The bus stopped in the modern part of the village up on the main road, and Sue had to walk about a mile down to the village itself. The street, by Roxby Beck, was so steep that cars weren’t allowed down it. Below her, the houses, a mixture of different stones, colors and styles, seemed to tumble over one another down to the sea. On the way, she stopped at a newsagent’s and bought a local paper and a Daily Mirror.
The village at the foot of the hill was penned in on both sides by high headlands, huge skulls of grass-topped rock, where the horizontal strata of light sandstones and reddish brown clays had been bared by the wind and rain over the centuries. The only view from the promenade was of the cliffs looming on each side, or out to the sea itself. There was nobody about; the place was deathly quiet. Even the gulls seemed to be swooping in silence, and the air was thick with the smell of rotten fish.
First, Sue wandered into the Cod and Lobster, a whitewashed pub right on the seafront above the thick stone wall. She ordered a lager and lime and, surprised to find they didn’t do meals, sat down for a cigarette and a read. There weren’t many people in: a man in a Yorkshire Dales T-shirt scratched the neck of his red setter, two lads in navy jerseys, baggy jeans and Wellingtons chatted up the young barmaid, and that was it. In fact, she hadn’t seen many tourists at all, even on her way down the hill. Staithes seemed to be much more of an isolated, working village than Robin Hood’s Bay. It seemed to be the kind of place where she might have more luck in finding the man she wanted.
As she smoked, Sue examined the photographs on the walls. Some of them showed a terrible storm that had hit Staithes in 1953 and damaged the pub badly. Others showed groups of local fishermen, and Sue studied them keenly. She knew she could rely on her visual memory least of all in her quest, but she had glimpsed him briefly in the moonlight and remembered the thick black eyebrows meeting in the middle, the Ancient Mariner eyes and the thatch of dark hair. No one in the photographs resembled him, so she turned to her newspapers.
There was nothing more on the Sandsend body in the local paper. Obviously, the police were stuck and the reporters couldn’t justify repeating the same story day after day. It didn’t mean that the investigation had come to a dead end, though, she realized. The police would still be working on it, questioning people, digging around for evidence. The very idea that they might be drawing closer gave her butterflies in her stomach.
She had bought the Mirror because she thought it might have more news about the Student Slasher. She found a whole page recapping his exploits, with the familiar blurred photos of the victims’ faces taken from old students’ union cards or passports (not Sue’s, of course, for she had never been officially identified as his first victim). There they were: Kathleen Shannon with her long, wavy hair; Jane Pitcombe with her large, far-apart eyes; Margaret Snell with her lopsided smile…and the three others. Apart from veiled hints about what he did to the nubile young bodies (suggesting, between the lines, that some of them asked for it), and a number of editorial calls for the police to get a move on and catch him (“This could happen to your daughter, too!”), there was no real information at all. Sue stared at the six faces. She had never met any of the women, but she felt closer to them than she did to anyone else. Sometimes late at night, she had even fancied she heard them whispering in her ear. They helped her, guided her when she felt weak and lost, and for them, if not for herself, she had to carry on to the end.
Feeling hungry, she stubbed out her cigarette and finished her drink. Outside, a little further around the harbor from the Cod and Lobster, was a café attached to a private hotel. She walked in and found the small room crowded with full tables and only one waitress trying to deal with all the orders. Though she was obviously rushed off her feet by a recent influx of six or seven customers, the woman managed everything as quickly as she could, and with a smile. From the glimpses Sue got when the kitchen door swung open, there was only one cook, too. The menu offered little choice. The special of the day was cod and chips. Sue ordered it.
Smoking was not allowed in the café, so she passed the twenty minutes or so she had to wait for lunch doing the crosswords and reading about the sexual exploits of famous TV personalities and pop stars in the Mirror. When the meal finally came, it was good. Sue realized that she had spent too much energy avoiding fish and chips in Whitby—because it seemed that that was the only food available—as she actually enjoyed it, at least in moderation.
