TRACE - CSI Reilly Steel #5 (Forensic novel Police Procedural Series) by Casey Hill

happen, but I just fell in to this job, these people. It’s just like being back home, only I have no money and no family.’
    ‘You could go back,’ he said. ‘No shame in that.’ She smiled hopelessly, and he leaned forward. ‘I heard a girl who worked here got killed a couple of months ago? Do you know anything about that?’
    ‘You the grease, or something?’ Her demeanor changed suddenly, she got suspicious.
    ‘No, nothing like that,’ Kennedy lied smoothly. ‘Truth is, her father was a friend of mine and I’m just asking around for him. As you can imagine, he’s disappointed that no one’s been arrested.’
    ‘Well,’ she said, relaxing again. ‘We all are, aren’t we? ‘Specially as we know who done it, an’ all,’ Her accent slipped into her Manchester vernacular now that she was familiar with him.
    ‘Who was that, then?’
    ‘Harry McMurty. Used to work here. Real piece of work, he was. Used to try and get into all our pants, but only Rose would let him. She must have been mad. I mean, he’s handsome, sure, but just a real rat?’
    ‘Yeah, I know the type,’ said Kennedy. ‘So why didn’t the cops get him?’
    ‘Bloody fluff couldn’t catch their own arses if you ask me,’ she said. ‘Useless as anything.’
    ‘I agree with you,’ he said staunchly.
    ‘They said they hadn’t enough evidence. But here we all were saying it weren’t no one else but him. And they let him go. He’s got some fancy job over at Hammer and Tongs now. Smooth talker.’
    ‘Hammer and Tongs? What’s that?’
    ‘Real fancy place over on Baggot Street. Tuck your napkin into your shirt, wipe your nose for you that kind of place. He’s the head waiter or something. Wants to be maitre’d.’
    ‘Well, thank you,’ said Kennedy. ‘You’ve been a real help.’
    ‘I hate that bugger, I do,’ the girl said with sudden vehemence. ‘I know Rose wasn’t much and a dreamer to boot but she were one of us and she didn’t deserve to what happened. I hope that rat gets it.’
    ‘We usually get what’s coming to us, pet,’ Kennedy said, getting up to leave.
    ‘Not that I’ve seen. It’s them willing to walk over the rest of us that get the cream.’
    Kennedy left her a big tip. She would need it, poor girl. He’d seen so many like her, heading for disaster, but having two young daughters himself, he wanted to save them all.
    The world was a harsh place, sucking in and spitting out young ones like that who were too young to stop it. It was a terrible shame.
    Back at the GFU, he met up with Reilly and Chris in the lab.
    Kennedy didn’t have anything against the blindingly impressive results that DNA could give them. But he still favored good old-fashioned detective work. He preferred to think of the stuff done here as a kind of alchemy, something magic. Not anything that these kids had to put hours and hours of work into. Just to extract the DNA from a single hair.
    ‘OK,’ said Gary, filling them in, like the show-man he was. ‘We managed to extract a single piece of hair from the bed at Jennifer Armstrong’s and compared it to the DNA of the two men who came forward and admitted to dating Jennifer. No match. But,’ he said, ‘and this is where you’ll want to give me a big kiss, it does match the DNA taken from the previous crime scene with the bed imprint in common. It’s a match. Your guy was at both scenes. And who knows how many others. Nothing from last month’s anitimine-related one unfortunately. Problem is we don’t have enough trace left to keep testing. We need to keep the rest to match against any real suspects.’
    ‘You’re a magician all right,’ said Kennedy. ‘Are you ready for that kiss?’
    They all laughed. Reilly was relieved to have something to go on finally, but it only confirmed her worst fears.
    With a stab of familiar resignation in her stomach, she acknowledged that they were dealing with a serial killer.
     

 
    Chapter 12
     
    Once she got home that evening,