The meeting with CS Jenkinson was bewilderingly brief. Apparently all Ellie had to do to get her old job back was knock on her office door. Jenkinson looked up briefly, nodded, and handed Ellie her credentials. They were sitting on the desk even, ready and waiting for her return.

She had a mild burst of anger in the lift back down to CID about Hardy's presumption that she'd just fall in line and get her job back. The echo of Claire calling her a puppy fueled that anger back to her desk. She was startled out of her pique by unexpected applause from her colleges. It took her a moment to register that they were celebrating her return and welcoming her back. She'd been so certain that they'd all judge her. That they'd always be suspicious that she had either framed Joe or intentionally tampered with his case to set him free that she'd been utterly unprepared for them to be glad she was back.

Since they knew where Jocelyn lived and she wasn't much of a flight risk, Ellie started on tracking down Susan Wright.

"Miller," Hardy barked as he walked past her desk, "I got the CCTV, c'mon."

She followed him into his office and he pulled it up. They sped through hours with no movement outside of the wind in the grass until Beth Latimer walked up to the hut supported by Paul Coates. "Timestamp three twenty four," Hardy muttered as he made the note in his pad. Another two minutes passed before Ellie walked up speaking on her phone. "Who were you talking to?"

"Nigel Carter, him and Mark had gone to fetch Joe." On the screen, Ellie made several more brief phone calls. "I was rallying the troops, we wanted a show of force." Hardy just nodded with a grunt as the Ellie in the video entered the hut.

"How long until everything happens?"

"A bit. Long enough for Beth to count all of the knives in the place."

He raised his eyebrows at her but let the comment go. "How did you lot get access to the hut?"

"Paul got them off the owner, he said the family needed closure," she replied, "wasn't wrong I suppose."

Another five minutes passed as they quietly watched the wind peacefully blowing through the grass along the cliff. It was all the more jarring, then, when the Mark Lattimer Plumbing van lurched into the frame and an irate Mark and Nige rounded to the back and dragged a struggling Joe out. "They won't have to worry about assault charges, will they?" Miller asked nervously.

"No assault has been reported," Hardy said with a wry smile. Mark and Joe disappeared and Paul joined Nige outside. Slowly others made their way in frame. Lucy and Tom arrived first, hand in hand. Chloe looked at the hut as if the building itself would hurt her and Ellie felt a surge of pride as Tom shyly approached and offered her a hug of support. Maggie and Ollie joined the group and Ollie fist-bumped Tom in his own special brand of support. Becca Fisher arrived last and stayed on the fringes.

"Why'd ya go and call her?" Hardy asked peevishly, "'s not like she's a Broadchurch fixture like the rest."

"I didn't call her, that's on Paul."

"What? Why?"

"Didn't you hear? They're something of an item now."

"Now that's just not fair!"

"Why, do you fancy Becca Fisher?" She asked incredulously, the concept of Alec Hardy with a crush had never even occurred to her. He looked away and rubbed the back of his neck. "No! Why didn't you make a move?" He shifted uncomfortably and wouldn't make eye contact. Ellie just couldn't resist the urge to needle him. "Never tell me she turned you down."

He blushed and sheepishly replied, "she said she'd never know if I was going to die on her."

She considered the state of his heart condition and asked "well, was she wrong at that point?"

"Probably not," he said sullenly, "but still … the vicar?"

"Poor thing," Ellie said and patted him on the shoulder. Rather than petulantly shrugging her off as she'd expected, he sighed and leaned closer into her touch. In all of the times over the past months that he'd tried to comfort her and she'd brushed him off it had never occurred to her that he might've been in need of some comfort himself. She'd been so wrapped up in her own personal hell that she'd somehow overlooked the fact that Hardy was preparing to die. Alone. His heart was failing, his wife had betrayed him, his daughter ignored him, she'd never even heard of any other family, and he'd constantly turned to Ellie when he'd had no one else. Her hand remained where it was as they watched Joe reluctantly get in the car. After the cab pulled away the group loitered for another ten minutes or so.

"Timestamp three fifty two," Hardy noted again then flopped his pad down on the desk. "Well, there's half the town with solid alibis," he sighed. On some level – that he was hesitant to explore further – he was happy that the people Miller loved were cleared of suspicion but it still put him in a difficult position. They did have an assault to solve, after all. He was feeling a bit exposed after their chat about Becca Fisher and her comforting hand on his shoulder felt like it would burn through his suit if it remained there much longer so he stood up and fell back into their familiar routine. "Where are we with Susan Wright and Jocelyn Knight?" He asked gruffly.

"The phone number we have for Susan Wright is inactive. The agent in charge of the caravan park hasn't seen her for days. We could ask Nige, but other than that we're at a dead end with her. I figured you'd rather just drop by Jocelyn's with me."

"Come on then," he said as he grabbed his coat and headed to the door, confident that she would follow.

In the car he caught her up to speed on the case with the witness statements from the kids on the beech and preliminary reports from Bishop's A & E doctors.

"Are we seriously considering Jocelyn Knight as a suspect?" Miller asked skeptically.

"We know they've got a past together, they were shouting about it in the halls of the courthouse. Jocelyn came out of retirement to try this case and was humiliated by losing to her former protégé …" he shrugged, "granted, it's not the best motive but it's what we've got."

"Right, it's worth having a chat with her. I just don't know if I see that demure old lady, pillar of local society and member of the Queens Council pushing someone off a cliff."

"Are you really going to take the 'nobody from my town' stance again with me here Miller?" He asked incredulously.

"Are you really going to bring that up right now, Hardy?" She barked back at him in agitation. She took a deep breath and strangled the steering wheel for a long pause before conceding, "yeah, best not."

They completed the ride in silence, Miller stewing about his reference to the Lattimer case. Hardy wanted to set her at her ease. He himself could comfortably go days without speaking if the situation didn't require it of him, but the Miller of a year ago would have filled these rides with effervescent chatter which made her current sullen silences even more difficult to bear.