Primal Cut

by Ed O'Connor

  Dexter tried to move her tongue away from the pipe that was jammed against it. She sucked desperately for air.

  Where was she? Her wrists were tied. Her legs were drawn up in front of her, knees together. She could move them slightly. Dexter tried to lift her head. The pipe scraped against the inside of her mouth. She tasted blood.

  Buried alive.

  The awful thought exploded in her mind. Garrod had buried her alive. Had he cut her? She tried to assess her body. She twitched as many muscles as she could. Everything still seemed functional. Was she underwater? Dexter had the strange sense of her legs almost floating. Her arms met with gluey resistance as she tried to move them. With her feet and shoulders she felt out the limits of her confinement. Blood ran into the back of her throat. She tried to swallow it away.

  Had he left her? Had Garrod sunk her into some swamp or cesspit? Feeding her with oxygen until the tube was blocked or sunk into the mud? The thought terrified her. She tried again to lift her head. Something pressed down heavily upon it. Hard ground pressed through the plastic underneath her into the small of her back. The pain was growing. She had pins and needles tingling in her feet.

  Movement was impossible. Dexter tried desperately to think through her situation. To apply logic to the horrible suspension in which she now found herself. Rotting into glue was a thought that terrified her: better he came back and finished her off. At least then, she would go down fighting. The idea of being left to suck frantically at life until the will deserted you was almost too hideous for her to contemplate.

  Then she realised that she was naked. The disgust she felt at the idea that Garrod had stripped or molested her while she was unconscious was quickly outweighed by another possibility: the possibility that he had stripped her for another reason. Dexter tried to think of explanations as she squirmed against the slippery walls of her captivity.

  Then she remembered Underwood’s strange suggestion that Garrod had a taste for honey.

  She was being glazed.

  69.

  Underwood was sitting in Dexter’s office at New Bolden CID. His initial despair had been replaced with a grim resolve. He would kill Bartholomew Garrod himself. He would dedicate his life to hunting the man down and discharging a shotgun cartridge into his face. Underwood tried hard not to think of what Garrod might, at that moment, be doing to Alison Dexter. Perhaps Garrod would not kill her immediately. The man had waited years to find Dexter, surely he would want to relish his victory. Maybe there was still time before she died. Underwood wondered if that was a good or a bad thing for Alison Dexter.

  Harrison joined him in the office.

  ‘Sorry it’s taken so long, Guv. We had to put the CCTV tapes onto VHS format. Our equipment is so fucking slow. I’ve seen most of the footage. It’s not great,’ he said bitterly.

  Underwood unlocked the TV and video cabinet that Dexter kept in her office. ‘That’s OK. Let’s slam it in and see what it caught.’

  Harrison inserted the video and pressed play. After a brief moment, a black and white image of the road in front of Peterborough Court Centre appeared before them.

  ‘Right,’ Harrison said, ‘we’ve wound the tape to start about a minute before the attack on Kemp. That’s his motorbike to the far left of the shot.’

  People and traffic criss-crossed in front of the camera. Underwood leaned forward. The footage was of poor quality. He instinctively sensed that the exercise would be futile.

  Harrison pointed at the TV screen. ‘There’s Dexter and Kemp heading down the steps.’ He pressed pause on the VCR and the image froze. ‘Now look at the bottom of the picture. This guy in the jacket and baseball cap is Kemp’s assailant.’

  ‘OK.’ Underwood could see the individual in question.

  Harrison restarted the video. The man in the baseball cap crossed through the traffic almost immediately that Dexter and Kemp split up and headed in opposite directions. Dexter disappeared out of the right of the shot. Underwood wondered if he would ever see her again. He refocused on Kemp, now standing at his motorcycle.

  ‘Now,’ Harrison explained, ‘baseball cap man confronts Kemp at his motorcycle. Unfortunately we can’t see their faces or hear the exchange.’

  Underwood watched the images unfold in front of him. He tensed as he saw the baseball cap man suddenly swing something viciously into Kemp’s face. Kemp reeled backwards. His assailant continued the assault.

  ‘Kemp gets a boot in the head for his trouble here,’ Harrison murmured, ‘then our boy does a runner.’

