Chris Simms: Savage Moon

'Jon, where are you?'

'M60, just past Bredbury.'

'I just got a call from the station. Some uniforms patrolling the banks of the Medlock spotted something on the edge of Oldham Golf Course.'

'Something?'

'They're not sure what. One thought it was a person. The other reckons it was a big cat. He swears it had a tail. Anyway, whatever it was, it raced off across the fairway. The helicopter's been called out, dogs, armed response. Everyone's heading over there.'

Jon kept his foot on the accelerator. The turn-off leading to Saddleworth Moor was up ahead. 'I'm carrying on to Sutton's farm.'

He hung up before Rick could respond.

As he reached the top of the empty moor, the red light of the radio mast came into view. In the blackness behind it a pale light glowed in the sky. Dark clouds slowly shifted and a ghostly moon was revealed. At least it's not full, he thought. Faint light seeped down, coating the moor in a silvery sheen and emphasising the shadows pooled in every dip of the wild landscape.

He pressed on, reaching the other side of the plateau a few minutes later. The road curled down towards Holme and soon the track to Sutton's farm appeared on his left. Jon bumped along it before swinging the vehicle round to the farm buildings. A fence, topped with barbed wire, blocked the way into the courtyard. As he came to a halt, security lights mounted high on the walls switched on.

He got out of the car, immediately aware of the sounds of sheep in the barns. Several lights shone in the farmhouse itself. A gate was built into the fence and an open padlock was hanging from the links. Cautiously, he swung it open. 'Hello? Mr Sutton? DI Spicer, Manchester Police.'

As he rounded the corner of the farmhouse Sutton's border collie, Chip began to bark, a chain tying it to the kennel behind. More security lights came on to reveal Andrew Du Toit. He was standing in the doorway to the farmhouse, a rifle levelled at Jon.

'Fuck, didn't know who you were. We're just locking up for the night.'

As he lowered the weapon, Jon breathed out. Anger replaced his feelings of shock. 'You always walk round with a loaded gun?'

'Mostly.'

'Is Ken here?'

'Inside.'

As Jon walked across the courtyard he noticed that each barn was full of sheep. Fencing had been erected in the gaps between the buildings, barbed wire snaking along the top. This isn't to keep the sheep in, Jon thought. It's to keep something out.

The kitchen was the same as before, except for some sort of monitor set up next to the pair of walkie-talkies. Jon carried through into the front room, the mounted heads of dead animals staring down at him from every wall. Sutton was in the chair by the fire, a rifle with telescopic sights leaning against the wall. His gaze shifted briefly to Jon then returned to the flames. His eyes seemed almost to shut and Jon thought he looked more gaunt and strained since the last time he saw him in that chair.

'Mr Sutton, we need to talk.' The man didn't answer.

Jon sat down opposite him. 'You know more about these killings than you've admitted. I need to know the truth before someone else dies.'

Sutton snorted as Andrew moved across the room and settled on the sofa. Jon pondered which angle to take. There wasn't a lot he could do if Sutton chose to stonewall him. He needed to provoke a reaction. 'Why did you remove the word Kuririkana from the rocks by your wife's body?'

Sutton's half-closed eyelids moved slightly.

'You won't realise this, but the same word was written at the scenes of Derek Peterson's and Trevor Kerrigan's murders. It also appeared at the bottom of a suicide note left by one Danny Gordon.'

Sutton remained impassive.

Jon sat back, injecting a more casual note into his voice. 'Why all these security measures? Shouldn't the guns be kept in their locker when not in use? Are you frightened of something, Mr Sutton?'

His head moved a fraction. Obviously unsettled by Sutton's silence, Andrew Du Toit said, 'We're taking extra precautions because of the animal out there.'

Jon kept his eyes on Sutton. 'Animal or person?' Du Toit looked confused. 'What do you mean?'

Jon saw a chink in Sutton's defence. His nephew didn't know what was really going on. 'Your uncle has reason to fear a person, not an animal. These killings are to avenge past wrongs aren't they, Ken? That's why you scrubbed the word off the rock. You knew its significance. Do you speak Kikuyu then, Mr Sutton? Have you ever been to Africa?'

Du Toit sat forwards. 'Uncle? What's this about. Tell the policeman-'

Sutton's head whipped round and spit flew from his mouth.

'Say nothing!'

His nephew flinched backwards.

That's better, thought Jon. Now we're getting somewhere. The dead animals were staring down and Jon glanced up, as if by glaring back he could force their heads to turn. A stag, antlers branching out high from its head. Several foxes, their mouths partly open as if panting for breath. Deer, sharp horns spiralling up a good two feet. Jon's eyes narrowed. Those weren't deer, they were impala. He ran his eyes along the walls, identifying the head of a warthog in the corner.

'You lived in Kenya, didn't you? When was it?' He began working out the dates. Sutton was about seventy. During the fifties, he would have been in his twenties. He married Rose Sutton late. What had Clegg said? When he was well past forty? Was that because he didn't live in Britain during the fifties?

'James Field.' Jon said the words slowly. 'Njama Gathambo.' Sutton's head turned and Jon saw the fury in his eyes.

'That name means something to you, doesn't it? Njama

Gathambo's mum was called Mary.'

Sutton kept his silence. Keep going, Jon thought. You'll hit a nerve soon.

'She was orphaned during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. Her mother died in a British detention camp at Kamiti.'

Still he kept his mouth closed.

'Njama has made two metal panther claws. He used them to kill your wife and then he daubed the word “remember” on the rocks with her blood.'

Sutton's fingers dug into the arms of his chair. 'The savages. The filthy, bloody savages. I knew that evil would never die.'

'Uncle, what's he talking about?'

'What did you do in Kenya? Were you in the army?' Sutton shook his head. 'I was a farmer, one of the dozens who the Government encouraged to go out there and make something of that land. We transformed the country, made it a success. But the bloody Kukes weren't happy. They wanted what we'd created. They formed that barbaric sect and started attacking us, creeping out of the jungles, smeared in blood and entrails. Eating their victims.'

Jon sat forwards. 'You fought the Mau Mau?'

'It was a fight to save civilisation itself. And people get hurt in fights. I joined the Kenya Regiment. Later, when the detention camps were built, I worked in one of those.'

'Kamiti? You worked there?'

Sutton raised a finger. 'That was for bloody women. The ones who'd hide bullets in their baby's blankets, then smuggle the ammo to the animals hiding in the jungle.'

'Where did you work then?'

'Hola.'

'The site of that massacre? You tried to deny it ever happened.'

'Massacre?' Sutton gave a cruel smile, eyes glinting in the light from the flames. 'We only killed ten of them. They were the hardcore, the lowest of the low, the ones who wouldn't confess their oaths, no matter what we did.'

'And you did plenty, didn't you?' He looked into Sutton's eyes and saw only malice. You cruel bastard. He wanted to wipe the look from his face. 'Well, the grandson of one of those men you killed is coming for you, right now.'

'We built that country. And the Government in London sold us down the river. When they decided it was all an embarrassment, they washed their hands of us. They even let out Kenyatta, the biggest terrorist of all.'