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    The First Cut: A Novel of Suspense
    The First Cut: A Novel of Suspense
    The First Cut: A Novel of Suspense
    Ebook343 pages7 hours

    The First Cut: A Novel of Suspense

    By Peter Robinson

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    About this ebook

    A serial killer stalks women in northern England in this psychological thriller by the New York Times–bestselling author of the Inspector Banks series.

    On a balmy June night, Kirsten, a young university student, is strolling home through a silent moonlit park when she is viciously attacked.

    When she awakens in the hospital, she has no recollection of that brutal night. But then slowly, painfully, details reveal themselves—dreams of two figures, one white and one black, hovering over her; snatches of a strange and haunting song; the unfamiliar texture of a rough and deadly hand . . .

    In another part of the country, Martha Browne arrives in a Yorkshire seaside town, posing as an author doing research for a book. But her research is of a particularly macabre variety. Who is she hunting with such deadly determination? And why?

    Published in the UK as Caedmon’s Song

    Praise for The First Cut

    “An exceptionally well-crafted psychological thriller.” —Toronto Globe and Mail

    “This atmospheric tale of suspense will keep readers wondering what’s really going on. . . . Highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review)

    “[An] intricately constructed, stand-alone novel of suspense and revenge. . . . [A] knuckle-biting end.” —Publishers Weekly

    “A brutally efficient page-turner that shows a welcome new side to Banks’s accomplished creator.” —Kirkus Reviews
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061830037
    The First Cut: A Novel of Suspense
    Author

    Peter Robinson

    One of the world’s most popular and acclaimed writers, Peter Robinson was the bestselling, award-winning author of the DCI Banks series. He also wrote two short-story collections and three stand-alone novels, which combined have sold more than ten million copies around the world. Among his many honors and prizes were the Edgar Award, the CWA (UK) Dagger in the Library Award, and the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Martin Beck Award.

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      Book preview

      The First Cut - Peter Robinson

      1

      Martha

      Martha Browne arrived in Whitby one clear afternoon in early September, convinced of her destiny.

      All the way, she had gazed out of the bus window and watched the landscape become more and more unreal. On Fylingdales Moor, the sensors of the early-warning missile-attack system rested like giant golf balls balanced at the rims of holes, and all around them the heather was in full bloom. It wasn’t purple, like the songs all said, but more delicate, maroon laced with pink. When the moors gave way to rolling farmland, like the frozen green waves of the sea it led to, she understood what Dylan Thomas meant by fire green as grass.

      Sea and sky were a piercing blue, and the town nestled in its bay, a pattern of red pantile roofs flanked on either side by high cliffs. Everything was too vibrant and vivid to be real; the scene resembled a landscape painting, as distorted in its way as Van Gogh’s wheat fields and starry nights.

      The bus lumbered down toward the harbor and pulled up in a small station off Victoria Square. Martha took another quick glance at her map and guidebook as the driver backed into the numbered bay. When the doors hissed open, she picked up her small holdall and followed the other passengers onto the platform.

      Arriving in a new place always made Martha feel strangely excited, but this time the sensation was even more intense. At first, she could only stand rooted to the spot among the revving buses, breathing in the diesel fumes and salt sea air. She felt as if she was trying the place on for size, and it was a good fit. She took stock of the subtle tremors her arrival caused in the essence of the town. Others might not notice such things, but Martha did. Everyone and everything—from the sand on the beach to a guilty secret in a tourist’s heart—was somehow connected and in a state of constant flux. It was like quantum physics, she thought, at least insofar as she understood it. Her presence would send out ripples and reverberations that people wouldn’t forget for a long time.

      She still felt queasy from the journey, but that would soon pass. The first thing was to find somewhere to stay. According to her guidebook, the best accommodation was to be had in the West Cliff area. The term sounded odd when she knew she was on the east coast, but Whitby was built on a kink in the shoreline facing north, and the town is divided neatly into east and west by the mouth of the River Esk.

      Martha walked along the New Quay Road by Endeavour Wharf. In the estuary, silt glistened like entrails in the sun. A rusted hulk stood by the wharf—not a fishing trawler, but a small cargo boat of some kind—and rough, unshaven men wearing dirty T-shirts and jeans ambled around on deck, coiling ropes and greasing thick chains. By the old swing bridge that linked the east and west sides of the town stood a blackboard with the times of high tides chalked in: 0527 and 1803. It was a few minutes before four; the tide should be on its way in.

