Broadchurch: The End Is Where It Begins: A Series Two Original Short Story by Erin Kelly, Chris Chibnall Page B

jerking her back into the mess of her real life. Ellie is both grateful to and resentful of her big sister, who’s keeping Tom fed and getting him to school and trying, in her limited way, to persuade him that the whole Joe thing isn’t just a plot concocted by Ellie to end the marriage. Tragedy and drama seem to have brought out Lucy’s maternal streak in a way that actual motherhood never did. Ellie swipes her phone to answer the call.
    ‘Where’s his swimming kit?’ barks Lucy, before Ellie can say hello. ‘He’s saying he needs trunks and goggles by tomorrow .’
    Ellie’s heart plummets; she knows exactly where Tom’s swimming things are – rotting in a bag at the foot of his bed in their old house in Lime Avenue. She sighs; Cliff looks sharply at her. She turns her back on him.
    ‘Can you get him new stuff?’ she whispers down the line to Lucy. ‘He probably needs new trunks anyway, he’s shooting up all the time.’ She bats away the thought that he’s growing up without her. ‘Get age twelve to thirteen if you can.’
    ‘Put it on the slate, shall I?’ says Lucy, with no trace of irony.
    ‘Look, I’ve got to go, Luce,’ Ellie says, resisting the temptation to remind her of all the times she’s bailed her out; she needs Lucy on side now. ‘I’ll ring you tonight, as usual?’
    She puts her head in her hands: long-distance parenting is tearing her apart. There’s been a series of little failures like this, since Tom moved in with Lucy. Ellie feels each of them in keen disproportion. School stuff was always Joe’s responsibility. He’s landed her in the shit in a million tiny ways.
    ‘You coping all right, love?’
    ‘ Love? ’ Ellie erupts. ‘What is this, the fucking seventies?’ Cliff goes dark red, but Ellie can’t tell if he’s mortified by his own thoughtless sexism or angry that he’s been called out on it. ‘I’m your superior officer, can I—’
    Before Ellie can finish, her phone, still hot in her hand, goes again. Jenny, Fred’s childminder. She turns away from Cliff’s raised eyebrow and takes the call.
    ‘He’s done an up-the-back poo,’ says Jenny. In the background, Fred is whingeing. Ellie’s heart folds in on itself. ‘I thought you were bringing spare clothes? I haven’t got anything to dress him in.’ Ellie thinks; she remembers packing a bag last night. Then she sees it, clear as a photograph, in the boot of her car, in the station car park. A pulse starts to hammer inside her head. She loosens her cravat.
    ‘I’m sorry, Jen,’ she says. ‘Haven’t you got anything you can put him in?’
    Jenny sighs. ‘I’ll find something.’
    Ellie ends the call and turns back to Cliff, ready now to challenge his earlier lack of respect. But their radios crackle into life at the same time. They’ve got a shout.
    ‘With respect, Sarge, ’ he says, getting back in the car, the sarcastic emphasis on her title finally betraying his contempt, ‘are you sure you’re ready for this? It must be hard to mix work and family in your … after … what with the way things are.’
    He means Joe. She won’t rise to the bait. By way of reply she executes a perfect three-point turn that shuts Cliff up, for a while at least.
    While Ellie drives them to the address, Cliff gets the desk to run a check on Tim Yardley, the man who’s been reported for breaking into his estranged wife’s house. The answer bounces back immediately: Yardley’s never even had a parking ticket in his name. That doesn’t mean anything. Joe didn’t have previous.
    Woodside Park is five miles from the Bideford Chase estate but a different world; a hushed, tree-lined avenue with big, detached houses. Gleaming cars are neatly parked on driveways, except for number 45, where a black Audi has been abandoned diagonally across the pavement.
    The front door – Edwardian, original stained glass in the panels – is already open. Imogen Yardley, standing on the threshold, is pretty but very underweight,