Page 123 of The Guilty Girl

‘Elaborate?’ Babs spat, her hand banging the table, the photograph shimmering with each thump. ‘If what you say is true, that stuck-up bitch humiliated my daughter and Hannah had every right to confront her.’

‘Babs, please,’ Lottie said. ‘It was more than a confrontation, it was assault. Two different things.’

‘Don’t you dare patronise me.’ Babs’s face glowed red with fury. ‘I am not stupid!’

‘I apologise.’ Lottie had to restore calm in order to secure a confession. At the moment, she was making a complete balls of it. ‘I didn’t intend to be patronising. The truth is, I have witnesses who say Hannah assaulted Lucy.’

‘What witnesses?’ Babs demanded.

‘I can’t divulge that information.’ Lottie turned her attention to the girl. ‘Have you any memory of that altercation? I need you to tell me what really happened at the party.’

‘Your witnesses can say what they like.’ Babs flung the words across the table, spittle flying. ‘Hannah was totally within her rights to defend herself.’ She folded her arms, defying Lottie to contradict her.

‘A young man says he gave you a pill, Hannah. Do you remember that?’

Hannah shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

‘Do you recall anything about the incident after Lucy sent the photo?’

She shook her head, and Lottie waited. Eventually the girl said, ‘It’s hazy. I don’t know. I already told you to ask Cormac.’

‘The samples we took from under your nails match Lucy McAllister’s DNA. Can you explain that?’

Hannah gasped, and Babs shot up, slamming her chair against the wall. ‘This is a bald-faced set-up. Just because that crowd have money and we don’t, you think you can stitch up my daughter. You are pathetic. Come on, Hannah, we’re out of here.’ She grabbed the girl by the arm and hauled her to her feet.

Lottie thought Hannah looked like a reluctant marionette, her mother pulling her strings.

‘Sit down, please,’ she said, calmly but emphatically. ‘Hannah isn’t going anywhere. We are preparing a file to send to the DPP on foot of forensic evidence. I already advised you to get a solicitor, advice you declined to follow. If Hannah doesn’t cooperate with us, I will have little option but to hold her for twenty-four hours.’

Babs was stunned into silence. Hannah bowed her head, her hair falling like a veil covering her face.

‘If you have something you want to tell me, Hannah, now is the time,’ Lottie said.

‘I don’t remember. I wish I could, but I can’t remember anything after I took the pill. I had a drink of Coke. That’s all. Little bits of memory come and go. Please, please ask Cormac, he’ll tell you.’ A solitary tear slid down her nose, hovering on the tip before dropping silently to the table.

‘Did you and Cormac murder Lucy?’

Babs found her voice. ‘Hannah might have stood up for herself over that disgusting photograph, but murder? Find another scapegoat, Inspector, because my girl is innocent.’

Had the woman not heard her? Lottie forced her voice to an even pitch. ‘We have DNA evidence that proves Hannah had Lucy’s blood under her fingernails. She had a bloodied towel from the house in her rucksack and—’

‘Someone put it there.’ Babs was incandescent. ‘You have to see sense.’

‘When did you fetch your rucksack to bring it home, Hannah?’ Lottie directed her attention to the girl.

‘I don’t know,’ Hannah sobbed.

‘That rucksack was in Lucy’s living room around four a.m. and then it was in your home. I have a witness who—’

‘You and your witnesses,’ Babs spat. ‘Liars, the lot of them. The cheek of you, targeting a poor innocent girl just because she hasn’t a pot to piss in, while that … that rich bitch swanned around town as if her shit didn’t smell. Let me tell you this, something smells rotten about this whole scenario.’ She sniffed loudly and covered her nose as if the air in the room suddenly reeked of rotten eggs. ‘And if you don’t fucking mind, we’re getting a solicitor.’ She glanced at Hannah and lowered her voice. ‘Charity or not, you need it.’

Lottie sighed. Babs Byrne was only now waking up to the horror story starring her daughter as the principal actor.

‘Hannah? Can you recall at all when you fetched your rucksack?’ She slid across the table a photograph of the blue rucksack adorned with grubby white daisies. ‘The towel had Lucy’s blood on it.’

Hannah stared at her bag in the photo as if it was the first time she’d seen it. She shook her head slowly. ‘I … I have no explanation.’ She looked up, eyes pleading, but Lottie thought she saw a glimmer of fear. ‘Does it mean I was still at the house when Lucy … died?’

‘I was hoping you could tell me.’