Primal Cut (32 page)

Garrod moved quickly: he flung Braun against
the kitchen wall and now stood in front of Dexter, his knife gleaming. ‘And now, dearie, you know what’s coming next, don’t you?’

Dexter’s eyes followed the point of the knife as it moved gently down her body. ‘Silverside is one of my favourite cuts. It’s that bit of your inner thigh just under your arse.’ He used his foot to slide a washing up bowl underneath her.

John Underwood was standing at the door.

Braun saw him first. ‘Who the fuck is this bloke?’ he asked Garrod as he pulled his jeans back up to his waist.

Garrod turned to face the man he had battered and left for dead in the North Sea.

‘He’s a copper, you stupid bastard,’ Garrod shouted back. ‘They followed you.’ Furious at his partner’s idiocy, Garrod turned and plunged his cutting knife straight into Braun’s solar plexus. Stunned, Braun staggered backwards gasping for air, flailing hopelessly before tripping in his half-pulled up trousers and falling to the kitchen floor.

Underwood stepped into the kitchen. ‘Bartholomew Garrod, you have the right to remain silent.’ Underwood’s warning sounded pathetic but he could see Dexter was still alive and he had to play for time. ‘I should warn you that anything you say might be used against you.’

Garrod laughed. ‘Come on then, arrest me. I’ll
rip your fucking head off. You should have stayed at the bottom of the North Sea. I’ll have your tongue out for that.’

Underwood exchanged a glance with Dexter. Her eyes were either pleading with him to help or warning him to run away. ‘The place is surrounded. There are armed police outside. Give yourself up now. Don’t end up like that idiot brother of yours.’

Cold hatred flickered in Garrod’s eyes. ‘What did you say?’

‘You had some simple-minded oaf in tow in London. But you let him down, didn’t you? You left him to take the rap while you did a runner. Real fraternal love that is. I bet you still have nightmares about leaving him behind. You see, I know all about you Bartholomew. This little mess you’ve created isn’t going to bring him back.’

‘What can you possibly know about me?’

‘I know about the photo.’ Underwood said pulling the picture he had found in Garrod’s caravan from his pocket. ‘Is that what got you started? Daddy’s photo collection?’

Garrod saw his photo in Underwood’s hand. ‘Give it to me,’ he said, ‘give me the picture and I won’t kill you.’

Underwood shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’ He backed up, stepping out of the kitchen door and into the corridor. Garrod followed him
out. Underwood took a cigarette lighter from his pocket.

Dexter tried to strain her eyes into the darkness beyond the kitchen to see what was happening. She hoped sincerely that Underwood had a plan. His words had a very empty ring to them. She hung uselessly in the air and watched Henry Braun’s life pump away in front of her.

Underwood continued backing up. They were both outside now, on the lawn next to the back entrance to the kitchen corridor. Garrod looked from side to side. There were no other policemen to be seen. Once again this idiotic copper had made the mistake of facing him alone.

‘Give yourself up Bartholomew,’ Underwood said.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Garrod snarled, bearing down on him. ‘I’m having too much fun.’

‘You must be even thicker than your brother then,’ Underwood laughed. ‘I thought he was the family freak.’ He suddenly sparked the flint on his cigarette lighter: it flamed brightly. Underwood set fire to Garrod’s photograph and held it up as it burned.

Furious and seeing an opportunity, Garrod lunged forward and slammed both hands into Underwood’s chest. The speed and ferocity of the attack sent Underwood staggering off balance,
stumbling backwards into the honey pit. Molasses welled around him, Garrod was above him in an instant: his monstrous hands forcing Underwood’s head down into the deep pool of brown syrup. Underwood thrashed helplessly and tried desperately not to breathe in the mess that was engulfing him.

‘You see,’ Garrod said, ‘the problem with dumb animals is that they get slaughtered. It’s the law of nature. It’s not their fault and we shouldn’t even pity them. They are meant to be slaughtered from the very moment that they’re born.’

