Primal Cut

by Ed O'Connor

‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Heading for somewhere called Sawtry.’

  Sauerwine laughed. ‘Good luck. Sawtry makes New Bolden look like Monte Carlo.’

  ‘Bit quiet is it?’

  ‘Last stop before the underworld.’

  ‘I get you.’

  PC Brooke leaned unnecessarily towards the speakers. ‘You all right “Sauers”?’

  ‘I’m good thanks, Andy,’ Sauerwine replied. Harrison could hear the smile in his voice. ‘You be nice to the Detective Sergeant. None of your Spurs stories. He’s a Gooner you know.’

  Brooke was horrified. ‘You’re joking me?’

  Harrison kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead trying not to grin.

  ‘I’m heading back to the station, Sarge,’ Sauerwine continued, ‘this is a waste of time.’

  ‘I’m inclined to agree.’ Harrison clicked his mobile phone off. PC Brooke was staring at him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Guv. I didn’t know you was Arsenal,’ he spluttered.

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Harrison couldn’t resist a jibe. ‘You want to hear a joke?’

  Brooke nodded, relieved: ‘Go on.’

  Harrison nodded, ‘OK. The Spurs manager is doing his weekly shopping on Tottenham High Road, when he sees this old lady. She’s got these three massive bags of shopping and she’s really struggling. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So he goes up to her and he says, “Can you manage, love?” And the old girl says, “Piss off! You got yourself into this mess, don’t ask me to sort it out…!”’

  Brooke looked blank. ‘That’s not funny, Sarge. Not funny at all.’

  Harrison accelerated the squad car along the road that led eventually into Sawtry village, then out again into open countryside.

  57.

  Bartholomew Garrod rattled east in his own transit van. He had said goodbye to Robert Sandway an hour or so previously. Now he was on his way out of Cambridgeshire to complete his preparations for Alison Dexter. Sandway had shaken his hand with genuine affection and thanked him ‘for all his wisdom and industry’.

  Wisdom and industry.

  Garrod liked that description of his contribution to life at the abattoir. He had almost cried at the time. His life had not been cluttered with appreciative comments. His customers back in London, hard East End women with hawk eyes and suspicious minds, had usually criticised his prices or his ungenerous cuts of meat. Men had paid money to watch him fight other men: mindless, savage violence. Ray Garrod had demanded constant attention but given little back in return.

  Wisdom and industry.

  Bartholomew Garrod allowed himself to fantasise as he crossed the border from Cambridgeshire to Essex. He imagined a small butcher’s shop in an English country village: Hampshire or Cornwall possibly. He imagined being a local character: conversing with his customers, helping them to select the best cuts, the primal cuts, of meat. He imagined a small garden out back where Ray could sit quietly in the sunshine. There would be a plaque above the entrance to his shop. It would say ‘Wisdom and Industry’.

  Rain splattered across the windscreen of his van: car headlights smeared into droplets of water. Garrod tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

  He imagined carving Alison Dexter’s naked body.

  58.

  The silence was distracting. It made her uneasy. It suggested an ominous inertia. Alison Dexter felt imprisoned in the office. She was under strict instructions not to leave the building unaccompanied. The Chief Superintendent had been insistent on that point. The CID floor was fairly deserted. Most of her team were out chasing ghosts. She was beginning to suspect that Bartholomew Garrod would elude her again. The man had extraordinary resilience. Even now, when he was virtually on her doorstep, she had no clear idea of how to catch him. She thought of Underwood and debated briefly whether she should call him. She decided instead to reread the case file on the murder of Jack Whiteside.

  At 5.30 p.m. her telephone rang. It was DS Harrison.

  ‘Guv, I think we might have something,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I’m up with PC Brooke at Sandway’s abattoir in Sawtry. Do you know it?’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘North Cambridgeshire, west of Ely. I’m with the owner, one Robert Sandway. He says a man fitting Garrod’s description has been working here.’

  ‘Does he have an address?’ Dexter was already pulling on her jacket.

  ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘I’m on my way. Stay with him.’

