We’d like to record, if you don’t mind,” Ellie began, digging in her bag. “Just routine.”

“Of course. Feel free.”

 She set the little machine on the small oak table next to her chair and started the recording, giving a time stamp and then nodding at Alec.

“We’re here inquirin’ about your sister,” he started, bluntly. “Verity Smallwood.”

“I know her name,” the witness said, coolly.

“Last seen in 2010 after she sold the 19 Bellview Road property to a local estate agent,” Alec continued, undeterred. “We’re tryin’ to find out what’s happened to her since then. She appears to be missin’.”

“Did someone report that? Has she done something wrong?”

“She’s a person of interest,” said Ellie. “Anything you know about where she might have been for the past 13 years could be helpful to us.”

Alan placed his elbows on his desk, steepled his fingers, and rested his chin on them. “As I mentioned on the phone, I’m always happy to talk with the police. But I haven’t seen my sister since long before 2010. Long before.”

“No?” Alec asked. “When did you last speak with her?”

Alan’s expression remained calm. “That would’ve been 1986. Right before I joined the Army.”

Rather shocked, Ellie said, “You haven’t talked with your sister for almost 40 years?”

“That was 1986, and this is 2023, so that would be a correct calculation, ma'am.”

“I presume there was some sort of disagreement?” Alec asked, mildly.

The witness leant back in his chair, giving them both a level gaze.

“You might say that. She cheated me out of my inheritance. If she’s done something wrong, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Cheated, how?” asked Ellie.

“My father died when I was 21. My mum, not that long thereafter. His death broke her. He’d always handled the finances, anyway; mum was in no way capable, especially not after he died. Verity took over everything, as young as she was. Taking care of the money. Managing the flats.”

“You were all right with that?” Ellie asked.

“I was a kid, basically, ma’am. It wasn’t my choice. She convinced mum she could do it all. And my behaviour….”

His voice trailed off.

“What about your behaviour, Mr Smallwood?” asked Alec.

“Oh, there was some drug use, back then. Nothing major. Just the odd joint, the occasional pill. But let’s just say I wasn’t terribly motivated at the time.”

“You didn’t attend uni?” Ellie asked.

“Neither of us did. I had a bit of a job doing construction work; my dad was a contractor, and he’d helped me make that connection as a teenager. Mum had the income from the flats, but Verity was already doing most of the work managing them.”

“I see,” said Ellie. “And when your mother died?”

The man had swivelled his chair to the side; he was gazing out the window. “Verity convinced her to leave the house in her name. There was just a bit of money left for me. Tied up in a trust, of all things, with Verity as trustee. I wouldn’t receive it until I was 30. Vaire talked her into that. I’m sure she told mum I was unstable.”

“Sounds unpleasant,” Alec said.

“Quite.”

“It’s interestin’, because all the former tenants tell us your sister was a fine human bein’.”

Alan snorted, twisting back to face them. “Oh, she was fine, all right. On the surface, she looked fine. Deep down, though? If you call cheating and conniving and putting yourself first fine, then she was fine. Even when we were little, she was the queen.”

Ellie gave the man a puzzled but sympathetic look. “Excuse me? The queen?”

“When we played games as kids, Vaire always had to be the boss. She used to say she thought our parents weren’t her real parents. She insisted she was probably royalty.”

“You’re kiddin’,” said Alec.

“I’m not. Of course children play games like that, but she was very into running things. It’s funny, I haven’t thought of this in years, but when we played make-believe, she always insisted on being called ‘Victoria Regina’ instead of Verity. We’d play castles up in the attic, and she always had to be the ruler; I was lucky if she’d let me be a prince and not some kind of serf. She was always fascinated with the kings and queens of England. I guess she was practising. For God’s sake.”

Ellie piped up. “You played in the attic? Did your father intend to make a flat up there, Mr Smallwood? Apparently someone started one.”

“He started one, yes. He ran out of money, so he never finished it. It was just some walls and a built-in cupboard, the last time I saw it. Verity used to hide in there. We both did. I don’t know if she ever did anything else with it. After I went into the Army, I never set foot in the place again. Bad memories.”

The detectives glanced at each other, and the witness shook his head, as if he himself could not believe his sister’s temerity.

“Vaire was unique. Is unique. Whichever it is.”

“Is that why you left home?” asked Ellie. “Due to the conflict with your sister?”

“There was nothing for me in Yeovil. Mum was gone; Dad was gone. Verity was impossible. I didn’t have prospects. No money for uni. The Army made a man of me, rough as it was. I took the accountancy course afterwards. Never looked back. And I’ve made a nice life here. If I’d stayed in Yeovil, if I hadn’t been cheated … who knows? It might not have worked out nearly so well. Maybe the bitch did me a favour.”

The harsh epithet contrasted with the man's smooth demeanour.

Alec asked, “Mr Smallwood, about your trust. Were you able to access that, eventually? Wouldn’t you have had to deal with your sister at that point?”

“She had solicitors. I had solicitors. Mine talked to hers. I got the money, yes. What little there was of it, by that time.”

“Was she mismanagin’ it? Any chance she was stealin’ from it?”

“Not necessarily. There was a recession. It wasn’t a good economic period. At any rate, I was glad to close it out and be shut of her.”

“D’you recall the name of her solicitors?” Alec continued, wondering if they might be able to trace the woman that way.

“No. Not off the top of my head. I only dealt with them regarding that trust. Never again. I can ask my solicitors to look it up, if it’s important? I’ve been using the same firm all this time. They would have a record.”

“We’d appreciate that, Mr Smallwood,” said Ellie. “If you would. And … did your sister have a job, that you recall? Outside of managing the property?”

“She used to help my dad with things, sometimes. And I think she might’ve had a part-time job in a shop? It’s been a long time.”

“You know anythin’ about a timber yard where she might’ve worked?” Alec prodded.

The witness seemed surprised by the question. “Timber yard? No. But like I said, I’ve been gone a long time. It wouldn’t surprise me, though. Dad knew all those building supply places; she used to go around with him to pick things up.”

Alec thought of something else. “Did your sister ever talk about relocatin’ to the Isle of Wight? Ever talk about goin’ there? Your family ever go on holiday there?”

“The Isle of Wight?” the witness asked, looking incredulous. “Not to my knowledge. Why that place in particular?”

“She apparently told a few people she was movin’ there. After she sold the property. We can’t find any record that she did it.”

“I wouldn’t know. As I said, we haven’t been in touch for decades. We hardly took holidays when we were kids. Dad stayed busy, or tried to. I remember a trip to Penzance one year. A couple of holidays in Torquay. The Isle of Wight, no.”

Alan leant over, then, frowning at them across the desk. “Now that I’ve aired the family’s dirty laundry for you … you want to tell me what this is all about? Is my sister meant to have done something wrong?”

Smiling pleasantly, Ellie gave him the standard response. “We’d like to speak with Verity in connection with a cold case NCA is investigating. As I mentioned, she’s a person of interest.”

“Huh,” said Alan, eyebrows raised. “That sounds ominous.”

“It’s an active investigation,” Alec added. “There was a murder involving one of your sister’s former tenants. I’m sorry, but we can’t share further information. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course, of course. Well, I must say … it’s odd that you can’t find her. But maybe not all that odd. Whatever my sister is? Was? She’s not stupid. She’s damned clever.”

“It appears so,” Ellie said.

“She’s damned clever,” the witness repeated. “And all I can say is … if dear little Victoria Regina had had a compelling reason to disappear? Victoria Regina would've found a way to disappear.”

***

Ellie loved bank holidays; she'd been counting the days until this one, which fell on May 29. The weekends never felt long enough, so getting a Monday off always seemed like a treat. One of the huge benefits of being employed by NCA Missing Persons was that the need for weekend work was relatively rare. The Ivy Carlisle case, though demanding, wasn’t exactly urgent. Thus she and Alec had taken advantage of Saturday and Sunday to attend to some long-postponed chores, including washing both cars, hauling a load of recyclables to the designated tip in Bridport, and doing a late spring cleanup in the front and back gardens.

Monday, however, was spent not in labour but in leisure. Everyone slept late—even the kids, which was unusual—and they had lunch in the Latimers’ back garden, with Mark grilling burgers, chicken, and assorted veg. As usual, Isobel spent a fair amount of time chasing little Logan Latimer—now two-and-a-half and speedy—around the shrubbery. Fred and Lizzie sat across from each other at a smaller table after eating, laptops perched in front of them, playing Minecraft together; considering their two-year age difference it was one of the few games they both enjoyed. David had been invited but opted to spend the day at Lucy’s place instead; Olly was home from London with the latest in his seemingly endless string of girlfriends.

“I’m sorry your dad didn’t come,” Beth told Ellie as they munched on brownies that Alec and Izzy had baked that morning. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen him. How’s he doing since … you know?”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to see him today,” replied Ellie. “He’s in a bit of a funk. Olly will probably cheer him up. Olly doesn’t tolerate gloom.”

Alec snorted. “Oliver is not exactly a deep character.”

Ellie didn’t contradict him; it didn’t seem worth the effort. Anyway, she suspected her husband was more than half right about her nephew.

“He still working for that online thing?” Mark asked, taking a big pull of Wessex Pale. “The tabloid?”

“Aye. They must appreciate his talent for lurid storytellin’. He’s been there quite a while. Takes all kinds.”

“Oh, don’t be so high-and-mighty,” laughed Beth. “The world needs in-depth coverage of the Strictly contestants and the Britain’s Got Talent finalists. Olly’s performing a public service.”

“Oh, Lord,” Ellie groaned. “At the very least, he’s keeping my son from being a complete hermit. I’m glad Tom’s not living alone. Olly keeps trying to fix him up with girls. Maybe one of these days, it’ll work.”

“You sure he wants it to?” asked Mark, one eyebrow cocked quizzically.

Ellie considered. Her son hadn’t had a romantic partner for a very long time—at least, not to her knowledge. He didn’t seem comfortable discussing it with her. He might be gay, for all she knew. Or bi. Or asexual. Not that it mattered. She just wanted him to be happy with whoever he was.

“Time will tell, eh?” said Alec. “Speakin’ of pairin’ off … I expect the weddin’ plannin’ is at a fever pitch by now. Chloe keepin’ it all under control?”

The Latimers’ eldest child had surprised everyone last year by announcing her engagement to Dean Thomas, her high school sweetheart. The wedding was imminent, set for the end of July at St Bede’s, with Daisy serving as maid-of-honour and Paul Coates officiating.

Beth sighed. “She's tried on at least 20 dresses. I’ve been up to Bath three times to shop with her. She keeps changing her mind. She’s usually so level-headed, but this dress thing has her in a tizzy. She keeps wavering between princess and boho.”

“I keep telling her they should just elope,” said Mark. “She could wear whatever. And it’d save the families all the dosh.”

Beth slapped his shoulder. “Stop it. You know you’d be upset if you didn’t get to walk her down the aisle.”

A soft smile lit Mark’s face. “Yeah. A man has to walk his little girl down the aisle. Guess you’re right.”

“Beth is always right,” said Ellie, archly. “Just accept it.”

“Oh, I figured that out long ago,” Mark replied.

“Love you, too,” said Beth, leaning over to give her spouse a peck on the cheek.

Ellie smiled at them both. After all her friends had been through, seeing them like this—affectionate, jokey, and relaxed—was a beautiful thing. There was a time when she had been certain they were headed for divorce. She was suddenly overwhelmed with a longing to see Danny Latimer at this table: as old as her Tom, happy and healthy. He should be here. The fact that he wasn’t, and that it was Joe Miller's fault, would never stop hurting. Danny would forever be acutely present by virtue of his absence.

“Shockin’ public display of affection,” Alec quipped.

Mark grinned. “Mind your own business, mate.”

“Here’s to reckless PDA,” said Ellie, raising her glass of prosecco to her friends. They all sipped, falling quiet for a moment, appreciating the time together. Izzy and Logan were now sitting in the grass with one of Logan’s board books; she was reading to him, making up her own words to fit the pictures, her sweet voice cutting across the sounds of the older kids’ gaming.

“Seriously, though, El,” Beth started again. “Your dad. How’s he handling it? How are you handling it? Don’t feel pressured to talk about it if you don’t want to. I just want you to know … we care, you know? Whatever we can do. Just ask. I mean it.”

Ellie sighed. The offer was classic Beth Latimer: empathetic, kind. Grief had played a large part in shaping the woman Beth was today. Her ongoing work as an Independent Sexual Violence Adviser was, in part, a tribute to her murdered son—a way of taking her anguish and making something productive of it.

“Thank you, lovey. We don’t even know how bad it is, yet. We can’t get in to see the memory specialist for another five weeks. I expect they’ll have to do a scan to make a clearer diagnosis. Because his bloodwork and his urine tests all came back normal.”

“But there’s somethin’ goin’ on for sure,” said Alec. “So we’re not leavin’ him alone for long periods of time. Just puttin’ things together as we can. Workin’ from home, some. Rotatin’ with Lucy. Havin’ Marla in on some days. His mates come around some. There’s supposed to be official support once he gets an actual dementia diagnosis. Presumin’ that that’s what’s comin’.”

“They’ll assign you a coordinator,” said Beth, who was well-versed in the entire matrix of Wessex social services. “If you get a good one, they can help a lot. They can suggest programmes. Make sure the burden’s being shared and not all on any one person. Until it gets to the point that he needs a care home. If he ever does.”

The group fell silent again, the spectre of dementia clouding the day as much as a spring shower would have done. Izzy was still “reading”; Logan, miraculously, was sitting quietly on her lap, entranced.

“The dragon and the mouse moved in together,” she intoned. “In the big castle. All their friends came to visit. And they lived happ’ly ever after.”

Chapter Text

Tuesday was another day when no in-person interviews were planned, so both Alec and Ellie worked at home. Not quite resigned as yet to converting Tom’s bedroom, they set up once more in the little-used dining room. They were able to be relatively productive except when David decided to wander about the bungalow periodically—whinging about food but mainly (Ellie thought) wanting attention. She tried not to be annoyed, reminding herself that he, more than anyone, was going through a hard adjustment.

The detectives spent considerable time poring through Ivy Carlisle’s financial records, especially trying to deduce whether her cheque endorsements from early 1997 and early 1998 looked any different. Though they didn’t know the exact date of the woman’s stroke, all the witnesses indicated that it had been sometime in 1997. Since Ivy had suffered a brain injury that might’ve affected her handwriting, it was difficult to determine whether any changes were attributable to that or to the possibility that Verity was forging the woman’s signature, post-stroke.

“If she had power of attorney, she could legally sign for Ivy anyway,” Ellie said, perusing a series of print-outs laid out on the table in front of them, shortly before lunch.

“Aye, but you’re supposed to indicate that you’re signin’ for the other person,” Alec replied. “All of these are just signed ‘Ivy Carlisle.’ And we don’t know if the arrangement was ever legalised, anyway. Still need to talk to Ivy’s solicitors. Whenever Carrie deigns to call and tell us who they were.”

“Quite right. Hope that’ll happen soon. You know she always gets us information as fast as she can.”

Alec put on his wire-rims and dug into another folder: the one holding Cyril Carlisle’s information. He extracted images of random spousal maintenance cheques from 2001, 2003, and 2007, pushing the other papers aside and spreading these out on the table. Tapping an image of a cheque written to Ivy in June of 2007, he pointed at the endorsement. “Still says ‘Ivy Carlisle,’ Miller. Only, the woman must’ve been dead and desiccatin' in the attic by that time.”

Ellie took one of the 1998 cheques, written to Ivy when they presumed she’d have been alive, and laid the print-out side-by-side with one of the more recent ones. “Those endorsements look similar to me,” she said. “They also look like Ivy’s old signature, before her stroke, but not quite.”

“Not different enough to cause anyone any concern about cashin’ them, I expect,” said Alec. “Maybe we want to get the NCA handwritin’ people onto this.”

Ellie thought hard, and then she had a light-bulb moment. “Ronnie Magnuson was a forger, wasn’t he? That’s why he ended up in prison.”

“Aye. But we’ve discussed this before. If he was in prison for four years, he couldn’t have been assistin’ Verity around the time Ivy was killed. Whatever she was doin’.”

“No, but … if they knew each other before? Maybe he could’ve given her some tips. Couldn’t he? Maybe he even did the forging himself, once he got out and moved into 19 Bellview.”

One eyebrow raised, Alec merely said, “It’s possible. It’s unprovable with the information we have. If we find out Verity worked at Sweetins and knew him before, we’ll have plenty of questions for him. And we can send some of this stuff over to Southampton—though it’d be better if we could also send them a copy of Verity’s own signature, for comparison. Whatever was goin’ on, we know for sure that someone was forgin’ Ivy’s name. Because by 2007, 2008, she had to have been dead—and the checks were still gettin’ endorsed. Don’t need NCA techs to tell us someone else was signin'.”

David walked in, scowling. “It’s half-twelve, Eleanor. My stomach’s making a racket.”

Ellie wrenched herself away from the papers on the table. Not very long ago, her dad would’ve made himself a sandwich. Now, he seemed oddly helpless. She wasn’t sure if this was a manifestation of his cognitive decline, or if he just needed to know someone was taking care of him. In any case, she was hungry, as well.

“Mine’s growlin’, too, David,” Alec piped up. “Brainwork requires sustenance, eh?”

He immediately regretted the reference to “brainwork,” thinking it might be insensitive, but his father-in-law simply grinned.

“Even watchin’ telly needs sustenance, Hardy,” he said.

And with that surprising flash of humour, David exited to the kitchen. The sound of rummaging in the pantry cupboard reached their ears seconds later.

“Better get in there before he decides to make a meal out of ice cream and crisps,” said Alec, rising.

Ellie stood, too, and she reached out to give her husband an unexpected hug: quick, but wholehearted.

“What was that for?” he asked, looking pleased but a bit baffled.

“That’s for being even better than ice cream and crisps,” she informed him. She kissed him on the cheek before she let him go and led him out of the room.

***

Carrie texted them around 2 p.m. with the name of Ivy’s solicitors: Garrett & Wilson, on Thorne Lane in Yeovil. Ironically enough, the office wasn’t far from Bennie Fallows’ house, though it was a few miles from 19 Bellview Road. The firm had been in business since 1980, according to Ellie’s rapid web search, and she wasted no time in placing a call, with Alec listening in.

After being bounced from a receptionist to a paralegal, explaining twice in detail who she was and why she was looking for information, Ellie was put through to one of the partners, a Beatrice Keating. The woman’s voice was pleasant, cultured, and guarded.

“Help me understand exactly what you’re looking for,” she said. “It’s not a normal request, obviously, given client confidentiality requirements.”

Suppressing a sigh, Ellie went through the story again, emphasising that Ivy Carlisle was the murder victim in an NCA cold case investigation. ‘We can obtain a court order if you prefer, ma’am, or come to visit you in person. We’re happy to show our warrant cards. Would you like us to shift to a video call?”

The solicitor thought for a moment. “You already seem to have a good deal of information about our client, Ms Miller.”

“We have her bank records,” Alec interjected. “We know she was receivin’ spousal maintenance that was bein’ passed through your firm.”

“And what exactly do you want from us? I’m limited in what I can say, even though you assure me the client is deceased. I don’t seem to have any proof of that, by the way.”

Ellie said, “There’s DNA verification of the victim’s identity. Ivy Carlisle is definitely deceased. We can forward the report, if you like. We were wondering if there’s anyone still there who would’ve dealt with her representative. A woman named Verity Smallwood. Ivy had had a stroke; she probably wouldn’t have been able to collect the cheques herself. Speaking of that … can you at least tell us whether a formal power of attorney had ever been filed on your client’s behalf?”

“I’ve had my assistant pull the relevant file while we’ve been chatting,” Keating replied. “Flipping through this? There’s information related to her divorce settlement and the subsequent payments. I don’t see a PoA document. Is this other woman supposed to have got one? This Verity Smallwood?”

“She was supposedly handling the funds,” Ellie replied. “If you don’t have a record of it being a legal arrangement, maybe it was just informal.”

“Hmmm,” said Beatrice. “That doesn’t sound right.”

After a moment of paper rustling, the solicitor spoke again.

“I’ve found a permission statement, signed by our client and by a Verity Smallwood, allowing the latter to pick up cheques on the former’s behalf. This was a form that we’d have required in lieu of the PoA. The signatures were duly notarised by one of our staff, so they would both need to have been here in person. At least the one time.”

“I see,” said Ellie. “Thank you, that’s helpful. We know it’s an unusual request, but we would really like to speak with anyone still at the firm who might remember Verity Smallwood. Presumably she would’ve been coming in monthly over a period of several years. We’re trying to locate her as a person of interest, Any information might be useful.”

The sound of papers continued. “I believe Charlotte Hayden would’ve been the one dealing with her, at the time. She was an administrator in our family law group.”

“Can we speak with her?” Alec asked, his tone brusque.

Ellie gave him a stern look before adding, coaxingly, “It could be quite helpful.”

“She retired several years ago. She’s in her 70s now. But I suppose I could ask her if she’s willing to speak with you. I don’t feel comfortable giving out her contact information. You understand.”

Alec shook his head in impatience but said nothing.

“Of course, ma’am,” said Ellie. “If you could possibly do that right away? We’d appreciate it. It’s an active investigation.”

“Certainly. I’ll see to it. Is there anything else?”

“Can you tell us when Verity last came in to pick up a cheque?” Alec asked. “A date? Or the last date when Ms Carlisle paid you for any services?”

“I don’t feel comfortable sharing such specific information, detective. Obviously if you’d like to obtain a court order, you could have access to the entire file.”

“We already know the cheques would’ve stopped comin’ in 2009,” he retorted. “Mr Carlisle died in 2009.”

“Be that as it may,” the solicitor said. “I’ve probably already told you more than I should have. Please, if you need something more specific? I’ll need the legal paperwork supporting your request.”

“Understood,” Alec growled. “I don’t suppose Verity would’ve have hired on as a client herself, at any point? We’re lookin’ to make contact with her solicitors.”

There was the sound of a keyboard clicking, and then Beatrice said, “According to our records, Ms Smallwood is not now nor has ever been our client, Mr Hardy. Really, I can’t say more. Now, if that’s all? I’m rather busy today.” The witness was clearly running out of patience.

“We understand, ma’am,” said Ellie, cutting off any response Alec might’ve been considering. “We’ll request an order, if we think it’s necessary. Meanwhile, if you could just contact Ms Hayden for us, right away, and ask her to call? Your receptionist has my number.”

“Yes. I’ll do that.”

“We appreciate your time, Ms Keatin’,” Alec said, sounding surprisingly polite. “Thanks for chattin’ with us.”

“Certainly,” the solicitor replied, and she rang off.

“Frustratin’,” Alec summarised, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah,” his partner agreed. “But maybe not pointless, if the Hayden woman calls us. Baby steps are better than nothing.”

As usual after an interview, they took a quick look at their texts and emails to see if anything had come in. “Got somethin’ here from Alan Smallwood,” said Alec. “Email. Says his sister was usin’ a firm in Yeovil called Burrows Solicitors at the time the trust was settled.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Ellie started searching on her laptop, eager to call and find out if Verity might still be a client. But her hopes were rapidly dashed.

“Bollocks,” she hissed. “They’ve been out of business since 2015.”

“Were they acquired by anyone?” he asked. “Maybe we can still get our hands on the records. Maybe Verity would’ve just moved over to the new firm. Is there information about succession? A new firm name?”

“Shhh,” she said, searching and clicking. “You know I can’t think when you do that ‘bam bam bam’ thing. Just let me read a minute, please.”

He said, “Sorry, El,” and then fell silent. She could almost feel his impatience radiating across the table.

Finally, she said, “It’s a dead end, I think. They were a small firm. The founder died, according to this story in the Somerset County Gazette. The writeup says the firm’s shutting down ‘after 43 years of distinguished service to the citizens of Yeovil and Somerset at large.’ Nothing about succession, acquisition, anything like that.”

“Bet their records went somewhere,” he said, rather sullenly.

“Probably so. But they could’ve just shredded their old things. It might be more trouble than it’s worth to try to find out. I’m more interested in what Charlotte Hayden might have to say. And in Verity’s bank records. If we ever manage to get our hands on them.”

Even Ellie was becoming irked by the delay regarding this crucial information.

David, who’d been napping, ambled in. “What’s for lunch?” he asked.

Ellie glanced up. It was almost a physical effort to switch gears from research to responding to her father.

“We had lunch already, Dad. You had the leftover macaroni cheese. And some carrots, and some grapes. Remember? It was only a couple hours ago.”

He blinked a few times and looked at his wrist, though he hadn’t worn a watch in years. And then he dug his mobile out of his pocket, checking the time.

“Oh,” he said. “I thought it was earlier. I forgot about the macaroni.”

“It’s not quite gone 3,” said Alec, mildly. “I was thinkin’ about makin’ tea. You want tea? Might find a few biscuits. Bet Ellie has some Jammie Dodgers in that secret stash of hers.”

But David shook his head, looking deflated. “Thanks, son. I’m fine. I’ll go find somethin’ on telly. Sorry to bother you two.”

Ellie watched as her father shuffled through the kitchen, heading towards the hallway that led to his little flat. She couldn’t explain why the sight of his retreating back made her want to weep.

Alec didn’t venture a comment regarding David’s behaviour. “You okay, Miller?” he asked instead.

She refused to cry. She’d done enough crying for a while. She couldn’t be crying over every little thing. Certainly not over something as simple as an old man’s slumped shoulders.

“Yeah,” she replied, forcing a smile. “Yeah. Fine. Thanks. Let’s have a cuppa, okay? Make it extra strong. You’re good at extra strong.”

***

Wednesday, the last day of May, dawned cloudy, chilly, and misty: an apt representation of Ellie’s brain that morning. She took the kids to school as always, with Alec riding shotgun, but then—with an incipient headache becoming increasingly acute, on top of the brain fog—she drove back to the house and told her husband to just take his Prius to the office.

“You can do some more work on Ivy’s records, if you want,” she said, pulling into their driveway. “Or go through the priority files and think about what we’re going to work on after we solve this. Maybe that Hayden woman from the solicitor’s will call. I’m not going to be any good today, at least not unless I can get rid of this stupid head.”

Alec got out of the sedan and came around to her side, pulling her into a hug as she climbed out. “Sorry, El. But I like your stupid head.”

“Ha,” she said, hugging back but then wriggling out of his embrace.  

“Take some paracetamol or Nurofen or somethin’,” he advised. “I’ll make you another coffee. I can stay; I thought we were workin’ at home today.”

“We were. But I’m here, now. I’ll be fine. Don’t you want to go in?”

