The First Cut

35 Susan

The newspapers had nothing much to report the next morning. Sue sat in her new café on Church Street, drinking coffee to get rid of the taste of Mrs. Cummings’s tea. She knew she would be better off not drinking the vile brew in the first place, but she needed something hot and bitter to wake her up. It was drizzling outside, and the café was full of miserable tourists keeping an eye on the weather, spinning out a pot of tea and a slice of gateau until the rain stopped and they could venture out again.

Sue hadn’t slept well. She had already been awake when the seagulls started at a quarter to four. Even under the blankets and the bedspread, she had been trembling with delayed shock at what she had done to Keith McLaren. She could still see his stunned, innocent face, the blood pouring over his tanned cheek. She told herself he was just like the rest, like all men, but she still couldn’t help hating herself for what she had been forced to do.

When she came to analyze her actions, it was mostly the way she had deliberately set up the situation that disgusted her. Because she didn’t see herself as a cold-blooded killer, she had lured Keith into the woods and forced him to put her in a position from which she could strike out in self-righteous anger. In a way, it had been as cold-blooded as any execution; she had just needed to get herself excited enough to kill, and to that end she had seduced Keith, seduced him to death. There was a perverse logic in that somewhere that made even Sue twist her lower lip in the semblance of a smile the next morning, but the night had been dreadful, full of self-loathing, recrimination, loss of nerve. Even the talisman and the litany of victims offered scant comfort in the small hours.

She had also worried. As it happens when you lie awake during those dreadful hours of the not quite morning with something on your mind, one fear leads directly to another. The disturbed mind seems to toss up terrors with the prolific abandon of a tempestuous ocean. By killing Keith, she had more than doubled her chances of getting caught before she finished what she had set out to do. With two murders to investigate, the police would surely spot the similarities and start stepping up their search. Somebody might have seen her with Keith in Staithes, Port Mulgrave or Hinderwell, and then someone else might remember seeing her with Grimley in the Lucky Fisherman. Her only hope was that Keith’s body would remain undiscovered in the woods until she had finished her task, and that was what she prayed for as she tossed and turned and finally slipped into an uneasy sleep, lulled by the cacophonous requiem of the gulls.

The coffee and cigarette helped her wake up. There was nothing in the nationals about the Student Slasher, but according to the local paper, the police were now certain that Jack Grimley had been murdered. Detective Inspector Cromer said that they were looking into his past for anyone who might have a grudge against him, and they still wanted to know if anyone had seen him after he left the Lucky Fisherman on the night of his death. Clearly no one had come forward so far. Sue remembered that night. She was sure nobody had noticed them, and once they had gone down to the beach and the cave, no one had even known they were there.

Sue’s hands shook a little as she combed the rest of the paper for news of Keith’s body. Thank god, there was nothing; they clearly hadn’t found him yet. But she would still have to move quickly. With the police stepping up their search and Keith’s body lying out in the woods for anyone to find, time was no longer on her side.

She knew what she had to do next, but it was still too early in the day. A short distance inland, on the eastern edge of town by the River Esk, stood a factory complex. There, much of the locally caught fish was cleaned, filleted and otherwise processed for resale. Some of it was frozen. The factory employed about a hundred and fifty workers, an even mix of men and women. If the person she was looking for was not a fisherman but was still connected with the industry, that had to be the place to look. She was thinking much more clearly now after the mistake with Jack Grimley.

Even though she knew where to look, she still wasn’t sure how to go about it. She could hardly hang about outside the factory gates, check everyone’s appearance and ask all likely suspects to say a few words. But what else could she do but watch? She had thought of applying for a job there to get her foot in the door, but that would raise questions of identification, references and National Insurance stamps. She couldn’t afford that. Another alternative was to find out if the workers had a favorite pub. Whatever she decided, she would have to start with hanging around the place at five o’clock, when the workers left for the day. Then she could take it from there.

Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t rush things. The plan left so much time on her hands, and time was a gift to the enemy. Also, today was not the kind of day for sitting on the beach reading, and her room at Mrs. Cummings’s was far too depressing to spend a whole day in. She had the perennial problem of the English person at the seaside: what to do on a rainy day. She could always look for a cinema that showed afternoon matinees, she thought, or spend her time and money on the one-armed bandits in an amusement arcade. Then there were the Museum and Art Gallery, and Captain Cook’s house. There would also be bingo, of course, last resort for the truly desperate.

