by Ed O'Connor
‘No. I haven’t seen him for weeks. Months maybe.’
Underwood was beginning to feel a surge of adrenalin. ‘Did I hear you say something just now about keeping spare keys?’
Alison Dexter exchanged a series of calls with the duty officer at Colchester CID. The result of this exchange was that one CID officer and two squad cars were despatched from Colchester to the campsite north-east of Great Oakley. Colchester despatch estimated that the journey would take approximately twenty-five minutes.
Again, she failed to get through to Underwood’s mobile.
Oblivious to all this, Underwood was at that moment picking his way through the dark spaces between caravans on The Regency site. The only thing that overrode his nervousness was the appalling stench in the air.
‘What is that fucking smell?’ he muttered to himself as the aroma of distant shit arrested him again.
He eventually found Plot Eleven: the static caravan belonging to Mr Bartholomew. Immediately, Underwood began to sense success. The caravan was of an old-fashioned and basic construction. It might once have been silver but Underwood’s torch beam now only revealed flaking grey metal. The curtains were drawn and the door padlocked. He knocked firmly. There was no reply.
Underwood fumbled for the spare key that Stour had given him a minute or two previously. His hands were freezing cold. He looked around: the caravan was only a few hundred yards from the dark expanse of water that reached from Great Oakley round to Harwich then out into the North Sea. Underwood could see the lights of a container ship crawling into Harwich. The padlock clicked. Underwood removed it and pulled the door open. Edgy now, he shone his torch inside.
Nothing obviously horrific snarled back at him. The inside was basically furnished. The torchlight picked out a small stove and a black and white television. There were some clothes on the bed next to a book called A History of the British Empire. Underwood opened it at a bookmarked page. It concerned the story of HMS Boyd and the unfortunate fate of its crew who drowned in honey pits then were eaten by cannibals.
Underwood placed the book back on the bed and decided to search the vehicle properly. He pulled open the drawers of the mini-kitchen. There were some ancient knives and forks, some plates and a truly dismal collection of crockery. In the cupboard under the plastic sink, Underwood found a more impressive collection of saucepans and skillets. On the nearby work surface, Underwood found a small but very sharp cheese knife. Carefully, he picked it up and dropped it into a small plastic evidence bag. If he could find no other concrete evidence that the caravan was indeed Garrod’s, he would send the knife to be fingerprinted by Marty Farrell at New Bolden.
He moved into the living space, inspecting the clothes on the bed. They certainly belonged to a large man but the pockets were all empty. Underwood sat on the bed, uncertain how to proceed. His foot bumped a bedside cupboard. He knelt on the floor of the caravan and shone his torch into the small cupboard space. There were some old newspapers stuffed in there, mostly London editions, an old black and white photo of something that Underwood couldn’t quite make out and what looked like a jar of jam. There were breadcrumbs on the carpet next to the bed. Whoever Mr Bartholomew was, he clearly liked to eat sandwiches in bed.
He stood and carried the photo and the jam jar to the kitchen work surface. On closer inspection the photograph appeared to be of some kind of mangled body. It was old though: its image was barely visible. On the back, someone had written ‘1945’. Underwood then unscrewed the glass jar and discovered that it wasn’t jam at all: it was honey. Moreover, there were three other empty honey jars on the work surface. Garrod clearly had a sweet tooth.
The thought rushed up at him. Underwood suddenly imagined Alison Dexter spread out naked on a bed in front of him. He imagined honey dripping slowly onto her stomach. He imagined licking the glaze from her flesh.
How would he want to eat her?
Underwood remembered the crew of the Boyd.
He would want her to be sweet.
He placed the photo into an evidence bag and pocketed it. Immediate contact with Dexter was essential. The caravan would need to be properly searched by a forensic team. Or even observed in case anyone returned to it. Either way, he had to move quickly. He climbed down from the caravan and padlocked the door behind him, the cold metal clinging momentarily to his skin. Satisfied that the door was secured, Underwood turned.
Bartholomew Garrod stood directly in front of him.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he asked.
Underwood’s mind raced. He was backed against the caravan. Garrod was too close, barring his way.
‘I’m John from the Regency office,’ he spluttered, trying not to let his rising terror betray him. ‘We got a call. The door of your caravan was open. We were worried someone had broken in.’
Garrod stared quietly. This man was afraid. ‘You’re lying,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing,’ Underwood replied. ‘Why don’t we go back up to the site office and I’ll give you a claim form and a new padlock.’
Garrod had fought too many bare knuckles not to understand the nature of fear. He was debating what to do when Underwood’s mobile phone rang. For a second, Underwood thought his heart had stopped.
‘Aren’t you going to answer it then?’ Garrod asked advancing on Underwood.
‘It’s probably the wife checking up on me,’ Underwood said.
‘Answer it,’ Garrod instructed. ‘Now.’
Underwood could smell Garrod’s breath now. The man was huge. He knew he would have no chance if Garrod went for him. He pulled his mobile from his pocket and answered.
‘Hello.’
‘John, it’s Alison. Where are you?’
‘I’m at the campsite, sweetheart,’ Underwood replied with mock levity, his eyes never leaving Garrod’s. ‘We got a call about a possible break in.’
There was a silence as Dexter absorbed the significance of Underwood’s unusual tone.
‘Are you at Great Oakley?’ she asked.
‘That’s right,’ Underwood responded, ‘with a customer.’
Garrod’s right hand slammed into Underwood’s solar plexus, throwing him gasping for air against the side of the caravan. He snatched the mobile from Underwood’s hand and read the caller identification on the LCD display: ‘Dexter’. He lifted the phone to his ear.
‘Hello dearie,’ he said, ‘it’s your old friend.’
Dexter’s blood chilled at Garrod’s voice.
‘I’ll be seeing you soon.’
Garrod dropped the phone to the floor and smashed a giant fist into Underwood’s face breaking his nose and spraying blood against the tin wall of the caravan. Underwood’s head cracked against the stone footing of the caravan as he fell unconscious to the ground.
Garrod felt for a pulse or signs of life but found none. He sensed that he had little time. He would bag up the body and sink it into the creek as he had done with the body of Jack Whiteside three years earlier. However, first he wanted to retrieve his pans and other personal items from the caravan.
Alison Dexter sat stunned in the silence of her office. She knew that John Underwood had to be dead.
60.
Henry Braun returned to Gorton Row from Tesco with all the provisions that he required for Wednesday’s festivities. He had bought a bottle of champagne in anticipation of success, a six-pack of Special Brew to build an atmosphere and a Polaroid camera to record the details of Alison Dexter’s debasement for his brother and for posterity. He could hardly wait. In the cigarette-smoke haze of Nick’s living room, Janice Braun stared at a documentary about properties in Spain. Henry resisted the urge to fuck her again. He would keep the infection to himself until Wednesday when it would surge out of him like poisoned blood.
61.
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 tight
ly 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 21st 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.
62.
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.