by Ed O'Connor
‘Sorry to wake you, sir. Harrison here.’
‘What’s up?’
‘Accident down on the railway.’
‘For fuck’s sake.’
‘Victim hit by a mail train under the Fen Combe footbridge. Right spaghetti bolognese.’
‘Suicide,’ Underwood decided. ‘Body to the hospital, uniform supervise the clean up, week off for the driver.’
‘It’s a bit more complicated than that, sir. The driver says he saw people on the bridge before the body fell. Could be foul play.’
Underwood hung in the last moment of comfort before he inevitably crawled out of bed into another freezing night.
‘OK. I’m on my way. You want picking up?’
‘I’m already here, thanks Guv.’
He felt a dull ache on his left hand side, radiating from his hip up to and around his ribs.
An hour later, Underwood peered under the wheels of the locomotive and concluded that Harrison’s ‘spaghetti bolognese’ reference was well made.
‘What a mess,’ he muttered.
‘I know, sir. I can think of better ways to start the day,’ Harrison replied grimly.
Marty Farrell, New Bolden’s most senior scene of crime officer, crawled out gingerly from under the engine section holding an evidence bag of remains.
‘Nice work if you can get it,’ Underwood observed.
‘With the greatest respect, sir,’ Farrell replied as he got to his feet, ‘up yours.’
Underwood smiled through his tiredness. ‘I suppose I asked for that.’
‘I was in bed with a woman half an hour ago, a very nice one, now I’m here in the perishing fucking cold picking up organs.’
‘Anything unusual?’
‘Not really. The body’s in four main sections; the head’s pretty messed up but recognisable I suppose. Guts dragged halfway down the track. And I think I’ve got a kidney here.’ He held up the bag for Underwood’s inspection.
‘Any ID on the body?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘No suicide note?’
‘Not a sausage.’
‘Assume foul play then. Bag and tag everything. Ultra careful.’
‘Always, boss.’
‘Thanks, Marty. You work with him, Harrison. Get him whatever he needs. Where’s the driver?’
‘In the plod car with uniform. He’s pretty wobbly,’ Harrison cautioned.
Underwood left Farrell to his grim pickings. Capel was sitting in the front seat of a squad car. A female police sergeant stood at his side, she looked about fifteen years old to Underwood. The force was changing. He didn’t recognise half the uniformed officers at New Bolden. Feeling time breathing down his neck was unsettling. He showed his warrant card.
‘I’m DI Underwood.’ He turned to Capel. ‘How are you, son?’
‘Pretty freaked out.’
‘I’m sure. Stupid question. What did you see?’
Capel looked back down the track. ‘I was about a mile out from the bridge. I’m pretty sure I saw people on the bridge. I decelerated. I thought it could be vandals. Just before I got to the bridge, I saw something fall onto the track. I didn’t have time to stop. It just went under the engine.’
‘How many people?’
‘Eh?’
‘On the bridge.’
‘Oh. Two, maybe three.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Fairly sure. Why would anyone want to do that? Chuck someone on a track I mean? That’s a terrible way to kill someone.’
‘Terrible and clumsy.’ Underwood looked back down the track. ‘Maybe he was dead already.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Let’s wait for the post-mortem. Have you made a written statement yet?’
‘I gave it to the black copper over there,’ he pointed out towards Harrison.
‘Get yourself home then.’
Underwood turned towards the footbridge.
First Touch
13.
Monday, 14th October 2002
DI Alison Dexter found herself sitting in the car park of ComBold Ltd on the outskirts of New Bolden. She felt a frisson of excitement: the electric thrill of a voyeur. She hadn’t tried to justify her actions to herself. Dexter had used her ruthless logic against herself too often before. She had argued herself into the ground. You can destroy any emotion with logic; undermine any initiative; magnify any risk. She was here. Simple as that. She wanted to have another look at Kelsi Hensy, the person she had allowed to occupy her thoughts. Was she obsessed? Dexter refused to analyse the possibility. In any case, it had to be healthy to be obsessed with something other than dead bodies and bad memories.
