Primal Cut

by Ed O'Connor

  Once he had finished digging, Garrod sat down at the table in his new kitchen and, by the light of a paraffin lamp, began to compose a letter to Nicholas Braun at HM Prison Bunden. He was certain that in Braun he would find something of a kindred spirit and a possible means of advancing his enterprise. Garrod chose his words carefully:

  Dear Nick, you don’t know me. I followed your trial on TV and in the newspapers. You don’t deserve prison. I imagine the police trumped up the charges to grab some headlines. That little fucking bitch hurt me too. Now I’m back. Do they read your mail? I imagine so. I have marked this envelope as a communication from your lawyer so I’m hoping you will receive it unopened. I have seen your brother on TV. We have a mutual interest. I’ll be in contact. Yours sincerely, George Francis.

  Garrod folded the paper over and slid it inside an envelope. He wrote Braun’s prison address out as neatly as he possibly could, then on the top left hand edge of the envelope he printed: ‘Prison Rule 37A’. This denoted a communication from a prisoner’s legal adviser: in theory, the prison authorities would not be able to open it. He had used the same trick ten years previously when sending money to some of his old associates in Wormwood Scrubs. It had worked then. Garrod hoped that the rules hadn’t changed.

  27.

  Alison Dexter drove nervously around the New Bolden ring road. She regularly checked her mirrors and even left the dual carriageway an exit early to see if she was being followed. Confident that she was in the clear, Dexter pulled up at the bottom end of her road. She turned the car engine off and peered out into the darkness for a few minutes. Nothing seemed unusual: the same cars were parked in front of her small block of flats. There were no figures skulking about in the shadows that she could see. Dexter bit her lip thoughtfully and decided to risk it. She started her engine and drew up outside her flat.

  She checked up and down the street again; satisfied, she unlocked the outside door to the block and then that of her ground floor flat. The burglar alarm system beeped reassuringly at her. Dexter felt her heart rate slowing as she decoded it. She slammed the door behind her and drew the safety chain across.

  The day’s events had drained her. She selected a small bottle of Stella Artois from her fridge and flopped into the new armchair that she had recently bought herself. Dexter tried to push Bartholomew Garrod from her mind: it was possible that he had left the area after the death of Lefty Shaw. He certainly seemed to have quit his digs in Balehurst in a hurry.

  Her phone blasted at her; the noise made her jump in shock.

  ‘Hello?’ she asked warily.

  ‘Is that Ali?’ asked a female voice that Dexter half-recognised.

  ‘Yes. Who’s that?’

  ‘Kelsi.’

  Dexter felt a surge of relief and excitement. ‘Hello. This is a nice surprise.’

  ‘You sound tired,’ Kelsi said with an audible smile.

  ‘Long day,’ Dexter confirmed.

  ‘And a late night.’

  Dexter smiled a guilty smile. ‘Yeah. It was.’

  ‘Fun though,’ Kelsi observed.

  ‘Are you eating an apple?’ Dexter asked. ‘I can hear scrunching.’

  ‘It’s a pear actually.’

  ‘I’m glad I’ve got your full attention.’

  ‘Of course you have! Look, I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your email. We have to be careful at ComBold. The company screen all of our personal messages.’

  ‘I understand,’ Dexter replied, remembering with a shudder that Cambridgeshire Constabulary did the same thing.

  ‘If we’d got into an email conversation, I’d have said something filthy to you and I’d have been sacked.’

  Dexter felt a charge of excitement building in her stomach. ‘Like what?’

  There was a pause. ‘Just the things that I’d like to do to you. That kind of stuff.’

  ‘Yeah, that could be tricky.’

  Kelsi paused for a moment. ‘Would you like me to come over?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Why don’t I come over to you?’

  ‘Why’s that? Is your husband in?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘Come over then. Have you eaten?’

  ‘Not that I remember.’

  ‘I’ll sort us something out.’

  ‘I’ll be a while. I need to have a shower and get changed.’

  ‘You can do that here,’ said Kelsi quietly.

