The First Cut

by Knight, Ali

  She stayed silent at first, wondering if this was the safest thing to do. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Keep control, don’t lose control, she urged herself. ‘There’s nothing special about me—’

  He stood suddenly and she reeled back against her chair. ‘I fought that guy for you! I ended up killing that guy for you! I’ve got a heap of shit this big on my head because of you!’

  Oh God, thought Nicky. Oh God . . . ‘You know him, don’t you, Adam?’

  ‘No, I don’t, but someone does!’

  ‘You were talking to him.’

  ‘Yes, I was! You think it’s a coincidence he’s here? Bullshit! What was he looking for? He was trying to take it.’

  ‘Take what?’

  His anger was overwhelming him now, coursing through his strong arms and making the veins on his neck stand out. ‘Are you for real? I mean, are you for fucking real?’ He started pacing the kitchen in a trance. ‘Connie’s not that mad – maybe she’s the sanest of all of us. Maybe fucking Greg deserves to go to hell for all I know!’ He picked up the chair he had been sitting on and threw it in a rage across the room, where its back legs became detached and landed broken in the corner.

  Nicky sat very still on her seat. Change the subject, change the subject, her mind jabbered . . . It would be a victory if she got out of this room in one piece. ‘Shall we light the candles? It’s getting dark and I’m scared of the dark.’

  This simple request pulled him back towards her. He leaned against the kitchen units and dropped his head. ‘We need some more.’ He rooted through a cupboard and found some in a bag and a moment later carried her into the drawing room, lit them and then stuck them to the plates. He didn’t give her the matches. They sat on separate couches and watched the long sunset and listened to the roar of the planes in silence.

  Eventually he stood up. ‘It’s time to go to bed.’ She sat up in alarm. ‘I’m going to have to tie you up again.’

  ‘Adam, please . . .’

  ‘You can’t leave, Nicky. I don’t want to do it, but –’ he touched his head where she’d hit him ‘– I don’t trust you.’

  ‘If you don’t want to do it, then don’t. I know the way you’re behaving isn’t you. We can end this now if—’

  ‘Stop it.’

  She did.

  She made her long and weary way up the stairs for her night-time incarceration, Adam behind her carrying the candles. Their shadows jumped and wavered across his mum’s paintings as they went, the dead body an indistinct, dark shape below them on the hall floor. She slowed to a stop outside the bedroom, the thought of the long, black night to come a crushing weight on her soul. She didn’t know if she had the strength to endure it. ‘Please don’t do this, Adam.’

  ‘I’ve been left with no choice.’

  He led her into the bedroom and pulled the handcuffs out of his pocket. She began to whimper, pleading with him not to do it. She backed up against the wall as he came towards her. ‘Tell me one thing, what did you mean about Greg? Earlier you talked about Greg going to hell.’

  But he didn’t answer; he simply handcuffed her to the bedpost and closed the door.

  Her night was scored with the dull clank of the metal handcuffs against the bedpost, a never-ending reminder of the desperate position she was in. She slept little, the house a silent and brooding prison. As dawn broke and the outline of the room became solid, she remembered watching a TV programme once about a lone hiker in the Canadian wilderness who was pursued by a grizzly. The hiker couldn’t outrun it, couldn’t climb a tree or cross a river to get away from it. He had to find a way of scaring that bear, or he was going to end up never being found. Exhausted, petrified, thirsty, cold and backed into a ravine with no exit, he tried one last-ditch ploy: he extended his tent poles, strung his canvas across the poles and fixed them like wings, then turned and ran screaming straight for the grizzly. He made himself bigger, scarier and bolder than he really was. The bear turned and fled.

  Nicky thought back to the graffiti Adam had shown her by the Thames. ‘Fear makes the wolf grow bigger.’ She spent the rest of the disappearing night forcing herself to beat back her terror.

  23

  He knocked on the door at eight a.m., like a timid owner of a B&B bringing her breakfast in bed. He was in the same dirt-stained T-shirt and trousers he had worn the day before and he looked exhausted. Clearly she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t slept well.

  ‘Here, I made you some tea.’

