Primal Cut (13 page)

‘What kind of keys are they?’ Kelsi asked.

‘It’s weird,’ Dexter replied. ‘They’re unusual but they look vaguely familiar. My guess is that they open a padlock or a safe. The design is odd though.’

Kelsi took the keys from Dexter. ‘I think they look more like keys that open a filing cabinet. We have those at work, I’m always losing the bloody things.’

‘Me too,’ Dexter agreed. ‘We have secure evidence lockers in CID. We keep case materials in them.’

A horrible realisation began to fall on Dexter’s mind like a shadow thrown by the rising sun. She reached across the table for her own key chain. Fumbling through the various different shaped keys she eventually found two silver keys to the CID evidence lockers. ‘There, they look like these don’t they?’

Kelsi looked at Dexter’s keys closely, comparing them with the ones from her garden. ‘Ali, they’re identical.’

‘They can’t be!’ Dexter looked again, her mind already seeking an explanation.

‘Your keys are marked with serial numbers.’ Kelsi squinted at the tiny digits. ‘2495 and 2496.’ She put down Dexter’s key chain and picked up the discovered keys. ‘These are numbered 2480 and 2481. They are from the same series. The same batch of keys.’

Dexter understood the significance of Kelsi’s comment: someone from New Bolden CID had been lurking in Kelsi Hensy’s back garden.

‘I’d better go,’ Dexter said without enthusiasm. ‘I need to check this out.’

‘Should I report this?’

‘Call the local plods. Tell them you saw someone in your garden. They’ll have a squad car do a drive by. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention me or the keys.’

‘I understand.’

Ten minutes later, dressed again in her work suit, Alison Dexter left Kelsi Hensy and wearily drove the short distance to New Bolden police station. CID was deserted when she entered and switched on the lights. The evidence lockers were kept in a small storage room on the far side of the floor. They were large, black metal cabinets numbered according to the key numbers. Dexter found 2480 and 2481 immediately. She unlocked 2480 with the keys that she had found. She withdrew the case summary sheet from the first folder: it referred to a burglary at Mount Pleasant retirement home. Dexter looked down to the bottom of the page: ‘Officer in Charge: J Underwood’. Horrified, Dexter then opened 2481 and repeated the exercise. It was the case file on the murder of Leonard Shaw: ‘Officer in Charge: J Underwood’.

Dexter tried frantically to seek an alternative explanation. She needed confirmation. A brief check of the key register that was stored upstairs in
the central administration office proved the point: CID Cabinet keys 2470–2490 were assigned to DI J Underwood.

Dexter returned to CID resolved to search Underwood’s desk and locker. He kept his office locked, but Dexter as the Senior CID Officer kept a master in her safe. At 11.15 p.m., frustrated and betrayed, she started to root through Underwood’s files and possessions.

At roughly the same moment, Underwood crashed back into his own flat on the east side of New Bolden. Exercise did not come easily to him; his chest burned with pain as he gasped for oxygen. It had been a close call. Thank God that he had seen the kitchen light flick on as Dexter opened the back door or else she would have had him. As it was, he was extremely fortunate that she had not decided to chase after him: his progress after the first adrenalin-driven hundred yards had been painful. He splashed water onto his face from the bathroom taps. He was confident that Dexter could not have recognised him given the lack of light and the distance between them. It had been a profoundly uncomfortable moment. Still, at the same time, it had exhilarated him.

Calming down, Underwood sat on a sofa in his living room. On his coffee table was the large file of material he had been compiling on Alison Dexter. Underwood didn’t like to think of himself as a stalker, though he realised that was how unkind souls might perceive him. He had begun by collecting information, rather as a child collects shells or models. Then, other motivations had taken over.

He had photocopied Dexter’s personnel file. This contained details of her record within the police service, listed her various commendations and promotions. It even contained an old passport-sized photo of her from her days at Hendon Police College. Underwood liked the picture: she was younger, of slightly fuller face and a softer complexion. A few weeks previously he had sent the small photo to a local artist who had used it as the base for an oil painting. It had cost Underwood one hundred and fifty pounds. The finished product now hung opposite his bed: his own oil portrait of Alison Dexter. He would often lie in bed, as the new light of morning reminded him of the lump growing in his chest, unable to face another day. The picture comforted him; more perhaps than its subject could have.

The file also contained the four manager reports he had written about her before she had replaced
him as the Senior Officer of New Bolden CID. Underwood liked to read them. He had described her in glowing terms: ‘a model police officer’, ‘highly intelligent’, ‘a gifted organiser’, ‘a courageous and intuitive detective’. He had even managed to purloin copies of the two reviews that Dexter had written about him since returning from his breakdown: ‘a popular officer’ was about as gushing as she had been about him. Underwood didn’t mind that.