Cars drew into the yard. ComBold employees stepped out into the cold October morning in notyet crumpled suits and skirts. From a distant corner, in the relative anonymity of her Mondeo, Dexter observed their faces carefully. Perhaps it was ‘control freakery’. Alison Dexter liked to be in control of situations. She liked to think that her rational mind could manage any incident or emotion life hurled up at her. She had admitted to herself that she found Kelsi Hensy attractive. Dexter had buried any similar feeling in the past under a mountain of logic and pretence: she had preferred to consider them as slips of concentration rather than indications of something altogether more profound.
And yet, here she was. Kelsi Hensy was different. What was so special about a person that she didn’t know? A common knowledge of the topography of Leyton was hardly the most solid or stimulating basis for a relationship. Nor was their shared love of West Ham United: an association that had given Dexter little other than grief since she had adopted the club in 1980. There was nothing concrete at all for her to work with and that knowledge was destabilising DI Alison Dexter to the point that she couldn’t concentrate on much else. Maybe, she told herself, there was nothing special about Kelsi Hensy at all. Perhaps something had changed in her: she had slipped an emotional gear and was now shuddering to a standstill. It was also possible that she was finally being honest with herself.
Her self-indulgence was ruptured by the sight of Kelsi Hensy driving into the car park in a new Peugeot 206. Dexter sank into her seat when, for a single horrible intestine-twisting second, she thought that Kelsi was about to park in the space alongside her. Once the moment of crisis had passed, Dexter cursed her idiocy: next time she would park between two cars to eliminate that risk.
Next time?
The voice in her head had a point.
Dexter leaned forward as Kelsi slammed her car door shut, remote-locked the car and walked across the car park.
Kelsi Hensy wore a black skirt and smart white blouse. She wore black business heels that accentuated the firm lines of her calf muscles through her stockings. She had very short blonde hair that she had wet-gelled back away from her face. Dexter thought of Kelsi’s face between her legs, the cold wet touch of that hair against her inner thigh. The thought jack-in-the-boxed up out of nowhere; Dexter found the surprise stimulating. She wondered where her mind would take her next.
So far, she was enjoying the ride.
14.
Leyton, East London December 1995
‘Two dustbin bags full of body parts,’ said DCI Patrick McInally of Leyton CID, ‘all messed up. Council contractors pulled them out of the river this morning. One victim according to the pathologist. Male about forty years old. Someone has carved him up. Frenzied attack. Uncertain about time of death at the moment but less than a week.’
Detective Sergeant Alison Dexter shivered on the bleak riverbank.
‘ID on the victim?’ she asked through chattering teeth.
‘Nothing. No personal effects at all.’ McInally paused, smiling at his protégée. ‘You a bit chilly there, Dexy?’
‘My knickers are icing over,’ she said bitterly.
McInally laughed.
‘And not for the first time!’
‘Not funny.’
Dexter had endured a bad year. A few months previously, McIn
ally had wondered if she’d survive in the force. But she was tough, he knew that, tough like flint. The riverbank was alive with SOCOs and uniformed police. A white forensic tent had been erected a few yards away. McInally was an experienced and conscientious officer: Dexter respected him above anybody. She read his mind.
‘Not much for me to do here, Guv,’ she observed. ‘How can I help?’
McInally looked around him. There were journalists already camped at the end of Dace Road. He put his right arm round Dexter and led her around the side of the forensic tent.
‘Dexy, I’ve got a funny feeling about this. Someone has really hacked this guy up. That’s unusual. I’ve worked this patch for fifteen years. In that time we’ve only had one other case like this.’
Dexter saw where he was going. ‘The Smithfield Porter? What was his name?’
‘Patterson, Brian Patterson.’
Dexter hadn’t worked the case. The body of Smithfield market worker Brian Patterson had been found in a shallow grave on Wanstead Flats. Patterson had been a resident of Francis Road, Leyton in a house no more than two hundred yards away from Leyton police station. Dexter had been on emotional leave after a personal relationship with a fellow officer had become public in unpleasant circumstances. Trapped in her flat while the investigation took place, she had cursed her misfortune at missing out on the excitement.
‘Patterson was found with the front of his head smashed in and flesh missing from his right arm and leg. This body also has the front of his head smashed in. Now, DS Horton and DS Payne drew a blank when they looked into the Patterson murder.’
