Page 119 of The Guilty Girl

‘It’s okay, Kirby.’ Lottie stretched her hands over her head, conscious of the strain in her back from leaning over the desk. ‘How is Hannah?’

‘She’s fine. Told her I’d fetch a McD’s meal for her.’

‘Have you or McKeown finished going through the traffic cams for Liz Flood’s Punto? We need to know where that car was between the party and when it was found burned out this morning.’ She didn’t like being interrupted. She needed to focus her attention on the photo of Hannah. It might have been the catalyst for Lucy’s murder. Or it might have had absolutely nothing to do with it. She still had to work through the conundrum of Hannah’s rucksack.

‘Do you think we have enough to charge Hannah?’

‘Not really. We need the results of the analysis of the blood found on her hands, and I want the results on Cormac’s clothes that we took from his washing machine. It will take the lab an age to get back to us, and it’s Sunday.’

‘I’ve good news for you. Martina Brennan used to date a guy who heads up the forensic lab in the Phoenix Park. She soft-talked him into pushing our request to the top of the pile.’

‘How did she manage that?’

‘She cried down the phone about this beautiful teenager who’d been savagely murdered in her own home and how important the DNA test results would be in securing a conviction.’

‘She didn’t?’

‘She did.’

‘And what do the results tell us?’

He checked over a page in his hand. ‘Even though Cormac’s clothes were washed, they were able to extract a viable DNA sample from the shirt threads.’

‘Go on.’ Lottie straightened her back as Kirby stuck out his chest, full of the important news he was bringing her.

‘It’s a match for Lucy McAllister’s DNA. And the samples taken from Hannah’s hands had traces of Cormac’s DNA and … Lucy’s.’

‘Wow!’

‘It proves they killed her,’ Kirby concluded.

‘Hold on a minute,’ Lottie said, her excitement waning. ‘It only tells us that both Hannah and Cormac were in close proximity to Lucy before, during or after the girl died. We could do with finding the murder weapon with one or both sets of prints. What about the scratches on Cormac’s torso?’

‘No results on those yet.’

‘We have to factor in the argument between Hannah and Lucy. Lucy’s blood might have transferred then.’

‘Nothing in the post-mortem to indicate that. But boss, I thought you’d be ecstatic with these results.’ Kirby’s chest deflated, releasing the strain on the buttons, and his pudgy face seemed to fold in on itself. Anxiously he scratched his head of bushy hair.

‘I have a mixture of emotions, Kirby, but the truth is, I need a confession, and I want Hannah to be innocent.’

‘Why?’

‘The photo Lucy shared with all and sundry was emotional abuse; a destructive act to humiliate a young girl who couldn’t afford matching underwear.’

‘What’s her underwear got to do with anything?’

Lottie blew out her cheeks, angry at the world, annoyed with Kirby and sorry for Hannah.

‘Boss?’ Kirby brought her back up for air. ‘No matter what the trigger was, it doesn’t excuse the brutality of Lucy’s murder.’

‘I know that. There are too many unanswered questions. I still want to know who Lucy had sexual intercourse with in the hours before her death. And that skin taken from her side? What’s that all about? The photo might have set things off, but is it enough for a motive? I want to look Hannah in the eye when I show it to her.’

‘I’m with you on that one.’

‘Get her the food.’

As Kirby ambled off, Lottie leaned back in the chair and rubbed her eyes. Lethargy was dangerously close to taking hold. She jumped up. Gary could work on the rest of whatever was on Lucy’s phone while she worked on Hannah.