Also in the file were photographs of Alison Dexter off duty. Underwood had initially been rather ashamed of following her about town on Saturday afternoons. He had pictures of her drinking a coffee alone at a table outside Starbucks in the market square; a picture of her in her gym kit outside New Bolden leisure centre; a Polaroid picture of her dropping off a blonde woman at a mews house the previous day. Underwood knew that Dexter had stayed over that night. He had no idea who the mystery blonde was. He had rather built his hopes on the notion that Dexter did not really have any friends outside of work. His mind had raced to all sorts of conclusions. Wriggling on a hook of his own creation, Underwood had returned to the same mews house that evening seeking clarification. What he had received instead was near arrest and public humiliation.

He turned a page in his file. Here there were news cuttings; records of cases that he and Dexter had worked on together. There was also a photograph clipped from the
New Bolden Echo
of Dexter standing outside Peterborough Crown Court. Underwood remembered Bartholomew Garrod’s deserted flat with old newspapers strewn all over the floor. The SOCO team had shown that Garrod had also clipped stories relating to DI Alison Dexter. Underwood wondered if there was a moral difference between their respective obsessions. He didn’t want to kill Dexter. He wanted to feel close to her. It was a form of love; he knew that.

However, Underwood was not delusional. He was not some tragic erotomaniac convinced that the object of his affection was also in love with him. It was precisely the opposite. It was precisely because Dexter patently did not love him that he had felt the desperate urge to cling onto whatever aspects of her that he could. If possessing a file of information about Alison Dexter was the closest he could get to possessing the real thing, then so be it.

It was harmless. It made him happy. Besides, he told himself, don’t proud parents keep photo albums and birth certificates and mementos once their children have left home? Or died? Underwood had obtained a photocopy of Dexter’s birth
certificate from the Public Record Office in London two months previously. He had felt more guilt in obtaining that than in following Dexter about New Bolden on her days off; or than in photographing her kissing another woman. If the hope of loving Alison Dexter had gone, at least he could read about her life, touch her photograph and invent memories and a future. He could share those memories too.

Garrod was different. Garrod wanted to kill her and consume her. Consumption was a form of possession too.

And yet, Underwood sensed that the man would torment her first.

It dawned a bright, crisp morning. Robert Sandway led Bartholomew Garrod out of his office down to the abattoir unloading area. A farm lorry was emptying cattle from its tailgate onto a ramp; the cattle moved on into the lairage area.

‘We are governed by very strict hygiene and welfare regulations now,’ Sandway said above the din of clattering hooves. ‘The ramp for example needs to be of a certain height. Apparently, animals don’t like sudden drops.’

‘They get skittish after long journeys too,’ Garrod replied. ‘Wobbly on their feet. Pigs scream too.’

‘Quite.’ Sandway pointed at the surface of the ramp. ‘This has to be a “non-slip” surface now, by law. So the cattle don’t fall down. However, hygiene rules say that we have to hose the urine and faeces off it regularly. Slipping can still be a problem.’

Garrod noticed that the unloading bay was covered by corrugated iron.

‘I’m surprised this is undercover.’

‘Welfare rules again. That is to protect animals from adverse weather. How ridiculous can you get? We’ll be made to provide psychiatrists for them next. Are fields covered?’

Sandway walked Garrod around to the side entrance to the lairage room, a bleak box of concrete and steel. It was filled with patient and uncertain cattle divided up into pens. After the chaos of the unloading area, Garrod found the room calming.

‘Again,’ Sandway was saying, ‘the floor is crossridged to reduce slippage. The whole lairage is drained and kept very clean. No animal waste or blood is allowed to stay in here. If you look at the far end you can see the passageways that lead the animals up to the stunning pens.’

They edged along the side of the pens. Garrod peered down one of the concrete passages. ‘Why are the tunnels curved? I can’t see the end.’

Sandway smiled. ‘That’s the point really. If they were straight the animals might be nervous if they could see the stunning process take place. Also we find that cattle are naturally curious: if the races are curved they want to walk down them to see what’s at the other end. I suppose it’s a kind of abattoir psychology. You’ll notice they are narrow enough to prevent cattle turning around.’

‘Yes. Once they go in, they ain’t coming out again,’ Garrod nodded.

‘Not in one piece anyway.’ Sandway led Garrod out of the lairage room and into the stunning area. Here the cattle emerged from their curved concrete races to be secured one at a time in the stunning pens.

‘The animals can’t be stunned in sight of each other.’ Sandway peered into the nearest pen where a large Friesian cow was about to encounter a bolt gun. ‘Here you are, George. You can watch. The guy with the gun is Rick. That’s Lee over there.’

