12: The Body Butcher
Dogs love bones. It’s in their nature. All bones, any bone. They just love them.
There is something heart-warming when a faithful hound sprints back to its owner with a gift in its mouth, found while rummaging through the undergrowth. A bouncy ball, maybe even a gnarled branch from a nearby oak — the look of triumph on the mutt’s face warms the cockles of your heart.
Late one balmy evening in July 1999, that joy was tarnished for a middle-aged lady as she called her dogs in for the night near a pig farm in Bexhill, East Sussex. She crouched down, her arms out wide, as her dog bounded towards her with an object protruding either side of his salivating mouth. Strange-shaped stick, she thought, strange colour too. A bit bigger than his usual find. As the distance between them narrowed so her curiosity heightened. Not another mangy rabbit?
With a proud flourish he dropped it in front of her.
It took her a moment before the horrific truth hit her. A severed human hand, riddled with maggots and emitting the pungent stench of death and decay, lay festering at her feet.
Two and a half weeks earlier, I was enjoying a weekend off, leaving Bill Warner at the helm of Hove CID as duty DS. Julie and I had spent the Saturday afternoon with Conall, Niamh and Deaglan at their friend’s second birthday party near Gatwick. The summer sun provided the first outing in shorts, tee-shirts and flip-flops, and brought a wave of optimism that there would be balmy days ahead.
Julie and I spent most of the time counting in threes to make sure we could track all of our children and checking that they were not damaging themselves or wandering off. As was the way in those days our conversations with others were invariably centred around the kids with answers such as, ‘No, we feel blessed, not burdened’, ‘Yes, it was hard in the early days but we both mucked in’, ‘Yes, we know it will be expensive when they go to uni’.
‘They are very natural babies, if that’s what you mean,’ was a retort we used to rebuff one of the more intrusive questions people would ask.
As the party drew to a close we said our goodbyes and clipped our exhausted trio into their car seats across the back of our huge Volvo estate car. As if waiting for a lull in the child-shepherding, my phone started to buzz.
‘You’re not on call, are you?’ enquired Julie, knowing the answer but fearing the worst.
‘No,’ I said as I looked at the display. A sense of relief washed through me as I saw who was ringing. ‘It’s only Bill,’ I said. ‘He will only want to moan or brag about something. I’ll answer it then he can leave me be.’
Julie took the driver’s seat and I answered the call.
‘Hi, mate,’ I chirped. ‘What have you done this time?’
‘Ah, Graham,’ Bill droned in a manner that invariably preceded some bombshell he was waiting to drop. ‘Were you having a nice weekend?’
‘I still am, mate, unless you have finally come to accept what I have said all along — that you can’t cope without me there to guide you.’ I glanced at Julie as she drove and detected a faint sign of exasperation on her face as she sensed this would be a long call of banter and brickbats being exchanged.
‘Very funny,’ muttered Bill, ‘at least I can recognize a gunshot wound when I see it.’
‘Out of order,’ I declared. ‘What is it? I am enjoying some time with the ones I love and you come nowhere near that classification.’
‘We think we’ve got a murder.’
‘You think? And there were you questioning my crime scene analysis skills. What do you mean, think?’
‘Well. We are pretty sure but we haven’t got a body. David Gaylor is here and is asking if you can come in.’ My heart sank. Weekends at home were precious, not least because they gave me an opportunity to take over the childcare, allowing Julie to catch up with friends and sleep. I knew if this was a murder, home would become nothing more than a staging post and dressing room for me for the next month or so. I loved investigating homicides but I adored my new family and these conflicting demands tore me up. I knew I would have to go in.
‘I suppose David wants me there to ensure that you don’t stand officers down just before the suspect walks through the door. Am I right?’
‘Touché,’ Bill replied.
As I finished the call, I looked across at Julie. She knew what was coming.
‘Babes. I’ve got to go in. They think they have a murder but no body and they need me there.’
‘How can you have a murder with no body?’ she asked, as ever not revealing the disappointment and frustration she must have been feeling.
‘It’s not common but sometimes the facts point towards a crime but the body has been disposed of or hidden. Could be a long job.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Can you give me a hand settling the kids when we get home before you shoot off? At least we have had a nice afternoon.’
I leant across the gearshift and kissed her on the cheek as we finally left the motorway for the homeward stretch.
‘I must have been very good in a past life to have deserved you,’ I remarked.
‘Yes, you must, but I am sure you’ll pay me back with your bodyweight in flowers and chocolates,’ she replied, a resigned smile spreading across her face.
She pulled up outside our house and I started heaving pushchairs and babies out of the car as my mind raced with scenarios that might be awaiting me. Getting out and about with the kids in those days was a logistical nightmare that needed to be approached like a military operation. Julie was the commander-in-chief and I was the quartermaster. Everything had to be counted out and then counted back, into its designated storage. We had recently returned from our first foreign holiday with the babies and planned our stores so precisely that after a week we had just one out of ninety-six nappies unused.
Kit stowed and children settled, I quickly transformed myself from casual barbecue bum to professional detective, ensuring that I did not commit the cardinal sin of combining a spotted tie with a striped shirt.
As I dashed down the stairs, Julie was already serving up rations of meatballs, mashed potatoes and peas to three gurgling, chuckling, hungry mouths. With a quick kiss for each and a sincere but feeble apology, I jumped into the car and headed south.
As I squeezed the car between two people-carriers in a far corner of Hove Police Station car park around 5 p.m. it became clear that I was not the only one whose weekend plans had been dashed.
I climbed the two storeys to the CID floor and as I walked briskly along the corridor, the excited mumble of speculation and one-sided phone calls that define the early hours of any murder enquiry grew louder.
I stepped through the DCs’ office door, to be greeted by Mick Burkinshaw. ‘Eh up, Graham. Don’t worry, we’ve got an overtime code.’ This was one of the more typical concerns at the outset of any enquiry.
The issue of such a code meant a separate budget and this often was seen by some as being handed carte blanche to work as long as it took to finish the job, sure that they would be handsomely recompensed. Overtime was seen as a great perk and made up for the personal disruption murder enquiries brought.
I remember, some years after Giles York, who later became Chief Constable, being at a briefing I was holding for a major public order event. We provided the hundreds of officers with a bewildering catalogue of details about what was anticipated, what their job was, where the threats might come from, their meal arrangements and the overtime code. Giles pulled me to one side at the end and remarked, ‘What is it about cops, Graham? You can give them all the information they will ever need to do their job and keep themselves safe, but it’s only when you tell them the overtime code that any of them get their pens out.’