It was after five before Alice’s mum and Scott left. There was still no word from Ben, which had to mean he was still busy dealing with the fallout from the motorway accident. Not for the first time she hoped that he was okay. He’d been white as a sheet at the restaurant when he’d caught a glimpse of the press conference, and she hadn’t wanted him haring off to another crisis, but perhaps there was some truth in the idea that nothing cured stress like the distraction of more worry.
She was tempted to phone him and let him know she was thinking of him, but if he was in the middle of work, her call would be unwelcome. He’d said he’d be back for them to go out, and if that wasn’t going to be possible, he’d message her and let her know. So in the meantime, she had just as well get ready to go out.
Heading up the winding staircase, she entered the main bedroom, flicking on the television as she passed through to the en suite. Her eyes looked tired in the mirror, with the skin slightly sagging. Nothing that a bit of concealer wouldn’t fix. The highlights in her hair still shone from the appointment she’d had the day before the wedding, but the stress of the last few days was beginning to take its toll.
As she headed back into the bedroom and pulled off her T-shirt, the sound of the television distracted her. On the screen was a picture of Kerry Valentine. A reporter’s voice confirmed the victim’s name and summarized what the police had said in the earlier press conference. The screen then cut to DI Vernon in his withered shirt and tie, the Yorkshire accent as thick as it had been earlier.
‘The victim – whom you can see on the screens behind me – is Kerry Valentine, 22 and local to the Boscombe area. She was last seen in the town centre around half past eleven on the night of Saturday, the 27th of July, just over a week ago. We are today appealing for witnesses who may have seen her after this time, or may have any information about what happened to her.’
The screen filled with Kerry’s face – one of the images that had been on the screen during the press conference.
‘Kerry had a difficult upbringing: in and out of foster homes after her single mum died, she spent time in a young offenders’ institute for drug-related crimes. She had cleaned up her act in recent years, holding down a part-time job at a local supermarket and earning money through her late-night dance routines.’
An image of a road now appeared on the screen with cars passing by, before the camera panned around to a small block of flats, graffiti covering several of the nearby walls, and an abandoned washing machine propped up near a rusting shopping trolley. A scroll at the bottom of the screen identified the area as Boscombe.
‘We visited Boscombe earlier this afternoon,’ the reporter’s voice continued, ‘and spoke to some of Kerry’s neighbours. They had this to say.’
A woman’s large face appeared, her cheeks puffy, eyes thick with liner, and lipstick that looked like it had been put on in a dark room.
‘Yeah, I knew Kerry,’ the woman said, glancing from the reporter to the camera like she was trying to work an angle to make some extra cash. ‘She was a good girl, not like the cops made out. Yeah she danced for money but she didn’t turn tricks or nothing like that. That boy of hers, she doted on him. Poor blighter.’
Alice slumped to the bed.
Suddenly the camera was inside a warm-looking living room, an elderly woman with grey hair perched in a tall armchair. It was obvious she’d been crying.
‘I was looking after the little lad that night,’ she said. ‘I knew something was wrong when she didn’t call me. She should have been back by midnight, and when I tried phoning her, the phone was off. I called the police as I was so worried.’
She then went on to explain how Kerry had fallen pregnant at seventeen and how that had been her wake-up call to turn her life around. She got herself clean, found a place to live and relied on community support to watch over her son while she worked.
‘She was an only child and had no other family, but she was determined to give her boy the life she never had,’ the older woman continued. ‘He was her entire world; everything she did was for him. Now he’ll never know just how much he was loved.’
The scene cut back to the reporter at the bar as he concluded his brief report into the life of Kerry Valentine. ‘There has been a lot of activity just a few yards from where we’re now standing, with Scene of Crime vans blocking the view off to our left. We’ll bring you more as soon as we have it.’
Alice muted the television as she blinked away the sting of tears. Kerry had a son. Whomever killed her had made that poor boy an orphan.
Ben and Alice had talked about starting a family, and both accepted it was the next obvious step in their relationship. They would give children a good life, but was that now fair when they had indirectly ruined the life of an innocent child? Would Kerry’s son now spend his formative years in social care, wondering why his mum had been taken from him?
In that moment, Alice made a vow to find out more about Kerry’s son, and to do everything in her power to support him, whether that be financially or in some other manner. It was the very least she could do for Kerry.