Truth be told, Alec liked going to the office. He thought he performed better when the line between home and work was drawn more sharply than it had been, lately.

“Aye. I’ll go. If you’re sure you’re all right. You want me to call your sister?”

“What? To come over? I’m fine here with Dad. I’m not incapacitated. Just feeling a bit shit, is all. I can handle it.”

“No, about tonight. Isn’t she comin’ to dinner?”

Ellie groaned. “Yeah. Forgot. We were going to cook, weren’t we?”

“Aye. There’s half of a lasagne in the freezer, though. We could feed her that. Throw together a salad. I can pick up a couple of baguettes. You know Fred; he can just about eat a whole one all by himself. If you still even want to do it.”

She leant against the car, considering. “We need to try. I should be better by that time. We were going to sit down after dinner and … discuss.”

At the moment, a serious talk about her father’s situation was the last thing Ellie wanted. But Lucy had been doing preliminary research, and she was apparently eager to share.

Straightening her shoulders, Ellie said, “Don’t call her. I’ll get better. Just go to work, sweetheart. This is not a big deal.”

Alec frowned. “You didn’t sleep well again last night. I reached over, and you were all clammy again.”

“Yeah. It happens. It wasn’t that bad. Sorry.”

“It’s bad enough. Listen, El. I want you to call your GP, or your gynaecologist. Surely there’s somethin’ that can be done.”

“It’s just a consequence of having female reproductive anatomy, Alec. And getting old. No doctor’s going to be able to fix that. I’m not going to take those bloody hormones. Not with my mum’s breast cancer. The only thing that’s going to fix it is time. It’ll end eventually.”

Typical Miller, Alec thought, his frustration mounting. Denying her own needs because she was so busy managing everything else.

“I don’t accept that,” he told her. “There might be other options. And you're not old. You don’t have the bad gene, anyway, right? Your mum’s cancer might not be relevant. Anyway, Doctor Google isn’t cuttin’ it. I want you to call your actual doctor. Because if you don’t take care of yourself, Ellie, this whole ship is goin’ down. Ye ken? Promise me.”

Ellie looked up at him. Her husband never slipped into Scottish dialect unless he was worked up. “Okay.”

“Promise me you’ll call today,” he reiterated. “I’m not leavin’ until you do.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll call the GP; it’d take forever to see a gynae. I’ll call. I promise. Thanks.”

“Good.”

“Good. Now, off you pop. I’ll let you know if Charlotte Hayden calls me. You let me know if Carrie calls you. And don’t forget those baguettes.”

***

Half-nine was late for a financial discussion, but they’d had to wait until David, Fred, and Isobel were settled in their respective spots for the night. Ellie and Lucy sat on the sofa in the lounge, half-empty glasses of zinfandel in front of them; Alec was in the armchair with his customary tumbler of single malt. They all leant over to peruse a printed spreadsheet that Lucy had brought with her. Ellie was still flabbergasted by this organised, pragmatic version of Lucy Barrett Stevens.

“So …. here dad’s pension, and his savings as far as I know about them. Money from the sale of the house, and some left from mum’s life insurance. But in this column … this shows what an in-home caregiver would cost. Average hourly rates in Wessex. I showed it multiplied by eight, 12, and 24. Just to give an idea. Is this about what you’re paying Marla now?”

“Yeah,” Ellie said. “The hourly rate, yeah. But she’s not available every day anyway. We’ll have to arrange some other people. Maybe we can just keep shifting around with the work-from-home. Alec and I could trade off. You could still take Dad some days, couldn’t you?”

Lucy sighed dramatically, and Ellie frowned. “There’s a problem?” Ellie asked.

“No. No. It’s just …  I was thinking about moving, actually. To be closer to Gavin.”

“You’re kiddin’.”

Alec was gobsmacked. His old mate from South Mercia CID, Gavin Baker, had served as his best man; he and Lucy had hit it off at the wedding. But nothing had come of it until the annual Hardy-Miller holiday cocktail party this past December. Gavin had come down from Sandbrook, though they hadn’t seen him in years, and he and Lucy had reconnected—immediately smitten with each other. But Alec had had no idea things had become so serious.

“I’m not kidding,” Lucy said. “You know we’ve been seeing each other when we can. Ever since Christmas.”

“We knew,” Ellie acknowledged. “We just didn’t know it was that kind of a … thing.”

“Well, I don’t tell you everything. And yeah, it’s that kind of a thing. But obviously I can’t move now; I can’t go and leave you with all this.”

She gestured sadly at the spreadsheet.

“Oh, Luce,” Ellie said. “You could still—”

“No. I couldn’t. It’s not worth discussing. I told Gavin I can’t do it. We’re talking. He might be willing to relocate. Take a position someplace closer to here.”

“You’re kiddin’,” Alec said once more. It was hard to picture DI Gavin Baker—pushing 50, never married, and something of a ladies’ man—being serious enough to change jobs and move for the sake of Lucy Stevens.

“You think that a man loving me enough to do that is beyond the realm of possibility?” Lucy's tone was acid.

“No,” he said hastily. “No, no. I didn’t mean that. Sorry, Luce. I’m glad things are … workin’ out.”

She sighed again and redirected their attention to the spreadsheet. “Okay. So. Back to Dad. We can probably piece things together for a while. But it’s a lot of burden on you two. You’re going to need some breaks. For weekends, or work things, or things with your kids. We’ll have to assemble some sort of a team. The bigger problem will be here.”

She tapped a pink-varnished fingernail on a column labelled “care homes,” where she had listed half a dozen local places and their weekly fees. Ellie was shocked by the amounts and began calculating in her head; blessedly, the brain fog and headache had both lifted by midafternoon.

“I had to make calls,” Lucy said. “They don’t all put the fee information on their websites. It’s annoying. The dementia care is more expensive than the regular, for obvious reasons.”

“Shit,” said Ellie. “He’ll run out of money in three years if he has to live in one of those places. Assuming it’s not all depleted before he ever goes in.”

Lucy nodded soberly. “Well, we don’t know when, or how long, or what the picture will be like at that point. And he wouldn’t pay for it all himself.”

“I could quit, when the time comes,” Ellie mused. “Become his full-time carer. Rather than a home. People do that.”

“No,” Lucy and Alec said, simultaneously.

“You can’t, El,” Lucy continued. “You shouldn’t. Mum wouldn’t have wanted that for you. Dad wouldn’t either, if he were in his right mind. You have kids who need you. You have your job. You have the big twat sitting in that armchair. When the time comes … the care home’s going to be best. Safer, too. By that time he might not even be bothered. It might not make a difference to him. But it’d make a huge difference to you. Both of you.”

She gestured at Alec. “Back me up, here.”

“She’s right, El,” he said. “We need to be makin’ a plan that works for everyone. You buryin’ yourself takin’ care of your da doesn’t work for everyone. Probably wouldn't even work best for him. A specialised place is probably goin’ to be safest, when the time comes. If it ever does. Okay?”

“I guess,” Ellie said. “But he could need it for a long time. How would we pay?“

“I know,” Lucy replied. “Going on, then.”

She tapped another column marked “Support,” where she’d made notes about various government programmes.

“If he’s disabled enough, and he goes to a nursing home, NHS might pay 100%,” Lucy continued. “Even if he’s in a less intensive place, there might be some NHS money. There’s a federal thing called an attendance allowance that provides some money. The local council will pay for all or part of it, if his assets get low enough. He might get a tax break, too. It’s way too complicated to figure out yet. It’s too soon. I guess the coordinator will be able to help us understand. Maybe we can find day programmes, too. I haven’t had time to research all that yet.”

Ellie thought that if she listened to much more of this, her headache would return with a vengeance. She took a sip of her wine, and then she squeezed her sister’s hand. “This is really good information, Luce. Thank you for doing all this. It’s a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” Lucy replied, lightly clinking Ellie’s glass with her own. “It’s a start. We have to stick together, eh?”

“Aye,” said Alec. “Thanks, Lucy. Let’s just concentrate on gettin’ through the next month, and then after your da’s assessment we’ll re-evaluate.”

Gulping down most of what was left of her zinfandel, Lucy rose and pointed again at her spreadsheet. “You can keep that. I’ll be back in the morning and take Dad to mine for the day. That’s the schedule, innit?”

Ellie nodded. “Yeah. You have tomorrow; Marla has Friday. But you don’t need to leave yet. Stay and have another one with us. Tell us what’s happening with Olly.”

Her sister shook her head. “Can’t do that, El. I told Gavin I’d call him at 11. Pillow talk. Digital's better than nothing.”

She gave them a cheeky wink and picked up her purse.

“See you tomorrow,” she said, tossing the words over her shoulder as she left the room. She was out the front door before either of them could frame an appropriate response.

***

Charlotte Hayden rang Ellie on Thursday morning, only a few minutes after the detectives had reached the office. She invited them to visit her that afternoon in South Petherton: a village west of Yeovil, where she’d retired to be close to a daughter.

Ellie had enjoyed a decent night’s sleep, for once, and though they probably could’ve knocked out the interview with a video call, she and Alec elected to take advantage of the opportunity to do it in person. The pleasant drive on rural B roads, passing through pretty villages like Broadwindsor and Drimpton, required a bit less than an hour.

The market town of South Petherton dated from Saxon times; it was famous for its venerable buildings constructed of the local honey-coloured hamstone. The detectives had lunch at a centuries-old pub called The Three Birches, discussing the case while trading bites of kebabs—his, chicken with pickled veg; hers, halloumi with tomato, onion, and basil.

“Forgot to tell you I got through to my doctor yesterday,” Ellie told him. “I’m scheduled for Tuesday at 3, so you’ll be on your own with Dad for a bit.”

Alec raised his water glass in a salute. “Brava. Thanks for doin’ what I asked.”

“Thanks for asking. You were right to insist. I just ….”

Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged. “You know,” she concluded.

“You take care of me all the time, Miller. You’ve been doin’ it for years. God, you were already doin’ it when we were investigatin’ Danny—makin’ me eat and bringin' tea, even when you didn’t like me. You deserve takin’ care of. I’m plannin’ t’be better about that. You finished, though? We ought to be goin’.”

 “Yeah. Drag me away, please, before I order the sticky toffee pudding.”

Charlotte Hayden lived in a modest attached house with a stone façade; it was ancient but had clearly been renovated sometime in the recent past. She was tall, thin, and amiable, with thick silver hair falling to her shoulders in soft waves. Her tweedy brown skirt, pale blue twinset, and sensible tan brogues indicated that her style of dress couldn’t have changed much since she’d been an administrator in the family law group at Garrett & Wilson.

The little sitting room—featuring uneven slate flooring and walls of rough, white-painted brick—boasted an eclectic mix of modern Scandinavian-style furniture and shabby, overstuffed chairs. The usual offer of tea, and the permission to record, and the time stamp were all got through before everyone settled down to the business at hand.

“There was a client named Ivy Carlisle when you were workin’ at the solicitors,” Alec began. “She was receivin’ spousal maintenance from her ex, Cyril Carlisle, and it was bein’ passed through your firm. Beatrice Keating tells us you were handlin’ those transactions.”

“Of course,” said Charlotte. “I remember perfectly well. Though I never met Ms Carlisle. All the business was conducted through a woman who came in to pick up her checks. Oh, damn, what was her name? it was an odd name. A V name.”

“Verity,” Ellie supplied. “Verity Smallwood. Here.”

At the detectives’ request, Alan Smallwood had emailed them a family photo. It was faded and orangey, in the way of colour snapshots from long ago, but it showed the family of four in front of 19 Bellview. According to Alan, it had been taken not long before Michael Smallwood died. Ellie swiped with her fingers to expand the image on her mobile so Verity’s face was enlarged; she then passed the phone to the witness.

Charlotte took it, peered at the screen, and then handed it back. “Yes, that’s her. Much younger, though. But it’s her. She was rather striking. I remember that ginger hair. Is there something wrong about her?”

“She’s just a person of interest in a cold case we’re investigatin’, ma’am,” Alec said, pleasantly. “It’d be helpful if you could tell us everythin’ you remember about your interactions with Verity. In your own words.”

“Well, I’ll try. It went on for quite a few years. She’d come in and ask for me. She’d usually call, first. There would be a bit of small talk, and I’d hand over Ms Carlisle’s cheque, which would've been forwarded to us by Mr Carlisle's solicitors. Really, there was nothing to it. Just part of my monthly routine.”

“Did she talk about Ms Carlisle to you, Ms Hayden?” asked Ellie.

“Of course. I’d ask how Ivy was doing—she’d had a stroke, you know—and Verity would tell me something.”

“Such as?” Ellie continued.

The witness smiled. “Nothing of any consequence. Usually she’d just say she was ‘doing as well as could be expected’ or ‘holding her own.’ Something like that. I had the impression that this was a long-term disability and that Ms Carlisle wasn’t expected to improve very much.”

“I see,” said Ellie. “And can you remember any differences in Verity’s behaviour between the time she started collecting the cheques and the time that Mr Carlise’s cheques stopped?”

“No. Nothing in particular. Of course, I’m 75, and it was so long ago. Sometimes she’d ask if the payment for the next month could be accelerated by a week or so, and we’d get in touch with Mr Carlisle’s solicitors and ask for an early transfer.”

“Why would she want that, do you think?” asked Alec.

“Oh, I don’t know. She didn’t usually elaborate. It didn’t happen very often. Maybe something about Ms Carlisle’s taxes? Oh … there was one time when Ms Smallwood said she needed to pay someone to stay with Ivy for a week because she was going on holiday; she wanted money early for that.”

“Where, ma’am?” he pressed. “Did Verity say where? Did she possibly mention the Isle of Wight?”

Looking puzzled, the witness shook her head. “No. Not that I recall. We did chat a bit about holiday places, but she said she hadn’t decided yet.”

“Can you recall which holiday places, though?” asked Ellie. “It might be helpful.”

Charlotte frowned. “You know we’re talking about a conversation that happened more than 15 years ago, yes? I don’t recall, exactly. The Isle of Wight doesn’t ring a bell, but beyond that? It could’ve been anywhere. Cornwall, the Cotswolds—oh, I do remember we talked about sun cream. She had such fair skin. Maybe it was somewhere with a beach. How odd, the things one remembers. At any rate, I think the talk about a holiday only happened the one time. It wasn’t really my business, you understand. Ms Smallwood was the client's designated representative; I was just the go-between.”

“We understand,” Ellie said, cheerfully. “May I ask … did you have a conversation when Mr Carlisle died? Did Verity come in?”

“Oh, yes. Of course, she had to collect his final cheque. She asked about his solicitors, in case he’d left any money to Ms Carlisle. But I couldn’t disclose that information, obviously. I told her I presumed that they had Ms Carlisle’s contact information and would be in touch with her directly, if she'd been mentioned in the will.”

“I see,” said Alec. “And did Verity seem upset, at all, by the fact that the money had run out? Surprised? Worried about takin’ care of Ms Carlisle?”

“Worried?” Charlotte responded. “I don’t think she seemed especially worried. Though maybe she ought to have been, if she was Ivy’s carer. Mr Carlisle was providing a significant amount of money every month. But again, it wasn’t my business to understand the plans for the client’s medical needs. I was just there to transfer the payments.”

Alec nodded, his mouth in a straight line. It made sense that Verity wouldn’t have been worried about Ivy’s care at that point. Ivy had presumably been long dead before her spouse’s cheques had stopped.

The three of them looked at each other, conversation lagging. Afternoon sun was slanting into the room, making dust motes dance in the shafts of light.

“If that’s all?” Charlotte finally said. “Are you sure you won’t take tea? It wouldn’t be a bother. It might fortify you for your drive back to … where was it? Bridport?”

“Broadchurch,” said Ellie. “And I don’t think we have more questions. Do we?”

Alec shook his head, and Ellie gave a closing time stamp and stopped the recording.

“It’s kind of you to offer the tea, ma’am,” said Alec. “But we need to be gettin’ back.”

“Oh. I see.”

The witness looked disappointed; it occurred to Ellie that she might be lonely.

“I'm sorry we can't stay and have a cuppa with you,” Ellie told her, stowing the recorder in her bag and standing up. “But our son has cricket practice after school. He likes us to be there, when we can manage it.”

“You have a mutual son? Oh, how lovely! How old is he?”

“Eleven. And a daughter of seven, and two adult children. They do keep us on our toes.”

The witness rose, too, and extended her hand, shaking with both of them in turn. “I don’t doubt it,” she smiled. “Such a large family. I only had the one child. My Ava. She’s utterly indispensable. I’m so fortunate to have her. Us older folks can’t do without our daughters.”

Ellie blinked, struck by the pertinence of the comment. She suddenly pictured their friend Callie Carlson: a retired Weymouth DI now living in Broadchurch, who was still supervising care for her 90-something mum even though she was well past 70 herself. She should ring Callie, come to think of it. The woman might have some good tips.

Alec was moving towards the door. “You’ve been very helpful, Ms Hayden. Here’s my card. Please call or email if you recall anythin’ else about your dealin’s with Verity Smallwood. Anythin’ you remember could be useful.”

“Of course. Of course I will. It’s been lovely to chat with you. Thanks for making the trip. Safe travels to you both, and good luck with whatever it is you’re trying to find out. It must be fascinating work.”

Ellie smiled. “You don’t know the half of it, ma’am. Thank you very much.”

***

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Alec said. “Sweetins.”

He and Ellie were labouring away in Conference Room B, with Verity Smallwood’s long-awaited financial records spread out before them. Carrie had emailed the files that morning—the subject line was “A bit of a Friday treat”—and the detectives had quickly printed everything out, four pages to a sheet, and taken the whole stack to the room where they’d made their evidence board. The big table offered more work surface than either of their offices.

Alec tapped a page for Ellie to see. “Look. Here’s Verity's first cheque from Sweetins, in 1987. And then—” he moved around the table, passing by years’ worth of papers—“the last one’s in 1998. Looks like part-time, the whole time—at least, that’s what I’m guessin’ from the amounts.”

“Huh. 1987. Isn’t that about when her brother went into the Army?” Ellie reached for her laptop, sat down, and clicked for a minute. “Yeah.”

“Maybe she needed money,” Alec speculated. “If Alan's construction work had been providin’ some income, and then he was gone? Maybe lettin’ the flats didn’t give her enough.”

“Highly possible. And maybe she was bored, too. She’d have been young. If she was as peppy as her former tenants told us? Maybe she just liked to stay busy.”

“And when would Magnuson have been at Sweetins?” Alec asked. “What’d he tell us when we had him in?”

Ellie clicked some more, calling up the transcribed notes. “He was working there before he got sent down. He didn’t say how long, though. But he went to prison in ’99. So if he was at Sweetins in 1997, 1998? They could certainly have overlapped. Gosh.”

“'Gosh' is right. Maybe your idea about them havin’ a relationship wasn’t so outlandish, Miller. How old would they have been in 1998?”

She kept clicking. “Verity was 41. He was 32. That doesn’t prove anything much.”

“Nah. Doesn’t rule anythin’ out, either, though, does it? Verity was fit, apparently.” He gave her a cheesy leer.

Ellie ignored it. She set her laptop on one of the empty chairs and started walking around the table again, studying the bank statements and the copies of cheques. “Here it is, love, look. Here’s when the weird cash deposits started. Right when Verity started picking up Ivy’s cheques, after the stroke, in 1997. And then once a month, more or less, every month after that. Always 400 pounds plus; always cash deposits. Something between 120 extra, and 180.”

“She was cashin’ Ivy’s cheques and then puttin’ the money in this account,” Alec said. “Had to have been. The extra would’ve been what she was skimmin’ off Ivy’s state pension. Wonder why she didn’t just take it all?”

“Eventually she did,” said Ellie. “After Ivy was dead. Maybe she was shy about it, at first? Nervous about doing something so blatant? And then I guess she just stopped caring. Maybe she came to the conclusion that no one was checking. Especially if she knew the woman was dead.”

“Aye. Maybe. And it’s interestin’ that she quit Sweetins so soon after all this started.”

“Well, that’s obvious, innit? Why keep working when she had so much extra money coming in?”

“Aye. Why, indeed?”

They both kept walking around, pausing periodically to look at one transaction or another. The dour photo of Ivy that Violet had provided, now occupying pride of place on the evidence board, loomed over the proceedings. Ellie stopped suddenly, pointing to a document.

“What?” asked Alec, nearly bumping into her.

“This cheque, made out to Cash. From the middle of 2005. Look at the memo line.”

“’R,’” he read. “That’s all it says, just ‘R.’”

“Yeah. Three hundred quid to R. And another cheque like it, the following month. And here. It happens five times in a row. No, six. Endorsements unintelligible though.”

“R for Ronnie, you think? Why start payin’ her tenant three hundred pounds? Think he was doin’ work for her?”

“It’s possible. But he was driving his lorry by then; you wouldn’t think he’d have had time to do anything big. And oh, look—”

Ellie broke off, pointing and tapping, then began again. “See, the pattern goes on. It’s just cashpoint withdrawals every month, same amount, same time. It goes on until 2010. Until the time she stopped using this account. Look, she emptied it out that autumn. But up until then, she was withdrawing 300 in cash every month like clockwork. Wow.”

Alec shrugged. “Maybe she just liked dealin’ in cash. We can’t prove where it was goin'.”

“Yeah. But she had a Barclaycard, Alec; there's nothing unusual in the credit card records. Maybe she still liked to have some cash. Or maybe she had some reason to be paying off Ronnie Magnuson, and he decided the cheques left too much of a trail.”

“That’s a pretty hefty speculation, Miller.”

“I know. I know. But … don’t you think it’s possible? They knew each other. They were living in the same house. God, he was living in Ivy’s old flat. What if he went up to the attic and saw something he wasn’t supposed to? What if Verity had to pay in order to shut him up?”

“But if it was blackmail, Ellie, why would it ever stop? Even after she disappeared? Blackmailers don’t usually stop. She’d sold the house to Fallows; she’d have had money even if Cyril’s maintenance had run out.”

‘I know, I know. We don't know that it did stop, though, do we? We don't have Magnuson's records, and we don't have anything for her, either, after 2010. It's all just a black hole. Even if we had his financial records, it might not show up if she was only giving him cash."

"Aye," said Alec. "Just wish we knew where she'd gone."

"You don’t think Ronnie could’ve killed her, do you?”

Alec snorted. “Kill your golden goose? That’d be a stupid thing to do. Her killin’ him would’ve made more sense, if he was blackmailin’ her. But he’s very much alive. And she’s missin’.”

“You remember what her brother told us, though. If Verity wanted to disappear, she’d have found a way to disappear. Maybe she just got sick of paying him off and found a way to … disappear.”

Alec brightened up. “Shit, if they knew each other before, from Sweetins—Ronnie was sent down for forgin’ documents, wasn’t he? For fakin’ things? Maybe that talent came in handy to her, somehow? Maybe he helped her with some paperwork relevant to disappearin’?”

Ellie took one last look at the documents and then straightened up with a laugh. “Too much ‘maybe,’ Hardy. Too many possibilities. Let’s just have him in. Now that we’ve seen all this, I think it’s time for a nice chat.”

“Agreed. We should do it under caution, though, El. Put the fear of God into the man. Squeeze some truth out of him. I’m thinkin’ he won’t be eager to go back inside, if there’s any way to avoid it. Maybe we can promise somethin’ that’ll make him more willin’ to talk.”

“We can certainly try. Provided we can get him to come in. Let’s hope he doesn’t try to do a runner.”

“He's a flight risk, aye. What if we ring up his employer, find out when he’s in town, and then get the local uniforms to escort him in? No matter what day it is. We can talk to him at the Yeovil nick again. Get him an appointed solicitor, if he doesn't have one. We’ll just have to figure out somethin’ for your da, if it’s a day when we’re supposed to be watchin’ him.”

Ellie’s shoulders slumped, as if he’d let the air out of her balloon. “It’s going to be a problem, going forward, innit? Situations like that, where we need to be chasing a case and we need to be taking care of him, too.”

“Some days it might be an issue. We might need to split up, sometimes.”

“I don’t like that. We’re partners. We’re better together. Especially in the interview room.”

The sadness in her eyes made his heart hurt. “I don’t like it, either, El. But needs must. We’ll make it work.”

“No choice, I guess.”

“No.”

They were silent for a moment, searching each other’s faces in the cold fluorescent light. Finally, Ellie spoke up.

“You know what you said about squeezing Ronnie?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You’re good at squeezing.”

He smiled. “Is that an invitation, Eleanor?”

“It might be.”

Alec opened his arms, and she came to him readily, resting her head on his shoulder. He held her, listening to her quiet breathing, flashing back to another afternoon when he’d offered to hold her. The lights in the women’s loo in the Wessex Crown Court building had seemed cold, too. The whole world had felt cold during Joe Miller's trial, though it had been springtime.

He still wished Ellie had let him take care of her that day. She had clearly needed it. He had needed it, too. It had taken them entirely too long to admit how much they needed each other. It almost hadn’t happened. Thank God they were far beyond all that, now.

She was still leaning against him, breathing softly, letting him prop her up. A fair amount of propping-up would probably be necessary, going forward. It might require considerable patience, some days. But he’d manage. Even after all this time, he figured they both still had something of a hug deficit—considering everything they’d been through. If it took a lifetime to remedy that? Alec Hardy was up for the job.

***

David stood once again before the red brick building he and Peg had lived in on Derry Lane. It was hotter than he’d expected it to be when he’d left the house, headed for the bus stop. He was sweating into his tan windcheater—wishing he hadn’t worn it but not really feeling like carrying it around.

He didn’t want to think about the unseasonable warmth of this sunny Saturday morning. He only wanted to think about his wife.

He hadn’t appreciated Peg enough, he told himself. Not until she was gone. She’d always been there, since they’d been young together, right here in Broadchurch. Making sure he had a good lunch to take to work, and a good dinner when he came home, and clean clothes. Keeping the cottage tidy and doing the lion’s share of child-rearing. David still felt a bit guilty about that, but … it had been another era, hadn’t it?

She’d been a peacemaker, too, his Peg. She knew just how to defuse conflict between him and his daughters, with a deft mix of sensitivity and humour. And she would push back, if she thought he was being pig-headed or unreasonable or just plain dense. Which he probably had been, far too often.

Peg had loved music: the Beatles and Cat Stevens and Dusty Springfield. And that other group: the one with the funny name, the one that sang about the character who walked like a woman but talked like a man.

Lola. L-O-L-A Lo-la. Lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-laaaaaa.

