Was McCabe telling the truth? It was hard to know. He was a scumbag, but, on the face of it, a relatively banal one. And yet, the man they were looking for had to be an exceptional liar to have gotten away with his crimes for so long.

‘We’ll sort out legal representation,’ Tom said. ‘But why don’t you just talk to us, before we go down that route? You’re going be charged for assaulting my colleague, but any cooperation you give us can be offered as a mitigating circumstance. Do you understand that? If you’ve done nothing to Fiona, it can only help your cause if you tell us what you know.’

McCabe glared down at his clenched fists, eyebrows furrowed. He was torn between wanting to seem tough and not wanting to get sent down for thumping a detective.

The pragmatic side won out.

‘She was at my house that day,’ he confessed, begrudgingly. ‘We argued. I can’t even remember what over. I was drinking and she was nagging me about something. I might have … pushed her. Then she left and I didn’t see her again. Next thing I knew, she was missing. That’s the truth.’

‘Had she said anything to you beforehand? Had she concerns she was being followed, or anything like that?’

He shook his head.

‘No. But she wouldn’t tell me anyway. Fiona kept things to herself. She was seeing somebody else, as well as me. I knew that. I could smell him on her. She denied it, but I just knew.’

Tom sat up.

‘Do you have any clue who it was?’

‘Nope. But she was getting notions, so he must have been some big shot. I reckon he fathered her brat. I got the sense things had cooled between them after that, but now they were back on.’

‘What do you mean, “notions”?’

‘Getting brave, like. Thinking she could say whatever she liked to me. She would rile me up, just to see how I’d react. Like a fucking child looking for boundaries, then bawling when she discovered what they were. That’s all she was. A little girl.’

‘Who would know if she was seeing somebody else?’ the inspector asked. ‘Friends?’

‘Fiona didn’t have friends. She had people she hung around with sometimes. None of the girls trusted her with their boyfriends and all the lads wanted to do was shag her. And the family won’t have a clue. She used to tell me about that brother of hers – how he’d look at her. Dirty little pervert, if you ask me – probably looking to get into his own sister’s knickers. And the da thinks she’s still ten – calls her princess and all that shit. There’s something not right there.’

Tom was tiring of the man and his mouth. He wanted to finish up and check if that photo of Steve Moore had arrived.