Primal Cut (16 page)

‘It was the
Daily Star
,’ said Dexter from the back of the room. ‘It gave the murders a glamorous cachet that they didn’t deserve.’

Underwood acknowledged his error with a small nod. Continuing unabashed, he pointed his remote control at the white screen. This time a diagram of a cow appeared. ‘The primal cuts are the best cuts of meat on an animal: sirloin, tenderloin and so on. Bartholomew Garrod was a master butcher. He removed the primal cuts of meat from his human victims and, we suspect, ate them.’

That caused a nervous flash of chatter in the room.

DC Sauerwine, recently promoted from the uniform division, raised a hand. ‘Sir, how do we know that Garrod is the man we are looking for? And why is he in Cambridgeshire?’

Underwood sipped water from a white plastic beaker. ‘DNA samples taken from Leonard Shaw have been matched with the profile of Raymond Garrod: the sample had to come from a close relative. Also we have an eye witness – Keith Gwynne – who has positively identified Bartholomew Garrod from a photofit impression. As to why he is up here,’ Underwood paused, he looked at Dexter who shook her head admonishingly, ‘we are not sure of that yet. He may have left the area already but we have to assume that he’s here.’

Detective Sergeant Harrison who had studiously been making notes throughout Underwood’s speech now raised a hand. ‘Guv, I have a question. How public is this investigation going to be? Given the notoriety of Garrod, if we start putting his picture about the press will be all over it like a shot. I don’t just mean the local idiots either: we’ll have national newspaper journalists about too. That can inflame and complicate a situation.’

Dexter answered that one. ‘That is an excellent
point. Unfortunately we don’t have much choice. We don’t know where this guy lives. We know he drives a van but we don’t have a licence plate. He may have changed his appearance. Given those problems, we as a group need help. The public can be our eyes and ears. If we get his picture on the front pages of a few newspapers then so much the better. It might provoke him into making a mistake.’

‘We’ll be under the spotlight like never before,’ Harrison observed thoughtfully.

‘True but we can handle it. We are going to try and control the press strategy. Normally we ignore them, this time our approach to journalists is going to be more coordinated.’ Dexter looked Harrison directly in the eye. ‘Joe, how would you feel about being the press liaison?’

Harrison smiled a slow smile. ‘I knew I was in trouble when you called me Joe.’ Sitting next to him, Sauerwine laughed: Dexter called him Alex when she wanted a coffee.

‘You’ve done press liaison before,’ Dexter explained. ‘When you were with the Met in Tottenham. I remember seeing on your file that you’d been the point man on a couple of high-profile cases.’

Harrison nodded. ‘Fine by me. It’s better than knocking on doors in the pouring rain.’

‘Thank you,’ Dexter acknowledged. Her opinion of Harrison had rocketed in the last few months. Previously, she had clashed with him over his romantic involvement with a junior female officer. Harrison had matured in recent months.
Maybe she had too
. Dexter regretted her former harshness towards him. Harrison was potentially a kindred spirit but she had probably alienated him already. She focused out of her self-indulgence and tried to concentrate on what Underwood was saying.

‘There are one or two lines of inquiry open to us,’ he said pressing a button on his remote control. This time the screen went black. Underwood frowned in confusion. Dexter groaned to herself and bit the nail of her right index finger.

‘Hang on,’ he flustered, frantically pressing buttons.

‘Sir, you’ve turned the screen off,’ Sauerwine said helpfully. ‘Press the green standby button. Top right of the remote.’

Underwood did so and the screen glowed white again. This time a photograph of a white transit van appeared. He could feel Dexter’s eyes burning like lasers into the back of his head. He wondered what she would see in there: confusion, paranoia and an oil painting of herself perhaps.

‘Here we are,’ he said eventually, ‘we know that Garrod is driving a white Bedford transit like this
one. Keith Gwynne confirmed that to us. It is highly likely that it is not taxed or has a stolen tax disc. We have told traffic to stop any vehicle they see which matches this one. You should do the same.

‘Secondly, it is possible that Garrod is using false names. He called himself George Norlington when he fought Leonard Shaw. Norlington is a street in Leyton. It is conceivable that Garrod might use another name based on a street that was close to where he lived. On page three of your handout you will see a table of possible names based on streets in that area. Use it when you do house-to-house enquiries. If you have any questions on that, please address them to Inspector Dexter.

