Primal Cut

by Ed O'Connor

  Underwood decided to change the subject. ‘The most important thing is you. What precautions are you taking?’

  Dexter sighed, ‘I can’t do much more short of wearing a bloody suit of armour. I’ve moved out of the flat into a hotel.’

  ‘Not in New Bolden?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘He would probably have anticipated that.’

  ‘I’m in Cambridge at the Holiday Inn. It’s very secure.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’m staying in the office mostly. We have two ARU officers based there. I never go out unaccompanied.’

  ‘Are you varying your routine? You know, different routes to work, different times of day?’

  ‘And a different car.’

  Underwood nodded. ‘That’s good, Dex. Avoid repetition and patterns of behaviour. If he decides to have a crack at you, it will be at a bottleneck. Somewhere he knows you will have to visit: supermarket, cash point, hotel car park, crime scene even.’

  ‘I know. I’m being very careful.’

  Underwood felt he had to say something else.

  ‘Alison, I owe you an apology. For the things that happened. I’m very sorry about that. I’m very sorry about Kelsi Hensy too. I can’t imagine how that has made you feel.’

  Dexter found it hard to look him in the eye.

  ‘It’s all right. You know me, hard as nails.’

  ‘There is sometimes motive in madness, Alison. Even mine.’ Underwood had so much that he wanted to tell her: the dilemma was whether he could bear to hurt her even more.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ She rubbed her eyes dry. ‘Don’t talk to me in fucking riddles. Why do men always churn out such bullshit?’

  Underwood decided to seize the opportunity. ‘OK. Listen to me then. You are not alone. I know I have intruded into your life more than I should have. That’s because I want to be part of it. Alison, I am smart enough to realise that you have no special interest in me. I accept that. But I know that we could be good friends too.’

  Dexter stood up. ‘I think I better go now.’

  Underwood felt his guts twist in the pain of separation. ‘It’s not just me,’ he blurted out as she turned to leave, ‘people care about you.’

  Dexter stopped. ‘People? What people? What are you talking about?’

  The moment had come. Underwood’s dilemma burned in him. Should he tell her? His motives were questionable. Did he really have her best interests at heart? Gary Dexter lay with a smashed spinal column in a whitewashed room in Leytonstone. How could that information possibly help his only daughter to move forward? It was just as likely to destroy her hope as to strengthen it. Does love demand the revelation of truth or the concealment of it? Underwood’s instinct was that love could not exist in ignorance. However, his insecurity told him otherwise.

  ‘Nothing,’ he eventually muttered to his immediate shame, ‘ignore me.’

  63.

  Tuesday, 22nd October 2002

  Bartholomew Garrod was in a thoughtful mood. He had dug out a small pit that he had lined with plastic. Inside, he planned to soak the bitterness out of Alison Dexter’s flesh. The bitterness he had seen her use to sour the mind of his brother in 1995; the bitterness that had driven Ray under the wheels of a police car. He was going to marinade it out of her. The conundrum was how to keep her alive long enough for the marinade to work.

  Garrod had decided that he wanted her to be alive when he started to render the meat. Besides, he knew that Henry Braun would want a living body more than a dead one. A primitive form of breathing apparatus would clearly be necessary. Garrod found a hose-pipe dumped amongst the rubbish underneath Craxten Fen Psychiatric Hospital’s water tower. He sawed off a yard-long section. It was crude and success would depend on Dexter being conscious when he sank her into the honey pit. That might present logistical problems that he had not anticipated. It would clearly be easier to glaze the flesh after she was dead. However, Garrod wanted her conscious. He wanted her to feel the sweetness soaking into her. He wanted her to feel the sticky terror absorbing her.

  Recruiting Henry Braun had been risky. However, the man was simple-minded. Given clear instructions and an irresistible sexual motive, he was confident that Braun would deliver. Besides, an extra pair of hands had proved useful to him in the past. Garrod sensed that time was running short. The previous night’s discovery of a police officer at his caravan had unnerved him. For the second time in his career, Alison Dexter appeared to have stolen a march on him. Her capacity for surprise made her a worthy opponent. Consuming her would undoubtedly strengthen him.

