Coming, Ready or Not (D.S. Hunter Kerr Book 4) (8 page)

Adam Fields flung himself back in the seat.
‘No comment.’

‘
This is not some stranger who witnessed this, Adam. This is Gemma’s next door neighbour. Someone who knows you. She recognised you.’

He
jerked forward again, smacked a hand hard down on the desk and arrowed a finger at Hunter. He spat out, ‘I know where this is leading. This is another one of your stitch-ups.’

Hunter slid his hands
quickly away and eased himself back in his seat to put some space between himself and his prisoner. Slipping his hands beneath the table he balled them into fists. He gave back the impression that he was relaxed. In reality he was alert and prepared. Taking a deep breath he responded, ‘That statement is from an independent witness. Nothing to do with the police and she has no need to lie. She saw you, Adam in the early hours of the eighteenth and called the police. Officers who attended found Gemma’s back door had been kicked in and she’d been stabbed, less than ten minutes after you’d been seen running from the rear of her house.’ He watched Fields closely for a few seconds, letting his words sink in, then added, ‘Shall I tell you what I think, Adam? I think you’re a man who can’t accept rejection, and I think this was an act of revenge by a violent bully who couldn’t also accept that the relationship was over.’

He banged his hand on the table again.
‘You’re all in this together. You’re covering up for your own.’

That
retort threw Hunter’s thoughts. Recovering quickly he said, ‘I’m not with you, Adam. What do you mean by those last comments?’

‘
You fucking do know. This is one big cover-up. Well I’ll tell you this now, you’re not pinning this on me.’ Beads of sweat trickled down the sides of his face. ‘Jesus, this is fucking murder we’re talking about.’

‘
Yes it is murder, Adam, and if you don’t make yourself any clearer about your comments, or give us an explanation, then how can we help you?’

Adam Fields looked to his solicitor again.
His face had almost a pleading look about it.

The solicitor said,
‘Can I have another word with my client?’

Outside the interview room Hunter and Grace stood at the far end of the corridor, out of earshot from the conversation that was going on in the room between the duty solicitor and prisoner. They exchanged glances from time to time but neither of them said anything.

Hunter was
wrestling with his thoughts; going back through the interview inside his head, dissecting Adam Fields’ last set of comments. None of it seemed to make any sense.

After ten minutes of waiting
the solicitor opened the interview room door, hooked his head around and informed them ‘that his client wished to make a statement.’

Hunter and Grace
returned and began the interrogation process as before; preparing a fresh set of blank tapes for recording and switching on the machine.

Hunter opened things up by
reminding Adam Fields he was still under caution. He continued, ‘Adam, you’ve spoken with your solicitor and I think you want to tell us about the night of the seventeenth of March, going into the early hours of the eighteenth. Am I right?’

‘
Yeah.’

‘
In your own words then, go ahead.’

There was a nervous inflection in his voice
, which took a few minutes to subside but once he had worked through his awkwardness, in a clear voice, Adam Fields narrated his story. He began by admitting he had lost his temper with Gemma on several occasions over the past six months and that a week ago he had punched her in the face during an argument, which he had instigated, because he suspected her of having an affair. Without encouragement he also admitted using his friends mobile to send the threatening text on the evening of the seventeenth. He said he had done it because he’d heard rumours that she was seeing someone. And he also wanted to scare her for ‘grassing him up to the cops.’ He went on to say that after that he had carried on drinking, ending the night in The Horseshoe, where they had a lock-in and didn’t leave until about one thirty a.m. On his way back to his friend’s flat, on the Wood Estate, he had received a phone call from someone he knew on Manvers Terrace. That person told him that he had just seen Gemma on the street with another man and had seen the pair going into her house. Fields said, ‘I was fucking furious. I asked him if he knew who it was, but he didn’t so I asked him to describe the bastard to me, and I swear it, the guy he was describing fitted that CID guy who nicked me down to a tee.’

Hunter i
nterposed, ‘DC Tom Hagan?’

‘
That’s him.’ He licked his lips. ‘I thought, the bastard. He persuades Gemma to make a statement against me, nicks me and then moves in on her himself. I wanted to fucking deck him, so went straight round there.’

‘
And what happened next?’

