"So what should we do, then?" Ellie's voice is strained from the sudden shift in circumstance and she realizes with a quick shock that she's going over the speed limit by at least fifteen miles per hour. With a conscious effort she lifts her foot from the gas pedal and forces her shoulders to relax. She's already well onto her way to Sandbrook to speak to Joe but the warring mother inside her is demanding she turn around and head back to Broadchurch.

Hardy, of course, manages to guess exactly what she's struggling with. His voice is clipped and clinical- the detective inspector mode she so despised in the beginning but now she uses to tether herself to the here and now and breathe. "Just focus on getting to Joe, Miller. It could be that the number from Wales was merely a coincidence and if it is he'll still be our best possibility of finding wee Fred."

Unlikely. The tone of his voice makes it clear that he doesn't think the phone call a coincidence any more than Ellie does, but nonetheless she can't argue with his logic. The last thing they need is to make a mistake while searching for Fred and nailing Joe for the kidnapping of their son and his attacking Hardy. "What are you going to be doing, then?"

"Go to Jenkinson and let her know what's happened. It's the best we can do for now."

"Alright." Their plan of action is decided; Ellie unclenches her hands from their white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and nods. "Alright."

He's silent so long that she thinks that he's hung up, and then very softly she hears, "We'll find him, Miller."

Abruptly her throat closes with a sudden urge to cry again; it's not the words that have rocked her back in her seat but the tone. It's the same tone she'd heard the night in his hotel room and he'd been the gentlest she'd seen him yet. She nods again even though she knows he can't see her. "I know," she chokes out, and her voice is surprisingly steady. "I'll call you later."

~/~/~/~/~

Back in Broadchurch, Alec and Mark hear the click of a phone line cutting off and look at each other from across the kitchen table. "Not often she cuts off a conversation like that," the latter remarks into the silence.

Alec's fingers idly drum quietly on the tabletop as he watches the screen of his phone go dark. "Too much time spent around me, probably."

It's the first attempt at true humor that Mark's heard from the detective and he grins despite himself. "Ell's always been a bit- erm, emotional, I guess. Shoulda seen her the day Tom skinned his knee bad while skateboarding." He grimaces. "Or the day her cat died."

Miller showing emotion with her sons is a common occurrence; it surprises Alec more to hear of a cat. "Miller doesn't seem to be the type to have pets."

"Oh, she hasn't had one for awhile. She's always loved animals, but Joe-" He stumbles for a moment, caught off-guard by his own words, and then he presses on. "He never really did. It was one of the few things I ever saw them fight about, whether or not Ellie would bring her cat with her into the house after they were married. And then Ophelia died."

Alec rolls his eyes. "Well, if you name anything Ophelia you're just tempting fate."

Mark's grin widens. "Wouldn't have pegged you for a Shakespeare bloke."

For a moment Alec glares at him but it's without heat, and Mark's already sat across from him in the interrogation room. Which leads the copper to a question he's been wanting to demand of Danny's dad since learning of the affair with Becca Fisher but has never had the guts to do so. But with Tess here surely spouting off information for the Latimers to hear... "I'm not. What made Becca Fisher worth your family, Mark?"

Blindsided by the question easily seven months old, Mark feels a surge of indignation and anger rise up and choke him. His pride has always been his downfall- in many different ways- and it's still smarting from the fallout his affair has caused. But he does catch the softer tone to the question rather than the gruff intensity during Danny's case and it allows him a split second to collect himself before he snaps something rude. There's something different prompting that question now, and he wonders if he knows why. "She was... different," he says instead, repeating the same reason as he had to Beth all those months ago, and finding it to be just as inadequate the second time around. "I... didn't doubt that Beth still loved me, but Becca was just- something new. Exciting."

He's being judged and he knows it. But Alec stay surprisingly silent about the less-than-satisfactory explanation; Mark barely understands it himself, and he'll have to live with the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life.

He shakes his head. "It doesn't make it right. What I did. Beth didn't deserve it. But I did it anyway, and I regret it." He sits in silence for another long moment and then finally decides he can admit more. "Beth and I looked into Sandbrook after you took up Danny's case, you know. We read about the evidence being stolen from your car. I think Beth almost walked out the door right then and there to hunt you down and demand how you felt about letting those girls down."

"Get to the bloody point, Latimer," Alec snaps, wanting nothing more than to tell Danny's dad to shut the hell up and go away- but he's the one who's started this conversation in the first place.

"It wasn't you who lost the evidence. Was it? Just awhile ago, your ex-wife said something about finding Pippa. As in Pippa Gillispie?" Alec's silence is answer enough. "Now, I can't see the person finding a child's body being willing to do anything to let evidence get away. And Ell- at the hospital, you said Joe wanted you to tell him you and Ellie were having an affair. But you wouldn't tell him that."

"It's never happened, that's why," comes the terse answer. "Little hard to admit something that's never even happened."

"Yeah, I didn't buy Bishop's take on an affair when I had time to think about it." Mark shrugs. "I guess it's not my place to judge, but I was curious. Don't think your ex-wife's reasons for doing... that... was the same as mine, though, mate."

He's expecting something harsh as a response; the copper is too gruff sometimes. Most times. What he gets instead is a long silence and then: "No," Alec admits softly, his attention solely on the table. "They weren't."

