Poor, sad lonely Jim -learning difficulties, speech impediment. Delusional paranoid schizophrenic, all right so long as he keeps taking his pills. But when he stops taking them, his only friend – a voice in his head called Miss Elsie – talks to him, urges him to keep clean, not to be dirty. But when he sees girls with long blond hair he thinks dirty thoughts so he has to kill them to keep himself clean. First one girl, then another, then a third, their bodies placed in the local park.
The whole town of Woolsmarsh is paralysed while the local Murder Investigation Team searches for the killer. Detective Inspector Geraldine Steel, newly arrived in Woolsmarsh after the break up of a long relationship, is part of the team. She finds it difficult to settle in with new colleagues, particularly her acid-tongued boss Chief Detective Inspector Kathryn Grayson, who criticises Geraldine’s tendency to trust her own instincts which lead her to feel that vital clues are being overlooked and the investigation is on the wrong track. Meanwhile, Geraldine herself is the target of a stalker who paints malicious graffiti around her flat. Eventually Geraldine’s instincts result in the identification of the killer before – but only just before – he kills again.
Much of this story is a detailed and meticulous procedural account of the police search for the killer, interspersed with Jim’s thoughts as he wanders the streets lost in the dreadful world of his own mind. It is this last which lifts Cut Short above the usual run of serial killer stories. Leigh Russell, whose first story this is, is a teacher working with pupils with Specific Learning Difficulties, and her own obvious knowledge of this area leads us to be aware not only of the tragedy of the murdered girls, their lives so dreadfully cut short, but of the tragedy of Jim himself with his child’s mind in the body of a strong young man subject to urges he can neither understand nor control.
Cut Short is not a comfortable read, but it is a compelling and important one. Highly recommended.
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Radmila May