  Dexter stopped at the Desk Sergeant before she left. He assigned her a motorcycle escort for the drive up to Sawtry. It made her feel ridiculous.

  At roughly the same time, Underwood was heading north along the Essex coast towards Harwich. He could scarcely remember a more depressing day in his life although there were many contenders for that particular title. He had visited nine utterly barren, wind-blasted campsites; seen what felt like a million static caravans and mobile homes; spoken to several dead-eyed site managers, trawled through lists of meaningless names and discovered absolutely nothing.

  The surroundings weren’t helping either. He knew that Essex was among the country’s most ancient counties. However, this desolate stretch of land and its muddy, featureless coast made him wonder why the Saxons and Angles had bothered staying. To battle across the North Sea in a wooden boat only to end up stranded in an Essex swamp seemed to him an utterly futile exercise. It also amazed him that so many people would choose to take holidays there. Underwood found English seaside towns horrific: amusement arcades, dog shit, candyfloss and paedophiles. Perhaps modern Anglo-Saxons felt impelled to head east: to push their mud huts and caravans as close to their ancestral home land as possible; to tow their plundered tat in aluminium boxes. Or perhaps they were lemmings, driven by the banality of their existence to throw themselves into the sea.

  He had one more campsite to visit. ‘The Regency’ was three miles outside Great Oakley.

  DI Alison Dexter sat in the prefabricated office that Bartholomew Garrod had left a few hours previously. Robert Sandway sat in front of her, wringing his hands uncomfortably.

  ‘You must understand, Inspector,’ Sandway said, ‘I had no idea that this man was a fugitive.’

  Dexter was not impressed. ‘You are certain that this “George Francis” is the man on our photofit?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sandway looked at the picture again, ‘his face is rounder than this. Heavier. He is fatter than this image suggests but I’m certain it’s him.’

  Dexter sighed. ‘Do you ever watch the news, Mr Sandway? Or read the papers? This man is a wanted murderer.’

  ‘Look, he came to me wanting a job. He seemed a decent chap. As it happens, he was about the most effective worker that I’ve ever employed.’

  ‘This job,’ Dexter asked, ‘where was it advertised?’

  ‘Cambridge Evening News. I have a copy somewhere.’

  ‘Give it to my sergeant when you find it.’ Dexter frowned at her notes. ‘I can’t believe that you employed a man with no references and no permanent address.’

  ‘Inspector, it was a labouring job. Lifting carcasses onto lorries. He told me that he had tax problems and was prepared to work for low pay, cash in hand. This business is dying on its arse. It’s my job to run things as efficiently as possible. As it happens, this “George Francis” person had already suggested a number of improvements to the way that we operate. I offered him a promotion. He turned it down and left.’

  ‘Have you any idea where he was living?’

  Sandway shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. He was always on time though, even on the early shifts. So I would guess he had to be local.’

  ‘Transport,’ Dexter asked, ‘what was he driving?’

  ‘Ah! A transit van. I remember that. It was an old one: white. I don’t remember the registration but I think it started with an “S”.’

  DS Harrison had been listening to the exchange. ‘You ha
ve CCTV cameras on the site. They would almost certainly have picked up his registration plate. We will need to take the security tapes.’

  Sandway scratched the top of his head thoughtfully. ‘That won’t be possible. You see, the cameras are dummies. They don’t work. The idea was to deter rather than record. Security systems are bloody expensive for operations of this size. We have a burglar alarm but the cameras are duff. Sorry.’

  Dexter shut her notebook. ‘This is pretty fucking dismal to be honest, Mr Sandway. You have not shown due diligence with your employees and as a result this man has evaded us again.’

  ‘I trusted him. He seemed to like me. As I said, I had no reason to disbelieve him.’

  Harrison intervened. ‘You said he liked you? What makes you think that?’

  ‘His manner, the things he said. I don’t know. We spoke very frankly to each other about the business. I respected his honesty and he respected mine.’

  Dexter didn’t understand what Harrison had been driving at. ‘What’s in your mind, Joe?’