‘
When I got there the kitchen light was on. You lot had taken my keys off me so I started braying on the back door. Shouting to Gemma to get that bastard out of her bed right now. I was gonna sort him. When she didn’t answer I just got madder and madder and started booting the door in. That’s when I found her like that. Stabbed.’

‘
Gemma?’

‘
Yeah. On the kitchen floor. To be honest I knew something had happened the instant I pushed open the door. There was blood everywhere. Scared the fuck out of me, I can tell you. That’s when I legged it.’

‘
So you’re telling me that when you’d kicked in Gemma’s kitchen door, you found her on the floor and she’d already been stabbed.’

‘
Yeah, straight up. I swear on my mum’s life. I didn’t do it. I’m telling you it must have been that guy she went home with. The one that I thought was that detective who’d nicked me.’

‘
And that’s why in the first interview you went on about being stitched up and insinuating that we were covering up.’

He nodded vigorously,
‘Yeah, his description fitted that CID guy.’

For the next twenty minutes Hunter cross-questioned Adam Fields
on everything he had told them, but he remained firm to his story. Unable to glean anything new Hunter drew the interrogation to a halt and returned him back to the Custody Sergeant, where the decision was agreed to detain him while they consulted with the local CPS.

As they sauntered
down the corridor, back to the MIT office, Grace turned to Hunter. Her face masked with a veil of concern.

‘
You said you thought there was something funny about Tom Hagan didn’t you?’

Hunter tightened his mouth,
‘I did, though I hope to God, Grace, it’s not what I’m thinking.’

- ooOoo -

Day Four
: 21st March.

Hunter awoke with a woolly head. He had hardly slept. He had tossed-and-turned most of the night, wrestling with his thoughts, repeatedly mulling over the interview with Adam Fields, attempting to analyse the content of what had been said. He had tried to tell himself that Fields was in fact a very convincing liar, and that his story about how he had found Gemma dying in the kitchen, after he had kicked in the back door, was completely false. And yet somehow Hunter’s experience was telling him the way he had poured out his confession, that what he was saying was the truth. So no matter how many times he had scrutinised the conversation he had still come back to the same conclusion, DC Tom Hagan was somehow involved. And he knew that he wasn’t alone in his cogitations. He had seen the strained faces of the team, at the previous evening’s briefing, when he had revealed the facts of his and Grace’s interrogation.

As he vigorously showered he told himself that he had enough on his plate without worrying about DC Tom Hagan.
That problem was Detective Superintendent Leggate’s and not his. He had other priorities to focus on that morning. Prior to leaving work last night, on the directions of CPS, he had charged Adam Fields with assault occasioning actual bodily harm upon Gemma, threatening behaviour towards her, possession of an imitation firearm and also with breaking the conditions of his bail. CPS had requested the convening of a special court later that morning; Fields was being put before Magistrates with an application for a remand in custody, and it was his and Grace’s job to put together the remand file. He knew that the first few hours of the day were going to be full-on and that he would need to be totally focussed.

Following his shower he dried off in the bedroom.
Glancing at the bedside clock he realised he had plenty of time before the morning’s briefing and so donned his training top and jogging bottoms instead of his suit; a steady run into work would freshen his head as well as his body, he told himself.

After
a quick breakfast of toast and tea he left home by the rear conservatory, yomped down the garden, and stepped through the bottom gate, entering the fields of the old racecourse, which bordered his property. Before him a landscape of winter-ravaged barren fields stretched out all across the Dearne Valley. He shuddered. Immediately to his right were the remains of the mile home straight of the old racecourse, once the training ground for the Earl of Fitzwilliam’s horses. This morning, with a sky full of uniform grey clouds, the countryside was monochromatically stark. And it was cold, though the air was still.

Just the right conditions for running, thought Hunter
, as he pulled up the hood of his training top. Slotting the micro headphones of his iPod into his ears he switched his track selector to shuffle. As the first chords of Guns n’ Roses rendition of ‘Live and Let Die,’ reverberated against his eardrums, he stepped onto the home straight, and with a smart burst began his run into work.

For the second time that morning Hunter showered and changed. Leaving the station’s ground floor changing room feeling revitalised, he bounded up the rear stairwell and entered the MIT office in a better mindset than the one he had woken up with an hour earlier. Now, he was ready to face the day.

Mike Sampson was
the sole occupant of the office. He was writing up the incident board.

Making his way across the room to make
a hot drink he commented, ‘You’re in early.’

