Till Death Do Us Part

by Stephen Edger

  TWENTY-NINE

  Boom, boom, boom.

  The front door was practically shaking beneath the force of whoever was trying to break through. Alice was frozen to the spot in the kitchen, only the hallway separating them.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  The noise snapped her mind into action. Diving across the kitchen she reached for the large chef’s knife in the block, coiled her fingers around the handle and held it firm, slid it free of the block, and thrust it forward in an upwards trajectory.

  Hopefully, just the threat of the blade would be enough to keep her safe.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  She shuddered with each bang against the thick wooden door, the noise echoing off the walls in the hallway. Tiptoeing towards the door, the blade primed in her right hand, her mind raced with how to proceed.

  Should she open the door and confront the intruder, or was calling the police the better option? What if they arrived too late?

  Boom, boom, boom.

  ‘I have a knife,’ she called out, her voice cracking under the strain. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘The police are on their way.’

  ‘Baby? Baby?’ Ben’s familiar voice came from the other side of the door. ‘It’s me. Thank God you’re there! Didn’t you hear me banging?’

  The breath left her body and she crumpled to the floor, her legs unable to support her frame.

  ‘My key won’t open the door. Have you locked it or something? What’s going on?’

  The adrenaline settled, allowing her to drag herself the rest of the way to the doormat. Dropping the knife into the umbrella stand, where Ben wouldn’t see it, she pulled herself up and unlocked the door with the key she’d left in the lock.

  ‘Jeez, you look white as a sheet,’ Ben said as the door swung open and she fell into his arms. ‘Babe? What’s going on? Why was the door locked? I kept trying to put my key in the lock, but it wouldn’t fit. Were your keys the other side? Babe?’

  She nuzzled her forehead into the crook of his shoulder, her arms wound tightly around his neck. She didn’t ever want to let go.

  ‘I thought maybe you’d gone to bed,’ he soothed. ‘That’s why I was making such a rumpus, I was worried you wouldn’t hear me and I’d be stuck outside all night.’ Ben held her tightly, gently running a hand across her back. ‘I’m pleased to see you, too, but we should probably shut the door,’ he said, manoeuvring her out of the doorway and kicking the door closed with his heel. Gently easing her off him, Ben lowered his head so he could look into her eyes. ‘What’s going on, Alice?’ he asked. ‘I’m worried.’

  She didn’t know how to begin to tell him. A tear rolled down her cheek, and rather than speaking she simply took his hand in hers and led him through to the kitchen, where the photocopied mugshot and typed message remained on the counter. She handed it to him without speaking.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked evenly.

  ‘It was stuck to the gate when I got home. Addressed to me. Someone left it.’

  ‘Who?’ he said in frustration.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘It must have been in the last hour to ninety minutes. After you phoned to say you wouldn’t be home till later I went down the road to the pub, and it was stuck to the gate when I got back.’

  ‘No name? Nobody suspicious hanging around?’

  She wanted to mention the confrontation with Liam O’Neill, but O’Neill’s warning was still holding her back.

  ‘No,’ she said, with a shake of the head. ‘Nobody.’

  Ben reread the note.

  Dear Alice,

  Roses are red,

  Violets are blue,

  Your husband’s a killer,

  And you haven’t got a clue.

  ‘This is sick,’ he said in disgust. ‘Who the hell would …?’ His words trailed off as a new idea rose. ‘You said last sixty to ninety minutes, right, and it was stuck to the gates?’

  She nodded uncertainly.

  Ben slammed the message down on the worktop and peeled away, taking the stairs two at a time. He returned a moment later, clutching a laptop which he now rested on the counter next to Alice, his fingers dancing across the keyboard as he opened an app.

  ‘CCTV,’ he said proudly. ‘I knew it would come in useful one day.’

  A live image of the house filled the top left quarter of the screen, with smaller images of the property from different angles in smaller boxes filling the rest.

