Primal Cut

by Ed O'Connor

  Sandway walked Garrod around to the side entrance to the lairage room, a bleak box of concrete and steel. It was filled with patient and uncertain cattle divided up into pens. After the chaos of the unloading area, Garrod found the room calming.

  ‘Again,’ Sandway was saying, ‘the floor is crossridged to reduce slippage. The whole lairage is drained and kept very clean. No animal waste or blood is allowed to stay in here. If you look at the far end you can see the passageways that lead the animals up to the stunning pens.’

  They edged along the side of the pens. Garrod peered down one of the concrete passages. ‘Why are the tunnels curved? I can’t see the end.’

  Sandway smiled. ‘That’s the point really. If they were straight the animals might be nervous if they could see the stunning process take place. Also we find that cattle are naturally curious: if the races are curved they want to walk down them to see what’s at the other end. I suppose it’s a kind of abattoir psychology. You’ll notice they are narrow enough to prevent cattle turning around.’

  ‘Yes. Once they go in, they ain’t coming out again,’ Garrod nodded.

  ‘Not in one piece anyway.’ Sandway led Garrod out of the lairage room and into the stunning area. Here the cattle emerged from their curved concrete races to be secured one at a time in the stunning pens.

  ‘The animals can’t be stunned in sight of each other.’ Sandway peered into the nearest pen where a large Friesian cow was about to encounter a bolt gun. ‘Here you are, George. You can watch. The guy with the gun is Rick. That’s Lee over there.’

  Garrod knew the procedure. He had used a similar method on Alan Moran seven years ago. A slaughterman leaned over the cow and pressed a captive bolt pistol against the centre of an imaginary cross on the animal’s forehead. There was a sharp ‘crack’ as the steel bolt fired into the front of the cow’s brain.

  ‘You use the penetrative bolts then?’ Garrod asked Rick the slaughterman.

  ‘That’s right mate. More effective.’

  Garrod looked as the cow fell down onto its knees, its jaw dropping open allowing a huge pink roll to fall out on one side. Rick pulled down on a lever. The side of the pen opened and the stunned animal slid onto a conveyer belt. Immediately, Lee locked a shackle around one of the cow’s rear legs. The animal was quickly hoisted into the air and, as it dangled above the floor of the stunning area, Lee cut into its throat, blood streaming into a drainage duct. The whole process had taken less than a minute.

  ‘You stick them in the jugular furrow?’ Garrod asked Lee.

  ‘Yeah mate. Just at the base of the neck. You get all the fucking big veins and arteries in one go. Using the penetrative bolt gun, I’ve got 60 seconds to get the big bastard up and bled before we start breaking the law.’

  Next, Sandway showed Garrod the slaughter hall. Here the dead animals were gutted, sawn and carved into meat cuts. It was an impressive operation.

  ‘I want you in here today, George,’ Sandway added. ‘As I said, hygiene is our major watchword. I want you to ensure the slaughter hall is kept immaculate today. Our normal hall cleaner is away today. The hoses and brushes are in the cupboard over there – I’ll get you a key – clean waterproofs are hanging in that little room on the right.’

  Garrod was disappointed: he wanted to be cutting.

  ‘Maybe we can find you something more interesting tomorrow,’ said Sandway remembering his new employee was a trained butcher.

  Garrod kitted up and worked efficiently through the morning. He kept himself to himself, not wanting to attract attention. He ensured that the drainage channels were kept clear and flowing red, he continually mopped the slaughter hall floor with disinfectant; he brushed splinters of bone from the electric sawing area into his pan. He managed to work up a good sweat. By mid-morning one of the team of cutters had attracted his attention: he was young, perhaps not much older than twenty. The other workers called him ‘Damo’.

  Garrod watched him closely. Damo was a clumsy cutter. He was third in line. Damo’s job was to gut the carcasses. Unfortunately, he was a careless worker. Even from a distance Garrod could see him swinging his knife with the misplaced confidence of youth, gouging a savage incision from the udder of the upended cow to the heart of its ribcage. Garrod had watched in fascination as the four stomachs and intestines spilled out of the dead animals. Then he saw that Damo was cutting too deep. His knife was actually tearing open the digestive organs. Garrod knew that the reticulum contained a high density of bacteria and gas. Sometimes, usually due to exuberance or lack of concentration, Damo was piercing the reticulum. This sent a high-pressure spurt of stomach contents onto the conveyer belt, often directly onto the primal cuts of meat. This was a serious disease risk. At lunchtime Garrod explained his concerns to Sandway.