Over his shoulder, light-heartedly, he
answered, ‘No thanks to you, Hunter.’

‘
What do you mean by that, Mike?’

‘
Four days ago you called me out in the middle of the night telling me you’d got an easy domestic murder for me. Do you remember saying that?’

Hunter knew where this conversation was going
given what they had learned yesterday. He switched on the kettle.

‘
Well this is a right monkey you’ve handed me.’

Shuffling two cups together he responded
, ‘You’ve only yourself to blame, Mike. You were the one who kept pestering. And now I’ve given you a simple job to get your teeth into all I get back in return is a moan. Some people are just never grateful.’ With a smirk, he dropped two tea bags into empty mugs.

‘
Simple job!’ Mike offered him a single finger salute. ‘Swivel on that Detective Sergeant.’

Hunter returned a quick grin, then straightened his face.
‘Anyway on a serious note, while there’s only us two in the office, how are you bearing up?’

Mike stopped writing.
‘I’m good, Hunter, thanks.’ He lightly brushed the right hand side of his abdomen. ‘The scars are getting less noticeable every day and it’s done wonders for helping me to lose weight. I can recommend to anyone, who’s wanting to lose a few pounds, not to bother with Weight Watchers, instead they should consider getting themselves stabbed by a psychopath.’ He flashed a smile and returned to his work.

His colleague had definitely not lost any of his humour,
mused Hunter, as he poured hot water into the cups.

‘It would be fair to say that we all now know the sensitive nature of this investigation. What Adam Fields suggested in interview yesterday has thrown everything up in the air.’ Detective Superintendent Leggate addressed the room. ‘But we mustn’t be distracted by this. We have to put the sensitive issues to one side. It is not our job to investigate those. We have a murder to detect. And on that front we have a mountain of actions to plough through and we have forensic evidence from the scene still waiting to be examined.’ She tapped one set of fingers against the other. ‘On the actions front, we still have to speak with Gemma’s parents. They were still too upset yesterday. Also, I’m told that last night Adam Fields gave up the name of the person he has been staying with during these past few days, and also the name of the person on Manvers Terrace, who witnessed Gemma, and the unidentified man, going into her home in the early hours of the eighteenth. Those actions will be followed up straight after briefing.’ She continued tapping her fingers. ‘We need to know how she got home. We know that she told her friends that she was getting a taxi when she left the pub. Did she get one or did she get a lift from our mystery man. If she did get a taxi, we’ve got CCTV all around the location she was drinking so I want that checked today. We also know she got a pizza from somewhere. There’s a couple of places on the High Street where she could have got that. I want them visiting. See if anyone remembers her.’ She stopped tapping and interlinked her fingers. ‘On the forensics front let me remind everyone that SOCO have lifted fingerprints from the knife which was used to kill Gemma. We’ve got prints on the pizza box, on the bottle of wine and two glasses, and we’ve got semen stains on the bed linen. And we’ve also got fibres. Lots of them. Given the circumstances Headquarters have allocated the funding to get those fast-tracked. And so, until we are absolutely sure, one hundred per cent, that the mystery man is DC Hagan, and evidence points towards him, then we go nowhere near him and we certainly do not say anything about this outside of this room.’ She raked the room with her eyes. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

An arrangement of nodding heads
answered her question.

It was mid-morning before DCs Mike Sampson and Carol Ragen – the appointed Family Liaison Officer – got to Gemma’s parents’ place. Stuart and Margaret Cooke lived in a three-bedroom, detached, Edwardian house, next to the church rectory, in the older part of Barnwell. A picturesque section of the Dearne navigation canal flowed past the bottom of their garden.

Mike had already phoned ahead
, and spoken with Mr Cooke, to check if it was okay for them to come and chat some more about Gemma. He’d already had two interview sessions with Stuart and gained much about Gemma’s early life. What was missing were the more recent events in her personal circumstances, especially with regards her activities in the days prior to her murder, and, as he got out of the car, he double-checked his folder of documents, ensuring everything was in the right order and that his checklist of questions was to hand. He wanted to make this visit as short and as painless as possible: Mrs Cooke had taken the news of her daughter’s death very badly; upon the communiqué being delivered Margaret had collapsed and had been rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack. She’d only been released two days ago after being given the all clear following tests.

