Authors: Chris Simms
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.'
Thirty-Five
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.'
'When was this?' asked Jon.
'Summer of last year.'
After he'd returned from Kenya, thought Jon.
'The tutor said Field had got all this stuff with him, letters, bits of library books, photocopies of pamphlets, all sorts. He said James was by far and away the most naturally intelligent offender he'd ever dealt with. He didn't mind helping him turn it into a coherent project. This is a copy of what they produced, the tutor kept it to use as an example for other offenders of what could be achieved with a little effort.'
The two officers began to distribute stapled batches of A4-size paper. As Jon picked his up he could feel they were still warm from the photocopier. When he saw the writing on the front cover, he felt the blood slow in his veins.
'Field titled it, “Kuririkana”,' Murray announced. 'As we all now know, it means “Remember” in Kikuyu, an African dialect.'
McCloughlin whistled. 'Talk about incriminating yourself. He may as well have just signed his own life stay in Broadmoor.' Murray smiled grimly. 'The tutor took us through the project. It's heavy stuff but, according to him, genuinely researched. If you look at the contents, you'll see it starts with a chapter called
Repressed People, you've then got Shoot to Kill, Breaking
Resistance, Murder Camps and lastly, State Lies.'
'We can all read, DC Murray,' McCloughlin butted in.
'We're also in a bloody hurry here. So just one thing. What the hell has this got to do with finding James Field?'
Murray looked uncomfortable. 'I don't know how it links to the killings so far. It's about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya during the late fifties.'
'Try and give us a quick summary and we'll see if it rings any bells with what anyone else has got,' Summerby instructed.
'Right,' Murray replied. 'Repressed People is all about how the British claimed to be on a civilising mission when they invaded Kenya. In reality they were after its natural resources. They declared all of its land... erm, I forget the phrase.' He turned a couple of pages and his finger started tracing down.
'Here we go. Crown Land. Basically the Kikuyu and other tribes were shunted into reserves while fertile areas were given over to white colonists. These became known as the White Highlands. Most of it was the ancestral lands of the Kikuyu tribe. Eventually, they were allowed back on to farm it, but were paid a derisory amount and taxed on their huts. It was essentially a feudal system, not seen in Britain since the Norman Conquest almost a thousand years ago.'
'So the Empire sucked,' interrupted McCloughlin. 'Is this relevant?'
Jon glanced at Summerby. Come on, Sir. Don't let him start to take things over.
'Bear with us,' DC Murray replied. 'After World War Two, the Kikuyu started forming organisations to lobby for the return of their land. In nineteen fifty the authorities responded by arresting the leaders and banning many of the groups.'
McCloughlin sighed. 'In nineteen fifty. That's the last bloody century.'
Summerby's head jerked with irritation. 'It somehow connects to what we're dealing with today. Will you let my officers speak?'
Jon kept looking at Murray, but a small smile escaped him. About time, boss, he thought.
Murray looked back down at the page. 'The tutor underlined this bit, said it's quite pivotal.' He began to read. ' “The Kikuyu grew ever more rebellious and in October nineteen fifty-two a State of Emergency was declared. Thousands of British soldiers were brought in. When leaders such as Jomo Kenyatta were arrested, hundreds of Kikuyu nationalists fled for the forests of Mount Kenya to establish a resistance movement. They formed themselves into the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army. Members who'd fought with the British during the World War organised them into units, even allocating ranks including General.' ” Murray glanced up. 'They began attacking white property, then the settlers themselves.'
'Mau Mau. You're talking about the bloody Mau Mau, not a real army,' Summerby said.
'Sir, I'm only recapping what's in here,' Murray answered, beginning to sound exasperated. 'If you go to the last chapter called State Lies, you'll see that the jungle fighters never called themselves Mau Mau. No such word exists in the Kikuyu language. According to this, Mau Mau was a propaganda myth created by government press handouts devised in London. They depicted the insurgents as anti-European and anti-Christian, saying they were determined to seize power in Kenya. Mau Mau was meant to play on Western prejudices about witchdoctors, mumbo jumbo and jungle savages. Read it for yourself.' He turned to the last pages. 'Press releases talked about, “the bestial wave of Mau Mau”, murders were committed by “terrorists insatiable for blood”. The British press fell in line with the Government's stance, using words such as dark, satanic, fanatical, merciless, evil and primitive to describe them.'
McCloughlin shook his head. 'I think we're wasting valuable time with this... this version of history.'
Jon stirred in his seat. Time to shut you the fuck up. 'Actually, James Field's adoptive parents described how he flew back to Nairobi to meet members of his estranged family. That was in March two thousand and one, a year before he went back to his old teacher to write this project. We don't know much about his natural family, but his mum's surname was Gathambo. She was from the Kikuyu tribe. Somehow she ended up in this country, brought up by a white British couple called the Sullivans.'
Summerby's head went up and he shouted over to the office manager. 'Where's Adlon with the stuff from the social services? We need to know who the blazes James Field's real mother was.' The manager held up a hand. 'He just rang in. They're down in the archives now. The records are being dug out as we speak.' Jon sat back, glancing to his side as Rick let his copy of Field's project fall open at a page of images. 'Jesus Christ.'
'What?' said Jon, looking down. At the top were a couple of crude looking firearms, toy-like in their clumsy simplicity. The caption below read, '
KLFA weapons, from a display at the Imperial War Museum where they're referred to as Mau Mau rifles.
'
Next was a photo of a black man lying on a blanket. The caption read, '
Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi, leader of the KLFA. Executed, February
19
th
1957.'
Alongside was a photo of the side of a plane, a line of little men with spears drawn on the fuselage. '
RAF decals during the war.
'
Below that was an illustration of a naked man leaping through the air, deep shadow tactfully concealing his groin. Covering the top of his head and flapping outwards from his back was the pelt of a black panther. The animal's gaping mouth framed the man's face which, in turn, was midway through a fearsome looking shriek. Clutched in each hand was a terrible claw-like weapon.