Kirkland is introduced in the show in Red Dawn as “the man in
the limo”, which means that he started getting interested/involved in the Red
John case exactly the same time as Jane joining the CBI. He then appears when
Lorelei breaks out of prison and when she hunts for RJ.

It wasn’t necessary to actually involve himself directly in
the case before that, because he had already arranged for Jane not to be able
to interview Lorelei. When Jane/Stiles broke her out of prison, Lorelei became
a potential threat to RJ because he must have known that Jane might be able to
get to her in some way and turn her against him.

So, as far as we know now Kirkland could be RJ himself or a right
hand man. Point is, that RJ either had to get his own hands dirty or send
someone more higher up the chain to resolve the mess Lorelei made. This means
that RJ actually raised the stakes of the mindgames he is playing with Patrick
by giving him a night with Lorelei as a gift and nearly lost all when Patrick
got to her. Things may look like Jane lost another round in the RJ game, but
this time it is more or less even. I’m sure he made RJ sweat a little for the
first time.

I think RJ may start to feel that he should be more careful
if he wants to keep winning. The problem with gambling is that it’s all about
loosing…