  ‘Thank you, George,’ his new boss said. ‘I’ll pop by this afternoon and have a look myself. Let’s keep this between ourselves for the moment.’

  At 2 p.m. Garrod noticed Sandway ghost in through the rear entrance to the slaughter hall. Damo and the others worked on, oblivious to the presence of their boss. Garrod watched carefully, hoping that Damo would repeat his error to an audience. After about five minutes, Damo cut too deeply into a cow. Brown liquid spat down the forelimb of the dead animal. Sandway had seen enough. He crossed the hall and activated the speaker system: ‘Stop cutting please!’ he ordered, his electronically enhanced voice echoing around the hall.

  Sandway crossed the floor to Damo.

  ‘Do you know what you just did, Lewin?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You just sprayed stomach acid, fungi, protozoa and probably E. coli all over a cut of meat. That meat is about to be packed and sent to a supermarket. What you’ve done could kill someone. That would put me out of business.’

  ‘I didn’t do nothing,’ Damo said confused by his boss’s aggression.

  ‘I just saw you,’ Sandway asserted. ‘You were talking to Callum there. You weren’t looking at what you were doing.’

  There was an uneasy silence amongst the slaughtermen. Most felt that Sandway was being excessively harsh. However, after salmonella, foot-and-mouth and CJD had entered the human food chain and decimated the industry, they all knew that their work was more tightly regulated than ever. Nobody spoke. They awaited Sandway’s judgement.

  Sandway was unrepentant: ‘I want you off the cutting floor. Clean yourself up and tell Ozzie in packaging to swap positions for the rest of the day. Come to my office after work.’

  Garrod watched impassively.

  30.

  She had ignored him all morning. Underwood worked quietly in his office, oblivious to the fact that Dexter had checked through all his files until one-thirty the previous morning. Alison Dexter hadn’t found much during that time. However, she had discovered a notebook that listed times when she had arrived and left the office, even when she had used the toilet. Another notebook contained information about her movements out of work; it even had Kelsi Hensy’s address scrawled on the inside back cover.

  Underwood had been keeping a record of her life. Information given on previous pages suggested that he had been following her for months. The front page contained a peculiar list of dates stretching back about six months, each date approximately four weeks after the preceding one. Dexter had stared at them for a moment in confusion. The first date was her birthday; 1st May. The others seemed to have no meaning. Then she remembered. She had had her period on her birthday. She had made an ill-judged joke about it to Underwood. She checked the dates again. They roughly corresponded to her menstrual cycle. The revelation spiralled in Dexter’s brain. She knew that Underwood was something of a ‘fruit loop’ as McInally had called him. However, she had never expected him to derail completely. What on earth was he trying to do? Her mind had tried to sustain its defining logical momentum through the cloud of his betrayal. Now, the morning after a night of hideous surprises, Dexter watched her former boss through the glass wall that separated them, won
dering what on earth she would do with him.

  Her meeting with Roger Leach began at 9.30 a.m. Underwood and Mike Bevan joined them. Leach was characteristically to the point.

  ‘The DNA profiles match. I compared the DNA sample taken from the AB negative blood splashes on Shaw with the profile of Raymond Garrod from the “Primal Cut” case file. We inherit half of our chromosomes from each of our parents.’ Leach handed a photocopy of the two DNA profiles across to Dexter. ‘Now those charts might not mean much to you. In cases like this we look for similarities at certain key points in the DNA sequence.’

  ‘DNA markers?’ Underwood asked.