As she ate, she remembered the local chippie near the university, where she and her friends had often stopped on their way home from the pub and eaten out of newspaper as they walked. If only her mother could have seen her; she’d have had a fit. But the north seemed so full of fish and chip shops, what could you do? Though she had never thought about it at the time, she guessed now that much of the fish came from places like Whitby and Scarborough, and even the smaller villages like Staithes. It came? Well, obviously it was delivered. It didn’t fly there by itself. A whole fleet of vans must be constantly rushing back and forth from the coast to service inland towns and cities. Sue paused with her fork in the air as the simplicity of it all came to her: the final piece of the puzzle. Of course! How could she have been so stupid? Now she knew exactly what to do next.
When she had finished eating, she pushed the empty plate aside and lit a cigarette. One or two fellow diners gave her nasty looks, but no one actually walked over and asked her to stop. The waitress also ignored her. She had much more on her mind than telling a patron to stop smoking. Eventually Sue got the bill, paid it and walked out into the sea air. Its rotten-fish smell now seemed mingled with the odors of seaweed and ozone, and just a trace of diesel fuel from the boats.
There was no point remaining in Staithes any longer, she thought as she walked along the harbor wall. She had always been certain, in her heart of hearts, that Whitby was the place where she would find him. Now even logic backed up her instinct.
Still, it was pleasant enough walking in the sun and watching the placid blue sea. The place seemed less oppressive now that she had decided to leave it soon. She could at least wait until she had digested her lunch. The only discomfort she felt was a hot and itchy scalp under her wig.
She sat down on the sea wall and let her legs dangle over the edge. Stretching her arms out behind her and resting her palms on the warm tarmac, she leaned back and let the sun warm her closed eyelids. One more cigarette, she decided, then back up the long hill to the bus stop. Shifting position, she checked her timetable and found out that there was a bus at 2:18. It was twenty past one now, so she had just missed the one before. Plenty of time.
As she sat watching a distant tanker move across the horizon, she became aware of someone staring at her. The hackles at the back of her neck, under the wig, stood on end. At first, she brushed off the feeling as ridiculous. Hadn’t she just decided that she would find her man in Whitby? He couldn’t be here. Then, for a moment, she panicked. What if it was the police? What if they had somehow got on to her? Or were they just following her, watching? She could bear it no longer. Turning her head slowly and casually toward the rail in front of the Cod and Lobster, where she thought the watcher was standing, she picked out the tall, tanned figure.
It was Keith McLaren, the Australian she’d met at the Abbey Terrace guesthouse. And he recognized her. Even as she looked, he waved, smiled and started to walk toward her.
32
Kirsten
August gave way to September and the nights turned cooler. As the weeks passed, Kirsten began to look forward to her sessions with Laura Henderson. They smoked and sipped terrible coffee together in that cozy room overlooking the River Avon. The immediate sights beyond the window became as familiar to Kirsten as if she had looked out on them all her life: Robert Adam’s Pulteney Bridge, with its row of shops along each side, all built of Cotswold stone; the huge square late-Gothic tower of the Abbey; the Guildhall and municipal buildings. Often she stared over Laura’s shoulders during the long silences or stood at the window a
s Laura sought out an article in a journal. Some evenings, when their sessions ran late, Laura would take a bottle of Scotch from her filing cabinet and pour them each a drink.
They talked more about Kirsten’s childhood, her parents, her feelings about sex. Laura said that Kirsten was making progress. And so she was. She still didn’t like going out or meeting people, but she began to enjoy the simple things again: mostly solo pursuits like a walk in the woods, music, the occasional novel. She even found that she could concentrate and sleep well again. Though she no longer flirted with suicide, she hung on to her cold hatred, and the dark cloud still throbbed inside her mind. Sometimes it made her head ache. She and Laura didn’t talk about the attack. It would come, Kirsten knew, but only when Laura thought she was ready.
