The First Cut

by Peter Robinson

  She never told Laura all this; like the true nature of the cloud or bubble in her mind, it would have been too difficult to put into words. Besides, she wasn’t at all clear about it herself at first. It didn’t evolve as a fully fledged theory, like a Pallas Athena sprung from the head of Zeus, but the ideas took shape over time. It was something that she thought about a lot in the spring months of May and June while she reread old novels, plowed through Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, and considered which university to apply to and which area of study to concentrate on. It would probably be best, she decided, to apply to several places—say the north, where Sarah suggested they share a flat together, and to Bath and Bristol, where her parents wanted her to go. Then, when the time came, she could see how she felt and make her choice.

  In early June, the killer, the man the press were now calling the “Student Slasher,” claimed yet another victim: Kim Waterford, a petite brunette with a twinkle in her eyes that even the poor-quality newspaper photograph couldn’t dim. Well, he had dimmed it, hadn’t he? Now her eyes would be dull and lifeless as dead fish. Kirsten pasted the picture and articles in her scrapbook and worked even harder at self-hypnosis.

  One glorious day in late June when Bath was filled with tourists again and boaters splashed and laughed on the Avon outside the half-open window, Laura smiled at the end of the session, offered Kirsten a cigarette and said, “I think we’ve gone as far as we can go together. If you need me, I’ll be here. Don’t hesitate to call. But, really, I think you’re on your own now, love.”

  Kirsten nodded. She knew she was.

  43

  Susan

  Still clutching her holdall in the carrier bag, Sue returned to the shops again that afternoon and spent a few pounds of her fast-dwindling funds on some dark gray Marks & Spencer slacks and a blue windbreaker with a zip-up front. She spent a good while in front of the toilet mirror on her makeup, changing the emphasis a little here and there, and found that it was possible to fasten her wig back in a ponytail without revealing any of her own hair. Her glasses also went well with the new outfit. Now she looked just different enough not to spark any memories among those who might have noticed her ghostlike presence. She was no longer just the plain, primly dressed “nice girl” in the raincoat; nor was she the short-haired tomboy in jeans and a checked shirt. She looked more like a family holidaymaker taking a break from her parents’ company for a while. The new clothes would also be more suitable for hanging around in the woods watching over the factory, if it came to that.

  She was annoyed about the holdall. When she had got to Saltwick Nab, she found that the tide was coming in, not going out. She would have to go back later in the evening, or perhaps it would be easier to throw it from the top of West Cliff or somewhere closer. There would be too many people around in that area, though. Someone might see her. She shoved the raincoat and hood along with everything else in the holdall and took it back to her room. At least it was coming in useful now she had more stuff to get rid of.

  She thought about Keith a lot too. Lying in that hospital in Scarborough with tubes and needles stuck in him, just as she had lain over a year ago. She had dismissed the idea of trying to get to him—security would be too tight, and she wasn’t sure she could go through with it in cold blood—but she couldn’t stop worrying. The police might be looking for her at that very moment. All the more reason to hurry up.

  At a quarter to five, she dropped in at Rose’s Café. The stringy blonde behind the counter showed no interest in her beyond taking her money. Sue needed some idea of what her man’s hours were. When could she expect to find him walking alone in the dark? When did he make his deliveries? When did he sleep? She assumed that he had either made a morning delivery that day, or had set off the night before and stayed over. If the latter, then the odds were that he would be at home tonight. It annoyed her that she couldn’t find out for sure. She certainly couldn’t ask anyone. No doubt the drivers worked very irregular hours, taking loads when they were ready and standing in for mates who were ill or had driven too many hours. All she could really do was watch a little longer, and she didn’t know how much time she had left.

  Over the next two days, the weather, though still chilly, continued to improve. Sue took to hanging around the area by the factory almost constantly. All the time she felt as if she were looking over her shoulder for the police, when she was the one who should be doing the watching. She read the papers every morning, but they reported no change in Keith’s condition or in the state of the police investigation. In a way, though she still felt nervous and paranoid at times, she took heart that nothing had happened yet. Surely they must have reached a dead end or they would have been on to her already? Nothing could stop her now. She was meant to succeed. Her task was holy.

