She checked her watch and her phone. No reply from Kerry. Her friend had seen the message an hour ago and nothing, not the simplest of replies. She grabbed her coat and left. Now that she and Kerry’s friendship had been rekindled, she wasn’t about to let it slide.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
‘Mrs Powell, we’re so sorry to disturb you. May we come in?’ Gina glanced at Jacob as Kerry Powell stared at their identification. The young woman’s face was smeared with mascara and several of her clipped in hair extensions were tangled in her own hair. Her enlarged pupils, red cheeks and the pungent smell of stale alcohol gave her away.
‘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?’
‘They are my friends. It was my wedding.’
Gina went to speak but then stopped, allowing Kerry to cry until her sobs subsided.
‘Can you please tell me more about you, Francesca and Holly? How you all met and how you know each other.’
Kerry went to sip the shot of Sambuca but changed her mind and placed it back down. ‘I think I’ve had enough to drink. Fran and Holly, we met at primary school. We have been best friends through our childhood and our teens. We’ve always been close, meeting up for lunch regularly, speaking on the phone. We’ve helped each other get over bad boyfriends. We’ve held each other’s hair back in nightclub toilets when we had too much to drink. I love them both like they’re my sisters. There’s also Lilly, she’s the fourth one in our group – the Awesome Foursome – and the other bridesmaid at my wedding. We’ve always been friends. I thought we’d all be besties until the end and now two of them are gone. Who would do this?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. Can you think back to your wedding in Crete?’
Kerry scraped the chair on the tiles and hurried to the sink and poured a glass of water. ‘I can’t stand the stale taste of that stuff any more.’ She pointed to the bottle on the table as she dragged her feet on the floor and sat back in her chair. ‘What would any of this have to do with our wedding? Please don’t taint that memory too. It’s bad enough that Holly was murdered at my reception.’
‘We have to ask. When we interviewed Lilly at the reception, she told us that in Crete on the night of your wedding she went to bed early, leaving everyone at the bar celebrating. She heard Holly arguing with someone outside, by the pool. We don’t know who she was talking to. I know this is a long shot, but can you remember anyone being missing during that evening or during the early hours of the next day?’
‘I was pretty wasted.’
‘Or do you remember anyone seeming a little off or did Holly say anything to you?’
‘This has got something to do with her secret man, hasn’t it?’
Gina crossed her ankles under the table. ‘Do you know who that was?’
She shook her head. ‘She kept denying there was a man, but Lilly saw him through Holly’s letterbox. She wouldn’t let her in when she went over, even though she was in. I really don’t know who he was though.’
Sighing, Gina pulled a photo from her notebook. ‘Do you know this man?’
‘Everyone knows him. That’s Phil the Pill.’