Summoning the Dead (DI Bob Valentine #3)(63)

‘Didn’t your wife pass on my message?’ McAlister sounded flustered and Valentine parried the question.

‘I had a hell of a lot to think about last night – I crashed out. Look, what’s up, Ally?’

‘Eh, I don’t quite know where to start.’

‘How about the beginning?’

‘Well, that would be when the chief constable showed, I suppose.’

‘Bill Greaves came to the station?’

‘It gets better – or should that be worse?’

‘I can’t think how but go on.’

McAlister’s voice came low and rasping over the phone. ‘Well, Greavsie did his nut about Fallon being in custody and demanded we release him.’

‘Oh shit.’

‘That’s not the worst bit, boss. I signed Fallon out and handed him over to uniform because there was only me left on – and the DCs tailing Garry Keirns.’

Valentine sensed a placatory excuse unfurling. ‘Go on, Ally.’

‘Well, uniform were taking Fallon home, but they took him out the front door . . .’

‘Tell me there wasn’t still press there.’

McAlister paused. ‘I assume you haven’t seen the papers.’

Valentine felt the phone weighing heavy in his hand. ‘They got him, I take it?’

‘There could only have been one snapper hanging on. He must have wired it to the news desks, boss.’

‘You’re right, that’s worse, Ally.’

‘Sorry, sir, but that’s not all.’

‘Spit it out then.’

‘Garry Keirns is dead.’



Inkerman Court’s one entrance road was sealed with blue and white tape when Valentine arrived. He motioned to a uniform in a high-vis vest and asked him to lower the tape. As the DI drove to the parking area – a small strip of road squeezed between a sparse patch of green belt and the municipal swimming baths – he spotted DS Donnelly directing the operation.

‘Phil, over here,’ yelled Valentine.

‘Boss . . .’

‘What’s the SP?’

‘There was no movement after lights out so the DC on the handover took a closer look. And saw Keirns’s Hush Puppies swinging in the hallway when he looked through the letterbox.’

‘Do we have the time of death?’

‘He’s been cold for nine or ten hours, they say.’

‘And Bill and Ben saw nothing?’

‘They were watching his car and the front door.’

‘What about the back door?’

‘It’s a bloody rabbit warren around here. You’d have to go through the close and sit in the courtyard to even see the back door. You couldn’t get a car round there.’

‘And of course nobody thought to do that?’

Donnelly shrugged and Valentine headed for the property.

The hallway was small. A cramped staircase led on to further floors. On the ground level was a little laundry room, a bedroom with patio doors and a further corridor leading to the back door. In the garden, DS McAlister and DS McCormack were standing with the SOCOs. Everything was viewable from one point in the vestibule, where Valentine was forced to ease himself into the hallway and around the dangling corpse of Garry Keirns as he headed for the other officers.

‘Cometh the hour . . .’ said McAlister.

‘Pack it in,’ said Valentine. ‘Any marks on those doors?’

‘Multiple scratches on the patio-door frames,’ said McCormack. ‘The door at the back has had the lock jemmied at some point, but it’s a new lock. The neighbours say it was a rental property for a number of years, and there were a few tenants that didn’t look after it.’

‘So we’ve two potential entrance points.’

McCormack nodded. ‘Looks that way.’

Valentine walked to the end of the path, keeping his voice low. ‘Any footprinting?’

‘There’s been heavy rain, sir. Most of it’ll be washed away.’

The DI stood on the balls of his feet and stared into the open door at the rear of the property. He could still see the swaying corpse of Garry Keirns hanging from the banister at the end of the hallway.

‘A nice clean job, eh?’ said Valentine.

‘You’re not entertaining suicide, sir?’ said McAlister.

‘Oh do me a favour. Keirns had been potless his whole life. He just gets his hands on some money and he does himself in?’

‘Maybe he felt pressured?’ said McCormack.

‘Do you know what I think? I think somebody else felt pressured.’ Valentine pushed away from the officers and marched back up the path towards the house. At the back door he turned. ‘Get him down now and get the remains to Wrighty. And tell him to have a bloody close look, because if there’s any doubt, we call this murder.’

Valentine drove through the blue and white tape on his way from the crime scene. At the station there seemed to be more press than ever on the front steps, and their number had been added to by a flash protest mob waving placards and shouting.

‘What the hell is that?’ said the DI. He had never known King Street station to be picketed, and he knew the top brass wouldn’t be pleased.

In the car park the detective spotted the chief constable’s Lexus parked outside the rear entrance to the building. He tried not to imagine what kind of conversation Bill Greaves might be engaged in with the chief super, but he couldn’t shake the image of a red-faced Greaves spewing fire.