  She kept a low profile in Rose’s and the Brown Cow, but found that now she had the man in sight, she could even recognize his squat, dark figure from the woods above the factory. She also investigated another pub, called the Merry Monk, at the bottom end of the council estate, and found that from one of its small windows in a dark corner she could just about see across the waste ground down to his cottage at the end of the row. As she had expected, his comings and goings were irregular, and as far as she could make out, he lived alone. She would have to know her opportunity when it arose and grab it without hesitation.

  First, she wanted him to know that she had found him. When she finally lured him to his death, she wanted him to know who was doing it, and why. He would be asking for it. But she had to do this without causing undue danger to herself. Also, though she was certain this time, after her mistake she wanted more confirmation. She needed proof. If she killed or wounded another innocent man in the area, her chances of success would be practically nil. Slowly, as she watched him, she began to form a plan.

  She almost bumped into him on her way back to town from Rose’s Café at five thirty-five on her second day of full surveillance. He was walking the other way, back toward the factory. She averted her face, but for a moment she could have sworn that he noticed her. He didn’t know who she was—she would have felt that kind of recognition jolt her like an electric shock—but perhaps he connected her with the woman he’d seen yesterday in the newsagent’s. Or perhaps, given what he was, he looked at all women that way. Sue hurried on with her head down and didn’t stop until she got to the end of the street. From there, hidden by the wall of the corner house, she saw him in the distance by the loading bays talking to a man in a white smock and trilby, probably a foreman, who gave him some papers. Her man got in his van and drove off.

  Sue carried on walking down the lane. She hadn’t got far before he passed her, then he turned right, toward the junction for the main Scarborough road. It didn’t mean that he was going to Scarborough, of course, as it was one of the few ways out of the town and could lead to York or to the Leeds area. But one thing was for certain: he was out on a job and he wouldn’t be home for a while. Sue hurried down to the main road, but he was nowhere in sight. She walked north a little way on the pavement, then doubled back on the dirt path that eventually curved around past his cottage.

  Sue’s heart felt as if it were in her throat as she approached the cottage. Coming from that direction across the waste ground, she couldn’t be seen from any of the other houses on the row. Luckily, too, there were no buildings on the other side of the street, only the scrub ground that sloped up to the council estate. She could be seen from her little window in the pub, but it was still early in the evening for drinkers, and there was no reason why anyone enjoying a pint and a chat in the Merry Monk should make the effort of looking out of that particular window, especially as it meant pulling the curtain aside a little. Even if they did, what they saw would mean nothing to them.

  She had thought of waiting until dark, but that meant she would need a torch, which would, in the long run, give her much more risk of being spotted. No, this was better: a blind approach at a time when most people would
be busy preparing their evening meals anyway. She had already noticed that he kept his curtains closed whenever he was out, and that would keep her hidden, should anyone pass by, while still giving her enough light to search by.

  There was only one small window in the side of the house that faced the waste ground, and that was too high to reach. A kitchen extension built on the back, which also shielded her from the neighbors’ view, looked more promising. The back door itself was solid and locked, and the curtained window that probably led into the living room or dining room also proved impossible to open. The kitchen window looked like a better possibility. The wood was old and the unfastened catch had been painted over in the open position long ago.

  Sue wedged the heels of her hands against the crossbar and pushed up. At first nothing happened and she thought that perhaps the window too had been painted shut. But the paint was cracked and peeling on the outside, and before long it began to shudder upward. Sue paused after she had made a space big enough to enter, but there was no sound; nobody had heard her. Nimbly, she slipped in over the kitchen sink and closed the window behind her. The palms of her hands felt sore and sweaty from the effort.