      She walked along St. Ann’s Staith, sliding her hand on the white metal railing that topped the stone walls of the quay. Small craft lay beached on the mud, some of them not much more than rowing boats with sails. Ropes thrummed and flimsy metal masts rattled in the light breeze and flashed in the sun. Across the narrow estuary, the white houses seemed to be piled haphazardly beside and on top of one another. At the summit of the cliff stood St. Mary’s Church, just as it had, in one form or another, since the Abbot William de Percy built it between 1100 and 1125. The abbey beside it had been there even longer, but it had been crumbling away for over four hundred years, since Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, and now there was nothing left but a somber ruin.

      Martha felt a thrill at actually seeing these places she had only read about. And she also had a strange sense of coming home, a kind of déjà vu. Everything seemed so damn familiar and right. This was the place; Martha knew it. But she’d have plenty of time to explore East Cliff later, she decided, turning her attention back toward where she was going.

      The pubs, seafood stalls and souvenir shops on her left gave way to amusement arcades and a Dracula Museum; for it was here, in Whitby, where the celebrated Count was said to have landed. The road veered away from the harbor wall around a series of open sheds by the quayside, where the fish were auctioned before being shipped to processing plants. Obviously, the catch hadn’t come in yet, as nothing was going on there at the moment. Martha knew she would have to come down here again and again and watch the men as they unloaded their fish into iced boxes and sold them. But, like everything else, it could wait. Now she had made up her mind, she felt she had plenty of time. Attention to detail was important, and it would help overcome whatever fear and uncertainty remained within her.

      She stopped at a stall and bought a packet of shrimp, which she ate as she carried on walking. They sold whelks, winkles and cockles, too, but Martha never touched them. It was because of her mother, she realized. Every time the family had visited the seaside—usually Weston-super-Mare or Burnham-on-Sea—and Martha had wanted to try them, her mother had told her it was vulgar to eat such things. It was, too, she had always believed. What could be more vulgar than sticking a pin in the moist opening of a tiny, conchlike shell and pulling out a creature as soft and slimy as snot? It wouldn’t bother her now, though. She had changed. Her mother didn’t know it, but she had. Now she could probably even rip apart a lobster and suck out the meat. But her mother’s words still stuck in her mind. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that it was not so much the act itself that her mother thought vulgar, but its class associations. Only the lower classes went around at seaside resorts sticking pins in whelks and winkles.

      A bingo caller from one of the arcades interrupted her stream of thought: All the fives, fifty-five…Legs eleven, number eleven. The amplified voice echoed through the empty auction sheds.

      Martha passed the bandstand and took Khyber Pass up to West Cliff. At the top, she walked under the enormous whale’s jawbone, set up like an archway into another world. It was a hot day, and by the time she had climbed the steep hill she was sweating. She ran her hand along the smooth, warm, weather-darkened bone and shuddered. If this was just the jaw, how gigantic the creature must have been: a true leviathan. And as she passed under its shadow, she fancied she was like Jonah being vomited forth from its mouth. Or was she going the other way, entering the whale’s belly?

      She could picture the old Sunday school illustrations of the Bible story: inside the whale had looked as vast and gloomy as a cathedral, with the ribs mimicking its vaulting. And there sat poor Jonah, all alone. She imagined how his cries must have echoed in all that space. But could there really be so much emptiness inside a whale? Wasn’t it all a twisted congestion of tubing and swollen, throbbing organs like it was inside people?

      She tried to remember the story. Hadn’t Jonah attempted to escape his destiny by running off to Tarshish when he was supposed to go and cry against the wickedness in Nineveh? Then a great tempest had raged and the sailors threw him overboard. He spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, until he prayed for deliverance and the beast spewed him forth onto dry land. After that, he accepted his destiny and went to Nineveh. She couldn’t remember what happened next. There was something about the people there repenting and being spared, which didn’t please Jonah much after all he’d been through, but Martha couldn’t recall the ending. Still, it seemed remarkably apt. She had struggled against her fate, too, at first, but now she had accepted her destiny, the holiness of her task. She was headed for Nineveh, where evil thrived, and no matter what, there would be no mercy this time.

      Captain Cook’s statue looked confidently out to sea just beyond the jawbone, rolled-up charts under his arm. Cook had learned his seamanship on the Whitby coal ships, Martha had read, and the vessels he had commanded on epic voyages to the South Seas had been built here, where that rusted hulk lay at anchor in the lower harbor. The Endeavour and the Resolution. Good names, she thought.

