Coming, Ready or Not

by Michael Fowler

  Adam Fields’ pumped up arms were still clamped firmly to his chest.

  With a forefinger, Hunter slipped out a written statement from amongst the paperwork and then locked eyes with Fields.

  ‘Adam, I first want to talk to you about your relationship with Gemma Cooke.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, would you consider that you and she were an item?’

  ‘We were till that nosy cow of a neighbour and you lot stuck your oar in.’

  ‘That neighbour and the police, and using your phrase, stuck their oar in, because you assaulted Gemma.’

  ‘That’s what you say. I’ve already been questioned about that and given my statement. Gemma fell down when she was pissed.’ His mouth creased into an unctuous smile.’

  Hunter eyed him for a few seconds. If truth be known he wanted to reach across the table and wipe that supercilious smirk off Adam Fields’ face with the back of his hand and he could feel his fingers wrestling one another as he fought to keep control of his emotions. He took a deep breath and said, ‘The medical evidence we’ve now got would say different, but I don’t want to dwell on that for now, Adam. That’s for later when you go to court. I want to talk with you about other matters. Would I be right in saying that a week ago, following an incident involving your girlfriend Gemma Cooke, you were ordered not to go back to thirty-four Manvers Terrace.’

  ‘You know I was. It was your lot who said I couldn’t go back there after you’d nicked me.’

  ‘Just to confirm then, Adam, you were arrested by us for assaulting your girlfriend Gemma Cooke, and then given bail to your parents’ address, and as part of the conditions of your bail were told not to go near her, or contact her. Am I right?’

  ‘You never gave me a chance. You’re all the fucking same.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?’

  ‘Take it whichever way you want.’

  Slowing the pace of his questioning Hunter said, ‘The next two questions I’m going to ask you Adam, I want you to think very hard about the answers you give me.’ Hunter stared out his prisoner. ‘Did you contact Gemma after you were bailed?’

  He shook his head, ‘No.’

  ‘I’m going to ask you that question again Adam?’

  ‘The answer will still be the same. Are you fucking thick?’

  ‘Well, that is interesting because I have a statement here which contradicts what you’ve just said. And that statement is from a close friend of yours. It relates to an incident on the night of the seventeenth of this month when Gemma got a threatening text from a mobile. We’ve traced that number to the person who gave us this statement.’ Hunter paused and stabbed a finger at the handwritten document in front of him. ‘He tells us that on that night he was out with you and several mates drinking in town. And that in one of the pubs you asked him if you could borrow his phone, which you used to send a text and then joked with everyone you were with, and I quote, “that’ll shit the bitch up, making a statement against me.” Do you remember that, Adam?’

  Fields’ face coloured up. He eased forward, dropping his elbows on the desk. Jutting out his chin, he said, ‘No comment.’

  ‘Well, I’m entitled to infer that you did if you won’t give me a proper answer. Anyway I’ll leave that awkward question for now and move on a bit.’ Hunter fingered out another statement from the folder. ‘As I’ve already said we know that on the night of St Patrick’s Day, you were out drinking in and around town and that you went in various pubs. We know that because we’ve now spoken with every one of those mates you were out with and they’ve all given statements. Just as a matter of interest can you remember which pub you finished up in?’

  ‘Course I can remember. The Horseshoe. Where you did this to me this dinner time.’ He unclamped his arms and pointed to his face again. ‘I’m suing you, you know? You’re not getting away with this.’

  Unfazed, Hunter asked, ‘And what time did you leave?’

  He dropped his hand. Cockily he replied, ‘Don’t know. Midnightish I suppose. I’d had a skinful.’

  ‘And did you go straight home?’

  ‘Course, I was pissed.’

  ‘When I say go straight home, I mean to the address where you had been bailed, because thirty-four Manvers Terrace was out of bounds for you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I went to a mate’s house.’

  ‘Where was that address?’

  ‘Just a mate’s. That’s all I want to say. I don’t want to get him into any trouble. I know I should have been at my mum and dad’s.’

  ‘Okay, does this mate live in Barnwell?’

  ‘Yeah, course he does.’

  ‘Humour me, Adam, just give me a rough area where that is, if you don’t want to tell us the exact address at this moment.’

  Adam Fields looked sideways at his solicitor. They exchanged glances and the solicitor nodded his head. Fields returned his look to Hunter. ‘The Wood Estate, that’s all I’m going to say.’

  ‘Okay, fine. And by my calculations the Wood Estate is roughly a mile away from Manvers Terrace. Would you agree?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And in the opposite direction to the last pub you were in?’

  ‘Yeah. I know where the Wood Estate is, dumb shit.’

  ‘So you had no reason then to be anywhere near Manvers Terrace in the early hours of the eighteenth?’ Hunter caught a flinch in Adam Fields’ face.

  Fields blinked his look away and snapped back, ‘No. I went straight to my mates.’

  Teasingly, Hunter slid forward Valerie Bryce’s witness statement. ‘Then how come we have a statement from Gemma’s next door neighbour, to the effect that she was woken at just after ten past two in the early hours of the morning of the eighteenth, by a man shouting the odds and banging on Gemma’s back door. She recognised that voice as yours, Adam and so dialled nine-nine-nine. Then she heard glass breaking and a loud banging noise, and a few minutes later saw you running past her window in the direction of the industrial estate.’

  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 plead
ing 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 interposed, ‘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 -

  CHAPTER FIVE

  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?’