At home, her mother continued to fuss and fret, and she often seemed to regard her daughter with a combination of embarrassment and pity. But Kirsten grew used to it. The two of them kept out of each other’s way as much as possible. It wasn’t difficult. With her garden, her croquet, her bridge parties and her myriad social engagements, Kirsten’s mother managed to keep busy.
Hugo and Damon sent get-well cards, and Galen phoned several times during August. At first, Kirsten instructed her mother to tell him she was out. Soon, however, she realized that wasn’t fair. She spoke to him and tried to respond to his concern without encouraging him too much. One Friday, he paid a visit and tried again to persuade Kirsten to go with him to Toronto. They walked in the woods and she let him take her hand, though her flesh felt dead to his touch. It wasn’t too late, he said, they had both been accepted and term didn’t begin for a few weeks yet. Gently, she put him off, told him she would join him later, and sent him away partially appeased. Finally, at the beginning of September, he went to Canada and sent her a postcard as soon as he got to Toronto. She had never told him what was really wrong with her; nor had she mentioned the suicide attempt.
If anyone sustained Kirsten outside Laura Henderson’s office, it was Sarah, who phoned almost every week and wrote long, entertaining letters in between. Always outrageous, funny and compassionate, she made Kirsten laugh again. When she asked if she might visit over Christmas, when her own parents would be touring Australia, Kirsten jumped at the chance. Her father saw that it was a good idea, too, but her mother, perhaps recalling her only meeting with Sarah in the dingy northern bedsit, was reluctant at first. Christmas was a family time, she said. She didn’t want strangers around. Her husband argued that it wasn’t a very big family anyway. Kirsten’s grandparents, two uncles and aunts usually came for Christmas dinner, then her parents visited friends in the village for drinks on Boxing Day. Surely, he argued, it would be good for Kirsten to have a friend of her own age around. Finally, her mother gave in and it was settled. Sarah was due to arrive on December 22, and Kirsten would pick her up at the station after her late-afternoon session with Dr. Henderson. She would have her mother’s Audi, as usual.
One day in early October, when the elegant old city looked gray and a cold wind drove the rain through its Georgian crescents, circles and squares, Kirsten forsook her usual walk by the Avon and drove straight home from Laura’s office. When she arrived, she noticed a strange car parked in the drive and hermother peeking out from behind the lace curtains—something she didn’t usually do—and her heart began to beat faster. Something was wrong. Was it her father? she wondered as she hurried to the door. Her ordeal had taken a terrible toll on him, and though he did seem stronger and happier of late, the bags still hung dark under his eyes and he had lost his boyish enthusiasm for things. Was his heart weak? Had he had an attack?
Her mother opened the door before Kirsten even had time to fit her key into the lock. “Someone to see you,” she said in a whisper.
“What is it?” Kirsten asked. “Is Father all right?”
Her mother frowned. “Of course he is, dear. Whatever gave you that idea?”
Kirsten hung up her coat and dashed into the split-level living room. Two men sat close to the French windows, near the spot on the carpet, now dry-cleaned back to perfection, where Kirsten had had her Scotch and pills picnic. One of the men she recognized, or thought she should, but the memory was vague: spiky gray hair, red complexion, dark mole between left nostril and upper lip. She’d seen him before. And then it came to her: the policeman, Superintendent…
“Elswick, miss,” he said, as if reading her mind. “Detective Superintendent Elswick. We have met before.”
Kirsten nodded. “Yes, yes of course.”
“And this is Detective Inspector Gregory.”
Inspector Gregory stretched out his hand, which was attached to an astonishingly long arm, and Kirsten moved forward to shake it. Then he disappeared back into the chair—her father’s favorite armchair, she noticed. Gregory was probably in his midthirties, and his dark hair was a bit too long for a policeman. He was dressed scruffily, too, with brown corduroy trousers, threadbare from being washed too many times, a tan suede jacket and no tie. Kirsten thought he seemed a bit shifty. She didn’t like the way he looked at her. Superintendent Elswick wore a navy-blue suit, a white shirt and a black-and-amber-striped tie. It was the same one he wore last time, she remembered. Probably from an old school or regiment; he looked like an ex-military type.
