Chris Simms - Savage Moon

'Something gives me the feeling that's from Kenya,' Rick commented.

Jon turned to the note on the table.

To DI Spicer,

If you're reading this, you've worked it out.

Once you turned up at the garage, I knew it wouldn't be long before you came back. After Kerrigan I rechecked Danny's placeand saw all the police cars outside. I knew then it was time to go.

You won't find me now. I'm a shadow in the night, the darkest part of your fears, the stuff of nightmares.

There's one more place I'm going to visit, then I'm done. Death doesn't scare me. My life never began and what little of it

remains will be spent putting this final wrong right.

Kuririkana.

The words set a hoard of terrible images swirling in Jon's head. Snippets of the moor at night, the red light floating in the blackness above, the fragment of sheep's fleece snared on a spike of gorse, crows sweeping low across the dead sky, the gaping throats of Sutton, Peterson and Kerrigan, dark clouds spreading across the land. And behind it all that low throaty rasp, as if conjured from the pit of hell itself.

'He doesn't sound like a happy bunny,' the man with the firearm announced.

Jon's mind snapped back to the present. 'He's after one more person. Rick, get on to Summerby, we need to find every detail from this bloke's miserable, fucked up life.'

Rick had just got through to their senior officer and was reading James Field's note out when Jon's phone went. He glanced at the screen. Mum. 'Hi, can I call you back?'

'Yes, OK. But is Alice with you?'

Jon blinked. 'No. She said she'd be at home.'

'Well, I'm on your doorstep and she's not answering again. I've brought you another pie.'

'Have you got your key?'

'Yes.'

'Go ahead and open the door. I'm sure she'll be in there.' He listened as she unlocked the door. 'Alice? It's me, Mary.

Are you in?' A second's silence. 'No, it's empty.'

Jon breathed in sharply through his nose. 'Hang on. I'll try her mobile.' He pressed the speed dial, listened as the phone started ringing. Thank God, it's not on answer phone.

'It's me.'

'Mum?'

'Yes. Alice's phone is in the kitchen.'

Fuck, she never goes anywhere without it. 'Mum, can you stay there until she gets back?'

'Again? OK, I'll hang this washing out.'

He returned the phone to his pocket. Was he panicking over nothing? Yes. She hadn't cracked up. Jesus, he'd attended enough incidents where someone had. She wasn't even close to the mental state of those poor bastards.

'Problem?'

Jon looked at Rick. 'Alice has disappeared again.'

'Again?'

'Yeah, she went off to the library yesterday. She'd switched her phone off.'

'And today?'

'She's gone off somewhere with Holly and left her phone at home.'

'Do you want to go back to your place?'

Jon weighed it up. 'No. Mum's there. We'll only do each other's heads in if I'm waiting there too. She'll have just popped out to the shops or something.'

Rick shrugged. 'If you're sure. Summerby's putting everything into finding James Field. There's a team heading over to the Silverdale as we speak, another has gone to find his probation officer and they're trying to trace his social worker too.'

'What about us?'

'He says to start going through this place. A car's on its way to help.'

Jon looked around. 'Let's do it then.'

They started going through the front room, pulling out drawers, leafing through papers, searching for any clues as to what James Field might be planning next.

Rick went over to the answer phone and pressed play. Three messages from the owner of the garage asking where he was. They'd moved to his bedroom when Jon heard Rick announce,

'This is weird.'

Jon paused at the open wardrobe and glanced over his shoulder. Rick was on his knees, bent almost double so he could see under the bed. 'What is?'

'There's nothing of a personal nature. I was expecting some porn hidden in here at the very least. Would you have any meaningful idea of who lived in this flat if we didn't know already?'

Jon bowed his head in thought. Rick was right. The flat was missing the usual items that made it someone's home; photos of friends and family, phone numbers on scraps of paper, even documents such as phone bills, bank letters or nectar card statements. James Field had left as much trail as a ghost.

He turned the wardrobe inside out. Old trainers, battered jeans, a hooded top. The bathroom bore even less fruit. No bottles or pills bearing a GP's label or a pharmacy's price sticker. Jon slammed the cabinet shut. 'There has to be something in this place.'

They pulled up carpets, tapped for fake floorboards. Nothing.

'Right,' said Jon. 'The bastard thinks he's clever. Let's check outside.'

They went to the walled off area containing the residents' bins. Green containers were lined against the wall, each one bearing the number of a flat. Jon zoned straight in on number three, flipping it over and dragging out a single bag of rubbish. He ripped it open, spilling potato peelings, blackened bananas and several empty pots of yoghurt, green mould ringing their rims. 'Let's check the rest.'

They started tipping over the others and hauled out rubbish sacks, the sweet smell of putrescence filling the air. Scrunched up letters, pizza boxes, clumps of hair, empty wine bottles, used tampons, plastic containers, lumps of festering chicken, crumpled tins and cans.

'No wonder the country's landfill sites are overflowing. Have this lot heard of recycling?' Rick muttered, crouched before a knotted bin liner. He pulled the plastic apart and his hands stopped. 'Jon.'

Jon turned. A shoebox was at the top, its lid slightly off. 'Lift it out, carefully.'

Using the tips of his gloved fingers, Rick lifted the object clear of the debris surrounding it. The layer of grey dust covering the lid had finger marks in it. Rick flipped it off and they stared at the pile of letters inside. The address on the uppermost envelope read, James Field, Flat 3 , Oakdene Flats, Thomas Street, Ryder Brow, Manchester.

'Gotcha,' Jon grinned.

Back in James' flat, they started laying the letters out on the living room floor. Most of the envelopes were written in a childish style. 'Danny Gordon's writing,' Jon said. The remainder of the envelopes were written in a neater hand. At the bottom of the shoebox was an envelope with Kenyan stamps on it. No letter was inside, just the stubs of two plane tickets. 'He flew to Nairobi on the fifth of March, two thousand and one, returning on the twenty-sixth.'

Rick had slid a letter out from one of the envelopes bearing the childish writing. 'You're right, it's sent from Strangeways. Jesus, Danny Gordon couldn't have been awake in many of his school classes, the spelling is atrocious.'

'What does it say?' Jon asked, picking up a letter with the neat handwriting.

'Just going on about being bored. Slagging off his padmate, talking about what they'll get up to when he gets out.'

Jon unfolded his letter, a frown slowly appearing on his face.

'It's from a Pat and Ian Field.'

'His parents?'

Jon read the letter in its entirety. 'They adopted him.' He turned the letter over, glanced at the date at the top. 'This was written after James returned from Nairobi. They're asking his forgiveness for what happened, saying it wasn't their decision about his name. They tried to do what was right and they still love him as their son.' He looked at Rick. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'

Rick looked at the note James had left for Jon. 'The one more place he has to visit. Surely not?'

'I don't know. I hope not, but… Christ, they obviously infuriated him.'