Garrod knew the procedure. He had used a similar method on Alan Moran seven years ago. A slaughterman leaned over the cow and pressed a captive bolt pistol against the centre of an imaginary cross on the animal’s forehead. There was a sharp ‘crack’ as the steel bolt fired into the front of the cow’s brain.

‘You use the penetrative bolts then?’ Garrod asked Rick the slaughterman.

‘That’s right mate. More effective.’

Garrod looked as the cow fell down onto its knees, its jaw dropping open allowing a huge pink roll to fall out on one side. Rick pulled down on a lever. The side of the pen opened and the stunned animal slid onto a conveyer belt. Immediately, Lee locked a shackle around one of the cow’s rear legs.
The animal was quickly hoisted into the air and, as it dangled above the floor of the stunning area, Lee cut into its throat, blood streaming into a drainage duct. The whole process had taken less than a minute.

‘You stick them in the jugular furrow?’ Garrod asked Lee.

‘Yeah mate. Just at the base of the neck. You get all the fucking big veins and arteries in one go. Using the penetrative bolt gun, I’ve got 60 seconds to get the big bastard up and bled before we start breaking the law.’

Next, Sandway showed Garrod the slaughter hall. Here the dead animals were gutted, sawn and carved into meat cuts. It was an impressive operation.

‘I want you in here today, George,’ Sandway added. ‘As I said, hygiene is our major watchword. I want you to ensure the slaughter hall is kept immaculate today. Our normal hall cleaner is away today. The hoses and brushes are in the cupboard over there – I’ll get you a key – clean waterproofs are hanging in that little room on the right.’

Garrod was disappointed: he wanted to be cutting.

‘Maybe we can find you something more interesting tomorrow,’ said Sandway remembering his new employee was a trained butcher.

Garrod kitted up and worked efficiently through the morning. He kept himself to himself, not wanting to attract attention. He ensured that the drainage channels were kept clear and flowing red, he continually mopped the slaughter hall floor with disinfectant; he brushed splinters of bone from the electric sawing area into his pan. He managed to work up a good sweat. By mid-morning one of the team of cutters had attracted his attention: he was young, perhaps not much older than twenty. The other workers called him ‘Damo’.

Garrod watched him closely. Damo was a clumsy cutter. He was third in line. Damo’s job was to gut the carcasses. Unfortunately, he was a careless worker. Even from a distance Garrod could see him swinging his knife with the misplaced confidence of youth, gouging a savage incision from the udder of the upended cow to the heart of its ribcage. Garrod had watched in fascination as the four stomachs and intestines spilled out of the dead animals. Then he saw that Damo was cutting too deep. His knife was actually tearing open the digestive organs. Garrod knew that the reticulum contained a high density of bacteria and gas. Sometimes, usually due to exuberance or lack of concentration, Damo was piercing the reticulum. This sent a high-pressure spurt of stomach contents onto the conveyer belt, often directly onto the primal cuts of meat. This
was a serious disease risk. At lunchtime Garrod explained his concerns to Sandway.

‘Thank you, George,’ his new boss said. ‘I’ll pop by this afternoon and have a look myself. Let’s keep this between ourselves for the moment.’

At 2 p.m. Garrod noticed Sandway ghost in through the rear entrance to the slaughter hall. Damo and the others worked on, oblivious to the presence of their boss. Garrod watched carefully, hoping that Damo would repeat his error to an audience. After about five minutes, Damo cut too deeply into a cow. Brown liquid spat down the forelimb of the dead animal. Sandway had seen enough. He crossed the hall and activated the speaker system: ‘Stop cutting please!’ he ordered, his electronically enhanced voice echoing around the hall.

Sandway crossed the floor to Damo.

‘Do you know what you just did, Lewin?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You just sprayed stomach acid, fungi, protozoa and probably E. coli all over a cut of meat. That meat is about to be packed and sent to a supermarket. What you’ve done could kill someone. That would put me out of business.’

‘I didn’t do nothing,’ Damo said confused by his boss’s aggression.

‘I just saw you,’ Sandway asserted. ‘You were talking to Callum there. You weren’t looking at what you were doing.’

There was an uneasy silence amongst the slaughtermen. Most felt that Sandway was being excessively harsh. However, after salmonella, foot-and-mouth and CJD had entered the human food chain and decimated the industry, they all knew that their work was more tightly regulated than ever. Nobody spoke. They awaited Sandway’s judgement.

Sandway was unrepentant: ‘I want you off the cutting floor. Clean yourself up and tell Ozzie in packaging to swap positions for the rest of the day. Come to my office after work.’

Garrod watched impassively.

She had ignored him all morning. Underwood worked quietly in his office, oblivious to the fact that Dexter had checked through all his files until one-thirty the previous morning. Alison Dexter hadn’t found much during that time. However, she had discovered a notebook that listed times when she had arrived and left the office, even when she had used the toilet. Another notebook contained
information about her movements out of work; it even had Kelsi Hensy’s address scrawled on the inside back cover.