  Dexter found the idea enticing. She wanted to get out of the flat as quickly as possible: its emptiness was grimly apparent.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ she said.

  With an excitement that surprised her, Dexter filled an overnight bag with a few basic items. She locked up and alarmed her flat, then drove across town. By the time she arrived at Kelsi’s house it was almost 9.30 p.m. The living room was warm and comfortable.

  ‘Go and have a shower,’ Kelsi instructed, after kissing her firmly on the lips. ‘Help yourself, I’m cooking pasta.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Dexter placed her car keys on the living room table and wearily climbed the stairs to the shower room she had used that morning. The water was refreshing but the dull ache behind her eyes lingered on as she towelled herself dry ten minutes later. She pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. There was a bottle of moisturiser on the top windowsill. Dexter decided to purloin some, staring out into the darkness as she applied the cool fluid to her face.

  The window overlooked Kelsi’s back garden. It was small but tidy. Dexter could see a tiny flowerbed, a couple of stone statues and something else. Something unusual. She quickly turned off the bathroom light; having equalised the darkness within and without, she could see more clearly. At the back of the garden, almost obscured by shadows, was a man.

  Dexter’s blood ran cold. She hurried downstairs; Kelsi heard her running and came out of her kitchen in surprise.

  ‘There’s someone in your garden,’ Dexter gasped.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Completely,’ Dexter nodded. She looked out through the kitchen window. ‘There, can you see? Against the back fence?’

  Kelsi peered out into the gloom. ‘Oh my God! I can see him. Shall I call the police?’

  ‘I am the police.’ Dexter could see the figure more clearly now. It wasn’t Bartholomew Garrod, she was sure of that. Garrod was broader and heavier than the man that she could make out. At least, she hoped that was the case. She relaxed a little.

  ‘I’m going out there. I think you’ve got a peeping tom.’

  ‘You can’t go outside,’ Kelsi protested.

  ‘I’ll be OK. Close and lock the back door once I’m outside.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Just do as I say. Do you have a torch?’

  ‘In the cupboard under the sink.’

  Dexter withdrew the torch and unlocked the back door. As she threw a powerful beam of light onto the back lawn, she saw the man clamber awkwardly over the back fence. Dexter ran across the lawn and shone her torch down the adjoining street in time to see the fugitive disappear around a nearby corner. Kelsi joined her at the fence.

  ‘I told you to wait inside,’ Dexter remonstrated.

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘No. Just the back of his head. He was about six feet tall wearing black clothes. Beyond that, I couldn’t see anything.’

  ‘You’re not thinking of chasing him?’ Kelsi asked.

  ‘I haven’t got any shoes on,’ Dexter said. ‘Can you think who it might be? You haven’t got any weird neighbours or a demented ex-boyfriend?’

  ‘That’s not funny, Ali.’

  ‘I only ask because I used to have a mad ex. I wasn’t trying to be funny.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I mean, nobody in the world knows I’m here tonight,’ Dexter explained. ‘I just came here straight from home.’

  ‘Can we go inside?’ Kelsi asked. ‘I’m getting cold.’ She turned and walked back to the house, her arms folded with cold and frustration.

&n
bsp; Dexter shone her torch onto the ground where the man had been hiding. Its beam illuminated a small patch of ground. Something glinted in the artificial light. Dexter crouched down, balancing herself by placing her left hand on the cold ground. Lying on the patchy grass were two tiny silver keys on a ring. They looked like the padlock keys used for locking suitcases, Dexter mused, or maybe keys to a gate or a safe. She put down her torch and picked the tiny keys up.

  ‘Are you coming in, Ali?’ Kelsi called from the kitchen door.

  ‘On my way.’ Dexter headed back towards the light. ‘I don’t suppose these are yours?’ she asked, holding up her discovery for inspection.

  Kelsi looked the keys over. ‘No. Did he drop them?’

  ‘It looks that way.’ Dexter walked through the kitchen to the dining room. ‘Make sure you bolt the door behind you,’ she called out.

  Dexter sat at the dining room table and looked at the keys again. Kelsi sat next to her.

