Primal Cut (8 page)

Underwood sat back in his chair and for a moment or two watched Alison Dexter stare into space in the office next to him.

The computer screen glowed in front of her, waiting for her to log in. Alison Dexter was aware of the faint musky aroma on her face and her fingers. She thought that she liked it. However, everything else was uncertain: her feelings ricocheted between shame, pride and excitement. The thrill and terror of losing control electrified her. She now knew that she was alive but had no idea what she was becoming. She groaned inwardly as Underwood came to her door.

‘Got a minute?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’ Dexter waved him in.

‘Everything OK?’

‘Fine.’

‘You seem…’

‘Fine,’ Dexter crashed the sarcophagus lid shut on that twitching corpse of a conversation. ‘What can I do for you?’

Underwood handed her the post-mortem report on Lefty Shaw. ‘This is Leach’s PM analysis of the railway body, Leonard Shaw.’

‘Foul play?’

‘So it seems. It also appears that there’s an overlap with the work Bevan’s been doing.’

‘The dog-fighting thing?’

‘That’s right. Shaw attended one of the fights at Woollard’s farm. Bevan got his car number. Bevan’s helping out on this. I hope that’s OK with you.’

‘How did he die?’ Dexter didn’t feel alert enough to tackle a full post-mortem report.

‘Back of his head was bashed in. Chunk of flesh was torn off his arm too. I’m wondering if it was a prize fight.’

‘Are you happy to run with it?’ Dexter offered the report back to Underwood without opening it.

He didn’t accept it. ‘Delighted to but you should read it.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure. It doesn’t feel right. I’m afraid I might have missed something important.’

‘Leave it on the desk then. I’ll look at it.’

Conversation over. Underwood tried to find a spark of interest in Dexter’s stone green eyes; the spark that usually ignited his day. For once, he saw nothing and, deflated, left the room without another word. Dexter felt a wrench of guilt: professional guilt this time. She tapped her password into her computer and opened Microsoft Outlook. Kelsi had written her mobile number and email address in Dexter’s notebook. Dexter dangled over a precipice of uncertainty. She felt like a cartoon character who had run off the edge of a cliff and stopped dead in the air; its legs still running uselessly. Was it bad form to send an email message so soon? Was it bad form not to? She didn’t want Kelsi to think that she was an obsessive maniac: the poor girl had, after all, already spotted Dexter lurking in her company car park. Perhaps, Dexter reasoned, that was precisely why she should send a message; to reassure Kelsi that she was not a basket case.

Irritated at the impossibility of sexual diplomacy, Dexter cursed herself. This was exactly the kind of distraction that she had battled studiously for years to avoid. Her normal lattice of logical thought was fragmenting by the second; like a child tearing down a spider’s web. And yet, she felt impelled to
write to Kelsi. The simple truth was, she wanted more.

Satisfied, Dexter sent the message. She liked the mixture of sensitivity and assertiveness. She had expressed interest without cloying; terse but friendly. That was the balance that she had wanted to strike. Instantly bored once the message had disappeared, Dexter opened Leach’s post-mortem report on Leonard Shaw.

Ten minutes later, her mood had suddenly changed. In a mild panic exacerbated by her fragile emotional state, she called Roger Leach and requested a full DNA profile of the AB negative blood found on Leonard Shaw’s body. Then she called Leyton CID and requested that a copy of the Primal Cut case file be immediately couriered up to her. A demon had stepped from the shadows at the back of her tired mind.

DS Dexter ran up two flights of stone stairs, brushing past cleaning ladies and uniformed officers on the way. She burst through the double doors of Leyton CID and headed straight for McInally’s office. The DCI was staring at crime scene photographs of the body hauled from the Lea and of the remains of Brian Patterson. He looked up in surprise as Dexter crashed through his door without knocking.

‘Is the building on fire?’ he asked.

‘Guv?’

‘It’s polite to knock.’

‘Sir, it’s important. I think I’ve found something. Something about the Patterson case. There are these two brothers. They’re butchers on Norlington and they…’

McInally sat back in his chair and raised a heavy hand. ‘Dexy, sit down, count to ten and talk me through it slowly.’

