DS Donnelly strolled towards the board, dropping a blue folder on the tabletop.
‘To say this has been a nightmare would be the understatement of the century. Columba House is, as you know, no more. They ceased to be in 1989 after four convictions were upheld against the staff, including the master, Trevor Healey, and involving twenty-nine boys.’
‘Try and keep to the bare details, Phil. We’ve still to hear from Ally, and we’re on the clock, remember,’ said Valentine.
‘Yes, boss,’ said Donnelly. ‘All the press cuttings are there on the case if you want to delve into them for yourself, and I believe there’s still some with Colleen if you’re super keen. I’ve been through the lot and it makes grim reading, I can assure you. However there were one or two interesting snippets of information that I pulled out.’
‘What’s that then?’ said McAlister.
‘I’m just coming to it. Right, bear with me because it gets complicated. The initial investigator on the case was a bloke called Den Rennie from Glasgow CID. He was replaced by an assistant chief constable no less called Eric Pollock, now Sir Eric Pollock.’
Valentine interrupted. ‘Wait a minute, why was Rennie replaced?’
‘Good question, and one I’ve asked myself, but the closest I can come to an answer is he fell foul of the press.’
‘In what way?’
‘There was some kind of a stoush. I never got to the bottom of it, but it ended up with Rennie either being told to clamp it or choosing to avoid the press altogether.’
‘That would have gone down well with a case this sensitive.’
‘You better believe it. I’ll come back to Rennie in a minute. So Pollock’s parachuted in from the capital, and he wraps up the investigation in a matter of weeks.’
‘Convenient,’ said McAlister.
‘It gets better. Then Pollock promptly retires. The Columba House investigation was his last case. Now he lives in Spain and has a knighthood for services to the police force.’
Valentine put his hand in his pocket; he felt the St Christopher there. ‘And what became of Den Rennie?’
‘He went back to Glasgow CID I suppose.’
‘No, you said there was more on him.’
Donnelly pointed to the ceiling and snapped his fingers. ‘That’s right. Forgetting myself. Rennie did eventually break his silence with the press when the MP Andy Lucas committed suicide, and guess what he said?’
‘Don’t tell me he doubted it was a suicide?’ blurted Valentine.
‘Got it in one. But that was his final utterance in print.’
‘How far have you got with the Columba House people on this?’ said Valentine.
‘Not far at all. They’re officially defunct, as you know, and the umbrella organisation, the charity group they were part of, consists of an answering machine. The one time I did get a reply they directed me to a group of lawyers, who directed me to a PR firm that said Columba House is no longer a client of theirs. There’s no files held, no records, no data. The story is they were liquidated, but in reality it’s like they never existed.’
‘OK, Phil, good work. It might not have led us anywhere, but I appreciate the yards you’ve put in,’ said Valentine. ‘Your next job is to get hold of Den Rennie, and I want it done on the QT, if you know what I mean.’
‘An off-the-record chat, sir?’
‘Well, given there’s bugger all written down on any of this then it would be pointless putting it on record.’ Valentine signalled to DS McAlister to indicate he was moving on. ‘Right, Ally, you’re up next.’
‘Well, I had the grim task of going over the cold-case files, as you know,’ said McAlister.
‘Nice wee break, was it?’ said Donnelly.
‘That’ll be right, Phil. Now, as I was saying, our favoured cold case involved two missing boys, Donal Welsh, who was eleven, and Rory Stevenson, aged ten. Donal, according to the files, was a Columba House boy, and Rory was the only son of an ex-miner from Cumnock who ran a bike-repair shop at the time.’
‘Seems a strange pair to get together,’ said DS McCormack.
‘Yeah, the Columba boys were pariahs – they didn’t mix with the lads from the town,’ said Valentine.
‘The case files highlight that too, sir. But there’s a lot of speculation from DI John Corrigan and not a lot you’d call concrete.’
‘They certainly didn’t have what we have, Ally.’
‘That’s for sure, sir.’ McAlister opened one of the files on top of the table and picked up a press cutting. ‘The boys went missing quite a while before the Columba House case too. This was 1984 that they were reported missing, and there’s no mention of abuse allegations in the case files – nothing linking the two investigations at all.’
‘What were the investigating officer’s conclusions?’ said Valentine.
‘Corrigan’s a bit vague on that. He takes a lot of stabs in the dark, but it’s clear the case was going nowhere.’