  On the screen, the baseball cap man turned back towards the camera and ran across the road.

  ‘There,’ Underwood said, ‘stop it there.’

  Harrison obliged. The grainy image of Kemp’s mysterious attacker appeared in front of them. It was a poor shot. The camera was too far away. The man’s features were too indistinct.

  Underwood peered at the picture. ‘Who are you, you bastard?’

  Harrison said it for him. ‘It could be anyone, Guv. The picture is shit.’

  Underwood could feel despair rising again in his throat. ‘Can we get a still from the video? One of the forensic boys must be able to blow up this image, clean it up a bit possibly.’

  ‘I’ll take the tape downstairs,’ Harrison agreed. ‘They should be able to work something up.’

  He hurried from the office a moment later. Underwood tried hard to understand the footage he had just seen. It was clearly a coordinated attack. Kemp had been liquidated to isolate Dexter. That clearly took a degree of organisation. Underwood found the notion confusing. It was not Garrod’s typical modus operandi to involve others. Serial murderers worked alone. That was one of the basic characteristics of the beast.

  Underwood opened Dexter’s ‘Primal Cut’ case file. He flicked through the neatly typed pages, wincing at some of the pictures that the then DS Alison Dexter had seen fit to include. He realised quickly that Garrod had been unusual: atypical in terms of his assaults. Forensic evidence from the ‘Primal Cut’ murders had also implicated Raymond Garrod. Bartholomew had clearly been the organisational force behind the killings but he had not worked alone. The Garrod brothers had murdered and eaten their victims together. Underwood sensed that the two men must have had a terrifically strong bond. That kind of closeness was impossible to replicate. However, he had just seen photographic evidence that the abduction of Alison Dexter involved two men. Who would Garrod entrust with such a vital responsibility? It had to be somebody he could trust implicitly; somebody that he could exert control over; somebody with a vested interest in the successful completion of the project.

  His mind ran up against an impenetrable wall. Trying to understand the motives of madmen had driven him distracted in the past; rendered him unable to function effectively in normal society. Underwood’s mind was supple and flexible. He had the ability to squeeze it into the empty shapes made by madness. Unfortunately, those shapes left imprints. Sometimes, the distortions caused his logical mind to founder: like traffic slowing to observe an accident. He realised that his understanding of Bartholomew Garrod was limited. His investigation, without the clarity and insight of Alison Dexter, was in danger of breaking down altogether. He looked up at the clock. It was 5 p.m. Underwood feared that time was running out.

  70.

  Henry Braun had spent the afternoon in a state of heightened excitement. Firstly, he had driven directly from the Peterborough Court Centre to visit his brother Nick at Bunden Prison outside Cambridge. Although he feared that their conversation might be taped, Henry could not resist hinting to his brother about his impending enterprise.

  ‘I’ve got a bird lined up tonight,’ he whispered to his brother through the glass that separated them.

  ‘Is that supposed to cheer me up?’ asked Nicholas Braun bitterly. ‘Because it don’t.’

  ‘It will cheer you up.’ Henry desperately wanted to tell his brother about his part in the abduction of Alison Dexter. He managed to restrain himself. ‘It’s someo
ne you know.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your least favourite bitch,’ Henry said with a wink.

  Nicholas Braun thought his brother had gone mad. ‘What are you talking about? Don’t come here if you’re going to talk shit.’

  ‘Listen you twat,’ Henry muttered, ‘let’s just say I will be putting a few things to rights on your behalf. Remember you told me about that bloke who wrote to you? George Francis. Me and him have worked something out.’

  Nicholas shrugged. ‘Whatever mate. I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  ‘I’ll bring you some pictures. Then you’ll see what I mean.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ said Nicholas Braun without emotion, his mind flashing between irritation with his brother and the look on the face of his final victim when she realised what was about to happen to her. Prison gave you time to dwell on happy reminiscences.

  ‘You’ll just have to trust me, Nick,’ Henry advised. ‘You won’t be disappointed.’

  ‘Unless you are going to spring me out of here or bring me the head of that dyke copper on a silver platter, I can’t see how you can avoid disappointing me.’

  Henry Braun winked at his brother.

  Nicholas frowned until the penny finally dropped.

