The harbour was cold and windy and wet. Not surprising, really, but it didn't exactly improve his mood. He'd asked for Joe, was told where he worked and made his way over to his little security-booth. Through the window, Hardy had his first look in two years at Joe Miller.

He was still bald, the remains of hair still shaven closely to his head. In the overheated booth, Joe wore a uniform-shirt with the sleeves rolled up but a warm-looking woollen jumper, a coat and a blue knitted cap were hanging on a hook by the door.

Joe was alone.

Giving more curtesy than he felt was deserved, Hardy knocked on the door before entering. Joe looked up and then jumped like a cornered animal, eyes wide and panicky as if he expected Hardy to pull a gun and shoot him dead.

Funny. He'd not expected that reaction, but it would make this work so much easier.

"DI Hardy. What… Uhm." Joe's eyes flitted along the walls, to the window, at the door behind Hardy, clearly looking for an escape-route. All the time during the trial, Hardy'd had the impression of a compulsive, oddly successful liar who'd set out to make everyone's life miserable after killing his son's once best friend. But maybe that man in front of him was just a pathetic little shit, scared of his own shadow and too much of a coward to take the consequences of his actions. As he was standing there, skittish and afraid, one could nearly call him pitiful.

Except that the last thing Hardy felt for him was pity. "I'd like a chat with you," he said, deliberately stepping away to free the way out of the door. He didn't think Joe would run – where would he go?

He'd also improved his own running-skills since the last time Joe had bolted from him, had in fact taken up running in the evening – well, mostly at night when nobody was bloody watching – after clearing it with the cardiologist. There was no way Joe Miller would get away, but chasing him was not his intention and would counteract the purpose of this … let's call it 'visit'.

"I… I don't have anything to say to you!" Joe blurted, trying for bluster but failing horribly. Hardy rolled his eyes.

"Don't need to say anything, really. I'll do the talking. Let's walk." For one, Hardy liked to see the place Tom would talk to Joe tomorrow, and secondly, he didn't want to sit in this stifling booth so close to Joe Miller and look at that man who'd destroyed so many lives alongside the one he'd actually taken.

Luckily, Joe took the offer and Hardy waited outside, hands in his pockets and leaning against the wall, letting the chill and salt and the sound of the waves and the ding-ding-ding from a cord banging against a flagpole calm him down. The water was ultimately the same in the Irish Sea as it was in the English Channel, and yet even here, in the shelters of Liverpool Shipping Port, it seemed angrier than it was in Dorset. Less forgiving.

He still didn't like being too close, but after years of living at the sea, it had wormed its way into his blood more than he would have thought or liked. Nowadays, if Hardy found himself in a landlocked city, he started missing the salty air and the call of the seagulls, despite hating the buggers whenever he actually saw them.

Thinking of gulls led him back to the conversation at the party. He felt himself frown… hadn't that woman said something about chickens? Bloody hell, what had been her name again? Petunia or something?

Just as he pulled his mobile out of his pockets to ask his sister in a quick text, Joe stepped out of the door. Still hesitant and trying to cover his fear by overcompensation, he took his big Maglite and hung it on his belt, making a show of its weight and his ability to hold it straight. Hardy nearly laughed. "Might as well do my round now, if you don't mind."

He didn't. Anything to not look at him.

"So, uh. What… what brings you here, DI Hardy? Not looking for some kind of taped evidence, are you?" Joe furtively glanced up and down Hardy's body, probably trying for subtle and failing miserably. How had this man even been able to hide his guilt for so long? Even after his break-in at the hut, the place of Danny's death, nothing had made Joe Miller seem suspicious. Would things have been different if Miller had been home more often? Would he have been able to deny Miller access to her husband after the confession if he hadn't felt like a walking corpse after his heart had given out in the docks?

It didn't matter. Things happened as they'd happened and they could only ever walk from there.

"No. I have all the evidence I need, personally. We had all we needed for court, but we fucked it up so here you are. You don't deserve to be free, but we should have done our job better." Hardy surprised himself with his honesty. "No, I'm here because of your son."

