She wondered if the outcome of the discovery might prove worse for Mary’s remaining family than never knowing what had happened to their sister.

‘I’d always want to know,’ Chrissy responded when Rhona said as much. ‘If anything like that happened to wee Michael, I’d want him back with me. And I’d want whoever did such a terrible thing to be brought to justice.’

Rhona felt the same. However, the fallout for the families involved would be great. They would become the focus of much scrutiny. As would all their erstwhile neighbours in that small community.

‘Does the press know?’ Chrissy said.

‘Bill is holding a press conference shortly with the sister and brother. They’ll no doubt be appealing to anyone who’s still alive from that time who might know anything to come forward for interview.’

‘Social media’s going to love this. I’ll bet there’s a true crime podcast already in the making,’ Chrissy said.

Despite spending her day forensically examining crime scenes, Chrissy’s current favourite pastime was listening to crime podcasts and either finding fault with them or avidly solving the crime.

‘There’s still the puzzle of the clothes buried with her,’ Chrissy said.

The Tech department had digitally restored the dress, veil and shoes. According to Bill, the image had been shown to the sister of the murdered girl, who’d said she couldn’t be sure of the dress, it was so long ago. She did say she thought the shoes were a bit small, but then again they were poor back then, and confirmation outfits were usually passed from one family member to another.

‘Well, mine certainly was,’ Chrissy said, ‘and the fancy white shoes pinched.’

The supposition was that the dress and shoes were on the small size for Mary, but they had no exact record of her weight and height, just their estimation from the remains. If her mother had still been alive, things would have been different. She would have been able to explain what seemed like a discrepancy.

If they’d had a photograph of Mary taken wearing the dress, that would have helped, but according to McNab there were none in the little evidence they’d found in the police store.

‘My mum sewed me into my borrowed dress, because the buttons kept popping,’ Chrissy recalled. ‘My boobs were the problem. My cousin didn’t have any.’

As for the bracelet Rhona had retrieved from the loch, there had proved to be no inscription, although McNab said that Robbie, the brother, told him his father had bought Mary one, probably from a pawn shop. However, Jean, the sister, couldn’t recall that event at all. So even siblings a couple of years apart didn’t share the same memories.

‘How much do you remember from your childhood?’ Rhona said.

‘Mostly the fights with my drunkard of a father.’ Chrissy’s hard gaze suddenly softened. ‘The best memory was when my only sane and gay brother Patrick took me to the pictures.’ She went quiet for a moment. ‘Traumas usually stick the longest, like when I got my first period. Jesus, I thought I was dying.’