‘Thirdly, we want ideas on how this guy is living. He was staying in a bedsit at the Dog and Feathers in Heydon. We should check other pubs and boarding houses in the area. Remember, it’s unlikely that he has much money so focus on the bottom end of the market. Anything else, Inspector Dexter?’

‘Yes.’ Dexter came to the front of the room. ‘Bartholomew Garrod is extremely dangerous. He is a powerful man and fought professional prize fights in London for twenty years. He killed Leonard Shaw who was a fighter himself. Leach also believes that Garrod is HIV positive. If you find this man, if you even think you are getting close, you must
not
, repeat not attempt to arrest
him. He is a formidable individual and will not hesitate to kill you if he’s cornered.’

‘Do you know him then, boss?’ Harrison asked, hearing an edge in Dexter’s voice that was unfamiliar to him.

‘I identified the Garrods when I worked in Leyton,’ she confirmed. ‘Listen to me people: a word of warning. The things I saw in the Garrods’ freezer are still giving me nightmares. If you make contact, call in immediately. We will send significant backup. Huntingdon, have a shooter team on standby. This man is not to be trifled with. I don’t want any of you getting hurt.’

There was an uneasy exchange of charged conversation as the meeting began to break up. Dexter crouched down next to Harrison.

‘Joe, I want you to do a press conference at four this afternoon. Give them the bare minimum: the name, the photograph. Keep my name out of it. If they ask, Underwood is the officer in charge. I don’t want them to make the connection with me for as long as possible.’

‘I understand.’ Harrison scribbled his instructions in his notebook as Dexter walked away.

Underwood watched her walk past with a heavy heart. Was it possible that she had seen him hiding in the darkness of her friend’s garden? He could not see how: he was away before she was within twenty
yards of him. It had been pitch black. He had worn a woollen hat. It could not be possible. Perhaps Dexter’s mind was elsewhere.

Underwood had watched her kissing another woman with a mixture of horror, profound sexual excitement and despair. He wondered if her emotions had been similar. It was likely that Dexter’s mind was in turmoil, he reasoned. A monster from her past had reappeared at the same time that she seemed to be starting a new and volatile period in her emotional life. He wanted to help her. However, he decided that it might be expedient to suspend his hobby for a week or so.

As the meeting broke up, Underwood felt empty. For him emptiness was the precursor to desperation: his darkest lapses had usually been preceded by what he called ‘hollow mind’. He needed to occupy his brain. With his analysis of Dexter suspended, he had to find some other conundrum to blot out his demons.

In her glass office, Alison Dexter stared at the photofit of Bartholomew Garrod. As was her habit, she tried to imagine him with different coloured hair, glasses or a beard. In every articulation of her imagination, the man was still monstrous. Dexter felt very alone. There was a message on her desk that Mike Bevan was bringing in Bob Woollard for questioning in half
an hour or so. Dexter felt a powerful urge to write an email to Kelsi Hensy. However, remembering their discussion of the previous evening, she resisted the temptation, turning instead to the ‘Primal Cut’ case file that she had compiled with Paddy McInally seven years before. She was not entirely convinced that unleashing the whirlwind of publicity on Garrod was sensible but, tactically, there was no other realistic option. Dexter was concerned: she did not know the man well enough to predict how he would react. Would she reap the whirlwind?

Alison Dexter was a positive, logical thinking personality, not one prone to fatalism. However, sitting in the glass box of her office, staring into the dark eyes of Bartholomew Garrod, she had a profound sense that she was making a terrible mistake.

Bob Woollard sat in interview room 2 at New Bolden police station.

‘So exactly what laws am I supposed to have broken?’ he asked DI Mike Bevan.

‘It might be easier to list the ones that you haven’t broken,’ Bevan replied. ‘How about the
Dangerous Dogs Act and the Protection of Animals Act for starters? That’s to say nothing of the fact that you have been implicated for illegally disposing of a dead body. We could probably add perverting the course of justice to that list.’

‘I never take those dogs out in public. They are always muzzled on the farm. I don’t see how that breaks any laws.’

‘Fighting them breaks the law, Bob, as you well know. We haven’t checked them yet but I expect your little video collection makes for interesting viewing.’

‘Has my lawyer arrived?’ Woollard asked, ignoring Bevan’s observation.

‘He’s on his way,’ Bevan replied. ‘Face facts, Bob, you are going down. In flames.’

‘We’ll see about that won’t we?’ Woollard smiled.

