Saz Dosanjh

Eddie is awoken by a knock at the door, it’s 11am, he goes downstairs in his dressing gown. There are two women outside, he guesses Jehovah’s witnesses. The older one is indignant, have you just got out of bed? Eddie is startled by this attitude but replies I didn’t get in until six. The woman apologises assuming he must have been working night shifts, and she asks what do you do? Eddie explains he is unemployed, and he had been at a nightclub then went for breakfast with his friends, finally getting home around 6am. The younger woman is visibly upset but she doesn’t know what to say. He closes the door, they walk away. He thinks about going back to bed but decides to stay up. He goes to the kitchen to make some tea when he notices a burning smell. There’s smoke coming from the fridge, where is it plugged in? After a quick look around, he finds the plug and pulls it out. The smoke stops, so he plugs it in again. Bang! The fridge shudders. Silence, the constant background sound of the motor, that he had tuned out, is gone. Now the silence is loud. Disaster, he had filled the freezer with meat yesterday, that was most of his jobseekers allowance, he can not afford this loss.

Edward racks his brains, he could ask one of his friends to freeze his meat for him, but could he trust them not to eat it? He suspects his friend Danny stole some CDs from him during a party. He needs a freezer, maybe just for a day or two. He thinks of the big chest freezers in supermarkets, and of the bigger ones that must be in warehouses. That reminds him of George’s freezer. Eddie doesn’t know George, he’s a friend of Danny. Danny showed him around George’s house when he went to check the post and water his plants. George is in Thailand. While Danny was showing him round, Eddie had taken the backdoor key, sensing an opportunity to exact revenge over his missing CDs.

Eddie went on-line and ordered a replacement fridge/freezer on credit, it would take three years to pay it back. He felt ashamed, he would have to cover this cost with cash-in-hand work or risk losing his benefits. He has never had the sort of job that would pay enough to cover his rent and food, and certainly not the cost of a new fridge. How do people do it? What have they got that I haven’t got? He snapped out of those thoughts. Now he just needs to store the meat overnight and get it back tomorrow, George and Danny would never know. It is the middle of the afternoon, he lets himself in through the back door. There’s a chest freezer in the garage but now he notices a detail, there’s a padlock and chain on the freezer. Who does that? It doesn’t take long to visualise Danny at the police station explaining the damage and Eddie sets about levering the lock off with the handle of a long monkey wrench. The lock holds but the handle just comes away from the freezer, of course, it’s just screwed in, the chain is stronger than the handle. He opens the fridge and his jaw drops, is that dead body?

The next day Eddie’s new fridge is installed, the old one taken away and he recovers his meat along with some kitchen gadgets and a laptop. Over at the police station, an anonymous caller has reported a body in a freezer. The desk sergeant is annoyed, who put this crank call in the log? We’ll have to investigate it now as if there isn’t enough to do around here. PC Hedges is assigned to the make the house call, he finds the back door open, and finds the body in the fridge. He doesn’t believe it is real but calls the sergeant. An hour later, Hedges, Sergeant Lambert, and Inspector Robertson are all in the garage with the police doctor.

Three days later, George is back and immediately arrested. He denies all knowledge and adds that Danny had access to the house while he was away. The police have already questioned Danny. They questioned him about the freezer without mentioning the contents, Danny was baffled and annoyed, what is the big deal about some frozen food? He even offered to replace the food but swore blind that he had not been near the freezer.

Inspector Robertson goes to see D.I. Hartley, they know Danny, he’s a petty crook. His reactions suggest that he does not know about the body, he certainly isn’t sophisticated enough to bluff at this level. George, on the other hand, has quickly calculated that with Danny in the frame his best course is to deny knowledge of the body. He smiles, Danny’s got form, you have no evidence connecting me with the deceased.

The forensic psychiatrist explains to Hartley and Robertson, that when serial killers engage in acts of cannibalism, they usually want to internalise an aspect of the victim’s body or personality. Common ideas are based around youth, vitality, energy, sex drive. It is common in cannibal cultures to believe that these characteristics can be absorbed by consuming the flesh. There should be something that George is lacking and is a profound source of concern or shame for him, he would be sensitive to any questioning in that area.

The interrogation begins. How old are you George? No relationship, no kids, who’ll look after you when you get older? How’s your sex life? Do you go to the gym much? Not with those weedy arms, eh? George doesn’t flinch. He isn’t happy about being single but he believes there is someone out there for him. Who doesn’t want to be in better shape? It’s all they talk about on telly. Nothing. Hartley cracks first, you obviously put the body in there, did you kill him? Danny didn’t do it, is there someone else involved? George still doesn’t acknowledge the body. Hartley decides to go in with the big one, desperate for a reaction, he attacks his weakness.

What did you do with the missing thighs George? George cracks, what do you mean missing? There’s nothing missing, he was perfect, who goes around stealing…

Danny, cleared by the police, came round to Eddie’s place with a six pack of beer, Eddie served up the curry and rice. Goat curry eh? I’ve never had goat, it’s nice, where did you get goat meat from?

17 September 2023