      Royal Crescent, curved in an elegant semicircle facing the sea, offered a number of private hotels with vacancies, but the prices were too high. She might have to stay a week or two, and over ten pounds a night would be too much. It was a shame, because these hotels were probably a lot more comfortable than what she was likely to get. Still, a room with a bath and a color television was too much to ask for. And you always had to pay more if you wanted to see the sea. How often did people on holiday actually sit in their rooms and admire the view? Martha wondered. Hardly at all. But it was the reassurance that counted, the knowledge that it was there if you wanted to look. And that privilege cost money.

      The promenade along West Cliff was lined with huge Victorian hotels of the kind that were built in most seaside towns when holidays at the coast came into vogue. Martha knew none of these were for her, either, so she turned down Crescent Avenue to find a cheap bed and breakfast place on a nondescript street.

      As it happened, Abbey Terrace wasn’t entirely without charm. It sloped steeply down to the estuary, though it stopped at East Terrace before it actually reached the front, and boasted a row of tall guesthouses, all bearing recommendations from the RAC or AA. Many of them even had their rates posted in the window, and Martha chose one that cost nine pounds fifty per night.

      Wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, she opened the wrought-iron gate and walked up the path.

      2

      Kirsten

      Come on now, let’s be ’aving yer! Ain’t yer got no ’omes to go to? The landlord of the Ring O’Bells voiced his nightly complaint as he came over to Kirsten’s table to collect the glasses. It’s half past eleven. They’ll have my license, they will."

      Pray cease and desist, said Damon, holding up his hand like a stop sign. Dost thou not ken ’tis the end of term? Know’st thou not ’tis the end of our final year in this fair city?

      I don’t bloody care, the landlord growled. It’s time you all pissed off home to bed. He snatched a half-empty glass from the table.

      Hey, that was my drink! Sarah said. I haven’t finished it.

      Yes you have, love. He stood his ground, not a big man, but quick and strong enough to outmaneuver a bunch of drunken students. Out, the lot of you. Now! Come on!

      Hugo stood up. Wait a minute. She paid for that drink and she’s got every bloody right to finish it. With his curly blond hair and broad shoulders, he looked more like a rugby player than a student of English.

      Kirsten sighed. There was going to be trouble, she could sense it. Damon was drunk and Hugo was proud and foolish enough, even sober, to start a fight. Just what she needed on her last night at university.

      The landlord tapped his watch. Not at this time, she hasn’t. Not according to the licensing laws.

      Are you going to give her it back?

      No.

      Behind him, the cellarman, Les, an ex-fighter with a misshapen nose and cauliflower ears, stood poised for trouble.

      Well, fuck you, then, Hugo said. You can have this one too. And he threw the rest of his pint of Guinness in the landlord’s face.

      Les moved forward but the landlord put out an arm to stop him. We don’t want any trouble, lads and lasses, he said in an icily calm voice. You’ve had your fun. Now why don’t you go and have your party somewhere else?

      Might as well, Hugo, said Kirsten, tugging at his sleeve. The man’s right. We’ll get nothing more to drink here and there’s no sense starting a fight, not tonight. Let’s go to Russell’s party.

      Hugo sat down sulkily and frowned at his pint glass as if he regretted wasting the stout. All right, he said, then glared at the landlord again. But it’s not fair. You pay for your drinks and that bastard just snatches them off you. We ought to get our money back, at least. How long have we been coming here? Two years. And this is how we get treated.

      Come on, Hugo. Damon clapped him on the shoulder and they all got up to leave. ’Twould indeed be a great pleasure to drown yon varlet in a tun of malmsey, but… He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and shrugged. "Tempus fugit, old mate." With his short haircut and raddled, boyish complexion, he looked like an old-fashioned grammar-school kid. He whipped his scarf dramatically around his neck and the end tipped over a glass on the table. It rolled toward the edge, wobbled back and forth there, undecided, then stopped for a moment before dropping to the floor. The landlord stood by patiently, arms folded, and Les looked ready for a fight.

      Fascist bastards, Sarah said, picking up her handbag.

      They beat a hasty and noisy retreat out of the pub, singing Johnny B. Goode, the song that had been playing on the jukebox when the landlord unplugged it.

      Russell’s is it, then? Hugo asked.

      Everyone agreed. No one had any booze to take along, but good old Russell always put on a good spread. He had plenty of money, what with his father being such a whiz on the stock market. Probably a bit of insider trading, Kirsten suspected, but who was she to complain?

      And so the four of them walked out into a balmy June evening—only Damon wearing a scarf because he affected eccentricity—and made their way through the deserted campus to the residence buildings. There were Hugo, Sarah, Kirsten and Damon, all of them final-year English students. The only person missing from the close-knit group was Galen, Kirsten’s boyfriend. Just after exams, his grandmother had died and he’d had to rush down to Kent to console his mother and help out with arrangements.