Underwood was on the verge of losing consciousness. He was fading, he had nothing to respond to Garrod’s huge strength and superior position. He went limp in the hope that Garrod might let go. He didn’t. Underwood’s broken nose pressed agonisingly against the hard plastic lining of the honey pit. He knew that he only had seconds remaining.

Harrison had directed the ARU team through the fencing and towards the hospital. Armstrong pushed on down the alley at the side of the east wing, her Glock pistol pointed directly in front of her. Harrison and Murphy – the other armed officer – ran a flanking manoeuvre around the west side of the hospital.

Armstrong rounded the side of the building first and, through the darkness, saw the huge bulk of Bartholomew Garrod hunched over the pit in the centre of the lawn.

‘Cambridge police!’ she shouted. ‘Stand up and put your hands above your head!’

Garrod released his grip on Underwood and turned to face the source of the voice. For the first time that night, he began to sense that events were sliding away from him. He started to walk towards the voice. Behind him, an exhausted John Underwood hauled himself out of the pit trying, agonisingly, to catch his breath.

‘Stand still or I will shoot!’ Armstrong warned him. Garrod was closing on her rapidly. She levelled her gun and fired. The shot cracked out, echoing across the huge still space of Craxten Fen. The bullet smashed into Garrod’s right shoulder. The impact made him stagger sideways but, to Armstrong’s horror and surprise, the man kept coming at her. The second shot hit him in the stomach a split second before he crashed into her and drove her hard into the hospital wall snapping a number of her ribs.

Armstrong’s Glock fell to the ground. Garrod, wounded but still functional, flung the broken ARU officer down and turned back towards the kitchen. He could hear other voices approaching through
the darkness. Other policemen would soon be on him. He was not afraid to die: only of dying unavenged. He staggered back to the kitchen corridor, blood oozing from the two bullet wounds. Seeing this, Underwood got uneasily to his feet.

Garrod lurched past Alison Dexter and fell against his kitchen table, his feet sliding in the pool of blood made by Braun’s terrible chest wound. He clattered amongst his tools until he found an appropriately long cutting knife. Gutting her would have to suffice. His strength was ebbing away rapidly, the room starting to swim around him. He steadied himself and turned towards Alison Dexter.

John Underwood stood between them, Lisa Armstrong’s Glock pistol aimed squarely at the centre of Garrod’s forehead.

‘Put the knife down,’ Underwood said. ‘It’s over Bartholomew.’

Garrod half heard the words. The room was spinning: pain wracked his body at every heartbeat. He could smell onions cooking and hear Ray shouting at him:

‘Ah ate some bit of him, Bollamew!’

Alison Dexter hung a few feet away from him. Garrod decided to take her with him; drag her into the honey pit for eternity; he would chew at her soul instead of her body.

He lunged forwards.

Underwood fired the Glock directly into the centre of Garrod’s forehead. Garrod’s head snapped back and the prize fighter fell to the ground. Underwood stepped over him and fired another shot into the fallen man’s head. Garrod’s body spasmed at the impact. Then he fired again; power and satisfaction surged through the weapon. Underwood stared at the animal he had put to the ground.

‘Guv! That’s enough!’ Harrison shouted as he and Murphy charged through the back door, ‘Enough!’

Underwood let his grip relax and the Glock pistol fell to the floor.

Harrison reached up and unhooked Dexter’s hands from the meat hook; she slumped exhausted into his arms.

Underwood studied the holes he had put in Garrod’s head. Inexplicably, he started to laugh.

Bob Woollard stood as Judge Arthur Barnard addressed the foreman of the jury. Barnard had a rich, deep tone to his voice that made DI Mike Bevan imagine that the God of Justice himself had come to Peterborough.

‘How do you find the defendant Mr Robert Woollard on the charge of “overloading, infuriating and terrifying” animals under Section A of the 1991 Protection of Animals Act?’

The foreman, a physics teacher from Newmarket, cleared his throat. ‘Guilty.’

‘On charge two, that the defendant Mr Robert Woollard “caused, procured or assisted in the fighting of animals and managed premises for that purpose”, do you find him guilty or not guilty?’