Underwood had been keeping a record of her life. Information given on previous pages suggested that he had been following her for months. The front page contained a peculiar list of dates stretching back about six months, each date approximately four weeks after the preceding one. Dexter had stared at them for a moment in confusion. The first date was her birthday; 1st May. The others seemed to have no meaning. Then she remembered. She had had her period on her birthday. She had made an ill-judged joke about it to Underwood. She checked the dates again. They roughly corresponded to her menstrual cycle. The revelation spiralled in Dexter’s brain. She knew that Underwood was something of a ‘fruit loop’ as McInally had called him. However, she had never expected him to derail completely. What on earth was he trying to do? Her mind had tried to sustain its defining logical momentum through the cloud of his betrayal. Now, the morning after a night of hideous surprises, Dexter watched her former boss through the glass wall that separated them, wondering what on earth she would do with him.

Her meeting with Roger Leach began at 9.30 a.m. Underwood and Mike Bevan joined them. Leach was characteristically to the point.

‘The DNA profiles match. I compared the DNA sample taken from the AB negative blood splashes on Shaw with the profile of Raymond Garrod from the “Primal Cut” case file. We inherit half of our chromosomes from each of our parents.’ Leach handed a photocopy of the two DNA profiles across to Dexter. ‘Now those charts might not mean much to you. In cases like this we look for similarities at certain key points in the DNA sequence.’

‘DNA markers?’ Underwood asked.

‘That’s right.’ Leach handed out three copies of another sheet of paper on which he had printed the following table:

‘Now,’ Leach continued, ‘you’ll see that there is at least one match at each of the ten genetic markers. It’s incontrovertible proof. The man who killed Leonard Shaw was Raymond Garrod’s brother.’

So that was it. Bartholomew Garrod’s reappearance was now a verifiable scientific fact: one quantifiable in a series of black bars and numbers printed on two sheets of A4 paper. Alison Dexter was prepared for this realisation. Her instincts were rarely wrong. However, seeing the stark numbers in front of her was an unsettling experience. The middle column of numbers was the genetic blueprint of the man who wanted to destroy her.

Underwood struggled to find a crumb of comfort. ‘At least we now know it’s him. We can put up posters and photofits; do a proper manhunt. That’s if he’s still here of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s done a bunk.’

Bevan nodded. ‘He’s survived for years on the run. He obviously knows that he’s vulnerable after the Leonard Shaw killing. John might be right. This guy hasn’t evaded capture for all this time by staying in one place.’

Dexter wanted to agree but her intuition told her otherwise. She was finding it hard to keep a lid on her anger at Underwood. He was apparently oblivious to the fact that she had unearthed his seedy little hobby. Dexter decided to be malicious.
‘John, could you go and get the case file on Leonard Shaw? I want to re-read it.’

Underwood frowned. ‘Now?’

‘Yes please.’

Trodden on, confused by the edge in Dexter’s voice, Underwood left the office fumbling in his pocket for the cabinet keys that Dexter knew were not there.

‘There is something else that you should know,’ Leach continued. ‘This blood sample – we can now safely assume that it’s Bartholomew Garrod’s – is HIV positive.’

Now it was Dexter’s turn to look surprised. ‘You’re kidding me?’

‘No. He is carrying the virus. It does not seem to have become activated. He probably doesn’t even know he’s got it. I doubt he visits a GP regularly.’

Dexter sat back in her chair. At the other end of the department, she could see Underwood groping uselessly in his pockets for the missing keys. She felt great pleasure in observing his discomfort. A moment later he was back in her office.

‘Alison, could I borrow your master key? I’ve left my set at home.’

Dexter reached into her drawer and withdrew her key chain. She tossed it across to him. ‘You’ve got to be careful, John. Those case files are confidential. You lose your keys and any Tom,
Dick or Harry could mess with them.’

Embarrassed at his humiliation in front of Leach and Bevan, Underwood restricted his response to a guilty nod.

Leach watched him go. ‘How’s he doing these days?’ he asked Dexter.

‘Don’t ask. So Garrod’s at large carrying HIV?’

‘That’s right.’

Dexter could hardly imagine a more terrifying scenario. ‘Mind you, thinking about it, we shouldn’t be surprised. Is there a chance the disease could be activated? Is nature likely to help us out?’

Leach shrugged. ‘There’s no certainty of that. Some people carry it for years.’

‘So we need a plan.’ Dexter looked up as Underwood returned bearing the Shaw case file.

‘Here we are,’ he said, slightly breathlessly, ‘as requested.’

‘Put it on the desk,’ Dexter instructed, avoiding Underwood’s eye. He began to sense something was wrong.