A/N: I was curious about what Ellie might say if she gave an interview, so I had fun writing a feature Heart on Her Sleeve. Then I started wondering how the interview might have come about—and how it might have affected Ellie and Beth.

This story is the result.

(To read the actual article, go to bluelamia (at tumblr) and click on 'articlefic'. Because of the way the article is laid out, I can't post it here :)

June 15, 2014

Ellie knew what he was after with the first rasp of his familiar, cigarette-scorched voice. Her stomach knotted and rolled, and she cast about for an aisle to duck down.

Bit hard in the frozen food section.

'Ellie! Got a minute?'

She used to return phone messages. These days she ignored the impulses telling her not to return them was impolite. Clearly five unreturned calls hadn't been enough to send him a message.

Pat Jones pulled his trolley to a stop. 'You're a worry, you.'

Her lips compressed into a thin smile. Where were all these so-called concerned friends a few months back? She schooled her face not to betray the uncharitable thought. She never used to do that—hide what she was thinking.

Have uncharitable thoughts.

Mind you, she had also never known she was so readable. Not that her actual thoughts mattered. People read what they wanted and her story was a bestseller straight off the horror shelves.

She forced herself to look at Pat. It wasn't fair to say her friends had disappeared. She'd made herself difficult to find. She had to own that.

'Still here, Pat. Still hanging in there.'

'Do your worst, eh, world?'

Pat's wiry salt and pepper eyebrows sprouted over his grandfather glasses and a smile Ellie remembered well from her earliest policing days beamed down on her.

She used to enjoy their regular chats over cups of tea—back when she was a young constable assigned to the weekly media roundup and he was the Echo's shabby, old-school hack on the police beat. They'd shared a laugh until policy changes and newly appointed communications managers strangled the flow of information and goodwill between their workplaces.

The good old days were long gone. Pat had retired from the paper, got bored, and thrown an unexpected windfall into his own hobby magazine. Ellie had risen the ranks until ….

With nothing to say, Ellie gave another pinched smiled. That was the only effort she was prepared to make in this conversation.

'No-one's got a quote out of you yet.'

Here it came.

'Pat—' She gripped the bar on her trolley.

'Can't blame me for trying.'

Ellie sighed and nodded. At least he was straight up about it. She nudged her shopping cart, cursing a stubborn caster which jammed when she tried to push off.

'If you change your mind ...'

'I won't,' she said quickly.

She lost any hope she could shake him when he lined his trolley up with hers. His was running high on booze and deli bar foods. The enticing aroma of hot roast chicken wafted up her nostrils. Her own trolley held less promise of excitement: nappies for Fred, bread, milk, a token broccoli and—she paused to fish about in the chiller—those processed chicken nuggets Tom said he liked.

'Look, I know the idea sounds daunting, but we're not all fiends. And not all press has to be negative. We're not all out to paint you as bad as Mata Hari. I reckon most people know that's not the truth.'

For a second, sound screeched in her ears and her heart pounded against her chest. Myra Hindley? But he hadn't said that. Cruelty and bad taste weren't his style. It was her brain which supplied that name.

She spoke to cover her pain. 'I said everything that matters. On oath. Not that it counted for anything.' She tasted her bitterness. 'Talking—or not talking—can't change a thing.'

Her hands squeezed tighter. She supposed she should appreciate his offer, but the notion of spin—whatever way it went—offended her. Why did things need a slant? Why couldn't the facts (just the facts, mind you)—laid out in sequence—be enough. Then people could make up their own minds.

Pat put his hand on the rim of her trolley, his bespectacled face earnest. 'It might be an important thing to do for yourself.'

'You would say that.'

'It's not going away, Ellie.'

A shopper digging through packets of stir fry dropped her head when Ellie looked at her. The woman's stare had lasted a fraction too long to be a casual glance. Ellie recognised her as the wife of an accountant done for drink-driving a year and a half before.

Everyone had a story.

Pat went on. 'It might drop off the boil, but it's always going to be there. There are people need to hear you.'

She rounded on him. 'Why? What do I owe anyone?'

