Ready to tell Ben she was heading to bed, she was about to push the lounge door open when she heard him and Dave talking animatedly.
‘Yeah, but don’t forget what happened in Malia,’ Dave said, interrupting Ben mid‑sentence.
Alice pushed her ear closer to the door, careful not to knock it as she strained to overhear what they were saying.
‘Don’t get me started on Malia,’ Ben countered. ‘I knew we’d have trouble before we went out that night. That’s just how he is.’
‘We never should have brought him along with us.’
‘We couldn’t leave him at home. How would it have looked, all the lads invited apart from him? We had no choice.’
‘Yeah but we should’ve had a word with him, told him to keep his dick in his trousers for once.’
Ben snorted. ‘You can talk. He wasn’t the only one who pulled in Malia from what I remember.’
‘Yeah, but I didn’t get off with the missus of some hard nut looking for trouble. It’s amazing we didn’t get arrested by the local cops after the mess we left at that bar.’
‘That wasn’t technically our fault. They threw the first punch. We had no choice but to defend him, did we?’
Alice rested her hands on the door frame and leaned her ear closer to the gap.
‘I was as nervous as anything when we made it to the airport,’ Dave admitted. ‘I was sure the Malia police would be waiting at passport control, but I guess we got lucky.’
‘I could’ve killed him for that.’
‘You and me both, bruv, but now I can’t stop thinking that maybe he had something to do with what happened to that girl in Bournemouth. Did you see the look on his face when she was squirting that cream on her tits?’
‘Yeah, but he wouldn’t do anything like that,’ Ben said, the doubt in his voice obvious. ‘Would he?’
‘Hey, the last thing I want to think is that one of our mates could have gone after her and killed her, but you can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed your mind too.’
‘Listen, we’d better shut up about this for now, yeah? I’d better go and check on Alice, let her know you’re gonna stay over. You want another beer while I’m up?’
Alice didn’t wait for Dave’s answer, peeling away from the door and racing up the stairs on tiptoes, hoping Ben was too drunk to hear her padding on the carpet.
EIGHTEEN
The trouble with falling asleep before ten p.m. was that Alice’s body woke her at six, fully rested and raring to go. As she lay in bed, the sunlight creeping beneath the line of the curtains, she tried hard to drift back to sleep. After ten minutes of trying to get comfortable, she gave up, pushing the blanket back and stretching her arms up and over her head.
Ben hadn’t come up to bed, and she didn’t need more than one guess to figure out where she’d find him: exactly where she’d left him and Dave.
The memory of what she’d heard from outside the lounge door flashed through her mind: now I can’t stop thinking that maybe he had something to do with what happened to that girl.
The question was who was the he they were referring to? Dave hadn’t confirmed exactly who had gone to Bournemouth with them, though she knew Johnny was there, as was that Abdul who had the keys to the abandoned bar they’d ended up in. But who else? Dave had described it as a night out for those who hadn’t made it to Malia the week before, but from what she’d overheard, whoever he was had been at both stag parties.
And, what was that they’d said about a fight in Malia? Ben hadn’t mentioned a fight, but now that she thought about it, she had noticed some bruising on his torso after the trip. He’d dismissed it as a drunken stumble, which she’d initially accepted, knowing how clumsy he could be even when sober. Thinking back to the bruising, she tried to remember whether it had resembled fist marks, but came up blank.
Showering and dressing, Alice tried to think things through. She didn’t know whether the police had confirmed the victim’s exact time of death – Ben certainly hadn’t mentioned it – so had he and Dave only been speculating about one of their group being involved? Whatever the answer though, clearly they knew more than they’d been letting on until now.
Reaching for her phone, she opened Facebook and loaded up Ben’s profile. He’d been tagged in a few pictures from the trip to Malia, and she located the group shot she’d been searching for and used her fingers to zoom in.
Studying the faces from left to right, she spotted Ben and Dave, Johnny, Scott, Pete, James, and two others she’d met but whose names she couldn’t recall. Eight of them in total. Could one of this group have been responsible for killing Kerry?
She shuddered at the thought. She’d met all of these men. Could one of them really be a killer?
What she needed now was an image of the group from Bournemouth, but given the secrecy of the event, she doubted Ben would have been careless enough to take any photographs. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have uploaded them. Dave had mentioned some pictures he’d shared with the police though – maybe if she could get hold of them, she might be able to identify which of the eight were in both Malia and Bournemouth. She wouldn’t want to betray a friend, but if passing the list of names to the police cleared Ben’s name once and for all, it would be worth it.
Heading downstairs, she could hear heavy snoring echoing from the lounge. Gently pushing the door open, she surveyed the mess. Half-crushed cans of beer were scattered across the low table, and an empty bottle of vodka was precariously resting upside down in an empty tube of crisps. A rancid smell – a cocktail of sweat, BO, and stale lager – hung like a cloud just below the ceiling.
It was no wonder Ben hadn’t attempted to come up to bed. When he started on the vodka he was a noisy and restless sleeper. He probably hadn’t wanted to disturb her. Either that or he’d passed out on the sofa before he’d had chance to think about it.