  She stared at it suspiciously, wondering if he’d put something in it, but then he unlocked her handcuffs and sat next to her on the bed and she was so glad that her hand was free that she took the tea and drank it.

  ‘What fun things are we doing today?’ She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice. The idea of being chained up again, or digging for hours in a futile search for who knew what, overwhelmed her spirit.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nicky, really.’ He couldn’t meet her eye and gazed awkwardly through the door instead.

  Nicky stood up and put her foot down. He grabbed her to keep her steady, but she pushed him away and held the bedframe instead. She limped to the door, wincing with pain, but the truth was that her foot felt almost normal. She was going to keep this advantage to herself.

  They came round the curve in the stairs and the sight of the dead body in the hall shocked Nicky more than she could say. She stared down at the blood, now black and matted in his hair, and saw the corner of his mouth was stained green. The flies would soon be feasting. She turned to Adam and drew herself up tall. She felt nothing but contempt for him.

  He seemed to wither under her gaze before looking down at the body. ‘I’ll tell you why you’re here,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ He had spoken so quietly she wasn’t sure she had heard him right.

  ‘Help me dig this morning, and I’ll tell you why I’m keeping you here.’

  ‘Tell me now.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not yet. But I will tell you.’

  ‘Does this have something to do with Grace?’

  He looked stricken, almost ill. She could smell his old sweat on his clothes. She saw his indecision as he looked at the man he had killed. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘You’re going to bloody tell me now!’

  But he was walking away from her down the stairs and Nicky simply had to follow.

  They spent a boring, hot and exhausting morning digging up the lawn, Adam driving the tractor and Nicky hobbling along barefoot behind, not knowing what she was looking for in the furrows. It was a succession of stones and broken tree roots and endless black mud. The highlight was a bundle of ancient nails, rusty and disintegrating as she touched them. Her mind was mulling over Adam’s promise on the stairs. She feared he was setting her up for nothing. Her rational voice knew there was no revelation to come, knew that there was no excuse for his actions – they were unjustifiable.

  Eventually, once they had ploughed to the end of a furrow by the lake at nearly lunchtime, Nicky stopped and shook her head, stretching her aching back. ‘I need a drink and a rest,’ she said.

  Adam got down from the tractor cab and nodded. ‘I’ll carry you in.’ He picked her up in his strong arms and walked with her across the remaining lawn and into the kitchen, placing her down gently by the sink. He poured two large glasses of water.

  ‘I want some wine.’

  ‘Good idea,’ he replied. He paused. ‘Thank you for helping me.’ His rage of the previous day, his see-sawing between sullenness and anger had gone. He was more like the Adam of old.

  He picked her up again, although it really wasn’t necessary, and carried her to the door of the wine cellar. It was as if he didn’t want to let her go. He put her down slowly. ‘Nicky . . . I—’ He had his hands on her shoulders and he pushed her tenderly up against the door. She was about to reject his advance when she felt something hard sticking into her back. It was the key to the cellar door. Nicky made a split-second decision. Make it believable
, she told herself. He leaned in towards her and she pulled him to her and kissed him.

  Several things happened at once. Nicky found she couldn’t stop herself. After all the physical discomforts and the fear and the crushing loneliness, she responded to Adam more than she’d expected. She wanted the feel of another human being close to her, she wanted to feel alive. He jammed her up against the cellar door, his erection prodding her in the stomach, her small lifeline poking her in the back. She ran her hands through his hair. He was a very good kisser and his hands started to wander down her body, cupping her under her bum and pulling her closer to him.

  He might notice the key.

  She gasped with desire and with fear that her one tiny hope might be crushed, and pushed him to arm’s length, her hands splayed across his chest, feeling the hard planes of his torso.

  He was staring at her. ‘Nicky, I—’

  ‘I need a drink.’ She peeled herself off the door and made to go into the cellar but it was as if all the blood in her limbs had pooled between her legs and she didn’t have the strength to stand. She staggered against the wall.

  He flung open the door and jumped down over the broken stair. One step, two . . . he was in the room.

