Grind Their Bones (14 page)

‘Is there anything I can do for you, Emily?’

I tried again, and she turned to look at me with complete blankness written on her face.

‘Please don’t tell David.’

Her words came out over dry lips as a hoarse weak whisper.

Chapter 45

When I left Emily to go back to sleep, promising to visit again as soon as possible, I stopped by Superintendent Fred Russell’s room and looked in through a window in the door. The big man was deeply asleep, with a forest of tubes and clips connecting him to a large white and grey machine that monitored his vital signs and presumably supported certain vital bodily functions. I hovered for a few minutes, not certain what to do for him and questioning my wisdom in even being here. He’d never been the kind of man to encourage over familiarity between colleagues, and I couldn’t imagine that he’d appreciate waking up to find me sitting and holding his hand like I’d done for Emily. Mind made up, I eventually assured myself that I stayed for long enough and left him to rest undisturbed.

Outside it was drizzling lightly and the sun was out shining through the spray. As I arrived back at my car my phone started to ring, the display showing Lee’s new personal mobile number again, although I hadn’t yet got round to programming it into my contacts list.

‘Hello there Detective Sergeant Mead, what can I do for you today?’

I tried my flirtiest tones, craving some semblance of normality to replace the tension that had crept back in owing to the chaos of the last twenty four hours.

‘On any other day I’d answer that in full exhaustive detail, Zara, but I’m afraid there’s been another letter for you.’

He paused, both of us knew what that meant by now and my heart sank even further.

‘Where did they find her this time?’

My voice was flat and quiet as I contemplated the image of strikingly pretty young Elizabeth, still barely more than a child, mutilated, murdered and abandoned by a monster that we couldn’t seem to get close to catching.’

‘Obviously I have to be careful about what I say over this phone line, so you’re going to have to get over to the station for more details. But, suffice to say that while we haven’t found her yet, it’s really, really bad.’

His careful choice of words told me that there was much more to this one than the others and I felt a hard lump growing in the back of my throat as I got into the car.

‘I take it the letter tells us where to find her though?’ I asked, starting up the engine and pulling away with a glance in the mirrors, not caring that I shouldn’t be driving with my phone still clamped to my ear.

‘In a manner of speaking, but it’s more complicated than that. I can’t say more until I see you, but there’s a welcoming committee assembling here.’

He made a small noise down the phone that sounded oddly like he was trying not to be sick. It’s really, really bad.

‘Okay, I’m on my way to you now, I’ll be there in less than fifteen minutes. And Lee, if there’s even a small chance that you can do something for her then don’t wait for me to get there to give my permission okay? I trust your judgement.’

That’s why I’ve got your name on my unofficial suspects list at home. My mind reminded me, until I pushed the uncomfortable strand of thought away and accelerated out of the hospital grounds, breaking the onsite speed limit all the way.

I weaved neatly in between two busy lanes of traffic and bullied my way across two more in order to be able to cut back across the shortest route towards the city centre, ignoring the aggressive blast of a car horn as I did so. I’d worked some horrific cases together with Lee, some of them involving atrocious, sadistic acts of violence and sexual abuse of minors, but I couldn’t think of the last one which had caused my partner’s affected cool façade to slip aside. What on earth was I driving back towards?

Chapter 46

Anthropophagy has been with us for much longer than language or even so called organised, civilised society has, Zara. Our ancestors ate their dead relatives as a mark of respect, to assimilate the atoms of the fallen with their own in essence, rather than abandoning their loved ones to the ravenous depredations of wild animals that might go on to develop the ‘taste’. It was both practical and spiritual in application.

In times of conflict throughout history man has eaten the fallen enemy for quite different reasons. Seeking to destroy their bodies completely and remove all identifiable traces of them from earth; what greater indignity to have visited upon them than to deny their friends and relatives a body to mourn, and to excrete the digested remains as waste?

The first example is an act of love, honour and dignity, the second is one of hatred, revenge and revelry in savage bestial butchery. Both are at the core of what it is to be human, and the distinction is a relatively minor one.

Love and hate, honour and butchery. You can decide for yourself what category provides the best fit for the actions of one who dines with and on his carefully chosen companions, treating their delicate meat as if it were the finest premium cuts of chateaubriand.

This time I made the choice not to leave the girl to the attentions of carrion birds, insects and beasts, I could not bear the waste. So instead I chose to share her with strangers, to fuse her component parts back with the living so that she could continue her existence. I had to work fast, but you will now find her in exquisite meat parcels on the shelves of Rugby’s largest supermarket store, unless of course our ravenous brethren have consumed her completely already…

I finished the letter and felt ripples of shock running through my body. I felt like I had been wired up to some kind of low level electrical current, and my surroundings now seemed somehow less real. The original letter was with the document examiners down in forensics, but Lee had copied down the content word for word, allowing me and those others present - Big John Dodds and Sarah Theaker from CSI – to read the full extent of the horror for ourselves. Lee had told me that it had somehow found its way into his tray, and that he’d opened it absent mindedly without seeing that it was addressed to me like all of the others. He assured me that the revelations had been kept entirely to himself, so even unhappy as I was I let his actions go unquestioned for the time being.

‘Just because he wrote it doesn’t mean that it’s true. It’s no secret that most psychopaths are pathological liars.’