  She had no idea what she expected to find—walls daubed in blood, perhaps, or heads on spikes and violent red graffiti scrawled over whitewashed walls:666 and THE WHORE MUST DIE—but she wasn’t prepared for the sheer ordinariness of the place. The only uncurtained window was the one through which she had climbed, and that let plenty of light into the kitchen. Everything was in its place; the washing-up lay in the draining rack; glasses and plates shone like new. The surfaces were all clean, too, and the room smelled of lemon washing-up liquid. A refrigerator she could see her reflection in hummed; cans of soup and tins of spaghetti stood in an orderly row on a shelf above the dining table, with its salt and pepper set out neatly on a mat at its center. Even the small cooker was spotless.

  The living room, where light filtered in pale blue through the thin curtains, was just as tidy. Magazines stood in the vertical rack by the hearth, corners and pages aligned so they looked like one solid block as thick as a telephone directory. A pipe rack hung above the mantelpiece, and the air was acrid with the smell of stale smoke. In the corner near the window was a television on a stand with a video on the shelf beneath it and, next to that, a cassette storage rack with a varnished wood finish—and not a speck of dust in sight. What did this man watch? Sue wondered. Pornography? Snuff movies?

  But when she examined the cassettes, she saw they were all ordinary enough. He had labeled each one in clear print, and most of them were simply tapes of recent television programs he must have missed while out driving: nothing more interesting than a couple of episodes of Coronation Street, no doubt taped while he was out on a delivery, a BBC2 wildlife special, a few American cop programs, and two movies rented from a local shop: Angel Heart and Fatal Attraction. They weren’t exactly Mary Poppins, but they weren’t hard-core pornography either.

  An old sofa sat in front of the fireplace, its beige upholstery protected by lace antimacassars, and one matching armchair stood at a precise angle to it. Like the rest of the house, the room was small and spotless, and as far as Sue could make out in the faint light, the walls were painted light blue, rather than papered. The only thing that struck her as at all odd was the complete absence of photographs and personal knick-knacks. The mantelpiece was bare, as were the solid oak sideboard and the walls.

  There was, however, a small bookcase by the kitchen door. Most of the titles were on local history, some of them large illustrated volumes, and the only novels were used paperbacks of blockbusters by Robert Ludlum, Lawrence Sanders and Harold Robbins. Bede’s History was there, of course. Sue picked it up, and noticed that the old paperback had been well thumbed. One passage, in particular, had been heavily underscored. Sue shivered and put the book back.

  Upstairs revealed nothing different about the owner of the cottage. In the bathroom, every fixture, fitting and surface looked in shining pristine condition, and in the bathroom cabinet, various pills, potions and creams stood in orderly rows like soldiers at attention. There was only one bedroom: his. The bed was made, covered in yellow nylon sheets, and there was nothing in the drawers and cupboards but carefully ironed shirts, a couple of sports jackets, one pressed suit, and neatly folded underwear and socks. The place seemed to have no personality at all. Was he really her man? Surely there ought to be some sign beyond the book.

  Back downstairs, Sue looked for a cellar door but couldn’t find one. Perhaps it was just as well, she thought. She was feeling edgy being there at all; if she found a body in the cellar she didn’t know how she would react. But that was silly, she told herself, just nerves. He didn’t take the bodies home with him.

  She opened the doors of the sideboard and found a little port, sherry and brandy, along with glasses of various shapes and sizes, place mats and a white linen tablecloth. In one of the top drawers were the everyday odds and ends one needs around a house: fuse wire, string, candles, matches, penknife, extra shoelaces, pencil stubs.

  When she opened the second drawer, though, Sue’s breath caught in her throat.

  There, laid out neatly in a row on a lining of faded rose-patterned wallpaper, were six locks of hair, each bound in the middle by a pink ribbon. Six victims, six locks of hair. Sue felt dizzy. She had to turn away and support herself by gripping the back of an armchair. When she had fought back the vertigo and nausea, she turned to look again at the sight she found so gruesome in its simplicity and ordinariness. Nothing too grotesque for this man: no severed breasts, ears or fingers, just six locks of hair laid out neatly in a row on a lining of faded rose-patterned wallpaper. And, further back in the drawer, a pair of scissors, a roll of pink satin ribbon, and a long knife with a worn bone handle and a gleaming stainless-steel blade.

