The First Cut

29 Susan

During the night, the seagulls by the lower harbor were just as noisy as the ones on West Cliff, but breakfast at Mrs. Cummings’s establishment was an altogether less elaborate affair. For a start, there was no cereal, just a small glass of rather watery orange juice for each person. Nor was there a choice between tea or coffee, only tea. The main course consisted of one fried egg with the white still runny, two thin rashers of bacon and a slice of fried bread; there were no grilled tomatoes, mushrooms or slices of black pudding. There was, of course, plenty of cold toast and marmalade.

And the whole meal seemed to be taking place at fast-forward. Sue was a little late coming down, as she had her face to fix and her wig to secure. No sooner had she sat down than the plate appeared in front of her. The tea had already been mashing for some time, and it tasted so bitter by then that she had to resort to sugar. She never had time to get around to the orange juice.

The only other guests in evidence were a bedraggled-looking bachelor in a gray sleeveless V-neck pullover, who hadn’t either shaved or combed his hair, and two bored teenage girls with multicolored spikes of hair and war-paint makeup. Sue finished quickly, went up to her room to smoke a cigarette and pick up her bag, then wandered out.

It was another gray day outside, but the thin light was piercingly bright. Weather like this always puzzled Sue. There was no sun in sight, no blue sky, no dazzle on the water, but she found that she had to screw up her eyes to stop them from watering. She considered buying sunglasses and perhaps a wide-brimmed hat, but decided against it. Enough was enough; there was no point in going overboard and ending up looking like someone in disguise.

First she bought cigarettes and newspapers at the closest newsagent’s, then she found a different café on Church Street in which to enjoy her morning coffee. She had read in crime novels about people changing their appearance but still getting caught because they were stupid enough to stick to the same inflexible routines.

When she looked at the local newspaper, she noticed that it was a Saturday late edition she hadn’t seen. Of course! Today was Sunday; there would be no local papers, only the nationals. In the stop-press section at the bottom of the left-hand column on page one, she saw an update on the Grimley story:

Police are not satisfied that the body washed up on Sandsend beach last night, now identified as that of Mr. Jack Grimley, died of natural causes. Detective Inspector Cromer has informed our reporter that a postmortem has been ordered. Mr. Grimley was last seen alive when he left a Whitby pub, the Lucky Fisherman, at about 9:45 p.m. Thursday evening. Anyone with further information is asked to get in touch with the local police as soon as possible. Mr. Grimley, 30, was a self-employed joiner and part-time property assistant at Whitby Theater. He lived alone.

Sue chewed on her lip as she read. Slowly but surely, they were stumbling toward the truth, and the police always knew more than they told the newspapers. She felt a vacuum in the pit of her stomach, as if she were suspended over a bottomless chasm. But she told herself she mustn’t panic. There might not be as much time left as she had hoped for, especially if she was racing against the police investigation, but she must stay calm.

She lit a cigarette and turned to the Sunday Times. This was hardly the place to look for salacious, sensational and scandalous news, but surely they would at least report the latest developments in the Student Slasher case. And so they did. Police simply confirmed that the Friday evening murder was the work of the same man who had killed five other girls in the same way over the past year. They refused to discuss details of the crime, but this time they gave a name. Susan added it to the other five she knew by heart, another spirit to guide her: Margaret Snell, Kathleen Shannon, Jane Pitcombe, Kim Waterford, Jill Sarsden and now the sixth, Brenda Fawley.

Sue idled over the rest of the paper, hardly paying attention, and by midmorning she had come up with a plan for the day. It was time to start checking out the nearby fishing villages. First, she headed back across the bridge and picked up a timetable at the bus station. It took her a while to figure out the schedule, but in the end she discovered that there were no buses going up the coast on Sundays. The service ran between Loftus and Middlesbrough, further north, and that was it.

She thought of renting a car, though she knew that might also be difficult on a Sunday. Even if she could get one, she realized, it might cause all kinds of problems with identification-license, insurance, means of payment-and that was exactly the kind of trail she didn’t want to leave behind her.

There was no train line, so it had to be a bus, then, or nothing. Turning to the Scarborough-Whitby service, she found that there were buses to Robin Hood’s Bay. They ran regularly at twenty-five past the hour and took less than half an hour. Coming back would be simple, too. She could catch a bus at Robin Hood’s Bay Shelter, which would be up on the main road, at 5:19 or 6:19 in the evening, or even later, right up to 11:19 p.m. Robin Hood’s Bay it would have to be.

Sue wasn’t sure what she would find there, but the place had to be checked out. She was certain that her quarry came from Whitby and that he had something to do with fishing, but it was quite possible that he lived in town and worked in one of the smaller places nearby, or vice versa, for that matter.

Besides, she also felt the need to get away from Whitby for a while. She knew the town too well now and was becoming tired of tramping its streets day in, day out. The place was beginning to feel oppressive; it was closing in on her.

Breakfast at the Cummingses’ had been a depressing and suffocating affair, too-the obvious poverty; the noise of children; the lack of cleanliness (the teacups were stained, and there had been one or two spots of dried egg that hadn’t been washed off her plate properly); and the sense of hurry and bustle that even now was causing her heartburn. Yes, another day trip out of Whitby would be a very good idea.

Checking her timetable again, she found that she had missed the 10:25. Never mind, she thought, finishing her Kenco coffee, she was in no hurry. There were the papers to read, crosswords to do, plenty to keep her occupied. She could even go up to St. Mary’s and spend a while in her favorite box if she wanted.