She spotted a pile of matchsticks on the table top, and some playing cards. They’d probably been playing poker. Tentatively stepping over Ben’s outstretched legs, she carefully avoided the empty cans on the floor until she made it to the long curtains at the back of the room. Ducking behind them, she opened the small window at the top before re-emerging. At least that would help dispel some of the pong.
Treading carefully back through the carnage, she fetched a bin liner from the kitchen and slowly made her way around the lounge, dropping cans into the sack. Both men continued to snore loudly but almost harmoniously. As she reached for the tube of crisps, the bottle fell onto the floor, striking the edge of the table as it went. Alice held her breath, waiting for them to wake.
Neither man stirred, oblivious to her presence in the room.
There was no sign of Ben’s phone – it was probably still in his pocket – but she did spot Dave’s near the pile of playing cards. Leaning over, she discreetly picked it up, careful not to bump into him.
Stooping, she tried to work out how deep a sleep he was in. If she could just get his thumbprint on the sensor, the screen would unlock and she could send any images on it to her own phone. If he woke while she had hold of his hand though, he would demand to know exactly what she was doing and then she’d have to come clean.
It felt like a risk worth taking, if only to see who had been in Bournemouth that night. Dave was left-handed, so it was a reasonable assumption that she’d need his left thumb. Calmly sinking to her knees, she held the phone in her left hand and carefully pressed her thumb and index finger around his wrist, lifting it ever so slightly. His snoring didn’t miss a beat. Twisting the arm so his palm pointed up, she carefully selected his thumb, but as she did his rhythm suddenly altered and the snoring stopped.
Alice froze.
She was staring straight at him, willing his eyes to remain closed as she continued to grip his thumb. A single bead of sweat travelled the length of her spine, but she remained rooted to the spot.
‘Alice,’ he mumbled, and her breath caught in her throat.
His eyes remained closed.
‘Alice,’ he groaned again, before his face dropped to the side and the snoring returned.
She exhaled slowly through her mouth, manoeuvred the phone so the sensor was just below his thumb, then brought the two together. The first attempt failed, but suddenly the screen unlocked. Clicking on the gallery icon, she swiped until she found the images from Bournemouth, stopping momentarily when Kerry Valentine’s face filled the screen.
Alice hadn’t realized just how pretty Kerry had been. The outfit she was in left little to the imagination, but beneath the hard stare and make-up, Alice was sure she could see regret in those eyes.
There were half a dozen images of the group laughing and drinking and Alice quickly forwarded them to herself before deleting the message from his phone’s records. Lowering the phone back to the table, she was about to stand when she spotted a piece of paper underneath the pile of playing cards. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but now it was hard to see how she’d missed it.
Sliding it out, a fog of confusion descended as she read the contents. It was scrawled in Ben’s terrible handwriting and a pen rested nearby. At the top of the page the word ‘Suspects’ had been double underlined, and below it was a list of names she recognized.
Had Ben and Dave been doing their own sleuthing during the night? Pulling out her own phone she snapped an image of the list before dropping the bit of paper back to the table.
She left the half-full sack of rubbish on the floor where it was and headed out of the living room. Her heart was racing as she pulled the door shut and pocketed her phone. She needed some space now, and she’d never get that if she stayed here. Grabbing her car keys, she thought of the one place she wouldn’t be disturbed.
NINETEEN
The grounds of St Michael’s School were a ten minute drive from Alice’s home in Chilworth, and as she pulled up at the gates, she was relieved to find the onsite caretaker had already opened the entrance to the staff car park. Although many people seemed to believe teachers only took up the vocation for the extended summer holidays, this failed to acknowledge the level of planning activity undertaken in the months when the children were away.
Alice had already spent the three previous weeks prepping syllabus activities, so that when she returned from honeymoon she wouldn’t have to rush to have things ready. Now, it was the perfect place to skulk at a desk, away from the prying eyes of Ben and Dave. As far as any of the other teachers would be concerned, she was simply preparing work for the start of September.
As she parked the car in her usual space and made her way towards the front doors, she clutched her mobile close to her chest. If Ben and Dave suspected one of their friends could be somehow involved in Kerry Valentine’s murder, Alice wanted to know who and why. For one reason, the victim’s family deserved to know, but also it had the potential to clear Ben’s name once and for all.
The door creaked as she waved her pass next to the lock and pulled it open. For safety precautions, all the doors into the school were controlled by security passes, to prevent unwanted strangers wandering in off the street. Making sure the door was closed behind her, Alice moved across to the reception office and signed her name in the visitors’ book – another core requirement of teachers working during the holidays. The official line was it enabled the caretaker to understand who was in the building in the event of a fire, but there was a rumour among the teachers that it was the head’s way of monitoring who had spent the most time preparing for the new school term. Tara often joked that she added extra hours on to keep him off her back.
Seeing the list was empty so far, she was relieved nobody would come knocking at her classroom door asking inane questions about how the wedding had gone.
Making her way along the corridor, Alice stopped when she reached the modern languages department, which was a corridor of four empty classrooms and a small office at the far end where the three modern languages teachers had to share two desks between them. It was primarily used as a port to vent frustrations following a lesson in one of the adjoining classrooms. Scanning her pass against the door, the usual cloud of musty books, stale sweat and dust hung in the air.