John  Dodds spoke up first, shifting his massive frame uncomfortably in the restrictive plastic seat, ever the voice of reason and rationality even in the face of sheer insanity. He rested his gaze on me with calm solemnity, waiting for me to offer up my own opinion. His colleague watched us both, glancing from one face to the other and back again rapidly.

‘You’re right John, but if what he’s saying is for real and we don’t act on it right away then can you imagine the possible implications?’ I said.

Silence reigned for long sobering moments while we all imagined the media shit storm and full scale public outrage. There would be lawsuits and widespread criticism, and that was just for starters.

Lee still looked as queasy as he’d sounded on the phone, and I couldn’t say that I blamed him. I wasn’t feeling too clever myself. There could be an unknown number of members of the public tucking into parcels full of human flesh for dinner while we sat here playing politics and debating our options.

‘We tell the supermarkets immediately. Not necessarily about the nature of what we’re facing, but enough so they pull every meat pie off their shelves until we get to analyse any that seem suspect. We can’t risk just telling the biggest store and finding out later that he made a mistake on the size of the store.’

John suddenly burst out laughing and we all jumped. Sarah’s mouth dropped open in amazement.

‘I’m sorry everyone, but my wife just dropped me a text to ask what time I’ll be home for tea tonight. She’s just been shopping and she’s making meat pie and mash with an interesting and unusual looking meat that she picked up from the supermarket.’

Chapter 47

Ian Barratt was the General Manager for the warehouse sized supermarket in central Rugby and he was definitely not amused with our request that he remove a whole section of valuable stock from his stores shelves. He kept us both standing up in his cramped office overlooking the shop floor, but to be fair, we’d have had to share a seat even if we’d been invited to sit anyway. Lee was persisting in being uncharacteristically quiet and still, seemingly happy to defer to me while he attempted to compose himself and his thoughts.

‘So are you telling me or just asking me to comply with this strange and vague request?’

His green eyes flashed with petulance behind his designer glasses and he couldn’t seem to leave his tie alone as he talked to me. The nervous activity made him look even younger than the mid to late twenties that I’d initially guessed at, like a teenager who’d borrowed his dad’s suit for a job interview and found that it didn’t quite fit comfortably.

‘I have no legal power to force you to do what I’m asking yet, I’d need a court order to do that, but I’m having to act very quickly on information that’s been received about that particular product in this specific store. Since I’m currently the most senior operational detective in the Warwickshire force, then I’m sure you’ll appreciate that I’ve bypassed the usual formal channels for very good reason, and that this is not a minor offence that I’m investigating.’

I was getting irritated too, and I wanted to plant the seed that there might be something dangerous in the pies in his tiny mind. I couldn’t understand the resistance in the first place. It wasn’t as if we made this kind of request every other week, so even an utter moron should have been able to compute that we’d come here directly out of urgency.

‘This is going to cost me money, and that’s if I do decide to do it in the first place. That frankly isn’t looking like a foregone conclusion in the absence of any kind of attempt at an explanation from you, by the way.’

He moved his hands away from his tie and started fussing with his over-gelled red hair instead. Seemingly, he was still labouring under the misapprehension that he was calling the shots on this one.

‘I assure you that you would grow to strongly regret not going with my polite but firm insistence on this, and I promise you that if you do decide to ignore me then it will ultimately turn out very, very badly for you indeed when it all comes out, Mr Barratt.’

I was running out of ways to apply sufficient pressure on the officious little jobs worth, without outright telling him what was going on. I watched him take offence immediately, growing steadily more pink from the neck up to the ears as my vehemence riled him even more.

‘I believe your thinly veiled threats have just made up my mind for me, Chief Inspector.’

He smiled nastily and then carried on.

‘As you’ve already told me, I don’t have to do anything that you say about this at the moment, and your refusal to give me a valid reason as to why I should leaves me entirely blameless in the event that my refusal proves to be the wrong decision. So if you don’t mind, I’d like you and your colleague to leave now so I can get back on with my work.’

I looked across at Lee who was still away with the fairies by the looks of it, and then back at Ian Barratt who looked like he’d just scored the biggest win of his life, and the red mist well and truly descended over me.

‘Then let me enlighten you on a couple of things you fucking idiot.’

He flinched at the insult and his hands went back to his tie for comfort.

‘A young woman went missing a matter of less than two days ago, and so far we’ve been unable to find her. Fortunately we received some helpful information from the person purporting to have killed her, and we now have good reason to believe that pieces of her body are being rung through your tills in nicely packaged meat bundles, while we waste time up here debating about the best way not to inconvenience you and your precious little profit margin.’

Chapter 48

It had been necessary to give the store manager a stern warning about the implications if he was to repeat any of the strictly confidential information that he was now privy to, but since my tirade there’d been nothing but unswerving compliance with every single request that I’d made. CCTV footage spanning the time between Elizabeth’s disappearance and receipt of the letter was obtained, and a team of junior detectives were tasked with watching the hours of footage in the hope of catching our man placing his substitute goods on the shelf. A number of suspect items had already been removed for analysis, the packaging on them being the same in most respects as the stores own brand products, but an annotated label underneath bore the word ‘longpig’.

‘Why longpig?’

I asked Lee, not understanding the reference and handing over another package to the forensic examiners.

‘It’s a word supposedly used to describe human meat in Polynesia apparently,’ came the reply, making me look up at him in surprise.

‘I just Googled it on my phone before you ask. I’m a little rusty on the finer details of cannibalism these days.’