  He had considered a number of different recipes: choosing was part of the fun. A glaze seasoned with Dijon mustard and cloves appealed to him. Garrod considered how he could score the meat to ensure the juices were properly absorbed. He also favoured slow cooking to tenderise the meat.

  His father liked slow cooking. Cornelius Garrod had taught him the basic skills of butchery. He had learned about cutting techniques; about the identification of glands; the history of the trade; weights and ratios.

  ‘Into which regions do the hind limb glands of a pig drain?’ Cornelius Garrod asked.

  Bartholomew showed his father the areas on the diagram of a pig they had laid in front of them.

  ‘Good. Now what are the chief points of a Romney Marsh sheep?’

  Garrod lay in front of the glowing fireplace in his makeshift kitchen, drifting in and out of sleep. His father’s ripe east London accent reached out from his memory.

  ‘Explain how you would kill and dress a sheep.’

  ‘Where would you locate the superficial inguinal glands?’

  ‘Explain the process for making beef sausage in a mincer.’

  ‘Identify the primal cuts of home-killed beef.’

  ‘Animals have a structure. People have a structure. You can disassemble a cow or a man, the same way you can strip a gun or a motorbike. Every bit does something useful and every bit has a use to the butcher: muscle, glands, brain, even blood. You can make pies out of blood, Bartholomew. A good butcher will waste as little as possible. Wasted product means wasted money. Of course, we need meat to live. There’s no disgrace in that. It is an honourable thing to eat an animal. You should respect what you eat. Nature makes us that way. Pigs will eat each other given half a chance. There’s nothing immoral in meat. It’s just an asset the same as a piece of wood or a glass of water. We consume the asset.

  ‘Now, when I was in the jungle, during the war, people lived by different rules. The Japanese were proud fighters. Scared the shit out of us. But they were honourable in a funny way. You know, we found a camp once and the Japs had eaten a British pilot. Can you believe it? Stripped and ate the bugger. They wouldn’t eat the Burmese or the Indians. Oh no. That’s because they had no respect for them. They didn’t respect us after Singapore – what a cock up that was – but they grew to respect us. They saw we were just as mean, just as ruthless as they were. They ate that Hurricane pilot because they respected us. They wanted to be as strong and as powerful as we were. I’ve got a picture of him here. Look at this, Bartholomew.’

  Bartholomew Garrod opened his eyes. He had forgotten about his photograph. He must have left it behind in the caravan. It would be impossible to retrieve it now. He cursed his stupidity. The last link between him and the bygone age of brutality and honour had disappeared.

  All that remained now was the brutality.

  64.

  Underwood discharged himself from the hospital at 3 p.m. and headed home to his little flat on the outskirts of New Bolden. He was in considerable pain but he had an uneasy sense of urgency in his veins. His exchange with Dexter the previous evening had given him a sleepless night, in spite of several powerful tranquillisers. In the hot, half-light of the hospital ward in the small hours of the morning, Underwood had resolved the dilemma. He needed to change his clothes, take a significant amount of Nurofen then head south: to London.

  Throughout the afternoon,
Dexter and Harrison scoured missing persons reports for the area. They began by looking at Sawtry. When that proved fruitless they expanded the search area to cover the entire county. There were forty-three persons recorded as missing in the county over the previous month.

  ‘This is going to take time,’ Harrison observed. ‘Frankly, Guv, I can’t see it working.’

  Dexter agreed. ‘We should probably roll the dice anyway. Get the last known addresses for as many names on the list as you can. Remember that he would want a house with a garage and a garden.’

  ‘Garden?’

  ‘According to Underwood, he wants a garden,’ Dexter explained. ‘We should also draw up a list of derelict factories, disused RAF bases, that kind of thing. The Council probably have all that stuff on record.’

  ‘How do you feel about us putting some plods in plain clothes and sending them up to Sandway’s abattoir? At least then we’d have some faces on the ground if this bastard turns up again. I’m not sure I trust that Sandway geezer.’

