The cigarette between Alice’s lips wobbled as the nurse cupped her hands and lit the tip for her. Alice nodded gratefully before coughing and spluttering as the smoke attacked her virgin lungs.
The sun hung low in the sky in the distance, but the sky directly above the hospital had already turned a much darker shade of blue. Patients with a variety of ailments came and went in a blur as Alice remained perched on the wooden bench, holding the cigarette that she didn’t really want but unable to think of any way to calm the nervous tension bubbling through her veins.
Almost an hour had passed since she’d first found Faye in that tiny room, but her friend’s confession still stung her ears.
I killed him, Alice, and now I don’t know what I’m going to do.
The doctors had set Faye’s wrist in plaster after confirming the fracture by X-ray. They had treated her kindly, seeing through the cloud of suspicion now surrounding the badly beaten woman, and focusing on the vulnerable patient who was struggling to grasp the enormity of what had unfolded over the course of a few hours.
Ben had remained in the A&E waiting room initially and had then agreed to go with one of the officers to make a formal identification of Johnny’s body. He had yet to return, and Alice was grateful for a moment alone.
It wasn’t what Faye had done that most upset her, nor what Johnny would have potentially done had he not been stopped. The guilt of not being there when her friend needed her most was overwhelming and was threatening to swallow Alice whole.
It was bad enough that she’d been too wrapped up in her own wedding day to realize her friend’s marriage was under strain, but even when Faye had come clean on Sunday, what support had Alice really provided? A shoulder to cry on maybe, but she’d done little else than send a message yesterday to ask if Faye was okay.
Her friend had reached out and Alice had allowed herself to become distracted by Kerry Valentine’s murder and Ben’s historical run-in with the law. The more she now thought about it, the more she realized she should have insisted Faye and Isabella join them at their house until things with Johnny were properly resolved. Why hadn’t she foreseen that this outcome was always a possibility, given what Faye had experienced on Sunday?
Alice inhaled again, the smoke making her cough once more, but the burn in her throat lessened.
If Faye and Isabella had been with her instead of at home, Johnny would have returned to an empty house and could have slept off the alcohol. He would still be alive today.
Now he was gone, and Isabella would never be able to hug her dad again or hear him say how much he loved her.
The tears broke free – tears for her friend and for Isabella. Three lives ruined when simple action, rather than inaction, could have made a difference.
It wasn’t her fault, of course it wasn’t, but her guilt was on overload, and nobody would convince her differently, at least, not tonight.
This was where her inactivity would stop. Faye needed a friend, and support, and that was precisely what Alice would provide.
Pulling out her phone, she dialled the only person she knew who would understand what was required.
The knock on the room’s door was followed by Hazelton’s head popping around it.
‘Is it okay if I come in?’ she asked.
Alice nodded and moved away from the bed to greet her.
‘She’s the victim in all this,’ Alice whispered, determined to make that part clear. ‘Johnny attacked her and what she did was done in self-defence.’
Hazelton looked over to the now-sedated Faye, asleep on the bed. ‘Okay, I will do what I can for your friend but I haven’t been assigned to this case, and I doubt I will be as I’m only in Southampton to support the Kerry Valentine inquiry. I’ll speak to the SIO and make sure he understands their history.’
Alice allowed a small sigh of relief to escape. ‘I really appreciate you coming out here. What must you think of me and my friends? We’re really not a bad lot.’ She instantly regretted her attempt to lighten the tone. It wasn’t the time or place for light-hearted quips.
‘You said on the phone this wasn’t the first time Johnny attacked Faye?’ Hazelton said as she pulled out a smartphone and began to record the conversation. ‘Don’t worry about this,’ she said. ‘It’s only for my purposes. I’ll type up notes later.’
Alice tried to ignore the phone. ‘She called me round on Sunday and her face didn’t look dissimilar to how it does now, though there was no scratch on her cheek. Her eyes and cheeks were puffy and there was blood beneath her nose. She told me Johnny had beaten her and stormed out.’
‘Did she report the incident to the police?’
Alice shook her head. ‘I told her she should, and now I regret not phoning them myself, but she didn’t want the police involved.’
‘She doesn’t have any choice now,’ Hazelton sighed. ‘Are you aware of any other altercations between them?’
Alice tried to remember what Faye had told her on Sunday. ‘There was an incident the weekend before last when he was dropping her at the airport for my hen do in Paris. They argued then I think.’
Hazelton frowned. ‘Are we talking about the Saturday before last? The same night Kerry Valentine was murdered?’
Alice nodded, acknowledging the inference.
‘Do you know if he was violent towards Faye then?’
Alice screwed up her face. ‘I really don’t know. I don’t think so, at least she didn’t tell me he had, but then I also think she kept it well hidden for a long time. I get the impression this violence has been a regular occurrence for some time.’
‘Johnny was at Ben’s stag do in Bournemouth, wasn’t he? I remember watching the recording of his interview on Sunday morning.’
Alice nodded again, the taste of the cigarette tar clinging to her tongue like mould.
‘And on the occasions when you and I have met since Faye came clean on Sunday, you didn’t think to mention Johnny’s violent streak to me?’
Alice could only shrug. ‘I wanted to, but I didn’t know if you would think I was jumping to conclusions and throwing my friends under the bus to help Ben. I didn’t have any real evidence, and I knew Faye wouldn’t back up my story if I told you.’
‘Even so, if we’d been made aware of his violent streak sooner, it might have helped steer our investigation.’
‘So you think he killed Kerry?’
Hazelton ground her teeth uncertainly. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. It’s possible Johnny could have been responsible for Kerry’s death, but if that’s the case then one or more of the stag party has lied to us, and there will be repercussions for that.’
Alice recalled Dave’s conversation with the mystery caller: We all stuck to the same story, so they’ve no reason to doubt what we said. Don’t worry, I made sure everyone knew the timeline of activity.
Alice’s eyes fell back on Faye. ‘What will happen to Faye? Will they arrest her?’
‘As soon as the doctor clears her to go home, we will have to arrest her. It’s standard protocol when a domestic disturbance results in a dead body. We need to know what happened in Faye’s own words. The important thing for her to remember is the truth.’
‘Then what happens? Johnny’s dead, but she didn’t mean to kill him; she’s not that sort of person. I swear on my life!’
Hazelton’s thin smile did little to reassure her. ‘What happens then is dependent on what she tells us and what the pathologist discovers in the post mortem. If your friend’s version correlates with the pathologist’s findings, then it’s possible no charges will be brought, but it’s far too early to speculate at this point. The important thing right now is that Faye isn’t in any more danger. We have a duty of care to all – regardless of the crimes they’re accused of committing. We just want to make sure she’s okay and then the process will begin.’
Alice still felt like she might be sick, but having eaten nothing since lunch, there would be little to come up.
‘It looks like she’s out for the night,’ Hazelton added, keeping her voice low. ‘I’ll go and speak to the SIO for her case before I return to Bournemouth. Can I give you a lift home?’
‘Thanks, but Ben’s here. He’ll drive me.’
Hazelton nodded and departed the room, whispering something to the two officers still stationed outside the private room. Inevitably, Faye would be moved out of the Emergency Department at some point, but Alice was determined to stay by her side wherever they moved her to. She wouldn’t sit back idly any longer.