Authors: Peter Robinson
The pub was warm and noisy. Conversations swirled around Kirsten like the buzzing of insects. She felt as if she was floating. It was a pleasant sensation, though; it had been a long time since
she had felt grateful for the atmosphere of a crowded pub. Sarah was sitting close to the side door, a half of lager in front of her and a paperback in her hand. Kirsten waved to her, stopped at
the bar for drinks and went over. Sarah shifted some parcels from the chair next to her and put them on the floor. Kirsten sat down.
‘Christmas presents,’ Sarah said.
Kirsten sipped her double Scotch and reached for her cigarettes.
‘Are you all right?’ Sarah asked. ‘You look a bit pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ Kirsten said. ‘I just had a bit of a shock, that’s all. I feel dazed.’
‘What was it? The hypnosis?’
Kirsten nodded. ‘I remembered, Sarah. I remembered what he looked like.’ Her voice sounded shaky and far away to her.
Sarah put her hand on Kirsten’s arm. ‘You don’t have to talk about it—’
‘No, it’s all right. I don’t mind. At least not with you anyway . . . a friend. Laura’s a doctor. She’s being paid to help me, however nice she is. I mean, I like
her and I’m very grateful to her, but . . .’
‘It doesn’t go any deeper?’
‘No. When it’s not me in the office, it’s someone else, isn’t it? And she’s probably just the same with them. It’s nothing special; it’s impersonal,
like the police.’ And she told Sarah about finally seeing her attacker.
‘How old do you think he was?’ Sarah asked.
‘I never really thought. About forty, forty-five, I suppose. Pretty old. It’s just that he had this lined face, you know, rough-hewn, lines from the edges of the nose and the
mouth.’ She drew them with her fingers on her own face, then she shuddered. ‘It was awful, Sarah. It was like going through the whole thing again, but I couldn’t stop myself. I
didn’t want to.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Laura brought me out of it.’
‘Have you told the police what he looked like?’
Kirsten sipped some Scotch and glanced towards the bar. Things were coming into clearer focus now; her feet were touching the ground.
‘Not yet. Laura’s going to phone them and send a report.’
‘Are you sure you’re telling me everything?’ Sarah asked.
‘Why?’
‘You sound vague, and you’ve got that shifty look on your face. I’ve known you long enough to tell when you’re holding something back. What is it?’
Kirsten paused and swirled her drink in her glass before answering. ‘There was something else . . . just an impression. I can’t really be sure.’
‘What was it?’
‘When he put the gag in my mouth, I was too busy struggling, trying to catch my breath, to really notice at the time.’
‘Notice what?’
‘The smell. There was a smell of fish. You know, like at the seaside.’
‘Fish?’
Kirsten nodded. ‘It probably doesn’t mean anything.’
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I didn’t remember it until I’d left her office, when I was coming here to meet you.’
‘Why don’t you phone her?’
Kirsten shrugged. ‘Like I said, it’s probably not important.’
‘But that’s not for you to decide.’
Kirsten toyed with her cigarette in the large blue ashtray, shaping the end in one of its grooves. She felt herself starting to drift again like the smoke that curled and twisted in front of
her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It just seems that I keep feeding them bits of my memory, you know, things I’ve had sweated out of me, and nothing happens.
They’re so impersonal, just a big bureaucratic machine. I mean, two more girls have been killed since my . . .
two.
I can’t explain myself, Sarah, not yet, but it’s me and
him. I feel I’ve got it in me to find him. It’s as if he’s inside me and I’m the only one who can flush him out.’
‘And then what?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Jesus Christ! Kirstie. If you ask me you’re turning a bit batty. It must be all that solitude and country air.’ She put her hand on Kirsten’s arm again. ‘You
really should tell the police everything you can remember. Like you said, he’s killed two women already, and there’s bound to be more. People like him don’t stop till
they’re caught, you know.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that,’ said Kirsten, pulling her arm away angrily. ‘Do you think I don’t feel for those women? I have to live what they died.’