      Kirsten was feeling a little tipsy as they hurried to Oastler Hall and up the worn stone steps to Russell’s rooms. She missed Galen and wished he could be here to celebrate, too—especially as she had got a First. Still, she’d had enough congratulations to make her thoroughly bored with the whole business already. Now it was time to get maudlin and say her farewells, for tomorrow she was heading home. If only she could keep Hugo’s wandering hands away…

      The party seemed to have spilled over into the corridor and adjoining rooms. Even if they wanted to, which was unlikely, Russell’s neighbors would hardly have been able to get to sleep. The newcomers pushed their way through the crowd into the smoky flat, calling greetings as they went. Most of the lights were off in the living room, where the Velvet Underground were singing Sweet Jane and couples danced with drinks in their hands. Russell himself leaned by the window talking to Guy Naburn, a trendy tutor who hung around with students rather than with his colleagues, and welcomed them all when they tumbled in.

      Hope you’ve got some booze, Hugo shouted over the music. We just got chucked out of the Ring O’Bells.

      Russell laughed. For that, you deserve the best. Try the kitchen.

      Sure enough, half-finished bottles of red wine and a couple of large casks of ale rested on the kitchen table. The fridge was full of Newcastle Brown and Carlsberg Special Brew, except for the space taken up by liter bottles of screw-top Riesling. The four latecomers busied themselves pouring drinks, then wandered off to mingle. It was hot, dim and smoky. Kirsten went to stand by an open window to get some air. She drank cold lager from the can and watched the shadows prance and flail on the dance floor. Smoke curled up and drifted past her out of the window into the night.

      She thought about the three years they had spent together and felt sad now they were all going their separate ways in the big, bad world beyond university—the real world, as everyone called it. What an odd bunch they’d made at the start. That first term, they had circled one another warily and shyly, away from home for the first time, all lost and alone, and none of them willing to admit it: Damon, the witty eighteenth-century scholar; Sarah, feminist criticism and women’s fiction; Hugo, drama and poetry; herself, linguistics, specializing in phonology and dialects; and Galen, modernism with a touch of Marxism thrown in for good measure. Through tutorials, department social evenings and informal parties, they had made their tentative approaches and discovered kindred spirits. By the end of the first year, they had become inseparable.

      Together, they had suffered the vicissitudes, the joys and the disappointments of youth: Kirsten consoled Sarah after her nasty affair with Felix Stapeley, her second-year tutor; Sarah fell out with Damon briefly over a disagreement on the validity of a feminist approach to literature; Galen stood up for Hugo, who failed his Anglo-Saxon exam and almost got sent down; and Hugo pretended to be miffed for a while when Kirsten took up with Galen instead of him.

      After being close for so long, their lives were so intertwined that Kirsten found it hard to imagine a future without the others. But, she realized sadly, that was surely what she had to face. Even though she and Galen had planned to go and do postgraduate work in Toronto, things might not work out that way. One of them might not be accepted—and then what?

      One of the dancers stumbled backward and bumped into Kirsten. The lager foamed in the can and spilled over her hand. The drunken dancer just shrugged and got back to business. Kirsten laughed and put her can on the windowsill. Having got the feel of the party at last, she launched herself into the shadowy crowd and chatted and danced till she was hot and tired. Then, finding that her half-full can had been used as an ashtray in her absence, she got some more lager and returned to her spot by the window. The Rolling Stones were singing Jumping Jack Flash. Russell sure knew how to choose party music.

      How you doing? It was Hugo, shouting in her ear.

      I’m all right, she yelled back. A bit tired, that’s all. I’ll have to go soon.

      How about a dance?

      Kirsten nodded and joined him on the floor. She didn’t know if she was a good dancer or not, but she enjoyed herself. She liked moving her body to the beat of fast music, and the Stones were the best of all. With the Stones she felt a certain earthy, pagan power deep in her body, and when she danced to their music she shed all her inhibitions: her hips swung wildly and her arms drew abstract patterns in the air. Hugo danced less gracefully. His movements were heavier, more deliberate and limited than Kirsten’s. He tended to lumber around a bit. It didn’t matter to her, though; she hardly ever paid attention to the person she was dancing with, so bound up in her own world was she. The problem was, some men took her wild gyrations on the dance floor as an invitation to bed, which they most certainly were not.

      The song ended and Time Is on My Side came on, a slower number. Hugo moved closer and put his arms around her. She let him. It was only dancing, after all, and they were close friends. She rested her head on his shoulder and swayed to the music.

      I’ll miss you, you know, Hugo, she said as they danced. I do hope we can all still keep in touch.

