Primal Cut
Page 29
‘Unlikely,’ Dexter mused. ‘In any case, I did a Police Records Check on him a few years ago and it turned up nothing.’
There was no emotion in her voice to help him. Underwood tried to consider his options. His instincts told him that Alison Dexter would accept McInally’s offer and return to Leyton CID. If that happened, then his last tenuous grip on her life would be torn away. It suddenly occurred to him that the decision was not his to make. In his experience, Alison Dexter’s cold logic rarely let her down. His duty, as her friend, was simply to present her with all the available information. If he truly loved her, he would have to trust her to use that information properly. Only she could judge her interests. He would have to let go.
Underwood turned into Leytonstone High Road.
‘You’ve got a bit lost,’ Dexter observed, recognising some local landmarks. ‘Take a right at the next lights.’
Underwood’s heart raced. ‘Alison, I need to make a stop. It’s only a few minutes out of our way.’
‘A stop where?’ she asked, unable to fathom what possible connection Underwood could have with Leytonstone.
‘Trust me,’ he said without looking at her.
Underwood followed a black cab to the traffic lights. He turned left instead of right then crossed the next two sets of roundabouts. A few moments later he pulled up outside the Beech View Care Centre in Wilding Road.
‘What’s this place then?’ Dexter asked, peering through the passenger window.
Underwood wondered for a moment how to answer. ‘I want you to know that whatever happens, whether you stay in New Bolden or go back to London, you are not alone.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Underwood climbed out of the car and walked towards the building. Leaves swirled on the ground. The cold, dry London wind scraped at his throat. Dexter joined him at the front entrance to the building.
‘John, what is going on?’
Underwood didn’t reply. He pushed open the door to the Beech View Care Centre and stepped inside. Hannah looked up from the reception desk.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Underwood,’ she said brightly, ‘nice to see you again.’
‘You too, Hannah,’ Underwood said. ‘Is it all right if we go up?’
‘No problem. He’s awake. He’s listening to one of those football phone-ins on the radio.’
‘Thank you.’
Underwood headed up the stairs with Alison Dexter snapping at his heels.
‘John, are you going to give me a straight answer or not?’ she asked irritably. ‘You are beginning to freak me out. I though that we’d decided to be straight with each other.’
‘You are a very suspicious person. You have to be more trusting.’
‘Oh! That’s rich coming from you,’ she snorted. ‘You are the most cynical old sod I’ve ever met.’
They arrived at the first floor landing. Underwood led her to room seven. He turned to face her lowering his voice to a whisper as he spoke.
‘You need to be strong, Alison.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Underwood pushed open the door. The room was small and square with whitewashed walls. An old man lay on a bed in the centre of the room. Alison Dexter found herself looking into a pair of familiar green eyes.
‘Hello, Alison,’ said Gary Dexter softly.
Dexter found herself standing in stunned silence inside the little bedroom. The radio babbled. The pale, tired face in front of her concealed a person that she recognised. Slowly her mind broke down and reformed the man’s features into those of the father she barely knew.
‘I always said you’d turn out to be a right heartbreaker,’ he said.
Unable to respond, conscious of tears building behind her eyes, Alison Dexter turned to John Underwood for an explanation.
But he had gone.
78.
Outside, Leytonstone was laughing at him. People pushed past him on the pavement as he walked. Minutes slipped into oblivion. He wondered at the monstrosity he had become. Bartholomew Garrod had physically consumed his victims, assimilated their primal cuts into his own being. Was he any different? He had tried to absorb Alison Dexter’s life, her very personality, the essence of her being into himself. Love is the ultimate act of consumption. There were dark holes in his soul that he had desperately hoped she would fill. He had wanted to feel her strength, intelligence and fire within him as if they would burn away the cancers that dwelled there.
In the cold hard reality of that East London evening, Underwood could see the folly of his actions. Redemption was uniquely personal. His unrequited love, his failed consumption of Alison Dexter, had merely debased him further: it created more questions than it answered. Now it seemed that she would leave him altogether and return to the city that had fashioned her. Terrible though that prospect was to him, it did resolve the equation that had been infecting his thought processes. If she left his life there would truly be nothing in it worth clinging onto. That thought came not as a dark revelation but as a relief.
An hour passed. Underwood found himself back in Wilding Road. He tried to find consolation in the concrete rolling beneath him. At least her memories of him would be positive. At least he had shown the courage to let her go. In the darkest moments of the decay that lay ahead of him he could find some solace in that act of selflessness. It might be the only redemption he could hope for.
Alison Dexter was waiting for him by his car. He could see she had been crying. Her face was streaked and exhausted. Underwood felt a surge of shame as he sensed her pain and shock. He stood directly in front of her unable to find any words. It was obvious to him that he had said and done enough.
Without speaking, Alison Dexter suddenly enfolded her arms around him. Underwood was uncertain how to react. He stood awkwardly as she hung onto him in the quiet desolation of the roadside. He began to feel the warmth of her body streaming into him, filling the dark spaces, cauterising the cancers inside. Perhaps he could find sustenance in a friendship. Perhaps it could feed him with the will to fight.
And perhaps, in the months of adjustment and renewal that lay ahead, Alison Dexter might even begin to find some small comfort in him.
For John Underwood, that was the most encouraging thought of all.
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About the Author
ED O’CONNOR studied History at Cambridge University before moving over to Oxford University to take an MPhil in International Relations. He then worked in London and New York as an investment banker but left to concentrate on his writing. In 2002 his first novel, The Yeare’s Midnight, was published by Constable and Robinson and was followed in 2003 by Acid Lullaby, both of which were shortlisted for awards. Now working as the Head of the History department at a local school, Ed lives in Maidstone, Kent, with his wife and two young daughters.
Also by Ed O’Connor
The Yeare’s Midnight
Acid Lullaby
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
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First published in 2008.
This ebook edition first published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2015.
Copyright © 2008 by Ed O’Connor
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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p; All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1898–6