  But it was the hair that really captured Sue’s attention. Six locks. One blonde, three brunettes, two redheads. She reached out and touched them, as she would stroke a cat. She could even put names to them. One of the red locks, the darkest, was Kathleen Shannon’s; the blonde was Margaret Snell’s; the curly brunette lock had belonged to Kim Waterford; and the straight, jet-black strand was Jill Sarsden’s. None of them was Sue’s. He must have been disturbed before he got around to taking it, she realized. No doubt it was the last thing he did, take a souvenir. And the police had never said anything about it—which meant either that they didn’t know, or that they were keeping the knowledge up their sleeves to deter copycats and check against phoney confessions, and, of course, to verify the true one, if it ever came.

  Well, Sue thought, here was an oversight she could rectify easily enough. She pushed back her wig, picked up the scissors, and carefully snipped off a lock about two inches long, exactly the same length as the others. She then bound it neatly with a piece of ribbon and placed it in line with the rest.

  Now, she thought, pleased with herself, just wait till he notices that. She was convinced that he drooled over his trophies every day, and what a bloody shock he’d get when he found another lock of hair there. Not only would he know there was someone on to him, he would probably know who it was. And that was just what Sue wanted.

  The house was silent except for the sound of Sue’s heart beating, but she still felt uneasy. It was time to get out before he came back. She slid the drawer shut and hurried back to the kitchen window.

  44

  Kirsten

  That summer, Kirsten took long, brooding walks in the woods and reckless drives in the countryside. Close to the end of the university term, about the same time she had been attacked a year ago, the killer found his sixth victim—the fifth to die—in a quiet Halifax nursing student called Jill Sarsden. Kirsten pasted the photo and details in her scrapbook as usual.

  At home, she pretended all was well. The dark cloud still troubled her, bringing painful headaches and bouts of depression that were difficult to hide. But she managed to convince Dr. Craven that she was making excellent progress s
ince discontinuing the analysis, and the doctor’s opinion helped to reassure her parents. If she was occasionally quiet and withdrawn, well, that was only to be expected. Her parents knew that she had always valued her solitude and privacy anyway.

  In her room each night, she kept at the self-hypnosis, but got no further. The directions she had read in the book were simple enough: roll your eyeballs up as far as you can, close your eyes and take a deep breath, then let your eyes relax, breathe out and feel yourself floating. She had even delved back into earlier memories of pain as practice—the time her finger got trapped in a door when she was six; the day she fell off her bicycle and needed stitches in her arm—but still she couldn’t get beyond the odor of fish without feeling overcome by a sense of choking panic.

  One hot, bright day in late July, she stopped in a Cotswold village for a cold drink. Walking back to the car, she noticed a craft center in an old stone cottage and decided to have a look inside. The cottage had been extended at the back and part of it converted into a glass-blowing studio. Kirsten watched entranced as the delicate and fragile pieces took shape from molten glass at the end of the tube. Afterward, as she browsed around the shop, she noticed a row of solid glass paperweights, like the one in Laura’s office, with colorful abstract designs trapped inside them. The rose pattern appealed to her most, and she bought it, feeling great satisfaction at the smooth, slippery weight in her palm. And it gave her an idea.

  That evening in her room, she prepared for self-hypnosis again, doing breathing exercises and relaxing each muscle in turn. When she was ready, she sat before her desk, where the paperweight lay between two candles, drawing and twisting their light into its curved scarlet petals. Her book had mentioned that there were many ways of self-hypnosis, and she had chosen the method said to be the most effective. But whether there was something about the connection with her early sessions with Laura, or something special about the paperweight itself, Kirsten found she had much more success this way. Though the first attempt led to no great breakthrough, she got a strong feeling that she would soon find what she wanted if she persisted.