Coming, Ready or Not (D.S. Hunter Kerr Book 4) (5 page)

‘
Fine. Now what about the actual case? The assault on Gemma?’

Tom Hagan dropped his head.
A blue folder lay in front of him. He flipped back the front cover to reveal the contents; a small bundle of typed A4 documents. ‘What do you need to know?’ Then he offered, ‘I was at school with Gemma you know?’

‘
Oh, that’s interesting, you can give us something as to her background then?’

‘
Background. What do you mean?’

There it was again.
Hunter sensed a hesitance in the detective’s questioning intonation. He stored it and responded with, ‘Yeah, background, seeing you were at school with her. Just her early stuff, you know, what she was like, etcetera. You know the drill. We’ll be seeing her parents and her friends, but you can give us a more balanced perspective, seeing as you weren’t close to her.’

‘
Oh, yes of course.’

‘
So what was she like? Did you know her well?’

‘
I spent my last three years in the same class. It’s thirteen, fourteen years ago now, but some people you just never forget do you?’

‘
She left that kind of impression.’

‘
Definitely, she was a real stunner, everyone fancied her. Well every hot bloodied male from thirteen onwards anyway. Still a stunner now.’ He hesitated after his last sentence and then added, ‘Well, she was.’

Hunter remembered the before and after
photos he had seen of Gemma Cooke on the incident board. He zipped his mouth and nodded.

‘
She was very popular. Had a wide circle of friends from what I remember. Could be a bit wild at times and also very forward when it came to lads. From what I remember she never went out with anyone her own age. All the guys she went with were at least in the year above. In fact for a short time, when she was fourteen, I remember that she was knocking off the head boy. I think she was seeing him for a good few months even after he left. And there were rumours that she was having it off with the games master. She seemed to be sucking up to him at every opportunity.’

‘
Oh yes.’ Grace intervened.

The detective threw her a glance and then chuckled.
‘Don’t read anything into what I just said. It wasn’t more than a schoolgirl crush. And she wasn’t the only one at the time. He was in his late twenties and had an army of drooling teenage girls following him around like lapdogs. Looking back he must have had a very strong resolve about him.’

‘
How do you know it was just a schoolgirl crush?’

The detective
’s cheeks flushed. He cleared his throat. ‘Well, I’m a bit embarrassed about this, but I’m afraid I asked her when I took her statement last week.’

Grace smiled.
Shaking her head she said, ‘You guys, I don’t know.’

‘
Anything else?’

‘
To be honest once she left school that was it. For a few years her name cropped up, only if I bumped into anyone from my old school, but it was just that. I know more about her now following the recent events. We did some catching up while I took her statement.’

Grace said,
‘She worked as a mobile beauty therapist, didn’t she?’

‘
Yeah, and from what she told me it seems as though it was nice little earner for her. She told me that she made a shed-load of money doing weddings – brides, bridesmaids, mums and the like. The house on Manvers Terrace was almost paid for.’

‘
So how did she let a shit-hole like Adam Fields creep into her life?’

The detective shrugged his shoulders.
‘You know how some people have this knack of attracting the wrong type of person? Well that was Gemma. She had another boyfriend before him who knocked her about, you know. She told me that when I interviewed her. She never reported him to us and she dumped him two years ago.’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing should surprise you in this job, but you do find yourself questioning yourself about life, don’t you. I mean she was extremely pretty, had a good job, bringing in a good income, and with her own home, nicely furnished and yet her choice of men was appalling.’

Hunter dipped back into the conversation.
‘So who’s this other guy, then? Is it someone else we should be looking at?’

‘
No, he died last summer. Fell from a hotel balcony while on holiday in Ibiza. Drunk. After she’d told me about him I remembered that I’d seen it on the local news and in the papers at the time.’ Tom tugged at his shirt collar. ‘No, Adam Fields is the only person you need to be looking at for this.’

‘
Do you know Adam Fields, then? Have you come across him before?’

‘
No to both questions, though of course I know a lot more about him now since the assault. Bit of a nut-jack according to Gemma. One minute he could be fine and the next as high as a kite. Apparently would snap over the least little thing. She said that he went to the gym most days, that he was absolutely obsessed with bodybuilding. He started turning nasty with her about six months ago.’

‘
Drugs?’

‘
Steroids. She told me that he started taking them about nine months ago. Used to inject in his leg. You’ve seen him, haven’t you?’

‘
Only his mugshot on the board.’

‘
Well, he’s the size of a barndoor, I can tell you. I took some back-up when I lifted him and thankfully he didn’t kick off.’

Grace enquired,
‘I thought he glassed a previous girlfriend?’

Tom Hagan nodded.
‘I don’t know all the circumstances but he has got a wounding conviction. Did eighteen months in Armley.’

‘
Well, it seems to me that he was a nut-jack before he started taking steroids.’

‘
Maybe you’re right.’

‘
There’s no maybe about it.’ Grace responded sharply.

Hunter glanced sideways at his partner. The antecedents of Adam Fields
’ violence towards women had struck a raw nerve. He interjected, ‘What were the circumstances of Gemma’s complaint?’