‘Surprise, surprise.’
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that Detective Sergeant,’ McInally remonstrated softly. ‘Listen. I want you to discreetly have a look at the Patterson case. See if they missed anything. Get yourself down to Smithfield. Speak to some of the bloke’s mates. You know the drill.’
Dexter nodded. ‘Horton and Payne?’
‘Keep them out of it for the moment,’ McInally advised. ‘I want a fresh approach. They’ll be resentful if they know I’ve got you checking up on their work.’
‘Understood.’
‘I want this kept quiet, Dexy. The press are sniffing around here. Once they twig the connection with Patterson there’ll be serial killer stories everywhere and we’ll find ourselves doing interviews instead of investigating.’
‘Mum’s the word.’
That afternoon, Dexter visited Brian Patterson’s widow in her house on Francis Road. Jessie Patterson told Dexter the same story she had told DS Horton. That Brian had left for work as normal on the day he had disappeared. He travelled to work by bus from Leyton High Road. That his colleagues said he completed his shift at Smithfield Market at 7 a.m. and had a beer with his friends in the pub under the market before leaving. After that, no one saw him alive again.
Dexter left the sad little house at 5 p.m. none the wiser.
That night she stayed late at Leyton CID sifting through the Patterson case file. Horton and Payne had been fairly methodical. They had taken witness statements from Jessie Patterson and two porters at Smithfield who had worked that final shift with Brian on the day he vanished. They both had corroborated alibis. Dexter scribbled their names in her notebook. The paperwork was complete but uninspiring; that didn’t surprise her. Horton and Payne were ‘jobsworth’ coppers: nine to fivers going through the motions. They had done precisely enough to avoid criticism without making any progress or identifying any relevant leads. Dexter found that contemptible. She had virtually nothing to work with. Dexter read and reread the Patterson case file, lingering for as long as she felt appropriate over the post-mortem photos. Lumps of flesh had been removed from Patterson’s arm and leg, a hole punched in his forehead.
At midnight, she left a message on the management office answerphone at Smithfield Market telling them to expect her the following morning.
Dexter got up at 3.45 a.m. It took her about twenty minutes to drive from the East End down to Smithfield. She parked in Charterhouse Street and walked down the side of the vast nineteenth-century complex of buildings. She had never seen the market before, a fact that surprised her. The sprawling construction reminded her of a huge London railway station, St Pancras or King’s Cross. Grey stone arches ornamented the front wall of the main building. A St George’s flag fluttered above the vast vaulted entrance. Dexter tried to ignore the ribald shouts of the porters and meat cutters as she entered the market. The stench of meat was overpowering. Dexter immediately wanted to puke.
‘Fancy some fucking sausage, darling?’ A cutter held up an unpleasantly shaped piece of meat.
Dexter made her way through the noisy chaos to the management office. Gavin Doyle was waiting for her.
‘You found us then,’ he said unnecessarily.
‘Some of your staff need to learn some manners,’ Dexter replied. ‘I don’t like sexual innuendo being shouted at me. I am not a piece of meat.’
‘I apologise. Needless to say this is pretty much an all male environment. They can be rather brusque.’
‘I want to talk to the men who worked with Patterson on the day that he disappeared.’ She checked her notebook. ‘Dew and McCain.’
‘I’ll walk you down there.’
‘I don’t need a chaperone.’
‘Nevertheless, I suspect the men will be less aggressive if I’m with you.’
‘Let’s get on with it then.’
Doyle led her back through the market explaining as he went.
‘We have twenty-three units here in the East building and another twenty-one in the West. The units themselves are then divided into temperature controlled areas.’
Dexter looked at the meat stalls lining the central avenue. ‘What kind of businesses buy from Smithfield?’ she asked.
‘All sorts. Butchers, of course, caterers, restaurants and hotels. We don’t just sell meat, some of the stalls sell cheese, pies, all sorts really.’
‘Could you get me a list of all the stall holders?’
‘I suppose so. Is it essential?’
‘Yes it is.’
