Primal Cut by Ed O'Connor

as she left the shop . Bartholomew had been unnerved by Dexter’s strange line of questioning. Had he underestimated her? Why had she asked Ray about the song? Twice? She had really wanted to know. Garrod wracked his brains for an answer.
    ‘Where did you learn that song, Ray?’ he asked.
    ‘What song?’
    ‘The fucking “Blaydon Races”. The fucking song she was just asking you about.’
    ‘Don’t shout at me!’ Ray screamed covering his ears. ‘The honnable gennelman mustn’t shout at me. Dad said you mustn’t never shout at me.’
    ‘Was it Brian? You’ve got to tell.’ Bartholomew shook his brother violently. ‘Brian the porter, did he teach you the song?’
    Ray nodded, tears running down his face.
    Bartholomew Garrod smashed his fist on the meat counter. ‘Fuck! Fucking hell, Ray! What have you done? You fucking stupid bastard.’ Shaking with rage, Bartholomew Garrod frantically tried to arrange his thoughts. Dexter had made the connection. He had seen that in her eyes. They had lied to her about not knowing Brian Patterson and she had clearly recognised that. The bitch would return with a search warrant. Bartholomew Garrod felt time slipping away from him.
    They had to move quickly. ‘Ray, listen to me. We have got to go away now. We’re going up to the caravan . Remember the old caravan up by the sea?’
    ‘On holiday?’ Ray had stopped crying.
    ‘That’s right, mate. Holiday. Listen, I have to go out now. I have to go out and get some money. Do you understand me, Ray?’
    ‘Yes, Bollamew,’ Ray nodded.
    ‘Lock up the shop after me. Don’t let anyone in. No one comes through that door except me.’ Bartholomew pulled his overcoat off its hook at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’m going up to the bank in the High Road. I’ll be half an hour. Wait here for me, Ray. Don’t let anyone in.’
    ‘Yes, Bollamew.’
    Bartholomew Garrod slammed the door shut behind him and waited for Ray to fix the bolt after him. It was starting to rain. He walked as quickly as his heavy frame would allow.
18.
Tuesday, 15 th October 2002
    Underwood sat glumly in his glass-walled office, trying to read the full post-mortem report on Leonard ‘Lefty’ Shaw. In his vainer moments, he had once liked to think of himself as a tragic hero: an essentially noble but flawed character. True hehad endured his moments of catharsis; his marriage had foundered and his sanity had nearly slipped away from him. Now he felt a curious sense of nothing: nothing except the dull ache that was growing inside him. It was a strange form of redemption: to salvage hope and sanity only to be consumed from within by some evil malignancy. Heroes didn’t get cancer. Ordinary people got cancer: it was an ordinary little disease; an ordinary little lump. It was mundane, tragic in its predictability. Underwood didn’t know whether to fight. Perhaps redemption would come for him in death. Or, he reasoned, perhaps it would come in a noble struggle against it. He wondered if the rest really was silence, and if so, whether silence was such a bad thing.
    He turned his attention to the matter of Lefty Shaw’s inauspicious death.
    Name: Leonard Arthur Shaw. Age: 38 years 2 months. Weight: 134 Kilos.
    Underwood passed over Shaw’s other personal details with the recklessness of the jaded copper.
    Time of death: Sunday 12 th October at approx 2 a.m. Cause of death: Damage to rear of head resulting in fractured skull and brain damage.
    ‘Foul play,’ thought Underwood. There was a time, earlier in his career and long before the arrival of Alison Dexter, when the prospect of a murderinvestigation would have excited him. Now it was just something to do. He had lost his sense of revulsion, his sense of justice even. Underwood wondered when this transition had taken place; when this emotional shell had hardened around him. Perhaps there hadn’t been a moment of transition. Maybe time had ground him down like waves grind rocks into sand. That was a