Primal Cut

by Ed O'Connor

  Alison Dexter was a CID officer. What do CID officers do? Where do they go? They go to work, they go to crime scenes; they do press conferences like the one Harrison was giving.

  They go to court.

  Dexter was at Peterborough Crown Court. Underwood tried to focus. Could Garrod have anticipated her presence there? Surely not. Most of their cases were tried in Cambridge. Woollard was only being tried elsewhere because his farm fell within the orbit of Peterborough magistrates. The only other case that they had tried there recently was the prosecution of Nicholas Braun – another Peterborough resident. Underwood remembered watching Alison Dexter’s uncomfortable TV interview on the front steps of the Court Centre.

  A cold panic enveloped him: for a split second, he was struggling, thrashing underwater, desperately reaching for the light.

  Then he was on his feet and shouting for assistance.

  Alison Dexter met up with her new motorcycle escort at the entrance to the Peterborough Court Centre.

  ‘You all right, Jamie?’

  PC James Kemp nodded. ‘We off then, Ma’am?’

  ‘Yes. This case is a done deal,’ she replied.

  ‘Despatch said that you’re parked in Draper Street.’

  Dexter always parked in Draper Street whenever she came to Peterborough. ‘That’s right. I’ll wait for you at the T-junction.’

  The two separated as Dexter headed left to cross the main road and Kemp jogged down to his motorbike. Henry Braun, collar turned up and wearing a Yankees baseball cap, watched them split up from the relative obscurity of a shop doorway. Realising his moment had arrived, he closed his hand around the steel crowbar in his pocket and advanced on PC Jamie Kemp. Dexter dodged through traffic on the main road, feeling in her jacket pocket for the keys to her new Volkswagen.

  ‘Morning cunt,’ Braun said to PC Kemp a hundred yards away.

  ‘What did you say?’ Kemp shot back.

  ‘I said “morning cunt”,’ said Braun with a smile. ‘While you were poncing about on your bike yesterday, I was shagging your missus. I just wanted you to know that.’

  Kemp left his keys in the ignition of his bike and advanced on Braun. He could see DI Dexter turn right into Draper Street and disappear from his view. There was still a little time.

  ‘Do we have a problem here, mate?’ he asked.

  ‘Only you, dickhead,’ Braun spat back.

  Kemp had heard enough. He reached for the radio microphone on his jacket and clicked ‘transmit’. ‘Despatch, this is Mobile Seven. Request assistance at Peterborough Court Centre…’

  Before Kemp could finish his sentence, Braun swung his crowbar in a vicious arc across the front of Kemp’s face. Blood and fragments of teeth flew through the air. Kemp staggered back and fell to the ground. Stunned passers by stopped and stared in shock at the bizarre scene that was unfolding in front of them. Determined to press home his advantage, Braun stepped up to Kemp and booted him hard twice in the side of the head. Satisfied that his victim was unlikely to get up in a hurry, Braun pushed over Kemp’s police motorcycle and ran away from the crime scene as fast as he could.

  Oblivious to this commotion, Alison Dexter walked the short distance down Draper Street to her Volkswagen. The narrow road was a useful parking spot in a busy town centre. It was especially convenient for the Court House; no more than a two minute walk. Today the road was busier though. Two transit vans were parked either side of her. The first had ‘Excelsior Parcel Service’ stamped in navy blue print on its side panel. She stepped in front of it and onto the road so she could access the driver’s side of her car. As she stopped to open the door, she felt a sudden wrench of pain as powerful fingers closed around her mouth and dragged her backwards.

  She screamed and lashed out frantically, throwing a clenched fist back into the face of the man she knew was Bartholomew Garrod.

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ Garrod snarled at her. Dexter felt his saliva drip on to her neck. She struggled desperately as he hauled her down the road towards his van. Now he had a huge arm around her neck and one around her waist. Trapped in a powerful bear hug, Dexter gasped for breath, wriggling and twisting violently in a panic-stricken attempt to break away. She knew that Kemp’s motorcycle would appear at the top of Draper Street at any moment. All she had to do was to hang on for as long as she could.

