Summoning the Dead (DI Bob Valentine #3)(10)

‘Your mother would have been ashamed of you.’

Valentine had no words to reply with. He gazed at his father for a moment and then he was reminded of his duty and sidestepped him on the way to Keirns.

DS McCormack followed, briskly pushing through. The pair stopped Keirns, blocking his path.

‘What’s all this?’ said Keirns.

Warrant cards were produced. ‘Are you Garry Keirns?’

‘Yes, I am. What’s going on?’

‘I’m Detective Inspector Bob Valentine and this is DS Sylvia McCormack. We have some questions we’d like to ask you.’

Keirns removed his hands from his pockets and showed open palms. ‘At my foster father’s funeral?’

‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience,’ said Valentine. He was dully aware of a halt in the proceedings as the few remaining attendees took in the spectacle.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘We’d really like to conduct this in a civilised manner, Mr Keirns,’ said Valentine. He motioned him towards the path. ‘If you’d like to accompany me to the station.’

‘The station!’ Keirns snapped. ‘Am I under arrest?’

‘No, sir. You’re not under arrest.’

‘Well, you can’t bloody well touch me then. I’m going nowhere.’ He barged past the officers.

Valentine caught Keirns’s coat sleeve and pulled him back. ‘I’m conducting a murder investigation.’

‘What? Murder.’ His voice rose to an unnatural pitch; his words seemed to startle the motionless crowd into action, and the minister encouraged them to move on.

‘We’ve found a body out at Ardinsh Farm. I don’t think this is the place to go into details, do you?’

Keirns was silent. He looked like a man whose thought process had shut down. He started to tug at the sagging black knot of tie around his neck.

DS McCormack encouraged him down the path, towards the car. ‘If you’d like to accompany us to the station now, Mr Keirns.’

‘I . . . I don’t know anything about a murder.’ His face was bereft of emotion; even when he spoke his lips hardly seemed to move.

‘We can talk about that at the police station, Mr Keirns,’ said McCormack.

As they went Valentine looked out for his father but couldn’t see him. He had never known his father to react so cruelly, and his harsh words played over now. He knew there was no apology or explanation that could fix things. It had already gone beyond the point where words might help balm the wound.

At the car Valentine felt a sudden sharpness in the back of his head, like he’d been smacked with a broom handle. The pain was short-lived, fleeting, but enough to halt him mid-stride.

‘What is it?’ said McCormack.

‘Nothing.’ Valentine continued towards the vehicle and placed a hand on Keirns’s shoulder. ‘I’ll take him from here.’

‘Please, don’t do that thing,’ said Keirns. ‘With the hand on my crown as I get in the car. I see that on the telly all the time. It always makes them look guilty.’

Valentine removed his hand from Keirns’s shoulder and took a step back.

‘Thank you,’ said Keirns. ‘I just think, y’know, they’ve seen enough today already.’

Valentine closed the car door behind Keirns and moved to the driver’s seat. As he was stepping inside, his mobile rang out.

‘Yes, Valentine.’

‘Hello, boss.’

‘Phil, what’s up?’

‘Well, there’s good and bad news, sir. You said you wanted it all, didn’t you?’

Valentine perched his shoe on the car’s door sill. ‘Go on.’

‘We got the oil drum out, an old ICI number with unusual markings, but I doubt a trace on it will do us much good. It’s likely just been a convenient size and shape.’

‘And the contents? Tell me the body is on its way to Wrighty.’

‘I’m coming to that. It weighed a ton, sir. It was weighted down with rocks, big ones, and some smashed-up slabs.’

‘Makes you think it wasn’t intended for the ground – sounds like it was going overboard.’

‘We needed to use the JCB to get it out the muck. I wouldn’t have thought it moveable without that. Anyway, the boy’s body came out easier, and it’s gone up to pathology in Glasgow. But we have another problem now.’

Valentine watched DS McCormack get out of the car and approach him; she appeared to sense something. ‘What is it?’

The DI flagged her down. ‘Go on then, Phil, what did you pull out of the barrel?’

‘We haven’t pulled anything else out of there yet. You see, we had to call back the doc and the fiscal . . .’

‘What are you saying?’

‘There’s a second body in there.’

Valentine lowered the mobile and glanced in the car; Garry Keirns was gesturing for them to get going.

‘Boss, what’s up?’ said McCormack.

Valentine’s voice was a confused rasp. ‘We have another body.’





6

May 1982

I’m still hungry but not so cold now. Mammy used to say I was always hungry, that it must be the hollow legs I had. I miss those things she said.