Primal Cut (27 page)

Garrod lifted John Underwood’s body into a strong, yellow refuse sack. He added a heavy chunk of stone paving that he had pulled up from the pathway. He placed that sack inside another and tied it tightly at the top. Having loaded Underwood into his van, Garrod then drove down a dirt track to the disused jetty south of the Great Oakley sewage works. He pulled the heavy bundle from the back of his transit van, slung it over his shoulder and marched to the end of the small pier. It jutted out about twenty yards into the black waters of Oakley Creek.

He did not delay. In the distance, Garrod thought he could hear the wail of a police siren. He took an almighty swing and hurled the weighted sack into
the water. Gratifyingly, it sank immediately. The sirens were getting louder. Garrod climbed back into his van and drove, with his lights off, south until he hit the track that led to Old Moze Hall. He immediately turned right past the hall itself and onto the Harwich Road.

Underwood hovered at the edge of consciousness. He was aware of cold, of a sinking sensation and that he was short of air. Pain burned across the front of his face. He couldn’t move. Disorientated. Was he dead? A terrible sadness surged behind his eyes. He had died without saying goodbye.

His mind was falling in on itself. So this was how it was to be: falling into the cold of eternity. Images flickered at him: Alison Dexter, the monstrous shape of Bartholomew Garrod. There were pains in his head, radiating throbbing pains. Underwood had thought himself reconciled to death. He had previously resigned himself to comfortable decay in the strangulating arms of cancer. Now death had immediacy, a cold plummeting immediacy.

He began to panic. He could feel the plastic walls of his incarceration. He tried to kick out but couldn’t. Gagging now, air deserting him. His hands were beneath him. Terror. Underwood saw in the moment of his suffocation that he was terrified of dying. He desperately tried to move his hands.
He
scrabbled vainly at the dense plastic that encapsulated him. Where was he? He thrashed vainly at the plastic sacks in a frightened, instinctive panic to be reborn, to be forgiven, to be alive.

Then his right hand touched the cheese knife in his pocket. The sinking had stopped. The bags had come to rest. Underwood began to sense what had happened to him. Time was short. His breaths were becoming more rapid, more panicky as oxygen disappeared from the refuse sacks that imprisoned him. He fumbled in his pocket for the knife, cursing the evidence bag that he had placed it in. Finally, he could feel its sharp, cold edge between his fingers. He lunged as best he could for the walls of his entombment. The knife pierced a hole, Underwood tried to drag it downwards. Freezing water tore into the bags.

In a second, his air had gone. He thrust frantically with the knife, tearing and ripping the plastic shells around him. His lungs were burning. Underwood tried to drive with his legs but the plastic held him. He waved the knife blindly above him; his strength fading into the silent chill of the water.

He pushed again and suddenly he was free. Underwood drove upwards as powerfully as his weakened body would allow. His chest, desperate for air, contracted involuntarily. He drew silty
water
into his lungs. Panicking and in agony his head finally broke the surface of the water after nearly two minutes’ immersion. He gasped and choked, coughing the filthy water from his body. His eyes tried to focus on the jetty. It was about ten yards away. He kicked hard until his arms grabbed and hung onto the wooden leg of the little pier.

He was alive. Underwood gripped the wooden beam with all his remaining strength as he tried to understand what had happened to him. Water lapped at the sides of his face. It stank of shit. His broken nose raged angrily at him. Underwood didn’t care. He could hear sirens; police sirens and they were nearby. The lights of another container ship slid across the distant water. He hung in the darkness and stared, as if hypnotised.

He had chosen to live. Despite all his petty-minded, self-destructive bullshit, all the mental agonies he had imposed on himself and others, when the moment of choice had come, he had chosen life. In the freezing, black waters of the North Sea on Monday 21
^st
October 2002, John Underwood had wanted to survive.

As his breath and strength returned, Underwood looked up and around him. There was no sign of Garrod. When he was confident enough to move, Underwood let go of the wooden beam, turned and swam for the shore.

Bartholomew Garrod drove west on the A133 towards Colchester and eventually picked up the A604, the road that would take him back to Cambridgeshire. He was careful to keep within the speed limits. He knew that there would be traffic police about and he did not want to attract attention. He twiddled the tuning dial on his radio seeking out an old tune to keep him company. He tuned noisily through thumping house music and the news before he found a Sinatra tune he could tap along to. There was a bar of chocolate in his pocket that he had bought at a service station earlier. He unwrapped it with one hand as he drove. It was delicious. Bartholomew Garrod had always possessed a sweet tooth. Alison Dexter would find that out soon enough.