That stopped Joe short. "Tom? Or Fred? I… are they… are they okay? Please… don't tell me something happened to them." Genuine fear was all over him, and for once it wasn't about him and his own well-being. For God's sake, there were even tears in his eyes!

"They're fine," Hardy assured him. Even if Joe was a shite of a human being, his affection and love for his children had always felt genuine. Still did, now.

"Ellie?"

He growled. "This isn't a social visit, Joe." Hardy refused to call him 'Miller'. Miller had curly hair and a button-nose, wore terribly bright jackets and always tried to force food on him. This man would remain 'Joe' and nothing more. "I'm here on behalf of Tom, who's determined to talk to you. Against his mother's wishes, against common sense, against my advice and probably against all kinds of advice from everyone he'd ask. But he's sixteen and he wants to, and that's why I'm here."

Joe had stopped walking and blinked out at the water. His shoulders were tense and he was curling his fists but it didn't seem like a bout of anger or temper flaring up. Maybe he was fighting down hope, like Hardy had done before every doctor's visit. Battling the rising hope that maybe his heart wasn't damaged and maybe that had all been a terrible mistake but knowing deep down that it was and it wasn't and he would have to deal with it and possibly die. Hope could be a terrible thing.

"Tomorrow, I'll bring Tom around so he can talk. You'll talk here, and I'll be close by so don't even think about doing anything tremendously stupid. I won't be listening but neither you nor Tom will be further than twenty feet away. This is your only chance to talk to your son for a long time, maybe forever, and I would advise you make the most of it. Your cowardice in court nearly broke everyone involved, ruined so many lives that could have been spared the pain if you'd had the bloody balls to stand up to your deeds. They were your friends, and not only did you take away their son, you let them be slaughtered and slandered by your barrister. But oh no, noooo, that wasn't enough! No, you had to drag your family in as well! Just bloody luck that Fred was too small to understand what was going on, or you'd have let him be called up in court as well, I bet!" All thoughts of pity, of being civil for Tom's sake, had flown out of the window and Hardy was giving way to all the rage he'd felt those endless weeks during the trial, when the only way to not punch a wall out of frustration was by channelling the anger into action towards another case, one he'd ruined as well but with a chance of salvation for all involved.

He'd been bloody lying to himself that anything would be better after knowing the truth, but the Gillespie-case had been his lifeline and he'd done it - they'd done it. Miller had done it.

"Hey, no, that's not true! I didn't know Tom would go to court, I swear! It wasn't my idea!"

"But you didn't stop him, did you?" Hardy snarled. "You took his desperate desire to help his dad with grabby hands and used it, let him sit there and spew half-truths about your fucking friend, whose son you killed, and you didn't stand up and say 'Stop, I did it, stop this!' – did you?" He was aware his accent was getting stronger the longer he talked – yelled, more like it – but he was sure Joe got the gist. "You had all the chances in the world to end that farce, all the moments you could have kept your decency, but you let it slip by, sacrificed your son for fear of prison. You're a very, very small man, Joe Miller. You had it all, and you not only lost it, you actively threw it all away. Cast it off you, as if it were nothing, as if they all meant nothing to you."

That evening at Miller's home jumped to his memory, unbidden. The warmth of the house, the laughter between Miller and Joe. The ease the two had talked and interacted and the dark pit of jealousy he'd felt, watching them be so bloody great and happy.

What a bloody waste of happiness.

Taking a deliberate, deep breath, Hardy tried to reign in his anger. It wouldn't help now, and this wasn't about him. It was about Tom. "Apparently, you were a decent man, once. I don't know what happened to change that, but you've fallen quite a long way since then. Your son, though, is determined to see that good man inside of you, and it's remarkable that he still believes in you. He's desperate to believe that everyone else was wrong, that you didn't kill Danny, even though we all know you did. So – tomorrow's your chance. You will never reclaim being a good man, you ruined that one spectacularly. But you're not stupid, Joe. And you might still salvage your status as a good father. Don't waste this opportunity. It won't come again."