  ‘What kind of keys are they?’ Kelsi asked.

  ‘It’s weird,’ Dexter replied. ‘They’re unusual but they look vaguely familiar. My guess is that they open a padlock or a safe. The design is odd though.’

  Kelsi took the keys from Dexter. ‘I think they look more like keys that open a filing cabinet. We have those at work, I’m always losing the bloody things.’

  ‘Me too,’ Dexter agreed. ‘We have secure evidence lockers in CID. We keep case materials in them.’

  A horrible realisation began to fall on Dexter’s mind like a shadow thrown by the rising sun. She reached across the table for her own key chain. Fumbling through the various different shaped keys she eventually found two silver keys to the CID evidence lockers. ‘There, they look like these don’t they?’

  Kelsi looked at Dexter’s keys closely, comparing them with the ones from her garden. ‘Ali, they’re identical.’

  ‘They can’t be!’ Dexter looked again, her mind already seeking an explanation.

  ‘Your keys are marked with serial numbers.’ Kelsi squinted at the tiny digits. ‘2495 and 2496.’ She put down Dexter’s key chain and picked up the discovered keys. ‘These are numbered 2480 and 2481. They are from the same series. The same batch of keys.’

  Dexter understood the significance of Kelsi’s comment: someone from New Bolden CID had been lurking in Kelsi Hensy’s back garden.

  ‘I’d better go,’ Dexter said without enthusiasm. ‘I need to check this out.’

  ‘Should I report this?’

  ‘Call the local plods. Tell them you saw someone in your garden. They’ll have a squad car do a drive by. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention me or the keys.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Ten minutes later, dressed again in her work suit, Alison Dexter left Kelsi Hensy and wearily drove the short distance to New Bolden police station. CID was deserted when she entered and switched on the lights. The evidence lockers were kept in a small storage room on the far side of the floor. They were large, black metal cabinets numbered according to the key numbers. Dexter found 2480 and 2481 immediately. She unlocked 2480 with the keys that she had found. She withdrew the case summary sheet from the first folder: it referred to a burglary at Mount Pleasant retirement home. Dexter looked down to the bottom of the page: ‘Officer in Charge: J Underwood’. Horrified, Dexter then opened 2481 and repeated the exercise. It was the case file on the murder of Leonard Shaw: ‘Officer in Charge: J Underwood’.

  Dexter tried frantically to seek an alternative explanation. She needed confirmation. A brief check of the key register that was stored upstairs in the central administration office proved the point: CID Cabinet keys 2470–2490 were assigned to DI J Underwood.

  Dexter returned to CID resolved to search Underwood’s desk and locker. He kept his office locked, but Dexter as the Senior CID Officer kept a master in her safe. At 11.15 p.m., frustrated and betrayed, she started to root through Underwood’s files and possessions.

  28.

  At roughly the same moment, Underwood crashed back into his own flat on the east side of New Bolden. Exercise did not come easily to him; his chest burned with pain as he gasped for oxygen. It had been a close call. Thank God that he had seen the kitchen light flick on as Dexter opened the back door or else she would have had him. As it was, he was extremely fortunate that she had not decided to chase after him: his progress after the first adrenalin-driven hundred yards had been painful. He splashed water onto his face from the bathroom taps. He was confident that Dexter could not have recognised him given the lack of light and the distance between them. It had been a profoundly uncomfortable moment. Still, at the same time, it had exhilarated him.

  Calming down, Underwood sat on a sofa in his living room. On his coffee table was the large file of material he had been compiling on Alison Dexter. Underwood didn’t like to think of himself as a stalker, though he realised that was how unkind souls might perceive him. He had begun by collecting information, rather as a child collects shells or models. Then, other motivations had taken over.

  He had photocopied Dexter’s personnel file. This contained details of her record within the police service, listed her various commendations and promotions. It even contained an old passport-sized photo of her from her days at Hendon Police College. Underwood liked the picture: she was younger, of slightly fuller face and a softer complexion. A few weeks previously he had sent the small photo to a local artist who had used it as the base for an oil painting. It had cost Underwood one hundred and fifty pounds. The finished product now hung opposite his bed: his own oil portrait of Alison Dexter. He would often lie in bed, as the new light of morning reminded him of the lump growing in his chest, unable to face another day. The picture comforted him; more perhaps than its subject could have.

