She pulled her phone out. ‘I’ll just check my diary?’ She scrolled as she sipped her coffee. ‘I was here, working on a project. I’m a videographer and I edit from home, upstairs in my office.’
‘Was anyone here with you?’
‘My husband was working away and my son, Danny, comes and goes. I don’t keep track of them.’
Gina’s mind whirred away while Jacob noted Danny’s name down. As far as she could tell, Justine and Danny had opportunity but she couldn’t attribute a motive to them. The explanation she’d given to them as to how the card could have been at Maura’s house stacked up. ‘Where does your husband work?’
‘ALV Accounting Solutions. He sets up bespoke accounting systems for companies and that can involve working away for a few days at a time.’
That too gave him opportunity unless they could rule him out through checking his whereabouts with his employers. Gina watched as Jacob glanced at the family photos on the wall and then began accessing the system on his iPad. She carried on speaking to Justine. ‘And he’s working away now, you say.’
‘Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I don’t know the name of the company he’s working out of.’
Gina cleared her throat. ‘When we came last night, we saw an envelope on your console table with Kain’s name on the front.’
‘Oh, that.’ She walked across the kitchen and took the envelope from a drawer before passing it to Gina.
Gina opened it. ‘A card.’ It had a picture of a man pushing a boulder up a hill on the front with the words,You can do it, written underneath.
Justine nodded. ‘Lindy asked me to speak to Kain because I’ve had a problem with drink in the past. It was many years ago, before I met my husband and had my son. I just wanted to help. We spoke a few times and he did want to change. It was just too hard for him. I got him that card and wrote the times, dates and venues for Alcoholics Anonymous meetups. He wasn’t in a good place when I gave it to him. He threw it back at me. I tried to help him and now he’s…’ She inhaled slowly. ‘Maybe I could have done more but he wasn’t ready for help. I liked Kain. I think there was a good man in there but he couldn’t find his way out.’
‘So, you did know him well?’
‘No. I didn’t. I hoped to get to know him better and help, but it didn’t work out that way. I’ve only known Lindy for a few months. She started coming to the same yoga class I go to and we clicked. I really like her and we got on.’
Gina glanced at the back wall, covered in family photos all framed in black on a pale-grey wall. One particular photo caused her to look twice.
‘I will need you and your son to come down to the station and make a formal statement this morning. Can you call your husband as we’ll need to speak to him too?’
Justine stared and her brows began to crease. The coffee cup in her hand began to shake over her trembling hands. She placed the cup down. ‘But my husband is working away. My son’s busy and he has nothing to do with all this, and I don’t either.’
‘It will be easier if you come in voluntarily. We need to have your statements on record. A man has been murdered.’
It was as if Justine had clicked that voluntarily might turn into compulsory. She could see Justine’s cogs ticking as she searched for words that weren’t coming out of her mouth. ‘I best, err… I should try to call Craig.’
Gina sat back and waited. Justine placed her phone to her ear and eventually left a voicemail. ‘Craig, it’s urgent. Can you please call me back? Danny and I have to go to the police station to make a statement. Lindy’s brother, Kain, has been murdered. They need to talk to us, you too. Call me back or just come home, okay.’
‘Can we take your husband’s work and mobile numbers, please?’
Justine reached into the sideboard drawer and passed a card to Gina. ‘He doesn’t answer all the time. He’s probably still in bed.’ She swallowed.
‘Do you have the address of where he’s staying?’
‘No, his company normally book a room above a pub, something like that. I didn’t ask for the name of the place.’
‘Is your son in?’
After creasing her brow, Justine shook her head. ‘He didn’t come home last night. He stayed with a friend.’
‘Do you know who he went out with?’
She shook her head. ‘He has lots of friends and he tends to stay with them when they go to a pub.’
Jacob leaned over and showed Gina what he was looking at on his screen. Craig and Justine’s son had a recent conviction for taking a vehicle without consent.
Gina glanced back at the photo on the wall again. ‘Is that your husband in the photo?’
Justine nodded.
