Day 5

Alec Hardy stared at the whiteboards in front of him, trying to make sense of them. The crisp photo of the dead hand filled his mind. The nails were painted a pale pink and cut fairly short, he wondered if they'd find any clue to the murderer's identity beneath those perfectly trimmed nails. He raised his own hand and put it on top of the woman's engulfing it behind his own. Ellie had thought he was going home after she had dropped him off at his car, and he hadn't lied. This was his home, or as close to it as he was likely to get. The job, it was all he had. He still wasn't sure if he should go for the surgery or not, but it was his only option if he wanted to keep his job. Then again, it was a 50/50 chance and he'd never been much of a gambler. He took out his mobile, and scrolled through his contacts. When he found the one he was looking for he stopped short before pressing send. It was too late to call her; she'd have school in the morning. He put it away and looked again at the whiteboard and what little information they had filled in. He couldn't help thinking it was strange. He'd just been given this temporary reprieve to work and all of a sudden up pops another appalling crime. He was starting to feel that maybe he was under some sort of curse. He snorted. As if he believed in such things. He left the whiteboard and went into his office. All of the dayshift officers had already gone home. He looked at the time on his computer. 12:07am. He checked to see if he had any emails, he didn't. He swiveled in his chair, leaned back, and eyed the picture behind his desk, a view of the ocean lapping on some beach. It might have been Broadchurch for all he knew. It had come with the job, an unwanted keepsake, like everything else. He reviewed the day so far in his head. Miller had seemed like she was trying too hard to be exactly the way she was before the Latimer case. The fact was, she wasn't, she probably would never be that same person again, not that that was a bad thing necessarily. He checked the computer again, 12:30am. He probably wasn't going to able to solve the entire investigation before morning. So he left the incident room and went to his hotel, to get some much needed sleep.

After spending dinner with her family, Ellie put the children to bed and sat on the sofa flicking through the channels on the TV. She'd had to bring some of her furnishings from her house over to her sister's. Lucy was a chronic gambler among her other vices. The repo men were always taking her things as collateral. It was a wonder she hadn't lost the house yet. She'd been improving though these past weeks. Now that Ellie and the kids were in the house she hadn't gone out as much. The kids wanted to go home of course. SOCO had long since finished going through everything, pawing through everything that is. Their house, hers and Joe's, they'd picked it out together, a real fixer-upper that they'd never finished fixing up. She just wanted to sell it. She couldn't live there again, there were too many memories tied up with the place, haunted by Danny Latimer's ghost. Even though he hadn't been killed there, his memory and that of her husband's just made the place uninhabitable in her mind. She didn't want to make her children go through any more changes than they had already been burdened with, but she just couldn't be in that house anymore. She'd go to the realtors as soon as possible and put it up for sale. Luce would let her stay till she got rid of it, she was sure. Her sister really seemed to love having children in her house again. Ever since her son grew up, she'd just given up on being responsible for herself. Them being there helped her…

Miller considered the day she'd had. She was certain her DI hadn't gone home after she'd dropped him by the car park. It was just like him to try to solve the case on his own, as quickly as possible, killing himself in the process. He was probably staring at the whiteboard right now. She checked the time on her phone, 12:02am. He'd really helped her acclimate to the job today. That was just the sort of person he was. He'd slap you to get rid of a spider on your face, which you didn't even know was there. Then he would refuse to explain why he had slapped you. He was such a stubborn man, infuriating really. She really lo… Her thoughts faded away as she fell asleep the remote falling to the floor out of limp fingers.

Ellie Miller and Alec Hardy both showed up early to work the next morning. They'd found the body, or what was left of it. Broadchurch only had one small wooded area, between the church and a quiet lane of bricked houses. Miller and Hardy stood close to each other as they looked down at the dead body partially covered in the colourful autumnal leaves. The young woman might have been pretty before death had paled her skin and whitened her eyes, and the animals had been at the remains.

Hardy looked to Miller, she seemed to be holding up well despite the messy sight before them. She stared determined not to turn away, looking to see if she could see any signs pointing to the killer from the scene. She was turning into a proper copper. If he had accomplished nothing else by coming to this shithole of a town, at least he had managed that. They both warmed their hands from the coffee that Miller had picked up for them. Hardy had remembered to act grateful. DC Collins came up to them while rubbing his arms vigorously and said,

"Sir, we found the cemetery truck over by the entrance to the wood. When we searched the forest we found her here, as you see." Collins eyes sidled away from the body before them. Hardy snapped,

"Right, glad you people were able to get something done properly." Collins said nothing, pointedly. A camera snapped as the SOCO photographer took another photo of the body before they moved it down to pathology. SOCO Brian Young came from the direction of the path out of the woods. He said happily to them,

"Well we've found footprints and the tracks of a wheelbarrow, which is how the perpetrator must have gotten the body from the truck to here." Hardy began walking back and forth beside the body, gesturing with his coffee as he spoke quickly,

"So let me get this straight, the suspect goes and drugs our friendly neighborhood graveyard keeper, steals his truck in order to not look conspicuous while dumping a body in a cemetery, one assumes. Then kills the girl and dog, puts their bodies in the back of the truck, with a wheelbarrow in tow, chops off the hand and leaves it with the dog in a strange tableau, then comes here and dumps the rest of the body and the truck, while taking off on foot. Is that what we're saying here?" Young said grudgingly,

"That does explain the facts." Miller shook her head saying,

"Well if that's what happened, this guy sounds like an idiot, he's obviously panicking." Hardy stopped pacing and faced her as he said,

"I don't know about that. At this point, it's starting to sound like someone made a careful plan, and then the plan went wrong." She asked,

"What do you mean?" Hardy led Miller away from the scene, and walked towards the cemetery truck parked at the entrance, saying,

"For instance, drugging McDermid and taking his truck was clever. The way the hand had been placed and not being seen doing it showed planning and care. But then leaving the rest of the body here, clumsily covered by leaves next to the truck you had stolen. That's more than panicking, that's just clumsy. A person doesn't kill someone, then calmly set up that dog-walking scene, and then panic and dump the rest of the body here like this. Something went wrong, that much is obvious." Miller asked,

"But that's good news for us isn't it?" He took a hot gulp of his coffee as he said,

"We'll see." DC Roy Collins had joined them. He looked back at one of the SOCO putting piles of leaves into a white garbage bag, grinned and said,

"Sucks to be a SOCO eh?" Miller turned on him and said,

"You're talking out of you ass Roy." Hardy seconded her by saying,

"What she said. Without our SOCO's we'd be nowhere, now go and canvass those houses at the opposite end, they probably won't know anything." Collins didn't meet Hardy's eyes as he said,

"Yes, sir." Collins stalked off in the other direction toward the lane. After looking after him for a second Miller said,

"He's usually not like that you know. It's this enquiry, our town, we just want everything back the way it was." Hardy started walking along the path again.

"I know." Ellie looked over at him.

"That isn't going to happen is it?" Hardy looked up through the fall leaves and said quietly,

"Everything changes."