Savage Moon

Thirty-Three

The side street was still clogged with cars. Droplets of rainwater were clustered on the windscreens, drips slowly fell from dented bumpers, pooling in the oil-stained puddles. A train rumbled by overhead, wheels screeching on the steel tracks.

Jon and Rick hurried along the narrow street, halting at the door to 'A and L Repairs'. Sensing Rick was hanging back, Jon looked over his shoulder. 'What?'

'I just thought, shouldn't we get back-up? If it's him, he's got one evil weapon on him.'

Jon paused, realising his eagerness had got the better of him.

'There's no back way for him to get out by. We can call for help once we know he's inside.'

He knocked on the door before pushing it open and stepping into the dingy interior. A Vauxhall estate was up on jacks, the legs of a dirty pair of overalls poking out from beneath. 'Hello there,' Jon announced.

The legs twitched and the garage owner wheeled himself out from beneath the vehicle, the body board he was on completely obscured by his bulk. 'Yes gents?'

Glancing towards the shadows at the rear of the garage, Jon said, 'Is James Field about?'

The man sat up and, still holding a spanner, wiped a cuff across his forehead. 'Nope. He's not turned up since you were last here.'

'Got a home address or phone number for him?'

'Yeah, I've tried ringing. He's not answering. Tell him he's sacked when you catch up with him.'

'What's his address? We'll pop round.'

With a grunt, the man got to his feet. He led Jon and Rick to the rear of the garage and opened a dirty address book. 'There you go.'

Jon took out his notebook and jotted it down. 'Can I take a look in his locker?'

'Padlocked.'

'Maybe you decided to break into it? It's your locker, after all.'

The man nodded. 'I suppose I could have.' He picked up a stout screwdriver off the workbench and positioned the end of it beneath the metal plate on the door. Two sharp yanks and the piece of metal flew off. He headed back to the Vauxhall.

Jon swivelled the reading lamp so its beam shone inside. On top of a pair of overalls was the book James Field had been reading.

Secrets of the SAS — Survival and combat techniques for the world's harshest environments.

Jon pulled on some gloves and opened the book to reveal a section on camouflage and ambush. 'Oh bollocks,' he said, putting it on the table, then gently lifting out the overalls. Beneath them was a box file. He placed the overalls on the workbench and with the tip of a finger, lifted the file's lid. Inside was a large piece of folded paper. Jon lifted it out by its edges and gently shook it open.

'Sweet Jesus.' At first he thought it was a diagram for a particularly brutal looking garden fork. Thin lines next to it gave measurements in millimetres. The handle, little more than a tube with a splayed base, measured one hundred and forty. It then merged with an oval shaped piece of metal with four bumps running across the top. From each one there emerged an evil looking hook, each one measuring forty millimetres. Further round the oval was a barb-like fifth. 'The dew claw,' murmured Jon. 'He's replicated a panther's paw.'

'My God,' said Rick. 'It's the murder weapon.'

'Or weapons,' Jon replied. 'One for each hand.'

As Rick returned to the car for evidence bags, Jon addressed the garage owner once again. 'Did James show any interest in welding?'

He slid back out from under the vehicle. 'Yeah. He was making garden ornaments. Don't know what. I'd leave him to it, let him lock up at night.'

Jon looked at the acetylene tank and blowtorch to his side. Garden ornaments, my arse.

It was a short drive to Field's place in Ryder Brow. The flat was located on the ground floor of a three-storey 1970s building. The armed response unit showed up ten minutes later, shortly followed by the call from the Detective Super giving them permission to enter the flat.

Jon and Rick watched from down the street as the building's residents were quietly ushered away. Once the area was clear, the team went in. The communication officer's helmet mike sounded seconds later. 'No one in.'

Jon and Rick ducked under the cordon tape, reaching the doors to the building as the armed officers began filing back out, Heckler and Koch MP5 carbines held across their chests. The front door to Field's flat had been smashed off its hinges and they had to step over it to enter his property. An armed officer appeared from the front room, removing his earpiece as he did so. 'One of you DI Spicer?'

'Me,' Jon replied.

'You've got a letter.' He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder.

'In there.'

The front room was sparsely decorated with second-hand furniture. A sofa was positioned against the back wall, an African-style throw failing to conceal the battered upholstery at its base. Mounted on the wall above it was a wooden face mask, splashes of red surrounding the jagged eyes, lines of dots running across the forehead and cheeks.

'Something gives me the feeling that's from Kenya,' Rick commented.

Jon turned to the note on the table.

To DI Spicer,

If you're reading this, you've worked it out.

Once you turned up at the garage, I knew it wouldn't be long before you came back. After Kerrigan I rechecked Danny's placeand saw all the police cars outside. I knew then it was time to go.

You won't find me now. I'm a shadow in the night, the darkest part of your fears, the stuff of nightmares.

There's one more place I'm going to visit, then I'm done. Death doesn't scare me. My life never began and what little of it

remains will be spent putting this final wrong right.

Kuririkana.

The words set a hoard of terrible images swirling in Jon's head. Snippets of the moor at night, the red light floating in the blackness above, the fragment of sheep's fleece snared on a spike of gorse, crows sweeping low across the dead sky, the gaping throats of Sutton, Peterson and Kerrigan, dark clouds spreading across the land. And behind it all that low throaty rasp, as if conjured from the pit of hell itself.

'He doesn't sound like a happy bunny,' the man with the firearm announced.

Jon's mind snapped back to the present. 'He's after one more person. Rick, get on to Summerby, we need to find every detail from this bloke's miserable, fucked up life.'

Rick had just got through to their senior officer and was reading James Field's note out when Jon's phone went. He glanced at the screen. Mum. 'Hi, can I call you back?'

'Yes, OK. But is Alice with you?'

Jon blinked. 'No. She said she'd be at home.'

'Well, I'm on your doorstep and she's not answering again. I've brought you another pie.'

'Have you got your key?'

'Yes.'

'Go ahead and open the door. I'm sure she'll be in there.' He listened as she unlocked the door. 'Alice? It's me, Mary.

Are you in?' A second's silence. 'No, it's empty.'

Jon breathed in sharply through his nose. 'Hang on. I'll try her mobile.' He pressed the speed dial, listened as the phone started ringing. Thank God, it's not on answer phone.

'It's me.'

'Mum?'

'Yes. Alice's phone is in the kitchen.'

Fuck, she never goes anywhere without it. 'Mum, can you stay there until she gets back?'

'Again? OK, I'll hang this washing out.'

He returned the phone to his pocket. Was he panicking over nothing? Yes. She hadn't cracked up. Jesus, he'd attended enough incidents where someone had. She wasn't even close to the mental state of those poor bastards.

'Problem?'

Jon looked at Rick. 'Alice has disappeared again.'

'Again?'

'Yeah, she went off to the library yesterday. She'd switched her phone off.'

'And today?'

'She's gone off somewhere with Holly and left her phone at home.'

'Do you want to go back to your place?'

Jon weighed it up. 'No. Mum's there. We'll only do each other's heads in if I'm waiting there too. She'll have just popped out to the shops or something.'

Rick shrugged. 'If you're sure. Summerby's putting everything into finding James Field. There's a team heading over to the Silverdale as we speak, another has gone to find his probation officer and they're trying to trace his social worker too.'

'What about us?'

'He says to start going through this place. A car's on its way to help.'

Jon looked around. 'Let's do it then.'