Primal Cut

by Ed O'Connor

  New Bolden police station was a featureless concrete rectangle behind a miserable lawn. That came as no surprise. Police stations were always grim in their architectural functionality.

  DI Underwood met her at reception. Dexter studied his appearance carefully, looking for warning signs. He was slim, tall. Perhaps he was younger than McInally – early forties maybe. Dexter had expected him to be fat: the stereotypical regional copper gone to seed. That was the only thing that surprised her: in his grey eyes she sensed an intelligence to match her own. Something else lurked in there too; maybe a flicker of desperation.

  ‘Sergeant Dexter, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’ Underwood shook her hand gently, but with no hint of lasciviousness.

  ‘You too, sir.’ For once she found holding a man’s stare difficult.

  ‘Patrick speaks very highly of you.’

  Dexter wondered how to respond. She decided to lie.

  ‘Of you too.’

  Underwood laughed. ‘That surprises me. We did some work together about eight years ago. One of my villains – an armed robber – turned up on his “Manor”. That’s what he calls it right?’

  ‘‘‘Manor”, “Shit tip”, “Beirut” – take your pick.’ Dexter smiled. There was something endearing about Underwood.

  ‘We met once. Spoke a few times. He took me to that pub on the Mile End Road. The one where “Jack the Hat” was murdered.’

  ‘The Blind Beggar,’ Dexter said. ‘Let me guess. He had a pint of London Pride and a pork pie.’

  ‘I take it he’s a regular then?’

  ‘He likes to think he’s a proper cockney. I’ve told him he’s an Irish bastard but he won’t have any of it.’ Dexter noticed a slight change in Underwood’s demeanour. Perhaps she shouldn’t have sworn about her old boss. ‘We have lunch there sometimes,’ she added diplomatically.

  Underwood showed her around the cluttered CID offices.

  ‘We are a little stretched,’ Underwood said eventually, sensing Dexter’s disapproval of the shambolic scene. ‘My old detective sergeant was the organisational force. I’m more “big picture”. I’m afraid I’m hopeless with paperwork. I find it terrifying. I suppose, to put it more positively, there’s a big opportunity here for someone to impose their own personality. How would you feel about handling the day to day running of the department?’

  ‘No problem. To be quite honest, sir, I’d insist on it.’ Dexter wasn’t lying. McInally ran a much tighter ship than Underwood, whose office was buried under an avalanche of paper. She could see that there was an opportunity for a fixer. ‘What kind of cases are you running at the moment?’ she asked, deciding to take control of the interview.

  Underwood’s eyes rolled left, as if accessing some cumbersome memory in the back of his brain. ‘A wife beater, some burglaries – drug-related, most likely. We’ve got a murder case in Cottenham. Some bloke had his face taken off with a twelve bore shotgun.’

  ‘Any leads on that one?’ Dexter asked.

  ‘Not much. The body hasn’t been identified yet.’

  ‘What forensic support do you have here?’ Dexter sensed a weak link.

  ‘Pretty good. We have a decent SOCO team downstairs: it’s small but very high quality. Our forensic pathologist is a guy called Roger Leach. He’s a minor legend in the community.’

  ‘I think I’ve heard of him.’

  ‘He wrote some famous pieces on the classification of gun shot wounds and on scene of crime recording procedures. Most CID departments have got copies I think.’

  ‘I didn’t realise he was up here.’

  ‘He’s our greatest asset,’ Underwood confided. ‘McInally was vague about why you wanted to transfer. Some “local trouble” was all I could get out of him.’

  ‘Did you follow the coverage of the “Primal Cut” case?’ Dexter asked.

  ‘The cannibal thing? Were you involved in that?’

  ‘I caught the Garrods.’ Dexter instantly rethought her statement. ‘Well, I caught one of them. The other escaped.’

  ‘How did you identify them?’ Underwood seemed impressed.

  Dexter shrugged. ‘Long story. Something about them unsettled me. They lived very close to one of the victims but claimed they’d never met him. I knew they were lying. The victims had butcher’s cuts of meat removed from them and one was killed with a poleaxe: the way you might stun cattle at a slaughterhouse. It was intuition really. The problem is that when we raided the Garrods’ shop, one of them was killed trying to get away.’

