as he quickly raised her chin to look into her eyes.
‘I am so sorry I didn’t tell you about that stupid trip to Bournemouth. I swear I didn’t know what Dave had planned, but it all went without incident, and I thought it would only upset you if I told you where we’d been and what they’d arranged. You had enough stress on your plate with the wedding.’
She could understand that; she’d tried not to let him see the strain the preparations had been having in the final weeks, but she’d clearly failed to keep it secret.
‘I wish you had told me,’ she said sadly.
‘I knew you’d be angry at Dave, and I didn’t want your day to be spoiled because of that. He meant well – at least in his eyes he did – and I know how devastated he is about what happened yesterday. He blames himself for what happened.’
‘What was it like? At the police station I mean?’
Ben lowered his eyes. ‘It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. They were very talkative, and treated me well. After they’d taken my prints and things, they gave me some food and a cup of tea and then this morning they started the interview just after seven. I’d told them how keen I was to get back to you, and I think they were trying to be accommodating.’
‘Did they say why they arrested you?’
He nodded grimly. ‘Apparently Kerry – the victim – never returned home after she’d been at our party, and because her appointment had been booked in my name … it’s an easy enough conclusion for them to jump to.’
Alice was trying to keep her emotions in check but she couldn’t ignore the paranoia taking control. Pulling her hands away from him and widening the gap, she said, ‘Did you fancy her?’
Ben grimaced at the question. ‘I’m not saying she wasn’t pretty, but I just felt really awkward, especially having all my friends huddled round, watching. It was creepy more than anything else.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘Does it matter?’
She didn’t answer, but glared at him as her vision fogged with tears.
‘She had long blonde hair,’ he said, avoiding looking at Alice’s own platinum-blonde locks. ‘Probably in her early twenties, slim, pretty, as I said, but not the sort of girl I’d look at now. There’s only one woman for me, and you know that.’
‘Did you sleep with her?’ The words were out before Alice could stop herself.
He looked into her eyes and rested a hand on his heart. ‘No I did not. I know I let you down, and I will do whatever it takes to win your trust back, but I …’ His voice cracked under the strain. ‘I-I-I need you by my side through this. I don’t know why they want to try and pin this poor girl’s murder on me, but they have the wrong man. I didn’t do it.’
It hurt not to go over and embrace him, but Alice remained still. ‘Tell me it’s over and done with. Tell me they’re not going to come back for you again.’
He lowered his eyes. ‘They’ve asked me to surrender my passport while they continue their investigation.’
Alice gasped. ‘That means –’
‘I know,’ he interrupted. ‘It means we can’t go on our honeymoon tonight. I’m going to phone the travel company and see what they can do for us. I’m so sorry, Alice.’
Alice furrowed her brow as another question pushed to the forefront of her mind. ‘The police aren’t in the habit of arresting suspects without good reason. What aren’t you telling me?’
He glanced away for just the briefest of moments, but she spotted it.
‘Nothing.’
His denial set her blood boiling. ‘Don’t lie to me, Ben. Not again. Our marriage needs to be built on trust. I don’t buy that they would arrest you just because your name was the last one in her appointments book. There must be more to it than that.’
Ben clamped his eyes shut and bowed his head. ‘They said they found traces of my DNA on her clothing or something. That’s all. I explained to them how she’d been dancing and how it must have transferred over.’
Alice was struggling to believe anything he was saying, and then a new question leapt forward that sickened her to the stomach. ‘How did they know it was your DNA?’
He kept his eyes closed. ‘They took a swab inside my mouth. Standard practice apparently.’
Alice wasn’t buying it. ‘They wouldn’t arrest you on a hunch and then hope to prove it when they’d got you to the station. If they found traces of your DNA on her clothes, they must have known that before they came here yesterday. I swear to God, Ben, you’d better start telling me the truth or I’ll—’
‘Okay, okay,’ he sighed. ‘They already had my DNA on their database. There’s something I’ve never told you before that I’m hugely ashamed of.’ Staring straight into her eyes, he said, ‘Yesterday wasn’t the first time I’ve been arrested.’
Alice took slow and steady breaths, as her wobbly legs threatened to spill her to the carpet of the honeymoon suite. Could this be real? Or was she still in the throes of a hideous nightmare?
‘It was a long time ago,’ Ben said, taking her silence as a cue to continue. ‘Before I knew you. It was a wrongful arrest back then, just as it is now. I never told you because … because that’s not who I am, and I’m deeply ashamed to have ever spent any time under suspicion of the police.’
Alice braced herself for yet another revelation. ‘Why were you arrested before?’
Ben screwed up his face, clearly unsure how to spin this chapter in his life. ‘I was accused of something I didn’t do by a malicious woman I’d been seeing. She saw me as an opportunity to make some quick money and when I wanted to leave her she started firing all sorts of accusations at me. She went to the police and told them a pack of lies, and before I realized what was happening, they’d brought me in for questioning. The solicitor they provided told me to keep my mouth shut until he knew what evidence they thought they had against me, and he was as surprised as I was when they charged me.’
Alice reached out for the edge of the desk as her left leg buckled, and she just about managed to stay upright. ‘How could you keep something like that from me?’
Ben quickly moved across and took her arm to support her. ‘I know none of this can be easy to hear, and if I’d had my way you never would have found out.’
Her mouth dropped. ‘Do the vows we exchanged mean nothing to you? I’ve not kept any secrets from you. I’m an open book, and now I’m beginning to question everything I know about you.’
‘I’m still the same man you fell in love with. I swear I’m not keeping anything else from you. That period of my life isn’t something I’m comfortable thinking about, let alone discussing openly.’
‘Who
