Taboo by Casey Hill Read Free Book Online

officers. An older officer at a nearby desk noticed her lost expression.
    ‘Who you looking for, love?’
    ‘Jones,’ she said, hesitantly.
    He pointed her toward the back of the room. ‘Over by the wall – see the lad in the blue sweater?’ She spotted a thirty-something man with dark hair and thick eyebrows tapping away busily at a computer.
    ‘Got it, thanks.’ She weaved through the desks, finally reaching Jones’ workstation. ‘You Jones?’
    He looked up slowly. ‘Who wants to know?’
    Reilly offered him her hand. ‘Reilly Steel, GFU.’ He looked surprised and she launched into her story without preamble. ‘We’re analyzing evidence collected from a suspected suicide your unit is handling. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about that if I may.’
    Guess you must have enjoyed that garlic dinner you ate last night , she added, silently, reeling back a little at the overpowering stench emanating from him. At times like this, her trusty sense of smell was a real disadvantage.
    Like many of his colleagues, Jones was naturally wary of any interference from GFU and she readied herself for the inevitable defensiveness. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.
    ‘Not exactly. As I said, I just wanted to clarify a couple of things for the file. You investigated a death in Donnybrook – a Jim Redmond?’
    He nodded, the wary look never leaving his eyes.
    ‘Is this a confirmed suicide?’
    Jones sighed and motioned her to a chair, and Reilly could tell that he was thinking GFU chasing a suicide was the last thing he needed. ‘We’re waiting for the ME to verify that there was no foul play, but the guy was found hanging from the beams in the dining room of his mansion. Sure, anyone could see it was a suicide.’
    This kind of thinking was one of Reilly’s pet hates and the reason she rarely took any aspect of an open investigation at face value.
    ‘Was he married?’ Jones nodded and looked pointedly at his watch, but Reilly was like a terrier with a cornered rat, pursuing her prey until she got what she wanted. ‘So what’s the wife’s story?’
    He waved a dismissive arm. ‘Same as ever – the missus is saying otherwise, that there’s no way he’d do something like that and that it has to be some kind of accident,’ he muttered. ‘But then again, she would say that, wouldn’t she?’
    Reilly raised an eyebrow. ‘Any valid reason for her to think that?’
    ‘Nah, just the usual – he was on great form lately, they had a lovely life and were happy as Larry. You know – all pretty standard stuff.’
    ‘OK, so the wife reckons they were happy, but he …’ she opened her folder, looked at the inventory of evidence, ‘… he hanged himself with a cotton bed sheet?’
    ‘The old reliable. Although, again, the wife is convinced he couldn’t tie a knot to save his life. I don’t know – I feel sorry for her and all that but … well, I think sometimes people just need to face facts. Especially when there’s a suicide note.’
    At this, Reilly’s ears pricked up. ‘There was?’
    From her point of view, this was good news; it meant there was more likely nothing untoward. But of course, if there was no foul play, the occurrence of the same trace evidence in separate scenes would be even harder to explain. She took a deep breath, reminding herself not to leap to conclusions, to wait and see where the evidence led. Another old training mantra echoed in her brain: Intuition is a valuable tool – but only when based on evidence.              
    ‘ Yep. Laid out right on the dining room table, so you couldn’t miss it,’ Jones continued. ‘It was a strange one though, not the straightforward “Sorry I can’t take it anymore” type of thing you usually see.’
    ‘A strange one,’ Reilly echoed. ‘What did it say?’
    He paused, thinking. ‘I can’t remember it exactly off the top of my head. Hold on there for a minute.’ He began to rummage through the stack of files on