Stephen Booth - The kill call

The strangest thing was the sound of Radio Two playing somewhere in the background. At one point, a door out of camera range must have been opened, releasing a louder blast of Abba. ‘Money, Money, Money’ or ‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme’. He half expected the slaughterman to burst into song himself, maybe to do a little dance in his white apron and cap. His work was almost choreographed, so it wouldn’t have been totally unfitting.

The link to the film had been sent to him in an email. The sender’s address was one of the free web-based email accounts, which could be set up without providing a postal address or a phone number, or even a real name. If you wanted to make sure you stayed anonymous, you could create an account specifically for sending one email. Then you sent it on a public access terminal in a library or internet cafe, and closed your account. He could attempt to get the sender traced, but it was probably futile.

He couldn’t figure out why some of the footage had sound, but other sections didn’t — even though they were obviously shot from the same place. At one point, a door partially blocked the view of the camera, resulting in a glimpse only of a horse’s back legs thrashing on the floor, until they gradually came to a halt.

Cooper had grown up on a farm. He knew that animals had to be killed, for all kinds of reasons. As far as he was concerned, there should be no problem with that, so long as it was done properly. Quickly, efficiently and humanely. Those were the key words. He knew that most slaughtermen took pride in doing their job well, so that an animal didn’t suffer unnecessarily. But it was a thankless role, one that the public at large would rather pretend didn’t exist. That essential stage between the cute animal skipping around a field and the joint of lamb on a supermarket shelf was best left unexplored. What you didn’t know, didn’t hurt.

‘C.J. Hawley and Sons,’ said Hitchens. ‘Do we know anything else about them?’

‘Only that theirs was one of the numbers on Patrick Rawson’s calls list,’ said Cooper.

The rest of the film showed footage of a sick or injured horse lying in a yard outside the abattoir. Its head rolled, and it tried to sit up a couple of times, but gave up. Meanwhile, a man could be seen walking backwards and forwards past it, talking on a mobile phone. Eventually, he came back with a gun and shot the horse in the head. He was in ordinary casual clothes, a blue check shirt and a pair of worn denim jeans, and it was difficult to say whether this was the same man who’d been filmed in the killing room.

The caption pointed out that a sick or injured horse was supposed to be killed straight away, and suggested that the animal had been left to lie in the yard because it had arrived at the slaughterhouse outside normal operating hours when the butchering line wasn’t running. Legislation said that for meat to be deemed fit for human consumption, an animal must be bled immediately after being shot or stunned. Therefore, it had to wait to be killed until the butchering line was ready. Yet the law also said that a seriously injured animal should be despatched without delay.

‘Even if that’s true,’ said Hitchens, when Cooper pointed it out, ‘it’s a matter for the licensing authorities. The RSPCA, maybe. Not us.’

‘It’s relevant to us if it suggests a motive,’ said Cooper.

‘The man in the film…?’

‘Yes. The one in the yard with the injured horse. I’m pretty sure that was Patrick Rawson himself.’

Minutes after her return from Sutton Coldfield, Fry found herself sitting in the DI’s office, warily eyeing a stack of papers he was extracting from a file. If Hitchens wanted to share something with her, it probably wasn’t good news.

‘No live investigations or outstanding offences for Patrick Rawson?’ he said vaguely.

‘None, sir. But that doesn’t rule out the involvement of angry customers from earlier offences. Someone whose name might be on Dermot Walsh’s list.’

‘Good point. We’ll have to speak to them all.’

‘Given time, that might be possible. At the moment, I’m more concerned by the fact that I can’t contact the partner, Michael Clay. Without him, we can’t even start to analyse Mr Rawson’s business affairs properly.’

‘Yes, I heard. But he’ll turn up, won’t he?’

‘I hope so.’

Hitchens frowned and looked up. ‘Diane, have you ever heard of a disease called trichinosis?’

‘What? No, I haven’t. But it doesn’t sound like something I’d want to be diagnosed with.’

‘You’re exactly right. Trichinosis is a parasitic disease caused by a nematode worm, whatever that is. I don’t like the sound of it, personally. Trichinella spiralis.’

‘Symptoms?’

‘Initially, swelling of the eyes, diarrhoea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Also fatigue, fever, headaches, shivering, coughing, aching joints, muscle pains. In severe infections, there may be heart and breathing problems, or difficulty co-ordinating movements. In extreme cases, death can occur.’ Hitchens laughed drily. ‘I like that — “death can occur”. That should be our motto.’

‘You don’t look as though you have any of those,’ said Fry. ‘But I suppose it’s difficult for me to tell unless you stand up and walk about a bit.’

Hitchens didn’t seem to be listening as he ran his eye over a sheet filled with dense paragraphs of text.

‘Trichinosis is actually quite rare in this country,’ he said. ‘Or it used to be.’

Fry felt a small shiver of unease. She wasn’t a hypochondriac by any means, but even so, she didn’t like the idea of this disease. What was that about a nematode worm? Just the name of it sounded disgusting.

‘Are you saying we’ve got an epidemic, sir? Is this thing contagious?’

‘Not exactly. Well, you don’t catch it from other human beings.’

Reluctantly, Fry found her thoughts flicking back to the previous day. The smell of horses, the wet plop of something unspeakable hitting her shoes.

‘I’m liking the sound of it even less now.’

‘The infection is caused by eating raw or under-cooked meat, usually pork,’ said Hitchens. ‘The experts say cases have increased in recent years, generally blamed on Eastern Europe and the movement of migrant workers within the EU. There was a major outbreak in France, with more than four hundred people affected — traced to meat imported from Yugoslavia. Another case in Ireland, pork sausages brought in by Polish nationals. And the last outbreak of trichinosis here in the UK was in 1999 — eight Yugoslav immigrants. That was caused by salami from Serbia.’

Fry began to relax. ‘Luckily, I’m not a big fan of pork. But I can’t see the relevance of this to us, sir.’

‘Well… there’s been another outbreak here in the Midlands. The first in the UK for ten years. It’s not widespread, and they don’t want to cause panic. But the source of the infection might be relevant.’

‘It’s an Environmental Health job, surely? Them, or DEFRA. If somebody is selling infected pork meat they have the statutory powers to close businesses down and prosecute. They don’t need us.’

‘No, of course not. But some conscientious EHO must have been reading the bulletins. They made a connection to one of our current enquiries.’

‘Which current enquiry?’

‘Well, you put it together…’ Hitchens slid the file across the desk to her. ‘Historically, most outbreaks of trichinosis are caused by infected pork meat, but this one is different. The common factor among these victims is that they’ve been eating undercooked horse meat.’

Fry felt her stomach turn over. You didn’t have to be a fan of horses to have doubts about eating one. Very big doubts.