‘Was there ever any talk of Ultan Doyle and Mary Ellen having a relationship?’ he asked. ‘Of him fancying her, anything like that?’

‘Ultan and Mary Ellen?’ The landlord’s voice had risen a pitch. ‘Good God, the man had twenty years on her. Mary Ellen wouldn’t have touched him with a barge pole. She hung around with lads her own age, despite the gossip. And sure, the good sergeant is too busy fancying himself to fancy anybody else. Not to mention, he has a wife. No. I think Doyle would have steered clear of Mary Ellen. She’d a tendency, with a few drinks in her, to get a bit argumentative sometimes. She’d … claim things. Any man with sense would know to stay away from that.’

‘Did she make any allegations against Doyle?’

The landlord shook his head.

‘No. But she did say one or two other lads in the village had got a bit heavy, so to be honest, if she’d claimed something about Doyle I’m not sure anybody would have believed her.’

When they left the pub, Laura turned in the direction of the car.

‘Don’t you want to talk to more people?’ Michael asked.

She stopped.

‘What’s the point? I imagine his opinion is as nuanced as we’ll get. Fair enough, I concede the point to you. Doyle investigated her disappearance. But it’s clear that what he had to say about Mary Ellen was based on opinion, not necessarily fact. Glendale is just one of those villages. A girl sleeps with a man or two and suddenly she’s a raging slut who can’t be trusted or believed. It looks like I was wrong about things having changed.’

Laura looked so distressed that Michael felt immediately ashamed at how satisfied he’d felt when the landlord confirmed the guards had indeed made enquiries about the disappearance.

‘You know what it is, Michael,’ she continued. ‘I can’t stop thinking of Mary Ellen holed up somewhere while everybody in that village was telling one another she’d done a flit. Nobody deserves to be forgotten and be left to suffer like that, no matter what people thought of her. It bugs the hell out of me – the notion that a woman could be held responsible for the actions of her rapist or killer just because she acted a certain way or walked home alone at night.’

‘But not everybody thinks like that,’ Michael said. ‘Look, you were right. The sergeant was wrong to speak about Mary Ellen like that. Especially now we know what happened to her.’

Laura had been fussing at a stone on the ground with her shoe.

‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘I’m not annoyed at you. You’re just trying to be fair to everybody. I shouldn’t have driven us back down here. I wanted to make a point.’