  ‘That’s right.’ Leach handed out three copies of another sheet of paper on which he had printed the following table:

  DNA marker DNA Profile 1

  AB-Blood found on

  Leonard Shaw DNA Profile 2

  Raymond Garrod

  D3 15, 16 16, 17

  VWA 16, 16 16, 16

  FGA 19, 24 19, 21

  AMEL X, Y X, Y

  D5 11, 11 11, 13

  D7 8, 10 10, 10

  D8 12, 13 12, 13

  D13 9, 11 11, 12

  D18 12, 15 12, 13

  D21 10, 10 10, 10

  ‘Now,’ Leach continued, ‘you’ll see that there is at least one match at each of the ten genetic markers. It’s incontrovertible proof. The man who killed Leonard Shaw was Raymond Garrod’s brother.’

  So that was it. Bartholomew Garrod’s reappearance was now a verifiable scientific fact: one quantifiable in a series of black bars and numbers printed on two sheets of A4 paper. Alison Dexter was prepared for this realisation. Her instincts were rarely wrong. However, seeing the stark numbers in front of her was an unsettling experience. The middle column of numbers was the genetic blueprint of the man who wanted to destroy her.

  Underwood struggled to find a crumb of comfort. ‘At least we now know it’s him. We can put up posters and photofits; do a proper manhunt. That’s if he’s still here of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s done a bunk.’

  Bevan nodded. ‘He’s survived for years on the run. He obviously knows that he’s vulnerable after the Leonard Shaw killing. John might be right. This guy hasn’t evaded capture for all this time by staying in one place.’

  Dexter wanted to agree but her intuition told her otherwise. She was finding it hard to keep a lid on her anger at Underwood. He was apparently oblivious to the fact that she had unearthed his seedy little hobby. Dexter decided to be malicious. ‘John, could you go and get the case file on Leonard Shaw? I want to re-read it.’

  Underwood frowned. ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  Trodden on, confused by the edge in Dexter’s voice, Underwood left the office fumbling in his pocket for the cabinet keys that Dexter knew were not there.

  ‘There is something else that you should know,’ Leach continued. ‘This blood sample – we can now safely assume that it’s Bartholomew Garrod’s – is HIV positive.’

  Now it was Dexter’s turn to look surprised. ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘No. He is carrying the virus. It does not seem to have become activated. He probably doesn’t even know he’s got it. I doubt he visits a GP regularly.’

  Dexter sat back in her chair. At the other end of the department, she could see Underwood groping uselessly in his pockets for the missing keys. She felt great pleasure in observing his discomfort. A moment later he was back in her office.

  ‘Alison, could I borrow your master key? I’ve left my set at home.’

  Dexter reached into her drawer and withdrew her key chain. She tossed it across to him. ‘You’ve got to be careful, John. Those case files are confidential. You lose your keys and any Tom, Dick or Harry could mess with them.’

  Embarrassed at his humiliation in front of Leach and Bevan, Underwood restricted his response to a guilty nod.

  Leach watched him go. ‘How’s he doing these days?’ he asked Dexter.

  ‘Don’t ask. So Garrod’s at large carrying HIV?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Dexter could hardly imagine a more terrifying scenario. ‘Mind you, thinking about it, we shouldn’t be surprised. Is there a chance the disease could be activated? Is nature likely to help us out?’

  Leach shrugged. ‘There’s no certainty of that. Some people carry it for years.’

  ‘So we need a plan.’ Dexter looked up as Underwood returned bearing the Shaw case file.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, slightly breathlessly, ‘as requested.’

  ‘Put it on the desk,’ Dexter instructed, avoiding Underwood’s eye. He began to sense something was wrong.

  Bevan leaned forward. ‘Can I suggest we pull in Bob Woollard for questioning? I’ve deliberately held off until now. I was hoping we could sort the Shaw case independently and I could continue my investigation into Woollard. I don’t think that’s possible anymore so we might as well give him a going over. He might know where this Garrod character went. He may know if he’s working somewhere else. Woollard is very well connected.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Dexter agreed. ‘John, I want you to coordinate the efforts at ground level. This is a full scale manhunt now and you are the most experienced officer in that area.’

  ‘What area exactly?’ Underwood asked suspiciously; the sparks that he loved in Dexter’s eyes seemed to have become flames.

  ‘Poster campaign, distribution of the photofit to uniform, coordinating press strategy. That kind of area.’

  Underwood resisted the urge to argue: such tasks hardly inspired his imagination.