But Sue knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on things like that. She had to be actively engaged in her search or her fears would get the better of her. At least she could walk up to the factory and reconnoiter; that would be a positive step. It was in a part of the town that she had never seen before, and she needed to know its layout, its dark corners, its entrances and exits. She also had to find a suitable spot to watch from. There was a chance that she might even need binoculars, though they would look a bit too suspicious if she had to use them in the open.

But first, she realized, there was something else she must do: something she had decided on during her restless, guilty, paranoid hours awake in the night. She needed something to replace her holdall. It wasn’t especially conspicuous, just a khaki bag with side pockets and an adjustable strap, but she had been carrying it all the time she had been staying in Whitby, whether as Martha Browne or as Sue Bridehead. It was exactly the kind of mistake that could get her caught. Far better, she thought, to buy something else, fill the holdall full of stones and dump it in the sea along with all her Martha Browne gear-jeans, checked shirt, quilted jacket, the lot. It would be a shame to throw away such good-quality clothing, but it would be dangerous not to. Apart from those few moments on the front at Staithes, it was only as Martha Browne that she could be linked with Keith McLaren and Jack Grimley, so Martha Browne would have to disappear completely.

She paid her bill, then crossed the bridge and walked up to one of the department stores on Flowergate. There she bought a smaller, dark gray shoulder bag-for she wouldn’t have as much bulky clothing to carry around-a lightweight navy-blue raincoat and a transparent plastic rainhood. In the toilet, she transferred all the things she would need-paperweight, money, makeup, underwear, book-into the new shoulder bag, and put the old one in the empty plastic bag bearing the store’s logo. Anyone who noticed her would think she was simply carrying her shopping. That would do for the moment, but sometime soon she would have to go for a walk along the cliffs and get rid of the holdall permanently.

She walked back over the swing bridge, and instead of turning left onto the touristy part of Church Street, she went right and continued about half a mile along, past New Bridge, which carried the A171 to Scarborough and beyond over the River Esk. To her right, rain pitted the gray surface of the river, and on her left she came to one of those functional, residential parts of town that every holiday resort tucks away from public view. Consulting her map, she turned sharp left, perpendicular to the river, and walked a hundred and fifty yards or so up a lane at the southern edge of a council estate. Finally, she turned right and found herself in the short cul-de-sac that ended at the large mesh gates of the fish-processing plant.

It was the kind of street that would look drab and uninviting whatever the weather. Terraced houses stood on both sides, set back from the road by small gardens complete with privet hedges and wooden gates with peeling paint. The houses were prewar, judging by the crust of grime and the white patches of saltpeter that had formed on the gray-brown brick. On the road surface, the ancient tarmac had worn away in spots, like bald patches, to reveal the outline of old cobbles beneath. To Sue’s left, a short section of the terrace had been converted into a row of shops: grocer, butcher, newsagent-tobacconist, video rental; and on the right, about twenty yards from the factory gates, stood a tiny café.

Certainly from the outside there was nothing attractive about the place. The white sign over the grimy plate-glass window was streaked reddish brown with rusty water that had spilled over from the eaves, and the R and the F of ROSE’S CAFE had faded to no more than mere outlines. Hanging in the window itself was a bleak, handwritten card offering tea, coffee and sandwiches. The location was ideal, though. From a table by the window, Sue would just about be able to see through the film of dirt, and she would have a fine view of the workers filing out of the gates down the street. As far as she could tell, there was no other direction they could take.

She walked all the way up to the gates themselves. They stood open, and there was no guardhouse or sentry post. Obviously, national defense wasn’t at stake, and a fish-processing plant had little to worry about from terrorists or criminal gangs. A dirt path ran a hundred yards or so through a weed- and cinder-covered stretch of waste ground to the factory itself, a long two-story prefab concrete building with a new redbrick extension stuck on the front for clerical staff. Inside the glass doors was what looked like a reception area, and the windows in the extension revealed offices lit by fluorescent light. Apart from the front, the only other side of the factory that Sue could see was the one closest to the river, and it was made up entirely of numbered loading bays. Several white vans were parked in the area and drivers in blue overalls stood around talking and smoking.

