‘As you say,’ Laura continued. ‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing. We do have one other concern, though. Michael?’

‘We do, yeah.’ Her colleague picked up the baton. ‘Mary Ellen’s sister believes that you had a personal reason for not looking into her disappearance.’

‘What was that, now?’ The sergeant’s tone was even, but his eye twitched furiously.

Michael leaned forward.

‘She says Mary Ellen accused you of trying to rape her.’

‘Should we call back to the Lehanes?’ Michael asked, as they pulled out of the village of Glendale.

Laura shrugged.

‘I don’t think so. I don’t want to be caught in the middle of “he says, she says” with Elizabeth and Doyle. It doesn’t matter how her father died or why her brother emigrated to England. Nor does it matter who Mary Ellen was shagging. That’s Doyle trying to create a defence for his poor police work. And I’m not charging in there accusing them of lying about Mary Ellen not coming home that night – not the day after they’ve been informed of her death.’

‘It mightn’t have been intentional on Doyle’s part,’ Michael mused. ‘Sloppy, maybe. But the whole point of having a local guard is to have local knowledge and we can’t dismiss the value that brings.’

Laura stared at her colleague, aghast.

‘It brings no bloody value if it creates a bias that leads to ineffectiveness,’ she snapped. ‘And anyway, none of that is the reason he didn’t treat the report seriously, if Elizabeth is to be believed. It was because he was glad to see the back of a woman who was causing trouble for him. Nobody else in the village knew about the accusation against him at that stage, bar Mary Ellen’s sister, so Doyle was relieved she was gone.’

‘If you believe he’s guilty of what she claimed,’ Michael ventured.

His colleague tutted.

‘It doesn’t matter whether he is or isn’t. Well, it matters, but you know what I mean. I’m not presuming the woman is always telling the truth, Michael. Mary Ellen said he’d tried to rape her and true or not, that was going to cause Doyle a lot of bother. As it happens, I’d be inclined to believe that he did try something on with her. He gave me the creeps. The things he said about her shouldn’t have come out of a professional policeman’s mouth. It was vindictive – the “village bike” and saying she was “riddled”. And telling us about the abortion rumour – it’s all a bit accusatory, isn’t it? Like she was asking to be murdered.’