  ‘Now,’ he said, to nobody in particular, ‘if we just scroll the time back …’

  ‘There I am.’ Alice suddenly pointed at one of the smaller images.

  Ben stopped the app’s activity and clicked on the smaller image, which immediately appeared in the larger frame in the top left corner.

  ‘So this is you going out,’ he said as the gates closed behind the figure that was clearly Alice. ‘What time did you get back?’

  ‘Just before you,’ she said. ‘A few minutes ago. I found the letter, came inside and opened it and then you started banging on the door.’

  The tip of his tongue poked out as he slowly moved the footage on, looking for any movement at the gate. ‘There,’ he blurted as a figure approached the closed gate and pressed the envelope into place.

  Alice studied the screen. ‘Where’s his face?’

  The figure was dressed in a large, beige Macintosh, a wide-brimmed rain hat pulled down over his head.

  ‘Let me see if we have a better angle,’ Ben said, flicking through the remaining images. The one at the gate was the only angle you could see the figure from.

  ‘Shit!’ he declared, as he returned to the original shot. ‘The guy must have known the camera was there.’

  Alice considered the bulk beneath the large jacket, certain she’d seen it somewhere before. It could have been O’Neill, but he hadn’t been wearing that jacket or hat when he’d confronted her. A disguise maybe?

  Ben caught her eyeing the mugshot poking out from beneath the typed note. ‘I can’t believe they’ve left this; like they didn’t think I’d already told you that I was stitched up for something years ago. I was accused of something I didn’t do and was arrested. Clearly whoever is trying to get back at me now must have managed to get access to the original image.’

  ‘Someone getting back at you?’ Alice said cautiously. ‘Is that what you think this is about?’

  ‘Well, what else could it be?’ he asked, the anger in his voice growing.

  ‘Did you read the note, Ben? This is more than someone just trying to get back at you.’

  He looked at the typed note dismissively. ‘It’s probably just some rival I pissed off who saw my name in the paper and is trying to make life unpleasant by driving a wedge between us. Logistics is a cut-throat business, and you’d be shocked by some of the antics people get up to when there’s a big contract up for grabs.’

  ‘Is there a big contract up for grabs now?’

  ‘Isn’t there always? Listen to me, Alice. I will find out whoever left this here and I will make them pay for freaking you out. Don’t waste any more time worrying about it. Okay?’

  ‘What if he’s still out there now, Ben? Watching us.’

  He considered her, before reaching for his phone.

  ‘Who are you phoning?’

  He didn’t respond, as the line connected. ‘DC Vanessa Hazelton, please.’

  He was phoning the police. Not an unreasonable response to a threat, she supposed.

  Watch your back – Ben won’t like it if he finds out you’re digging into his past.

  He still hadn’t told her exactly what the mugshot related to, but she sensed now wasn’t the time to ask. If she wanted answers, she would have to go to the source. In the morning, she’d call Liam O’Neill directly.

  THIRTY

  Alice stirred as the title music of the breakfast show blared out of the television. The smell of fresh coffee filled the air and as she rolled over, refusing to open he
r eyes, she could hear the faint hum and splash of the shower.

  Propping the pillows, she sat up and looked over at the mug of coffee on the nightstand. A handwritten Post-it was stuck to the edge, which simply read ‘Sorry x’. She peeled off the note and allowed it to drop to the floor, putting the mug to her lips and savouring that first shot of caffeine.

  DC Hazelton had finally phoned Ben back, and despite his demands for a unit to be stationed at the property for protection, the most they’d agreed to was sending a patrol car to check the immediate area. Ben hadn’t been happy and had told the young detective where she could stick the patrol car.

  The door to the en suite opened and Ben appeared, a cloud of steam billowing around him, a thin cotton towel tied around his waist, his carefully sculpted abs in full view. If he’d been trying to present himself in an Adonis pose, he’d succeeded. His hair was damp but pushed back over his head, and it took him a moment to work out that she was awake.

  ‘Thanks for the coffee,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean for the shower to wake you.’