His hands went up. 'I didn't mean it that way.'

'Well, what way did you mean it?'

'Ellie, some people'd be okay taking the silent track. They're the ones who can lock themselves away. They don't care. I can't see you doing that.'

'Yeah, well, it's not just me I have to think of. Tom and Fred have to live in this town. They didn't ask for any of this.'

'Love, worst things have happened to Tom already than his mum giving an interview in a magazine.'

Ellie jiggled the trolley to loosen the sticky caster. When it freed itself unexpectedly she staggered forward a step. Pete's hand went out again to steady her.

'Let us do it. We're small, we're independent. Kate can do it—she's been dying for something to do justice to.'

'Kate?'

'Kate. My wife?'

'Your—'

'Sh*t. Of course, you wouldn't know. Six months ago. Met her—well, tripped over her to be more precise—on the deck of a cruise ship. Two weeks later—whoosh—didn't see that coming.'

Ellie took in the crisp edges of his pressed shirt and the goofy smile he still had on—signs she would have once seized on in an instant. Old Pat thought nothing of turning up at the station in crumpled blazer and mismatched tie. She wondered what kind of miracle worker had forced him to spruce up his image. At least his wonky combover hadn't been ironed out.

'That's lovely—congratulations, Pete.' This time her smile was genuine, but she felt her own failure. When had she stopped looking at people? Taking things in? Was it when they started looking too closely back at her?

'Right. Yes. Kate freelances.'

'For you?'

'Not exactly. The old Wessex L grumbles a bit at her rates—but I'll make an exception for this.'

'I don't—'

'You won't be able to keep it in forever, Ell. Everyone cracks in the end.'

Hardy's face popped into her mind. Next to Olly's byline.

'The trick is to not to crack in front of the wrong bastard. Kate's not a fool—she won't let you get away with rubbish, but she'll give you a fair hearing.'

A fair hearing. That made it sound like another round of judgement. Ellie felt her temper rouse again. She didn't need anymore of that in her life.

But before she could open her mouth, the image of Joe in the dock sprang into her mind.

He got a fair hearing. God knows, more than fair. She felt the familiar heat of tears kindling in her eyes. Her breathing would go haywire if she couldn't control herself. The shallowness was already starting in her chest.

She really didn't need this. She'd thought she was past this stage.

She had begun to move from that somnolent catatonia that marked her days in Devon. During the trial she was functional—until, suddenly and at last, a flicked switch had woken her up.

Anger (the healthy kind—not Beth's blind rage—her therapist assured her) still stoked her during the day, but she did a good job of parcelling it up until she needed it.

The last thing she needed here, in the supermarket, was a reminder that her sleep was still a butchered wasteland and that as strong as she had grown, tears still came far too easily.

But the chance to be judged—fairly. Maybe she secretly craved it? Because a just verdict would find her innocent.

Pat must have sensed her resolve weakening. 'Kate'd do the job properly.'

'Can't you do it?' Her voice was small.

'Kate's the one you want, Ell.'

'But you know—'

'And Kate doesn't. She's new to Dorset. She'll bring a degree of impartiality.'

'I don't know—'

'Character piece. You'll be fine.'

'Maggie's been so good to me ...'

'Maggie will understand. If she gets Olly to beg nicely, the Echo—and only the Echo—can reprint it. Paper only. Digital won't be in the deal. Bastards'll just do a write-off anyway—but let's makes 'em work for it.'

'I don't know, Pat. If I talk to you, I don't want a thousand calls from people expecting more.'

'You know what they say, Ell. Today's news is tomorrow's fish 'n chip paper.' He squeezed her hand. 'Do it on your terms. Sod the rest. They'll soon find something new to distract them.'

'Could I see it first?'

'Ellie,' he chided, 'let's do this the way that preserves everyone's integrity.'

June 18, 2014

'I did it. I spoke to them.'

Ellie hesitated on the doorstep.

Beth willed herself not to bristle. It was hard but she had to fight this possessiveness. The feeling that Danny was her story and hers alone to tell. That she alone was the gatekeeper to the truth of his death.