  ‘What about the other one?’

  ‘At large. Presumably looking for me.’

  Underwood was beginning to understand her predicament.

  ‘Alison, there’s no guarantee that he won’t find you up here.’

  ‘True. The problem I have is that in London this guy has some heavy-duty connections. He has some previous for bare knuckle fighting. McInally reckons that he has some nasty contacts. In London, I’m conspicuous.’

  ‘So you’re hoping that those contacts don’t extend up here?’

  ‘That’s the idea. This could buy me some time until London can track this guy and arrest him.’

  Underwood thought for a moment. ‘If you decide to come here, I’d need a commitment from you. Two years minimum. Otherwise, it will be hard to run this place efficiently. We need some continuity.’

  Dexter hesitated: two years in New Bolden could feel like an eternity. ‘I was hoping for something more flexible, sir.’

  ‘That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.’

  Dexter was surprised by Underwood’s inflexibility. She realised that she had underestimated him. She looked around the chaotic little department, as if trying to extract the essence of the place with her eyes. In terms of her career, it would be a retrograde step; unless she made it otherwise.

  ‘If I do two years, there are a couple of conditions.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I manage the department. I sort out the paperwork. I establish the procedures. I organise and assign cases. I do the shift timetabling and staff reviews. I also want to be the main liaison with Leach and the SOCO team.’

  Underwood suppressed the urge to cheer. He had wanted to offload most of those tasks for a couple of years. He had a profound horror of mundane organisation. ‘I think that’s possible,’ he said eventually. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I want my own office.’

  ‘No problem.’

  With these matters resolved, Alison Dexter turned to shake Underwood’s hand. ‘Do I call you “Guv” then?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Underwood replied, although he had an uneasy feeling she wouldn’t need to call him that for very long.

  25.

  Five hours after interrogating Keith Gwynne, Alison Dexter sat in her office trying to decide whether she was going mad. Her treatment of Gwynne in the interview room had been embarrassingly slapdash. She had always prided herself on her professionalism and yet her screeching had made her sound amateurish.

  Bevan had worked Gwynne much more effectively than she had and he’d hardly raised his voice. Worse, Dexter had felt waves of disapproval rolling over her from Bevan and Underwood. Her mind had been derailed. Dexter had a terrible sinking feeling that wasn’t only due to lack of sleep. She opened her email account to see if Kelsi Hensy had replied: she hadn’t. Dexter tried to focus on the job in hand.

  On her desk sat the ‘Primal Cut’ case file that a motorcycle courier had delivered an hour previously. The Garrods’ crimes had been christened the ‘Primal Cut Murders’ by one of the tabloid newspapers at the time. The killers had removed the primal cuts of meat from their victims. Dexter recalled the press feeding frenzy at the story with a shudder. In the appendices to the files were Ray Garrod’s post-mortem report and DNA profile. Dexter looked up from her desk.

  ‘Alex!’ she called across from her office to Detective Sergeant Sauerwine, ‘I need a favour.’

  Dexter managed a faint smile as he appeared in her office doorway. �
�Can you do something for me?’

  ‘Of course, Guv,’ he replied.

  ‘Take this PM report and DNA information down to Leach. I’ve asked him to compare this profile with the blood and saliva found on Shaw.’

  Sauerwine took the files. ‘Inspector Underwood told us about this in the briefing. Do you really think it’s the same guy?’

  Dexter nodded. ‘Pretty certain. The bite wound to Shaw is similar to the kind of wound Garrod was notorious for inflicting when he participated in prize fights back in London. Also there’s the name.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Sauerwine frowned.

  Dexter took a deep breath; she was in no mood for protracted explanations. However, he had potential and she remembered what it felt like to be trodden on.

  ‘Gwynne said that the guy who killed Leonard Shaw was called George Norlington. Well, Norlington Road is a street in Leyton. As it happens, Bartholomew and Ray Garrod had a butcher’s shop on Norlington Road. It’s too much of a coincidence.’