~/~/~/~/~

"You're going where?" Beth demands. Lizzie is starting to wriggle in her arms and distractedly she shifts the baby to Chloe's waiting arms, her expression a mix of surprise and sudden unease. Her attention goes from Mark to Alec. "What are you going to do at the police station? Hadn't Ellie taken care of all that already?"

"It's not about that," he replies quietly, hoping he's telling the truth. "Miller's landline received a phone call-"

"The landline? I didn't think they even had that landline anymore-"

Bloody hell, what was with the landline. "Not important right now," Alec tells her impatiently. "Mark is the one who picked up the phone so he's the one who needs to go to the station and explain what he heard, if anything at all."

The worry wins out. "That won't affect him later, will it? I mean, if they need to call him forward as a witness?"

Again Alec curses the fact that the Latimers had been forced through that farce of a trial without even the justice of their son's killer being put away. "It shouldn't."

"Don't worry about all that now, Beth," Mark cuts in impatiently. "We need to get the police looking into the phone call in case it can lead them to Fred."

It's clear that she has very little desire to let them leave without a bit more of an explanation but her wanting Fred to be found wins out. They reach the station without anymore stops or pauses but as Mark heads to one of the interview rooms to make his statement, Bob approaches Alec.

"Visitor for you by the front office, sir."

He leaves Mark to his own devices for the moment, his curiosity too great to ignore. He assumes that this so-called visitor will be none other than Tess, still trying to get him to do what she wants. Therefore he's taken aback when he rounds the corner and sees who it is.

"Daisy."

~/~/~/~/~

"Tell me again," Alec says twenty minutes later, pinching the bridge of his nose, "how it is you sneaked past your mother and made it all the way to Broadchurch without being labelled as missing yet?" No good- he can feel the headache starting to throb at his temple and along the base of his scalp, and although he's delighted to see his daughter again he can't help but feel a bit angry she's pulled off a stunt like this. Daisy's appearance will probably do more harm than good at the moment, and that's without Tess realizing she's here. "No, actually, forget that for now- how did you know I was in Broadchurch at all?"

"Social media. You worked with that woman Ellie Miller for months while you were here, and her son was the one taken, so it stands to reason you'd come here-"

"Nice try, darling, but you know that isn't going to work. Try again."

She knows she's caught but she's stubborn; she shakes her head and looks down at her feet.

Alec sighs and pulls out his phone. "Daisy, you know I love having you here but if you don't tell me how you knew to come I'll have to call your mum and tell her what's happened-"

She flushes red suddenly as she mumbles out an explanation, hoping it will be rushed enough that he won't be able to pick up individual words, but he's been a copper too long. He understands garble.

"You used a police scanner? Oh, for the love of- Daisy, you do realize that having one of those is exactly opposite of what your mum and I wanted for you growing up? We never even had a radio in the house for exactly this reason!"

"Well, it's a good thing I listened to it, then!" Daisy retorts, her expression hardening as she looks back up at him. Her sudden resemblance to Alec himself is enough to catch him off-guard, and his breath catches in his chest for a moment. "You and mum never tell me anything, never have done! I've had to scrounge through newspapers and overhear conversations to figure out what's been going on, and Mum's been even more closed-mouthed than usual the last year-"

Alec feels his breath catch again for an entirely different reason; Tess hasn't given off any sign that Daisy knows the truth about Sandbrook and why the trial fell apart the first time. "Daisy, you're not even sixteen yet, your mother and I wanted to give you a normal childhood for as long as possible-"

"Yeah, and you did just fine until I was eight and I watched you recuperate from a knife wound to your rib cage, Dad. I saw the bandages Mum tried to throw away discreetly after your stitches tore. Or how about the time when I was ten and Mum was grazed by a bullet that left her arm in a sling for weeks before it healed completely?" Her voice wavers as she tries to continue, but her anger is fast burning away to cold tiredness. "I may have been quiet about seeing it all, but I'm not stupid."

"Oh, darlin'..." His own throat feels tight as he does the only thing he can; he pulls her into a hug. He feels her sharp intake of breath and her arms come up to grab hold of him as she buries her face in his shirt, and he realizes that she's been trembling this entire time. He allows her as much time as she needs to calm herself, his only movements being the slow circles he's rubbing into her back with one hand, the other cupping the back of her head as he presses a kiss into her wind-tangled hair. It's been too long since he's felt any human contact of this sort- since the last time he'd seen Daisy, he realizes with a lurch to his stomach, and it's not a welcome revelation. He's touch-starved to an extreme. When she finally pulls away he's ready with what he wants to say. "Our job as your parents, Daisy, is to protect you- I know, I know, you've heard that before and you hate hearing it again, but just because we've said it a lot doesn't make it any less true."

Her mouth wrenches in a pained way. "But, Dad, who's here to protect you?"

Unprepared to hear her ask that he can only stare at her for a long moment. He can't come up with a fitting remark to that although he's dangerously close to blurting out Miller's name as his answer, and he's simultaneously pleased and frightened by the implications of that.

"I guess that would be you," he tells her instead, hoping to see her expression soften. He's rewarded with exactly that followed by an aborted laugh, and then Daisy is stepping into a willing hug again. He wraps his arms around her this time and hopes that what he's just said won't come around and bite him.