Well this is fun.

She has my name.

Good evening, Jessica Dunne. How are your Junior Cert studies going? Good news, you’ll never have to do them. You were stabbed to death in a back alley in Dublin on Tuesday.

You bunked off, didn’t you? Middle of third period. It was bucketing down by the time school had finished, but you came home bone dry.

It was 12.30, wasn’t it? When you were killed? It’s 4PM now. Rigor mortis never lies. And you don’t reek. Well, your wounds smell like raw meat, but that’s to be expected. Even if you were alive.

It was either staged by your mate, the one who thinks you sold her out to the police in January. Maeve Reid, I’m assuming you know her. Everyone says you’ve been friends since you were four.

Or you were actually mugged.

We’ve got Cormac O’Reily in custody, too. Serial offender, but nothing like this. Your brother told us that you rejected him a few weeks back, and he’s been harassing your mates, like a right dickhead.

Even if it wasn’t him, I’d love to see him get arrested. Smashed my car up last week, him and his gang did. Bloody dossers. No reason for it, didn’t nick anything out it.

Just smashed it up for kicks.

I never got the people who committed crime for kicks. I know you didn’t. You wouldn’t be friends with Maeve if you did. You both got warnings for shoplifting when you were twelve, didn’t you? Couldn’t afford your school stuff? Then you got an ASBO order when you were fourteen because you beat up the racist prick at your school. She got off, though. Two day suspension. You got indefinite exclusion. Came back in Year 10.

Just in time for your Junior Cert, bless you.

Got a bloody strong sense of justice, don’t you? You’re a lot like my friends.

I bet you were fuming about that, weren’t you, Jessica?

Do you go by Jess? Or Jessie?

I’ve taken Jessie for myself, sorry love.

You’re in a right state, aren’t you?

You’ve gotten blood all over your uniform. Your skirt’s rolled up, shirt not tucked in.

Your left eye’s proper fucked up. I’m sure you’d be blind if she was alive.

Apparently, she needed to buy something for Orla and Sean. And milk. And to remember that she had an English Lit project to turn in.

I think that says English Lit.

The ink on her palm is running. And covered in blood.

“Paul, do we know who Orla or Sean are?” I ask my colleague, holding up Jess’s limp arm in my gloved hands.

“Little siblings. Twins. Going on six. Birthday on the 15th.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah. You seen the wounds?”

“Stab wounds?”

“Standard kitchen knife. 20cm long, 3.8 wide. Two wounds, one in the left side of the abdomen, one in the back, square between the shoulders.”

“Could that have been symbolic? Like...it was staged then, right? We know Maeve Reid thinks she sold her out. Backstabbing?”

“Could be a stretch.” I say. “Speculating isn’t our job.”

“Don’t tell me you never think about it?” Paul asks.

“Of course I do. But I’m not writing that down. The gardaí’ll get that much. They’re not idiots. Very obvious symbology.”

“And if it was a botched mugging, why would there be multiple wounds?”

“What if it was more than a mugging?”

“What do you mean?”

“She was found with her blouse half undone.”

“Are you implying sexual assault?”

“Plausible. Cormac’s infamous. That’s what I’m saying, we’re not the police.” I say, holding my scalpel up in a way that would definitely get me fired if it wasn’t Paul working night shift today.

“If she was raped, we can prove it. We are forensics.”

“We can. But I’m not saying she was raped for definite. She could’ve been trying to stop the bleeding.”

“Fair point. Still, take swabs though.”

“Thank you. What were you gonna tell me about the bruises?”

“They show signs of struggle. I’d say she was jumped, tried to retaliate, stabbed in the abdomen, tried to fight back, headlock, thrown to the wall, that’s when her eye got fucked, keeled over, kicked to the floor, and,” He thrusts his scalpel into the air. “Right in the back.”

“Wall?”

“I found pieces of brick in her forehead.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Clearly an experienced attacker.”

“Well that doesn’t narrow it down. Both Maeve and Cormac are experienced. What do the footprints show?”

“Mostly rubbed off. I can make out a shoe pattern, but it’s so washed out in blood, I can’t discern anything..”

“Oh my God.”

“I know. But like you said. Not our job.”

“No, it is not.” I say, taking a sample of Jessica’s hair. At least she’s not also a ginger. That would be the last straw.

Kind of like the texture of her hair after her completely botched bleach job. She did choose a very nice shade of pink, but the bleach. It feels like horse hair.

“You’ve gotten everything down, yeah?” Paul asks. “We can pack up?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Good.”

“How many more bodies so we have?”

“Two.”

“OK. Thanks. I’ll send the results off.”

“Thanks.” Paul says as I step out and peel the gloves off my hands, filling out the form, then scanning it in an email to Murphy.

Miss Jessica Niamh Dunne: Autopsy Report, 13/7/09 - Jessica Gallagher & Paul Campbell

The Dunne house smells like toast and damp carpet.

