It was the most recent news programme that had compelled her to revisit the diary, despite her nervousness about doing so. If she was going to try and remember the events surrounding Mary’s disappearance, as Marge had urged her to do, then surely this was the way to do it?
It was understandable that as a child of eleven in troubled times, she should have chosen to write down what was happening. In particular the things she didn’t understand. The question was, why had she kept hold of this diary that catalogued her friend’s disappearance all these years? Through adolescence, her time as a student at Stirling University, her marriage to Jack, the sadness of not having any children of their own. Then Jack’s descent into dementia and death.
Karen knew the answer to that question, even though she couldn’t voice it. Not out loud anyway.
It was because she’d hoped eventually to figure out what had really happened to Mary.
And maybe the part I played in it?
The diary open now, Karen registered that after the entry on the third of May there was a blank page. Why had she not written down what had happened on that day? The emptiness stared back at her like an accusation. Something had to have happened.
Was that the first day the detective had spoken to her? If so, why hadn’t she written what he’d asked her?
Karen turned the page to find the visit of the detective had happened on the fifth of May, not the fourth. So what had happened on the fourth, and why hadn’t she written it down? She flipped through more pages, only to find other blank spots. Why had she chosen to leave days empty? Was it because nothing had happened? Or – and a swift and suffocating feeling swept over her – was it because she wanted to forget what had happened on those particular days?
She returned to the fifth of May to read what she’d written there.
The policeman came today, just like Dad said he would. He asked me about Mary. Was she happy? Was she frightened of anyone? When did I last see her? I told him Mary was happy about her dress. She wasn’t afraid of anyone, except her dad a little bit if she didn’t come when he whistled for her. I told him I had seen her the afternoon before her confirmation when she showed me her dress. I didn’t tell him I was jealous.
Karen realized she’d written something after that, but then erased it. She held the diary up to the light, but all she could see were the indentations.
What did I rub out?
She fetched a pencil and began to lightly shade that area of the page to see if the words might be revealed. Then she realized she hadn’t written words, rather she had drawn something.
It looked like two stick figures with racquets, a ball high in the air between them. On the hill behind sat a figure watching them.
Karen stared at the drawing, a sick feeling churning her stomach, remembering.
Whenever we played tennis he was there, watching us. Shouting stuff. Stuff I didn’t understand . . . but Mary did. Mary understood everything.
19
McNab had initially requested that Robbie McIntyre come to the station to speak to him. Robbie said he’d been in already to give a DNA sample and would rather they met in a nearby cafe.
McNab conceded that it wasn’t an interview as such, so okayed Robbie’s request. If, or when, the body was ID’d as Mary, everyone who’d been connected to her would become a suspect, just as they had been the first time round. And that would include her brother.
Ollie’s research on Robbie had revealed his early convictions after his wee sister had gone missing. Stealing cars being one of them, that and running with a gang. However, by the age of twenty he appeared to have cleaned up his act. McNab only had a photograph of Robbie McIntyre from back then, so was unsure of what he might look like now.
The cafe Robbie suggested wasn’t a greasy spoon, but rather a cool, upmarket place. On entry McNab could find no one sipping a latte that he thought might be the man he sought, so he headed for the counter and ordered two double espressos, to save him returning after the first was consumed.
Carrying them to a seat near the window where he might keep an eye on the door, McNab settled down to wait, hoping the description he’d given Robbie of himself would be sufficient. He was giving his mobile his undivided attention, like most of the others in the room, when a deep voice beside him said, ‘Detective Sergeant McNab?’
McNab looked up to find a fit-looking guy, dressed smart-casual, who McNab would have taken for late forties, early fifties. His hair was still predominantly dark, with only a sprinkling of grey. In fact, McNab decided, the current version of Robbie McIntyre surprised him.
Ollie had only investigated police files on the younger Robbie, so McNab had no idea what the man did now. Whatever it was, it looked as though he’d made his way up in the world.
McNab rose. ‘Robbie McIntyre?’
‘I call myself Robert now. Or at least my partner, Andrew, and my work colleagues do,’ he said, a little stiffly.
‘Can I get you a coffee?’ McNab asked.
‘I ordered one, then spotted you over here,’ he said in an accent that bore no resemblance to McNab’s obvious Glasgow tone. ‘It should be ready by now.’
McNab watched as McIntyre fetched his coffee, which turned out to be the largest latte available. The strange juxtaposition of McNab’s tiny espresso cup next to the newly arrived soup-size bowl struck McNab as rather absurd. He only hoped their conversation didn’t turn out to be the same.
McNab waited for the extra-large coffee to be lifted, drunk from, then replaced on the saucer prior to saying, ‘Before we talk, I should stress that the body found on the moors hasn’t been identified as yet.’
‘Oh, it’s Mary all right,’ Robert McIntyre told him. ‘I know it and so does the man who searched for her all those years ago.’
‘We’re talking about DI Jimmy McCreadie?’
McIntyre nodded. ‘We’ve kept in touch. It was McCreadie who helped me get back on the straight and narrow as a teenager. No doubt you’ve looked up my chequered history? Stealing cars, gang fights, drugs?’
When McNab didn’t respond, McIntyre continued anyway, the neutral voice disappearing, replaced by something more akin to McNab’s own accent.