She clutched for an appropriate response. Ellie's dark eyes were fixed on her. Friendship was no longer something either of them could afford to take for granted.

'And?' Beth said at last, drawing her cardigan across her front. 'Are you coming in?'

She padded back to the kitchen and the baby bottles she was sterilising, hearing Ellie rustle behind her. It would be nice when summer reappeared. Beth was sick of needing extra layers to go outside.

'Comes out Friday,' Beth heard Ellie say. 'Pat says he won't run off additional copies—says he's not doing it for the sales—then they'll let the Echo reprint it in that Saturday extra thing they do.'

God, what should she say? Beth struggled with her inadequacy. 'How you feeling?'

'Like this weekend'd be a good one to take the kids on holiday.' There was no hint of laughter in Ellie's voice.

'Ell—'

'I don't remember what I said. My mind's gone blank. God, Beth, what if I've made a mistake? Said something—'

Beth understood the fear. She'd witnessed events spiral beyond control after that first interview with Karen White. She remembered Jack Marshall. She knew a flippant 'what could go wrong' was tempting fate.

'What if I've made it worse somehow?'

Beth could have laughed. Your husband murdered my son—it doesn't get worse. There was no malice in the thought. Only a desire to comfort with honesty. But that might be too brutal.

'Listen. You and me—we've both been to hell and back—it didn't get us then and it won't get us now.'

She meant her words to bolster Ellie. To assure her. That's what people did, didn't they? But there was no lessening in the pain on Ellie's face.

'There's so much I don't remember.' Lingering on the threshold of the dining room, half in, half out, Ellie drooped in dejection.

Making a snap decision, Beth crossed the room and scooped Ellie into a hug, feeling her friend flinch and then sag.

Beth stared down the hallway as she held Ellie close. 'It's usually you looking after me.'

Her rage had been a storm which had blown itself out during the trial. Blown until one day when Beth had entered the courtroom to hear the end of Mark's testimony, she had looked at Ellie and felt ... stillness.

Of course, Mark had become the new object of her anger—only—even that seemed pointless. At long last Beth knew all her energy to hate was gone. Burned out of her. She had no native fuel left to sustain it.

That night she had dreamt she was walking down her hallway. Nothing new in that. She'd been wandering the house in her dreams for months. The doors were never in the right place. Some were locked. Others were so narrow only a wafer would squeeze through. Periodically she came across one door with a handle glowing red—and if she touched it she woke with fingernail marks embedded in her palms.

But that night the house was back to normal. Except now the glow of the red handle was fading.

It was time to go through that door. She owed Ellie that much.

'Did you talk about where you went, Ell?'

Under her arms, Ellie stiffened. 'It doesn't matter.'

'I think it does.'

'No, really. Best left alone.'

The coward in Beth felt like agreeing. The topic was clearly unpleasant for Ellie. It would be cruel to make her relive it. But Beth would not be a coward.

'You were working in Devon. You said that. Did you move there then?'

Ellie extracted herself from Beth's hold. 'Me and Fred did. Couldn't go far. Tom might've needed me.'

Beth found herself confronted by the blank spaces of Ellie's life.

What was she doing the day—the hour—they buried Danny? Where had she been the night they lit the beacons? Did she know Tom was leaving when he said goodbye?

Beth shook off the momentary sadness. Tom was still alive to hug.

'Lucy called every night. Telling me what he needed. What he was doing.'

Keep her talking, Beth thought. 'Did the police put you up?'

'They helped me find a place to stay. Something small I could afford, easy to heat.' Ellie gulped down a laugh. 'Fred took his first real steps there. Three steps and he'd be across the room. Saved me having to run round after him.'

Beth felt herself mirror Ellie's joyless smile.

Her own home was nothing special. A normal family home. Two stories, four bedrooms. Open plan kitchen. A place to hang pictures, photos, the kids' artwork. Keepsakes built up over a lifetime.

If she lost it all tomorrow, she'd live—Danny's death had taught her that. But his death had also taught her the pain of losing irreplaceable things.