His dishes clattered in the back of his van as Garrod chewed happily.

At 9.53 p.m. that night, Dexter crashed through the entrance of the Accident and Emergency wing of Colchester Hospital. She showed her police ID at reception and was ushered into the recovery ward. John Underwood was sitting upright in a hospital
bed, his busted nose distorting his facial features.

‘Jesus Christ, John!’ Dexter exclaimed. ‘Are you all right?’

Underwood wanted to smile but smiling hurt. ‘I’m fine. It feels like a lorry reversed into my face but otherwise I’m in good nick.’

‘What happened?’ There was genuine concern in Dexter’s eyes as she sat next to him. Underwood was pleased to see that. Another emotion floated in their green depths too. Was it relief?

‘I found his caravan. He found me.’

‘You are lucky to be alive.’

‘He knocked me out. Then I woke up in a dustbin bag at the bottom of Oakley Creek.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Dexter said.

‘Yes.’ Underwood saw shock in her eyes now. ‘That was an interesting experience. Not quite the end to the evening that I’d envisaged.’

Dexter sat back in her chair. ‘This is my fault, John. I should never have sent you down there on your own.’

‘Don’t be silly. It was my idea.’

Dexter smiled and for a moment her frustration and irritation at the man’s former misconduct melted away. She could tell he was genuinely pleased to see her.

The moment passed: business as usual. Underwood saw the change in her expression.

‘You want to know about the caravan, don’t you?’ he asked.

Dexter made a non-committal shrug of her shoulders. ‘It’s up to you. If you feel up to it.’

‘There’s not a whole lot to tell.’ Underwood shifted uncomfortably. ‘It’s very plain. I didn’t find anything significant. But I think Garrod has a taste for honey.’

‘Honey?’

Underwood hesitated, he could not find the correct form of words. ‘There were four honey jars in the caravan.’

‘How does that help?’

Underwood did not want to impart the awful image that had formed in his mind. ‘Look for places where he can buy honey: lots of it. I’ll explain properly when I get out of here.’

‘What, farm shops? Apiaries? That sort of thing?’

‘Yes.’ Underwood tried to banish the image from his mind: the pain helped.

‘Was there anything about me?’ Dexter asked quietly.

‘Not that I could see. I wasn’t in there for long. Is the caravan being checked by Essex plods?’

‘As we speak,’ Dexter replied. ‘Do you think we spooked him? Getting that close I mean. You clearly took him by surprise.’

‘You know the man better than me,’ Underwood responded, trying not to imagine her
sexually, the taste of her dipped in honey. ‘What do you think?’

‘He came back for me. I doubt he’ll disappear until he’s got me.’

‘Don’t talk like that,’ Underwood remonstrated. ‘We are catching up on this bastard. He’s too big and ugly to vanish completely.’

‘Did he look like the photofit?’

‘He’s heavier. The face is much rounder. He looks older too. We need to work up a new image for publication. I’ll organise it.’

‘You need to rest,’ Dexter advised.

‘I’m fine. Apart from the unbearable, fucking agony where my nose used to be.’

Dexter smiled. ‘We found where he was working – an abattoir in Sawtry.’

‘He’s left already?’

‘How did you know that?’

‘You spoke in the past tense.’

‘You are a pedantic wanker. He left there earlier today. We’ve pulled out. There’s apparently a chance he might go back. The owner is under strict instructions to keep us posted.’

‘He won’t go back,’ Underwood said quietly. ‘He’s no fool. The key to catching this guy is figuring out where he is based now.’

‘That’s always been the problem. We found the caravan though.’

‘The site manager said that Garrod hadn’t been back there for weeks, months even. Where has he been hiding since he left that squat at the Dog and Feathers?’

‘Any ideas?’

‘Missing persons, derelict accommodation,’ Underwood said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Check if anyone has been reported missing in the Sawtry area.’

‘What’s in your mind?’

‘If he’s been working in that part of the world, it stands to reason he has been living nearby. He would want to spend as little time on the roads as possible. There’s speed cameras and traffic plods to contend with. Besides, I don’t think that he can live the life he wants to live out of a van.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I think he might need a garden. Somewhere sheltered.’

‘What for?’

Underwood did not want to tell her. The fate that awaited her if Garrod remained undetected was better left unanticipated. ‘Privacy,’ he said eventually.

Dexter looked at him, unconvinced. ‘You can do better than that,’ she suggested.

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.’

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.