‘I lost the head after Mary. The whole family did. Dad used to do that fucking whistle out the window, like she would suddenly come running back. Mum’s life ended the day her wee girl disappeared. And my sister married Sammy Barclay just to get out of the house. As for me . . . I hated the police because they fucked up so badly.’
McNab didn’t mind the man’s anger or his accusation. He’d seen what such a loss could do to a family. It wasn’t only the victim who died. The impact was devastating on everyone around them, especially when it involved the loss of a child. And it was even worse when they never got a body to bury.
Back in the seventies, the lack of a body usually meant no one would be charged. Now things were different and there had been convictions for murder despite the victim’s remains never being discovered. Plus the advances in forensics were bringing killers to justice in spite of past failures.
McNab sat in silence for a minute, watching as McIntyre regained his composure. ‘So, what did you do after your teenage brushes with the law?’
‘I went to night school, encouraged by DI McCreadie. Got my Highers and went to college to study accountancy. Now I’m a financial adviser.’
McNab tried to prevent his eyebrows from rising, and not just because it sounded a better and more lucrative career path than the one he’d chosen.
‘Are you in touch with your sister?’
‘Not so much. Me and her husband don’t tend to hit it off, but I see her kids sometimes, especially now they’re in Glasgow.’ He gave McNab a studied look. ‘But you probably know all this already.’
McNab didn’t comment one way or the other. ‘What did you want to tell me, apart from us having fucked up?’ he said instead.
‘McCreadie was close to finding out what had happened to Mary. That’s why the men at t
he top got rid of him.’
‘That I don’t buy,’ McNab said firmly. He had his own gripes with the police force, and corruption was always an undercurrent, just like in any other profession, but that sounded like McCreadie’s words put into McIntyre’s mouth.
‘I’ve done my homework too, Detective Sergeant McNab. I know your history in the police force. You’ve sailed close to the wind a few times. The Stonewarrior case for one. The powers that be didn’t take that very well, even though you solved the case.’
True enough. And it still rankled.
‘Plus,’ McIntyre met his eye, ‘DI McCreadie recommended you.’
‘Former DI McCreadie. He hasn’t been an officer for a very long time,’ he reminded McIntyre.
McNab recalled McCreadie’s manner. He hadn’t taken to the man. Maybe it was because he’d used his police background to write fictional accounts of the job. Or, as Janice had suggested, ‘You don’t like him because he’s just like you.’ When McNab had retorted, ‘I deal in facts,’ Janice had merely raised an eyebrow.
‘So,’ McNab went on, ‘you and McCreadie have a theory and, I assume, not one in which you present as a suspect?’
‘You think I would kill my own sister?’ McIntyre looked genuinely astonished.
‘It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened. Happy families are rarely happy.’
‘I never said we were a happy family, but we were as happy as anyone else on that street.’ McIntyre had regained his composure. ‘You’ve read McCreadie’s notebooks?’
McNab had only looked at the first one as yet, but didn’t confirm this. Instead, he said, ‘Why don’t you tell me why you wanted to speak to me?’
‘The priest’s still alive. That’s where you should go first. Father Joseph Feeney.’
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.’
‘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.
‘McNab,
’ he said gruffly.
‘Magnus here.’
As if he didn’t know, McNab thought. ‘Professor. What can I do for you?’
‘It’s about the body on the moors.’
‘What about it?’ McNab said, surprised.
‘There’s a guy, Alec McLaughlin, I interviewed him in Barlinnie.’ Magnus hesitated, as though he was considering giving more details about why he was visiting an inmate, then didn’t. ‘He says he knows something about it.’
20
The dress had an embroidered top and a full net skirt together with what had once been a stiffened petticoat. There was also a satin bow to be tied at the back. Although badly stained, the style and pattern were distinctive. If a missing child had disappeared wearing this dress, then surely there was a chance that remaining family members might be able to recognize it?
According to McNab, Mary McIntyre’s parents were dead, but her sister and brother, who had been teenagers at the time, were still alive. The horror of what Mary’s siblings had faced then, and now, wasn’t lost on Rhona, whether the body on the moor turned out to be their sister or not.
‘I wouldn’t want to be shown a picture of her dress looking like that,’ Chrissy said. ‘All they’ll think about is what happened when their sister was wearing it.’ She glanced at Rhona. ‘Okay, I know it’s maybe the wrong size for the body we dug up, but still . . .’
It was for the police to decide whether they showed Mary’s siblings a photograph of the dress as it was now, or alternatively an artist’s reconstruction of how it would have looked on the morning of Mary’s confirmation.
‘Anyway, what fourteen-year-old male would remember his wee sister’s outfit from forty-odd years ago? The big sister might, though,’ Chrissy added. ‘Can you remember your favourite dress when you were a kid?’
Rhona could and said so. ‘A pink gingham sundress when I was eleven. But I have a photo of me wearing it to remind me. I take it you remember your confirmation outfit?’
‘Too right I do. Innocent and virginal in a white dress and veil, we were the little brides of Christ,’ Chrissy said. ‘Anyway, that’s what they told us. Sounds a bit creepy now. I remember wondering what the boys were supposed to be in their wee suits and ties. Maybe the best man at the wedding?’ She made a face. ‘They don’t lay it on as thick nowadays. Just dress demurely, they tell you, preferably in white. But folk in Glasgow like to dress up. Demure is not for them.’
The Innocent Dead - Rhona MacLeod Series 15 (2020) Page 9