Annoyed, breathless but compliant, Dexter took a grip of her emotions and walked McInally through her two meetings with the Garrods. Her boss was thoughtful.

‘It’s all circumstantial of course,’ he observed. ‘How certain are you it’s them? If we go charging in with a search warrant, we need to be confident.’

Dexter bit her thumb, the pain sometimes helped her concentrate. Then she saw the photographs spread out across McInally’s desk. She focused on the bloodied torso and arms.

‘Sir, in both cases pieces of flesh were removed from the victims. We thought the attacks were frenzied. I’m telling you that they were thought out. Look at the damage to the River Lea body: sections of flesh removed from the shoulders and ribcage. Patterson was cut up in a similar way. These are not accidental, sir, they are butchers’ cuts of meat: the primal cuts. I fucking saw them in a book in the Garrods’ shop.’

McInally looked at her. ‘Show me these primal cuts then.’

Dexter sensed she was winning. ‘Can I use your computer?’

‘Go ahead.’

Dexter sat behind McInally’s PC and logged onto the Internet. She ran a search for ‘Primal Cut’. Eventually she found a picture of a beef carcass annotated with the various cuts. McInally leaned forward. Dexter picked up a photograph of the River Lea torso.

‘OK. Look at the shoulder’s missing portion of
flesh
. Look at the diagram; that area is called the “chuck tender”. Look at the back of the victim. Missing flesh here. Look at the diagram; that area is called “striploin”. On the Patterson body flesh was removed from the back of his upper right thigh. On the diagram that cut is called “silverside”. Guv, only a butcher would know the primal cuts.’

She sensed that McInally was on the point of being persuaded. He needed a final shove in the direction of her thought process.

‘There’s something else, sir,’ she continued. ‘The Garrods knew Patterson. I’m sure of it. When I asked them they claimed they’d never met him. Brian Patterson’s mates told me that he used to sing the “Blaydon Races” while he worked. Ray Garrod was singing the same song today. They knew Patterson, sir. They knew him and they lied about it. Why would they do that?’

‘Go on,’ McInally encouraged.

Dexter hesitated. There wasn’t much else to add. Her assumption of the Garrods’ guilt had been based on some fairly flimsy ideas. There had to be something else they could use.

‘The River Lea corpse was a large man, right? Muscular, heavy set.’

‘Yes.’

‘He could defend himself. You’d need two people
to
take him down. The Garrods are both powerful men.’

‘Dexy…’

‘Then there’s the head wound,’ she continued. ‘Didn’t the PM report say that the fatal wound was a massive blow to the centre of the forehead? Like a poleaxe?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s a way of stunning cattle, Guv, before you slaughter them. A butcher would know that.’

‘Alison, I trust you,’ McInally said quietly. ‘And you are a fucking good copper. But you do realise that if we go marching in there and find nothing there’ll be hell to pay. Someone will swing and I don’t dangle alone.’

‘I know I’m right, sir,’ Dexter said with quiet conviction.

‘OK. We’ll get a team down to the shop and check it out.’

‘We’ll need some muscle, sir. The Garrods are fucking enormous.’

‘We can probably get a firearms unit out of City Police. I could pull in a favour. It might take an hour. Did they twig you’d rumbled them?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Dexter replied. ‘Firearms would be sensible, sir. Bartholomew Garrod is an ox.’

‘Right.’ McInally picked up his phone. ‘You sort
out
a SOCO unit and commandeer some uniformed plods from downstairs. I’ll see about this shooter team.’

Dexter felt a rush of pride and excitement; she hovered for a second, enjoying the moment of triumph.

‘Well stop pissing about,’ McInally barked. ‘We’ve got work to do!’

He smiled as he watched her leave.

Bartholomew Garrod withdrew just over four thousand pounds from his bank on Leyton High Road, leaving five hundred pounds in his account. He stuffed the money into his inside jacket pocket. The look in DS Dexter’s eyes had told him enough: she had somehow sensed they had murdered Brian Patterson. Bartholomew hurried back down Leyton High Road. It was pouring with rain now; water streamed across the pavement. The money would buy them some time at least. His father had owned an old caravan on a communal site: a scrap of wasteland near a seaside resort. He had taken Ray to the caravan regularly since their father’s death. Ray liked the water, the smell of the air and the fish and chips in polystyrene trays. The caravan would be an ideal place to lie low.