He remembered all of that. (The music went on in his head, in the background. Cola. C-O-L-A Co-la. Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-laaaaaaa…)

He couldn’t recall the band, though. He thought it had an L name, or a J? Something from the middle of the alphabet. Something short and maybe ... dirty? He guessed it didn’t really matter. Was that dementia, or just bog-standard old-person forgetfulness? Damned if he knew.

David leant against a handy lamp-post, gazing up at the second-storey windows where their bedroom had been. Someone had hung lace curtains. Peg wouldn’t have liked that, much; she didn’t like fussy things. Their bedroom was always light and airy, he recalled. Light-coloured sheets, pale yellow walls, soft floral watercolours. They’d squeezed into that double bed every night for more than four decades, first in the cottage and then in this flat, even though it was too small for him. He wondered why they’d never bought a bigger bed. Maybe she hadn’t minded being close.

He thought about the feel of Peg’s body under those thin nylon nighties she always used to wear. Funny, how she’d been petite, and yet when she had held him? It had felt like she could cradle the whole of him. Protect him from the world, whenever the world seemed like a hard place. She’d been able to do that right until the end, even as she was dwindling to nothing from the cancer. Comforting him, when he ought to have been comforting her.

No one was left to do it for him now. Not like Peg had done. And David wanted it badly. He ached for it. Then again, it was probably better that she was gone; she wouldn’t have to watch while his brain turned to mush. If that’s what was even really happening.

Lola. L-O-L-A Lo-la. Lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-laaaaaa.

A sedan pulled up to the kerb beside him. A door slammed. And suddenly, there was Ellie, looking frantic.

“Oh my God, Dad! We’ve been driving around looking for you for the past 45 minutes. Why didn’t you tell us you were coming over here? For God’s sake! You can’t just wander off like this. What were you doing? Did you even know where you were going? How’d you get here?”

David turned. Hardy was in the car—surprisingly, he’d been driving—and Fred and Isobel were in the back seat. Everyone looked upset. Hardy was leaning over, saying something to the kids.

“Took the bus, didn’t I? I just wanted to see the old place. Where your mum and I used to live.”

“For God’s sake,” she said again, eyes blazing. “I’ve called all your mates. Luce is out looking for you, too. You can’t just—”

She broke off and turned away for a moment to stick her head into the open car window.

“Tell Lucy,” she barked, and Alec nodded and pulled out his mobile. Ellie faced her father once more. Her agitation reminded him of how Peg had looked when she'd been exasperated with him. 

“I’m sorry, Eleanor,” he said, honestly contrite.

“Why on earth didn’t you answer your mobile? I’ve been calling and calling.”

David patted himself. Nothing in the trouser pockets; nothing in the jacket. Nothing in the pocket of his short-sleeved shirt.

“I forgot it,” he said.

“Oh for ... you’ll get lost, Dad! You can’t just wander off like this without telling us. And without your mobile, even. Please. It’s not safe for you.”

“I knew where I was going, Eleanor. I wasn’t lost. I walked to the stop and rode the bus and walked straight here. Just forgot to tell you. I was thinking about coming home.”

“I’d have come with you, if you’d just told me you wanted to do this. You have to tell us things. You can’t just—”

She threw up her arms in frustration.

David jammed his hands into his trouser pockets. “Sorry,” he said again. “I’m not used to being watched like I’m a ruddy infant. Reporting like it’s … that thing. That P thing. From jail?”

“Parole?” she suggested.

“Yeah. Parole. It’s a lot.”

Ellie sighed, and then she moved closer.  She took a deep breath. “I’m sure it is. I’m sorry for shouting. But you scared us half to death. What were you thinking about, standing there?”

“I was thinking I miss your mum.”

Lola. L-O-L-A Lo-la. Lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-laaaaaa.

“And I was thinking about that song,” he continued. “That Lola song. It’s stuck in my head. What was that band called, that did 'Lola’?”

“Oh. It was The Kinks, Dad. You know the Kinks. ‘Waterloo Sunset,’ right? Mum loved that.”

“Yep. The Kinks. That’s it. Your mum loved the Kinks, didn’t she?”

Moving closer still, Ellie slid her arm around her father’s waist. “She did. Yeah.”

He put his arm around her shoulders, even though he was hot. They’d need to go, in a minute. He’d have to squeeze into the back with the kids. That’d be hot, too.

“I miss her,” he said again.

“Yeah. Mum was lovely. I miss her, too. We were so fortunate to have her, weren’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. Quite right. Ready to go home, then? We’ll find something nice for lunch. Something cool.”

Cool sounded good to David. He removed his arm from his daughter's shoulders and took off his jacket, handing it to her.

"Here. You carry it."

"Okay."

Cola. C-O-L-A Co-la. Lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-laaaaaa.

“Eleanor?”

“Hmmm?” She was nudging him towards the car.

“We have any Coke?”

Chapter Text

Alec’s mobile rang as they pulled into the driveway after the Monday morning school drop-off. They’d been leaving David alone for the necessary half hour, on days when they were working from home—despite the fact that neither Alec nor Ellie was sure they ought to be leaving him alone at all—and they’d enabled tracking on his mobile, though he hadn’t been happy about it. Fred wouldn’t have cared if they’d taken turns for the drop-offs; he was fine walking to school, and sometimes did. But Izzy still liked having both of them there to provide goodbye hugs before handing her off to her Learning Support Assistant, Alice Neeley.

Alec didn’t recognise the number on his mobile screen. He and Ellie had continued making calls regarding the Carlisle case, however, so he answered as they got out of the sedan.

“Alec Hardy.”

“Mr Hardy? It’s Constance Morris. We spoke a few weeks ago about when I lived at 19 Bellview Road, remember?”

Ellie unlocked the door, shooting him a puzzled look. He switched to speaker as they both went in.

“Of course. I’m puttin’ you on speaker with Detective Miller, if that’s all right, Ms Morris.”

“Yes, fine.”

The witness sounded nervous but also somewhat excited.

Ellie signalled to Alec as they passed the lounge and the dining room, entering the kitchen; she pointed down the hallway towards her dad’s flat.

“Need to check on him,” she hissed before disappearing.

“Wait a minute, ma’am,” he said. “Let me get somethin’ to write with. We just walked in.”

“Okay.”

Alec doubled back to the dining room, retrieved a legal pad and a biro from the sideboard where they always kept supplies, and returned to the kitchen; Ellie came in a few seconds later.

“He’s fine,” she muttered, sliding into her customary chair. Alec passed her the paper and pen; her note-taking was vastly neater than his.

“Should I tell you now?” Constance asked.

“Go ahead, Ms Morris,” said Ellie, cheerfully. “We’re ready. You’ve remembered something?”

“You had all those questions about the house and Ivy and Verity and—this is going to sound completely mental. I can’t imagine that it could be important. But you said to call if I remembered anything at all.”

“Aye,” Alec said. “Let us decide what’s important. Just tell us what’s on your mind.”

“All right. I’ve been streaming that series about Queen Victoria—you know, the one with Jenna Coleman? It’s a few years old, but I keep a list of things to watch. It’s good. Have you seen it?”

“Heard of it,” he replied. “Can’t say we’ve watched it.”

“Well, it’s lovely. You should. She’s so good in it, and such fabulous costumes.”

“Sounds marvellous,” said Ellie. “How does this relate to our case?”

“Oh. Sorry. So I got interested in Queen Victoria, and I was doing some Googling about her, and I saw that she used to sign her name ‘Victoria Regina Imperatrix.’ How posh is that? I didn’t know ‘imperatrix’ meant ‘empress.’ I don’t know any Latin really, It sounded like ‘dominatrix’ to me. Isn’t that wild?”

“Mmmm,” Ellie replied. “That relates to 19 Bellview, somehow? To Ivy Carlisle or Verity Smallwood?”

“Sorry, sorry. I’m getting to that.”

Alec rolled his eyes at his wife, and she gave him a wry smile. Separating the wheat from the chaff when speaking with a blabby witness was something of an art form.

“So the Regina part got me thinking what an odd name that is. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life known anyone named Regina. But I’d heard someone called that, I thought. It was bothering me and bothering me, and finally this morning I was having a coffee and I remembered. That’s why I called you.”

“Regina?” Alec asked, baffled. “Sorry, I’m lost. Someone named Regina was at 19 Bellview Road?”

“Not lived there, no. But one night I heard someone having a fight with Verity. She was normally so quiet, but they were out in the foyer, rowing. I mean, I don’t like to eavesdrop, but the noise travelled down the stairs. I could hear them.”

“Verity was rowin’ with someone named Regina?” he asked.

“No, no. She was arguing with a man, and he called her Regina. I thought it was really weird; I wondered if it was her middle name, or something.”

The detectives knew the theory was wrong; the woman’s middle name was Anne. Her chosen “let’s pretend” name was a different matter.

“Do you remember anything specific about what they were saying?” asked Ellie. “The subject of the argument? It could be important.”

“I couldn’t tell. When I opened the door to my flat, just to make sure no one needed help? I heard him shouting something about her taking him for granted. And something about being more careful, because she wasn’t invincible, or something like that. And then he shouted ‘Goodbye, Regina!’ and I heard the front door slam. I have no idea why he called her that when it wasn’t her name.”

The witness’s recollections had poured out in a rush. Ellie was scribbling madly. She glanced up at Alec, her eyes wide.

“That’s very interestin’, Ms Morris,” said Alec. “I don’t suppose you went up the stairs? Got a glimpse of the man?”

“No. But I saw him leaving. I looked out my sitting room window, and I could see him go up the walk and get into his lorry.”

“What kind of lorry?” Ellie asked.

“Some kind of delivery truck, I guess. Not one of the huge ones. It was red, I think, or orange. There was something painted on the door.”

“Sweetins?” asked Alec, unable to contain himself.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t know any Sweetins. But it’s too long ago, anyway. I just feel like it was a bright colour. He got in and drove away.”

“What d’you remember about his looks?” Alec asked.

“Not very much. He was tall, and he had dark hair. I remember thinking he looked fit. But I didn’t get a very good look.”

“Did you ever see the man again?” asked Ellie, hoping to get a better description. “Did he visit the house at any other time, that you can recall? And do you have any idea what year it might’ve been?”

“I think it wasn’t that long after I’d moved in. So maybe 1998. And I don’t think I saw him again. I mean, I was gone all day for work, most days. I don’t remember seeing that lorry again, either, but …. it’s a long time ago. It’s not like I watched the street all the time. I couldn’t honestly say if he was ever back or not. I don’t remember it, though. Was there CCTV, do you think? You could maybe check that?”

Alec and Ellie had already made a routine check of camera availability on Bellview Road. Nothing had been installed until 2012; rather late, but it wasn’t a commercial area at the time. Even if CCTV had been available, the odds that any footage from the 1990s would’ve survived were slim to nil.

“CCTV isn’t an option in this case,” Ellie said, gently. “But thank you. If we emailed you a photo, do you think you might be able to tell us if it was the man you saw?” She was already thinking about finding an old picture of Ronnie Magnuson so Constance could take a look.

“You can try, but I doubt it,” Constance replied. “I only really saw him from the back, and just the one time. And it was a long, long time ago. Do you even think it’s important, the Regina business? It’s such a daft thing. I almost didn’t call.”

“Can’t say as yet,” Alec told her. “But we appreciate you lettin’ us know about it. If you remember anythin’ else, I want you to feel free to call again. Doesn’t matter if it seems minor. Or daft. All right?”

“Yes, yes. Of course I will. And Mr Hardy?”

“Aye?”

“You ought to watch ‘Victoria.’ That Jenna Coleman is really good.”

***

At 3:15 that afternoon, Ellie was deep in research. She’d spent the past half hour trying to find images of a younger Ronnie Magnuson, combing through police databases and surfing the web: especially anything taken from the rear, rather than his criminal mugshots. After drawing a blank—the man appeared to have zero social media presence—she switched to looking for pictures of the long-defunct Sweetins, hoping to determine whether red or orange might have been a brand colour.

Alec was making tea in the kitchen. She could hear him chatting with her father, who was whinging about the recent FA Cup final.

“Bloody Man City versus bloody Man United; hardly worth watching such a ludicrous display.”

“Aye,” her husband said. “I know they’re not your favourites. Good thing West Ham’s got that Europa League match comin’ up. They’re doin’ better than Hibs, at any rate.” Alec’s beloved Hibernian Football Club, an Edinburgh-based team in the Scottish Premiership division, had finished the season with more losses than wins.

“We’re playing those poncy Italians, though,” David snorted. “In Spain, or wherever it is. Not a proper English match.”

Ellie smiled. This was quintessential David Barrett: West Ham, or die. Football might be one of the last things to fade in that brain of his, considering his love for the game. It was a pleasure to hear him having such a lucid conversation. It made her question the inevitability of a dementia diagnosis—but she knew his cognitive issues were real, and serious.

The jingling of her mobile made her jump. She checked the screen.

“Alec!” she called. “It’s Hal Rice!”

Her husband hustled into the dining room, two steaming mugs in hand, and he set hers at her elbow as she picked up the call.

“Hal!” she cried, switching to speaker. “It’s always lovely to hear from you. What’s the news? Alec’s listening, too.”

“We’ve got your man Magnuson. The uniforms picked him up at his flat a little while ago, like you asked. Told him we wanted to talk, under caution. We’re lining up a solicitor; he says he doesn’t have one.”

“Spectacular,” said Alec. “Thanks. Where’d they take him?”

“Horsey Lane, like last time. We ought to have the solicitor sorted in an hour or two, if you want to drive up to the nick and have a bit of a conversation with him. Needless to say, he’s not chuffed about being there.”

Ellie frowned. Though they’d asked Hal to move quickly, she hadn’t expected a trip to Yeovil today. Lucy had gone up to Sandbrook to see Gavin for a long weekend, and Marla had a different client on Mondays. Getting to an interview at the moment might be difficult—not only because David shouldn’t be left alone but also because he could no longer babysit the kids. Until recently, Ellie hadn’t been properly grateful for his years of help in that area.

Alec’s face was serious; she knew he was concerned about logistics, too.

“The time, Hal?” she asked. “What time did your people take him in?”

“Around 2. Maybe a few minutes after.”

“Ah,” she said. “Got it.”

They had 24 hours—now 23, or a bit less—to interview Ronnie Magnuson. By 2 o’clock tomorrow, the Avon and Somerset police would either have to charge him or release him, and there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him with anything, as yet. Letting him sweat it out behind bars overnight might not be a terrible idea, but Ellie was itching to talk to the man. And tomorrow might be a problem, too; Lucy wasn’t due back until evening, and Marla was generally available only on Wednesdays and Fridays.

A wave of resentment started to build;  Ellie pushed it down. None of this was her father’s fault.

“We’re goin’ to have to make some arrangements before we can get over there,” Alec said, calmly. “You’re goin’ to have to let him kick his heels for a bit.”

“Understood. Like I said, he doesn’t have a solicitor yet, but we should have one available by 5 or 6. You want to try to make it happen tonight, or are you thinking tomorrow?”

“Dunno,” said Alec. “We’ll have to ring you back.”

“Understood,” said Hal, again. “Just … you’d better try to get to Yeovil and question him before we have to let him go. You might not have another chance any time soon. Our team’s not familiar enough with your case to step in, and if you’re not inclined to charge him? Just my opinion, but he’s skittish enough to scarper. I don’t know what his issue is, but the DS over there tells me he’s pretty cheesed off.”

“You haven’t seen him yourself?” Alec asked.

“Nah, mate, I’m in Taunton, per usual. But I might drive over and sit in on your interview, if I can swing it. I’m interested.”

“Good,” Ellie said. “We’ll call you as soon as we can. Ta.”

David strolled in, a mug of tea in one hand and a couple of Jaffa Cakes in the other. “What’s happening out here?” he asked.

“Work,” said Ellie, crisply.

“We have to find you some company for this evenin’, if we can,” Alec added. “Need to see a man in Yeovil.”

David shrugged, munching. “So go to Yeovil. I don’t need company. The kids will be here, won’t they?”

“We don’t want you to have to watch them by yourself,” Ellie said, framing her words carefully. “Don’t worry. We’ll either find someone, or we won’t go until tomorrow.”

He scowled. “You know how many nights you’ve left me alone with your kids, Eleanor? And now I’m not good enough? Fucking Alzheimer’s.”

“Oh, Dad, I didn’t mean—” she began. But he turned and went back to the kitchen.

Ellie sighed, wondering if she should go after him. It was odd to hear her father use the F-word; he had a colourful vocabulary, but it wasn’t an expletive he used very often.

“Sorry, El,” Alec said. “But we do need to get over there tonight. I can interview Magnuson alone, if necessary.”

“No, you can’t,” she retorted. “You can’t, and you won’t. It’s my case, too. I’m not letting you do that.”

“Fine, fine. You do it, then, and I’ll stay.”

“Not good enough. I don’t want to do it alone; I need you there. We could ring up Dad’s mates. See who could come.”

“We should just call Beth,” Alec said. “His mates didn’t offer, and the Latimers did.”

“For God’s sake, Alec. She has a baby. And it’s a weeknight; Lizzy probably has homework. And Fred and Izzy will have homework, too. She can’t just drop things to come see to our …. mess.”

“Logan Latimer is not an infant. And Beth’s not the only adult in that household. I’m callin’ them, if you won’t. It’s worth a try. And then—either way? We’re goin’ to have to start linin’ up some other people. Start assemblin’ a team so when things like this happen, we aren’t scramblin’. Right now it’s like tryin’ to play Premier League football with only four people on side.”

She recognised the look on her husband’s face. She’d known that look since the day she’d first laid eyes on him, moving to intercept her on Harbour Cliff Beach, with poor Danny lying on the sand behind him. The expression was focused and utterly determined.

Ellie had learnt to love that look.

“Okay,” she said.

***

It had been a long time since they’d conducted an interview this late in the day. Mark had come over to supervise the household for the evening, but he hadn’t been able to make it until 7—though he assured them he was perfectly fine staying as late as they needed. The detectives arrived at the Yeovil station a little after 8, greeted by Hal Rice, and by 8:15 they had commenced their interview with Ronnie Magnuson. Hal opted to observe from behind the two-way mirror.

Sullen and fidgety, Magnuson clearly wasn’t happy to be facing them across this table again. His black tee-shirt—featuring an Ozzy Osbourne logo over a screaming bat—was rumpled, and some of his dark hair had escaped its ponytail, as though he’d messed with it one too many times during his afternoon in custody. His appointed solicitor, a young woman who looked barely old enough to have finished uni, simply seemed bored.

Ellie turned on the recorder, gave a time stamp, recited the caution statement, and had Magnuson verify his name and birth date. She nodded at Alec.

“Sorry we had to drag you in here again, Mr Magnuson,” he began, pleasantly. “If you wouldn’t keep ignorin’ our calls, the whole process wouldn’t need to be so dramatic.”

“I’m busy,” the man spat back. “I already told you everything I know. And I’ve got a long haul scheduled in the morning, so let’s get this over with.”

“You didn’t quite tell us everything,” Ellie replied. “You conveniently omitted the fact that you and Verity Smallwood worked for the same employer before you went to prison. Sweetins, the building supply place. You must remember.”

“Oh, for God’s … yeah, I worked there for a couple years, and I guess she was around. It was no big deal. Why is that important?”

“You told us specifically that you hadn’t known Verity until you became her tenant after you were released from prison,” Ellie continued. “We now know that this was a lie. It’s a crime to lie in the interview room, Ronnie. You could be charged with perverting the course of justice.”

The solicitor spoke up. “You needn’t respond to that.”

“No comment,” said Ronnie.

Alec nudged his wife’s knee under the table. Apparently it was going to be one of those interviews.

“Tell us again about your relationship with Verity Smallwood,” Ellie prodded. “Now that we know you knew her for longer than you told us. Were you friends? Something more than that?”

“Barely knew her,” Magnuson protested. “She was around at work, is all.”

“I see,” Ellie continued. “And were you in touch with her after you were sent to HMP Exeter? Due to your adventures in forgery?”

“Nah.”

Alec raised an eyebrow. “So you just coincidentally happened to end up livin' at 19 Bellview Road as Verity’s tenant, after you were released?”

Shifting in his seat, Ronnie thought for a moment. “I contacted her, all right? I knew she owned a place with some flats. Thought she might have a spot for me. Give me a good rate.”

“I see,” said Ellie. “But you weren’t friends? Why would you expect a good rate?”

The witness simply shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

“Let’s talk a little more about your relationship with your landlady,” said Alec, putting on his wire rims and reaching for a folder on the table. He kept it closed for the moment, his hand hovering.

“Did you do work for her?” he continued. “Chores around the flats? Or maybe you were doin’ ... other types of favours. More personal types.”

“Are you implying something?” asked Ronnie. “Have you spoken with her? I thought you said she was missing.”

Alec ignored the question. He opened the folder and extracted a plastic sleeve holding a sheet of paper. It was printed with small images of all the cheques that Verity written to “Cash” with “R” on the memo line.

“Detective Hardy is showing the witness Exhibit EM-24, a document,” Ellie said for the recording.

Alec shoved the evidence across the table. “What was Verity payin’ you for, Ronnie? Three-hundred quid, six months in a row. And after that, she made a lot of cash withdrawals for the same amount. Every month, same time of the month, up to 2010. What exactly were you doin’ for her?”

“No comment.”

Scowling, Alec said, “You’re really goin' to play it that way? Thought you were on a schedule. We could be here all night, if that’s your plan.”

“You can’t prove those cheques have anything to do with me.”

“But you can’t prove they didn’t, can you?" Alec retorted. "Let’s try tellin’ the truth this evenin’, for a change. It’ll be much more efficient, given you’re in such a hurry.”

Ronnie didn’t bother to look very hard at the document. He shrugged again.

“I did work around the place for her, sometimes. It was just her and me and old lady Jefferson for a while. And Mr Dailey was pretty useless, too, after Jenny left and he moved in. A woman needs a man to take care of things. There’s nothin’ strange about it.”

“Mmmm hmmmm,” said Ellie, deliberately letting the syllables sound like a double entendre. “Tell us more about the things you were taking care of for her.”

Squirming, Ronnie said. “Worked in the garden, didn’t I? Did a few repairs. There’s always something in a place like that.”

“I see,” she said. “And why did she shift to paying cash, after these cheques? Tax evasion? Or something more? Was there some reason you didn’t want to take her cheques? Worried about a paper trail?”

The solicitor leant over and murmured something in Ronnie’s ear. The witness straightened up. “You can’t prove her cash withdrawals had anything to do with me, can you?”

“But you’ve already told us you were workin' for her,” Alec said. “You now tellin’ us you were doin’ that for free? Doesn’t seem like your style, Ronnie.”

The witness emitted a frustrated grunt. “No comment.”

“Maybe you were offerin’ favours of a more visceral kind,” Alec proposed. “The kind a good-lookin’ but slightly long-in-the-tooth landlady might be willin’ to compensate you for.”

Ronnie’s mouth twitched, but then, he frowned. “Get off it. She was old enough to be my mum.”

Snickering, Ellie said, “Only if your mum was nine years old when you were born. But never mind.”

“Fuckin’ idiots,” Ronnie muttered. “We’re getting nowhere.”

Ellie leant in. “Let’s leave it, then. Let’s talk about your flat, instead. Up there on the second storey, where Ivy Carlisle used to live. You were there for a long time, weren’t you?”

Ronnie shrugged. “Yeah. I suppose. What about it?”

She pulled another document out of the folder and handed it to him.

“Detective Miller is showing the witness Exhibit EM-18, a document,” said Alec.

Tapping, she said, “This is a record of your residence at 19 Bellview, just to refresh your memory. You moved in during 2003. You were there until last autumn, when Mr Fallows let you know he was terminating the lease. That’s correct, isn’t it?”

“Obviously.”

“Nearly 20 years in the same flat. And in all that time, you never got curious about that locked door in your kitchen? The one that led to the attic?”

“Nah. It was locked; Verity said it was manky up there. Why would I bother? Didn’t need it for storage.”

Ellie nodded, scepticism plain on her face. “I see.”

Alec said, “You’re strainin’ our credulity, sayin’ you weren’t curious. A normal person would be curious.”

“Whatever.”

“Yeah,” Alec continued. “Only, we don’t think you’re bein’ quite truthful with us again, Ronnie. You have a track record, now, of not bein’ truthful with us. And we think there was another meanin’ to those cheques.”

“No comment.”

Alec placed his elbows on the table, folding his hands in front of him and fixing the witness with a steely glare.

“We’re thinkin’ you went up there, Ronnie. Maybe you smelt somethin’ funny after you moved in. Maybe you were just inquisitive. That locked door to the attic was right there in your own flat, right in front of you every day. You’d go to the kitchen for a coffee or some crisps and there’d be that door. Tauntin’ you.”

“No comment.”

Alec ploughed on. “So I expect that you couldn’t resist it. You forced the lock and went up and saw the place was mostly empty—which you thought was weird, yeah? Why so much security for an empty attic? What was your landlady thinkin’?”

“You have a wild imagination,” the witness said.

Ellie chimed in. “You found a cupboard up there, didn’t you? Maybe it was locked back then; maybe not. Maybe you broke the doorknob off, hoping there was something interesting inside. And there was, wasn’t there? Ivy Carlisle, former occupant of your flat, dead and drying out next to the ductwork. Verity would’ve paid good money to keep that secret. She had a very good reason to start giving you 300 quid every month. I wonder if she’s still paying you, even now.”

Ronnie had stopped looking at them; he was staring at his hands in his lap, shaking his head in apparent disbelief. “No comment.”

His solicitor spoke up. “Is there a point to this fishing expedition, detectives? I don’t suppose there’s any evidence to substantiate this tale you’ve been spinning out of whole cloth.”

“Patience, counsellor,” Alec said, coolly. “You’re gettin’ unduly excited and mixin’ your metaphors. We’re just tryin’ to jog Ronnie’s memory, since he has a little trouble in that department.”

“No, I don’t,” the witness said, snapping his head up again. “You lot are just daft. But what can you expect from coppers? I’ve dealt with your sort before. You’re just trying to make me say whatever you want. Pin it on me because I’ve got form. But it won’t work.”

“Fine, fine,” said Ellie. “You never found anything in the attic, you weren’t blackmailing Verity, and the two of you weren’t having an affair. You were only being paid for legitimate services rendered.”

“Now you’ve got it,” the witness grinned, relaxing in his chair. “Full marks.”

Alec and Ellie both leant back for a moment. They’d discussed strategy in the car on the way to Yeovil; both of them had expected blanket denials. Thus far, the interview was going just as they’d anticipated.

She looked at her husband, nodding slightly. She thought he might be more effective at playing the trump card.