  ‘Can we spare the bodies?’ Dexter asked.

  ‘Not really. We are stretched pretty thin. It might be an idea though. Especially since we’ve found his caravan. He’ll need clothes, food maybe. Sandway is probably his best bet if he hasn’t disappeared altogether.’

  ‘OK. You persuaded me.’

  ‘What else is there?’ Harrison asked.

  ‘Underwood had some mad idea about honey. Where could you buy it in bulk?’

  ‘Dunno. Supermarkets I suppose, bee keepers.’

  ‘He thinks Garrod has a hard on for honey.’

  ‘I’ll check it out.’

  ‘Other than that,’ Dexter observed, ‘we have bugger all.’

  ‘It could be worse,’ Harrison replied. ‘A lot worse.’

  Dexter thought of Underwood’s smashed face. She thought of herself.

  ‘Point taken,’ she said quietly.

  DI Mike Bevan entered the office.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you guys. Alison, I need to speak with you about tomorrow.’

  Dexter nodded. ‘Are you all set?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Bevan answered. ‘Woollard is still unrepentant and not admitting much, but I’m confident that we’ll get a conviction or two.’

  ‘Once this Garrod business is done, we’ll have Woollard for conspiracy to pervert justice as well,’ Dexter added. ‘He must be looking at a serious stretch.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ Bevan said. ‘I think you should be there. At least for the first session in case there are any procedural issues or questions about the liaison between my office and yours.’

  Dexter was prepared for that. ‘I agree. As I’m the Senior CID Officer here, I should probably come along.’

  ‘You can chuck oranges at Woollard from the gallery,’ Harrison interjected with a grin.

  ‘Sharpened fifty pence pieces would do more damage,’ Dexter replied, appreciating the joke.

  Bevan smiled. ‘I’ll see you there.’

  Once he had gone, Dexter and Harrison began to draft a statement for a police press conference the following morning.

  65.

  Wednesday, 23rd October 2002

  The evidence presented against Woollard was compelling. Sitting in the public gallery above Court B of the Peterborough Court Centre, Alison Dexter couldn’t see any way in which Woollard would escape the charges. She had been pleased to see that the jury was mainly female. She suspected that their sensitivity to animal cruelty crimes would be sharper.

  The Counsel for the Crown put forward a series of powerful arguments against Woollard. The defendant was, he said, ‘a notorious, nefarious individual’. He was someone ‘well known both to Cambridgeshire Police and Cambridgeshire criminals’. The momentum of the case had begun to build. The Crown outlined the chronology of events up to and including the illegal dog fights that had taken place at Swanscombe Farm the previous month. Photographs, taken by Mike Bevan, were submitted as Prosecution Exhibits A, B and C. These showed various cars arriving at the farm on the night in question. The Crown then informed the Court that under the authority of a warrant, New Bolden Police had searched Swanscombe Farm. The results, he said, were compelling: illegal dog breeding, forensic evidence of prize fighting, documentation relating to the importation of dangerous dogs.

  The case, according to the Prosecution, was utterly irrefutable. Woollard had committed a series of offences under UK laws governing animal welfare. Dexter was pleased that the Counsel listed the specific pieces of legislation for the jury. The very names seemed to condemn Woollard even more.

  ‘Lest we underestimate the gravity of Mr Woollard’s offences, I would like to reiterate exactly which laws we believe that the defendant has broken. These are the 1911 Protection of Animals Act, the 1973 Breeding of Dogs Act, the Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991, the second Breeding of Dogs Act – also 1991 – and the 1999 Breeding and Sale of Dogs Act.’

  The silence of a crowded courtroom had always been a source of awe for Alison Dexter. It was part of the job that she enjoyed immensely.

  ‘The Prosecution’s case will show that these multiple offences were not accidental. Mr Woollard has systematically ignored and subverted this country’s animal welfare legislation for a number of years. The result of this has been the imposition of untold suffering on several animals which are banned in the UK. Let the Court note that Mr Woollard has no exceptional licences granted for the possession and breeding of these animals nor had he ever applied for such licences. The Court should also note that he was deliberately obstructive during the official police search of his premises.’

