‘So this bracelet. Did it have an inscription?’

‘You have to be fucking kidding me,’ McIntyre said. ‘We were poor. God knows how my mother found a dress for Mary’s confirmation and you’re asking if my dad got a bracelet engraved?’ He sat back in his seat. ‘It is Mary they found on the moors, whatever you’re saying about dresses and bracelets. I know it is.’

‘How do you know that?’ McNab said.

‘You have a brother or a sister, Detective Sergeant?’

McNab shook his head.

‘She was my wee sister. It was my job to make sure she was okay. I fucking failed that day. I won’t do that again.’

McNab glanced at his watch to signal he’d heard enough for now.

‘I’ll be back in touch once we’ve ID’d the remains.’

Robbie countered that. ‘Once you’ve confirmed it’s my wee sister.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Jean would know about the dress. You need to talk to Jean.’

McNab left him there, hunched over his coffee. What the hell was going on in Robert McIntyre’s head, McNab didn’t want to imagine.

He’d dealt with a child abduction before. It had begun with a road traffic accident during a snowstorm. A wee girl called Emma had left an upturned car with her unconscious mother inside and made her way into nearby woods, because she maintained she’d heard a child’s voice calling to her.

It turned out that what she led them to were the remains of a long-lost child.

When they’d found Emma, after a desperate search, she’d been sitting next to a pile of offcuts from the surrounding forest, holding a skull in her hands. She’d told McNab that the skull she’d found in the nearby mound belonged to a child like her.

And she’d been right.

McNab didn’t like what had happened during that particular investigation, although they had listened to what Emma had had to say, weird though it had seemed at the time. Plus, they never would have tracked down the killer had it not been for Emma’s supposed conversations with the dead.

He wasn’t comfortable around children, but nine-year-old Emma Watson had been different. They’d formed a bond, which Claire, her mother, had been surprised by, and grateful for.

Outside now, McNab took a deep breath. The sooner they discovered the identity of the victim on the moors, the sooner they could deal with the fallout from the find. One thing was certain: human pain never went away. Never even diminished. It was always there, lurking behind a wall the sufferers built, just waiting to rear its head again.

As he walked away, his mobile rang. Glancing at the screen, he saw Magnus’s name. Did he really want to talk to the Orcadian professor now? At that moment, Rhona’s imagined voice sounded in his head telling him that he should, which to McNab’s mind was ridiculous. Why did his subconscious always need to know what Rhona thought at moments like these?

Nonetheless, McNab found himself driven to answer.