The detectives
had only just closed the entrance gate behind them and started their walk up the path when the front door opened sharply.

Stuart Cooke
stepped out through the wide doorway and in an excited voice said, ‘The local news has just been on. It says that you’ve arrested a man.’

Mike
inwardly cursed.
How on earth had they got hold of that?
He had promised right from the outset of the investigation that he would be the first to inform them should there be a significant occurrence in the enquiry. He sighed inwardly in exasperation. Throwing up his hand in a halt signal he said, ‘Can we just go inside, Mr Cooke?’

The detectives were
let in and guided through a wooden panelled hallway into a high-ceilinged lounge. The room they entered was warm and bright. Huge bay windows let in an abundance of natural light.

Margaret
Cooke was sat on the sofa wringing a handkerchief around in her hands. She looked weary. ‘Have you caught Gemma’s killer? Is it Adam?’ Her voice begged. She started to rise and Carol Ragen indicated with her hand that she needn’t do so. Margaret sank back into the cushions.

Mike responded,
‘Is it alright if we just sit down a minute?’

‘
Yes of course, sorry.’ Mr Cooke pointed out two easy chairs positioned either side of a dark wood surround fireplace and then dropped down beside his wife. ‘She’s feeling a lot better now. The doctor gave her something to sleep last night,’ he said and clasped a hand around one of hers. She met her husband’s gaze with a sideways glance and gave him a wan smile.

Mike made himself comfortable
in one of the armchairs and then leaned forward, see-sawing his gaze between Mr and Mrs Cooke. ‘Firstly, I’d like to apologise. I said I’d be the one to break any news to you, but it seems as though the media has somehow got hold of the information. I can confirm that we’ve arrested a man. The news is absolutely right, but we don’t know yet if it’s Gemma’s killer. He’s not admitted to her murder.’

‘
And is it Adam?’ asked Stuart Cooke.

‘
Yes, it is Adam who we’ve locked up, and he is going to court this afternoon. We’re requesting he be remanded in custody. But as I’ve said, he’s not admitted to killing Gemma. We’ve got him for other things as well, which I’m afraid I can’t discuss at this moment in time.’

‘
I always knew he was a wrong ’un. Soon as I clamped eyes on him. We told Gemma – didn’t we love?’ Stuart connected with his wife’s grief-ridden look. ‘More than once. Our Gemma could never pick a gud ’un. Ever since a teenager. I mean look at that last one, before Adam, who died, falling off that balcony abroad when he was pissed up. He used her like a punchbag. I know she could be a bit mouthy at times, but no man should hit a woman, should they?’

‘
No they shouldn’t, Mr Cooke. And yes, we do know that the previous boyfriend used to beat her. We’ve learned such a lot since your daughter’s death,’ interjected Carol.

M
ike nodded sympathetically. ‘What I will say to you both is that as soon as we have something positive to tell you about Gemma’s murder, you will be the first to know.’ Pushing himself back he rested his folder on his knee and opened it. ‘Now if I can just ask you a few more questions so I can bring everything up to date.’ Mike glanced at the notes he had made from his previous conversations with Mr Cooke. The team now knew that she had been an only child and that she’d had a good, untroubled childhood. At school she had shown great promise, but between the ages of fifteen and nineteen she had ‘gone off the rails,’ as Stuart Cooke had put it, and been a great disappointment. During one of the very first interviews, tears had welled in Mr Cooke’s eyes as, with great consternation, he had detailed how he and his wife had regularly had to deal with Gemma coming home drunk, sometimes having to physically restrain her because she’d threatened to assault them both. It had also troubled him when he found she was associating with lads a lot older than herself. He had tried to stop her going out of the house by locking her in her room, but she had climbed out of the window and shinned down the drainpipe. But in the next breath Mike had watched Mr Cooke’s face light up as spoke fondly of how at the age of twenty she had transformed her life. He’d said that she had come home one day, not long after her twentieth birthday, and ‘out of the blue’ announced she had got herself a job in a hairdressers’ and was enrolling in college. Since then she had qualified as a beauty therapist, and five years ago had decided to go it alone and set herself up in business as a mobile beauty therapist. And was making a very good living for herself, he had proudly announced. He had finished his tale by telling Mike that ‘Gemma had a good head and good common-sense when it came to business but rotten sense when it came to picking men.’