  Woollard stared impassively into space as the offences were listed and the central tenets of the Prosecution’s case outlined. The Court adjourned for lunch at 12.30 p.m.

  At roughly the same time, Underwood met DS Harrison on the stairs leading up to New Bolden CID.

  ‘Joe, what’s new?’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Harrison exclaimed. ‘You look like you’ve gone ten rounds with George Foreman.’

  Underwood was not amused. ‘This bastard is bigger than George Foreman. Trust me.’

  ‘It’s good to see you in any case,’ Harrison said.

  ‘Thanks. Is DI Dexter upstairs?’ he asked.

  ‘No. She’s up at Peterborough for the Woollard hearing. She’ll be in this afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll see her then.’

  Underwood swiped his ID card through the computer lock on the entrance to the CID floor and wandered in. Sure enough, Dexter’s office was empty. He noted with interest that she had locked the glass door. His desk was its usual chaotic sprawl of paper and files. He fetched himself a coffee from the machine; its plastic heat burned his tongue.

  Bartholomew Garrod had proved himself a formidable opponent. Underwood’s face bore witness to the man’s physical strength. Their inability to capture him demonstrated his resilience. Underwood believed that part of Garrod’s advantage was his age. Mature adults were less likely to act impulsively. In his experience, the easiest criminals to catch had been those hamstrung by youthful impetuosity. Violent offenders in their twenties or thirties tended to be driven more by emotion: anger or lust most commonly. Garrod’s wisdom had prevented him from lunging at Alison Dexter in a way that would expose his location or master plan.

  Underwood knew that the only person who would have studied Dexter’s life and routine more avidly than Garrod was himself. After all, had he not recorded her personal information in a notebook? Had he not skulked in Kelsi Hensy’s garden and watched her private life unfold in front of him? His thought process was gathering momentum. Undoubtedly, Garrod would try to seize Dexter at some point. But where? How?

  Underwood gulped coffee as it began to cool in his hand. He put himself in Garrod’s position. If he had wanted to abduct Dexter, he would want the choke points. There were certain places that she had to go: home for example, into the station for work. Underwood knew where Dexter liked to shop. He knew which entrance to the building she
used. He knew details about Alison Dexter’s personal life that no one else on the planet was aware of. That thought had previously empowered him. Now it made him feel rather seedy.

  If he planned to grab Dexter, he would do it early in the morning or late at night. She liked to be in the office early in the morning. He could predict with some confidence when her alarm woke her, when she got into her car, which roads she would take to work. Underwood knew that Thursday was rubbish collection day in Dexter’s street. That meant that at some point on Wednesday nights she would put her rubbish sacks out in front of her flat for collection the following morning. She always did that between ten and ten-thirty p.m. That was a choke point. He would grab her then.

  And yet, that didn’t help. Underwood realised that the flaw in his assessment was that it was based on an overload of information. He had built a level of knowledge of data relating to Alison Dexter that Garrod could not possibly match. Garrod would have to make the same assessment based upon much less information. He would look for the fixed points in Dexter’s life. Where would her shadow stretch at particular times of the day? The fixed points were her home address and her place of work. Now, Underwood knew that Dexter had recently vacated her flat and moved to the Holiday Inn, Cambridge. Even if Garrod had located her flat, she wasn’t there anymore.

  That left one fixed point. Garrod knew that Dexter came to work at New Bolden CID every day. Could he snatch her in the car park – early in the morning or in the evening as she left? It was the most obvious place. Too obvious. The car park was always being used. The station was manned round the clock. The risk of grabbing her at the station was enormous, Underwood realised. Now, of course, she had a motorcycle escort whenever she left the station. That would make it hard for Garrod to follow her without being noticed; harder still to snatch her successfully.

  Underwood drummed his fingers on the surface of his desktop. What was that old Sherlock Holmes quote? ‘Once you eliminate the impossible only the truth remains’ or something like that? Underwood’s mind had eliminated the impossible. What was left?