  ‘One idea,’ Bevan added, ‘Gwynne told me that this Norlington/Garrod character drove a van. Given that he is unlikely to have a permanent address, I’ll bet that the van isn’t taxed or insured. It might be worth telling traffic to keep their eyes open for untaxed transit vans.’ Bevan addressed his comments mainly to Underwood who seemed to have been put in charge of such things.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ said Underwood grimly.

  ‘We should think about what this guy is doing for money and accommodation,’ Dexter asserted. ‘I’ll handle that. Given that he used the name Norlington, I’ll also compile a list of other street names from Leyton. It seems Bartholomew has a fairly limited imagination when it comes to false identities. We can circulate the names locally: we might get lucky.’

  ‘What precautions are you taking?’ Underwood asked. ‘You want me to book you a hotel room until this is over?’

  Dexter stared coldly through him. ‘You just do what I’ve asked you to do.’

  Her acidic comment chilled the silent room. Leach was the first to break.

  ‘I’ll let you know when the SOCO report on Garrod’s room at the Dog and Feathers is complete. Marty Farrell tells me that they’ve found nothing of any specific use yet though.’

  ‘Thank you, Roger.’ Dexter stood. The meeting was over. Only Underwood remained in the office.

  ‘Can I have a minute?’ he asked.

  ‘One minute,’ Dexter nodded.

  ‘You trampled me a bit then. Was there any particular reason?’

  Dexter wanted to scream and shout abuse into Underwood’s pathetic, crumpled face: bellow his betrayal, his madness straight back into his wounded eyes. Instead, she settled for ice.

  ‘I’m annoyed you lost your case file keys. That is sloppy.’

  ‘And you’ve never lost anything?’ Underwood asked, irritated.

  ‘Nothing as important as that. John, I’ve gone out on a limb for you.’

  ‘I realise that.’

  ‘After what you did to that bloke back in 2000, frankly you should have been booted out of the force.’

  Underwood said nothing: his attack on his ex-wife’s lover was ancient history to him now.

  ‘One of the reasons that you weren’t,’ Dexter continued, ‘is that I stood up for you. I offered you another chance. Not many people would have done that.’

  ‘I know Alison. You have no idea how much I a
ppreciate that. I just feel that your criticism is disproportionate to the offence.’

  ‘Go and do your job then. Prove me wrong.’

  Dexter sat at her desk and dug out the London street atlas that she kept in her bottom drawer. Underwood left her to it.

  The street map of Leyton was on page 51. It covered an area from the southern edge of Walthamstow down to Stratford and Hackney Wick at the bottom of the page. Dexter traced some of the familiar roads with her finger. There was Wilmot Street, just north of Leyton Orient Football Ground, where she had lived for two years; across and to the right was Dawlish Road where Kelsi Hensy had once gone to school. Her index finger moved past Francis Road, the location of Leyton CID, and eventually came to rest on Norlington Road, the former home of Bartholomew and Raymond Garrod.

  Dexter took a pen and began to note the names of the closest streets: Belgrave, Morley, Claude, Murchison, Albert, Newport, Tyndall, Francis and Cavendish. She discounted Pretoria Road and Rhodesia Road as too exotic to attract Bartholomew Garrod. Next to Francis Road she saw St. George’s Road. Was that where the George of George Norlington had come from? Alison Dexter sat back and wondered how to present the information. The combinations were endless.

  Or were they? Some of the road names could only really be surnames. Likewise, others could only be Christian names. It took her about fifteen minutes on her computer to create a working table of potential names:

  Claude Albert Francis George

  George George George George NO

  Morley Morley Morley Morley Morley

  Claude NO Claude Claude Claude

  Murchison Murchison Murchison Murchison Murchison

  Albert Albert NO Albert Albert

  Tyndall Tyndall Tyndall Tyndall Tyndall

  Francis Francis Francis NO Francis

  Cavendish Cavendish Cavendish NO Cavendish

  Norlington Norlington Norlington Norlington Norlington

  Dexter read through the list trying to find the strongest candidates. She paid little attention to the last row and column of her table. Surely Garrod wouldn’t use the same name again? She wondered if the list was useful. Garrod was no fool. Still, they didn’t have much to work with. Maybe a name would spark someone’s memory. She printed it and created a photocopy for Underwood to distribute to uniform.