‘Guilty, your worship.’

‘Guilty, your honour,’ the judge corrected him with the ghost of a smile lurking on his lips.

Woollard was also found guilty of four additional charges relating to the breeding and sale
of illegal dogs. After a brief deliberation, Judge Barnard sentenced him to a minimum of three years’ imprisonment: the maximum permitted by the existing legislation. In the Public Gallery, DI Mike Bevan punched a clenched fist into the palm of his hand.

Bevan looked across the courtroom at Woollard, keen to try and read the man’s reaction. The sentence would send a message out into the dog fighting community that none of them was untouchable. Hopefully, it would disrupt the Cambridgeshire circuit enough to jeopardise its existence altogether. There was also the comforting thought that Woollard would soon be facing separate charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice relating to the murder of Leonard Shaw.

As Woollard was led away, he looked up at the gallery and impassively met Bevan’s gaze.

The policeman allowed himself a smile.

Sandway’s abattoir struggled to continue its normal business. Since the capture of Bartholomew Garrod, a number of police officers had visited the processing plant and conducted interviews with
Robert Sandway and his employees. The unwanted publicity had been damaging. The Ministry had scheduled a full-scale inspection. Preparation for this was disrupting his normal operating procedures. He could not afford such distractions. Time in his business was undoubtedly money and he had no desire to see his narrow profit margins crushed any further.

Sandway was still a minor player in the industry. Economies of scale were loaded against him. Over nine hundred million animals are slaughtered annually in Britain. Only seventy thousand of them were rendered at his plant in 2001. His business was always peripheral; its margins wafer thin, its survival dependent on a narrow base of local buyers and a shallow stream of cash flows. Now Sandway could almost feel the ministry pithing stick scratching at his brain.

Only ruthless efficiency and attention to the regulatory framework could keep his business alive. Ironically, nobody had made those points more strongly than the man he now knew as Bartholomew Garrod.

At her suggestion, DI Alison Dexter met John Underwood for lunch in Cambridge. She was sitting at the vulnerable table next to the darts board of the Cross Keys on Lensfield Road. He found her mood difficult to read. The burning intelligence in her eyes seemed, for once, to be clouded with something else. Underwood sensed it was vulnerability. Or shame. Either way, she looked half-pleased to see him. This, at least, was progress. He chewed thoughtfully on a steak and kidney pie as she talked business.

‘McInally called me at the hotel,’ she said crisply. ‘He said that you’d been in touch.’

‘I knew that he’d be concerned about you,’ Underwood replied.

‘I appreciate it,’ Dexter said quietly.

‘How much longer will you stay at the hotel?’ Underwood asked. ‘It’s safe to come home now.’

‘I know. It just doesn’t feel right yet.’

For the millionth time, her cold beauty drove an ice pick through his heart.

‘Everything is chugging along at the office anyway,’ Underwood volunteered eventually. ‘Harrison and I are tying up the Leonard Shaw case.
We’ve certainly got enough to have Woollard and that hairy little bollock Keith Gwynne for conspiracy.’

‘What have they done with Garrod’s body?’ Dexter asked.

‘Leach has been handling the post-mortem. Frankly, my opinion is that they should have incinerated the bastard immediately but there is apparently a question of procedure. Some concern has been expressed at a high level about the way I handled the matter.’

‘How do you mean?’

Underwood took a sip of lemonade and pretended it was gin. ‘The Chief Super is unhappy that I shot Garrod three times. Unnecessary force he reckons. Given my psychiatric record, I can understand his concern.’

‘What a load of shit!’ Dexter snorted. ‘I’d have done the same thing. I will speak to the Chief Super on your behalf.’

‘You don’t owe me anything,’ Underwood replied.

‘Let’s not talk about that, John,’ Dexter said, trying to bury the contempt she felt for Underwood’s clandestine observation of her private life with the knowledge that without him she would undoubtedly be dead. ‘If you can assure me that stuff is all behind you, I am happy to give
you the benefit of the doubt. John, since Julia left, you have had a terrible time of it. I can accept that your behaviour towards me is simply a product of that.’