  They were at the back of the van now. Its doors were open. Dexter tried to wedge a foot against the bumper to prevent Garrod from pushing her inside. It worked for a couple of seconds, but the man was far too strong. Without breaking his grip, using the expertise of a professional prize fighter he turned Dexter around in his arms like a corkscrew in a wine bottle

  ‘You’re going to pay,’ he said softly. ‘Long and hard.’

  Dexter tried to swing a punch in his groin, to no avail.

  ‘Slow and messy,’ he continued.

  Panicking now, Dexter frantically thrashed at her assailant, screaming for assistance.

  ‘Night, night,’ said Garrod with a smile before slamming a vicious head butt against Dexter’s forehead. She slumped in his arms, her head bleeding above her right eye and lolling back uselessly. He dumped her into the back of his van and tied her hands behind her back with a length of rope that he had stolen from Sandway’s abattoir. This done, he rolled her onto her back. A dark stream of blood ran from the wound on her forehead; Garrod leaned forward and licked it.

  It was as he had suspected.

  Bitter.

  He slammed the double doors of his transit van shut. His stomach was rumbling. Henry Braun had clearly done his job properly. Garrod was pleased that the risk had paid off. He drove up to the T-junction at the top of Draper Street. As he waited for a space in the traffic, Garrod could see a crowd had gathered at the entrance to the Court Centre. He hoped that Braun had not lingered at the scene. Despite the apparent success of their enterprise, Garrod had a nagging feeling that the involvement of Braun might rebound uncomfortably on him. For now though, he was happy. He turned into the flow of traffic that had slowed to view the commotion at the court house and accelerated away from the chaos; his prize unconscious in the rear of his van.

  66.

  Twenty minutes later Underwood stood outside the Court House himself, furious at the slowness of his own mind. Jamie Kemp lay in the back of a nearby ambulance. A small group of onlookers still hung about hoping for something morbid to shock their minds out of senselessness. DS Harrison joined Underwood.

  ‘Her car’s over there, sir,’ Harrison told him. ‘The driver door is unlocked.’

  Underwood understood the implication of Harrison’s words. ‘It looks like he’s got her then. What the bloody hell happened here, Joe? Who clocked Kemp? Garrod can’t have been in two places at the same time.’

  ‘I agree. It looks like he’s got someone helping him.’ Harrison wracked his mind for possible explanations. ‘Someone from London maybe: an old acquaintance. Or maybe somebody he met on the fighting circuit up here.’

  ‘What do the witnesses say?’ Underwood asked.

  ‘Man in a baseball cap whacked Kemp in the face. He was about six feet apparently but no one saw his face. Nobody saw Dexter being taken but then Draper Street over there is out of sight from here. They wouldn’t have seen anything. This was a classic bit of diversion. Divert attention and isolate Dexter. Some planning went into this.’

  ‘We need road blocks on all the major routes out of here,’ Underwood instructed, although he knew it was probably too late. ‘Right now.’

  ‘It’ll take a bit of time, sir,’ Harrison advised.

  ‘Get on it,’ Underwood snapped.

  He had failed her. Garrod had Dexter. There was little he could do now. The man could be anywhere. He had evaded capture for years and had now secured his primary objective. Underwood suspected the man would disappear altogether. Leave the country or at least sink into distant anonymity. His heart sank. The miserable little scene that surrounded him drove him deeper. Rain was
beginning to stain the concrete, making it smell. The spinning blue lights of the ambulance threw odd shadows along the ground; the pasty-faced locals peered back at him for stimulation, the dismal line of shops and advertisements grinned stupidly across the road. Traffic rumbled past.

  An ambulance man approached Underwood.

  ‘Inspector, we should get him to the hospital now. He still hasn’t regained consciousness. We need to get him under a scanner.’

  Underwood nodded; he had been hoping that Kemp would come round and provide a description of his assailant. His hopes were being snuffed out like candles after a funeral.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘If he wakes up and starts talking, let us know.’

  ‘Will do.’