It’s a semi-detached in Tallaght, pebble-dash front, plastic tricycle tipped on its side near the hedge. The rain’s eased off, but the sky’s still that flat Dublin grey that makes everything look unfinished.

I almost expect her to open the door herself.

Instead, it’s her mother.

Mrs Dunne looks smaller than I expected. People always do. Grief folds them in on themselves.

“You’re from forensics?” she asks.

Her voice is steady in the way voices get when they’ve already run out of tears.

“I am,” I say. “Jess Gallagher.”

A flicker at my name. There it is.

“Yes. They said.” She steps aside. “Come in.”

The hallway walls are covered in school photos. Jessica at six, missing her front teeth. Jessica at twelve, arms folded, chin up at the camera like she’s daring it to blink first.

I have to look away. She wins.

“Can I get you tea?” Mrs Dunne asks automatically.

“No, thank you.”

In the sitting room, her father stands when I enter. He doesn’t offer a hand. Just nods.

There are two small children on the floor with colouring books. Twins. I know from the file. Orla and Sean. Going on six. Birthday on the fifteenth.

Four days.

They look up at me with the mild curiosity children reserve for adults with lanyards.

“Is that the doctor?” one of them asks.

Mrs Dunne swallows. “Yes.”

I kneel down so I’m level with them.

“I’m just here to help,” I say.

We sit at the dining table. Mr Dunne speaks first.

“They said it was quick.”

It’s not a question.

“It would have been fast,” I say carefully. “She wouldn’t have suffered for long.”

That much is true.

He nods once. Files it away like a receipt.

Mrs Dunne grips a tissue in both hands.

“Was she alone?”

“We’re still working through the evidence,” I say. “There were signs she tried to defend herself.”

Mrs Dunne closes her eyes at that, laughing to herself with a shocked, wavering breath.

Mr Dunne’s jaw tightens.

“Maeve was with her earlier that day,” he says. “They’d been… not talking. But they met.”

I don’t react outwardly.

“Do you know what time?” I ask.

“School finished at three,” he says. “But she wasn’t there. We got a call.”

Mrs Dunne looks at him sharply. He stops.

I wait.

“She left at lunch,” she says quietly. “We didn’t know.”

Left at lunch.

Twelve thirty.

Time of death: approximately twelve thirty.

My stomach drops, just slightly.

“Did she say where she was going?” I ask.

“To the shops,” Mrs Dunne says. “Milk. And… something for the twins.”

The twins are still colouring on the floor. One of them is drawing a stick figure with pink hair.

“Did she have her phone?” I ask.

Mr Dunne nods. “Always.”

“We haven’t recovered it yet,” I say.

A shadow crosses his face.

“You mean whoever did this has it.”

“We don't know that.”

Silence settles heavy in the room.

Then Mrs Dunne says it.

“It wasn’t a random mugging.”

Not a question. A statement.

“What makes you say that?” I ask.

“She’d been scared,” she says. “For weeks. Wouldn’t say why. Said she’d ‘sorted it.’”

Sorted it.

I feel that phrase lodge somewhere behind my ribs.

“Did she ever mention anyone in particular?” I ask.

Mr Dunne hesitates.

“Cormac O’Reilly,” he says finally. “He’d been bothering her.”

“We have him in custody,” I say.

Mrs Dunne looks almost relieved at that.

But then she adds, very quietly:

“She was more afraid of disappointing someone.”

That catches me off guard.

“Disappointing?” I repeat.

“She said if she did the right thing, it would ‘blow up bigger than she meant.’” Mrs Dunne presses the tissue to her mouth. “I thought it was school drama.”

It never is.

When I stand to leave, Sean tugs my coat.

“Is Jess coming home?” he asks.

I look down at him.

“No,” I say gently. “But we’re going to find out what happened.”

He considers that. Then nods, like that’s a fair trade. Children are braver than adults. They just don’t know what they’re agreeing to.

Outside, the air feels thinner. I stand beside my car for a moment, looking back at the house. Upstairs window. Pink curtains. I picture her there, bleaching her hair in a bathroom sink, planning to fix everything herself. Sorted it. If she thought she had, she was wrong.

My phone buzzes.

Paul.

“You done playing social worker?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“You’ll want to come back in. Gardaí pulled CCTV from near the alley.”

“And?”

“There’s a car.”

“What kind?”

“Registered to Declan Kelleher.”

I pause.

“The boxing coach?” I say.

“Yeah.”

I look back at the Dunne house one last time.

“She wasn’t afraid of disappointing Cormac,” I say slowly.

“No?”

“No,” I say. “She was afraid of disappointing someone she respected.”

There’s a beat of silence on the line.

“Jess,” Paul says carefully, “don’t start building villains out of thin air.”

“I’m not,” I say.

But as I get into my car, I know something.

Jessica Dunne didn’t go into that alley by accident.

She went to meet someone.

And she thought she could handle it.