“Who’s Regina?” Alec barked, immediately.

Ronnie’s eyes widened before he could control his expression. It was an obvious tell.

“I don’t know any Regina,” he said.

“We have a witness who says otherwise,” said Alec. “Must be that faulty memory of yours, actin’ up again.”

The witness said nothing.

“Who’s Regina?” Alec repeated. “Try to remember.”

“I don’t know any Regina.”

“Oh, you must,” said Ellie, mildly. “We have evidence that someone resembling you had a bit of a row with Verity Smallwood in the foyer at 19 Bellview Road, one night in 1998. You called Verity ‘Regina’ for some reason. But you must’ve known her for a couple of years, by then, from work. Why would you make such a big mistake with her name? Even if you were angry, ‘Regina’ sounds nothing like ‘Verity’.”

The witness began to sputter. “What … who … wait. You couldn’t.”

Then, he stopped himself. “No comment.”

“Oh, Ronnie,” said Alec, his voice dripping with mock sorrow. “Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie. I thought we were tellin’ truth tonight. Now I’m thinkin’ we might just have to charge you with obstruction, based on your prior prevarications. Guess you’re not goin’ to make that long haul in the mornin’. It’s unfortunate. Didn’t think you’d really want to go back inside. Might’ve been wrong about you.”

They could almost see the wheels turning as they stared at the man, who was now fiddling with one of his gold earrings. Finally, he straightened up.

“What’s it worth? If I tell you about the Regina business?”

The solicitor cleared her throat. “You don’t have to—”

He dismissed her with an impatient wave of his hand. “What’s it worth?”

“That depends,” said Ellie. “If it’s pertinent to our investigation, we might be willing to overlook your previous lapse of memory. Especially since it wasn’t in an interview under caution. Of course, if you’ve been lying tonight about other things, and that turns out to be pertinent later in a trial, we couldn’t promise anything. You know the system.”

“We’re mainly interested in findin’ Ms Smallwood,” Alec added. “We know you were incarcerated at the time of Ivy Carlisle’s death. We aren’t lookin’ to connect you to the murder. Just help us find Verity, if you can. And we’ll consider puttin’ our other complaint aside. Just tell us, and you can be on your merry way.”

Ronnie considered, frowning. “What if I did a bit of a thing that wasn’t quite … legal? Just for a lark. Never expecting anything to come of it, you understand.”

Alec surveyed him neutrally. “That’d depend entirely on what sort of a thing you did, wouldn’t it? Why don’t you tell us about it? We’re conductin’ a murder investigation; whatever side business you had goin’ on would be peripheral. Provided you weren’t actively tryin’ to commit fraud.”

The witness capitulated, apparently having decided that it was the lesser of two evils. “I did know Verity before I went inside. We were mates. Used to have lunches together. Watch telly at her place sometimes, or mine. She saw some things I was working on at my flat one night. Some documents. The sort of stuff I ultimately got nailed for.”

“Driving licences?” Ellie asked. “Birth certificates?”

“Yeah. There’s a market in that stuff. She was surprised the results looked decent. But she had a good laser printer in the office at Sweetins; better than anything I could afford. She offered to help me with some projects if I’d do something for her. Mostly as a joke, I think. She didn’t really want to change identities, she said.”

“Umm hmm,” Ellie said. “Go on.”

“She told me she’d always hated her name. Wanted to be called ‘Victoria,’ or ‘Regina,’ or both, after the old queen. You know? Some kind of childhood game, she said.”

“Interestin’,” said Alec, his heart rate picking up. “So you forged something with the name ‘Victoria’? Or ‘Victoria Regina’? Or just ‘Regina’?”

Magnuson grinned. “She thought ‘Victoria Regina’ sounded a little too pompous. A little suspicious. She wanted to see what a driving licence with her photo and the name ‘Regina’ would look like. So I made her one.”

“I see,” Ellie said. “Go on.”

“She was really interested in the whole process. I showed her all the steps. Like, what it’d take if a person wanted to change an expiry date, or a photo. Or an address. It was complicated because in ’98 the new style of licence came in; you had to have a passport-type photo and a special plastic card. The birth certificates were easy by comparison. I’d got an old typewriter that worked a treat. Ah, well, I did my time for all that. Gave it all up.”

“So you made this licence for her when?” asked Ellie. “It was before you went to prison?”

“Yeah. It was just a bit of a lark, like I said. She bet me that I couldn’t make a convincing one for her, and I proved her wrong.”

“She pay you for that?” Alec asked. “Is that what the money was for?”

His solicitor perked up. “We haven’t established that Verity Smallwood ever paid my client any money for anything, whatsoever.”

Alec ignored her. “Let’s allow your client to answer the question.”

Shrugging, Ronnie said, “It was a bet. I won the bet. After that she wanted a birth certificate so we did that, too. I’m not saying any of those payments had anything to do with any of it, though. I’m not saying they were connected with me at all.”

“It would’ve been a lot of money over a lot of years,” Ellie said. “For a couple of documents made as a lark.”

“There’s no link,” Ronnie retorted.

“How’d she pay off her bet, then?”

“Oh. That. Took me down the pub and paid the tab for two nights running. That’s all.”

The detectives exchanged a glance. Neither of them believed the man, but there was currently no way to disprove his assertions.

“If we got an order to examine your bank records from 2005, 2006 … these cheques wouldn’t show up as deposits?” Alec asked, tapping the images again.

“Be my guest, mate.”

The witness's nonchalance indicated that he had never deposited those cheques, if he’d ever even had them. He’d probably merely cashed them.

“Ronnie,” said Ellie, now in full-on “good cop” mode. “We appreciate that you’ve been more cooperative tonight. In order to drop possible charges related to lies in the prior interview, though, we need a bit more information.”

“Oh, for God’s … figured as much. You lot are never satisfied until you’ve talked someone in circles until they’re saying exactly what you want. Are you?”

“We just want the truth,” she said. “We need to find Verity Smallwood. If she’s using those old forged documents of yours, we need a little more information, don’t we? You can help us with that. The witness who overheard your row said you’d told Verity something about not taking you for granted. About being careful. What else can you tell us about that conversation? Did it have something to do with the documents?”

“I don’t remember it.”

“No?”

“Nah.”

Alec, apparently exasperated, leant forward once more. “We need the name, Ronnie. The whole name. The name she used on those documents. I’m presumin’ it wasn’t Smallwood. Or anything with ‘small’, or ‘wood’. Anythin' obvious like that. What was it?”

“If I tell you, you’re letting me go, right? You’re not charging me with anything tonight?”

“If you’re honest, Ronnie?” said Ellie. “Probably not. If we find out you’ve been lying tonight, we can’t promise anything, going forward.”

“Osborne, then. Regina Osborne. She talked about ‘Windsor’ or ‘Kensington’ but it seemed too obvious. Among the palaces, I mean. She just picked ‘Osborne’ because it was a palace that sounded like a normal name.”

Ronnie pointed at the image on his shirt. “Maybe not totally normal. Ozzy’s name is spelt differently though.”

“Regina Osborne, then,” Alec said. “Middle initial?”

“V. Of course V. For Verity, and Victoria.”

“You forged a driving licence and birth certificate in 1998 for your mate and landlady, Verity Smallwood, using the name ‘Regina V. Osborne,’” Ellie summarised. “That’s what you’re telling us?”

“We did it together,” he clarified. “But yeah.”

“Birth date?” asked Alec.

“Oh. I don’t remember the actual date. We used what she told me was her real date of birth. Minus five years.”

Ellie suppressed a smile. Vanity was something of a universal vice.

“I see,” Alec said. “Thanks for finally providin’ some truth. We appreciate it.”

“I can go, now?” Ronnie asked, hopefully. “We’re finished?”

“Almost. You ever assist Verity with other forgin’ activities? Teach her how to forge someone’s signature? Ivy Carlisle’s, for instance?”

“Hell, no. Why would she have needed to do that? Thought she had a Power of Attorney. That’s what she said.”

“Only she hadn’t,” said Ellie. “She was handling Ivy's funds, but she didn’t have a PoA. And someone was still forging Ivy’s signature on spousal maintenance cheques, years later. Years after the woman was dead and stuffed in that cupboard. Verity never said anything to you about any of that?”

Magnuson looked convincingly blank. “Nope.”

“You’re sure?" asked Alec. "You’re still speakin’ under caution, Ronnie.”

“Nope. I didn’t teach her anything like that. And I didn’t see any corpse in the attic, either. Are we finished, then?”

Alec just kept talking. “You told us last time we chatted that you didn’t know where Verity is now. You stickin’ with that story? Now that we know that you were closer to her than you said? That you were gettin’ cosy forgin’ identity papers?”

“I’ve got no idea where she is, mate. You’re the detectives. You go find her.”

“Anythin’ else you want to revisit about tonight’s conversation?” Alec asked. “Last chance.”

“Nah. I’m good.”

Alec glanced at his wife. Ellie nodded, paused for a second to make sure she was reading him correctly, and then reached for the recorder’s “stop” button.

“Interview terminated at 9:07 p.m.,” she said.

Magnuson rose immediately, heading for the door, not waiting for his solicitor.

“Whoa, whoa,” said Alec. “Not so fast. There’ll be a constable comin’ to escort you out. That’s how we do it. All neat and official.”

“Huh,” said Ronnie. “Righto. Call them, then.”

“Oh, they’ll be here directly,” said Ellie, knowing Hal would take care of it. “And Ronnie, if you come up with some more memories, while you’re driving your big lorry on the motorway? We expect you to contact us this time. Rather than waiting for us to drag you in and talk to you yet again. This is an active investigation. Think hard about what you’ve told us so far.”

“Yeah. Will do,” he said.

A constable opened the door, and the witness wasted no time vacating the room, followed by his solicitor. Hal Rice walked in a few seconds later, grinning.

“Well, he’s a lovely character, I must say,” the DI said, sitting in the seat that Magnuson had just vacated.

Ellie was already texting Carrie with the information about Verity’s false name, asking her to search all records ASAP. She looked up.

“Isn’t he just? Sorry. Contacting our research support in Southampton.”

“Course,” said Hal. “Between you and me, what do you think happened in that house? Working hypothesis? You think he was in on the murder?”

“Couldn’t have been,” said Alec. “At least not directly. He was already servin’ at Her Majesty’s pleasure. But this other business … dunno.”

“I don’t believe any of his denials, necessarily,” Ellie said. “I still think he and Verity could’ve been in a relationship. I think he might have helped her forge signatures. And I think he might’ve found the body and been blackmailing her. I think he only gave us enough truth to get himself released.”

“Didn’t mind grassin’ on Verity, did he?” Alec asked. “Exposin’ her, if she’s usin’ that name to hide.”

“Apparently not,” she replied. “No love lost, I guess.”

“You think Verity Smallwood killed Ivy Carlisle?” asked Hal.

“It’s lookin’ pretty likely,” Alec said. “Not sure how, or why, or how she dealt with the body after that. All questions we’ll have for Miss Regina. Provided we can track her down.”

“It’ll have been something about the money,” said Ellie. “I’m not sure what her thought process was, exactly, considering that she already seemed to have control. Maybe Ivy just got on her nerves, and she got sick of being a caregiver. Someone else who lived there told us Ivy was difficult. I’m hoping we’ll have a chance to ask Verity in person. Whatever was happening in that house, it was ugly.”

“Sort of sad, too,” said Hal. “It’s sad when old people get taken advantage of.”

“Aye,” Alec said. He didn’t want to get any further into this discussion. He thought it might be painful for Ellie, and they were both tired.

“We’re going to get some justice for her,” she said, sounding almost angry. “I don’t care if she was so awful that she was driving everyone mad, she didn’t deserve to end up like that. No one deserves that. Especially not someone so vulnerable.”

Hal smiled. “Brava, Ellie. Brava. I look forward to seeing how you and Alec untangle this. If anyone can manage it? I’d put my money on you.”

***

“Found her!”

Carrie Bennett’s opening words were triumphant. Alec and Ellie were working in the dining room on Tuesday afternoon, looking over some of the other cases that Emily Watson had tagged for priority attention for the future. Alec quickly switched his mobile to speaker.

“Verity?” he asked. “You found her?”

“We’re all ears, Carrie,” Ellie added.

“Good, you’re both there. Yes—Verity, Regina, whatever you want to call her. She’s in Penzance. Or she was.”

“Penzance?” they both said, sounding similarly surprised.

“Yeah. Penzance, as in ‘Pirates of’. Using the name ‘Regina V. Osborne’. She opened a mobile account using a Penzance address in 2010. I don’t have the call records yet, obviously; just the fact that she opened this account. And it’ll take more time to find financial records, and see if she’s paying council tax. I can’t guarantee she’s still there.”

“I’ll be damned,” Alec said. “Not the Isle of Wight, then.”

“Nope,” Carrie responded. “I’m sending you the information.”

“We’re sure it’s the same Regina Osborne?” Ellie asked.

“Well, the record starts in 2010, when you think she left Yeovil, so the facts fit. I can’t guarantee it. This so-called Regina keeps a pretty low profile. I haven’t seen any social media for her. No photos online. I just have the address and mobile number. But it’s early days, at least as far as my ability to research her alias is concerned. Give me some time.”

“Do we know if she bought the property?” asked Alec.

“Not that I can see. The address is in a vintage building with four flats, owned by someone named Ruth Renfield. Nice location as far as I can tell. Supposedly there’s a view of the bay, if you squint.”

“Why would she pick Penzance, I wonder?” Ellie mused. “Maybe she knew someone there?”

“If she was tryin’ to disappear, she might be more likely to pick a place where she didn’t have any ties,” replied Alec. “Didn’t Charlotte Hayden say she liked a beach?”

“Who’s that?” Carrie asked.

“The person Verity used to deal with at Ivy’s solicitor’s,” said Ellie. “They talked about sun cream.”

Alec had been clicking on his laptop, calling up the notes from their interview with Alan Smallwood. “Her brother said the family went on holiday to Penzance at some point. Not sure if it’s relevant.”

“Well, I’ll keep working on it,” Carrie said. “You can try to call her; maybe you’ll get lucky and she’ll just pick up.”

Ellie chuckled. “That would be surprising. Can you send us contact information for this Ruth Renfield, too? If we can’t raise Verity, she might be the next best option.”

“Sure. I can pull that from property records for you. Half-hour maximum.”

“You’re a gem, Bennett,” Alec said. “Thanks for always comin’ through for us.”

“I’ll do my best to stay sparkly,” the researcher replied, and she rang off.

“Fantastic,” Ellie said. She’d already called up Carrie’s short email and was holding her mobile, ready to dial.

“Miller.”

“Huh?”

“Stop. Didn’t you tell me you have to be in Bridport at 3? For your doctor’s appointment?”

Ellie laid the mobile on the table. “Shit,” she muttered. “Shit, shit, shit. Totally forgot. I didn’t even look at the diary for today. Too busy thinking about Ronnie and Verity and …. everything. Dammit.”

“You’ll get there, just. Provided you go now. I’ll try callin’. Unless you want me to wait?”

She got up, thinking for only a moment before saying, “No. You call. See if you reach a live person or a recording. If she answers, just … I dunno. What do you think?”

“I think we say ‘wrong number’ if she picks up, and then try to get over there and see her in person, uninvited. Or ask the Devon & Cornwall uniforms to take her in, like we did with Ronnie. There’s enough evidence to justify that. She’s likely to just deny she’s the same person, on the phone, and I think bringin’ up the name ‘Verity Smallwood’ and 19 Bellview Road might scare her off, if she’s managed to disappear for so long.”

“Good points. Hard to know what to do. I guess we can strategise more after I get back, depending on whether you get through. We could at least talk to the landlady. Ask if Verity is still living there.”

“Aye. Go, go. And don’t rush. Tell that doctor everythin’ that’s been goin’ on. No downplayin’ symptoms. That’s an order, Miller.”

She laughed, heading to the front hall and grabbing her shoulder bag from the peg where it was hanging. “You’re not my superior officer, anymore, Detective Hardy, sir. But I’ll consider your advice.”

His answering chuckle was drowned out by the slamming of the front door.

***

Alec often joked that normal couples enjoyed sexy banter in bed while he and Ellie more commonly discussed murder and mayhem. Given their usual evening responsibilities—dinner, homework supervision, bedtime stories, occasional urgent trips to the shops—they often didn’t have time for private chats until everyone else had hit the sack.

Tonight, as they sat side-by-side, backs against the headboard, Alec elaborated on the calls he’d made in her absence. Verity/Regina had never picked up, and he hadn’t left a message, though he had left one with Ruth Renfield. He also showed Ellie images on his laptop of the property where their suspect was presumably now living.

Ellie, for her part, provided more details about her discussion with her GP, especially regarding pros and cons of staying on the pill versus hormone replacement therapy. She shared disjointed thoughts about herbs and soy and meditation and therapy.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she concluded with a little laugh. “Something, I guess. I’m too tired to figure it out tonight.”

Alec closed his laptop, set it on the bedside table, and squeezed her hand. “It’s good you went. Take a little time to think. Meditation might not be a bad idea.”

She squeezed back, then let go. “I can never calm down enough. Monkey mind, innit? You ever been able to do it? I can’t imagine you cross-legged on the floor humming ‘om’.”

“Nah. I just think about walkin’ towards the light. Remember how all that felt. Put myself back there. It usually gives me some perspective. What about goin’ back to Julie Churchill?”

Ellie had become the therapist’s client in the aftermath of Danny’s murder and Joe’s confession; she had seen her periodically, since, though not lately. She shrugged.

“I might do. It’s bloody time-consuming. Not sure it always does a lot of good in the end. She’s like the GP; she can’t really fix anything.”

He hated the flat resignation in his wife’s voice. It wasn’t like Ellie Miller. Scooting closer, he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him.

“Sometimes it’s good to have an ear, Miller. Even if fixin’ things isn’t an option.”

“I know. I’ll think about it. I might call. I’m just tired. I can’t help wishing someone would ride in on a white horse and rescue Dad. Or actually, rescue me. Us. I can’t help wishing mum was still here. And it’s not like he has a very big family to help. That makes it harder.”

Alec considered. It had been such a whirlwind since David’s visit to his doctor—the shock of it, and the ambiguity, and the need to keep up work and family routines while a potentially dark future hung in the balance.

“Did you ever call his sister?" he asked. "Let her know what’s goin’ on?”

“Auntie Bet? Huh. Totally forgot to tell her. Wonder if Luce called her. Huh.”

David’s only sibling, Bettina Barrett Cooper, lived in a large, elegant home in Exeter. She was the widow of a successful paediatrician and had recently retired from a longtime position as an administrator in the University of Exeter’s history department. Ten years younger than David, she had two adult sons—Ellie’s cousins Ryan and George—both married with children and both also living in Exeter.

“You should call her, El. She gets along with your da. She’d want to know. Might have some ideas.”

“You know he won’t want me to tell her.”

“Doesn’t matter. You should put her in the picture. Your da's swingin’ wildly between pissed off and depressed, every day. Maybe she’ll at least talk with him. Distract him. Come over and buck him up, eh? He's fond of her.”

She smiled up at him. “Yeah. Quite right. It’s a good idea. I’ll ring her tomorrow. Thanks, love.”

Removing his arm from her shoulders, he stretched, rolling his own shoulders and then raising his arms and wiggling his fingers with a satisfied “mmmph.”

“Better try to sleep," he said. "God only knows what kind of excitin’ developments might be awaitin’ us in Penzance. Need to keep up our strength.”

“Yup.”

Turning off her light, Ellie stretched out. Alec switched off his own lamp and rolled towards her; he kissed her, lightly, cupping her cheek in one hand. “Night, El. Sleep well. Love you.”

“You too. Come let me hold you for a minute.”

Snuggling against her, Alec rested his head on her shoulder and slid his thighs up under her tented legs, draping an arm across her torso. They’d end up spooning after a while, but they both liked this position to start; they had long ago discovered that it allowed maximum contact while still letting them look at each other. She rubbed his back.

It might not be as legitimate a meditation technique as sitting on the floor chanting “om,” but Alec thought it was pretty damned relaxing. He let his breathing slow down, synchronising with hers.

“Alec?”

“Aye?”

“Thanks for being so lovely. Especially lately. You’re a good egg, you know? I couldn’t do without you.”

“The feelin’s mutual. Works both ways. Go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“No bad dreams about bein’ wet, either.”

She giggled and pulled him a little closer. “Okay.”

“Night, Ellie.”

“Night.”

Chapter Text

Another Wednesday at the office; another video meeting in Interview Room 3, the “soft room.” Ellie was increasingly grateful for the opportunity to be doing ordinary things in ordinary places, and increasingly grateful for Marla Telford, who’d been taking care of the Miller family, off and on, since Tom had been a tot. The two days a week she was now spending with David had been a huge help.

“Ready for this?” Alec asked, setting up his laptop on the little table in front of the sofa.

“God, yes,” Ellie replied, scooting close to make sure they’d both be in-frame. “Let’s hope this woman can tell us exactly where Verity is. It’s past time we ran her to ground and wrapped this up. I want a holiday.”

“Aye. Ditto.”

Alec launched the meeting, and Ruth Renfield logged in two minutes later. She was 50-ish and thin, wearing a plain black tee, simple gold hoops, and no makeup. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and round black glasses added to the overall look of controlled severity.

“Thanks for callin’, Ms Renfield,” Alec began. “Mind if we record this? Just routine.”

“Fine.” The witness was sitting in a flowered armchair, a steaming mug of something on a small table at her side, her computer jiggling a bit; she was apparently balancing it on her lap.

Ellie gave a time stamp and then smiled pleasantly, adopting her typical disarming expression. “We hope you’ll be able to help us solve a bit of a mystery,” she said. “We really do appreciate the call.”

“It’s always better to cooperate with the authorities,” Ruth replied. “But I was surprised when you contacted me, Mr Hardy. Why exactly are you wanting to speak with Regina?”

“She’s a person of interest in a cold case we’re investigatin’,” Alec replied. “We’ve been lookin’ for her for a while. Been told she lives in your buildin’ there at Pengelly Court. Don't suppose you'd have a photograph of her?" 

He wanted to make sure they were talking about the right woman before spending more time on this.

"Oh. Well, yes. Wait a moment."

Ruth picked up a mobile from the table next to her and began swiping; she held up a photo to her laptop screen. "Can you see that? It's us at a picnic, a few years ago. I can text it to you."

"Aye. If you would." But even in the image held up to the screen, it was clear that Regina Osborne was Verity Smallwood—older, but definitely the same person. He exchanged a glance with his wife, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Thanks," he continued. "We’ve left some messages for her recently, but she hasn’t returned our calls. Thought you might be able to tell us if she’s still there.”

“Well, she was, yes. Until quite recently. She lived here for … heavens, it’s been more than a decade, now. Time certainly flies.”

“She’s moved out?” Ellie asked.

Sipping her drink, the witness nodded. “Quite recently. We thought it was for the best.”

“How so?” Alec asked, pushing down his impatience at the slow drip-drip of information.

Ruth sighed. “The poor thing had a brain tumour. It was removed, of course—that was in March. Fortunately it was benign, but her doctors told me it was the size of a plum.”

“How awful,” said Ellie, rather shocked by this unexpected twist. “I’m sure it must’ve been traumatic. You helped her through it? I assume you’re close, if you were speaking with her doctors.”

“Oh, yes. We’re … well, not exactly friends. But she’s lived here for a quite a while. Always pleasant and quiet; always paid the rent on time. Kept herself busy. She worked full-time, still. Well, until the tumour. Some sort of clerical work for Bradfords building supply. Do you know them?”

“Bradfords?” Ellie asked. “Of course. There’s one in Bridport, near our offices. We thought Regina might be retired, though. She’s in her 60s, isn’t she?”

“Yes. But not retired. Well, not until recently. And she’s not quite old enough for the state pension. Regina has—had—a great deal of energy. And she was sharp. I can’t imagine her watching telly all day, doing knitting or whatever people do. And she had no living family, she said. No children. So of course it was an issue when this tumour reared its ugly head. Someone had to step in.”

“It was good of you to do it,” said Alec, reassuringly. “Why did she have to move? Where’d she go?”

“She’s in a care home,” Ruth replied. “A good one, close by. After her rehab it was clear to us both that she was going to have some long-term … deficits, let’s say.”

Ellie strove to disguise her mounting disappointment. If Verity was no longer lucid, the Carlisle case would come to a crashing halt. The prospect of dealing with a witness who had the same kind of problems as her father felt like a cruel joke.

“What kind of deficits?” she asked. “Do you mean physical? Or more mental?”

“A bit of both. It’s odd how the brain works. She’d been so clever, but she’s completely lost her ability to manage numbers. She can converse logically; I wouldn’t call it dementia. But she can’t handle her money anymore. I have a PoA now. I didn’t really want to do it, but she had no one else. There’s a fair amount of money that needs managing; she told me she had an inheritance. It’s all quite sad, really.”

“And this is why she’s not livin’ independently anymore?” asked Alec.

“Partly. Not being able to deal with numbers means she can’t really cook for herself, or shop for herself. Driving is an issue, too. You don’t think about how much of daily life involves number skills until they’re gone. And she was left with a bit of a balance problem. She needs a cane to get around. Well, that’s not a big thing. But she’s sort of … how should I put this?”

The detectives waited as the witness gathered her thoughts. Finally, she continued.

“She’s lost her filter, I’d say.”

“How so?” Alec asked. “Is she volatile? Losin’ her temper?”

“Sometimes. But more often she’s just weepy over things that wouldn’t upset a normal person. She’d get upset and stay upset for quite a while, over little things she’d done. She seemed to feel overly guilty about the smallest things. I didn’t feel it was my job to try to manage that. It was challenging to deal with. Rather exhausting, to be honest. In the end, we just agreed it would be best for her to move to a place where she could get some consistent help. From professionals.”

“I see,” Ellie said.

The witness looked a bit defensive. “I’m not running a facility, you understand. I wasn’t ready to be her carer. The PoA is enough. We’re not family. It’s not that kind of a relationship.”

“Of course,” said Alec. “Perfectly reasonable. No one would fault you for that.”

“Thank you. I’m in touch with her often, of course. I check in.”

“I’m sure you do,” said Ellie. “Does she still have her mobile? Why do you think she ignored our calls?”

“Yes, she has it. But she only answers calls from people who are in her contacts. We manage that very carefully. She’s canny enough to realise she’s vulnerable to being taken advantage of.”

Ellie nearly laughed. The irony of the situation, given what they believed had happened at 19 Bellview Road, was profound.