Underwood struggled to find a form of words that would express his true emotions without confounding his position. ‘I feel a degree of responsibility towards you.’

‘I don’t need anyone to take responsibility for me.’

There was an edge to her voice now that unsettled him. Underwood knew that he had pushed Alison Dexter to the limits of her patience.

‘Can I ask you a question?’ Dexter asked him.

‘Go ahead.’

She looked uncomfortable, the memory of her humiliation pressing at the front of her brain. ‘How many people know about what happened?’

‘Only Harrison and myself know the full story,’ Underwood said. ‘I wrote the full report.’

‘I don’t want people gossiping about me,’ Dexter said quietly. ‘About the way you found me.’

‘I understand that.’ Underwood could see the shame in her eyes. It was upsetting.

‘I don’t want to become a dirty story for canteen coppers.’

‘My report is very sparse on that kind of detail. I stated that you were unconscious and tied up when
we arrived. As I see it, beyond that you played no part in the proceedings.’

‘What happened to the camera that Braun was using?’ Dexter asked anxiously. ‘He took pictures of me.’

‘How angry would you be if I told you that I destroyed evidence from a crime scene?’ Underwood asked with a faint smile.

‘You destroyed it?’ Dexter asked suspiciously.

Underwood nodded. On the night of Garrod’s death, he had taken Henry Braun’s camera and Polaroid exposures from the kitchen floor at Craxten Fen Psychiatric Hospital. The camera had not been mentioned in his report. For a dark, sinking moment he had thought of keeping the pictures for himself. Then, disgusted by his own perversity, he had burned them and smashed up the camera. Somehow, he needed to scorch that particular infection from his mind.

‘I burned everything,’ he told her. ‘The whole lot.’

She looked hard into his eyes, seeking out some flicker of deceit, some hint that he was trying to fool her. She saw nothing.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply.

Underwood looked out of the window. ‘It’s stopped raining. Shall we go for a walk?’

Traffic splashed noisily up Trumpington Street.
Underwood led Dexter down a side alley next to St Peter’s Terrace that led to the back of Peterhouse Deer Park. It was Underwood’s favourite college garden. Gravel crunched beneath them on the pathway.

‘Are we allowed in here?’ Dexter asked. ‘I can’t cope with some stroppy college porter throwing me off the premises.’

‘If they do, tell them we’ll come back with a warrant.’

They walked for a moment or two in silence. Birds squawked on the nearby Cam. The white bulk of the Fitzwilliam Museum loomed to their right. Underwood felt the pain nagging again in his chest. It drove him on.

‘Alison, your friendship is important to me,’ he said eventually. ‘I feel terrible that I’ve jeopardised that.’

‘We can be friends, John,’ Dexter said. ‘I can accept that.’

Underwood nodded. He still had a single card to play. However, raising the stakes was dangerous. He faced losing everything.

‘I took another liberty,’ he said. ‘When I spoke to McInally earlier in the week, I said that we’d have lunch with him.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow. I know it’s short notice but he’s desperate to see you and since you’re on leave, I
thought you might be glad of the company.’

Dexter thought about the last two weeks: the worst of her life. She thought of the shame she felt at the death of Kelsi Hensy, the fury she had focused on John Underwood, the terror she had felt as she hung naked in front of Henry Braun and Bartholomew Garrod. She was emotionally exhausted. But she was also tired of being alone.

‘Where are we meeting him?’ she asked.

‘London,’ Underwood said briskly. ‘I’ll pick you up from the hotel. I thought you might appreciate getting out of Cambridgeshire for an afternoon.’

‘Fair enough,’ Dexter nodded. ‘It’ll be good to see the old sod.’

As they approached the side of the old college, the crumbling stonework of its thirteenth-century hall loomed in front of them. Underwood had found their conversation unsatisfying. He had pushed Dexter as far as he dared. She had assured him of friendship and that at least was a cause of optimism. Was it enough?