As Sue stood by the gates memorizing the layout, a loud siren sounded inside the building and a few seconds later people started to hurry out toward her. She looked at her watch: twelve o’clock, lunch hour. Quickly, she turned back and slipped into the café. A bell pinged as she entered, and a wrinkled beanpole of a woman in curlers and a greasy smock glanced up at her from behind the counter, where she had been buttering slices of thin white bread for sandwiches.

“You must have nipped out early, love,” the woman said cheerfully. “Usually takes them all of thirty seconds to get here after the buzzer goes. Them as comes, that is. Now the Brown Cow up the road does pub lunches, there’s plenty ’as deserted poor Rose’s. Don’t hold with lunchtime drinking, myself. What’ll you have then? A nice cup of tea?”

Was there any other kind? Sue wondered. “Yes, thanks, that’ll do fine,” she said.

The woman frowned at her. “Just a cup of tea? You need a bit more than that, lass. Put some meat on your bones. How about one of these lovely potted-meat sandwiches? Or are you one of them as brings her own lunch?” Her glance had turned suspicious now.

Sue felt flustered. It was all going wrong. She was supposed to slip into the place unobtrusively and order from a bored waitress who would pay her no attention. Instead, she had gone and made herself conspicuous just because she had run for cover when the siren went and everyone had started hurrying toward her. She was too jumpy, not very good at this kind of thing.

“I’m on a diet,” she offered weakly.

“Huh!” the woman snorted. “I don’t know about young ’uns today, I really don’t. No wonder you’ve all got this annexa nirvana or whatever they calls it. Cup of tea it is, then, but don’t blame me if you start having them there dizzy spells.” She poured the black steaming liquid from a battered old aluminum pot. “Milk and sugar?”

Sue looked at the dark liquid. “Yes, please,” she said.

“New there, are you?” the woman asked, pushing the cup and saucer along the red Formica counter.

“Yes,” said Sue. “Only started today.”

“Been taking time off for shopping already, too, I see,” the woman said, looking down at Sue’s carrier bag. “Don’t see why you’d want to shop in that place when there’s a Marks and Sparks handy.” She looked at the bag again. “Pricey that lot are. They charge for the name, you know. It’s all made in Hong Kong anyroads.”

Would she never stop? Sue wondered, blushing and thinking frantically about what to say in reply. As it happened, she didn’t have to. The woman went on to ask an even more difficult question: “Who d’you work for, old Villiers?”

“Yes,” said Sue, without thinking at all.

The woman smiled knowingly. “Well take my advice, love, and watch out for him. Wandering hands, he’s got, and as many of ’em as an octopus, so I’ve heard.” She put a finger to the side of her nose. The door pinged loudly behind them. “Hey up, here they come!” she said, turning away from Sue at last. “Right, who’s first? Come on, don’t all shout at once!”

Sue managed to weave her way through the small crowd and take the table by the window. She hoped that old Villiers and his friends were among the people who had deserted Rose’s for the Brown Cow. If they were management, it was very unlikely that they spent their lunch hour eating potted-meat sandwiches and drinking tannic tea in a poky café.

Still, it was a bloody disaster. Sue had thought she could come to this place every day at about five o’clock for as long as it took without arousing much attention. After that, providing the weather improved and the police didn’t catch up with her, if she needed to stay any longer she could buy some cheap binoculars and watch from the clump of trees just above the factory site. But now she had been spotted and, what’s more, she had lied. If the woman found out that Sue really didn’t work at the factory, she would become suspicious. After all, Rose’s Café was hardly a tourist attraction. She would have to spy from the woods now, whatever the weather. The only bright spot on the horizon was the Brown Cow. If workers went there at lunchtime, perhaps some also returned in the evening after work. It was easier to be unobtrusive in a large busy pub than in a small café like Rose’s.

Annoyed with herself and with the weather, Sue lit a cigarette and examined the faces of the others in the café, making the best of what time she had. Calm down, she told herself. It won’t take that long to find him if he’s here. It can’t.