“How are you, Kirsten?” Elswick asked.
Kirsten sat down on the sofa before answering. Her mother hovered over them and asked if anyone would like more tea.
“I haven’t had any yet,” Kirsten said. “Yes. I’d like some, please.”
The two policemen said they wouldn’t be averse to another cup, and Kirsten’s mother walked off promising to make a fresh pot.
Kirsten looked at Elswick. “How am I? I suppose I’m doing fine.”
“Good. I’m very glad. It was a nasty business.”
“Yes.”
They sat in tense silence until Kirsten’s mother returned with the tea tray. Having deposited it on the mahogany coffee table before the stone hearth, she disappeared again, saying, “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
After her sessions with Dr. Henderson, Kirsten was used to silence. At first it had disconcerted her, made her fidgety and edgy, but now they sometimes sat for as much as two minutes—which is a very long time for two people to be silent together—while Kirsten meditated on something Laura had said, or tried to frame a reply to a particularly probing and painful question. Elswick and Gregory were easy meat. There was something they wanted, obviously, so all she had to do was wait until they got to the point.
Gregory played “mother,” clearly an unsuitable role for him, and spilled as much tea in the saucer as he got in the cups. Elswick frowned at him, and added milk and sugar. Then, when they were settled again, Gregory crossed his long legs and took out a black notebook. He did his best to pretend he was part of the chair he was sitting in.
“Kirsten,” said Superintendent Elswick, “I should imagine you’ve guessed that I wouldn’t come all this way unless it was important.”
Kirsten nodded. “Have you caught him?” For a moment she panicked and thought the attacker might actually be someone she knew, someone from the party. She didn’t know if she would be able to handle that.
“No,” said Elswick, “no, we haven’t. That’s just the point.”
It was obviously very difficult for him to talk to her, Kirsten realized, but she didn’t know how to make it any easier.
Finally, he managed to blurt it out. “I’m afraid there’s been another attack.”
“Like mine?”
“Yes.”
“In the park?”
“No, it took place on some waste ground near a polytechnic not far away. Huddersfield, in fact. I thought you might have read about it in the papers.”
“I haven’t been reading the papers lately.”
“I see. Anyway, this time the victim wasn’t quite as lucky as you. She died.”
“What’s her name?”
Elswick looked puzzled. “Margaret Snell,�
� he answered.
Kirsten repeated the name to herself. “How old was she?” she asked.
“Nineteen.”
“What did she look like?”
Elswick tipped the tea from his saucer into his cup before answering. “She was a pretty girl,” he said finally, “and a bright one too. She had long blond hair and a big crooked smile. She was studying hotel management.”
Kirsten sat in silence.
“The reason we’re here,” Elswick continued, “is to see if you’ve remembered anything else about what happened. Anything at all that might help us catch this man.”
“Before he does it again?”
Elswick nodded gravely.
“Does that mean there’s some kind of maniac, some kind of ripper, running loose up there?”
Elswick took a deep breath. “We try to avoid alarmist terms like that,” he said. “It was a vicious attack, much the same as the one on you. From our point of view, we’re pretty sure it was the same man, so it looks like we’ve got a serial killer, yes. But the newspapers don’t know that. They don’t know anything about the similarity between your injuries and those of the dead girl, and we’re certainly not going to tell them. We’re doing our best to prevent anyone linking you to the business.”
“Why?” Kirsten asked, suddenly apprehensive.
“All the bad publicity. It would upset your parents, make your life a misery. You’ve no idea how persistent those damn reporters can be when they get on the scent of a juicy story. They’d be up here from London like a shot.”
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