  ‘I can think of worse ways to wake up,’ she said, nodding at him. ‘The view’s not bad either.’

  He moved quietly to the bed before plonking himself near her feet, his head bowed. ‘I’m sorry about … last night. I still don’t know what—’

  ‘Forget about it,’ she soothed as reassuringly as she could manage. ‘These things happen. You’re not the first, and I’m sure you won’t be the last.’

  He looked up at her. ‘I swear that’s never happened before. I don’t understand why it didn’t want to work.’

  He’d already spent half an hour apologizing during the night. It had been a disappointing end to a pretty awful day, and not how she’d anticipated things going when he’d playfully run his hand up the length of her leg.

  ‘It’s probably just the stress of everything that’s been going on,’ she offered. ‘Plus you went for that run before bed too, which can’t have helped.’

  ‘You know it had nothing to do with you, right? It was all me. I mean, you’re gorgeous, and I fancy the pants off you. I can’t explain why it didn’t …’

  She quickly shuffled across to him and took his face in her hands. ‘You don’t have to keep apologizing. I understand.’

  He kissed one of her palms. ‘I promised you we’d start a family as soon as we were married, and that’s still very much something I want to do. You feel the same, right?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said, without hesitation. ‘That was the plan, and nothing’s changed.’

  ‘So you haven’t had second thoughts now that I’ve been wrongfully arrested, and because you now know I’ve been in trouble with the law before.’

  She rested her forehead against his. ‘Everyone has a past. Yes, I wish you’d told me about it sooner, but that’s done now. I’d still like to know exactly what happened back then, but I can wait for you to be ready to tell me. As for my feelings for you, I love you, Ben. I always have and I always will. I cannot think of a single person I’d rather make babies with.’

  She raised his face and pressed her lips against his.

  He got the message. His hands were around her back pulling up her nightdress a moment later. As his lips kissed that spot on her neck that always drove her wild, the television presenter’s voice broke through the mood.

  ‘Police have now identified the primary scene where 22-year-old Kerry Valentine was murdered just over a week ago.’

  Alice’s eyes snapped open and she stared at the screen, as Ben ran his hands over her breasts.

  ‘There are signs that someone attempted to clean the area, but traces of Kerry’s blood were discovered not far from the Merry Berry bar, where she was last seen at half past eleven on the night of Saturday, 27th July. There were faint tyre tracks the police are hoping might lead them to Kerry’s killer.’

  Alice peeled Ben away from her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said with a shrug and nod at the television. ‘It kind of killed the mood.’

  He turned and saw the now-familiar picture of Kerry Valentine on the screen. The bulge beneath the towel disappeared almost as quickly as it had emerged.

  ‘I feel like she’s beginning to haunt us,’ he muttered in frustration. ‘Everywhere I look I see her face, and it brings the guilt flooding back. I wish Scott had never contacted her.’

  Alice turned to face him. ‘What do you mean? I thought Dave arranged it?’

  ‘Well, Dave, or Scott, or whoever it was. I can’t even remember. It was one of them.’

  She let the statement go, but she was almost certain he’d said it had been Dave before, and Scott certainly hadn’t mentioned his involvement.

  ‘I’d better get dressed,’ he said, standing and turning away from the television screen. ‘I need to go into the office to check all the paperwork is in hand following yesterday’s crash. Is that okay with you?’

  She nodded, without really listening, her eyes and ears on the reporter on the screen. The screen cut to the image of the old neighbour, a recycled clip from yesterday’s broadcast, and finished with DI Vernon’s speech from the press conference.

  ‘Kerry’s body was pulled from the River Stour on Friday morning, which means whoever killed her held onto the body for at least a couple of days before disposing of it.’

  Alice felt saliva building at the back of her throat. Although she’d seen this clip before, only now did she really consider what Vernon had said. Whoever killed Kerry held onto her body – what kind of sicko would do that? Post-death her body would have begun to decompose, and the smell alone would have been awful.