“We need to try to speak with Regina, Ms Renfield,” said Alec. “Providin’ she’s able to converse, as you say. She’s a key witness in a case we’re workin’ on. What d’you think about her memory? Is it intact?”

“I’d say mostly. Short-term anyway. I’m not sure about long-term. She never spoke much about her life before coming to Penzance. She told me she was an only child and grew up in Bath, and her parents died young in a car accident. She was raised by a grandmother. I wouldn’t know what she’d remember from back then.”

Alec kept his face neutral; Verity clearly had a talent for constructing imaginary lives. “I see,” he said. “She never mentioned livin’ in Yeovil? Managin’ flats? Havin’ a brother?”

The witness looked puzzled. “No. No. Nothing like that. Never. How odd. Did those things happen?”

“Never mind,” said Alec. “How would you suggest we go about contactin’ her?”

Ruth thought for a moment. “I could speak with her for you. But you’d be better off talking with the nurses at the care home. They’re on top of her schedule—the mealtimes and bathing and medications and social things. They’d be able to help you find a suitable time. I’ll text you the number.”

“We’d appreciate that,” said Ellie. “Is she getting out at all? Do you think she could meet us off-site?”

She was already wondering how they could interview Verity in person, under caution, at a local police station. It might be difficult to arrange, but she didn’t want to conduct this discussion on a mobile or a laptop. She wanted to see Verity Smallwood face-to-face.

“Oh, Regina gets out and about,” Ruth said. ‘To doctor’s appointments, or shopping, or to events with the facility staff. They have a vehicle and driver that the residents can request. She’s not totally incapacitated.”

“Good to hear,” Alec said. “That’s helpful.”

The conversation lagged. Ellie wracked her brain, trying to make sure she and Alec had asked all the important questions. She couldn’t think of anything else. Alec glanced at her; his expression communicated that he, too, was finished.

“We appreciate your information, ma'am,” Ellie said. “If you think of anything else that seems pertinent, you have my partner’s contact information. Don’t hesitate to call.”

“All right. Fine.”

“And ma’am?” Alec began. “It’d be better if you didn’t mention this to Ms Osborne as yet. Not until we can work out an arrangement to speak with her in person.”

He didn’t think Verity would scarper, but the woman had proved her resourcefulness before. They had no idea how impaired she truly was, or whether she might persuade someone to help her disappear again.

The witness frowned. “I don’t like that. Is she in some trouble with the police?”

“Just a person of interest,” Ellie said, pleasantly. “We wouldn’t want to upset her for no reason, given what you’ve told us. I promise we’ll take her situation into account when we speak with her, but it may be several days before we can make it happen. Meanwhile, it would help our investigation if you didn’t mention this call. All right?”

“Yes. I suppose so. Is there anything else?”

“No,” said Alec. “Thank you. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you think of somethin’ else that seems relevant.”

“I will. Goodbye.”

With a final frown, the witness left the call, and Alec stopped the recording and ended the meeting.

“Bloody hell,”  Ellie whispered. “Didn’t expect that.”

He shook his head, wry amusement written on his face.  “Makes a person wonder if there’s such a thing as karma, eh, Miller?”

“Yeah. I want us to get over there and see her, in person. At the care home or at the nick. Preferably the latter. Under caution.”

“I want that too, Ellie. But it’s a three hour-drive on a good day. That either means a really long day on the road, or an overnight.”

She smiled up at him. “It’d be good if we could manage an overnight, wouldn’t it?  I don’t think we’ve had a night alone together since … when? Surely not Barcelona?”

They’d enjoyed a fifth-anniversary holiday last year—brief, but memorable—in the same city where they’d spent their honeymoon. That had been July. This was June.

“Not since Barcelona,” he affirmed. “It’s been too long. ‘M just not sure one night in Penzance in the wake of interviewin’ Verity Smallwood is goin’ to be the most romantic occasion.”

Ellie laughed and squeezed his knee. “If it goes well we can celebrate. If it goes badly we can drown our sorrows. One night’s better than nothing. Let’s call Luce. See if she can stay with Dad and the kids for an overnight sometime in the next week. We can be a little flexible; it’s not like Ivy Carlisle is going anywhere. And it doesn’t sound like Verity is, either.”

“Aye. We should try. One night’s considerably better than nothin’.”

Alec glanced around the conference room, making sure the blinds had been drawn, and then he leant down and kissed his partner—first gripping her by the shoulders and then moving his hands down so he could slide them under her loose top. He liked her better in her customary button-down blouses, but she’d been wearing loose things lately. For temperature regulation, she said.

He slipped his hands beneath the cups of her bra and squeezed her breasts, kissing her harder until she finally pushed him away. She stood up, breathing audibly, rearranging her clothing.

“For God’s sake, Alec,” she said. “You’re the one who’s always saying we shouldn’t ever shag at the office. Regulations. That’s what you always say, innit?”

He grinned up at her, then reached for her hand and pulled her down again, balancing her sideways on his bony thighs.

“Those regulations say ‘no shaggin’ on duty’. There’s nothin’ in there about almost shaggin’ on duty. I used to teach that stuff at the Academy, Miller. I ought to know.”

They’d been so serious lately. Everything had been so bloody serious. Their customary flirty banter had been in relatively short supply. Ellie suddenly realised how badly she’d been missing it.

She loosened Alec’s tie, unbuttoned the top two buttons of his thin grey dress shirt, and put her arms around his neck. “You’re an expert, are you?”

“Aye. At more than one thing.”

“Go on then,” she sighed, her mouth close to his. “Teach me everything you know about almost shagging at work. I’m ready to learn, Professor Hardy. Sir.”

Alec kissed her hard for a moment. But then he stopped abruptly and pushed her off his lap.

“Lesson over already?” she asked. “Not much to almost shagging, is there?”

He stood and crossed the room, moving away. But then he turned to her, one eyebrow cocked. It had been a while since she’d seen that delicious leer.

“No fear, Pupil Miller. Lots more to learn. Just thinkin’ it might be prudent to lock the door.”

****

It was rare for Alec and David to be the last ones up, hanging out in the lounge watching telly. But Ellie had gone to bed early with a novel, claiming weariness. Fred had been whingy about his homework this evening; Izzy had been unusually hyper; and Ellie had no interest in the Europa Conference League final. Fred had watched with them for a while but given up on the scoreless game before the halftime whistle—thus missing a brouhaha that broke out after the West Ham fans threw quite a few random objects at the Florentina captain on the field.

“Unsportsmanlike behaviour,” Alec observed, sipping from the bottle of Wessex Pale he’d been nursing for an hour. His father-in-law was on his second bottle, and in better spirits than Alec had seen him display for days.

“Yeah. But the Hammers were provoked, a bit, weren’t they?”

“Not so sure about that, mate. You want more crisps?”

“Nah.”

David muted the sound of the telly, silencing the talking heads and the replays, and he fixed Alec with a serious gaze.

“Somethin’ on your mind?” the detective asked.

“How long before you lot put me in a home?” David asked, abruptly.

Taken aback, Alec took a deep breath. “No time soon. Maybe never. Depends on factors that are unpredictable. I’m sorry, David. Let’s just take it one day at a time, instead of worryin’ about somethin’ that might not happen. We’re all goin’ to do the best we can for you. You’re not alone in this.”

“I know that, son.” The man’s voice was subdued. A few moments of silence ticked by, as the two of them watched each other against the flickering backdrop of sports highlights. David pulled a piece of yellow paper out of a pocket before he continued, reading from what seemed to be notes.

“I’ve been thinking you need to do some things to the flat,” he said. “Alarms, or locks. If I start wandering. Like people do. Lock up anything poison. Hand out my drugs instead of letting me sort them. Shut off the gas to the hob. Maybe even put away the knives. Like I’m a ruddy infant.”

He passed Alec the paper; it was much-creased and appeared to have been torn from one of the legal pads that were always kept in the dining room sideboard. David had scrawled the list in both pen and pencil, as though he had carried it around for several days, jotting things down as they came to mind.

“These are good ideas,” said Alec, quietly—rather awed that his father-in-law had been accepting enough of his condition to do this. “We want you to feel safe. We think it’d be good for you to consider wearin’ one of those health alarms, too. So if anythin’ happened, and one of us wasn’t close by, you could just push the button and get some help.”

Shaking his head, David raised his hands in submission. “Fine. Whatever you say. Buy me one. Dunno how long I’ll be able to even manage the damned mobile. Funny, though.”

“What is?”

“I can still play a decent game of snooker.”

Alec wondered if this were true or if David’s mates were simply conspiring to ease the man’s nights at the snooker table, in effort to make sure The King’s Arms remained a happy place for him.

“Good to hear,” said Alec. “I don’t doubt that you could make mincemeat of me. Snooker’s not my sport.”

David chuckled at that. “What is your sport, Hardy? Didn’t think you had one.”

“Detectin’.”

“Fair enough.”

Alec held up the paper. “Can I keep this?”

“Yeah. Wrote it for you and Eleanor.”

“Good. We’ll work on it durin' the weekend. You can help. You might think of more.”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for doin’ this. For bein’ willin’ to make some changes. I know it’s hard.” Alec was struggling with words, in a way that was unusual for him. He wished he could provide comfort in a situation where precious little comfort was available.

David merely shrugged and then smiled a little, as if he was glad this unpleasant conversation had been dealt with. He gestured at the screen with his half-empty ale bottle. The halftime countdown clock was ticking; there were only a few minutes left. He set the bottle on the coffee table.

“Best use the loo,” he said. “In case the next half’s more exciting than the first part.”

“Aye. Good idea.”

Moving towards the door to the hallway, David paused. “Too bad Eric and Lucy couldn’t come. That man loves the Hammers.”

It took Alec a few beats to recall that Eric was the name of Lucy’s erstwhile husband, who had abruptly abandoned his little family a dozen years ago—long before Alec Hardy had arrived on the scene. Ready to remind David of all that, he stopped himself. The experts all said it was better not to contradict a person with dementia regarding inconsequential things. In the grand scheme, the fact that David had forgotten that his other son-in-law had scarpered ages ago was an inconsequential thing. 

“Aye,” Alec said. “It’s too bad.”

***

Callie Carlson was a beautiful woman, even in her 70s, Ellie thought. Not just beautiful “for her age,” but beautiful, full stop. She had pale pink skin and deep blue eyes and cropped grey hair, and she generally dressed in shades of grey, too, from charcoal to pearl. The widowed DI, formerly of Weymouth, had retired to Broadchurch a few years ago. Alec and Ellie had worked with her informally on several cold cases, and they had recently solved the long-ago disappearance and murder of her much-loathed older brother. The woman had become a family friend and had visited their home for dinner several times.

When Ellie called to ask about meeting at a restaurant for lunch, Callie had insisted that Ellie come to her bungalow instead. It was a perfect June afternoon—partly cloudy, with a soft breeze coming off the bay—and Callie’s homemade coronation chicken and warm rolls were a welcome treat. They ate on the small patio and were lingering over lemonade. Ellie suddenly felt shy about broaching the subject she’d come to discuss.

As if reading her mind, Callie asked, “How’s your father getting along? He always makes me laugh. He was full of opinions about politics the last time I spoke with him. At your holiday party, I guess that was. Goodness, it’s been a while.”

“Funny you should ask,” said Ellie. “He’s the reason I wanted to see you, actually. Well, part of the reason. I’d have wanted to see you, regardless. It’s been too long.”

“Ummm. Something’s going on with him, then?”

Ellie looked away for a moment. Callie’s bungalow, perched on a hillside, had a spectacular view of the West Beach and the bay beyond it. She rather envied Callie that view.

“He’s been diagnosed with dementia,” she said, bluntly, still staring out to sea. “Or almost. Cognitive decline, according to his GP. We’re supposed to see a memory specialist in Poole in a couple of weeks. But it’s going to be Alzheimer’s, I think.”

Turning back, she read sympathy and shock in her friend’s eyes. Callie’s ancient mother lived in a care home in Weymouth. Ellie and Alec had interviewed Miranda Gardner twice while investigating her son’s death; the woman was amazingly fragile and quite confused. Callie had supervised her care for decades. She, more than any of the Hardy-Millers’ other friends, understood what they were facing.

“Oh, my dear,” Callie sighed, reaching over to grasp her hand. “Oh, I’m so sorry. What a blow.”

Ellie nodded, pulling the hand away and taking a drink of lemonade to disguise her discomfort. She hated the fact that they needed to have this discussion at all.

“How bad is it?” Callie asked. “He’s still all right home alone?”

“Not for very long. So we’ve been working from home, some. My sister’s been taking him once a week; she usually does Thursdays, but not today, because she’s doing an overnight with us on Monday instead. Alec and I have to drive to Penzance to interview a suspect. So Alec is home with him now. And our former babysitter’s doing a couple days a week. We’re piecing it together. We’re supposed to see a service coordinator once the assessment’s complete. But I don’t doubt the diagnosis. He’s definitely impaired. It’s been brewing for months, I think.”

“I’m sorry,” Callie said once more. “How’s he handling it? Is he angry? Depressed? He’s always been so vigorous. Ever since I’ve known him, at any rate.”

“He’s angry, yeah, and obviously depressed. It fluctuates.”

“It would. My mum was like that for a long while, until she lost so much cognition that she seemed to make peace with it. Once you’re as out of touch as she is … well, I think she’s forgotten a good bit of what her life once was. She still remembers me, thank God.”

“How is she?”

Callie shrugged. “She just goes on. I suppose she has a strong will to live. It’s so hard to predict the trajectory of these things. You have to be prepared for a long road. I’m sorry.”

“Ta. I wondered if you had ideas about programmes. You’re such a good researcher; you’d know what’s available locally.”

“You mean care homes? Surely not yet.”

“No, no. I was just wondering about other things. Day programmes?”

Callie straightened in her chair, warming to the subject. “We did that with mum for a long while. Before Jonathan died, he helped a lot. I was so busy with work, and he was able to drive her around. Get her back and forth from her day programme. I don’t know what’s available close by, these days, but there’s a very good club in Weymouth; mum went there for years before she moved into Hawthorne House. I can email you the link to their website. There are a lot of special services for people with cognitive disabilities, but this was one of the few day places we found in Wessex that specialises in dementia.”

Broadchurch to Weymouth was half an hour’s journey by car. Usually a bit more, actually, and on a twisty coastal B-road. Ellie didn’t like the thought of layering that commute on top of their school drop-off and pickup responsibilities. She and Alec would obviously need to split up the driving, if David was going to attend such a place more than sporadically. Still, it might be better for him than sitting at home, fretting about his declining condition and chafing at the forced isolation.

“That sounds promising. We’ll look into it.”

“You should. Not just for your dad’s sake, but for yours. You have to work out a plan so you know he’s safe and well-occupied every day while you and Alec do all the other things you need to do. At least Jon and I didn’t have children. There’s a lot on your shoulders.”

“I know, I know.” Ellie swivelled in her chair once more, gazing at the hot pink petunias spilling from terracotta pots on the patio, and at the peaceful blue bay beyond. She wished she and Callie were just trading detective stories—analysing the ins and outs of the Carlise case, perhaps—instead of having this conversation.

“You need to take care of yourself, Ellie.” Callie’s voice was quiet, but firm. “This is a long haul. A marathon, not a sprint, as they say. Your life is important, too. It’s so easy to get lost in this. You need a team. Not just for the workdays, but—you’re going to want respite sometimes. Weekends away. Holidays. More than just a few hours here and there. Just to stay sane.”

“I know.” Ellie was blinking back tears, not trusting herself to look at her friend.

“I can help you some days,” Callie said. “I’m retired. I like your dad. Let me know what you need, when the dust settles, and you can slot me into the diary a few days a month. And you can always call if there’s an emergency. I know how it goes, with detective work. I’m usually around.”

Ellie was actually crying, now, hot tears running down her cheeks as she turned back to face Callie. Her instinct was to protest that they were fine. To assure her friend that they didn’t need help.

“Thank you,” Ellie whispered, instead.

Callie stood and Ellie went to her, leaning into the older woman’s hug. She thought—not for the first time—that being embraced by Callie Carlson was nearly as good as being held by her mother. Callie squeezed her tightly and then let go.

“Come on, then,” she said briskly. “Come help me with pudding and tea. I’ve bought strawberry tarts from Broadchurch Bakery. They won’t cure everything. But they’re considerably better than a smack in the eye.”

“Yeah,” Ellie laughed. “Quite right. Lead on.”

She wiped her tears with her fingers, and she followed Callie inside.

***

“Time to move your arse, big brother. Get your skates on.”

Bettina Cooper arrived at the bungalow shortly after 9 am as planned, not long after Alec and Ellie returned from the school drop-off. She began chivvying David nearly the moment she walked in the door, pausing only to drop her designer bag on the sofa in the lounge before proceeding to the kitchen. Ellie had just served her dad a second cup of coffee, and he was perusing news stories on his mobile as usual.

“Hiya, Bets,” he muttered, grudgingly looking up. “What brings you here? Didn’t expect you. Is it a bank holiday?”

“We told him,” Ellie murmured to her aunt. “He knew you were coming today.”

“It’s Friday, you numpty,” Bettina informed her brother. “Not a bank holiday. But we’re having a day out. Giving these two a break from trying to keep you in line.”

She gestured at Ellie and Alec, grinning.

David made no effort to move. He sipped coffee, apparently fixated on his mobile. “No point bossin’ me around, Bets,” he said. “Don’t feel like goin’ anywhere, do I? Best get yourself back to Bristol.”

“Exeter, big brother. I live in Exeter. But we’re not going there, or Bristol either. Barrington Court, today, I thought. We’ll have a spot of lunch in their nice café and poke about in the gardens. You love a good garden, David. You need to move your body. Get some sun on your face. You’re looking pasty.”

“You’re looking pasty,” he retorted. “Aren’t changing much in your old age, are you? Same old bossy Bettina.”

The smile teasing the corners of David’s mouth belied the grouchy words. His sister merely laughed. Bettina Cooper was far from pasty; her makeup had achieved the kind of “barely there” glow that generally indicated application of numerous products. Her subtly highlighted chestnut hair was styled in an artful tousle; her peachy nails were perfectly varnished; and she wore a flowered dress whose very simplicity screamed “expensive.” This pulled-together woman, who looked years younger than her actual age of 69, was clearly up to the task of managing David Barrett—cognitively impaired, or otherwise.

“C’mon,” she urged him. “Your family have things to do. I’ve not seen you in donkey’s years. Stand up and give us a bit of a cuddle, and we’ll be off. Might find a lovely pub to visit on the way home.”

David rose and offered a grudging hug; she squeezed him enthusiastically, patting his back before rising on tiptoe to give him a peck on the cheek.

“That what you’re wearing?” she asked, backing away and surveying his attire.

“What’s wrong with it, then?”

Ellie had laid out a striped, short-sleeved sport shirt and clean khaki chinos for her dad before they’d left for school. She now realised that he’d donned yesterday’s shabby jeans and tee instead. The shirt pocket bore a conspicuous stain of something that looked like mustard.

“You’ve got a spot,” said Bettina, pointing. “Let’s find you something clean. Wouldn’t want those posh guides at Barrington to think I’m escorting a homeless person.”

Ellie intercepted her aunt before she could drag David down the hall to his little flat. “I’ll help him,” she said. “You stay and talk to Alec.”

She truly did appreciate Bettina; the woman had a good heart. But she could be a lot to take.

“Good, fine. What are the two of you doing today, then? Do I need to have him back at a certain time? Are you working?”

Alec shook his head. “Takin’ the day off. Goin’ to check out a day programme in Weymouth.”

Ellie’s call to the facility yesterday afternoon had elicited a warm invitation to visit any time. She and Alec intended to take advantage of her aunt’s visit to make the trip. There was nothing much to be done right now regarding the Carlisle case. They’d have the weekend plus the whole long drive on Monday morning to prepare strategy for their afternoon meeting with Verity Smallwood, which they’d scheduled at the Devon & Cornwall Police facility in Penzance.

“Some new services for your Isobel?” Bettina asked.

“No,” said Alec. “Somethin’ we’re checkin’ out for your brother.”

“Ruddy Weymouth,” David muttered, rising. “They’re thinkin’ about lockin’ me away in ruddy Weymouth.”

“No, we’re not, Dad,” Ellie sighed. “No one’s locking anyone away. This is just a day programme. A kind of a club. We’re just investigating options for you. Places you’d enjoy. And Auntie Bet will have you back in plenty of time for snooker tonight at the King’s. Won’t you?”

“Of course,” said Bettina. “We wouldn’t want him to miss his Friday routine. I know the man’s rabid for his game.”

“Fat lot you’d know about it,” David said. “Your idea of sport is watching that Federer bloke prancing about on telly.”

Ellie didn’t bother to remind her dad that the tennis icon’s glory days were long past. “Come change your clothes,” she said instead.

He scowled at the room in general, apparently unsure whether to cooperate..

“Go on, then,” Bettina said, her voice gentler than it had been. “Go get yourself sorted. I promise we’re going to have a lovely time.”

“Not bloody likely,” said David. But he let Ellie nudge him down the hall.

Remembering his manners, Alec asked, “You want a coffee, Bettina? Tea?”

“Just water.” Without waiting to be served, the woman went to the cupboard, extracted a glass, and filled it from the tap.

“You should’ve called me sooner, Alec,” she said, quietly. “I had no idea.”

“I know. Sorry. We’ve been scramblin’ ever since his doctor visit. Weren’t meanin’ to keep you in the dark.”

Bettina sat. “Did Ellie ever tell you my dad had dementia, too?”

“Don’t think it ever came up, no.”

“Mum dealt with it, mostly. He didn’t live that long after he was diagnosed. Five years, maybe. But he had some other health issues. Honestly, David looks healthy as the proverbial horse.”

Alec nodded. “As far as I know, he’s in pretty good shape, other than this latest thing. Some high blood pressure is all.”

The woman drank deeply, then deposited her glass in the dishwasher. “Well, one day at a time, as they always say. We’ll think on it. We’ll work something out.”

Alec was a bit hesitant to consider what Bettina Cooper’s idea of “working something out” might entail. She was a force to be reckoned with—somewhat like his wife, in fact—but collaboration might not be her strong suit. In any case, he was glad she’d come today. It’d be good for David to get out of town, and it gave them a nice opportunity to visit the place Callie had recommended. Googling seemed to indicate that it was still the best specialist day programme in the area.

“Thanks for comin’,” Alec said. “Your brother’s goin’ to appreciate it.”

Almost on cue, David walked in with Ellie in tow, looking considerably more presentable.

“That’s better,” Bettina said. “Ready to go?”

“Guess so.”

“You have your mobile, Dad?” Ellie asked.

He patted his pockets before extracting the phone and showing it to her. “Yep.”

“Wallet?” she pressed. “Sunglasses?”

“Yeah. For God’s sake. We’ll never get out of here if you keep this up, Eleanor. My brain’s not totally gone to shit, as yet.”

Bettina reached for his hand. “C’mon. We’ll see the two of you later this afternoon. Five o’clock all right?”

“Aye,” said Alec, and they all moved towards the front door.

Bettina retrieved her handbag from the lounge, gave Ellie a perfunctory hug, and marched out, opening the passenger door of her Range Rover.

“Time’s wasting!” she cried, and David climbed in. He waved half-heartedly as she backed out and drove away.

Alec and Ellie stood in the driveway for a moment, watching the vehicle disappear.

“She’s somethin’, isn’t she?” he remarked. “Your Aunt Bettina.”

“She’s definitely something. Bless her. At least that’s today sorted for him. We should go, too. If we’re efficient this morning, we’ll have time to eat at the Rendezvous. They have that view of the harbour, and they’re offering a new thing: lunch and a drink for 8 quid. Ten if you want alcohol.”

Alec laughed, leading her back into the house so they could turn off the lights and grab her bag.

“You looked that up,” he said. “You never just had that in your head.”

“Oh, I happened to wander onto their website when I was researching Senior Care Wessex. Sort of accidentally. These things happen, Hardy.”

“Aye. Especially if you’re Eleanor Miller.”

“I needed something to look forward to. It might be a bit of a difficult morning.”

“Hope not. But fair point.”

They finished their quick pass through the bungalow, and Alec locked the door.

“You drivin’?” he asked, almost sure the question was unnecessary. His wife drove 90 percent of the time—a habit established back when he was her superior officer.

But Ellie surprised him. “Why don’t you do it? See how it feels at this time of day. We could take the coast road on the way and then come back through Dorchester. Just to compare.”

“Good thinkin’. You’ve made me hungry now. The sooner we get over there and see the old folks’ place and can sit down to the 8-quid special, the better I’m goin’ to like it.”

They headed out, taking the winding B-road through Burton Bradstock and Swyre, past East and West Bexington and Abbotsbury and Portesham: verdant farm country on their left, sparkling English Channel on their right, and Alec Hardy at the wheel, facing straight ahead in the Ray-Bans Ellie had insisted he buy last summer because she thought they were sexy.

She forced herself to concentrate on the pretty scenery and not on what a facility full of seniors with dementia, making collages or watching telly or whatever they did all day, was going to be like. She devoutly hoped it’d be a not-awful place. A clean, cheery place, staffed with clean, cheery people.

Ellie Miller wasn’t a praying woman. But she shut her eyes, just for a second, and whispered, “Please, God,” in her head.

And then she opened them, reminding herself to be grateful for the sunshine and the good man next to her, and the prospect of a harbour view and the lunch-and-drink special at the Rendezvous. Only 8 quid. Ten, with alcohol.

She reckoned it was going to be a 10-quid kind of day.

***

The trip to Penzance the following Monday was mostly quiet. The detectives had gathered their exhibits and discussed strategy extensively the day before, and they’d long ago come to the conclusion that being well-prepped for the interview room was essential, but being over-rehearsed could be counter-productive. Alec generally maintained that a good interrogation was like jazz: a combination of practice, knowledge, and riffing off your partner’s ideas.

Ellie drove for the entire journey, slightly more than 150 miles; she knew the roads of Devon all too well from her unhappy stint as a local constable while on leave from her Wessex DS position, awaiting Joe Miller’s trial. Not wanting to talk about that, or about Verity Smallwood and Ivy Carlisle, the two of them stuck to innocuous topics, such as the loss of Isobel’s first tooth: one of the lower incisors.

The momentous event—which had happened at the sports field, right after Fred’s Saturday cricket match—first involved tears and pain and then delight, when Fred shared the valuable information that lost teeth could mean money.

“I keep it?” Isobel asked, doubtfully, grasping the gory little thing in her hand.

“Yeah, Iz … you have to keep that,” Fred advised. “You put that under your pillow tonight, and in the morning you’ll find 2 quid under there, because the tooth fairy collects it and leaves the money. Dunno what a fairy wants with all those teeth, but just go with it.”