‘
Well, six days ago they were both in the pub together and she went to the toilets. On the way back she happened to bump into this guy she knew – a boyfriend of a client. She said they had a bit of a general chit-chat, which lasted about ten minutes and then she returned to Adam and a group of friends they were out drinking with. She said that everything was fine between them until they got home and them he just went mental. Apparently started accusing her of ignoring him because she fancied the guy she’d been talking with. She told him not to be stupid and he slapped her across the face. Because of some earlier incidents when he’d threatened her she told him she’d had enough, and that she wanted him to leave and that’s when he kicked off. Punched her in the face and blacked her eye. She kicked him in the balls and managed to get out of the house. Ran to the next door neighbour’s house and called the police, but by the time they’d got there Fields had left. Gemma went to hospital for treatment and then stayed with a mate overnight. The next day she came in with her mum and made her statement. I arrested him at the gym he goes to later that afternoon. He admitted they had rowed but he said the reason for Gemma’s bruising was because she’d been drunk and tripped and fallen against the coffee table. I couldn’t budge him from that without the medical evidence so on CPS advice I bailed him to his parents’ address.’

‘
What about the other incidents.’

‘
There were two previous calls from Gemma herself, and they were for threats and not assaults. He was warned by the officers who attended as to his future conduct. And there were three calls from the next door neighbour because of their arguing, but on each occasion Gemma refused to make an official complaint.’ Tom Hagan tapped the paperwork, ‘The logs for each of the incidents are in the file and as I said earlier I have summarised them.’ He closed the folder, picked it up and proffered it across the desk.

Grace took it out of his hand.
‘Thanks for this, we’ll be in touch.’

In the secure car park compound of Divisional Headquarters, Hunter started the car but didn’t immediately set off. He sat in the driver’s seat, listening to the engine tick over, staring out through the windscreen, drumming his fingers upon the steering wheel.

‘
Did you sense anything about Tom Hagan?’ Hunter asked Grace, his gaze still focussed on the set of blue garage doors in front of him. A large white sign in bold black letters read ‘Overspill exhibits store.’ It revived the bad memories again of the last case. The team had stored everything here from that investigation.

‘
What do you mean – sensed anything?’

Grace
’s quick-fire question snatched his thoughts back, ‘I don’t know exactly. It was early on in our conversation. Did you think he was a bit reticent with some of his answers?’

Out of the corner of
his left eye he caught his partner shaking her head. ‘I think you’d be a bit reticent if you were in his shoes, Hunter. Think about it. He’s just dealt with a domestic, in which the complainant has been murdered, and there were five previous domestic incidents logged to the address as well. The IPCC is going to be crawling all over this one, checking to see if everything was done according to the national policy. I think I’d be a little nervous as well.’

‘
Yeah, I suppose you’re right.’ Hunter engaged gear and reversed out of the parking spot. But as he made towards the barrier exit he wasn’t convinced by what Grace had just said. There had been something about the detective’s demeanour which had disturbed him, and the first thing he was going to do when he got back in the office was to go thoroughly through the file that Tom Hagan had handed over.

Hunter grabbed a sandwich for lunch and then
spent the afternoon wading through Gemma Cooke’s case file. He made his desk a jumble as he separated documents and made copious notes. He learned that Gemma had begun her relationship with Adam Fields eighteen months previously when they had met in a bar. Three months into the relationship he had moved in with her. Her first contact with the police to report a domestic incident was in September of last year, after they had both been out drinking in Barnwell town centre, and upon their return home he had begun shouting and swearing at her for no apparent reason. This had been repeated a month later, and on both occasions the police had attended and warned him as to his conduct. On the latter occasion they had made the decision to escort him from the house, taking him to his parents’ home, where he had slept off his drunkenness. In January and February of this year, Gemma’s neighbour, Valerie Bryce, the lady who had called in the previous night’s stabbing, had telephoned the police after hearing Gemma’s cries, and Adam Fields’ aggressive behaviour, through the adjoining walls of their houses. She also reported that she had seen bruising to the upper regions of Gemma’s arms. On all those occasions Gemma had refused to make any official complaint. Hunter noted that the compulsory Multi Agency Risk Identification Form had been completed for each three incidents and the PPU Sergeant had made the assessment – ‘standard’ risk level. As he took a break from reading, to make a cup of tea, he pondered over the judgement and re-visited the sequence of events inside his head. As he dunked the teabag he came to the conclusion that given these circumstances he would have made the same call.

Upon returning to his desk he picked up the report containing the details of the a
ttack upon Gemma five days earlier. The events of that incident were more comprehensively recorded and he slowly went through the narrative. He noted the following: on the night of the assault, Gemma and Adam had visited a number of town centre bars and the pair had come home in a drunken state. She reported that she had gone to bed and quickly fallen asleep but had been woken up by him standing over the bed accusing her of having an affair with a man she had chatted with earlier that evening. She had got out of bed and told him to leave and he had started packing a bag. While in the middle of this, without warning, he turned on her, grabbed hold of her jaw and pinned her against the bedroom wall, banging her head. He had slapped her face and then punched her on the cheek. She had retaliated by kneeing him in the groin, making him release his grasp. She had then fled down the stairs, making her escape to the next door neighbour’s house, where she had called the police. By the time uniform officers had arrived Adam Fields had bolted. Everything else was as Detective Tom Hagan had explained; Fields was arrested the next day at the gym he used, and when interviewed had put Gemma’s injuries down to a drunken fall – she had banged her face against the coffee table. As there were no independent witnesses Adam Fields had been bailed pending a medical examination of Gemma’s injuries.

As Hunter pushed the papers to one side and rubbed the tension away from his temples, he let out a deep sigh.
The report showed that the actions of every officer involved had been carried out to the letter. It seemed his suspicions of any irregularities by Detective Tom Hagan were unfounded and yet something was still nagging deep in the depths of his consciousness.