‘Come again?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry if I seem so touchy about it. I can’t explain. I’m not even sure what I mean myself.’
Kirsten sipped some more Scotch and looked around the pub again. The people looked indistinct; their conversations were just meaningless sounds. Sarah changed the subject to shopping.
As she half-listened and let herself be lulled by the buzz of talk around her, Kirsten came to a decision. People didn’t understand her, it seemed. Not even Sarah. People didn’t
understand how
personal
it was. Not just for her, but for Margaret Snell and Kathleen Shannon too. Doctors, police . . . what did they know? In future, she would have to be careful just how
much she told them.
When she tasted that foul rag he had stuffed in her mouth and smelled his rough stubby fingers, she recognized the saltwater taste as well as the fishy odour. The rag tasted as if it had been
dipped in the sea. Wasn’t there, then, a good chance that he had come from a coastal town?
And there was something else. Not only had she remembered the smell, but when he had thrown her to the ground and put the rag in her mouth as she stared up at him in the moonlight, his mouth had
been moving. He had been talking to her. She couldn’t hear any sounds or words, but she knew he had spoken, and if she could bring that back, there was no knowing what it might tell her about
him. It might even lead her to him.
SUSAN
As Susan approached the Brown Cow at lunchtime on the third day, she saw two white factory vans parked in front, and before she had even got near the entrance, two men came out
of the pub and walked over to them. It was impossible to be sure from such a distance, but one of them matched the image in her memory: low, dark fringe, the thick eyebrows meeting in the middle.
She had to get closer to see if he had deep lines on his face and, most of all, she needed to hear his voice.
When they started their vans and pulled out, she followed on foot. At least she could see which way they turned as they drove down the lane. If they went left, they would be on their way to the
factory, and if they carried on down to the main road, they would be off making a delivery somewhere. She was in luck. They turned left.
Sue hurried after them. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but there was no point in hanging around the Brown Cow any longer. When she reached the turning, the vans had already
pulled up outside the loading bays a hundred yards beyond the mesh gates, and the drivers were nowhere in sight. She walked along the street as far as the row of shops. She couldn’t just
wander through the factory gates and go looking for the man; nor could she sit in the cafe where the inquisitive woman would be on duty. What could she do?
Before she had time to come up with a plan, she noticed the man walk out of the glass doors of the office building. He seemed to be slipping a small envelope of some kind into his pocket. A pay
packet, perhaps? Whatever it was, he looked as though he had finished for the day. If he was a driver, the odds were that he had just returned from an overnight run, padded his time sheet with an
hour or so at the Brown Cow, and was now on his way home.
He was walking towards her, only about forty yards away now on the dirt track that led out of the factory. She had nowhere to hide. She couldn’t just stand there in the street until he
came level with her. What if he recognized her? She had changed a lot since their last meeting, lost a lot of weight, though her wig was about the same length as her hair had been then. Surely he
couldn’t have got a much clearer impression of her looks than she had of his? But she couldn’t stand rooted to the spot.
There was only one thing to do. She rushed forward and ducked into the newsagent’s. She needed her morning papers anyway, as she had been so absorbed in her new routine that she
hadn’t even spent her usual hour in the Church Street cafe. She hadn’t looked for news of Keith, and she was still feeling nervous about the Grimley investigation, though no one had
knocked on her door in the middle of the night yet.
The newspapers were arranged in small, overlapping piles on a low shelf just inside the window, below the rack of magazines. From there, as she pretended to make her selection with her back
turned to the newsagent, she could get a closer look at the man as he went past. She bent and pretended to leaf through the stack, as if she were scanning the front pages for the best headlines,
when suddenly he appeared right outside. He didn’t walk past as she had expected. Instead, he patted his pockets, turned and came inside.
Sue kept her back to the counter and examined the
Radio Times
and
Woman’s Own
in the rack above the papers.
‘Afternoon, Greg,’ she heard the woman say. ‘In for some baccy, I suppose?’
‘Yes, please.’ The man’s voice sounded muffled and Sue couldn’t hear him clearly.
‘Usual?’