Bartholomew crossed into Norlington Road. Then he stopped dead in his tracks. Two police
squad
cars were parked outside his shop. He quickly ducked behind a car and watched. He counted five uniformed police officers and two more in black combat fatigues who appeared to be armed. Bartholomew cursed his stupidity: he should have taken Ray with him to the bank. Now, his brother was trapped.

One hundred yards away, DS Dexter banged on the locked door of the Garrods’ shop. No one came to open it. She tried again and called out this time: ‘Mr Garrod. This is Leyton Police. Open the door please.’

‘Perhaps they’ve done a runner,’ McInally said as he joined her.

‘No. They’re here. The van’s still parked down the side alley,’ Dexter replied. She crashed on the door again.

‘What’s our strength?’ he asked.

‘The two of us, five plods and two from the City Police ARU. One more squad car on the way.’ Dexter banged furiously at the door again.

‘Pack it in, Dexy!’ McInally found the noise irritating; he turned and gestured to a uniformed police sergeant crouching next to a squad car. ‘Brown! Get the ram up here.’

A moment later PC Brown carried the black battering ram up to the door.

‘You want me to bosh it, sir?’ he asked.

McInally
nodded, pulling Dexter out of the way. ‘Go ahead, son.’

The door smashed open at the second attempt. Dexter and McInally were first in, stepping over the carpet of broken glass. The firearms officers they had seconded from City Police followed close behind, fanning right and left across the shop floor. Dexter pointed through the door towards the living quarters. McInally nodded and waved the armed policemen past him. Two uniformed officers now blocked the entrance to the shop.

Through the commotion, Dexter heard a man crying. Ahead of her, one of the armed response officers called out, ‘We got one!’

Ray Garrod was sitting sobbing at the bottom of the stairs, his knees drawn up to his body, his giant arms wrapped tightly around them.

‘Ray, it’s me, DS Dexter. Remember the “honourable lady” you called me?’

Ray looked at her, then at the two guns pointing at him. ‘Bollamew’s gonna be so angry with me. I promised not to let you in. I promised.’

‘It’s not your fault, Ray,’ Dexter said. ‘Where’s your brother?’

‘He went out. He shouldn’t have gone out and left me.’

McInally sent an armed officer to each of the front and back doors. ‘Listen to me, Ray,’ he said,
returning to the staircase, ‘you need to tell us about Brian Patterson now. It’s the only way to get Bartholomew out of trouble.’

Dexter shot him a concerned look. McInally shrugged apologetically.

‘Brian taught me some songs. Brian liked my singing too.’

‘What happened to him, Ray?’ Dexter pressed.

‘Ah ate some bit of him,’ Ray replied. ‘Bollamew cooked some kidney and ah ate it.’

McInally produced a pair of handcuffs from his jacket pocket. ‘Ray, I’m going to put these on you now. We need to take you away from here for a while. Could you stand up for me and face the wall?’

‘Yes. Ah’ll face the wall for the honnable gennelman.’ Ray clambered to his feet. For the first time, McInally became aware of the sheer size of Ray Garrod. He had to have a size twenty collar. He took hold of Ray’s right wrist and snapped a cuff onto it. The metal cut into the skin and Ray wheeled around in pained surprise.

‘What are you fucking doing to me?’ he shouted, lashing out at McInally. Caught off guard, the DCI crashed into the wall with blood pouring from his nose. Dexter screamed for assistance as Ray Garrod pushed past her and ran out into the shop. DS Morgan, the armed response officer at the front
door
, turned a split second too late. As he lifted his gun, three hundred pounds of Ray Garrod crashed into him. The deafening bang of a gunshot rang out, the bullet smashing into the glass of the meat counter. Ray, screaming in panic, barged past the two terrified uniformed policemen at the door, sending them flying out onto the pavement.