Alice had always had a natural ear for languages and had excelled in French and Spanish at school, so when it had come to choosing a specialist area of study during her PGCE, it had been an easy decision. As with any subject, there were students who excelled, students who made a sincere effort, and students who simply didn’t give a toss about conjugating the past participle of être. Alice remained passionate about her areas of study though and every once in a while a student would engage and all the dull and challenging lessons would drop away for the satisfaction of seeing just one pupil fly.
Allowing the door to close, she opened the double windows, though there was little breeze waiting to come in. That was the problem with how this part of the building was positioned – even on the windiest of days, hardly any fresh air made it in. Which was why a can of air freshener remained a permanent fixture on the window ledge. Pinching her nose, Alice sprayed the can liberally in the air, the whoosh of fragrance slowly dropping like tiny rain drops and landing on the two old wooden desks.
Pulling out a chair, she dropped behind one of the desks and immediately unlocked her phone, opening the list of names and doing her best to interpret Ben’s handwriting. She recognized Johnny’s name at the top, followed by her stepbrother Scott, then Abdul, James, and Pete. These were the names she recognized from the Malia photograph, though she didn’t know much about Abdul, James or Pete. She didn’t recognize the remaining three names on the list: Gary, Duke, and Michael. Had Ben mentioned them before? She didn’t think any of them had been invited to the wedding, but given the hall’s capacity and their extensive families, they hadn’t been able to invite everyone.
There were no surnames and no indication of why Ben and Dave had chosen to flag these individuals as suspects. Was it enough to pass to DC Hazelton? Surely she would already have spoken to everyone who was present at the stag do, so the police would be aware of the names. Would a phone call and chat be seen as a lame attempt to interfere with the investigation? Would she be better off speaking to Ben privately and ask what the list meant?
She was about to reach for one of the office laptops and open a search engine when there was a gentle knock at the door. Alice glanced at her watch. Still not yet seven, she’d be surprised if one of the other teachers had made it in so early. Slipping her phone into the pocket of her jeans, she opened the door and was startled to see the face of Andrew Hook.
‘I thought I saw your name in the visitors’ book,’ he said, smiling broadly and screwing up his face as he blinked rapidly, the way he always seemed to when he was near her.
‘Andrew,’ she said, trying to sound as welcoming as she could but desperate to get back to her thoughts. ‘How are you?’
He used a grubby finger to push his large square glasses back up his nose, but they began to fall back down almost immediately. ‘All the better for seeing you. Are you back from your honeymoon already? Seems like only yesterday we were doing that collection for you.’
Dressed in a short-sleeve buttoned golf shirt, his maroon coloured shorts were far too short for a man of his age and waist size. She tried to ignore the thick grey socks pulled up over his shins and the brown leather sandals strapped to his feet. His face, weathered by time and too many ales, was friendly but covered in small red blotches, and the dark grey bonnet of hair swept over his head had small specks of white powder, some of which had already fallen onto the shoulders of his shirt.
‘We’ve had to postpone the honeymoon,’ she replied cautiously. She didn’t want to share the reason why she wasn’t currently stretched out on a sun lounger, but the fact that she wasn’t abroad would soon be common knowledge, so there was no point in lying to him.
‘How’s your new husband? Bob or Bill, I can never remember.’
Alice had told him on more occasions than she could remember what Ben’s name was,
but he always seemed to get it wrong, to the point where she now suspected he was doing it deliberately.
‘Ben is well,’ she corrected, smiling to show she hadn’t taken any offence.
He pushed his glasses back up again. ‘How was the big day then? I bet you looked like a princess in your dress.’
Alice remembered that Tara was convinced Andrew had a crush on her.
‘I’ll have to bring in photos when they’re ready,’ Alice pacified.
‘I’d like that,’ he said. ‘We should catch-up over lunch some time. Or dinner if you’d prefer?’
They’d never shared a meal together. He had to be at least twenty years her senior, and although he’d never been anything but kind and sweet to her, he could be overbearing, and she considered him more an acquaintance than a friend. His offer of dinner was out of the blue and, as he rocked from one foot to the other, she could see he was feeling just as awkward as she was.
The key was to let him down gently, and not offer any encouragement. ‘I’ll try and stop by the staffroom for a coffee before term restarts,’ she offered, cringing as an excited smile broke out on his face.
She made a show of looking at her watch, but he didn’t seem to take the hint.
‘I took your advice, by the way,’ he continued, still hopping from one foot to the other.
She frowned, unaware of any advice she’d ever offered him.
‘I joined a club,’ he said, when he saw her look of confusion.
Her frown deepened, she definitely didn’t recall ever discussing hobbies with him. Their conversations until now had remained strictly professional, she’d made sure of that.
‘Right,’ she said, nervously. ‘How’s that going?’
‘Oh it’s wonderful. Birdwatching can be such a cathartic experience,’ he said proudly. ‘I’ve made some new friends as well, and even met someone I knew way back when. She isn’t looking for anything romantic, but I’m hoping it could lead to something one day. Never say never in my book.’
Till Death Do Us Part Page 9