Keirns stooped in his chair and faced the DI. He seemed to be fighting off an accusation that he’d imagined himself. ‘I ran respectable community groups – I was praised for my work by many people. You can’t try and blacken my name just because it suits you, Detective.’
‘Yes, you ran boys’ groups, football, cricket, that kind of thing. But, Garry, who said anything about blackening your name?’
‘That’s what’s coming.’ He folded his arms and sat stiffly, as if waiting for more serious confrontation. ‘I can feel it.’
Valentine returned to the table and removed a chair for himself. When he sat down, his voice had softened. ‘Are you referring to the rumours about Andy Lucas after he died?’
‘I don’t listen to tittle-tattle.’
‘But you must have read the papers when they were full of that Columba House business. There were four men convicted on sex offences against twenty-nine Columba boys.’
‘All rubbish.’
‘One of the rapists was the school’s master, Garry. You must have known the man.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘They jailed those men, Garry. And they closed the school.’
‘I know that. It was my school too, but I’d left the place years earlier.’
‘Six years earlier. But you didn’t go far, did you?’
‘I went to the farm. You know that.’
Valentine eased back in his chair. He was enjoying watching the pressure mounting on Keirns. ‘I know lots of things, Garry. Some of them I hear from people, though, and I just don’t know if they’re telling me the truth.’
Keirns’s eyes flared. ‘What are you on about?’
‘I hear your MP friend committed suicide, about the time of the Columba House trials. I hear that some folk thought he was going to be added to the list of child rapists.’
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Do you know what I think, Garry? I think you remember what you want to remember and discard the rest. I think you should be a little less selective and a hell of a lot more honest, because you don’t have any friends in high places looking after you now. Andy Lucas is dead – who was looking out for him?’
Valentine got up from the table and walked towards the door of the interview room, followed by DS McAlister. A uniformed officer opened the door to let them out. No one looked back at Garry Keirns as they left.
In the corridor McAlister spoke. ‘Well that’s put the shits up him, boss.’
‘Somebody has to. He’s holding out on us.’
‘It’s beginning to look obvious, but he might not look so scared if he knew how little we had to go on.’
‘We’ll get there.’ Valentine checked in the interview room across the hall. McCormack and Donnelly were bringing proceedings to a close. As they left, closing the door behind them, Valentine was the first to address them. ‘Well?’
‘He coughed, sir,’ said Donnelly.
‘For what?’
‘He admitted the deal with Keirns was signed two years ago, quite a while before Sandy Thompson passed away.’
‘Did Keirns even have authority to sell the property back then?’
McCormack answered the question. ‘Gowan’s adamant that he did. Blairgowan has documentation showing the deeds were in Keirns’s name when the contract was signed.’
‘So Garry Keirns managed to get his mitts on Sandy’s place before he’d even died. I know for a fact that Sandy wasn’t compos mentis in the years before he died so there must have been some coercion.’
‘Or blackmail,’ said Donnelly.
‘The problem will be proving it,’ said McCormack.
‘There’s no way of proving it – Sandy’s dead. But if Keirns was so worried about how it looked selling to Blairgowan whilst he was alive then he must have something to hide.’
‘Like what, sir?’ said McAlister. ‘I’m not convinced Keirns cares that much what people think of him.’
‘Oh, he cares. But only what certain people think, Ally. If he held off on the Blairgowan deal until Sandy died, it was because someone didn’t like the way it might look and told him so.’
27
‘Let Freddie Gowan go,’ said Valentine. The team watched the DI. Clearly they’d absorbed the information, but they didn’t move.
‘And what about Keirns, boss?’ said McAlister.
‘We can hold him for twenty-four hours without charge, and that’s what I intend to do.’
‘And after that?’
‘A lot can happen in twenty-four hours, Ally. I want to see how he reacts to this new revelation from Gowan about the sale of Ardinsh Farm, but I want him to fester on our little chat before I put that to him.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said McAlister. The team still hadn’t moved.
‘Right, give Gowan his marching orders, then I’ll see you all upstairs for a briefing in the incident room.’
DS McCormack proceeded to the custody sergeant’s desk, and the others followed Valentine on to the stairs.
‘What’s your thinking on all of this now, sir?’ said Donnelly.
‘I’m trying not to think. It’s all such a bloody hotchpotch at the moment I’d only be reacting. We need more to go on, but let’s say Garry Keirns just went from a person of interest to a suspect.’