Chris Simms: Savage Moon

'And the father?'

'No one knew who he was. Although James looks more black than white, he is mixed race. So we knew the father was white.' Jon thought about the letters. 'We found some correspond- ence in James's flat. You had written to him there.'

Mrs Field's chin went up and she wiped a tear from her eye.

'He'd kept those letters?'

'Yes,' Jon answered, not mentioning that they'd been dumped in a neighbour's bin. 'You were talking about his real name. We didn't understand.'

Mr Field glanced up at the ceiling, as if to gather strength from above. 'On his eighteenth birthday, James exercised his legal right to see all his documents held by the adoption agency. He came to see us immediately afterwards. The lad was very upset, angry even.'

The lad, Jon thought. No longer your son by this time. 'What had he discovered?'

'He wouldn't show us. But he'd learned that, although his mother was called Mary Sullivan, her real surname was Gathambo. As I mentioned, she died giving birth to James. Twenty-sixth of November, nineteen eighty-two, the Wythen- shaw hospital. She had turned up there pretty much destitute, her few personal effects had been retained by the adoption services and given to James all those years later.'

Jon sighed. Things were opening up. Past deeds, motives for revenge. 'Go on.'

'There were letters from other members of the Gathambo family still in Kenya. She must have made contact with them. She was, James told us, planning to return to Kenya and live with them, but then she fell pregnant.'

'I don't follow,' Rick said. 'The mother was brought up by a white couple with a surname of Sullivan, yet she had real family in Kenya?'

Mr Field ground his teeth together. 'We tried to work it out too. James was… distraught. I don't know anything more about his mother's adoptive parents. It was never mentioned to us.'

'But James flew to Kenya?' Jon asked.

'Yes,' Mr Field replied. 'One of the letters from his cousins, or whatever they were, mentioned his mum's pregnancy. They'd told her to be strong, once she got to Kenya, they'd help with the baby. He wanted to meet them.'

Jon circled his pen to form the dot of a large question mark he'd drawn on the page. What the hell was this all about? 'Going back to James's name. Why were you saying sorry?'

'The last letter his mother sent to Kenya, she'd obviously mentioned in it what she was going to call the baby if it was a boy. James was furious her wishes hadn't been followed. But it wasn't our choice, someone at the hospital made the decision.'

Jon's pen stopped its revolutions. 'Field?'

'No, his Christian name. James was just the nearest English equivalent they could think of. He should have been called Njama.'

Rick sat back. 'Jammer.'

Mr Field looked at him. 'No, you're meant to pronounce the N at the beginning. Anyway, we did what we could to help. The flight for instance. We paid for him to go back and meet his relatives.'

'And he was gone for three weeks?'

'About that, I think. He came back a very different person though.'

'How do you mean?'

Mr Field turned to his wife. 'Pat?'

'We picked him up at the airport,' she said. 'He was quiet, brooding. Whoever he had met in Kenya had had a very profound effect on him.'

'Was he happy to have gone?'

'No, not in my opinion. I believe they'd radicalised him.' Bitterness made her words sour.

'Sorry?'

'That's the word they use nowadays isn't it? They'd radicalised him over the history of Kenya. Tell me, what is your impression of the Mau Mau?'

Jon stared back, feeling like a schoolboy caught out in class. To his side, he saw Rick shift in his seat, and to his relief, his colleague began to speak. 'The Mau Mau was a terrorist organisation which sought to overthrow the British government in Kenya. They would emerge from the jungle at night to butcher white farming families. Their attacks were particularly savage, linking into some sort of primitive oath they'd taken to kill all whites. I think they may even have eaten parts of their victims, that sort of thing. I know the British authorities had a really tough time containing the violence.'

Mrs Field nodded. 'But not according to James once he came back from visiting his relatives. According to him, they weren't bloodthirsty terrorists who hacked innocent civilians to death. No. They were freedom fighters nobly trying to reclaim their land from an occupying force. They weren't even Mau Mau, they were the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army. They'd filled his head with all this stuff about British penal camps. How our troops tortured Kikuyu suspects in their thousands. Terrible stories, not like anything I've read in any history book.'

'What had that got to do with James's past?' Jon asked, trying to keep up.

Mrs Field waved a hand, voice stronger now she wasn't talking about the boy they'd tried to raise. 'Who knows? He wouldn't let us in on that. We were now part of the problem, part of the system that had ripped him from his true past. I could see that was what he thought. I shudder to think what part his relatives over there had played in the uprising.'

Jon stared down at his notes. He was fairly certain Peterson was killed because of what he'd done to Danny Gordon. But what linked Rose Sutton and Trevor Kerrigan? Why had they died? And who was the last person James Field was after? Was it his adoptive parents? It could be anyone from the staff on the maternity ward at the Wythenshaw to the members of the social services team who decided to name him James. Too much was being revealed too fast. How could they possibly trace and protect all these people before James made his final attack?

His phone started to ring. 'Excuse me,' he said on seeing Summerby's name on the screen. He got up and walked through to the kitchen. 'Yes, boss?'

'Jon, what have you got?'

'Loads, Sir. I think we'll have to come back in to discuss it all.'

'Exactly my sentiments. The team sent back to the Silverdale have also called; they're returning here with some vital evidence.'

'Sir, I think we should place the staff there under guard.'

'Don't worry. Uniforms are on the doors.'

'We also need to trace the hospital staff involved with James Field's birth at the Wythenshaw. And the social workers involved with the adoption. They may be in danger too.'

'OK, I'll get some people on it. Are you ready for this? The DNA test on the skin caught on Kerrigan's ring has finally come back. Forensics thought the sample had been contaminated, hence the delay. It matched James Field's sample taken after his arrest for ABH in nineteen ninety-nine.'

'That caused confusion?'

'No, this did. Trevor Kerrigan was James Field's biological father. He ripped his own dad's throat out.'

They arrived back at Longsight early in the afternoon. The incident room was alive with activity, everyone skirting past the table in its centre. Sitting in silence down each side were several members of the Outside Enquiry Team. At the top of the table Summerby and McCloughlin were conferring over a raft of reports.

Jon looked at the top of McCloughlin's head and felt his hackles rise. 'I forgot that bastard had wormed his way on to the investigation,' he whispered to Rick.

Summerby beckoned. 'You two, take a seat. Gardiner and

Murray are on their way back from the photocopier.'

Jon and Rick had just squeezed a couple of chairs in at one corner when the two officers hurried into the room, a pile of paper in Murray's hands. Once they were seated, Summerby nodded. 'Let's hear it then.'

Murray took in a breath. 'The director at the Silverdale called any staff that had dealings with James Field. There's this retired teacher who goes in and tries to get the kids going with academic work. He said he had something very interesting. Apparently James Field had turned up at his house quite a while after leaving the Silverdale. He wanted the teacher's help in making a project.'