Primal Cut by Ed O'Connor Page B

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 towrite to Kelsi. The simple truth was, she wanted more.
    To:              [email protected]
    From:       [email protected]
    Hello, just a quick note to say thanks for a great evening. Sorry about the car park thing: coppers are naturally suspicious. Legs ache like mad: football is not a forgiving game especially for us flat-foots. Would love to have a drink sometime. Drop me a line when you get a moment. Alison.
    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.
19.
Leyton, East London December 1995
    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