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.'
'So who are her birth parents?' Summerby asked.
'Mary was an orphan. Apparently her mother died in a place called the Kamiti detention camp. Medical complications after the birth.'
'Have you got contact details for the Sullivans?'
'They're dead. Both were killed in a car crash in nineteen seventy-nine.' Summerby reached out and crossed their surname off the list as Adlon continued. 'Mary was eighteen at the time. It seems they'd not written her into their will. None of the relatives were interested so she was basically left to fend for herself. Details are sketchy from that point on, just stuff she was prepared to tell the hospital staff. She moved to Manchester and lived in bedsits for a while, but by the time she turned up at the hospital she'd been sleeping rough.'
'Sleeping rough while pregnant? Why do that?' Summerby asked.
'No explanation. Fell behind with her rent?'
Jon's mind was turning. 'Kerrigan started out in the property game, bedsits and the like. What if Mary was a tenant he took liberties with? It would explain how she ended up preferring to sleep rough.'
Summerby's eyes were on the board. 'You mean he raped her. That's why Field killed him. But how did he find out who his father was?'
'Sorry. You talking to me, boss?' Adlon's voice buzzed.
'No, rhetorical question. What were the Sullivans doing in
Kenya?'
'He was the chaplain for the Kamiti area. Left in the late fifties just before the country got its independence.'
'With an orphaned Kenyan baby?'
'There are notes from the social worker who initially dealt with the Sullivans on their return to Britain. Apparently Kenya was in chaos. There'd been this armed uprising by the Mau Mau, thousands had been locked up in specially built camps. Then the decision was made to release them all. It seems in all the confusion many orphaned babies were left behind. Convents took in some but the Sullivans took in Mary Gathambo.'
Rick coughed. 'Before the Sullivans died, we know they told Mary all about where she was from, including her family name. She'd obviously contacted members of the family back in Kenya. James Field had the letters they'd sent her. She was planning to return to the country when she fell pregnant by, we now know, Kerrigan. We also know James Field made contact with the relatives and flew out there to meet them in March, two thousand and one. He came back a different person, knuckled down in a job, kept out of trouble and quietly planned all this.' Summerby slapped the end of the marker pen against his palm. 'We're no nearer to working out who he's after next. DC Adlon, bring everything you've got back here.' He cut the connection and turned to the table. 'We need to re-question every offender who was in the Silverdale at the same time as Field. And go round the squats, pull in everyone who knew him as Jammer.'
A phone rang and was swiftly answered. 'Is there a DI Spicer here?' a female civilian called out.
Jon turned to her, instantly clocking her worried expression.
'It's Sergeant Innes in the radio room. He's got a message about your wife.'
Thirty-Six
Jon got to the woman in three strides and took the phone from her outstretched hand. 'Sergeant?'
'Jon. This might be something and nothing. Your other half, is she called Alice?'
He felt a plunging sensation, as if he was in a lift that had unexpectedly started to go down. 'Yes. What is it?'
'You know the Liberal Democrat constituency offices in
Cheadle Hulme? On Gill Bent Road?'
'Yes.'
'We've just received a call about an incident there. A woman turned up, er, in a bit of a state. Complaining. Apparently about the war in Iraq.'
He knew instantly it was his wife. Please let her be OK. Oh God, what about Holly? 'Is there a baby with her? Does she have a baby?'