Fred winked hugely at his mum after delivering this speech, just to signal that he was too grown-up to actually believe such things. David, who’d come to the game but nodded off for most of it, merely muttered something about inflation. Ellie remembered when her parents’ payment for a tooth had been a mere 10p. She had to send Alec to the shops for change that evening; neither of them generally had cash around, especially not £2 coins. Awakening in a panic at 5 am the next morning, Ellie realised that they hadn’t collected the tooth or left the money, and she dragged herself up to Izzy’s room to do the deed.

It had been a good weekend.

The detectives reached the hotel in Penzance, where they’d arranged an early check-in, a few minutes before noon. They had no idea how long today’s interview with Verity Smallwood might take, and they knew they’d be tired and seeking a haven afterwards, regardless of how the day unfolded. Their loft room at the Artist Residence, a refurbished Georgian building, was cosy and charming, tucked up under the eaves.

“I’ll be hittin’ my head on the ceilin’ all night, Miller,” Alec grumbled, lugging their shared suitcase into the room, which featured exposed beams and a bright, contemporary colour scheme.

Ellie grinned and gestured at the super-king bed. “I think you’re not going to be spending much time standing up, Hardy. We’re supposed to be mixing business with pleasure, remember?”

“Aye. Let’s just make sure the bed’s workin’ properly.”

He pushed her down onto the white duvet, somewhat roughly, and then he snogged her thoroughly, both of them laughing through a flurry of kisses.

“This bed is definitely working,” she finally gasped, shoving him away and getting up. “But we can’t do anything about it now. We need food. We have to be at the nick by half-one. We’ll continue this later, okay? I promise.”

“Fine,” he said, pulling a grouchy face. “You’re no fun.”

“Oh, bollocks. Control yourself. Save some of that energy for the interview room.”

“Fine,” he repeated. But he took her in his arms and kissed her once again—rather more seriously, this time—before allowing her to lead him out in search of sustenance.

***

The Devon & Cornwall Police Enquiry Office on Penalverne Crescent was a boxy, utterly nondescript two-storey building with a rough stone façade. The local officer who was liaising with them, DS Sheilagh Stine, greeted them at the entrance and led them through several tiled hallways to a grey-painted interview room.

“We have your witness in holding,” she informed them as they walked. “She arrived early. I’ll have a constable bring her in for you. There’s a solicitor and also a doctor; the facility insisted.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Ellie said. “We expected that might be the case.”

They’d made arrangements over the weekend for Verity—known at the Willows Care Home as Regina Osborne—to be transported to today’s meeting. Facility staff had told them she was perfectly willing to talk.

The interview room on the second storey was sparsely furnished—just a beat-up wooden table and metal chairs—but warm light streamed in through a large square window. Several bottles of water had been provided next to the standard recording equipment. The DS disappeared, leaving them to settle themselves in the chairs and place their exhibits folder on the table. Ellie cracked open a bottle of water and took a healthy swig.

“Here we go,” she said, smiling at her husband.

“Aye. Been a long time comin’. Could be interestin’.”

“I’m counting on it. A cold case with a mummified murder victim in the attic? A suspect who's named herself after Queen Victoria? How could it not be interesting? It’s like a novel.”

She handed him a bottle, and he drank, too.

“Our lives are like a novel, Miller,” he said, wryly.

“Yeah, but who’s writing it, is what I want to know.”

“Mysteries of the universe. Trustin’ we’re goin’ to find out someday.”

Their existential musings were interrupted by the opening of the door. A constable led the little party into the room: first a balding, middle-aged man in a brown suit, whom they presumed was Verity’s solicitor; then a young woman in jeans, a lavender tee-shirt, and a black blazer, holding the suspect’s hand; and then at long last, leaning on a cane, Verity Smallwood.

The suspect was taller than Ellie had expected her to be: still fair-skinned and green-eyed, with ginger hair fading to grey. She wore a short, light blue dress, dangly silver earrings, and white leather sandals—all of which looked a bit young for the woman’s age, to Ellie. The pretty face they'd observed in Alan Smallwood's ancient snapshot had given way to something harder, more world-weary. 

Before they could speak, Verity gave them a small, unexpected smile.

“Here you are at last,” she sighed. “I’ve been waiting forever for you.”

Chapter Text

Ignoring Verity’s surprising greeting, Alec gestured at the little group. “Have a seat.”

The three of them did, with the solicitor and doctor flanking the witness. Verity’s cane clattered to the floor; the doctor picked it up and hooked it over the end of the table. The constable left the room, and Ellie slid water bottles towards Verity and her companions.

“This is Dr Susan Redfern, and I’m Jason Longley, Ms Osborne’s solicitor,” the man said, uncapping a bottle and placing it in front of Verity. She ignored it, merely staring at the detectives.

“Noted,” Ellie said. “Are we ready to begin?”

Verity nodded, but her doctor cleared her throat. “How much do you understand about Regina’s condition?” she asked.

“We know she had a brain tumour removed several months ago,” Ellie replied. “We understand there are a few cognitive issues, and perhaps some emotional ramifications.”

“That’s right. I hope you’ll be sensitive to that while you’re speaking with her.”

“We’ll try, ma’am,” said Alec. “You’ll be free to raise medical concerns durin’ the interview, or afterwards if you prefer. We believe your patient has critical information, or we wouldn’t have asked her in for this discussion.”

“Are you accusing her of something?” the doctor inquired, sounding irritated on Verity’s behalf.

Jason Longley spoke up. “Let me handle the legal situation, doctor. You just see to your patient.”

“I’m all right, doctor,” said Verity, calmly.

“Fine,” Dr Redfern said, not bothering to hide her disapproval of the proceedings.

Ellie took a breath and started the recorder. “Interview with Verity Smallwood, also known as Regina Osborne, beginning at 2:05 pm on Monday, the 12th of June, 2023. Present are detectives Ellie Miller and Alec Hardy; Ms Smallwood; her doctor, Susan Redfern; and her solicitor, Jason Longley.”

Both Redfern and Longley stirred in their chairs at the “also known as” language.

“Surely you have the wrong person,” the solicitor said. But Verity hadn’t batted an eye.

Ellie continued, ignoring the comment and looking directly at the witness.

"You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand, ma’am?"

“Yes,” Verity murmured.

“You don’t have to speak at all,” the solicitor reiterated.

She gave him a withering look. “I understood, Jason. I’m not that impaired. Let’s get on with it.”

“For the recording, please affirm your name and birth date,” Ellie continued.

“Regina Victoria Osborne. I’m sorry … I know I was born in November. I have a bit of a problem with numbers.”

“I have her driving license,” the doctor piped up, digging in her jacket pocket and then passing the card to Ellie.

“Your real name, ma’am,” said Alec, firmly.

With a tiny smile, the woman immediately responded, “Verity Anne Smallwood.”

“Exactly,” Ellie said. “Thank you.”

“People are allowed to change their names,” Longley said. “If Verity Smallwood is actually her name.”

“Of course,” replied Ellie. “We’re just striving for accuracy. The name change is not why your client is here today.”

She examined the license, which appeared to be completely legitimate. Ellie expected Verity had used her forged birth certificate and license to obtain a new license, reflecting her Penzance address.

She continued. “This says your birth date is the 9th of November, 1962. I believe your actual birth date is the 9th of November, 1957. Isn’t that correct, Verity?”

“I suppose it might be. It sounds right.”

“I fail to see—” the solicitor began, as Ellie passed the license back to the doctor.

“Patience,” said Alec. “We’re only just gettin’ started. Your client’s actual name is Verity Anne Smallwood; she was born in November of 1957; and she’s from Yeovil, where she was located until 2010, managin’ some flats in a house she’d inherited from her parents, where she also lived. I presume we can take all of that as read. I can provide evidence, counsellor, if it’d make you feel better. But it’s just goin’ to slow us down.”

Longley shrugged, but the doctor looked concerned.

“Regina, are you sure what they’re saying is correct?” she asked. 

Ellie reached for the evidence folder, pulling out a plastic sleeve holding the old snapshot and passing it to Verity.

“Detective Miller is showin’ the witness Exhibit AH-7, a photograph,” Alec said.

“This is you, isn’t it, Verity?” asked Ellie.

The woman peered at the image. “My God. Where on earth did you—oh. I suppose you’ve been talking to Alan. How is he? Where is he?”

“Not relevant to the current discussion,” Alec said.

“Alan?” the solicitor asked.

“My brother,” said Verity, pointing at the faded image. “That’s my brother, and my parents, and me. In front of our house on Bellview Road, in Yeovil. I treated him ... not very well. I regret it.”

With a sad smile, she handed the picture back to Ellie, who replaced it in the folder.

“19 Bellview Road, that’s right,” said Alec. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Where you used to manage rentals for some flats. After your parents died, and your brother went into the military,” said Alec. “Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“We’d like to talk with you about one of your former tenants, Verity,” said Ellie. “An Ivy Carlisle. An older woman who moved into your second-storey flat in 1995. Do you recall her? She’d have been 64 at the time.”

“Yes.”

“Ivy was divorced from a man who lived in Taunton. He was paying her spousal support through a local solicitor.”

“Yes. Until—”

Verity looked troubled for the first time since the interview had begun.

“Until?” Ellie prompted.

Silence.

“Until she had a stroke,” Ellie continued. “Which left her somewhat diminished, and unable to handle her money anymore. So you stepped in to help. Rather ironic, isn’t it?”

“There’s no need to be cruel, Detective,” said Susan Redfern.

Ellie backed up. “Verity, did your tenant, Ivy Carlisle, have a stroke sometime in 1997?”

Nodding, Verity said, “The year sounds right. She was in hospital for a week. Rehabilitation after that. When she came home—there was no one else close by. Only a sister in Southampton. I offered to help with her money.”

“Thank you,” Ellie said. “Very kind. And did you obtain a Power of Attorney, ma’am?”

“No. We had an informal arrangement. I helped her with the money. Went with her to medical appointments. Went to the shops for her, or took her. That sort of thing.”

“I see,” said Ellie. “So the two of you were friends.”

The statement elicited a bark of laughter. “It wasn’t possible to be friends with Ivy. Ivy was … difficult.”

“Difficult, how?” Alec asked.

Verity sighed. “Sarcastic. Never satisfied. She had a sharp tongue. Even before the stroke.”

“They why’d you offer to help take care of her?” he pressed. “We have a witness statement that Ivy's sister was willin’ to handle the funds. You took over instead.”

“I was there. Her sister wasn’t. No one was volunteering to take her in.”

“I see,” said Ellie. “So. Previously Ivy had been collecting her own maintenance checks from the solicitor’s, I presume? Before the stroke?”

“Yes.”

“But after the stroke, you did that for her every month? Even though you didn’t have a PoA?”

“There was a statement they made us sign,” said Verity. “Giving permission. A new person came in at the solicitor’s, a family law specialist: Charlotte someone. That’s who I dealt with.”

“And Ivy's state pension?” Alec pressed. “You were handlin’ that as well?”

“All of her money.”

“And still workin’, werent’ you? At Sweetins?”

Verity looked a bit puzzled. Then, she gave a mirthless chuckle. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

“Aye. Let’s talk about someone you knew from work, for a minute. A Ronnie Magnuson. You knew Ronnie, Verity, didn’t you?”

An actual smile was the response. “I knew Ronnie.”

“Before he went to prison,” Alec continued. “For forgin’ documents.”

“Yes.”

“Before, and after,” Ellie suggested. “He came to live in one of your flats after he was released, didn’t he? In Ivy’s old flat, in fact. Isn’t that right, Verity?”

“Yes. Of course. I guess you have the rental records? I gave them to Mr Fallows.”

“We have them, aye.”

“I fail to see what this rambling discussion has to do with anything,” interposed the solicitor. “Let’s not keep Regina out any longer than absolutely necessary, please."

The doctor backed him up. "She’ll be needing medication later. To prevent seizures.”

“Noted,” Alec said. “And don’t worry, counsellor. We’re verifyin’ important points. It’ll all make sense to you, presently.”

“Verity,” said Ellie, “how close were you to Ronnie? Would you say you were friends?”

“Of a sort.”

“More than friends?” Ellie prompted. “Lovers?”

Verity smiled again, simultaneously tearing up, looking almost wistful. “For a while. Never really in love.”

The doctor pulled a packet of tissues from her jacket pocket and passed one to the suspect, who dabbed her eyes briefly, then balled up the tissue and set it gently on the table.

“I see,” said Ellie. “Was this before he was in prison? Or after?”

“Before. Only before.”

“Ah,” said Ellie. “And why not after?

“When he came out, he wasn’t interested anymore.”

“Ah,” Ellie repeated, refraining from commenting further on the subject.

“And did your lover Ronnie teach you anythin’ about forgin’ documents?” Alec asked. “Forgin’ people’s signatures? Before he went to prision?”

Verity laughed outright. “He made me some things. Well, we did it together. A birth certificate, and a driving license. It was just a bit of fun. I didn’t believe he could actually do it.”

“But he did, didn’t he?” continued Alec. “That’s how Regina Victoria Osborne was born, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not a crime to—” the solicitor began.

Alec frowned at him. “Counsellor, I’ve mentioned before that the false identity is not why we’re here today. I promise we’re gettin’ to the point. Detective Miller and I drove all the way over from Broadchurch to speak with your client. You can trust there was a good reason for that.”

“Fine,” Longley sighed. “Just—Regina, please remember, ‘no comment’ is a perfectly legitimate response to any of these questions.”

“Of course,” she said. "I understand that."

Alec began again. “So just to get this clear—Ronnie didn’t give you any tips for forgin’ signatures?”

“Oh, no. Never.”

Ellie reached for the evidence folder, pulling out several plastic envelopes holding copies of assorted spousal maintenance and state pension cheques. The photocopies depicted both fronts and reverses.

“Detective Miller is showing the witness Exhibits EM-13, 14, and 15, documents,” said Alec.

Ellie passed the plastic sleeves across the table and tapped on several of the endorsements. “How do you explain how you were so good at forging Ivy’s signature, Verity? Her actual signature is shown on Exhibit EM-13; the ones on these other two pages are your forgeries. The signatures do look quite a bit alike.”

The doctor helped Verity spread the evidence before her, though the witness barely looked at the documents before handing it all back to Ellie without answering the question.

“You know these were forged, how?” asked the solicitor.

Alec played the trump card. “I know they were forged because at the time these later cheques were cashed? These, and dozens like them? Your client had total control of Ivy Carlisle’s money, and Ivy was dead. Your client had murdered her and dragged her up some stairs and stuffed her into a cupboard in the attic at the house on 19 Bellview Road. For the money. So she could have it all, instead of needin’ to spend any of it on Ivy. You wanted the money, and you were sick of dealin’ with her. Her bein’ so difficult, and all. So you killed her. Isn’t that right, Verity?”

“No.” Verity’s voice was now flat, emotionless.

“You hit her in the head with somethin’ sharp," he continued, relentlessly. "And then maybe she didn’t die fast enough, so you strangled her with a stockin’. Didn’t you?”

“No. That’s not what happened.”

The woman’s lack of surprise—of alarm—told its own tale.

“Fine,” said Alec. “So maybe you were garrottin’ her with the stockin’ first, and she fell and hit her head.”

“No.”

“Ivy was definitely killed and placed in the cupboard in your attic,” said Ellie. “She was recently found by a demolition crew. Quite dried out. Like a mummy. We presume you had something to do with her being there. That’s correct, isn’t it?”

Longley cleared his throat meaningfully.

“No comment,” Verity said.

“Verity,” Ellie said, more gently, changing tack. “When you came in, you said you’d been waiting forever for us. What did you mean by that?”

Straightening her shoulders, the woman responded, “I thought you’d come someday. Someone like you. I was able to forget, for a long time. While I lived there, and after I moved here. I barely remembered it. But I always thought you’d come in the end.”

Again, the woman’s eyes were filling with tears.

“It’s only right,” she finished. “It’s what I deserve.”

The doctor handed her another tissue.

“So tell us what’s right, Verity,” said Ellie. “If it didn’t happen in the ways Detective Hardy suggested, tell us what did happen. Because you kept collecting Ivy’s money for a very long time after she must’ve died. All the way up until her ex-husband died and the spousal maintenance ran out. After which you sold the house and moved here.”

“I didn’t kill Ivy. I did some wrong things. But not that.”

“Then tell us what you did do,” Alec said. “You didn’t do right by Ivy Carlisle when she was livin’. You took responsibility for her, and then you took advantage of her. Cheated her and her family. Now’s your chance to at least do right by her when she’s dead. She has a niece; you could give her some closure, let her arrange a decent burial. Get it all off your conscience.”

“We’re sure you did something,” Ellie prompted. “You had the opportunity, you had the means, you had a motive. You had all three. You, and no one else.”

Silent tears were now running down Verity’s cheeks; she did nothing to check them. The doctor looked stunned and merely patted the woman’s hand, laying the packet of tissues in front of her. Jason Longley seemed disgusted.

“I have to advise you in the strongest terms—” he began, addressing his client.

“There was a row,” Verity interrupted. “A few years after Ivy’s stroke. We were in her kitchen. It was late; she was already in her nightie and that shabby Woolies dressing gown she’d been wearing every night since I’d met her.”

“What year?” Alec asked, his eyes boring into the witness.

“It was winter. All that Y-something computer panic had just happened. What year was that?”

"2000," Alec said. "Y2K."

"Yes. 2000."

“What sort of row was it?” asked Ellie. “Were you arguing about the money?”

“No,” Verity replied. The tears had stopped, and now she laughed bitterly.

“What, then?” Ellie asked.

“I’d done her shopping that evening, and she was complaining that I’d bought turnips instead of swedes. But she hadn’t asked for swedes. She’d distinctly asked for turnips. This sort of thing happened all the time with Ivy. She called me a stupid cow that night. Said she was the one who’d had the stroke, but I was the one who couldn’t think. It had already been a difficult day; I'd had migraine, and my other tenant had some plumbing problem, and I’d had to sort it. And then—”

The woman stopped. She was looking out the window, now, as if seeing into the past. Alec eventually prompted her to continue.

“And then what happened, ma’am?” he asked, his voice soft.

“She called me a stupid cow, and I shook her by the shoulders. I was doing everything for her, everything. She’d have been completely lost without me. I told her as much. I’d been patient with her for so long, but I lost my temper. I suppose I shook her a bit too hard. She lost her balance. She slipped.”

“You didn’t hit her with somethin’ sharp?”

“No,” Verity sniffled. “No. She fell. She hit her head hard on the corner of her kitchen table. I guess it was sharp. There was blood.”

“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?” asked Alec. “A normal person would do that.”

“Because she was dead already! She died right away! I shook her, but she wouldn't wake up. She must’ve had another stroke. Or a heart attack. There was no pulse. No heartbeat. She was dead.”

Alec leant forward. “Then you still should’ve called an ambulance, and also the police, ma’am. Reported it as accidental death. It wouldn’t have been considered murder, if it happened like you said.”

Verity sighed, and shrugged, and reached for another tissue; she was leaking tears yet again. “I guess I was confused.”

Ellie laughed, then, scornfully. She removed several more plastic envelopes from the evidence folder—this time, records of cash deposits into Verity’s own account.

“Detective Miller is showing the witness Exhibits EM-19, 20, and 21, documents,” Alec said.

“I can see why you didn’t want to involve the police, Verity,” she said. “Because you’d been cashing all of Ivy’s cheques and depositing the money into your own account. Keeping almost all of it for yourself, except, I guess, whatever you spent to support her. Almost from the time she’d had her stroke, you’d been doing that. I presume that’s why you were able to quit your job at Sweetins.”

“I was taking care of her! I deserved something! Her sister never gave me a thing. Never offered. I deserved something.”

“Somethin’, maybe,” Alec conceded. “Looks to me like you were takin’ almost all of it. Cashin’ her cheques and puttin’ the money into your own account. Weren’t you?”

“I deserved something,” said Verity.

“Fine,” said Ellie. “Is that why you decided to hide the body and just keep pretending Ivy was still alive? Not informing her solicitors, so they could tell her ex-husband? Not notifying anyone to stop the state pension cheques? Because you thought you deserved to keep collecting all her money, for whatever services you’d rendered in the past couple of years? Why don’t you tell us about that?”

“I should have called someone!” she cried. “I know that now. I wish to God I had. But in the moment? I just wanted it all to go away.”

“Okay, okay,” said Alec. “Let’s backtrack, then. You’re standin’ in the kitchen with the dead body of your tenant at your feet and blood on the floor. Tell us exactly what you did instead of callin’ emergency services.”

The witness gazed out the window again. She closed her eyes.

“She was tiny. But I didn’t think I could get her outside. Down the stairs, out to the back garden at night, dig a hole and bury her. Not without Connie noticing, or the neighbours. And it would have taken forever. But the stairs to the attic were right there; the door was in the kitchen. I knew there was a cupboard up there; Alan and I used to play in it. I thought I could hide her. For a long time.”

“Not concerned about her startin’ to decay? Stinkin’ up the place? Alertin’ whatever tenant moved into that flat?”

“I didn’t think that far ahead. And I didn’t let the flat to anyone for a while. Not until Ronnie got out of prison. I never smelt anything strange, anyway.”

“I see," Alec said, suspecting that Verity had long since learnt all about the body's desiccation, one way or another. "Never mind, then. Keep tellin’ us exactly what you did. Why wasn’t there blood on the stairs, or the attic floor? Our team found nothin’ anyplace other than the kitchen floor. We have ways of revealin’ blood, even years after the fact. And what about that stockin’ we found round her neck? You sure you didn’t strangle her with it?”

Turning back to the detectives, Verity shook her head.

“Please answer for the recordin’,” said Alec.

“No.”

She took a drink of water.

“You need a break, Regina?” the doctor asked. “Trip to the loo?”

“Don’t stop me,” the woman snapped. “Let me finish this. I’ve waited long enough to tell it.”

“Go on,” Ellie prompted. “You decided to drag her upstairs and hide her in the cupboard.”

“Yes. I didn’t want her blood all over the kitchen floor, or the stairs, or the attic. I took a plastic shopping bag and got it over her head and tied it round her neck with a stocking I found in her bedroom drawer. And then I pulled her up the stairs. I got my hands under her armpits and pulled her. I had to sit on the stairs, by the end, and just work my way up backwards. Even though she was small, it wasn’t easy. There was adrenaline, I guess.”

“I’m sure there must've been,” Ellie said. "We saw some empty trunks up there. Did you try to put her into one of those at all? Why the cupboard?"

"I couldn't lift her into one of those," Verity said. "Not after getting her up the stairs. The cupboard was simpler."

“Fair enough. But the police didn’t find a bag over Ivy’s head. Why’d you remove it?”

“She looked so awful!” the witness cried. “Hardly human, crammed in there, once I got her in. I couldn’t bear the thought of her rotting away … like that. I tore the bag off and balled it up and latched the door. I’d tried to arrange her so she looked … peaceful. I guess I forgot the stocking. I was shaking, you understand.”

“Oh, my God,” whispered Susan Redfern.

“Control yourself, please, doctor,” Alec said.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor replied.

“What’d you do after that, Verity?” he asked. “You latched the cupboard door? Was there a padlock?”

“Oh. No. Not then. Just the doorknob. I did have a new lock installed on the door at the bottom of the stairs, though, before I let the flat to Ronnie.”

“And the plastic bag?” asked Ellie. “What happened to it?”

“I balled it up and put it inside another bag, then put it in one of the neighbours’ bins later that night. There was no fence between our back gardens. And I washed up the kitchen, as much as possible. And put my clothes in the washing machine. I cleaned out her refrigerator a few days after that. I didn't want it to smell.”

"You weren't worried the other tenant would notice that Ivy was suddenly missing?" Ellie asked.

"Constance? I told her Ivy had gone to live with a family member. And I waited for her to move out before getting rid of the rest of Ivy's things."

“I see," Alec said. "But financially speakin', you kept actin’ like Ivy was alive and livin' in your property. For a lot of years after that. Pickin’ up those cheques, tellin’ Charlotte Hayden fairy stories regardin’ the dead woman's condition. Forgin’ Ivy’s signature, cashin’ her cheques, and takin’ the money. You sure Ronnie wasn’t helpin’ you with the forgin’? Before he went inside, or after he came out?”

“No,” said Verity, firmly. “I did that myself. It wasn’t difficult. No one ever questioned it.”

They all stared at each other for a moment. Then, Alec began again.

“Tell us about what happened after Ronnie got out of prison and came back to live with you at 19 Bellview Road.”

“He didn’t live with me. He lived in the upstairs flat.”

“Sorry. When he moved into the upstairs flat, then.”

“Nothing in particular happened. We were no longer … . Well, nothing in particular.”

Ellie chimed in. “Did he do work for you around the place? Tidy up the garden? Fix things?”

“Ronnie?” The witness sounded incredulous. “He wasn’t around all that much. He was driving a lorry.”

Alec was flipping through the evidence folder. He found what he wanted and passed the plastic document sleeves over to Verity.

“Detective Hardy is showing the witness Exhibits EM-24, 25, and 26, documents,” Ellie said.

Alec tapped several images in turn. “You wrote cheques to cash for 300 quid, with R on the memo line,” he said. “One every month for six months durin' 2005. And then a long series of cashpoint withdrawals for the same amount, at the same time of the month. Why were you payin’ Ronnie 300 a month for years, Verity? If he wasn’t doin’ work for you?”

“I was—”

The solicitor interrupted. “I don’t see any evidence that any of that money went to this Ronnie person. All it said was ‘R’ on those checks. Regina could’ve been writing those to herself. And there’s no proof whatsoever about those cashpoint withdrawals being connected to Ronnie whatever-his-name-was.”

“Ah, but she wasn’t Regina, then, was she?” Alec shot back. “She was Verity. And you interrupted her, counsellor. What were you startin’ to say, ma’am?”

The moment had apparently passed. “No comment.”

Ellie sighed loudly. “Isn’t the most logical explanation that Ronnie had broken the lock on the attic door and gone up there and discovered Ivy’s body, and you were paying him for his silence? If he wasn’t working for you, and he was living right below where you’d left her, it would make perfect sense that he’d have got curious and eventually found her. Wouldn’t it?”

“No comment.”

“We’ve spoken with him, Verity,” Alec said, not elaborating on what those conversations had entailed. Ronnie had denied ever finding the body; he wanted to hear Verity’s version of the story.

“When?” The woman looked worried, now. “Recently?”

“Aye.”

“Did he say he’d found anything?”

“Are you sayin’ he didn’t?”