‘Aye. Oh, and I’ll have a box of matches, too, please, love. Swan Vestas.’
‘Finished for the day?’
‘Aye. Just got back from the Leeds and Bradford run. Can’t leave the poor beggars without their fish and chips, can we?’
The newsagent laughed.
Sue gripped the rack of magazines to keep herself from falling over. Her heart was beating so fast and loud that she thought it would burst. At the very least, both the newsagent and the man in
the shop must be able to hear it. Her face was flushed and her breath was hard to catch. Everything seemed to swim and ripple in front of her eyes like motes dancing in rays of light: the magazine
covers, the grim terraced houses across the street. And all the while she struggled to stay on her feet; she couldn’t let these two people see that there was anything wrong with her. They
would rush over to help, and then . . .
Sue held on and fought for control as the voice, the horrible, familiar voice that had been whispering hoarsely in her nightmares for a month, carried on making small talk as if nothing terrible
had ever happened.
KIRSTEN
When Kirsten stood on the platform and watched the Intercity pull out at 12.25 on 3 January, she felt frightened and desolate. Despite an awkward beginning, Christmas at
Brierley Coombe that year had turned out to be the best time she had enjoyed since the assault. She had been glad to have Sarah around, especially as a counter to all the uncles, aunts and
grandparents who had treated her as if she were a half-witted invalid.
The village itself looked like a Christmas-card illustration. The snow that began on 22 December went on for almost two days and settled a treat, particularly out in the country, where there was
little traffic and no industry to spoil it. It lay about two feet thick on the thatched roofs, smooth and contoured around the eaves and gables; and in the woods, where Kirsten often took Sarah for
early-morning walks, the snow that rested on twigs and branches created an image of two worlds in stark contrast, the white superimposed on the dark.
They went into Bath once more to do some shopping at the Boxing Day sales and have drinks with Laura Henderson, whom Sarah liked immediately. One night they shocked the locals in the village
pub. Sarah wore her FISH ON A BICYCLE T-shirt, and everyone looked embarrassed. There she was: the careless tangle of blonde hair, the pale complexion and exquisite features that looked as if they
had been expertly worked from the finest porcelain, then smoothed and polished to perfection, and, to cap it all, that great advertisement for the redundancy of the male sex scrawled across her
chest.
Nobody bothered them, like the Lancashire lads in Bath had, but the village men glanced over and muttered nervously among themselves, some of them smiling superciliously. It was the most
uncomfortable evening of the holiday for Kirsten. Her enjoyment of crowded pubs didn’t seem to have lasted long. She could relax with Laura and Sarah, but the proximity of men still made her
tense and angry. And when they looked over with those superior smiles on their faces, her cheeks burned with fear and anger. After all, a man had taken what other men wanted from her. Somehow, she
reasoned, they were all implicated in that.
On New Year’s Eve, Kirsten’s parents went to a party. Kirsten and Sarah were invited, but neither of them fancied spending the evening with a bunch of drunken old stockbrokers, their
bored wives and yuppie offspring, so they decided to stay at home and celebrate by themselves.
The cocktail cabinet was well stocked, a log fire blazed in the hearth, and they turned out the lights and lit candles instead. The open curtains of the French windows revealed the snow-covered
garden and trees. Kirsten brought some of her records and tapes down from her room to play on her father’s stereo, and everything seemed perfect. They sat on the thick rug in front of the
spitting fire, listening to Mozart, with the cognac bottle beside them.
‘What are you going to do?’ Sarah asked as she poured out their second drinks.
‘With my life, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t made any plans.’
‘You can’t just stay here for ever, you know.’ Sarah looked around the room, where the candles and fire tossed shadows like dark sails in a storm, and out of the windows at the
fairy-tale garden in the snow. ‘Nice as it is, it isn’t real life. Not yours.’
‘And what is my life?’
‘For Christ’s sake, you got a First, a good one. You’re not going to waste your education, are you?’
Kirsten laughed. ‘Listen to yourself. You sound like a bloody guidance counsellor or something.’
Sarah bit her lip and looked away.