  Once he had returned home to Gorton Row, Henry Braun had found that time passed too slowly. Garrod had specified a location near Craxten Fen and a time to be there. However, during the drag of an unemployed Wednesday afternoon when boredom and sex soak through men’s tired minds like honey, he became irritable and fidgety. He consoled himself with two cans of Special Brew and a bacon sandwich. Janice Braun watched him with her usual mixture of contempt and awe. She wanted to hate her brother-in-law but the pills wouldn’t let her. They just made her sleepy and desensitised.

  The clock crawled at a snail’s pace. Henry Braun had a shower at 6.30 p.m. The infection was surging inside him: virulent with hatred and fizzy with beer.

  71.

  DS Harrison found Underwood staring out of the window of Alison Dexter’s office as if he was looking into the black depths of his own failure.

  ‘Guv. We have the still picture.’

  Underwood turned without speaking and took the A4 sized photograph from Harrison.

  ‘The boys tried to clean the image up but it’s not much better really,’ Harrison continued.

  Underwood nodded. They could at least now see some of the man’s features. It was impossible to tell his hair colour but the picture was good enough that somebody might recognise it. There was something familiar about it.

  ‘Let’s circulate it,’ Underwood said. ‘Try to get it on the regional TV news. Get copies for the uniform monkeys and all our people. We’ll make some posters up then distribute them all over town.’

  Underwood looked again at the photograph. ‘Does he look familiar to you? I’m sure I’ve seen this face before.’

  Harrison looked harder at the picture. ‘I don’t know. I did have one thought on the way up but it won’t help.’

  ‘What thought?’ Underwood asked.

  ‘It won’t help, Guv,’ Harrison insisted.

  ‘Tell me,’ Underwood requested, ‘we’ve got nothing else.’

  Harrison shrugged. ‘Give me the picture.’

  Underwood placed the photograph on the desk in front of him.

  Harrison placed his left hand over the white baseball cap so that only the face of Kemp’s attacker was visible. ‘Forget the hat, who does that remind you of?’

  ‘Nobody. What’s in your mind, Joe?’

  ‘I think that looks like Nicholas Braun.’

  ‘The rapist?’ Underwood looked again at the photograph. ‘But he’s banged up.’

  ‘I told you it was a waste of time.’

  Underwood peered at the image on the desk before him. The more he looked, the more the face began to resemble the dark, mean features of Nicholas Braun. He tried to make them into something else, some other face that he could fix and identify. The shapes moved in front him. He was infuriated with himself and the cruel absurdity of his universe. Garrod was most likely – at that very moment – tearing up Alison Dexter for the sake of his lost brother. The best Underwood could do in response was to gawp at a photograph.

  Lost brother.

  ‘Oh fucking hell, Joe,’ he said as realisation dawned brightly and painfully in his mind. ‘Get me Nicholas Braun’s case file.’

  72.

  It was eleven p.m. She had been marinating for over eight hours. She was still alive. Garrod had finished chopping onions and peppers. He left them in a covered dish ready for frying. He had opened two bottles of red wine to breathe. His preparations were almost complete. His cutting knives were aligned on the kitchen table, his cooking pans were greased, the table laid for dinner. There was one major job remaining. Garrod went outside and scrambled around in the back of his van for the meat hook that he had stolen from Sandway’s abattoir. He found three appropriately sized screws in a hospital storage cupboard and returned to the kitchen. He stood on a chair and drilled into the top of the kitchen doorframe. It took him about ten minutes to fix the meat hook securely to the frame. She would hang from the hook and bleed into the washing up bowl beneath it. He hoped that the wood was strong enough to hold her weight.

  73.

  At the same time, Underwood and Harrison sat in an unmarked police car opposite the terraced houses of Gorton Row in Peterborough.

  ‘The Brauns lived in the end terrace,’ Harrison pointed out. ‘What a shit tip this street is.’

  Underwood stared through the windscreen. The house had no front garden and he doubted whether there was any privacy at the back. Moreover, there was no sign of a transit van fitting the description of Garrod’s vehicle previously given to them by Robert Sandway. It didn’t look very promising. Harrison’s radio buzzed.