“No comment.”

Ellie spoke up. “Who put the padlock on the cupboard door?”

“What padlock?”

“When we asked you a few minutes ago if there was a padlock on that door, when you put Ivy in there, you said ‘not then.’ Implying that there was later a padlock, at some point. There definitely had been one installed; it was found during demolition. Forced off by the crew. That's how they discovered the body. And the doorknob was missing.”

“Oh.”

“Who put the padlock on the door?” Ellie asked again. “Who removed the knob?”

“I don’t want Ronnie to get in trouble. He didn’t do anything. He had nothing to do with it. He was in prison.”

“We’re aware of the duration of his incarceration,” said Alec, patiently. “We know he couldn’t have been involved the night Ivy died. Just tell us what happened after that. He was blackmailin’ you, wasn’t he?”

“No.”

Ellie raised her eyebrows. “But he found Ivy, didn’t he? Forced the lock on the door to the attic, went up there and broke that doorknob and found her, and told you about it. And later installed that padlock on the cupboard door so no one else would ever get in. That’s right, isn’t it?”

The woman nodded, now looking miserable.

“Please answer for the recording,” Ellie directed her.

“Yes,” Verity whispered.

“Right,” said Ellie. “Good. But he wasn’t blackmailing you?”

“No.”

“Then why were you paying him 300 pounds every month?”

“It was a ... a gift.”

Alec couldn’t suppress a snort. “Helluva generous series of gifts, ma’am.”

“It was my money. I could do what I wanted with it. I was still … fond of him. We still spent some time together. Watching telly sometimes. Going to restaurants, or to the pub, when he was in town. He made me laugh.”

The man’s image was morphing in Ellie's mind from blackmailer to gigolo.

Alec continued. “Then I presume these … gifts … stopped after Cyril Carlisle died and you decided to sell up and relocate? If we had access to your current financial records, we wouldn’t see these withdrawals happenin’, even now?”

“No. No. It was over once I left Yeovil. We agreed it would be over.”

Ellie frowned. "Why'd you decide to change your name, Verity? Why did you dig up those old, forged identity documents and come here as someone called Regina Osborne?"

"A fresh start, wasn't it?" the woman replied. "Wouldn't you have wanted that? I walked away from it all. I thought I could. Sometimes I could forget that it had ever happened."

"You weren't worried that Ivy's body would be found?"

Verity shrugged. "At first. Less, as time went by. Ronnie told me he was going to stay in the flat; he'd keep anyone from going up there. But I had bad dreams, sometimes."

"I see."

Ellie bent over to whisper in Alec's ear. "Let's talk."

He immediately addressed the group across the table. “Detective Miller and I need a minute. You need the loo, Verity? More water?”

“I’m fine. Let’s just finish this please. As quickly as you can.”

Ellie said, “Interview paused at 2:55 pm.” She stopped the machine, and she and Alec exited to confer in the hallway.

“For God’s sake,” he breathed. “What do we do with her now?”

“Obviously we’ve got to arrest her,” Ellie replied. “Multiple charges. Manslaughter, to begin with. The Crown wouldn't be able to prove murder."

"No," Alec agreed. "Not enough evidence for them to make the case. Manslaughter's the right call."

"Right," Ellie continued. "And then fraud. Obstruction. Preventing a decent burial. Quite a list.”

“Aye. That solicitor’s goin’ to have to arrange bail. They ought not to be keepin’ her here. Not well suited to what she needs.”

“Yeah. Well, he seems competent enough.”

Alec nodded. “I hate these cold cases where the perpetrator turns out to be old, El. We’ve had too many like that lately. I’d like to work on somethin’ more recent, soon. Somethin’ where the perp ends up bein’ some swaggery 35-year-old. It’d be more satsifyin’.”

Laughing a bit, Ellie replied, “They come as they come. And Verity isn’t all that old.”

“She’s old enough. But never mind. Let’s finish this. We need the DS to come in, and a constable.”

“I’ll go find her. Stay here for a minute.”

A bit of wandering led Ellie to DS Stine’s desk. Ellie explained the situation, and the DS returned to the interview room with her, picking up a constable on the way. The trio rejoined Alec, and all of them went inside.

Verity was looking vacantly out the window. Her solicitor was scrolling on his mobile, apparently in search of information. Dr Redfern was simply gazing down at her hands, worry written on her face. They all stared up at the entering detectives, immediately grasping that something serious was about to occur.

Ellie turned on the recorder once more. “Interview resumed at 3:11 pm. Same parties present, as well as DS Sheilagh Stine and police constable ....”

She looked up at the man, realising that she hadn't asked his name.

"PC Richards, guv," he helpfully supplied. "Glen Richards."

"PC Glen Richards," she finished.

"You've had some time for thinkin', Verity," Alec said. "You want to change anythin' you've told us? Now's the time. You're still speakin' under caution, remember."

"It's to your benefit to tell us all you remember," Ellie added, using her most encouraging tone.

"No," Verity said, flatly. "There's nothing. I've told you everything. I haven't lied."

“Fine," replied Alec. He took a beat before continuing.

"Verity Anne Smallwood, I’m arrestin’ you for the manslaughter of Ivy Carlisle on an undetermined date in early 2000. I’m also chargin’ you with fraud, pervertin’ the course of justice, and preventin’ the lawful and decent burial of a dead body. You will receive a written statement of the charges within 24 hours. You will be taken to magistrates’ court within 48 hours for an initial hearing. The court may or may not choose to grant bail, in light of the gravity of the charges.”

Ellie said, "Interview terminated at 3:14 pm," and she stopped the machine.

Jason Longley rose. “You can’t keep her here. This place isn’t appropriate for her.”

Dr Redfern and Verity also stood. “I heartily concur with that,” the doctor said.

Verity simply shrugged. Her eyes were, yet again, filled with tears. “I did wrong things. It’s right that I should pay. I’ve been expecting it for so long. It's almost a relief.”

Her solicitor shook his head. “I’m going to arrange bail, Regina.”

“Verity,” said the woman. “You may as well call me Verity, now.”

“Fine. Verity.” Longley looked at DS Stine. “You can take her back to your soft room, I presume? This might take a few hours. There’s no way a judge is going to refuse bail."

He then turned to address the detectives. "You know the fraud charge is absurd; we’re beyond the limitation period. Ivy Carlisle’s family should’ve been checking regarding what was happening with that money.”

Alec shrugged. “That’s as may be. That’s for the court to sort out.”

“The soft room’s available,” said DS Stine. “Come with me, ma'am; the constable and I will escort you. We might find you a bit of a cuppa.”

Verity sighed, wearily. “That’d be lovely. You’re very kind.”

“I’ll stay with her,” said Dr Redfern. “That’s allowed, isn’t it?”

“In this case, yes,” said the DS.

“I’m off, then,” Longley announced. “I’ll be in touch as soon as possible, Susan. I can pop in at the home to pick up her medication if this takes a while. Just keep your chin up, Reg—Verity. This isn’t as bad as it seems.”

He exited, and the rest of the group made to follow. Verity turned and gave both detectives a watery smile.

“Some things are inevitable,” she said. “Be kind to Ronnie, won’t you?”

“Come, Verity,” the doctor directed, handing her the cane. “You should rest.”

“Bloody hell,” Ellie murmured once they’d all gone, sinking back into her chair and reaching for the last unopened water bottle. She uncapped it, drank, and offered it to her husband, who took a healthy gulp before handing it back and sitting down beside her.

“That solicitor’s right about the fraud charge bein' past the limitation period, Miller. I had to charge her, but it’s not goin’ to stick.”

“The rest of it, though?” she asked. “All of that is legitimate. They could imprison her for the manslaughter at the very least.”

“For all of the remainin' charges, aye,” he agreed. “But lookin’ at her? I’m thinkin’ she’s goin’ to get off with a suspended sentence and a hefty fine. Maybe she'll be made to pay somethin' to Violet Patterson. Which it sounds like she can well afford. She’s showin’ remorse; a jury is goin’ to be sensitive to that, and to her condition. It was all a long time ago. She can hire a decent barrister; they’ll argue mitigatin’ circumstances. The frustration of caregivin’ without compensation for a difficult elderly woman who was verbally abusive. Momentary loss of temper leadin' to unexpected consequences.”

“Shit,” said Ellie, crisply. “That’s no excuse. There’s no excuse for the fraud, or the cupboard, or any of it.”

“No.”

“I thought she’d be different. More hardened. I wonder what she was really like before that tumour.”

“Me, too. No way of knowin’. Fact remains … prison’s not goin’ to be a good place for her. Prison’s not a good place for old, sick people, in general. It’s gettin’ to be a serious problem. Agin’ population, limited resources. What to do with people like her, who ought to be incarcerated but also need medical support. Psychological support. CPS is just goin’ to slap her with a big enough fine that it hurts, and then wash its hands of her.”

“Probably,” said Ellie.

They sat in silence for a moment before she spoke again.

“We need to make calls,” she said. “Violet Patterson. Amanda at the morgue. Ruth Renfield. Emily, eventually; the boss will be happy we've solved it.”

“Aye. Probably goin' to have a media statement in the next day or two.”

“Yeah. And we have to call Hal Rice.”

“Aye, Hal, right away. He'll need to send a team to pick up our man Ronnie. We can have him charged with obstruction and interferin’ with a burial, based on Verity’s statements. No wonder he was so adamant about stayin' in that flat, and got so shirty with Fallows when he was told he'd have to vacate. Protectin' himself, and Verity, too. I guess we can't try chargin' him with fraud, this time, though. Nor blackmail, much as I’d like to do that. They both deny it, and there’s no proof.”

“No. With his priors, though, he might be headed back inside. You think?”

“Legally possible,” said Alec. “But he might just get a fine, too, since he didn't actually hide the body. He only concealed the fact that he knew it was there. It probably depends on how good his barrister is. I don’t care what happens to the tosser, honestly.”

“Yeah. Quite right.”

She paused before asking, “You think we should call Alan Smallwood?”

Alec thought for a moment. “I’m guessin’ he won’t want anythin’ to do with this. But I suppose we should tell Verity's solicitor that we know where to find him. See if Verity wants to reach out, and vice versa. Ultimately they'd both have to agree to reconnect. Longley can handle all that.”

"Yeah. Last thing I want is for us to be in the middle of it."

DS Stine returned. “I’ve got her settled. We’ll take it from here. You two need anything else from us? We’ll be in touch regarding developments.”

“Just give us a minute to make some calls,” Ellie said.

“Oh, of course. Stay as long as you like. The room's not booked for anything else this afternoon. If you go into this hall and turn right, there’s a break room, if you want tea, or a coffee. Loos are farther down the same hall.”

“Ta,” Ellie said. “We’ll find you and touch base before we leave.”

“Good,” said the DS, and she left.

“Want a cuppa?” Ellie asked. “Before we do this?”

“Nah. Not unless you do. Let’s just finish and get on with the more entertainin’ portion of the day. It’s only just half-three. Plenty of time for recreational activities. Reward for a job well done.”

“Mmm. A nice boat ride along the coast, then?”

Alec groaned. “You know how much I love bein’ on a boat, Miller.”

“I’m just winding you up, sweetheart," she smiled. "Back to the hotel for a bit, I think. Then a lovely dinner. Someplace quaint. Then check in with the family. And after that, some more… recreational activities.”

“That’s a much better plan than a boat,” he acknowledged, his hand on her knee.

“Let’s get on with it, then.”

She grasped his hand and squeezed it, giving him a sly smile before letting go and reaching for her mobile.

***

The rest of the day unfolded as outlined. They first enjoyed an intense, highly efficient afternoon shag at the hotel: an effective release after the stress of the case and today's interrogation. Next came seafood and white wine at the amusingly named Cork & Fork, followed by a rambling phone call to Broadchurch. Fred went into great detail regarding the cut knee his friend Mickey had incurred in falling off a climbing frame, which had required four stitches at A&E. Izzy recounted the plot of Tangled for the umpteenth time; her aunt had been reading her the story when they rang. Lucy assured them that everyone was fine, including David, and that there was no need to rush home tomorrow.

“Enjoy yourselves for a while,” she said. “Lord knows you deserve it. Every couple needs adult time. You know what I mean.”

Ellie laughed. She knew exactly what Lucy meant.

“Thanks, Luce,” she said. “We appreciate it. Have a good night.”

The sisters rang off simultaneously.

“Adult time,” Alec grinned. He'd been on speaker for the call, which they’d made sitting side-by-side on the bed at the hotel, leaning against the headboard with legs stretched out before them.

He took Ellie's mobile from her hands, laid it on the bedside table, and removed her jacket and loose top, tossing them onto a convenient chair. He next dealt with the bra, unhooking the back fasteners and draping it over the chair arm. Then, he stood and got rid of his own jacket, tie, shirt, and tee, wasting no time in the process.

Ellie giggled. “In a bit of a rush, are you, detective?”

“Excellent deduction, detective. You could join me in completin’ the disrobin’. Provided you’re in the mood.”

This comment provoked an outright laugh. “Yeah. You could say I’m in the mood.”

Ellie got up and took off everything else, and eventually they faced each other, naked, across the wide expanse of super-king real estate.

“What sounds good?” she asked.

“Makin’ you feel good sounds good,” he replied.

He sat on the bed, positioning his back against the headboard and spreading his legs. “Come over here.”

Ellie read his cues easily. She slid her hips between his thighs, facing away from him, backing up so she was leaning against his chest, letting her head loll onto his shoulder. If he wanted to make her feel good, she was all for it. It had been a long rough patch. Penzance was the best thing that had happened in ages.

Alec stretched an arm around her so he was supporting a breast with his forearm, cupping the other one in his hand. He kneaded and squeezed and played with the nipple until it was taut, while bending to kiss and suck on her neck.

Ellie's breathing deepened as she let him take her weight, releasing the tension in her body in a way she hadn’t done when they’d shagged earlier today. In a way she hadn’t managed for weeks, in fact. She felt him getting hard against the bottom of her spine. A soft moan escaped her lips. 

“Good girl,” he murmured, interrupting the kissing for a minute. “Feelin’ good yet?”

“Getting there."

“Good.”

He resumed sucking her neck and massaging her breasts, using both hands now, making her moan until she thought she was going to have to touch herself; the delicious ache in her pelvis was building steadily. Finally, she felt his familiar fingers parting her folds and finding her clit, stroking lightly as she pushed upwards against his hand.

“Mmmm,” she sighed. “Oh, that’s so nice. Don’t stop.”

“Not plannin’ to stop, Miller. That’d be a daft move.”

Ellie was far too preoccupied to laugh properly. She knew she would come quickly if he kept this up. She was tempted to let him go on; she'd taken care of him rather thoroughly, this afternoon. It was her turn to be taken care of. But she was craving something more.

She sat up, and removed his hand, and twisted her head around to look at him.

“Somethin’ wrong, El?” he asked, his brow furrowing.

“I want you inside me, please.”

“Ah. Good. C’mon, then.”

She climbed off and turned towards him; he closed his legs so she could straddle him. She now saw that he was quite erect, and she knew she was more than adequately wet.

Balancing on her knees, still staying high, Ellie took his face in her hands and kissed him, softly and deeply.

“I love you, Alec Hardy,” she whispered.

“Love you, my Ellie,” he assured her in return. The tender smile on his lips was the one he reserved for her alone. 

She kissed him again and then lowered herself, guiding him in. She held still for a moment before placing her hands on his shoulders and descending a bit farther, making sure she'd accommodated all of him. 

"Feelin' good yet, Eleanor?" he asked once more, pushing himself into her more firmly, his hands on her hips for leverage. 

"Better all the time. Shhh."

Then Ellie closed her eyes and rode him, keeping it slow; she wanted this to last. She kissed him some more but stopped fairly soon, devoting all her attention to how it felt to be moving around him, with him filling her, perfectly, again and again.

Alec responded to her rhythm, not pressuring her but simply rocking into her, over and over, matching her leisurely speed—even though he was now panting.

There was time, she told herself. There was plenty of time.

Ellie had the oddest feeling, in fact, that time was a concept that no longer applied. There was no such thing as time. No children, no parents, no work, no pain, no problems. No yesterday. No tomorrow. Only an eternal now, consisting of the two of them, connected, moving as one. Joined, as they were meant to be.

In some dimension, some reality, they would always be in this bed together. Even long after they had left this place—even after they were mouldering beneath a shared granite stone in St Bede’s churchyard—Ellie Miller and Alec Hardy would still be here, bodies entwined. Moving, breathing, exquisitely balanced. Both knowing there was only now, forever. Only joy. Only love. Only this.

This.

This.

Chapter Text

Ellie had been waking up at 6 am for so many years that “sleeping in” was foreign concept. But she and Alec made an effort—staying in bed until nearly 8 and then wandering down to the hotel’s little restaurant for a pleasant breakfast of eggs benedict and strong coffee. A dual-purpose shower followed: cleansing plus shagging. The luxurious cubicle was tiled in navy blue, with two rain shower heads and fancy soap. Alec quipped that the dormered bathroom was the only spot in the loft that had enough overhead clearance for sex standing up. They made the most of it, emerging refreshed, relaxed, and sated.

“Bit ironic, innit?” asked Ellie as they dressed, both selecting jeans and light jumpers for the long drive home.

“What’s ironic?”

“It’s funny that this case should start in an attic and end with us in this one.”

“Aye. Bookends. Just don’t go findin’ anythin’ weird in the cupboards, El. I’m done investigatin’ weird things found in cupboards.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

The duo hit the road at half-ten, once again avoiding any discussion of Ivy Carlisle and Verity Smallwood—mainly due to sheer weariness regarding the subject. Emily had rung while they were at breakfast, telling them she could handle the media statement on her own, unless they were keen to drive to NCA Southampton this afternoon, or be looped in via video. The detectives declined. The boss always gave them due credit, even when they weren’t on screen, and they needed to get home.

Instead of talking about any of that, or about family matters, they mostly listened to music. Alec popped the Proclaimers’ newest album, Dentures Out, into the CD player of his venerable Prius, which they’d driven to Penzance instead of her sedan. They discussed the socio-political implications of the record, with Alec as usual more enthusiastic about the Reid brothers than Ellie. And then they listened to Best of The Kinks, which Ellie had slipped into her big bag the morning before; she’d been missing her mum. Her full-throated sing-along as the band launched into “You Really Got Me” made Alec snicker; she was off-key, but enthusiastic.

“Maybe stick to detectin’, Miller,” he advised. “I don’t think backup vocals are your callin’.”

“Oh, bollocks. You’ve been adequately fun in the past 12 hours. Don’t spoil it.”

“Fine.”

And then they both sang, vying to top each other in volume, making each other laugh. Ellie steered with one hand and tapped out a beat on the wheel with the other; Alec leant back into the seat, attempting an air guitar solo and making what he hoped were authentic guitar-shredding faces. Both of them were striving to eke out the last bits of happiness from their little working holiday, and pretending they wouldn’t have to deal with unpleasant responsibilities when they got home.

“Girl, you really got me now, you got me so I can’t sleep at night … you got me so I don’t know what I’m doing …  you really got me… you really got me… .”

By 2 pm they were back in Broadchurch, eating a late lunch of fish and chips on their favourite East Pier bench. The afternoon was beginning to be hot for mid-June, and Ellie felt a familiar flush creeping up her neck as they finished the meal. It pissed her off. She had been taking a variety of herbs, which she tried to convince herself were helping. Hormone replacement was looking better all the time.

“You want me to dunk you in the briny, Miller?” Alec asked. “Cool you down?” He was only half-joking.

"Wanker" was the only appropriate response, and Ellie made it. Then she rose and stripped off her cotton jumper, standing on the pier in her tank vest with arms extended, hoping for a breeze.

“Shockin’ public nudity,” he grinned.

“Yeah. You didn’t mind the nudity this morning, as I recall.”

Alec's grin widened. He removed his own jumper, revealing his plain grey tee. “I’ll join you. Just in solidarity.”

“Ta. I appreciate that.”

It was true; she did appreciate him. The Alec Hardy she’d first met, striding down the same beach that she could now see over his shoulder, would never have uncovered himself like this in public. Not for Ellie Miller. Not for anyone. But this Alec Hardy wasn’t him. Not exactly. This Alec Hardy was healthier in more ways than one. She hoped she’d had something to do with teaching him to play. Encouraging him to laugh more heartily, and more often—so much so that he’d learnt how to return the favour and jolly her up as needed. Or at least, to try.

Maybe it would help him live longer. She needed him to live forever.

“You’re a lovely man, you know it?” she said.

Alec flexed his biceps theatrically. “Aye. Pays for an officer of the law to keep himself fit, eh, Miller?”

“Lovely, but cheeky,” she amended. “And that’s not exactly what I meant. But full marks for effort.”

The loud ringing of Ellie’s mobile interrupted them. She dug it out of her jeans pocket.

“Oh, Lord,” she muttered. “It’s Auntie Bet.”

“Spectacular,” Alec said, sounding as though the prospect of a discussion with Bettina Cooper was anything but.

Ellie answered, still standing, using her patented “delighted to hear from you” voice.

“Auntie Bet! This is a nice surprise. Alec and I are having lunch on the pier; we’re just back from Penzance, wrapping up a big case. Luce is with Dad; she did an overnight. Everything all right in Exeter?”

“We’re fine. Put your husband on speaker. I want to talk with you both.”

Now suspicious, Ellie complied. “Okay. We’re both here.”

“The boys and I have been talking about your dad, Eleanor. It was a bit of a shock seeing him the other day. I’m so sorry this is happening to all of you.”

“Thanks. It’s awful, but we’ll do our best for him.”

“I know you will. That’s why I’m calling. As I said … your cousins and I have had some serious discussions over the weekend about this. Some soul-searching, I’d say.”

“I see,” Ellie said, even more suspicious but trying to hide it.

“I have this huge house. I have plenty of money. I’m in excellent health. I’m retired. At a loose end, frankly, a lot of the time. Ryan and George’s children are marvellous, of course, but they’re all teenagers now; not exactly wanting to spend a great deal of time with Granny. And Exeter’s a much bigger place than Broadchurch, or even Bridport. We have good medical services here. Alastair’s work as a paediatrician kept us connected with all of that. It’s a wonderful resource.”

“Yes?” Ellie asked.

“Yes. And what I’m getting at, is … I want you to consider having David move in with me. I’m a good deal younger than him. I could manage it well. And we do get on; there’s a lot of love beneath the surface. The boys are willing to support the arrangement. We’d obviously need outside help sometimes, but that won’t be an issue. And of course you and your sister and your kids could visit any time. It’s only a bit over an hour on the road. An easy drive.”

Ellie sat down, hard. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t this. She glanced at Alec, momentarily at a loss for words.

“Bettina, that’s a very generous offer,” he said. “We weren’t considerin’ that at all as a possibility. Comes as a bit of a surprise.”

“It’s not generous. It’s not meant to be altruistic. David is my brother. We’re all that’s left of our family. I need to know that he’s all right.”

“We’ll make sure he’s all right, Bet,” said Ellie. “We’re putting it all together for him. We don’t even have the official diagnosis yet. The assessment’s not until the end of next week.”

“I know that. And I’m not implying that the two of you, and Lucy, won’t do a fine job for your father. But you have so many other responsibilities. Your work. Your children. Isobel, especially; it can’t be easy, making sure she has all she needs. That’s only going to get harder as she grows. And you have a responsibility to each other, too. Whereas I….”

Bettina broke off, sounding wistful. They were all quiet for a moment. Ellie frowned at Alec, unsure what to say. He moved in, smoothly.

“It’s an interestin’ idea,” he said. “We’ll discuss it with Lucy. And of course we’re goin’ to have to talk it over with David. He’s goin’ to have some opinions.”

She laughed. “My brother always has opinions. You can’t be put off if he’s negative at first. Of course you’ll all have to discuss it. But believe me, this is going to be the best solution for him. And I’d be pleased to have him here. It’s my duty, as his sister.”

 “Thank you, Auntie Bet,” said Ellie. “And please thank Ryan and George for us, too. We’ll talk it over with Dad, and we’ll get back to you. Sometime in the next few days, I promise. We’re looking at several options for him.”

“Understood. Well, don’t let me keep you. If you’ve been out of town, I’m sure you’re eager to get home. Love you, Ellie.”

“You too. Thanks again.” She rang off, sliding the mobile back into her pocket and then staring out past the West Pier to the flat sea beyond.

“El?” Alec asked, when the silence stretched on a bit too long.

“I wasn’t expecting that.”

“No. Me neither. Well, you said you wanted a hero to ride in on a white horse. I’m thinkin’ Bettina might qualify.”

“Yeah. But—”

“But? She could do it. She makes a pretty strong case. It’s somethin’ to seriously consider.”

“Dad wouldn’t like it.”

Alec shrugged. “Your da doesn’t like a lot of things. I expect he could be persuaded.”

“Izzy won’t like it. Izzy will hate it.”

He leant forward, elbows on his knees, joining his wife in staring at the scenery. “You’re right. It’d break her heart. They’re symbiotic, those two.’

“Yeah.”

“But she’s resilient. And we could visit. He could come to us, too, sometimes. Stay a few days.”

“I know, my love. It all sounds good. It all makes sense. Only—”

“Only it doesn’t feel right,” he finished for her.

“Yeah. It feels like a cop-out.”

Alec straightened up and took her hand. “It wouldn’t be that, Ellie. Bettina is family. She’s right; she has some responsibility, too. And resources.”

“I know. I know. We’ll talk. Let’s just get home. I’m sweaty; I want to change. Let’s think about this overnight before saying anything to Dad. He’s supposed to visit that day centre in Weymouth on Thursday with Luce. I want us to think hard about everything. It’s still early days.”

“Aye. C’mon, then. Time to be gettin’ back to reality.”

Ellie smiled at him, rising and pulling him up. “What happened last night was reality, too. Let’s not forget that, please.”

He turned to her, gently smoothing her chaotic curls before kissing her forehead.

“Never could forget that, Miller. Never will. Let’s go home.”

***

They’d only been gone for an overnight, but Wednesday’s re-immersion in the morning routine felt like a rude jolt to Ellie.

The kids had stayed up later than usual the night before—Izzy clingy and needing extra attention, Fred working on an English essay that he complained was an unfairly difficult assignment so late in the term. Both of them were slightly out of sorts this morning, as they silently consumed cornflakes at the kitchen table. Alec had contented himself with a protein shake, and Ellie, for once, had joined him, while David had made himself some scrambled eggs. Apparently the man still remembered how to cook, though Alec had indeed shut off the gas to the hob in David’s flat, as requested.

