‘Ah Jesus! Why are we watching this?’ gasped Woods.
‘Please, Tony. Just bear with me.’
More men wearing similar costumes appeared and pressed buttons on the side of the contraption, which made it fall sideways, spilling the body of the cow on to a platform directly in front of it. Immediately, one of the men stepped forward and, using a long sharp knife, made a clean incision across the throat of the animal.
A torrent of blood poured out from the wound and the animal began twitching wildly. Every man on the team seemed to know his job off by heart. The blood washed over their shoes, and splashed on to their aprons and trousers, but none of them seemed to mind. It was clear that they had gone through this exact procedure many, many times.
While the man with the knife continued cutting his way through the neck, one of his colleagues moved to the rear of the animal, cut off the rear hooves and then attached two metal clamps to the rear legs. Another man removed the front hooves, while the remaining worker held up the head to make it easier for the first man to remove it completely.
As the head came away from the body, one of the workers reached up and grasped a bright blue box that was hanging down from the ceiling on a thick wire. There were buttons at the top and bottom of the device, and he pressed the uppermost one. Immediately the metal clamps began to rise up into the air, taking the cow with them. It rose higher and higher, until the remains of its rear legs were well above head height and the blood stump of its neck was swinging a foot or so above the ground.
The flow of blood had completely stopped; the blood that had spilled out over the tiles seemed to have drained away. Even the aprons and clothes the men were wearing showed little sign of what had happened just moments earlier.
The man who had been operating the clamp and crane now produced a knife of his own and made a deep slit from the centre of the cow’s belly all the way down to the top of its ribcage. A cloud of steam seemed to hiss out from the wound, which the man, assisted by two of his co-workers, quickly pulled apart to make even wider. What appeared to be a shiny grey sack began to emerge from the wound, followed by masses of pink and grey coils. One of the men reached inside the animal’s belly right up to his elbow and pulled out its internal organs, using a knife to cut away whatever parts remained. The animal’s guts were lowered into a wheelbarrow and immediately taken away.
Collins paused the video. The frame showed one of the yellow-costumed men directly to one side of what remained of the cow. It was hanging upside down, legs splayed, empty inside but for the marbled flesh of the inside of its ribcage.
When Collins looked over at Woods, his mouth was open in shock.
‘Before they cut them open,’ said Collins, ‘they use a special gun to stun the animals. It doesn’t kill them. It’s supposed to render the animal completely senseless so that when they cut its throat, it doesn’t feel anything. The heart has to still be pumping when they cut the throat to prevent clots building up inside the animal’s body. Death is from –’
Woods was ahead of her. ‘Exsanguination.’
‘Clearly a place like this is used to dealing with huge amounts of blood. Just look at how quickly it’s all drained away. Now take a look at the device attached to the back legs. It’s called a yoke. Sometimes they use clamps; sometimes they push metal hooks through the flesh of the calves. The yoke is the wrong shape to work on a human body, but it wouldn’t take much to, say, hook a strong piece of wire around it and use that to raise it up. It would also explain how a woman of slightly less than average height and weight could manipulate full-grown men into the positions she needed in order to do this to them.’
‘It would also explain the marks around the ankles,’ said Woods.
Collins pointed at the computer screen. ‘Then we have the removal of the internal organs. Yet another very strong parallel. Now the next stages are clearly different to anything that we’ve seen with our victims. From here the video goes on to show the animal being skinned and then being completely sawn in two to create two sides of beef. But do you know what happens after that has been done?’
Woods shrugged his shoulders. He was still taking in the details of what he had just seen. The similarities between the end result on the screen and the bodies they had found were remarkable. Truly terrifying.
‘They place the sides of beef in cold storage,’ said Collins flatly. ‘Every slaughterhouse has a huge room just for that purpose. It all fits. It has to be what she’s doing.’
‘But there’s no way anyone could carry out a murder in an abattoir. Too many witnesses, too many people around.’
Collins tapped the screen with her knuckles. ‘Everything about the way the killings has been carried out suggests that she’s been using a very similar set-up. Besides, the other alternative is that she could be operating absolutely anywhere in the country. At least this gives us somewhere to start. It’s got to be better than nothing.’
‘Well, you’ve convinced me, but I don’t count. It’s Anderson you’re going to need to get on side.’
‘Then let’s get him over here to watch this video.’
Moments later, the video having played through once more, DCI Anderson’s face twitched with confusion.
‘I know it sounds crazy,’ said Collins, ‘but it really fits in with the evidence that we have so far. We know that Matthews needs a place that gives her the freedom to kill at her own pace. It would have to be somewhere where large quantities of blood would not cause suspicion and finally somewhere with access to cold-storage facilities. And right now it’s the only possible lead that we’ve got.’ Collins leaned forward and placed her palms flat on the desk. ‘You yourself said that the killer was just as likely to be a butcher as they were to be someone with medical training. I think you were more right than any of us realized at the time.’
Anderson was nodding. ‘You’re right, it does fit. But it’s unlikely to be anywhere that’s being used on a regular basis. It would be too difficult to hide this kind of thing.
See if there’s some kind of trade association. Get a list of all the slaughterhouses within a hundred-mile radius. Find out which ones are closest to the place where the bodies were dumped and let’s pay them some surprise visits. Time is short and if anyone from this industry is involved, I don’t want them having a head start.’
It turned out to be a far less daunting task than anyone on the team had expected. With the vast majority of Britain’s farming community located well outside the capital, there were only a handful of slaughterhouses to be found unless you travelled deep into the Home Counties. Of those some dealt only with chickens, while others operated under religious guidelines and had little or no automated machinery. That left three premises: Anderson and Porter would visit one, Cooper and Hill another and Collins and Woods the third.
They drove in silence, Collins deep in thought and Woods unable to say anything useful.
They arrived at the abattoir on the edge of an industrial estate in Crawley just after 2 p.m. Collins glanced at her watch. They had only fourteen hours to find Sophie. She hoped to God they were not on a wild-goose chase.
The slaughterhouse was a large windowless building that sat on the edge of a field adjacent to a corrugated-metal structure where the animals were kept prior to being taken inside. Large gates to the left of the main entrance led to the loading bay, while a small door at the front led to a neatly furnished reception area.
‘I don’t know what I was expecting,’ said Woods. ‘But this wasn’t it.’
‘I know what you mean.’
But as soon as she stepped out of the car, Collins was immediately hit by a combination of sounds and smells that made her feel queasy.