McNab had every intention of interviewing everyone still alive on the list McCreadie had made, but he was keen to know why he was being directed to the priest in the first instance.

‘You weren’t around in the seventies,’ McIntyre said. ‘They rarely asked the kids. And if they did, they didn’t believe the answers anyway. They didn’t listen to me or to Jean either. Jeez, even my father wouldn’t hear anything bad said about Father Feeney. My mum . . . I told her some stuff about him but she wouldn’t believe it. DI McCreadie was the only one who listened. And they got rid of him when he tried to take it further.’

‘Take what further?’

‘Father Feeney was a paedophile, although we didn’t know that word back in the day.’

‘And you believe he abducted your sister?’

His face darkened. ‘I never said that. But whoever took Mary had the priest’s help, I’m sure of it. Mary’s best friend, Karen Marshall, was the lucky one. She got away.’

‘You think both girls were targeted?’

‘They were joined together at the hip. Outside of school and church, that is. Karen was a Proddy.’ He threw an apologetic glance at McNab. ‘Sorry, old habits die hard. Karen’s family were Protestants.’

McNab didn’t need the terminology of the great sectarian divide explained to him.

‘Wee Karen was really freaked when Mary went missing,’ McIntyre went on. ‘She never came out to play in the street the summer after it happened. We thought her dad, who was in the police, was worried that the bastard who took Mary might come back for Karen.’

‘You think Karen might have known him?’

‘McCreadie said the first time he spoke to her she kept talking about the confirmation dress and that Mary was happy. The next time he saw her she said nothing. Just sat there, terrified. Nowadays they’d have people trained to deal with a possible child witness. Back then they thought kids just told lies. That’s how the paedophile bastards got away with it for so long. The good old days, eh?’

‘The day Mary was being confirmed . . . Did you see her in her confirmation dress?’

McIntyre stared at him. ‘Why?’

‘Would you recognize the dress again?’

‘You’ve got her dress? Jesus Christ. I knew it was Mary. The fucking bastard. I’ll kill him myself.’ McIntyre rose, his face ablaze.

‘Sit down,’ McNab ordered.

McIntyre glowered at him but made no attempt to comply with the demand.

‘Sit the fuck down or I’ll invite you to accompany me to the station for threatening to kill someone.’

McIntyre sank back into the seat.

‘If you were presented with a photograph of a dress, would you be able to identify it as the one Mary was wearing?’

McIntyre absorbed this, then eventually shook his head. ‘I was a fourteen-year-old boy. So the answer is no.’ He looked distressed at having to say that.

‘What about jewellery?’ McNab tried.

‘Jewellery? What d’you mean? A ring?’ He halted there, a light dawning in his eyes. ‘A bracelet. She had a bracelet. A silver one. Loads of wee girls had them back then. She begged and begged my dad and eventually he appeared home with one. Christ knows where he got it. The pawn shop probably.’