Chris Simms - Savage Moon

He shuffled through the pile, eventually pulling a bag out.

'This?'

Jon stepped over to the desk. 'Don't mind the arsehole,' he whispered, taking it from the other man. 'And we'll need that one with the book in too.'

After placing the two bags in the centre of the table, Jon sat back down. 'James Field, or Jammer as he was known to his associates, has recreated the weapons in this illustration of a Mau Mau terrorist. It's all about revenge. We also found this book about SAS camouflage and ambush techniques. He's probably dressing himself up in combat clothing, then jumping out on his victims and ripping them apart the same way Mau Mau terrorists ripped open theirs. After that, he's planting hairs from the panther at Buxton Zoo on the bodies.'

There was silence for a couple of seconds. Summerby turned to Murray. 'You'd better tell us what's in those other chapters.' Gardiner held up her hand. 'Sir, I went through the last parts while DC Murray was driving us back here. Chapter Two, Shoot to Kill, goes on about the colonial government's policy of opening fire on any person seen in prohibited areas. Militia groups formed by the white settlers started using it as an excuse to try and wipe the Kikuyu, or Kukes, out. Those living on isolated farms with no phones brought in bounty hunters who were paid twenty shillings for every suspect they killed. British Army units set up scoreboards, officers paid a bounty for each company's first kill, usually five pounds. The soldiers would cut off the hands of any suspect they shot and carry them back to the camp to prove someone had been killed. The RAF took to decorating their planes with silhouettes of an African holding a spear for each kill they made.'

Several people's eyes were still on the page of images, including the photo of the plane with its line of little men drawn on the side. Jon couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. They really just opened fire on anyone they saw?

'Next chapter is called Breaking Resistance. This describes how, to stop the supply of food, ammunition and medical supplies to the KLFA, the British started rounding up the Kikuyu and placing them in what were officially called protected villages. Surrounded by barbed wire, watch towers, armed guards and dogs, these prison camps lacked sanitation and were horribly overcrowded.'

'Why? How many people did they put in them?' someone asked.

Gardiner leafed through her copy of the project. 'It says somewhere. Ah, here it is. “By nineteen fifty-three over one hundred thousand Kikuyu had been evicted from their homes. In Operation Anvil, in nineteen fifty-four, soldiers rounded up the entire Kikuyu population of Nairobi. Twenty thousand were interned without trial. By the end of nineteen fifty-four tens of thousands were behind barbed wire.” '

McCloughlin's head was down. 'I still don't see where this is going.'

Gardiner shot the thinning hair on top of his head a withering look. 'Murder Camps describes the process of dealing with Mau Mau suspects. Anyone arrested by the security forces — men, women or children — was screened to see if they'd taken the oath of Mau Mau allegiance. Screening was another word for interrogation. It involved beating and-' Her eyes flicked downwards in embarrassment '-other forms of torture. The aim was to get a person to break their oath by confessing to have taken it. Then their rehabilitation through increasingly less secure camps — or the Pipeline as it was called — could begin. However, typhoid outbreaks started to occur.' Again she started reading from the page. ' “Interned people slept in the same rooms as their toilet buckets. Bed bugs and lice infested them, rats were killed for food.” '

'Maybe we have dwelt on this long enough. How did it all end?' Summerby asked quietly, eyes on the table.

'News of the atrocities started leaking out back in Britain. Questions were asked in Parliament, though the government of the day did its best to deny everything. Also the Mau Mau had been bombed out of existence by the late fifties; the RAF dropped over fifty thousand tons of ordnance into the jungles during the conflict. Keeping the Kikuyu in prison camps started to become an expensive political liability. By nineteen fifty-seven, two thousand prisoners were being released back on to the reserves every month. When a cover-up of an inmate massacre at the Hola detention camp was exposed in nineteen fifty-nine, it was the final nail in the coffin for the Pipeline. The British withdrew and the country was independent a few years later.'

A few people fiddled with their photocopied sheets in the silence. Summerby looked around, then stood up, yanked the map off the whiteboard behind him and grabbed a marker pen. In the middle of the empty board, he wrote James Field / Jammer . He drew a vertical line above it and turned to Jon. 'What was his mother called?'

'His birth mother was Mary Gathambo. His adoptive parents are called Pat and Ian Field.'

Summerby wrote the names down. Next to James Field he drew a horizontal line and wrote Danny Gordon . Above that he wrote Derek Peterson .

'So, given that Danny Gordon was dead before Peterson was murdered, we're assuming James Field killed him as payback for his mate's suicide.' He picked up a red pen and connected Field's and Peterson's names. Switching back to blue, he then wrote Trevor Kerrigan next to Mary Gathambo connecting it to James Field with a blue and then a red line. 'James Field also killed his birth dad, for reasons as yet unkown.'

To the side he then wrote out Rose Sutton , connecting it to James Field with another red line. 'His first victim, again, killed for reasons as yet unkown.' Below Sutton's name, he jotted down a question mark. 'And the final person or persons he's after. Who might it be?'

'If he killed his own dad, maybe he'd kill his mum's adoptive parents, they abandoned her after all,' Gardiner said.

Summerby looked at the board. 'You're right.' Above Mary Gathambo's name he added two more vertical lines, topping one with a question mark and the other with Sullivans . 'Mary's mum and dad, adoptive and natural, we need to know all of their whereabouts. OK, who else?'

Rick briefly raised a hand. 'Whoever changed his name from Njama to James. Midwife at the Wythenshaw, the doctor who delivered him, the social worker. Could be any number of people.'

McCloughlin crossed his arms. 'What about the Silverdale? Maybe there was more than one kiddy fiddler on the staff. Perhaps we should be thinking about that tutor who helped him produce this load of shite.' He tossed his copy of the project to the side.

Summerby added Tutor to the growing list by the question mark. 'Who else?'

Jon interlaced his fingers. 'Someone tried to scrub the word

'Kuririkana' from the rocks on Saddleworth Moor. Clegg has been hiding information from the start of this thing.' He thought about the Inspector at Mossley Brow. Suspended from duty, his sister dragged in and cautioned. 'The bloke was banging Rose Sutton. Maybe he's on the hit list.'

'And Hobson,' added Rick. 'He's had dealings with Field too.'

As their names went on the board, the office manager called over. 'Boss? DC Adlon's on the line with that information.'

Summerby pointed to the phone on the desk. 'Put him through to here, I'll switch to speakerphone.'

McCloughlin jumped to his feet. 'Silence in this room!'

The buzz of the civilians' voices manning the phones evaporated. A high-pitched version of Adlon's voice emerged from the unit's base. Jon wasn't sure if the squeak was due to excitement or the loudspeaker. 'Boss? Are you there?'

Summerby nodded. 'Go ahead, you're on speakerphone.'

'We've got the records. Copies of all this stuff were taken by James Field back in two thousand. It's a sad bloody story. No wonder the lad flipped out. James Field's birth mother was Mary Gathambo. She was brought up by the Reverend William Sullivan and his wife, Emily. They lived in a vicarage just outside Warrington. The Sullivans were Mary's legal guardians, not adoptive parents. They returned from Kenya with Mary when she was eleven months old.'