  The rest happened in slow motion. She tried to pull herself together, to tell her body to stop revelling in unexpected pleasure and to act. She grabbed the door as he began to turn. And she shut it before he understood what she was doing. She heard him shout as she leaned against the door, grabbing the large old-fashioned key and turning it in the lock half a second before his body weight slammed into the wood.

  ‘Nicky! Don’t do this, Nicky!’

  She had crossed over. The spell was broken. Her body changed from pleasure to flight. She raced through the kitchen, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he broke down that door. Her mind was working with complete clarity. This wouldn’t be a blind race for the gate. She hobbled to the barn, even though there was the possibility she would be trapped between it and the kitchen door if he got out. She yanked at the old bike propped up against the wall, hoping wildly that the chain was still on. She swung her leg over and started pedalling across the gravel, skidding slightly as she went. She gained speed as she edged away from the house. The gravel path ran down to the lake but she saw a walking path heading left through some chestnut trees. The path was flat and she made good progress, bumping along, getting nearer to the high grey wall. She saw a folly of stone a short distance away, the moss encrusted on its sides grown shrivelled and yellow in the heat. A plane began to roar above her. The sound of it made the hairs on her neck stand up and she pedalled with all the strength she had. At the folly she turned right towards the wall.

  She took a second to look around and guessed she was maybe half a mile from the house. She was hidden in the trees and bushes and he wouldn’t know which way she had come. She leaned the bike against the high, smooth wall and grabbed at a small stone protruding from the stonework. She balanced on the bike seat and put her left hand on the top of the wall. Trying to find another handhold, she drew on all her limited climbing experience. Bare feet were actually an advantage here. Another little victory over Adam surged through her. She tucked her dress into her pants and put her big toe on a rough stone. She inched upwards; one more move and she had two hands on the top of the wall. She felt wildly for another handhold, a crevasse or hole worn away by wind and frost, but didn’t find one.

  Nicky knew that climbing wasn’t about brute strength but more of a mental puzzle. It was about balancing in a precarious position and, instead of ploughing forward if the way was blocked, doubling back and finding a fresh path. She put her foot back down on the saddle, wincing, and studied the wall. She started this time with her right hand, reaching up for a handhold and hugging the side of a small cement ledge with the side of her left foot. She inched upwards, swinging her hand onto the top of the wall. This time she got it right, and, turning her head, saw a stone for her right foot. She scraped the skin off her knees on the rough stone as she pushed higher. She swung her hand out and finally had two hands on the top. A few moments later she rolled her body across the top of the wall. She looked around at the direction she had come. There was no noise, no movement in the buzzing afternoon heat. She looked over at the ground on the other side and dropped down as far as she could, then swore and let go. She landed heavily in a pile of bracken, winded but unharmed.

  Thirty seconds later she was hobbling away from Hayersleigh through the woods.

  24

  Nicky was running along as best she could when she saw a track ahead through the trees and dropped to the forest floor. She was disorientated, unsure whether this was the drive to Hayersleigh or another that ran through the woods. If the track bent at any point, she might well have come back upon it. She cursed silently. He might be near. The thick vegetation was a good cover at this time of year, the bracken an almost impenetrable thicket she could move through. She came to the track and paused, straining for any sound of him. The noise of the forest was all that came back to her. She kept the track in sight as she crawled along. After a hundred metres she saw a red car parked in a passing place. She pulled the key out of the pocket of her dress. Did they match? The car was facing the way she had come so she reckoned she’d have to three-point-turn it to get away. If she broke cover he might be on her. She forced herself to bide her time, listening, straining for any foreign sound.

  Nothing.

  She put her hand out and pressed the ‘door open’ button. The lights on the car flashed. She couldn’t hold out any longer; her means of escape was right in front of her. She went for it.