  ‘I understand. I’ll get these over to forensic.’

  Underwood entered the office as Sauerwine hurried off. ‘Alison, we’ve got the warrant to search the Dog and Feathers.’

  ‘About bloody time,’ Dexter snorted as she stood and pulled on her jacket. ‘These fucking magistrates need a rocket.’

  ‘I’ve got a couple of plain clothes coppers stationed outside the pub,’ Underwood replied. ‘They’ve been there for two hours. They haven’t seen anything suspicious. Nobody matching the description of Norlington, Garrod or whoever the bloke is. I was about to go over there and serve the warrant on the landlord.’

  Dexter nodded. ‘Take as many spare bodies as you can muster. This guy is strong and downright evil. There’s no chance of a firearms team I suppose?’

  Underwood laughed humourlessly.

  ‘Stupid question,’ Dexter admitted. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘You’re coming?’

  ‘Of course. Problem?’

  Underwood scratched the back of his neck. ‘I think it’s a bad idea. I can handle it. This is an emotional issue for you. Let’s say you’re right and this is Garrod. If he sees you, he might freak out. That’s the last thing we need.’

  ‘Bollocks. I’m coming. Nobody else here can identify the bloke. Besides, I want to be there when this arsehole is put down.’

  Dexter picked up the ‘Primal Cut’ file as she left the office. ‘I’ll talk you through what I know in the car. How long is the drive?’

  ‘Twenty minutes.’ Underwood followed Dexter down the stairs of New Bolden police station. Dexter was wearing a black suit from Marks and Spencer. He knew that she had three very similar black suits; that she sometimes interchanged the jackets. He knew that they were from M&S because he had seen her there. He buried his madness.

  Underwood drove them out of New Bolden. Dexter silently read through the file.

  ‘So talk to me then,’ he said eventually. ‘Tell me about this Garrod guy then.’

  Dexter looked out of the window as Cambridgeshire raced past. ‘I’m sure you recall the basics. When I worked back in Leyton, McInally and I were investigating a murder case. Someone hauled a dismembered body out of the river Lea. There was a connection with another case, a Smithfield porter who’d also been dismembered. I made a link to the Garrods. They ran a butcher’s shop in Leyton. We took a squad to raid the place. Ray Garrod did a runner and was hit by a car. Bartholomew Garrod wasn’t there. He’s been missing ever since. Bartholomew was the “brains” of the outfit: although that’s a very generous description. Ray was slow. He had some form of mental disability. The post-mortem showed he had a metal plate in his head. He was brain damaged as a child. They were a weird pair, both of them. I think that’s why I caught them: I knew that there was something odd about them.’

  ‘Had they always lived in London?’ Underwood asked, wondering where Bartholomew Garrod could have hidden for nearly seven years.

  Dexter nodded. ‘Yes. The father was from Leyton, the mother from Dalston. Both died in 1975.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Natural causes apparently. He had a heart attack in January. She had a massive stroke in March. Slightly odd coincidence, I suppose.’

  ‘Not really,’ Underwood replied. ‘Often happens. One partner dies and the stress of burying them kills the other one.’

  ‘The father had bought the butcher’s shop after he left the army in 1947. They ran it as a family business. “Garrod and Sons, Family Butchers”. Can you believe that?’

  ‘An unfortunate name, given what happened,’ Underwood agreed.

  ‘We turned up and found a bunch of human remains in their refrigerator.’

  ‘How many victims?’

  ‘Uncertain.’ Dexter flicked through the report trying to jog her memory. ‘We only positively identified three: the porter, a librarian and a night club bouncer. There were more though. Forensic showed remains from at least four other bodies; bits of brain, kidney and stuff. Completely disgusting: like tapas night at Sweeney Todd’s.’

  ‘Strange choice of targets,’ Underwood mused. ‘The porter and the bouncer could have been awkward. They must have been big men. They must have wanted them for a reason.’