She could live without her house and the things in it, but how strange—how disorientating—to find it all suddenly gone. Winked out of existence. Leaving her in a space as empty as a blank page.

In some ways it might have been best to lose everything. Lose Mark, lose Chloe. Lose the house. Lose familiar things and the need to care about them.

Then perhaps she could pretend life with her family had simply been a dream.

With no home to go back to, perhaps if it had all seemed a dream, the pain would have hurt less.

Beth was flooded with sudden jealousy. Ellie had had the freedom of escape. It hadn't harmed her, had it?

'And Hardy? Your mates from work?'

'It doesn't work that way.'

Prickles ran up Beth's skin. It wasn't like Ellie to be evasive.

'I wasn't up to much. Seeing people. Fred and I made it a nice little home for the two of us.' Ellie looked up. 'Beth, I'm sorry about you mum. I wanted to ...'

It hit Beth. She'd never hear the full story. Not with Ellie shielding her. Deflecting her—from what?

She swallowed.

Misery.

A blast of cold air rushed in the front door and down the passageway to the tiny kitchen in the Dorchester flat.

'That you, love?' Pat turned down the gas on his saucepan. He'd never hear the end of it if he let the water boil off the peas again.

Kate pegged her coat at the door, then beelined to the living room and its sideboard. When she turned to face him, tumbler in hand, he raised an eyebrow.

'So. What do you think?'

She drained the drink before replying. 'You've known her for how long?'

'Gone two decades maybe. Why?'

'And she's been straight up with you all that time?'

'As good as they come. Every force has got one—one decent cop worth talking to.'

Kate stared at him before pouring herself another drink. 'You don't think it's all just a big act?'

Pat felt a shiver of cold. He liked Ellie, but Kate had a knack for getting into her subjects' heads. He'd assumed Ellie's infamous undoing in the box had been because of the stress and impossibility of her situation. It never occurred to him that she might have had something to hide. But if Kate had come away with doubts ...

'What did she tell you?'

Kate swirled the liquid in her glass. 'It's not what she said. It's what she didn't.'

'Did she not play ball?'

'No, she answered my questions.'

'So ...?'

Kate gave him a smirk. 'Wait and read. Ummm—something smells good. Pasta sauce?' She brushed past him on her way to the kitchen, stealing a quick kiss. She could be so maddening.

Pat took another stab at getting more out of her. 'What about all that nonsense over an affair?'

Kate paused over the stove, lifting the lid on a pot with her free hand and testing the air with a judgmental sniff. 'You can see why the defence would go there—'

Pat's jaw dropped. 'No ...'

'I don't think she's lying.'

'But?'

Kate shrugged. 'Just a vibe. Did you have any luck tracking Joe Miller down?'

Pat made a face. 'Hit a dead end with that. We'll keep at it.'

'We're not stinting on this.' Her eyes flashed a sudden warning. 'You promised me free rein.'

'Can I ask you something?' Beth put the cup of tea in front of Ellie, who smiled her gratitude.

'Anything.'

Beth hated the eagerness to please on Ellie's face. 'When they said you were having an affair—'

'Which I wasn't!'

Beth's mouth quirked. 'You get so defensive.'

'Sorry.'

'I'm the one who shou—'

'Don't. Please, Beth.'

They fell silent until Beth pressed on. 'Didn't you think—'

Ellie's curls shook. 'It came from nowhere, Beth. If I'd known that's where they were going, I'd have been prepared.'

'But it wasn't the truth. Why did you let it get to you?'

Ellie turned her head toward the afternoon shadow creeping into a corner of the room. 'It hurt.'

Like hearing your husband tell the world your marriage was over.

Beth retreated from the subject.

'D'you know where he's gone?'

Ellie gave her a startled, wary look. 'Who?'

Beth cursed her thoughtlessness and hastened to clarify. 'Alec Hardy? He left town pretty quickly.'

'He finished what he set out to do.'

Wrapped up in the emotion of the verdict, the news of arrests in Hardy's other murder investigation had almost bypassed Beth. She didn't recognise the man or the woman, but Ricky Gillespie's name would have left her feeling hollow if she hadn't already been stricken by Joe getting off.