      We will, Hugo said, turning his head so that she could hear him. None of us know what the hell we’re going to be doing yet. On the dole, most likely. Or maybe we’ll all come out and join you and Galen in Canada.

      If we get there.

      He held her more closely and they stopped talking. The music carried them along. She could feel Hugo’s warm breath in her hair, and his hand had slipped down her back to the base of her spine. The floor was getting more crowded. Everywhere they moved, they seemed to bump into another huddled couple. Finally, the song ended and Hugo guided her back toward the window as Street Fighting Man came on.

      When they’d both cooled down and had something to drink, he leaned forward and kissed her. It was so quick that she didn’t have time to stop him. Then his arms were around her, running over her shoulders and buttocks, pulling her hips toward him. She struggled and broke away, instinctively wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

      Hugo!

      Oh, come on, Kirsten. It’s our last chance, while we’re still young. Who knows what might happen tomorrow?

      Kirsten laughed and punched him on the shoulder. She couldn’t stay angry with him. Don’t pull that gather ye rosebuds stuff with me, Hugo Lassiter. I’ll say this for you, you don’t give up trying, do you?

      Hugo grinned.

      But it’s still no, Kirsten said. I like you, you know that, but only as a friend.

      I’ve got too many friends, Hugo complained. What I want is to get laid.

      Kirsten gestured around the room. Well, I’m sure you’ve got a good chance. If there’s anyone here you haven’t slept with already.

      That’s not fair. I know I’ve got a reputation, but it’s completely unfounded.

      Is it? How disappointing. And here was me thinking you were such an expert.

      You could find out for yourself, you know, he said, moving closer again. If you play your cards right.

      Kirsten laughed and wriggled out of his grasp. No. Anyway, I’m off home now. I’ve got to be up early to pack in the morning, especially if I’m to have time for lunch.

      I’ll walk you.

      No you won’t. It’s not far.

      But it’s late. It’s dangerous to walk out by yourself so late.

      I’ve done it hundreds of times. You know I have. No thanks. You stay here. I don’t want to end up fighting you off out there. I’d rather take my chances.

      Hugo sighed. And tomorrow we part, perhaps forever. You don’t know what you’re missing.

      Nor do you, she said, but I’m sure you’ll soon forget all about it. Remember, tomorrow for lunch in the Green Dragon. Remind Sarah and Damon, too.

      One o’clock?

      That’s right. Kirsten pecked him on the cheek and skipped out into the warm night.

      3

      Martha

      The room was perfect. Usually, a single room in a bed and breakfast establishment is nothing more than a cupboard by the toilets, but this one, clearly a converted attic with a dormer window and white-painted rafters, had been done out nicely. Candy-striped wallpaper brightened the walls, and a salmon-pink candlewick bedspread covered the three-quarter bed. Just to the left of the window stood the washstand, with clean white towels laid neatly over a chrome rail. The only other furniture consisted of a small wardrobe with metal hangers that jangled together when Martha opened the flimsy door, and a bedside lamp on a small chest of drawers.

      The owner leaned against the doorjamb with his arms folded while she made up her mind. He was a coarse man with hairy forearms and even more hair sticking out over the top of his white open-necked shirt. His face looked like it was made of pink vinyl, and six or seven long fair hairs curled on his chin.

      We don’t get many girls staying by themselves, he said, smiling at her with lashless blue eyes. It was obviously an invitation to state her business.

      Yes, well I’m here to do some research, Martha lied. I’m working on a book.

      A book, eh? Romance, is it? I suppose you’ll find plenty of background for that here, what with the abbey ruins and the Dracula legends. Plenty of romance in all that history, I’d say.

      It’s not a romance, Martha said.

      He didn’t pursue the matter further, but looked at her with a fixed expression, a mixture of superior, mocking humor and disbelief that she had often seen men use on professional women.

      I’ll take it, she said, mostly to get rid of him as quickly as possible. She didn’t like the way he leaned against the doorway, arms folded, watching her. Was he hoping she’d start taking out her underwear to put in the drawers? The room began to feel claustrophobic.

      He stood up straight. Right. Well, here’s the keys. That big one there’s for the front door. Come in any time you want, but try not to disturb the other guests. There’s a lounge with a color telly on the ground floor. You can make yourself a cup of tea or instant coffee there, too, if you like. But be sure to wash out your cup afterward. The wife has enough on. Breakfast’s at eight thirty sharp. If you want an evening meal, let the wife know in the morning before you go out. Anything else?

      Not that I can think of.

      He closed the door behind him as he left. Martha dumped her holdall on the bed and stretched. The

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