‘Why are you here?’ Kerry filled the doorway, swaying from side to side as she waited for an explanation.
‘It might be best if we come in.’
Kerry stared and grinned before allowing the door to swing back. She led the way without telling them to follow.
‘I think that means enter,’ Jacob whispered.
The large hallway screamed wealth. Gina now understood who Charlie Carter was referring to when he mentioned Francesca’s rich friends. She spotted the dying flowers under the stairs.
The large double doors led to the hugest kitchen and dining room ever. A shot of Sambuca and an empty bottle of wine sat at one end of the table. Gina’s shoes clipped on the porcelain tiles, the sound echoing through the room as she took a few more steps closer to the table.
‘Sambuca? There’s plenty for all of us.’ Kerry smiled at them and gestured for them to sit.
‘Not while on duty,’ Jacob replied.
‘No, thank you.’ Gina had come to ask her questions but she wondered if Kerry was in any fit state to answer.
‘I’d offer you a coffee but,’ she shrugged, ‘I haven’t got any.’
Her speech was a little drawn out but Gina understood her perfectly. ‘Are you okay?’
‘As okay as anyone is when their best friend was murdered at her wedding reception. I don’t know the meaning of okay. I have a husband now. Fat lot of good he is. Where is he? Who knows? My whole life is falling apart.’ Kerry leaned forward over the table and began to sob.
Gina nodded to Jacob and he flicked to a new page in his notebook to write down that Edward Powell wasn’t at home, with the time next to it. ‘Have you been on your own all day?’
She shook her head, rubbing a mixture of snot and tears into her straw-like hair. ‘My friend, Cass, came to see how I was a while ago. We had a drink.’
‘How about your husband?’
‘I don’t know. I never know. He said he was busy working then he was meeting with friends. He just left me here, like this, like he does all too often. If I go AWOL, he moans like mad. How could he leave me like this?’
Gina passed her a packet of pocket tissues and the young woman removed one and blew her nose. ‘Do you have anyone who will come here and be with you?’
Kerry passed her mobile phone to Gina. ‘My mum. Her number is under Mum. Can you tell her I need her? Her name’s Alison.’
Gina could tell Kerry was the type of person who mostly got people to do things for her. Given what she was about to tell her, she’d let it slide and call her mum for her. She pressed the number and a woman answered. ‘Hello. This is DI Harte and I’m with your daughter, at her house. She’s asked me to call. Could you please come and be with her?’
The woman agreed and ended the call after a few concerned words.
‘You look like you’ve got something to say, DI Harte.’
Gina swallowed and cleared her throat. She knew O’Connor had since called Francesca’s family but given what had happened to Holly, Kerry needed to know about Francesca too. ‘Shall we wait until your mother arrives?’
‘No. I want to know what you have to say.’ Her brow scrunched, like that of a child about to have a tantrum.
‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’
Kerry shrugged. ‘I’ve had the worst so spill. There’s nothing up there,’ she held her hand above her head, ‘that could be worse than what happened to Holly. Nothing.’
Gina doubted that. ‘I’m so sorry, Kerry. Francesca Carter, your friend, has been murdered this evening. I really am sorry.’
Kerry’s bottom lip shook before she burst into tears. ‘No, she can’t—’
‘I know this is hard and you must be shocked, but someone out there did this to your friend and we need you to answer a few questions so that we can find who did it. Would you be able to do that?’
Screaming out, she wrapped her arms around her front and bent over the table. ‘No! Who’s doing this to me?’
‘To you?’