‘There are ways to make this better for yourself.’ Bevan leaned forward. ‘Let’s just talk man to man for a second. Once your lawyer gets here things get official and nasty. I won’t be able to make you any sort of offer.’

‘I’m listening,’ Woollard said suspiciously.

‘Tell me about the man who killed Leonard Shaw: this George Norlington.’

‘I don’t know him,’ Woollard said in exasperation. ‘He was Gwynne’s mate not mine.’

‘If you help us on this, I might be able to drop
one or two of the charges. You are in a lot of trouble, Bob. Forensic found blood splashes on the floor of your barn. Splashes that you tried to conceal. That’s conspiracy. Naughty, naughty. If you help us we would take that into consideration. Maybe you’d just be left with the dog-related violations.’ Bevan knew that such an eventuality was highly unlikely.

‘That’s very generous Inspector Bevan but as I don’t know the bloke, there’s not much I can tell you.’

Bevan slid a photofit of Bartholomew Garrod across the table that separated them. ‘Is this a good likeness of him?’

Woollard looked down at the picture. ‘His face was fuller. He looked older in the flesh.’

‘Grey hair?’

‘I suppose so. I only saw the guy for twenty minutes or so. He was big – like a fighter gone to seed. He must be fifty plus. I expect he was formidable when he was younger.’

‘What about his dog?’ Bevan asked. ‘Gwynne said that he had a Tosa. That’s unusual.’

‘Very,’ Woollard sniffed.

‘Did you ask him about it, Bob? I can’t believe that you would fight one of your dogs without knowing a bit about its opponent’s previous.’

Woollard scratched the back of his head in
thought. He had responsibilities. He could not risk a prison term: not a long one in any case. Cooperation was his only option. He would give them a little taster for now.

‘He said that he’d owned the dog for a couple of years.’

‘Where did he get it?’

‘Essex. Clacton I think.’

‘From a breeder?’

‘No. I don’t think so. He said that he’d won the dog in a fight. He said something about putting the owner in hospital. That’s all I know about the bloke. Like I said, he was Gwynne’s monkey, not mine.’

Bevan wrote the information in his notebook. It was something.

At ten o’clock that evening, Bartholomew Garrod stood in the smoky kitchen of Craxten Fen Psychiatric Hospital chopping onions. He carefully trimmed them into tiny chunks, as small as he could make them. He knew that exposing the maximum surface area of the onion was the way to enhance its taste most effectively.

The facilities were proving barely adequate for
his purposes and his initial enthusiasm for the location was waning. The lack of light was problematic: Garrod kept bashing his legs against the unfamiliar cabinets and corners. The single saucepan he had uncovered was old and battered and his camping stove laughably minuscule. Still, it would have to do until he could collect his own, more appropriate cooking tools.

Garrod liked to eat late. Appetite had not yet overtaken him. He had some work to do first and a phone call to make.

There were busy times ahead. He had arranged an appointment at Delaney’s Animal Feed Suppliers outside Meldreth. He was committed to a full week’s work at the abattoir and he still had some further preparatory work on the pit he had dug out for Alison Dexter.

It was good to be busy.

Underwood could not face returning to his cramped little flat on the outskirts of New Bolden. Instead he stayed in the office. Dexter left at 10.45 p.m. He wrote the time in his notebook but felt no pleasure. Her attitude towards him was increasingly acidic. Underwood wanted to express his affection: make
her aware of his concern. Dexter had refused to move into secure accommodation, preferring to remain in her flat. To Underwood, that seemed like the height of folly.

He decided that he could help her best by working the hunt for Bartholomew Garrod as vigorously as possible. Harrison’s four o’clock press conference had been well attended. By the following morning, the photofit impression of Garrod would be on the front pages of most local newspapers and perhaps one or two nationals: just as it had seven years previously. That thought disturbed Underwood. This was clearly an individual with intellectual ability. Britain was a small country: it was hard for a man like Garrod to disappear. Where could he have gone for seven years? It was impossible for him to have owned a property and the records compiled by Leyton CID showed no other evidence of family properties. Had Garrod rented a room or a flat? Again, it seemed unusual. Landlords required proof of identity now: bank account details and personal references. Garrod’s bank accounts had been frozen by the Metropolitan Police in 1996. Renting was expensive; it made you conspicuous, too. Living rough was the obvious option: camping out or squatting in some broken down outbuilding.