“Mum, mum, guess what?” Izzy cried, as though she’d suddenly remembered something good.

“What, my love?”

“Miss Zoe had her baby. A boy! Alice said yesterday. I forgot.”

Ellie smiled, exchanging a glance with her spouse. She was fervently grateful that Zoe had got herself happily married to someone who wasn’t Alec Hardy.

“She’s old for a baby,” Fred remarked, finishing his cereal and taking the bowl to the dishwasher. “She must be 40 or something.”

Zoe Taylor Johnson was, in fact, closer to 45. Ellie was sincerely happy for her and Darren, though it made her wonder, fleetingly, if she and Alec could’ve managed a late pregnancy had Izzy not come along.

“Quite ancient,” Alec replied. “You think Zoe’s old, son, you must think your mum and I are at death’s door.”

“You’re not!” said Izzy. Given the child's history, any combination of the ideas “parent” and “death” was understandably frightening.

“No, no, lovey,” Ellie said. “Of course we’re not. We’re fine. Your dad’s being silly. Maybe Miss Zoe will visit the school before the end of term. Bring the baby to see all of you. Does he have a name, yet?”

“No. Maybe Fred. That’s a good name.”

Her brother grinned at her. “Thanks, Iz. I’m going to make sure I have everything packed for school, mum, okay?”

“Quite right,” Ellie said. “Go on.”

Silence descended once more after Fred left. Alec gave his wife a pointed look and cleared his throat. She took a breath.

“Auntie Bet called me yesterday, Dad.”

David kept eating his eggs, scrolling news stories per usual. “Yeah? What’d she want?”

“To talk about you. Stop looking at your mobile for a minute, please.”

Scowling, he stared at her across the table. “What’d she want, then?” he repeated.

“She’d like you to think about going to live with her. In Exeter.”

“She wants what?”

“Just talkin’ about possibilities, David,” Alec said, gently. “Thinkin’ about what might be best for you, goin’ forward.”

“Christ on a bike, Hardy. First you want to stick me in some ruddy old folks’ programme in ruddy Weymouth. Now you’re saying I ought to go live with Bets in Exeter. Why the hell would I want to live in Exeter?”

“Grandda said a swear,” Isobel observed.

“Nevermind, darlin’,” Alec told her. “Finish your breakfast.”

“She has a big house, Dad, and she cares about you,” Ellie continued. “She has money. She has time. She has … resources.”

“She has a bossy attitude, is what she has,” David retorted. “Always has, since she was a tyke. Jesus. Going to live in Exeter. For God’s sake.”

Izzy shoved her chair back—they'd put away her booster seat just last week—and she moved rapidly across the room. She clutched her grandfather’s arm, plainly alarmed.

“You live here. With us.”

“Tell your folks that, Iz. Since it looks like they’re tryin’ pretty hard to get rid of me.”

“Oh for…” said Ellie, throwing her hands in the air.

“You live here,” Isobel said again, tearing up.

“For now,” David growled. He removed her hand from his arm, got up, and left the room. The door to his flat slammed a moment later.

“He lives here,” Isobel said, clearly bewildered. “Doesn’t he?”

Alec went to her, lifting her up and then lowering himself into David’s chair and positioning her on his lap. “Darlin’, right now, he does. But your grandda—there’s a bit of trouble with his brain. With the way he’s thinkin’. It happens to some older people. He’s goin’ to need help, goin’ forward. He can’t stay alone anymore. You saw us workin’ in his flat over the weekend, makin’ things safer for him. We’re all tryin’ to work out what’s best for him, and for all of us.”

“My brain is different,” Izzy countered. “But I can live here.”

The topic of “brain” was a fairly recent development in the household. Increasingly, Isobel perceived that she was different from the other kids her age. The family strove daily to assure her that “different” did not mean “lesser.” That Isobel Mason Hardy-Miller was precious, irreplaceable, and much loved.

“Aye,” Alec sighed. “Your brain’s a little different. But it’s not quite the same situation, Iz.”

“Why not?” she asked, stubbornly. “He can’t go to Exe…thing. He lives with us.”

“We’ll see,” Ellie said, not wanting to make promises she couldn’t keep.

“Everythin’ will be all right,” Alec told his daughter. “Don’t fash yourself. Go get your school things; it’s time we were headin’ out.”

Sighing heavily, Izzy jumped down. She ran to put her bowl and juice glass in the dishwasher, then faced them defiantly.

“Grandda lives here,” she said again, before leaving the room, heading for the hallway where they’d left her book bag the night before.

“God,” Ellie murmured. It was almost a prayer.

“Yeah. You all right?”

She stood. “I have to be, don’t I? This is our life now. Someone has to be the grownup.”

“Aye. You’re definitely that.” But he stood, pretty sure they both needed a hug before launching into another day.

“You want—?” he began.

She was in his arms before he could finish the question.

***

Wednesday and Thursday were office days, with the detectives collaborating on a long report regarding the Carlisle affair; liaising with Hal Rice concerning the charges against Ronnie Magnuson; cleaning up the evidence board they’d made in Conference Room B; and beginning to seriously consider their next cold cases. They’d reviewed a number of the relevant files in the past before selecting others.

Ellie advocated for a young unidentified man whose body had been found in the Blackdown Hills in 2012, partially consumed by wild animals. Alec thought that they might look, instead, at the case of an unidentified female who’d washed up on the beach near Portsmouth in 2010, wearing only plain white knickers and a couple of delicate necklaces. 

“I thought we were goin’ to try findin’ an easy one, Miller,” Alec said as they sipped Thursday afternoon tea in her office, comparing notes. “A recent one. Neither of these looks particularly easy. Or recent.”

Ellie laughed. “We apparently don’t do easy ones, Hardy. Cases get cold because they’re not easy. That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”

“If you say so. We’ll need bigger bucks if your da has to go to a care home, in future. Or if Iz ends up needin’ a residential place. Or both.”

“Don’t start,” said Ellie, momentarily unable to bear any more difficult scenarios.

“Sorry.”

She sipped her Darjeeling, rather morosely, before continuing. “I wonder how Dad and Luce did in Weymouth today.”

The detectives had been pondering Bettina’s offer for the past few days, putting Lucy in the picture as well. None of them had a definite opinion as yet, though Lucy seemed somewhat inclined to let Bettina take over. David, on the other hand, absolutely refused to discuss the possibility.

“I’m sure your da will tell us tonight in no uncertain terms what he thought of that day programme, El,” Alec sighed. “Though I liked it. The people usin’ it seemed happy enough.”

“Yeah.”

Ellie, too, had been surprisingly impressed by the dementia-oriented day services at Senior Care Wessex: a bright, airy facility in a converted primary school. It seemed clean, decently well-staffed, and cheerful, with plenty of activities on offer besides telly, and a large back garden where some of the residents had been working when they visited.

“He’ll probably hate it,” Alec said. “He hates everythin’.”

Ellie laughed. “No doubt. Well, we’ll see.”

In the event, David was relatively quiet that evening, responding to questions with only brief answers and picking at the kebabs they’d brought home for dinner. He retreated to his flat soon thereafter, and Ellie—feeling fatigue that was more emotional than physical—also retired early after making sure the kids had finished their homework, completed their nighttime routines, and been properly tucked in.

Alec, restless, tried to concentrate on a true-crime programme in the lounge—some sensational case in the States, regarding a serial killer who cannibalised his victims. But he gave up on it by 10 pm. Intending to read a book in the bedroom, he noticed a shaft of golden light streaming into the back hallway from beneath the door to the "granny annexe." Usually his father-in-law was religious about dousing the lights at night.

He knocked. “David? You all right in there?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

The flatness in Barrett’s voice was worrisome. “Mind if I come in?”

“Suit yourself. It’s not locked. Can’t do that now anyway, can I? Not since you messed with it. Put that bloody thing on it.”

Ignoring the comment about the door alarm—which the man himself had asked them to install—Alec went in. The combination living room and kitchen was lit at the moment by a single table lamp, making for dim surroundings. David was still dressed and sitting on the sofa, but the telly wasn’t on, which was atypical.

“Beer’s in the fridge,” he told Alec. There were two bottles on the coffee table: one empty, one nearly so. Alec thought he and Ellie might have to start policing the alcohol more closely, if the man ended up on one of those Alzheimer’s drugs he’d been reading about.

“No thanks. Mind if I sit for a minute? El’s gone to bed, but I’m not sleepy.”

David grinned. “Always were a bit of an insomniac, weren’t you?”

“Aye.”

“Me, too.”

Alec sat at the other end of the sofa, sending Ellie a quick text; he knew she’d have heard the door alarm in the bedroom and would worry. He thought the older man might talk if he was patient enough. He didn’t want to push, but something was clearly on David’s mind.

“That place today,” David began, and then he stopped.

“Aye?” asked Alec, noncommittally.

“Didn't hate it.”

“No?”

“Bit of a garden. Food was all right.”

Coming from David Barrett, this was high praise.

"That's always a plus,” Alec said.

David picked up the mostly empty beer bottle and drained it, then gestured at Alec with it.

“Lots of women.”

Alec snorted. This was the last comment he’d expected from his father-in-law.

“I’d imagine there’s a pretty high ratio of females to males,” he ventured. “Given the age cohort.”

“Yeah. None of them pretty as Peg. But still.”

David put the bottle down, sighing.

“What the fuck?” he asked, sounding utterly bemused.

Alec wasn’t sure of the context of that remark, though he had some ideas.

“Weird situation?” he offered.

“Yeah. The whole thing. You never think you’re going to. And then.”

“Aye. I’m sorry.”

David turned to him, his eyes full of tears. “Ah, well.”

Alec had never seen the man like this, with all the fight knocked out of him. He much preferred the cantankerous version.

He reached over to place a comforting hand on his father-in-law’s shoulder. “You’re goin’ to be all right. We’re goin’ to make sure of it, El and Luce and I. Your sister, too. Everyone. It’s a shite situation, but we’re goin’ to make it the best we can for you.”

Alec realised that he’d told David the same thing not too many days ago. He knew he’d probably need to say the same thing often, going forward.

David was crying silently, now, looking uncannily like Ellie when she wept. Alec scooted closer, extending his whole arm around the man’s shoulders, as he would for his wife if she were upset, or one of his children. The old man curled over, burying his face in his hands; three hard, jerking sobs followed. But then he stopped and straightened up, sniffling and shaking off Alec’s arm.

“Thanks, son,” he said. “Enough of that. Sorry. I’m going to bed now.”

They both stood. Alec groped for an appropriate parting reassurance. Ellie appeared at the door, wearing an oversized Hibs football tee that she'd cadged from Alec, yawning.

“Thought I’d better check on you two. What’s going on?”

“I texted you,” Alec said.

“Yeah, I know. Thought I’d check anyway.”

David crossed to her, rubbing his eyes, and he gave her a quick hug. “We’re fine, Eleanor. Go back to bed. That’s where I’m going. Night, Hardy.”

He turned and disappeared into his bedroom.

Puzzled, Ellie gazed up at her husband. “Well?”

“You heard the man. We’re fine. C’mon. Bed.”

***

The detectives were deep into a Doctor Who episode on Friday night after getting the kids tucked away—the one where the Twelfth Doctor gets stuck in an ever-shrinking TARDIS, which Ellie thought might be a metaphor for something she couldn’t quite articulate. They were tired, having taken the afternoon off to tidy the house; Tom had called that morning with the surprising news that he was coming home for the weekend with a girl he wanted them to meet. David, as usual for a Friday night, was at the King’s Arms.

A pounding on the door startled them at half-nine, and Alec paused the programme. Men’s voices were drifting in from the front porch.

“What the hell?” Alec asked, and they both went to see. It was far too early for David to come home.

Nevertheless, when Ellie opened the door, her dad was there, backed up by half a dozen familiar faces: Ken, Chris, Robbie, Frank, Terry, Jack. All David’s mates from the pub, whom Ellie had known for years.

“Hey ho, Eleanor,” her father greeted her cheerily, sauntering in. He seemed slightly lubricated, but not completely lashed.

“Brought you some company,” he added, headed for the lounge. The other men lingered outside, with Kenny Stroud in front.

“Ummm, please come through,” Ellie invited them, a bit baffled.

One by one they streamed in, following David into the small room, grouping up behind the sofa or leaning against the walls. Ellie and Alec joined them; he clicked off the telly.

“Alright, Ellie?” Kenny asked.

“Fine. What’s brought the lot of you out this evening? You’re usually fixated on snooker at this hour.”

Chris Mullins, a wiry, ginger-haired man in his mid-60s who had been ferrying David back and forth from the pub on Fridays, piped up. “We wanted to talk to you. If you have a minute. You and your man.”

“Aye,” said Alec. “Of course.”

Not sure what his obligation as a host for this impromptu gathering might be, he added, “Any of you need water? Beer?”

“Nah,” Kenny said. “Just need to talk a bit.”

“Fine,” Ellie said. “Go on, please. Is something wrong?”

Shifting on his feet, Ken cleared his throat and then spoke, gesturing at the men surrounding him. “We’ve been talking, all of us. Thinking how we can help this big numpty.”

He indicated David with his chin. The man looked up from the sofa, grinning. “You’re the numpty,” he muttered, but their mutual affection was palpable.

“Righto,” Kenny replied. “We’re all numpties.”

“Speak for yourself, mate,” Frank Doyle commented.

“Shh,” Ken admonished him. “Let me get this out.”

“Sorry,” said Frank.

“So,” said Ken, addressing Ellie and Alec once more. “We’ve been thinking, all of us. And we know you’re working on finding ways to keep Dave safe, during the weekdays. He told us about that Weymouth place. And that you’re working at home, some, and Lucy’s helping. And—we all of us are retired, Ellie. Spending a lot of time just puttering, most of us.”

“Yes?” said Ellie, unsure of where this was going.

Jack Browne got right to the point. “We want to help. We can come, days. You can make a schedule. We’re all willing to spend a couple days a month with your dad. Keeping him out of trouble. As much as humanly possible.”

David chuckled. “Good luck to you, mate.”

“Right, right,” Ken chimed in. “What Jackie says. There are six of us, and we’re each willing to take two days a month, if you need us. That’d cover 12 days for you. That’d help, wouldn’t it? Twelve days?”

“Oh, my God,” Ellie whispered, sinking into the armchair, tears immediately forming. She had in no way expected such an outpouring of support from these men.

Alec took over, observing her momentary speechlessness. “Aye, that’d help tremendously, Ken. That’s incredibly kind of all of you.”

“It’s not.” Robbie Bradley, his blue eyes piercing, was matter-of-fact. “We’re not especially kind. It’s only right. We’re mates. That means something. He’d do the same for us, if he could.”

“Know it’d be a bit of an organisational chore,” said Chris. “You could make us an online site, or something, and we could fill in our days. We’re all online all the time. Despite our highly advanced ages.”

Terry Tyler laughed. “We’re bloody internet addicts, is what we are. Just like everyone else. But you can do us up a rota on paper if you want. Whatever works for you. We want it to be easy.”

Recovering her voice, Ellie said, “You’re lovely. All of you. If you’re truly serious? This would give us some options.”

“I could still do that Weymouth thing sometimes,” David broke in, surprising her.

Laughing, Frank said, “Yeah, mate, what you want is a chance to chat up the ladies over there. Hardly any women down at the King’s. That place in Weymouth is a whole new field of exploration.”

“Ah, shut up,” David replied, but he was smiling.

Having finished what they’d come to say, the group began shifting awkwardly. “Well, just let us know, once you’ve worked out how you want to handle this,” Kenny said. “We’ll be ready. I’ll email you some stuff. Everyone else’s contact information, and things this lot have told me about other commitments. And we’ll get started.”

“Thank you,” Ellie whispered, still feeling weepy and quite overwhelmed. “Thank you so much, Kenny. Thanks to all of you,” she added, looking up at each of them, in turn.

A chorus of “you’re welcomes” and “no problems,” ensued, and the men moved towards the front door. David and Alec followed them onto the porch, seeing them off.

“You’re not goin’ back to the pub with them?” Alec asked his father-in-law.

“Nah. Tired. Bit peckish. What’d you have for tea?” He had left for the King’s before they’d eaten dinner.

“Pizza.”

“Any left?”

“Some.”

“Good.”

They went back inside, and David stuck his head into the lounge, where Ellie was still sitting in the armchair, gobsmacked.

“Chin up, Eleanor,” he advised her before heading for the kitchen. Alec didn’t follow, instead going to sit on the sofa across from his wife.

“Quite a surprise,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“It’d be a bit of an organisational challenge,” he observed.

“It would. But there are apps for scheduling. Luce could probably coordinate; she's good at that. If they’re all willing to log in, and Callie? We could make it work.”

“We could. Between them, and Callie, and us and your sister workin’ from home, sometimes, and—”

“And Weymouth. I really think that place would be good for him, Alec. At least once a week. Worth the drive.”

“Aye. He’s apparently a bit chuffed about Weymouth. And there’s Marla, too, when we need her. Probably ought to keep her once a week just to make sure she stays available. She's good at cleanin' up the house, not just babysittin'.”

“Right. Right. God, Alec, it’s so lovely, them being willing. They must really care for him.”

Alec chuckled. “Well, your da is somewhat lovable. Under that crusty veneer.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “You know this means we won’t need Auntie Bet.”

"You sure, Ellie?" he asked, his eyes demanding the truth, the way they did in the interview room. "Think hard about this. Lucy's leanin' towards lettin' him go. It'd be easier. Simpler."

Ellie was quiet for a moment. Her husband was correct, of course. It'd be simpler to send her dad to live with Bettina. Less labour, less stress, less worry. More freedom.

Then, she said, "Easier isn't always right. Luce is thinking about needing time to be with Gavin, and I understand that. But she also told me yesterday that you and I ought to decide, since he's lived with us for so long. And Auntie Bet's getting older, too. I know she loves Dad, but I wonder if she's not just looking for a project. She's always been a great one for projects."

"I can see how she'd be the type, aye."

Taking a deep breath, hoping she was doing the right thing, Ellie concluded, "He's staying with us, Alec."

His warm smile was a reassuring balm. “Your da will definitely be happier here. Broadchurch has always been his home. And Izzy would’ve missed him desperately. But Bettina could still be helpful. She’ll be willin’ to do weekends, sometimes. Overnights. Whole weeks occasionally, I expect. We’re goin’ to need that, Ellie. I’m not willin’ to do without that. We need time alone with the kids. We need time alone with each other.”

“Yeah. Quite right. And things could change. The time could come when he'd be better off with Auntie Bet. Or at a care home.”

“We’ll just have to stay flexible," he agreed. "But still … all these volunteers. It's good news.”

“It's wonderful news, sweetheart.”

She got up. “Where’d Dad go? Sorry, I was so freaked out I lost track.”

“He went to the kitchen. Lookin’ for leftover pizza.”

“Oh, Lord. I’d better supervise. He’ll be into the ice cream next.”

“Aye.”

They stared at each other: two minds with but a single thought.

“You want ice cream, El?”

“God, yes. I want a massive amount of ice cream. Preferably chocolate.”

They headed for the kitchen. Ice cream was never a bad idea. Preferably chocolate.

***

The inlet walk was always restorative—starting at the St Bede’s churchyard and passing the little boats in the mud at low tide, pausing to look across the river at Alec’s old blue cottage (where there was usually some nostalgic talk and a bit of a snog), and then back to the churchyard. It generally took an hour, all told, though Alec and Ellie had done it in as few as 45 minutes and had sometimes dawdled enough that it took 90.

This Sunday afternoon was cloudy and misty, but the detectives couldn’t resist the opportunity for a little decompression time, with David and the younger kids overseen by Tom and his new girlfriend. The pair wouldn’t head back to London until Monday morning.

“What do you think of Samara?” Ellie asked as they set out on the deserted path. She’d been highly impressed thus far by the young Afro-Caribbean woman, whom Tom had met at a professional association social event for software developers. Samara Aristede was as bubbly as Tom was reserved, responding easily to their questions about her life and work. Miraculously, she seemed equally comfortable interacting with the kids and making small talk with David.

“She seems nice,” said Alec. “Obviously intelligent. Tom must be smitten, wantin’ to bring her home when they haven’t been seein’ each other that long.”

“Well, she said he’d been at her parents’ home for dinner multiple times. Maybe he thought he ought to reciprocate. She obviously enjoyed your pasta primavera last night.”

“Aye. The lass clearly has good taste.”

Ellie laughed. “I just want him to be happy. He’s been so solitary for so long. I think it’s hard for him to trust people because of Joe. I do wonder what he and Olly get themselves up to in London, sometimes.”

“Best not to spend too much time thinkin’ about Oliver’s exploits and his romantic revolvin’ door. That way lies madness.”

“Fair point.”

They walked for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet, hearing only the cry of the gulls and the crunch of their shoes on the gravel path.

“It’ll be fun to have Daisy and Siobhan here next month for Chloe’s wedding,” Ellie began again. “I like her, too.”

They’d met Daisy’s current girlfriend—raven-haired Siobhan Hannigan, a Dubliner with a wicked sense of humour—over the Easter holiday, though Daisy continued to imply that it wasn’t a particularly serious relationship. Coming off her ex-boss’s attempted sexual assault, Daisy had told them several times in the past few months that she wasn’t looking for anything serious at the moment.

“The Latimers must be buzzin' by now,” said Alec. “Can’t imagine supervisin’ such a do. Not envyin’ Paul and Holly, either, havin’ to plan theirs.”

Paul Coates had requested that they reserve the last Saturday in October; he and Holly had set the date for a small church wedding in Bristol.

“We’ve done it before, you twat,” said Ellie. “We had a wedding, as I recall.”

“Eh. You did all the work. I just paid the bills.”

She smacked him lightly on the shoulder. “Whatever. It was wonderful, wasn’t it? The caterer and that posh barbecue and the pretty marquee, and Tom’s little speech, and that silly poem that Beth and Daisy wrote. And Paul’s lovely sermon. I’ll never forget it.”

He draped his arm over her shoulders, matching her stride. “I’ll never forget how you looked.”

Ellie smiled. “Like a goddess in orange silk?”

“Like someone who loved me.”

She halted in her tracks, moved by the plaintive note in his voice. “Because that’s who I am, darling boy. Someone who loves you.”

“Good. Don’t ever stop.”

“Not possible.”

He kissed her, then, and he held her for a moment before they went on. They didn’t talk again until they reached the bench at the end of the path. Both of them sat by unspoken agreement, looking out across the river to his little blue cottage. A cool, damp breeze ruffled their hair, stirring ripples in the still water.

“Helluva case, wasn’t it, Miller?” Alec mused. “Weird one.”

“Yeah. Not that satisfying. Rather sad, in the end. I’m with you: Let’s find one next time where we can arrest some nasty little shit who thinks he’s above the law.”

“At least Violet Patterson got some closure over the whole business, and Verity’s no longer luggin’ a big secret around, and poor Ivy Carlisle’s not dryin’ out in that attic anymore,” he replied.

“Nope. She’ll be resting in Neill Cranmer’s lab for the foreseeable future, I guess.”

Amanda Allen, the medical examiner in Taunton, had emailed them on Friday, informing them that the forensic anthropologist had somehow come up with the funds to have Ivy’s body studied by his team at the University of Liverpool. Her niece had donated the remains for scientific research.

“Seems fitting,” Ellie continued. “She’ll be serving some productive purpose, at any rate.”

“Aye. Poor woman. Reapin’ the results of her unpleasant behaviour to the people around her. So when she needed family and friends, all there was, was Verity.”

“Yeah. Quite right. So you be nice to people, Hardy.”

He chuckled. “I'm always nice, Miller. At least your da’s got good support. Things could be worse. For him, and for us. I’m not sayin’ it’s a great situation, but still.”

“I know. It could be so much worse. We have a plan, now, no matter how the assessment comes out next week.”

“Yeah. Thank God.”

She leant over, her elbows on her thighs, hands folded, head bent. Staring at the ground. “You know it's going to get worse. It's going to get a lot worse.”

“I know, El. One day at a time.”

“Nice platitude.”

“I try.”

Alec scooted closer, his expression pensive.

“What's on your mind?” she asked, sensing that he wanted to say something more.

“All that weddin’ talk, I guess. You took somethin’ on, Ellie, marryin’ me. Because this thing…”

He tapped the centre of his chest, shrugging.

“Oh, Alec,” she sighed. “Really? Let's not.”

“Sorry. It’s just … I’m prayin’ I can stay well for you and the kids. Hopin’ you’re not goin’ to end up with two sick old men on your hands. It’d be catastrophic. I was selfish, marryin’ you. Knew it when I did it.”

She rose, walking away from the bench, jamming her hands into the pockets of her beloved orange jacket, gazing out over the river at the little blue cottage where she’d once failed to hug him. Where she had refused to let herself love him the way her heart had been prompting her to love him, even then.

Turning back, her eyes blazing, she said, “I was selfish marrying you, if it comes to that. I had one mouthy teenager who was traumatised and one confused little boy who was missing his father. I had major trust issues. I had Dad on my hands already. Joe was floating around out there; who knew what he might do? You took all of that on. And now Dad has dementia, and my grandfather had the same. And my mum died of cancer. I could end up sick, too. No one has a crystal ball. Not even you, Mr NDE. It’s pointless to think this way.”

Alec stood and joined her, and they watched the white gulls and the grey clouds and the dark water, shoulder-to-shoulder.

“You’re right. Sorry for bein’ broody. Must be the weather.”

“It's okay, sweetheart. You're just being a Scot. It's in your DNA.”

He laughed a little, but then he took her hand. The pensive expression was back.

“It’s a risk, is all,” he said. “Lovin’ someone. Knowin’ bad things could happen.”

“Yeah. It is. I was afraid to love you for a long time, after Joe. But it’s a worse risk not doing it.”

“Aye.”

Ellie raised their clasped hands to her lips, kissing his fingers and then letting him go. “One day at a time, Hardy. Like you said. That’s all we have. That’s all anyone gets.”

He put his arm around her once more, pulling her close. “We already have more than most people get.”

“We do. And I’ll never regret one second of it. No matter how it ends. And we’d better head back before you make me cry. Because I’m sick to death of crying.”

“Noted.”

Alec kissed the top of her head and released her, and they turned towards St Bede’s, moving down the path in silence once more. The ancient church’s Gothic tower was visible in the distance, its crenellations silhouetted by rays of sunlight that were breaking through the overcast.

They had each other, and their family, and their friends, and their work, and this beautiful harbour town where they’d built a meaningful life together, against all odds.

It was enough, thought Ellie, looking up at her husband’s scruffy, handsome profile as they walked side-by-side. Today was enough.

More than.