  Harrison looked back at her. ‘I was just thinking. Nothing I’ve heard about this guy suggests that he forms friendships easily. If Garrod feels he has a relationship with Mr Sandway, it’s not inconceivable that he might come back.’

  It was plausible. In the absence of any other ideas, Dexter realised that it might be worth pursuing.

  ‘Mr Sandway, I’ll do a deal with you. We will need to do a search of your premises tonight. We will be out of here with minimum fuss and aggravation to yourself on one condition. If this “George Francis” calls you, turns up here or makes any other form of contact, you call us at once.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Sandway agreed, ‘no problem.’

  Dexter asked Harrison to join her outside. It was bitterly cold in the forecourt of the abattoir. Dexter pulled her jacket tight around her.

  ‘As I see it,’ she said, ‘we’ve got two options.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Harrison answered.

  ‘We expand from this point, do house to house in all the surrounding villages.’

  ‘Option two?’

  ‘We sit tight. If we get very high profile we might scare him off. I think your point was a valid one. If he runs out of cash he may well contact Sandway again.’

  ‘And Garrod won’t know we’ve been here, if we get out quickly.’

  Dexter had made up her mind. ‘I think if we flood the area with plods, he’ll disappear. Let’s be low key. We have an advantage over him now.’

  ‘A trap,’ Harrison clarified. ‘We also know he’s driving a transit with an “S” registration. I’ll alert traffic to be on the lookout.’

  ‘I’m going to head back. Will you wrap it up here?’

  ‘No problem.’ Harrison turned and headed back up the steps into Sandway’s Portakabin. Dexter signalled to her escort that it was time to leave.

  59.

  Underwood was sitting in the site manager’s office of ‘The Regency’ campsite on the Essex coast. A small electric heater pumped warmth into the draughty little room. There were back editions of the Sunday Sport spread across the manager’s desk. Underwood wondered if he’d intruded on a moment of personal enrichment.

  ‘The plot register gives the names of the caravan owners,’ said Melvin Stour, ‘Site Director’, according to his badge.

  ‘How far do the lists go back?’ Underwood asked. ‘I’m looking for a plot that was purchased before 1960.’

  ‘That makes it easier.’ Stour opened the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet. ‘We’ve got over a thousand static homes on this site. We’re one of the bigger facilities. But there’s only a few that have been here that long. My Dad bought the place back in 1959 but he kept all the existing documents. Many of our plots stay with the same family for years.’

  ‘I’m looking for a plot bought in the name of Shildon or Garrod,’ Underwood explained.

  ‘We don’t normally get any excitement out of season. In the summer there’s the girls to look at. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve seen. Shocking.’ Stour placed two files on the desk in front of Underwood. ‘Here you go. These are the pre-1960 lists.’

  Underwood began to scan the pages of plot numbers and purchasers. It took him about three minutes to realise that there was neither a Shildon nor a Garrod listed. Disappointment welled inside him.

  ‘Do you have any records from before 1940?’ Underwood asked.

  ‘No. Sorry mate. We’ve got no records before then.’

  Underwood rubbed his eyes in exhaustion. It had been a long day scraping around at the bottom of the geographical barrel. ‘Can I see the current register then?’ he asked, ‘this year’s list of residents?’

  Stour returned obligingly to his filing cabinet. Underwood checked his mobile phone for messages:

  ‘No Network Coverage’ stared back at him.

  For the thousandth time that day, he cursed the desolate Essex coast.

  Alison Dexter had returned to her office. She wanted to tear out the tight ball of frustration in her stomach. They had missed Garrod leaving Sandway’s by a couple of hours. She wondered if her own leaden-footed approach to the case since the murder of Kelsi Hensy made her culpable. It was true that they had made relatively little progress apart from the identification of Garrod at the abattoir. Now he had gone. They were always a step behind. She needed to get ahead.

