The First Cut

“No, I don’t,” he said. “But please go ahead.”

She lit the Rothmans, noting that she would soon need another packet, and reached for her drink again.

“Well…” Keith said.

Martha got the impression that she was supposed to say something, so she forged ahead. “What about you? Where did you go?”

“Oh, I just walked around, visited the usual places. Sat on the beach for a while. I even went for a dip. I’m not used to it being so warm over here.”

“It is unusual,” Martha agreed.

“I’m making my way up the coast to Scotland. I think I told you.”

Martha nodded.

“Anyway, it’s a complete holiday. No papers, no radio, no TV. I don’t want to know what’s going on in the world.”

“It’s not usually good,” Martha agreed.

“Too true. And what about you? I’m curious. Why are you here all by yourself, if it’s not a rude question?”

Martha thought of saying that yes, it was a rude question, but that would only get his back up. It was much easier to lie. She realized that she could tell him anything she wanted, anything under the sun-that she lived in Mozambique, for example, and was taking a rest from organizing safaris, or that she had run away from her husband, an Arabian prince to whom she had been sold as a young girl and shut away in a harem. She could tell him she was traveling around the world alone, as stipulated in the will, on a legacy left by her billionaire arms-dealer father. It was an exhilarating feeling, a feeling of tremendous power and freedom. Best keep it simple and believable, though, she decided, and told him she was doing research for a book.

“You a writer, then?” he asked. “Silly of me, I suppose you must be, if you’re working on a book.”

“Well, I’m not famous or anything. It’s my first one. You won’t have heard of me.”

“Maybe one day, who knows?”

“Who knows? It’s a historical book, though, more of an academic study, really. I mean, it’s not fiction or anything.”

“What’s it about?”

“That’s hard to say. It’s partly about early Christianity, especially on the east coast here. You know, Bede, Caedmon, St. Hilda, the Synod of Whitby.”

Keith shook his head slowly. “ ’Fraid you’ve lost me. I’m just a simple Aussie law student. Sounds fascinating, though.”

“It is,” Martha said, glad to have lost him. With luck, there would be no more questions about what she was doing. She finished her cigarette, then drained her glass. Keith immediately went for refills.

“Do you know anything about the fishing industry here?” Martha asked when he came back.

He squinted at her. His eyes really were a sharp blue, as if he had spent so much time staring into blue skies and oceans that they had taken their color from the water and air. “Fishing industry? That’s a fu

“I just wanted to see them bring in the catch, that’s all,” she said quickly. “It’s supposed to be very interesting. They take them to that long shed down by the harbor and auction them off.”

“That’ll be on Friday,” Keith said.

“Fish on Friday? Is that a joke?”

Keith laughed. “No. What I mean is, I heard they go out on a Sunday and come back Friday, so that’s when the catch comes in. That’s the big boats. Little boats, like keelboats and cobles, come and go every day, but they’ve so little to sell it’s all over before the sun comes up.”

Martha thought for a moment, making mental calculations, trying to remember what happened on which day. The person she was looking for must have a small boat of his own, she concluded. That might be easy to trace if she knew where to look. There should be a register of some kind…

“It’s only a couple of days,” Keith said. “Pity I won’t be here. You’ll have to get up early in the morning to see the boats come in, but the auctions go on for quite a while.”

“What? Sorry.”

“To see the boats come in. I said you’ll have to get up early. They come in before dawn.”

“Oh, well, I’m sure the seagulls will wake me.”

Keith laughed. “Noisy little blighters, aren’t they? Tell me, do you come from this part of the country?”

“ Yorkshire? No.”

“I thought your accent was different. Where you from, then?”

“ Exeter,” Martha lied.

“Never been there.”

“You’ve not missed much. It’s just a city, like all the rest. Tell me about Australia.”

And Keith told her. It seemed to suit both of them. Keith could find suitable expression for his homesickness in talking about Sydney life, and Martha could pretend to be interested. The whole evening was begi

“…as flash as a rat with a gold tooth,” Keith was saying. “But that’s just what people from Melbourne say. It’s hardly surprising Sydney ’s like a flashy whore to them. Melbourne ’s more like an old maid in surgical stockings…”

The place was filling up. Already most of the tables were taken, and three men had just started to play darts. Martha nodded in all the right places. She soon found that she’d finished her second half-pint.

“Another?” Keith asked.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“To take advantage of me.”

Keith blushed. “I wasn’t…I mean I-”

She waved dismissively. “Doesn’t matter. Yes, I’ll have another, if you like.”

It was while he was away at the bar that Martha first heard the voice. It made her hackles rise and her throat constrict. Casually, she looked around. Only two men were playing darts now, and it was one of them who had spoken. He was small and swarthy and wore a navy-blue fisherman’s jersey. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, and his eyes seemed to glitter u

Keith came back with the drinks and excused himself to go to the gents.

Martha turned her head slowly again, trying to catch the man in her peripheral vision. Had he recognized her? She didn’t think so. This time he was so absorbed in throwing the dart that he didn’t notice her looking. Could it really be him?

“Do you know him?”

Martha almost jumped at the sound of Keith’s voice. She hadn’t seen him come back. “No. What makes you ask that?”

Keith shrugged. “Just the way you were looking at him, that’s all.”

“Of course I don’t know him,” Martha said. “This is my first day here.”

“You just seemed to be staring rather intently, that’s all. Maybe it’s someone you thought you recognized?”

“I’ve told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just drop it, will you?”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Martha said. And it was probably the truest thing she’d said to him all evening. Now she had something concrete to work on, her mind seemed more able to focus and concentrate. On the other hand, she felt herself drifting further and further away from Keith. It was becoming harder for her to follow his conversation and respond in the appropriate way at the right time. He began to seem more like an irritating fly that she kept having to swat away. She needed to be alone, but she couldn’t escape just yet. She had to play the game.

“You a student, then?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m doing postgraduate work at Bangor.”

“And this book, is it your doctoral thesis?”

“Sort of.”

It was excruciating, like some awful interview she had to go through. As she answered Keith’s inane questions, Martha was conscious all the time of the darts match going on behind her. Her skin was burning and her pulse beat way too fast.