Dexter turned and looked back across the gardens that they had just traversed. There was colour in her face, a blush of pink on her pale cheeks wrought by the cold Cambridgeshire air. ‘It’s beautiful here,’ she said softly.

Maybe that was enough.

Underwood left her in King’s Parade and headed for his car up on the third level of the Lion Yard car park. He drove south through the narrow crowded streets of the city towards Addenbrookes Hospital. He had cancelled his two previous appointments to see the oncology consultant. Fear and resignation had previously stopped Underwood from seeking treatment for the pain that was growing inside him. In the depths of his despair, he had seen the coming darkness as a blessed relief. Perhaps it would also be an opportunity to revenge himself upon the wife that had deserted him and the woman he had fallen in love with. Why then bother to seek diagnosis and treatment? Underwood had reasoned that his fear of dying was less than his fear of living on in desolation.

Now he had two reasons to stay alive. The first was his memory – all too vivid – of scrambling for freedom and air at the bottom of Oakley Creek. Death had stared him directly in the eye then and Underwood had blinked first. He remembered his desperate, writhing struggle to survive. His instinct had been to fight death not to passively accept his fate.

Secondly, his conversation with Alison Dexter that afternoon had given him a small measure of hope. She had – at least – assured him that there was a possibility of them remaining friends. That
was something. The prospect of sharing lunches with Alison Dexter, of basking in the light of her fierce intelligence, of watching her skin blush red in the cold air were all powerful incentives to survive.

Or were they? Underwood pulled up in a space near the main entrance of Addenbrookes Hospital. The immediacy of his situation unnerved him. He found his resolve faltering. His friendship with Dexter had been one of the factors that characterised his current state of affairs. Was her friendship – friendship from a distance – an adequate reason to stay alive? He suddenly doubted it. There is no emotion more debilitating than unrequited love. Underwood doubted that he could play the thwarted, melancholy hero of a tortuous courtly love poem. The ghosts of the future were gathering around him. He sensed his future self, wracked with cancer and loneliness, standing at the entrance to the hospital remembering the moment that he currently occupied. Nature had given him a way out: a way to shuffle into the darkness with dignity. He had the option of a comfortable death. Now, faced again with a straight choice, Underwood lapsed into indecision.

The car clock told him it was 3.04 p.m. He was already late for his appointment.

Underwood’s mind tried desperately to understand itself.

Alison Dexter walked through Cambridge town centre feeling strength and self-confidence slowly seeping back into her flesh. She had always found Cambridge a peculiar place. It always seemed so open and bleak: beautiful in its desolation. She thought King’s College Chapel was the most dramatically desolate building she had ever seen: a construction desperately trying to outreach its own ugliness and touch beauty.

She had touched beauty. Kelsi Hensy had been beautiful. In the heat of their passion, Dexter had momentarily outreached her mental ugliness; exceeded the ordinariness of existence. And yet, the ghosts of her past had desecrated that beauty. She headed up King’s Parade towards the market square. Was she wrong to blame herself? Had Bartholomew Garrod merely been the manifestation of all the ugliness within her? He was a remnant of the life she had tried to run away from. Undoubtedly, the man was a monster but Dexter kept coming back to the same conclusion. If Kelsi Hensy had never met her, she would still be alive. That made the disaster hers alone. It was a responsibility she would have to accept and carry with her.

The market square teemed with people. Students, townies and tourists perused the stalls. Dexter found herself drifting through the crowd. The energy and chatter, movement and laughter,
reminded her that chaotically and painfully, mundane and beautiful, life goes on. Garrod was dead. The memory of her capture and humiliation would live with her but memories were manageable. Even Underwood was now showing flashes of sanity that were almost endearing.

Almost
.

She was in front of a meat stall. The sight of dead flesh made her immediately want to wretch. Dexter was about to walk away when she saw the teenage boy sitting at the side of the stool eating a sandwich. She stared at him. Something was unsettling her.