  ‘Sergeant, we have eyes on the suspect,’ said DI Lisa Armstrong, one of the two Armed Response Officers seconded from Huntingdon. They had both been ordered to approach Braun’s premises from the rear. They were clearly in position.

  ‘What do you see?’ Harrison asked.

  A crackle and fizz of radio white noise filled the car.

  ‘Male suspect and female sitting in living room. TV on. No one else visible,’ Armstrong replied.

  Underwood felt energy and hope draining from his body. Perhaps his hunch about Henry Braun had been wrong. Harrison was thinking similar thoughts.

  ‘What do you want to do, Guv?’ he asked quietly. ‘You want us to go in?’

  Underwood couldn’t bring himself to answer. They had no grounds for entry other than a grainy CCTV photo image that, in truth, might have been anybody.

  ‘Fuck!’ Underwood slammed his hands against the steering wheel in frustration.

  The radio crackled again. ‘Male suspect standing. Suspect moving to front of the house. We have lost visual contact.’

  Underwood looked up as the front of 11 Gorton Row opened. Henry Braun walked out of his brother’s house into the cold Cambridgeshire air.

  ‘He’s on the move,’ said Harrison quietly.

  Braun unlocked his battered white Ford Sierra and climbed inside. His headlights suddenly filled the street ahead of them. The car began to pull away. Underwood made an instant decision. He started his own car and, without turning on his headlights, pulled out into the street behind the Sierra. Harrison called in this information to the ARU team.

  ‘ARU1 we are on the move. Get yourselves mobile. Suspect is heading south on Muldon Street. Looks like he’s heading out of town. We are in pursuit. Head south and we will advise further.’

  ‘Will do,’ Armstrong replied, gesturing for her partner DS Murphy to join her.

  Underwood hung back as far as he dared from the Sierra as it picked up speed in the outer limits of Peterborough then raced south-east towards Cambridge. He allowed another car to overtake him, obscuring him from Braun’s rear view mirror. The Sierra was cutting through the dark at eighty miles per hour.


  ‘He’s in a big hurry,’ Harrison observed.

  Underwood nodded. ‘Advise the ARU to head for Cambridge.’

  His eyes fixed unwaveringly on the road ahead.

  Garrod was ready. It was almost time to start cooking. He opened the back door and headed out into the darkness. His excitement was intense. Other than two slices of bread and jam, he had hardly eaten all day. He had deliberately worked up a ferocious appetite. The breathing tube still poked up from the honey pit. Garrod heaved the sack of concrete away from the pit and lifted the tabletop. In the moonlight the molasses appeared jet-black. He reached down into the cold syrupy pool and slid his right arm under Alison Dexter’s legs. She wriggled in shock, trying forlornly to squirm away from him. He slid his left arm underneath her back and hauled her naked body up from the pit. Molasses slid from her skin onto the ground, smearing against his shirt. Dexter writhed and twisted in his arms, gasping at her breathing tube, trying to open her eyes through the sugary glue that had enclosed them. It was like trying to hold an eel but he managed.

  Braun’s Sierra turned right at a country crossroads. Harrison looked at his map.

  ‘Looks like Craxten or Sawtry, Guv,’ he observed. ‘You think he’s meeting Garrod at the abattoir?’

  ‘Unlikely,’ Underwood replied. ‘My bet is on a private address. High fences. Nice and quiet.’

  The ARU unit was apparently about five minutes behind them. Underwood began to wonder what his move would be when they arrived. If Braun met up with Garrod, he would have to intervene as quickly as possible. However, Underwood’s previous encounter with Garrod had demonstrated that he would be unable to do much to stop the man. Unless he could cause some sort of distraction, delay the process until the ARU turned up. A signpost saying ‘Craxten 2’ flashed by on their left. He needed a plan quickly.

  Henry Braun was too excited to consider checking his mirrors. The prospect of what lay in store was filling his imagination. Once he’d passed the village of Craxten, Braun slowed until the narrow track that led to the hospital appeared on his left. He drove slowly down the overgrown lane until the massive, desolate sprawl of Craxten Fen Psychiatric Hospital loomed ahead of him. He drew up at the gap in the steel fence that Garrod had described to him and then fumbled his possessions – camera, KY jelly, towel – into a rucksack.