The First Cut

Upstairs revealed nothing different about the owner of the cottage. In the bathroom, every fixture, fitting and surface looked in shining pristine condition, and in the bathroom cabinet, various pills, potions and creams stood in orderly rows like soldiers at attention. There was only one bedroom: his. The bed was made, covered in yellow nylon sheets, and there was nothing in the drawers and cupboards but carefully ironed shirts, a couple of sports jackets, one pressed suit, and neatly folded underwear and socks. The place seemed to have no personality at all. Was he really her man? Surely there ought to be some sign beyond the book.

Back downstairs, Sue looked for a cellar door but couldn’t find one. Perhaps it was just as well, she thought. She was feeling edgy being there at all; if she found a body in the cellar she didn’t know how she would react. But that was silly, she told herself, just nerves. He didn’t take the bodies home with him.

She opened the doors of the sideboard and found a little port, sherry and brandy, along with glasses of various shapes and sizes, place mats and a white linen tablecloth. In one of the top drawers were the everyday odds and ends one needs around a house: fuse wire, string, candles, matches, penknife, extra shoelaces, pencil stubs.

When she opened the second drawer, though, Sue’s breath caught in her throat.

There, laid out neatly in a row on a lining of faded rose-patterned wallpaper, were six locks of hair, each bound in the middle by a pink ribbon. Six victims, six locks of hair. Sue felt dizzy. She had to turn away and support herself by gripping the back of an armchair. When she had fought back the vertigo and nausea, she turned to look again at the sight she found so gruesome in its simplicity and ordinariness. Nothing too grotesque for this man: no severed breasts, ears or fingers, just six locks of hair laid out neatly in a row on a lining of faded rose-patterned wallpaper. And, further back in the drawer, a pair of scissors, a roll of pink satin ribbon, and a long knife with a worn bone handle and a gleaming stainless-steel blade.

But it was the hair that really captured Sue’s attention. Six locks. One blonde, three brunettes, two redheads. She reached out and touched them, as she would stroke a cat. She could even put names to them. One of the red locks, the darkest, was Kathleen Sha

Well, Sue thought, here was an oversight she could rectify easily enough. She pushed back her wig, picked up the scissors, and carefully snipped off a lock about two inches long, exactly the same length as the others. She then bound it neatly with a piece of ribbon and placed it in line with the rest.

Now, she thought, pleased with herself, just wait till he notices that. She was convinced that he drooled over his trophies every day, and what a bloody shock he’d get when he found another lock of hair there. Not only would he know there was someone on to him, he would probably know who it was. And that was just what Sue wanted.

The house was silent except for the sound of Sue’s heart beating, but she still felt uneasy. It was time to get out before he came back. She slid the drawer shut and hurried back to the kitchen window.

44 Kirsten

That summer, Kirsten took long, brooding walks in the woods and reckless drives in the countryside. Close to the end of the university term, about the same time she had been attacked a year ago, the killer found his sixth victim-the fifth to die-in a quiet Halifax nursing student called Jill Sarsden. Kirsten pasted the photo and details in her scrapbook as usual.

At home, she pretended all was well. The dark cloud still troubled her, bringing painful headaches and bouts of depression that were difficult to hide. But she managed to convince Dr. Craven that she was making excellent progress since discontinuing the analysis, and the doctor’s opinion helped to reassure her parents. If she was occasionally quiet and withdrawn, well, that was only to be expected. Her parents knew that she had always valued her solitude and privacy anyway.

In her room each night, she kept at the self-hypnosis, but got no further. The directions she had read in the book were simple enough: roll your eyeballs up as far as you can, close your eyes and take a deep breath, then let your eyes relax, breathe out and feel yourself floating. She had even delved back into earlier memories of pain as practice-the time her finger got trapped in a door when she was six; the day she fell off her bicycle and needed stitches in her arm-but still she couldn’t get beyond the odor of fish without feeling overcome by a sense of choking panic.

One hot, bright day in late July, she stopped in a Cotswold village for a cold drink. Walking back to the car, she noticed a craft center in an old stone cottage and decided to have a look inside. The cottage had been extended at the back and part of it converted into a glass-blowing studio. Kirsten watched entranced as the delicate and fragile pieces took shape from molten glass at the end of the tube. Afterward, as she browsed around the shop, she noticed a row of solid glass paperweights, like the one in Laura’s office, with colorful abstract designs trapped inside them. The rose pattern appealed to her most, and she bought it, feeling great satisfaction at the smooth, slippery weight in her palm. And it gave her an idea.

That evening in her room, she prepared for self-hypnosis again, doing breathing exercises and relaxing each muscle in turn. When she was ready, she sat before her desk, where the paperweight lay between two candles, drawing and twisting their light into its curved scarlet petals. Her book had mentioned that there were many ways of self-hypnosis, and she had chosen the method said to be the most effective. But whether there was something about the co

It happened a week later. She had been taking herself further and further back from the attack and moving forward slowly. This time she started with her preparations for the evening: a long bath, the lemon-fresh scent of her clean comfortable clothes, the pleasant walk to the Ring O’Bells with Sarah. As usual, she drew back at the oily rag and the fishy smell, but this time she heard his voice. Not all the words-just fragments about a “dark one” and a “song of destruction”-but it was enough. With her training in linguistics and dialect, Kirsten could place the accent easily enough.

When she came out of the light trance, her heart was thumping and she felt as if she had just been dropped into an icy bath. She breathed deeply, fully alert now, and poured herself a glass of water. The raspy voice still sounded clear in her mind. He was from Yorkshire. She couldn’t be certain, but she didn’t think he had a city accent or the broad speech of the Dales and the Pe