Beth's knowledge of Sandbrook was sketchy; Ellie's involvement had been another surprise. How had she been living this double life? Turning up at court every day to have her life upended like the rest of them, then leaving the courthouse and immersing herself in this other investigation.

'Here—how did you get caught up in Sandbrook?'

Ellie sipped her tea before answering. 'Hardy asked for help. He never stopped working on it.'

She rolled her eyes. 'The whole time I thought he was a stick-up-the-arse, by-the-book wanker, he was actually hiding one of the suspects here.'

There was more to this story than Beth could have guessed. 'Why'd he do that?'

Ellie shrugged. 'Something he needed to do.'

'I met Cate Gillespie. Did you know? Karen White set it up for me.'

It was Ellie's turn to glance up in surprised. 'Really?'

Beth nodded. 'She warned me about Hardy.'

Ellie's nose crinkled. 'Beth—'

'I know he was your boss, but so much came out at the trial. There were so many mistakes. What good is knowing who murdered Danny if we couldn't get a conviction?'

'You know he's had health problems?'

Beth nodded. 'All sorts of rumours went round.'

'Did you know he discharged himself from hospital once? His heart had stopped. They were gonna scale back Danny's investigation. We were so close—he walked out of hospital and back into work the same day—'

'If he was so good, why'd so many things go wrong?'

Ellie leaned back, her gaze climbing as her head shook.

'I wish I had done things differently, Beth. But if I had to relive it, I couldn't have changed it. I wasn't who you needed.

'I couldn't stand Hardy at first—he was such a git—but he was the right git.'

June 27, 2014

Kate winced and pulled the page to her nose, peering at the text with a scowl.

'Ugh. Heat twice in the opening paras—why didn't Brigid get that? It sounds clunky. If I'd had more time—'

Pat grinned. 'Always the perfectionist. Brigid left it because I told her to leave it in. She did fix your punctuation though, dear. You're a bloody shocker with a comma.'

'Hang on.' She flicked through the pages, scanning. 'Where is it?'

'Where's what?'

'The line about being unable to track down Joe Miller for comment—the one I added?' She dropped the magazine to look at him.

Pat leaned over her shoulder to examine the front page of the story. 'Oh, yes—I see what you mean. Completely gone, inn't?'

'What?'

'It may have been subbed out,' Pat said.

She twisted to stare at him. 'What? By Brigid?'

His face remained placid, but the corner of his mouth was fighting a twitch.

She drew back in her chair. 'Are you insane?'

'Probably. I married you, didn't I?'

'Why would you do that?'

'Marry you? You were cute and you said yes? All above board, I think.'

She brandished the magazine under his nose and he grinned again.

'Dumbarton said we were sailing close to the wind, legally speaking, but Joe Miller'd have to be pretty ballsy to take us on.'

'What do you mean? They found him not guilty—any inference of guilt could get us in hot water. I married you for your money, you daft bugger. What'll I do if you're paying out damages on this for the next five years?'

'Miller's not going to do anything, Kate, sweetheart. He doesn't have the guts. And if he did ... I confess the prospect sort of intrigues me.'

'Intrigues you? Intrigues you?'

'Think about it. Defamation's a civil proceeding.'

'Yes?'

'The burden of proof is no longer reasonable doubt.'

She blinked.

'The balance of probabilities,' she intoned.

'Truth defence. You think a judge would find it likely Joe Miller committed murder on the balance of probabilities.'

He studied her. 'You don't?'

'You old fool. You're really crazy enough to risk a fortune on—what? A common kid killer? Based on your own—suspect, I must mention—understanding of the law?'

Pat bared his teeth in a vicious smile. 'Still think the jury got it right?'

She huffed, pushing back in her chair. 'Doesn't matter what I think.'

Pat reached out.

'Yeah, it does,' he said, taking her hand and squeezing it.

'It does to Ellie Miller.'

To view Kate's article (as it appeared reprinted in the Broadchurch Echo) requires a little googling. Typing bluelamia AND "heart on her sleeve" should get you there.

Your comments gratefully received.