  She sprinted on that darn sore foot for the driver’s door, on the far side of the car. She was round the bonnet, grasping madly at the door, then she was in, key jabbing at the ignition slot. She found the button to lock the door as she got the key in the slot and turned it, her foot slamming on the accelerator. A horrid grinding noise filled the car. The fucking thing wouldn’t start. She turned the key again and felt the engine spark to life just as a dark shadow broke free of the bracken across the track and Adam ran at her window with a big stick. She rammed the car into first and had just got the handbrake down when the crunch of cracking safety glass exploded by her face. She screamed as he drew back for another hit. His next blow was stronger, breaking through the glass now as she roared away up the track. She saw him running towards her in the rear-view mirror as the closed gate of the house came into view round a curve. She swore as she began a three-point turn. She shoved the nose into bracken, slammed the car into reverse. He was sprinting hard, a baseball bat in his hand, not a piece of wood as she had first thought. If he breaks the windscreen I won’t be able to drive it, she thought. The back of the car hit a tree with a smack. She ground the gears into first as he got to within ten metres. She juddered forward, the fear ramping up the closer he got. She couldn’t get the front of the car all the way round. She swore as she realized she should have stayed straight and reversed out. He was at the window now as she reversed the car again.

  ‘Nicky!’ He had his hand in the broken window, trying to pull the key out of the ignition.

  She tried to fight him off with one hand, the mantra of ‘Don’t stall this car, don’t stall this car’ racing through her head.

  ‘Your life’s in danger!’

  He jumped on the bonnet as she slammed the car back into first gear. They stared at each other through the dirty glass for a second before she floored the accelerator and the car jumped forward. Adam was thrown to the ground. The tyres squealed as she flew off down the track. She risked a glance in the mirror and saw his dark figure splayed out in the dust from her car wheels. She changed into second and picked up speed, a dizzying elation beginning to flood her. She’d done it. She’d got away. The car bounced madly over the potholes as she screamed a roar of defiance and thanks for her escape. She began to skid on the dry gravel and turned the wheel madly to try to stop it, telling herself sternly to slow down. Victory wa
s so close now.

  At that moment, as she came out of the skid, bits of bracken trapped and flapping in the broken window, she wanted to kill him. She wanted to pummel him to death with her bare hands, reduce his head to the kind of mess she used to watch on The Sopranos. Her sense of outrage over what he did to her, what she was reduced to, flamed inside her as she roared. That sick bastard was going to pay, he was going to jail for what he did. Murderous thoughts were competing with elation, with the sheer, unbridled joy at the feeling of being free, of having survived. As she drove further away from Adam and his house her feeling of specialness, the sense of how lucky she was, overrode everything else.

  An in-car air freshener in the shape of a fir tree swayed with the bouncing car, the scent long ago dried up. She was driving a dead man’s car. A cup of old coffee sloshed in the cup holder. Who was he?

  She popped open the glove box and pulled at papers, getting the first glimpse of the tarmac road ahead. She should have put her foot on the brake, changed down into first, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the bit of paper that she’d pulled out. The familiarity of it socked her in the guts.

  The photo that had spilled from the dead man’s glove box was of her.

  The photo was medium-sized and clear. Nicky couldn’t tell whether it was taken by a digital camera or a phone. It was taken somewhere from a distance, but it was unmistakably her. She glanced back at the road, then back to the photo. She stood smiling at someone off camera. She stared at the picture. Where was the building behind her? It was a modern, steel-and-glass tower, indistinguishable from every other office block, and as she stared at the photo, trying to understand what it might mean, she shot out of the tiny side road.

  Troy was trying to tune into a local radio station. Make that any bloody station. It was as if he’d hit the Bermuda Triangle here in the English countryside; his digital radio was picking up sweet FA. Troy liked music, it was the playlist of his life, it changed his moods, gave him his feelings. It also reduced his anxiety. Struan hadn’t called and that made him nervous. He should have done the bloody job himself, he was thinking. He had to take action. The drive to the house was near here and he was going to park, have a walk on this fine day and find out what the fuck was happening. He slowed as he approached a bend in the road, and finally he happened upon a station playing James Brown. Instantly his anxiety faded as the thumping beats filled his car, masking the noise of Nicky’s engine as it raced along in too slow a gear. He still had one hand on the volume control when a red blur of a car appeared out of nowhere and slammed into the side of his beloved black Toyota Rav4.