  A moment or two later the siren on the ambulance started up as it pulled away from the crime scene. Underwood realised that, in all probability, he would never see Alison Dexter again. He would have to explain her death to her father: Gary Dexter smashed and paralysed on an east London bed. How could he do that? How could he sever the man’s only remaining link with sanity?

  Underwood tried not to dwell on that possibility.

  Rain began to shiver at his neck. He found himself looking up at the CCTV security camera above the Discount HiFi Store. It pointed directly back at him.

  Something drove him suddenly towards it.

  67.

  Bartholomew Garrod pulled up in front of Craxten Fen Psychiatric Hospital. The rain was falling more heavily now. It drummed against the roof of his van and tickled coldly at his neck when he climbed outside. Garrod didn’t mind the rain. He found it energising.

  It had taken him an eternity to reach this moment, this glorious moment. He wasn’t sure how to feel. His emotions were awash: charged with sexuality, boiling with vengeance. He wrenched open the back doors of his van. Alison Dexter still lay unconscious within. Garrod rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He was struggling to resist temptation: the desire to debase her there and then. She was completely at his mercy and the realisation almost overwhelmed him.

  However, he resisted. He wanted her awake when he started work. And he wanted her sweet. He leaned forward, hauling her upwards with his immense strength and slinging her limp frame over his right shoulder. As he carried her through the gap he had created in the steel fencing and then towards the rear of the building, he could not stop himself feeling for the key cuts: tenderloin, silverside, brisket. Eventually, he placed Alison Dexter on the floor of the special kitchen he had created for her.

  Garrod had instructed Henry Braun to come up to Sawtry at midnight. By then the immediate furore over Dexter’s abduction would have begun to settle back into the slow crawl of procedure. Being pursued by the British police was, Garrod felt, like being chased by a glacier.

  Garrod knew that eventually the glacier would probably consume him. Eventually, he would get sloppy or some squirt in a uniform would spot him in a crowd. He was resigned to that eventuality. Only Alison Dexter had jumped ahead of the creeping, ponderous juggernaut of investigation. She had somehow made the connection between the Garrods and the death of Brian Patterson in 1995. Somehow, the police had located his caravan in Essex. That made her unusual and dangerous: worthy of consumption.

  He stripped her to her knickers. They were made of black cotton and the label said they came from Marks and Spencer. He crushed the desire to peer inside. Her flesh was tight, wiry. She would undoubtedly yield less meat than Kelsi Hensy. However, her skin was entirely free of blemishes. Garrod kneeled and rolled her limp body from one side to the other. There wasn’t a single mole or imperfection. He had never seen such perfectly smooth skin. Eventually, he found some faded scars around her wrists but they were barely visible. Garrod felt his erection harden as he touched her, his giant hands moving across her body, enjoying his moment of triumph. It took considerable will power to return to the task of food preparation.

  The rain began to slow outside. Garrod was satisfied that he could begin. He tied Dexter’s wrists in front of her and bound her ankles tightly with rope. He stretched masking tape across her mouth. Satisfied that she would be unable to move when she came around, Garrod left the kitchen. One by one, he removed the giant tins of molasses that he had bought from Delaney’s and rolled them out of the storage shed where he had secured them. The overgrown back lawn of the hospital squelched underfoot. Garrod uncovered the honey pit and checked for water infiltration. He was pleased to see that the lining of plastic sacks had worked. The pit would not leak in either direction.

  The rain had stopped. He levered off the lid of the first tin, enjoying the sugary smell that it released into the air. Carefully, he emptied its contents into the pit. The thick, viscous fluid glooped pleasantly. He repeated the exercise with each of the other containers. The pit filled. As he had calculated, the molasses did not quite brim to the top of the hole. There would clearly be some displacement once its contents had been added. Once the pit was complete, he covered it and returned to the kitchen.