  ‘To be honest,’ Dexter replied, ‘I always found the librarian the weird one. The other two were people that they would have seen about: either at Smithfield or amongst the boozers on Leyton High Road. I always thought that the librarian must have been killed for a particular reason,’ Dexter said only half-registering Underwood’s attempt at humour. ‘She was the only female victim.’

  ‘She must have had something specific that they wanted,’ Underwood mused.

  His mind tried to explain the anomaly. He loved these engagements with Dexter. He likened conversations with her to plugging a lava lamp into a power socket: the melting lights came on in his mind. Did she experience similar feelings? Unlikely, he decided. Dexter was different: she was just an electrical current, unaware of the light that she created.

  ‘Garrod blamed me for killing his brother. He sent me body parts and threatening notes. It was like Jack the Ripper sending kidneys to the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. It must be an East End thing. When the stuff started arriving at my house, I decided to get out. McInally told me about you and here I am.’

  Underwood considered Dexter’s words. ‘A silver lining for me, in any case,’ he said.

  They arrived in Balehurst within fifteen minutes. Three squad cars were already at the scene, parked around the corner from the Dog and Feathers; invisible to the pub’s occupants.

  ‘Let’s go then.’ Dexter unbuckled her seat belt and climbed out of the car.

  ‘You’re coming in?’ Underwood looked concerned.

  ‘I’ll be all right.’

  Underwood took the lead, sending police officers to the front and rear of the pub. He pushed open the front door and stepped inside. The Dog and Feathers was almost empty. Dexter followed him in, tense, carefully scanning the quiet pub for cannibals.

  ‘Can I help?’ asked the landlord.

  ‘New Bolden CID,’ said Underwood flashing his warrant card, ‘we have a court order enabling us to search these premises.’

  The landlord looked surprised. ‘Why? We haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Do you have a George Norlington staying here?’ Dexter asked.

  ‘We did,’ the landlord replied, ‘but he’s left. I was about to go and clean his flat out. I’ve a new guest coming in tomorrow.’

  ‘Show us the flat,’ Underwood replied.

  James Bull stepped out from behind the bar.

  ‘OK. Come with me. It’s out on the back yard.’

  Opening the back door, Bull was surprised to see four uniformed policemen waiting there. ‘God! What’s this guy done to deserve all these idiots?’

  Underwood and Dexter did not reply. Bull crossed the small courtyard behind the pub and, after what seemed an age, managed to find the correct key from a huge jangling bundle. Dex
ter was first into the room; it took her eyes a split second to adjust to the dark. Underwood was a second behind her.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said quietly, looking about the room in shock.

  Hearing the oath, Bull looked in from the doorway. ‘Fuck me! What’s he been doing in here?’

  Dexter turned to him. ‘Go back into the pub please, Mr Bull. We’ll be in shortly.’

  Gingerly, Underwood stepped into the room.

  The floor was covered in dozens of discarded local newspapers. Lying on the filthy bed sheet were various lumps of meat. Flies buzzed grimly from piece to piece.

  ‘He knew we were coming,’ Underwood said. ‘He must have guessed that we’d find out from Gwynne or Woollard after Shaw’s death. He’s not daft is he?’

  ‘He’s lasted seven years on the run without being spotted,’ Dexter conceded. ‘He’s no mug.’

  She was frightened now. Her worst fears confirmed.

  ‘We need to get a forensic team in here to do a proper search,’ Underwood said, aware now that Dexter had not taken her eyes from the terrible writing on the wall. ‘Let’s go and talk to the landlord. We’ll get a description from him then compare it with Garrod’s old photofit. Then I suggest we print a few thousand and run a full search for this arsehole. In the meantime, I think that it’s a bad idea for you to go home.’

  ‘You’re kidding me?’ Dexter gasped. ‘John, if he knew where I lived I’d be dead already. I’m not running away anymore.’

  ‘Even so,’ Underwood urged, ‘he found you once before. Is there a friend or someone you could stay with for a few days?’

  Dexter wondered if there was.

  26.

  In the musty shell of Craxten Fen Psychiatric Hospital, Bartholomew Garrod was enjoying an evening of relative comfort.