With that, he left the stunned man standing in the wind, walking briskly away out of fear he might just shove him in the harbour and do what Miller wanted to do.

It was water, though, so Hardy would probably just chuck him in and leave, hoping he'd drown all on his own. That nasty stuff had done enough to him already.

O

On the way back, just as Bono was wailing about the Bloody Sunday, his phone rang. His coat was on the backseat and he stopped by the side of the road to get it in case it was Miller, or maybe Abby calling him to tell him the name of the chicken-woman. He'd texted her before he'd reached his car, knowing he'd forget if he put it on hold now. He was so bloody furious, he wouldn't be able to think clearly for the rest of the night.

It wasn't Miller, and also not Daisy, so he could probably ignore the call. But since he was parked anyway… "What!" he barked into the phone.

"Alec, your phone-etiquettes have not improved." Tess. Exactly the person he wanted to talk to after the day he'd had. First Howard, then Joe Miller and now his ex-wife. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"What do you want? It's ten at night, I'd rather sleep than fight with you now for whatever it is we will fight about. What's that number, anyway?"

"Out of battery. I'm calling from a landline. Anyway, I don't want to fight with you. Are you still with Abby?"

"No," he sighed, "I'm in the bloody car. Why, did you want to talk to her? She's got her own phone, hasn't changed her number." But maybe Tess had lost it? What good would it do her to keep the number of her ex's sister with whom she hadn't talked that much anyway?

"Is Daisy with you?"

Now he frowned and a niggle of worry was creeping up. Surely Tess wouldn't sound as calm as she did if something had happened? "No. Why?"

"Because she isn't answering her phone and she hasn't called me. It's Saturday, she always calls me. Are you sure she's alright?"

Wearily, Hardy laid his forehead against the steering-wheel. "She's at the cinema. Probably forgot. I'll tell her to call you later. This the number you'll be at?" Maybe he was prying, but maybe he wasn't – nobody would be able to prove either.

"Yes. She already has it. Make sure she's alright, yes? Why's she at the movies alone? Why didn't you go with her? Did you two have a row?"

Right. Not fighting. This was not an accusation… Just a simple, very innocent question. And the little uptick of her voice was certainly not her 'I'm annoyed but I'm trying to be reasonable here, Alec'-clue. "Because I'm boring. She's fine, Tess. We're in bloody Birkenhead, most of the population is already in bed." Where he wanted to be, too. "I'll tell her you called. Bye." And he hung up.

It felt like some sort of victory to do so. He never hung up; usually he fought it out with her until they both started to draw blood.

God, it was a good thing he'd moved away. Despite missing her and having loved her and still sort of loving her for the person he'd married and the good time they'd had, there was truly nothing left of his marriage to salvage. Maybe things would have been different if Daisy hadn't found out about Dave and the pendant but she had and ever since then, the two had been at each other's throats all the time. At first, she hadn't confronted them, just acted out against Tess and at school and otherwise drawn attention of the unpleasant kind to herself.

Then, one night after fighting with Tess, Daisy'd dropped the bombshell and outright asked her if she'd had an affair before the divorce and everything had gone downhill from there.

Despite not having told Daisy – she'd found out alone, by observing and reading newspapers and overall being a very clever girl – it felt like Tess somehow blamed him for the deteriorating mother-daughter-relationship. And Hardy wasn't a good enough man to take that blame lying down. Not anymore.

Moving away, taking Daisy with him, had been the right choice. Tess was still her mother and he knew they loved each other. But sometimes absence truly made the heart fonder, and ever since she'd come to terms with her life at small-town Broadchurch and those bawbag-boys from class had left her alone, Daisy and Tess had started to connect better. Through the phone.

With a glance at the clock – half past ten – he made his way back to the hotel. The kids would be back soon and he needed sleep before making this same way again tomorrow, this time delivering a teenager to what would probably be the worst conversation of his life.

He'd also have to explain to Daisy what he was up to and had to find some way to make it up to her. To think he'd wanted this trip to be a bit of a bonding-time for the two of them… Life really liked to cock things up for his plans.