  Alison Dexter was still lying where he had left her. Now Garrod focused on the issue of respiration. He ripped the masking tape from her mouth. She groaned slightly as he did so. She was coming round. That suited him. He wanted her to be conscious in the pit. He picked up the plastic tube he had fashioned and inserted it into Alison Dexter’s mouth. He then secured it in position by wrapping masking tape around and around her head. Once he was confident that the pipe would not slip, he stuffed cotton wool in each of her nostrils and completed the seal with the remainder of his tape. Her body shuddered for a second or two. Then, happily, he heard the rasp of her breath resonating through the hose-pipe. Garrod was delighted with his handiwork. The bottom half of her face was entirely blocked with tape and the breathing apparatus was functioning effectively. It looked as though someone had taped a giant cigar into her mouth. Grinning at the image, Garrod allowed himself a moment of contemplation. He spread some jam onto a slice of bread and munched away the immediacy of his appetite.

  Maybe he would take off her knickers after all.

  This done, Garrod decided that it was time to put her in the marinade. He picked her up in his powerful arms and carried her outside. He would have to be careful now. Her position in the pit would be vital. Garrod had deliberately sloped one of the pit walls to support her body after immersion. One end of the hose-pipe obviously needed exposure to the air. As delicately as his huge hands would allow, Garrod manoeuvred Dexter’s naked body onto her back and slid her feet-first into the molasses. The dark fluid began to engulf her, crawling up her legs in an inexorable sticky tide. Garrod allowed Dexter’s body to fall back slightly, her back against the sloping wall of the pit, her face and breathing tube pointing upwards. As her feet touched the bottom of the pit, Garrod reached into the thick, syrupy liquid and felt for her knees. He bent them and drew them up in front of her. Dexter’s body slid further into the molasses until her breasts, shoulders and eventually her entire head was subsumed. Garrod felt her body come to rest against the walls and floor of the pit. He held the top of the hose-pipe in his hand. He could still hear her breathing. Molasses brimmed over the lips of the pit and onto the exposed soil around it.

  Garrod used his free hand to haul the wooden tabletop along the ground to cover the hole again. He wedged the top of the pipe between the edge of the cover and the wall of the pit. Delicately, he let go. The tube pointed directly upwards into the air. She was breathing. Confident that it would not slip immediately, Garrod walked to the water tower, returning with one of the heavy sacks of refuse that had been dumped there. He laid it on the tabletop, weighting it against any movement from below. The pit was secure. He drove a wooden stake into the soil next to the pit and immobilised the breathing tube with a string tie.

  He sat back on the wet ground. His work was complete. He was sweating. Garrod was beginning to tire more easily. He hoped that he wasn’t ill. However, such things did not bother him. The first and second stages of his plan were complete: he had snatched Aliso
n Dexter and placed her securely in his honey pit. As long as she didn’t try to move too suddenly or violently, or swallow her tongue, he was confident that she would survive immersion.

  He was marinating the bitch.

  Ray would have enjoyed watching. Garrod could almost imagine his brother jumping up in excitement at his shoulder, shouting encouragement. Anticipating his dinner with childish enthusiasm. The idea was suddenly painful to him. Ray wasn’t there and the person responsible was soaking in syrup a few yards away.

  Garrod stood and headed back into the kitchen. He looked at the resources at his disposal: onions, peppers and oils were not a problem. He had his knives and had also retrieved his pans from the caravan after dealing with the rogue copper that had arrived there. He wondered how best to render the meat. There would be steaks, some breast meat and sausages too. He had noticed that Alison Dexter had pretty feet. It had reminded him of a dish his father had cooked for him as a child. You boiled a cow’s heel with carrots and some seasoning then cooled it into a jelly.

  Jellied cow’s heel: a real taste of London.

  Garrod rooted through a shopping bag for some mint or parsley.

  68.

  Alison Dexter opened her eyes suddenly. They immediately stung terribly. The pain was insistent as if it was glued to her face.

  Glue.

  She tried to orientate herself. Her breathing became more rapid, and panicky. Her nose was blocked, her head forced backwards. Something was rammed into her mouth. Shallow, rasping breaths. Tightness across her face. Hard ground against her back.

  Glue.

  Cold glue was all around her; sucking at her, penetrating her. Pain seared against her tongue. Gasping for air. She was unable to move properly. Her head was forced backwards, upwards. She was breathing through a tube. It was some kind of snorkel.