  That statement was enough to prove to her that Ben couldn’t have killed Kerry. Where would he have stashed a body while tied to a lamppost? As she thought it through, she considered that in all likelihood, whoever was responsible knew somewhere in Bournemouth where nobody would notice the putrid smell of a decaying body for a few days. Didn’t Abdul live in Bournemouth? An image of Abdul dragging a body-shaped bin liner from the back of a car filled her mind.

  Ben leaned in and kissed Alice’s cheek, and a whiff of his cologne brought her mind back to the room. He was now dressed in shirt and trousers, the sleeves rolled up and the top button unfastened. Ben had never been one for ties. For him, formal attire meant matching blazer and trousers.

  ‘What have you got planned for this morning?’ he asked as he tied his shoelaces.

  She had no plans, and simply shrugged.

  ‘Let me know if you want me to pick up anything for dinner,’ he said, smiling. ‘Or maybe we should go out like we’d planned last night.’

  The image of Abdul with the body-shaped bin liner was still at the forefront of her mind. ‘Um, yeah, maybe.’

  ‘You should stop watching this crap,’ he said. ‘The sooner they stop showing it, the sooner we can move on with our lives. Let’s just hope they catch whoever’s responsible sooner rather than later.’

  She was frozen in bed, transfixed by the picture of Kerry as the two anchors continued to discuss the murder.

  Ben kissed her cheek again. ‘When I get home, we’ll pick up where we left off. I will impregnate you, Mrs Goodman, if it’s the last thing I do.’

  The remains of Alice’s toast clung to the plate as she slouched at the small table in the kitchen. She’d done her best to eat, but had spent more time picking at the toast than actually eating it. She usually had such a voracious appetite, but at the moment food was little more than a distraction. She’d spent the last half an hour trying to convince herself that nobody on the stag do was involved in Kerry’s death. As possible as it was that one of the group had followed Kerry from the bar – unnoticed by the others – it was more likely that someone unconnected had seen her leave and made their move. According to the news, the area where they’d found traces of Kerry’s blood was less than two minutes’ walk from the bar.

  If the police had any reason to believe one of the stag party was involved, wouldn’t they have made an arr
est by now? They were quick to pull in Ben, but as far as she knew nobody else had been arrested.

  Yet, just as she’d almost convinced herself, the memory of Dave on the phone yesterday returned: I think that should all blow over, and they bought our version of events. The others are too shit scared to go against what we told them.

  What other reason would there be for lying to the police, and who were they? Dave undoubtedly knew more than he’d shared, but who had he been speaking to? She couldn’t just ask him outright. She’d never witnessed him being violent, but if he was backed into a corner she couldn’t be certain of his reaction.

  Reaching for her MacBook, Alice lifted the screen and typed her password before opening a fresh Internet search engine. Dave had said he’d searched for ‘private dancers, Bournemouth’ and he’d found Kerry’s site from there. Alice performed the same search and was surprised by just how many hits came back. The first five she clicked on made no mention of the dancers’ names, just described the girls and what they would charge.

  Narrowing down the search to images rather than sites, she found what she was looking for on the second page. She had no doubt that the girl dancing provocatively with the pole was Kerry. Clicking on the image, she was taken to one of the first five sites she’d visited. A telephone number listed at the bottom had a Bournemouth dialling code, and Alice reached for her mobile and punched in the number.

  The line rang and rang, but nobody answered and no answerphone cut in. Frustrated, Alice hung up and tried again. The ringing went on and on, but just as she was about to hang up, the line was answered.

  The woman’s voice sounded dry and gruff, like she’d been gargling with nails. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Is that Danse Privée?’

  ‘Yeah, who are you?’

  ‘I’m phoning about Kerry Valentine, I wondered if she was one of your—’

  Before Alice could finish the sentence, the woman cut her off with a violent hacking cough. ‘What is it with you fucking reporters? How many times do I have to tell you she didn’t work for me? Okay? Can you get that through your fucking heads?’