  The file also contained the four manager reports he had written about her before she had replaced him as the Senior Officer of New Bolden CID. Underwood liked to read them. He had described her in glowing terms: ‘a model police officer’, ‘highly intelligent’, ‘a gifted organiser’, ‘a courageous and intuitive detective’. He had even managed to purloin copies of the two reviews that Dexter had written about him since returning from his breakdown: ‘a popular officer’ was about as gushing as she had been about him. Underwood didn’t mind that.

  Also in the file were photographs of Alison Dexter off duty. Underwood had initially been rather ashamed of following her about town on Saturday afternoons. He had pictures of her drinking a coffee alone at a table outside Starbucks in the market square; a picture of her in her gym kit outside New Bolden leisure centre; a Polaroid picture of her dropping off a blonde woman at a mews house the previous day. Underwood knew that Dexter had stayed over that night. He had no idea who the mystery blonde was. He had rather built his hopes on the notion that Dexter did not really have any friends outside of work. His mind had raced to all sorts of conclusions. Wriggling on a hook of his own creation, Underwood had returned to the same mews house that evening seeking clarification. What he had received instead was near arrest and public humiliation.

  He turned a page in his file. Here there were news cuttings; records of cases that he and Dexter had worked on together. There was also a photograph clipped from the New Bolden Echo of Dexter standing outside Peterborough Crown Court. Underwood remembered Bartholomew Garrod’s deserted flat with old newspapers strewn all over the floor. The SOCO team had shown that Garrod had also clipped stories relating to DI Alison Dexter. Underwood wondered if there was a moral difference between their respective obsessions. He didn’t want to kill Dexter. He wanted to feel close to her. It was a form of love; he knew that.

  However, Underwood was not delusional. He was not some tragic erotomaniac convinced that the object of his affection was also in love with him. It was precisely the opposite. It was precisely because Dexter patently did not love him that he had felt the desperate urge to cling onto whatever aspects of her that he could. If possessing a file of information about Alison Dexter was the closest he could get to
possessing the real thing, then so be it.

  It was harmless. It made him happy. Besides, he told himself, don’t proud parents keep photo albums and birth certificates and mementos once their children have left home? Or died? Underwood had obtained a photocopy of Dexter’s birth certificate from the Public Record Office in London two months previously. He had felt more guilt in obtaining that than in following Dexter about New Bolden on her days off; or than in photographing her kissing another woman. If the hope of loving Alison Dexter had gone, at least he could read about her life, touch her photograph and invent memories and a future. He could share those memories too.

  Garrod was different. Garrod wanted to kill her and consume her. Consumption was a form of possession too.

  And yet, Underwood sensed that the man would torment her first.

  Appetiser

  29.

  Wednesday, 16th October 2002

  It dawned a bright, crisp morning. Robert Sandway led Bartholomew Garrod out of his office down to the abattoir unloading area. A farm lorry was emptying cattle from its tailgate onto a ramp; the cattle moved on into the lairage area.

  ‘We are governed by very strict hygiene and welfare regulations now,’ Sandway said above the din of clattering hooves. ‘The ramp for example needs to be of a certain height. Apparently, animals don’t like sudden drops.’

  ‘They get skittish after long journeys too,’ Garrod replied. ‘Wobbly on their feet. Pigs scream too.’

  ‘Quite.’ Sandway pointed at the surface of the ramp. ‘This has to be a “non-slip” surface now, by law. So the cattle don’t fall down. However, hygiene rules say that we have to hose the urine and faeces off it regularly. Slipping can still be a problem.’

  Garrod noticed that the unloading bay was covered by corrugated iron.

  ‘I’m surprised this is undercover.’

  ‘Welfare rules again. That is to protect animals from adverse weather. How ridiculous can you get? We’ll be made to provide psychiatrists for them next. Are fields covered?’