  She returned to the Jack Whiteside case file. Something about it had been troubling her: the kind of unease that floats inexplicably but persistently at the back of your mind. She flicked back through the pages that she had read earlier that day:

  The body of the victim was discovered on 6th February 2000, in shallow water at Bramble Creek, Bull’s Ooze, Essex. The remains were found by Mr Cyril Delvis (local resident – details appended) while walking his dog in the area.

  She turned to the back of the file, found Cyril Delvis’s contact information and called his home number.

  ‘Hello?’ said a male voice softened by age.

  ‘Mr Delvis?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘My name is Alison Dexter. I work for Cambridgeshire Police.’

  ‘Oh! Hello! What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Don’t worry. I am investigating the death of a Mr Jack Whiteside. I understand that it was you that found the body back in February 2000.’

  ‘Yes. You had me worried there for a moment!’ Delvis chuckled down the phone. ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘Was there anything unusual about the body? Anything missing? Any items in the water or on the beach nearby? Anything that you didn’t mention to the police at the time?’

  ‘Nothing I’m afraid,’ Delvis replied. ‘I was walking out by Bull’s Ooze with my dog. I was on the footpath. Well, Reggie – that’s my dog – he stopped to do his business and I had a moment to look at the water. That’s when I saw it.’

  ‘Mr Whiteside?’

  ‘Yeah. He was floating face down in the water. I never did see his face. I double-timed it over to the Great Oakley sewage works and got a foreman there to phone the old Bill.’

  Dexter absorbed this information. It seemed innocuous enough. There was clearly no point in…

  ‘Where did you say?’ she snapped suddenly.

  ‘It was on Bull’s Ooze, near the Great Oakley sewage works.’

  ‘Yes.’ Dexter tried to organise her thoughts. ‘Thank you.’

  She slammed her phone down and fumbled amongst the paper on her desk for the ‘Primal Cut’ case file that she had meticulously crafted seven years previously. On page ten she found what she was looking for:

  ‘Cornelius Garrod. Born Leyton, London 11th February 1919… Arrested drunk 4th August 1960, Great Oakley.’

  Dexter immediately reached for her mobile and called Underwood’s number. Her former boss’s assumptions had not been as shaky as she had believed.

  ‘The number you have called is unavailable. Please try later,’ said the computerised voice of the telepho
ne company.

  ‘Fuck!’

  Dexter retrieved her East Essex Road Atlas from her drawer and thumbed through to the page on Great Oakley. She saw two villages: Little Oakley and Great Oakley connected by the Harwich Road. To the right she saw Bramble Island and next to it Bull’s Ooze and the sewage works. She could even see the footpath where Delvis had been walking his dog. Further along, pressed up against the coast at Dugmore Creek, about half a mile from the sewage works, she saw the small caravan symbol that denoted a campsite.

  She tried unsuccessfully to contact John Underwood again. Then she called Essex police headquarters at Colchester.

  Underwood now had the 2001–2002 register of caravan owners on his lap. Stour was babbling happily.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘when all those little slags come up during the season, they don’t hang about here. Oh no. They want the action, don’t they? The bright lights. Party time. Clacton and Harwich – that’s where they want to go. Come crashing back in here at four in the morning. Banging my door down because they’ve lost their keys.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Underwood asked distractedly.

  ‘Gospel.’ Stour was warming to his theme. ‘And the men they bring back with them! Squaddies, pikeys, spades you name it. It’s a disgrace. I’d love to sling them all out but I’ve got to make a profit somehow.’

  Underwood had given up. There was no ‘Shildon’ or ‘Garrod’ listed; not even a ‘Norlington’. He flipped back to page one of the file. He was about to hand it back to Stour when something caught his eye: the first name on the list in fact.

  ‘What do you know about this Mr Bartholomew?’ he asked Stour, pointing at the file.

  ‘Don’t see him much. Older chap. Big fella.’

  Underwood pulled the photofit of Garrod from his back pocket and unfolded it.

  ‘Is that him?’ he asked quietly.

  Stour looked hard at the image. ‘Not sure. My bloke is much heavier than this.’

  ‘Is he around now?’ Underwood asked.