As Rose and Alec drove the mile or so back to Broadchurch, Alec's mobile rang and Rose frowned at him as he was trying to fish the phone out of his jacket pocket. He saw her and handed the phone to her. The caller ID was 'Miller' and Rose smiled, answering it and amused he wasn't apparently still calling her Ellie and wondering what had brought that about. "Hi Ellie, are you wanting Alec, only he's driving at the moment," she enquired.

"Where are the two of you, we were supposed to meet, remember?" Ellie scolded her.

"Ah, we sort of stopped for a while, it was entirely my fault, I thought we needed to talk, after you saying he'd been to see Claire then her turning up like that this morning. We won't be long," Rose replied, getting a frown from Alec for her taking the blame.

"Well don't be, we have a lot to go through Rose. I hope you two didn't do anything other than talk?" Ellie asked as Rose had put it on the speaker.

"What business is that of yours Miller?" Alec asked, Rose screwing her face up at him.

"Don't take any notice of him Ellie, we'll be right there," Rose smiled, touching his leg as they almost reached the turn-off for the town.

"Make sure you are," Ellie warned her, hanging up. She bet anything the two of them had been doing more than 'Talking' after their little display at the court and trust her sister to have told Olly.

Rose kept hold of his phone and glanced at him in the mirror, a smile on her face. "Well, that's it Alec, now we're in trouble," she giggled, Alec just rolling his eyes and wondering what the hell he'd just started.

Ellie was leaning on her car outside Rose's house, leaving room for Alec to get into his driveway. If she'd just pissed him off by asking what the two of them had been doing, she didn't want to further rile him up the wrong way by blocking his car access. She hardly gave him time to get out of the car. "I thought this was urgent?" Ellie asked as he remote locked the car.

"Who lit a fire under you Miller?" Alec asked sarcastically as Rose just grinned at them.

"Blimey, who suggested you two had an affair?" Rose mused as she followed him to his front door.

"Someone who wants to get my scumbag of a husband off because she hates losing," Ellie complained from behind.

"Miller, let's concentrate on the job at hand eh?" Alec reminded her. "Rose has already told me a few more things but you should hear them from her."

"Fine, you were the ones who delayed," Ellie huffed. "Enjoy your little chat did you?"

If Rose didn't know better, she could have sworn the other woman was jealous. Maybe there was a bit more to this affair accusation but it hadn't been while they worked together, it had happened recently and Ellie thought they had something now her husband was locked up. "Don't make it sound like that Ellie," Rose asked her nicely. "I wanted to hear it from Alec, about why Claire turned up this morning and now I know."

"Well I'm so glad you two got that sorted," Ellie replied sarcastically.

Alec was watching the two women with amusement. First off, he knew he and Miller were getting a bit too 'friendly' recently and he'd been getting a bit hot under the collar about it but he didn't want Rose to be just an escape from any desires his old DS may have acquired recently. "Have you two finished?" he enquired, going into the kitchen to fill the kettle.

Rose looked at Ellie. "This isn't a contest Ellie. I was upset, that's all, I thought Claire had disappeared, it caught me out when I saw her," she tried to explain.

Alec found three clean mugs and put teabags into the bottom of them, leaning back on the counter. "You don't need to explain yourself to Miller," he told her. "Yes, she was a bit upset and when she explains everything Miller, you'll understand why. First, I need a drink and my pills."

"Sorry Alec, is this making you worse?" Rose asked, sounding concerned.

He wanted to say that the whole thing was making him worse but he wasn't about to give in that easily or let Rose down. "No, this bloody trial that should not be even taking place is making me worse. Us discussing what happened to you is not about to make it better but we need to get to the truth."

"Yeah, sorry, I picked a bad time to show up," Rose apologized, offering to make the tea. Somehow, she seemed to know how Alec took his, either that or he wasn't that fussy about it as Ellie put sugar in hers and more milk.

"Well I'd say it was rather good timing, since he was probably going on about it even before he knew who you were," Ellie butted in, instantly knowing he was using decaff teabags but she supposed it was to be expected. "As soon as you showed up, it was suddenly the topic of conversation."

"Miller, I was considering it before Rose came along, I need to do something about it, I've had the case files since before I moved, I've been going over them again," Alec told her, thinking Rose shouldn't take the entire blame. He pulled a kitchen chair out and sat down next to Rose, tempted to just take her hand to reassure her she hadn't been the one to drag it all to the surface again but would he be able to convince her he still wanted to see justice done even if she'd not come into his life? "So, Rose, why don't you tell Miller what you told me earlier?"

"You mean about that night Claire gave me a ride home?" Rose asked, dying to take his hand but not sure he wanted Ellie to know yet they were becoming more than neighbors.

"Well Claire admitted she knew about you, how come you didn't know her that well?" Ellie asked her, watching the two of them and wishing they'd just come out in the open that there was already something going on.

"They kept to themselves I expect. I saw Lee, he did a lot of work around the estate and he was always hanging around talking to Lisa and Pippa, when she used to be skating up and down the street when I got home from work during the summer."

"Let's skip that bit eh?" Alec asked. "Rose, who did you have that bad date with? You told me he asked a lot of questions about Lisa that you thought he was going to stalk her."

"Oh, I read somewhere that someone was hanging around that night, Lee got into a fight, one of the neighbors mentioned a commotion but left it since whoever it was went running off," Ellie recalled.

"Since when have you read the files?" Alec wanted to know, getting a smile from Rose.

"I've not been sitting around doing nothing since you asked me to get involved," Ellie huffed.

Alec got up and went into the living room and came back with a box file. "Here, take a look at these then. Go on Rose, tell me who it was."

"Gary Thorpe, he didn't live on the estate but we all knew him at college, he was a bit weird and everyone made fun of him, his dad ran some agricultural business and it was his job to use the furnace."

"It says he was interviewed then let go," Ellie read from a report, Alec wondering how she'd found it so quickly, well with his filing system anyway. "So he asked you loads of questions, you left and got picked up by Claire? Then he was hanging around the night Pippa and Lisa went missing? Didn't you put the two events together at the time?" she asked Alec.

"Not at the time, there was nothing to link it but now, Rose has confirmed he did have an interest in Lisa, maybe he was getting up the courage to ask her out?" Alec wondered.

Rose shook her head. "No, Lisa told me a few nights later she was going to meet him and I tried to warn her but she laughed it off and said just because I had a bad date didn't mean hers would be. I told her he was stalking her, asking me questions but she dismissed it and told me to keep out of it. I saw her afterwards but she refused to talk about it so to save falling out, I never pushed it."

"Rose, how long was that before Lisa went missing?" Alec asked her, reaching for her hand that was holding the mug and glaring at Ellie, daring her to say anything.

"About a week," Rose replied, enjoying the gesture which meant maybe he wasn't that opposed to showing a bit of affection in front of company, just not the whole town.