The First Cut

Gasping for breath, she struggled with the heavy body and slowly dragged it into the mouth of the nearest cave. The opening was a rough arch about six feet high, but it narrowed quickly the further in it went. In all, it only extended about fifteen feet into the cliff, curving as it went and ending almost in a point, but that was enough for Martha’s purposes. The dark walls glistened with slime, as if the very rock itself were sweating in anticipation.

As soon as she had hauled the body inside the opening, Martha paused and listened. It was after eleven now. The pubs would have closed and some people might fancy a drunken walk on the beach. Moments later, someone giggled by the pier, and then she could hear voices coming closer. Quickly, she braced herself and heaved the body by its ankles back into the cave as far as it would go, just beyond the slight bend in the middle. She almost screamed when she snagged a broken nail on one of his woollen socks and couldn’t free it without a struggle.

Finally, she got him as deep in the cave as she could. The effort exhausted her-sweat beaded on her forehead-but at least she was safe now. The slanting moonlight only illuminated the first four or five feet of the interior, and beyond that it was cut off by the top of the arched entrance. Nobody could see them so far back, behind small boulders set in the sand past the kink in the wall.

Cautiously, Martha peered from behind a boulder and saw a young couple framed in the cave’s opening. She held her breath. They were about thirty yards away, down by the breaking waves. Even at that distance she could catch fragments of their conversation.

“…late. Let’s go…”

“…a minute…peaceful…give me…”

“No!…cold…Come on!”

Then there was more laughter, and the boy started chasing the girl back toward the steps.

Martha breathed out. It was quiet again. Just to make sure that no other revelers were going to come and spoil her work, she waited, hardly breathing, for about fifteen minutes. When nothing else had happened by then, she pulled the body forward into the patch of moonlight near the cave’s entrance to make sure he was dead.

Grimley’s body crunched over the dead and dried-out shellfish that gleamed like tiny bones in the moonlight. Strands of dry seaweed crackled under Martha’s feet, and the smell of sea wrack, salt and rotten fish was strong in her nostrils. A small, dark shape scuttled over the sand back in the shadows. She shuddered. Outside there was only the even, quiet rhythm of waves breaking and retreating.

First, Martha washed the paperweight in a small rock pool, dried it off on her shirt and put it back in her bag. She checked her hands and clothing, but could see no blood. She would have to look more closely later, when she got back to her room.

Lastly, she forced herself to look at the body. Blood veiled one side of his face, where his eye bulged from its socket and seemed to stare right at her. His left temple was shattered. In horror, Martha put a finger to it and felt the bone fragments shift under her touch like broken eggshell. The second blow had caught the top of his skull, and she could trace the deep indentation. Again, the bones had splintered, and this time her finger touched something squelchy and matted with hair. She shivered and a cry caught in her throat as she began to heave. Kneeling beside him, she vomited on the sand until she thought she would never stop.

The ancient, rotten sea smell stuck in her nostrils, and the blood and brain matter were smeared all over her fingers. When she could catch her breath again, she washed her hands in the rock pool and knelt there gasping until she had controlled her heartbeat. She couldn’t bear being close to the body any longer. Crawling to the mouth of the cave, she listened for a few moments. It was all quiet on the beach, except for the crash and hiss of the waves. Martha slipped out of the cave like a ghost in the moonlight and set off back to the guesthouse.

20 Kirsten

You’ll have to expect a bit of pain now and then,” said Dr. Craven, writing on her prescription pad with a black felt-tip pen. “Traumatic injuries often cause extreme pain. But don’t worry, it won’t last forever. I’ll prescribe some analgesic. It should help.” She sat back and handed the slip of paper to Kirsten.

Behind the doctor, a brusque woman in her early forties, with severely cropped gray hair, steady blue eyes and a beak of a nose, Kirsten could see the small Norman church and the village green, with its two superb copper beeches, rose beds, little white fence and benches where the old people sat and gossiped. She could even hear the finches and tits twittering beyond the open window. Brierley Coombe. Home.

The previous evening she had managed to keep the pain from her parents. She had simply claimed tiredness after the journey, then taken four aspirin and a long, hot bath before going to bed. The pain receded, and she had actually slept well for the first time since the attack.

Dr. Craven leaned forward and tapped a blue folder. The stethoscope around her neck swung forward and clipped the edge of the desk. “I’ve got all your details, Kirsten,” she said, “and I’ve been on the telephone to Dr. Masterson at the hospital. If anything at all bothers you, please don’t hesitate to come and see me. And I’d like you to drop by once a week anyway, just to see how you’re doing. All right?”

Kirsten nodded. Dr. Masterson? She hadn’t even known his name, the man who had probably saved her life. One of her benefactors, anyway. She didn’t know the name of the person who had so fortunately been walking his dog on the night of her attack either. But Dr. Masterson? She remembered his dark complexion and his deeply lined brow, how he always looked cross but acted shyly and kind. She had even invented stories about him to pass the time. His father must have been an army officer serving in India, she had decided-a captain in the medical corps, most likely-and he had married a high-caste Indian woman. After independence, they had come to England…

The ease with which she could make up stories about people on so little evidence always surprised her. It was a skill, or a curse, that she had had since early childhood, when she had filled notebooks with stick drawings and family histories of invented characters. If she could make up lives for others, she thought, then she could probably do the same for herself. That would certainly be preferable to telling the truth to everyone she met. Already, on her way to the doctor’s surgery that morning, she had noticed neighbors-people who had known her since childhood-giving her those pitying looks. What was worse was that one of them-Carrie Linton, a stuck-up busybody she’d never liked-had given her a different kind of look: more accusing than pitying.

“Kirsten?”

“What? Oh, sorry, Doctor. I was daydreaming.”

“I said make sure you eat well and get plenty of rest. The healing process is doing very nicely, or Dr. Masterson wouldn’t have approved your coming home, but you’re still convalescent, and don’t forget it.”

“Of course.”

“And if you have any difficulty at all in adjusting to your condition, I can recommend a very good doctor in Bath, a specialist.”

Adjusting? Condition? Good Lord, thought Kirsten, she makes it sound as if I’m pregnant or something.

“I mean psychologically and emotionally,” Dr. Craven went on, her eyes fixing on the diagram of the human circulatory system on the wall. “It might not be an easy road, you know.”

“A psychiatrist?”

Dr. Craven tapped her pen on the desk. “Only if you feel the need. They can help, you know. There’s no stigma attached these days, especially…”

She’s embarrassed, Kirsten thought. Just like all the rest. They don’t know what to do with me. “In cases such as mine?” she offered, finishing the sentence.