Doyle sighed a sigh of irritation. ‘Very well. I’ll arrange it. This is where Dew and McCain work. I’m afraid you can’t go into the stall without the relevant protective clothing. Hygiene issues you see. Wait there and I’ll send them out.’ With that Doyle disappeared behind the stall, returning a moment later with two enormous Smithfield porters.
‘Who’s Dew and who’s McCain?’ Dexter asked.
They duly identified themselves.
‘Tell me about Patterson’s last day,’ Dexter asked loudly. The stall was next to the main entrance. Vans were being loaded a few feet away. The shouting and clattering made it almost impossible to concentrate.
‘There’s not much to tell really,’ Dew replied. ‘Worked his shift no problems. He was a musical cunt. Always whistling. Molly-fucking-Malone, Land of Hope and Glory, Blaydon Races. You name it. We had a pint with him at The Old Red Cow and a bite to eat. He seemed happy as Larry.’
‘Talked about his missus all the bleedin’ time,’ McCain added. ‘They were saving to go on holiday. Spain somewhere I think. Proper couple they were.’
Alison Dexter didn’t notice the vast bulk of Bartholomew Garrod loom behind her. She was making notes and did not look up.
Dew noticed him. ‘Morning, Bart. Bring the van up. The order’s ready.’
‘Thank you, Marcus, much appreciated.’ Garrod returned to his van outside the building.
‘Do you mind if I do this order, Sergeant?’ asked Dew. ‘It’s our busiest time of day.’
Dexter half-looked up from her notes. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Will that be all then, Detective Sergeant?’ Doyle asked.
‘Not quite.’ Dexter turned to McCain, ‘How did Patterson get home usually? Bus or tube?’
‘Not sure to be honest. Bus I think. I know he came in on the bus. I suppose he had a pass.’
Dexter nodded. She
had briefly entertained the idea that there might have been security video footage of Patterson at the nearest tube station. She discounted the idea as unlikely: in any case, she doubted whether London Transport kept archived surveillance camera footage for more than a few days. She had drawn a blank.
A van drew up beside her. Bartholomew and Ray Garrod climbed out. Along with Marcus Dew, they began to load the van with meat. The Garrods heaved pig carcasses effortlessly.
‘I think I’m done,’ Dexter said to Doyle. ‘If you could fax me that list of stall holders to this number, I’d appreciate it.’
‘We certainly will.’
Dexter became aware of a man staring at her: an unnerving, flesh-stripping gaze.
‘Wake up, Ray. Haven’t you seen a lady police officer before?’ Marcus Dew said to the man.
Broken from his reverie, Ray Garrod wrenched his eyes from Alison Dexter. ‘Ah have seen some bit of one I think,’ he said before moving away to the rear of the van.
‘Don’t worry about old Ray, Sergeant,’ Dew said, noticing her interest. ‘He’s harmless enough but he’ll never win Mastermind.’
Dexter felt an inexplicable sense of uncertainty for a second. She looked at the old-fashioned butcher’s van then back at Ray Garrod. Bartholomew lumbered past carrying a pig carcass under each arm. He stared through her. Something seemed to flicker in his black eyes. For a millisecond, Dexter thought it was fear.
It was an odd moment: one that she couldn’t rationalise. Suddenly, she wanted to be somewhere else. Dexter thanked Gavin Doyle and hurriedly left the building, glancing over her shoulder as she walked out under the high stone arch of the exit. Ray and Bartholomew Garrod were standing completely still watching her leave.
Dexter returned to her car in Charterhouse Street. Something had unsettled her: maybe it was the smell of meat and death that pervaded the place, maybe it was the strange staring eyes of the Garrods. Maybe it was something else. Something subliminal: a connection that the conscious mind hadn’t quite made. Something she had seen.
Dexter climbed into her car and locked the door. She sat looking towards Smithfield, uncertain how to proceed. After a minute, she saw the Garrods’ van turn down Hayne Street: she watched the strange, ancient vehicle trundle down the incline. It stopped directly in front of her car as it indicated right to make the turn into Charterhouse Street. Ray Garrod sat in the passenger seat, he seemed to be shouting something excitedly to his brother. He hadn’t noticed her. Dexter stared in fascination at the odd pair then allowed her eyes to drift along the side of the van to the text printed there:
