The Girl on the Pier

by Paul Tomkins

In my head she is sixteen, forever sixteen.

  Part Two

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Sleeplessness is now an almost constant state, my life inverted, day for night. I grab micro-sleeps – or rather, they grab me; only to let go, almost immediately, as the most vivid images startle me awake. I get so tired I want to cry. I often beat the mattress in rage, before finally getting up and going downstairs, pottering about in the hope that it will break the vicious cycle. Sleeping pills afford me an hour or two, but leave me foggy and dazed, with a mouth of metal. At times it feels as if there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for a good night’s sleep.

  Four or five in the morning, for the umpteenth day running, the sun already rising. I head down to the kitchen, grab a glass of milk. There, sat on the table, is little Monty: fraying at the seams, his tightly-stitched smile still in place, forever winking from the loss of a black buttoned eye. The threads of his armpits have grown loose and ragged, the fabric of his belly tatty and worn. Like me, he has aged. His bow tie hangs slack and saggy on his neck.

  He looks precisely how I feel.

  In a spontaneous frenzy of movement, fuelled by pure instinct, I rip him limb from limb, his soft white stuffing hanging in clouds about my face as I tear him apart. I don’t even know why I’m doing it; it’s not his fault, but then again, he’s always present when it goes wrong. As I look down at the clumps of material spread still and lifeless around my feet I am hit with a deep sense of regret, but at the same time I could never stand to see his little taunting face again.

  If I explain everything, then maybe I’ll find some peace.

  It’s fair to admit that my final encounter with Genevieve wasn’t quite as previously described. Anyone who tells their story has interests to protect; a need to portray themselves in a certain light. Is anyone ever truly honest? I mean, down to every last detail? I very much doubt it. Why should they be? What’s in it for them? We all finesse the details. Only, I’ve gone a bit further.

  Perhaps I also failed to offer a clear enough insight of my trespasses into Genevieve’s room. Whenever she and Kitty went out for the day, my first instinct was always to intrude. I just had to be within. Once inside I felt the desire to go deeper, probe further. The thrill of simply being in her space – so exhilarating at first – soon waned, with each successive foray demanding greater invasion. Not thrills for thrills’ sake; merely the addictive consequence of a need to get closer.

  Climbing naked into her bed, I would smell the sheets, cuddle her pillow; the warmth of my skin generating an echo of hers. Having slipped the record player needle into the groove of a Leonard Cohen vinyl – I had the choice of half a dozen – I’d lie back and glance around the room as if she lay beside me, sharing a casual post-coital cigarette. I’d invent conversations that I didn’t yet have the maturity to fully understand – the kind of pillow talk I’d seen in films.

  As much as anything, the decoration of that room, and the objects strewn across the floor and edging out of open wardrobes and draws, shaped me. I became a product of that environment, soaking up Genevieve’s sensibilities. Everything about her seeped into my bloodstream. The startling black and white pictures by trendy young photographers, cut from library books and tacked onto the wall. Francis Bacon’s Triptych May-June, 1973: depicting the artist’s overdosed lover, collapsed on a toilet floor, dead. That’s not an easy image for a boy to reconcile, especially in a room of erotic fantasy. I imbibed these stimuli like contracting an infectious disease.

  I never wanted to be a liar; between the ages of six and fourteen I was obsessively truthful. I felt an unbearable weight of guilt over my mother’s suicide – over the kind of child I’d been. (Which, in truth, was the kind of child that more-orless everyone is, but my minor misdemeanours came crashing down during the weeks and months that followed.) As a result, I felt myself in some way responsible.

  Having said all that, I have always been the kind of person who cannot resist pulling the head from a scab. I think it says a lot about me. I pick at its edges, delighting at the crisp cracking sounds. The satisfaction elevates me way beyond the experience: it shouldn’t feel this good. A dart of pain – and I quite like the pain – confirms that the scab is still fused tight to the skin beneath, like an unripe fruit unwilling to yield from its stalk. However, a tiny tickle, and it is ready to be gently levered all the way, until it lays precious in my palm.

  Maybe it’s connected to the fact that, as a child, I forever took things apart. I wanted to see how they worked, what held them together. Sometimes I imagined hidden treasure inside a toy, only to find, with the case irreparably sundered, nothing but plastic and metal, as well as a surprising emptiness; a moulded vacuum. No secret, and, from that point on, a broken toy.

  I just can’t leave things well alone.

  But for the doggedness of David, none of this would be necessary. I can’t help but think he knows more than he’s letting on, and that, when out of sight, he’s digging away and getting closer to the truth. Things occur without our knowledge, and then – only after the event – do we gain insight. Only young children think there is no world beyond their experience, no life outside their walls, only silence and darkness when they sleep.

  Rewriting your past, I now realise, is as futile as trying to wash away limescale with water.

  It is true that Genevieve arrived that morning, her plan devised and a willing accomplice sought. For patsy, read Patrick. Awoken at five in the morning, I found myself entirely vulnerable, and eager to impress. However, even after the predatory approach, her idea, with Kitty to be the victim of a scam, repelled me. Instead, thinking on my feet, I offered an alternate plan – easier on my flesh and bone, and far gentler on my conscience. Everything up to that point – Kitty, the cottage, the death of my parents – is the truth. But Genevieve’s unexpected arrival that early morning started in motion a sequence of events that took me with them, gathering me into their momentum. That’s what beautiful girls do to me.

  My suggestion revolved around a story I was once told. Jimmy Smith, the older brother of my school-friend Tony, found himself serving three years for supply of Class A narcotics. This made him something of a schoolyard legend, and Tony, a far meeker boy, received some of this kudos by proxy. Despite being radically different to his brother, a little of that underworld cachet rubbed off. One night, tight in the alcove of a seafront bus shelter as we escaped a storm, Tony divulged his brother’s secret: Jimmy had been using a small kiosk at the far end of the West Pier as safe storage for his stash of cash and drugs. And so, as Genevieve hounded me, I found myself blurting out this information, without thinking it through. The sums involved far exceeded anything Kitty had lying around in bank notes. Before I knew it I had dressed, and, thoroughly caught up in Genevieve’s enthusiasm, found myself leading the way on the long walk.

  In the early morning light – it was still only six a.m. – we reached the shoreline. The smell of seaweed and saline, lavished by the cold dawn breeze, blitzed my senses. Combined with the adrenaline, and the thrill of being of use to Genevieve, I felt more awake than ever before.

  The beach lay deserted. Six years after the pier had been closed to the public, and a further six years before an infamous storm ripped the walkway from pier to shore, our task in trespassing was simply to scale the metal gates, and ignore the signs that warned of danger. As I stood and hesitated with my hand on its steel, Genevieve climbed over the barricade. Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a good idea. What had I talked myself into? She shot me a withering look, and a shake of the head, as I started to show signs of chickening out. I had no option but to follow, to chase her lengthy shadow.

  I’d yet to disclose the precise location of the cache; I had to retain some bargaining power. The offer of sexual rewards as I lay half-awake beneath bedsheets hung as the carrot, and I wasn’t about to jeopardise that – although, in truth, I would have been happier with something less carnal but longer lasting: a day spent huddled up beneath the covers, listen
ing to her record collection. I wanted love, but guessed it was not an option. The offer? Something quick and clinical.

  We passed the first octagonal kiosk – the Brighton Rock Shop – and entered onto the main body of the pier. The walkway narrowed in the approach to the concert hall, then opened out on either side. We took the right-hand path, circling to the west around the low-slung silver building. Once again the walkway narrowed, before expanding to its widest point at the pier head, housing the mighty pavilion. At the south-west corner resided a roofless kiosk, to which I led her.

  It stood listing against the backdrop of orange sea. We approached, and located the doorless entrance. A pigeon, disturbed by our presence, flapped wildly upwards, and in turn caused a handful of seagulls to take flight from atop the pavilion. I jumped back in alarm, hyper-alert to any movement, but Genevieve seemed untroubled. “Come on then,” she said, impatiently. “Where is it?”

  I hadn’t bargained for Tony’s overactive imagination. Or the possibility that loose lips had led others to the location. Either way, as we moved a mass of mildewed wood from inside the kiosk, scattering it to get at the heart of the structure, I grew uneasy; nothing to be found beyond remnants of an old outbuilding and a flock of dead pigeons. Unsurprisingly, Genevieve got angry.

  My only aim was to stop her leaving. You have to believe me on that. I felt a somatic urge to not be deserted; not in that manner. It was a reflex action, somewhere beneath, below or beyond conscious thought.

  I meant only to grab her shoulder, in response to the look of disgust she flashed me before turning so sharply on her heels. I didn’t mean to push her so violently, but the floor beneath me gave way a little, and I lurched far further forward than expected. I felt the weight of her head for a fraction of a second as my palm forcefully thrust it straight into the corner of the kiosk. There echoed a sickening crack.

  She collapsed in a crumpled heap at my feet; her forehead sliced clean open, the wound rising beyond her hairline. Blood streaked through her hair, mixing with a few remaining flecks of red dye. It seemed to gush out. Most damning, her eyes stared up at me, wide and perfectly still: inquisitively asking, What did I do to deserve such brutality?

  I ran and vomited over the railings, down into the sea. I couldn’t face turning back to look at her, and yet I couldn’t just run away. My mouth wiped on my sleeve, I moved to stand over her body, shaking uncontrollably, tears streaming down my cheeks. I had no idea what to do. Should I call the police? It may well have been the sensible course of action, but I couldn’t afford to take that risk. It was an accident, but one borne of rage and confusion. Maybe, just maybe, I meant to be that forceful? Yes, my footing gave way, but I felt explosive anger in that split second. I didn’t think about killing her, but equally, I couldn’t let her get away. I couldn’t be abandoned. Not again.

  I began to remove her clothes, down to her underwear. I unbuttoned her blouse, and unfastened her jeans, easing both from her pliant limbs. I had this notion about concealing her identity; ‘last seen wearing’, and all that. Having spent three days with my father’s body, I held no fear of a corpse. The repercussions from this particular circumstance, however, terrified me. Incredibly, she remained just as beautiful, and her body – so fresh after death – looked perfect. Her staring dead eyes, however, will forever haunt me.

  For a moment I considered dumping her overboard, but concluded that the tide would simply wash her ashore. Cupping her armpits, I dragged her into the kiosk. Frantically I covered her with the scraps of wood, and any other rubbish I could find, building a pyre over her body; not that the damp wood could be lit, even if I had a match. My future depended on never being connected with the scene. Her body must never be discovered. But if it ever was, it must never be identified. I gathered her clothes, to later burn in the woods.

  And yet leaving her proved the hardest task of all. I anticipated the urge to run, as fast and as far as possible. But the guilt of casting her aside like trash, coupled with the fear of an overlooked piece of damning evidence, trapped me. I crept away, only to stall and pause for thought, turn and look. By delaying I endangered my freedom; leaving too quickly could do the same.

  Even then I knew that no matter how thorough my escape, and how great the physical distance, this pier – and Genevieve – would follow me everywhere, forever more.

  * * *

  My childhood proximity to the dead did indeed lead me circuitously to the world of forensic art. As a mere boy I had committed the ultimate sin. And though I never really knew her, I felt a sense of duty to Alice, and those like her, whose lives are wrecked by never knowing. I hadn’t the courage to soothe Alice’s particular grief; to point out that her little girl was not in fact missing in London, but instead rotting on a pier. I never could decide which – knowledge or ignorance – would be easier on her soul, but I knew which was essential to my freedom. Guilt crippled me. But it never once made me want to face the lawful consequences of my actions.

  Starting my new career, I had only ever anticipated working on modern cases. Historical reconstructions never entered my thinking. I knew artists involved with the recreation of the faces of men found in Napoleonic shipwrecks, and graves from the Civil War. I never imagined offering my services to such a project. But history doesn’t have to stretch back that far to be pertinent. It can exist in the more recent past, far closer to home.

  As described, David did indeed approach me, keen for a fresh perspective on an old case. I’d worked with him on several reconstructions, and we developed a bond. However, I wasn’t quite prepared for the contents of a scruffy manilla file he handed over on the day of the storm, overflowing with pictures of the girl he and his colleagues knew as Marina, but whom I knew as Genevieve. In my mind her body remained as perfect as I left it. That was, until I folded back the beige cover and looked at the crime scene photographs within.

  Decades earlier, in May 1982 – almost a year after I ended her life – the Brighton Argus’ headline informed the town that a body had been discovered. At first I panicked, but it was clear that the police had no idea who the victim was.

  Decades on, that remained true.

  Back then, as my youthful eyes stared down at the last vestiges of life knocked clean out of her body, Genevieve looked almost normal; I had stopped her heart beating, but, one wound aside, merely turned her into a life-sized doll. Time, and the elements, along with nature’s scavengers, ripped her flesh from its bone. I killed her; but they brutalised her. That became clear in the photos. Her teeth: I could still recognise the smile her lips would form around them. Heartbreakingly, hollow recesses replaced the eyes, the gaze eaten away.

  The crack in her skull showed precisely where forehead met wall. In the months following that conclusive collision her feminine curves pared away to hard asexual lines: the off-white osteoblasts of calcium and collagen. Everything about her had been reduced to something that, at first glance, could be male or female; AN Other Skeleton. No matter that on closer inspection an anthropologist, or a reconstructor like myself, could spot the telltale signs of beauty, or identify the gender by the brow ridge or the difference in the sub-pubic angle of the pelvis; her essence had dissolved with decomposition. I spared her the harsh reality of ageing, but replaced it with the barbarity of decay.

  As in that smoke-filled pub I flicked from one photo to another – a cluster of bones, exposed after the kiosk had been cleared, with the thin under-wire from a bra – I knew that my destiny had come home to roost. David would get there, eventually. It became merely a matter of time.

  And so, all those years later, when he asked me to reconstruct the skull, I felt compelled to return to Genevieve her natural beauty – no matter what the consequences of a realistic reconstruction. In that moment, as much as I wanted to decline, I simply had to say yes. I’d been running from it for too long. I had to do my utmost to bring her back to life. I owed her that.

  THIRTY-NINE

  With great trepidation – I felt my heart
gain weight upon hearing the words – I found myself agreeing to David’s request. For a decade I’d guessed of the possibility – here was a skull, absent a face – but there existed the sketch artist’s original drawing, which I assumed would suffice (even though I could tell it totally failed to capture her likeness; something I obviously kept to myself).

  I tried to think of excuses, but none of any substance were forthcoming. There was no point suggesting I had other work to attend to, as he knew I didn’t. I couldn’t say I didn’t have the time, as he knew I did. With all this in mind, what plausible reason could I give?

  Decades after that tragic morning, reunion with Genevieve awaited, in the most unusual of circumstances.

  I told David to pack the skull in a box, for me to open at my leisure. I couldn’t bear to be presented with it, in its full Baptistian glory, and have to disguise my reaction. Just a skull, of course, but I knew the reality that once curved around it. I told him that unwrapping it on my own would be the most respectful thing to do – trotting out some nonsense about needing to be at one with the subject from the start, given the importance of this case – and he accepted my explanation.

  The next evening he knocked at my door, cardboard box lodged under his arm. He made some quip about Hamlet, and I forced a smile. Once in the living room he placed the package on the coffee table, and we sat either side, as this presence screamed at me from within its thin brown walls. I could barely concentrate on what David had to say, such was the noise – such was the heat and vibration – I sensed from inside that box. I just wanted him gone, so I could have my private moment with a fairly literal ghost from my past. But on he prattled, unaware that this would be so much more than just another job to me: enforced penitence, repentance and atonement rolled into one.

  The sun hung just above the trees at the rear of the cottage as I carried the box through to the study, filling the lake with liquid gold. I’d been so eager for David to leave me in peace, and yet as the moment of unpacking loomed I held strong Pandoran fears. How on earth do you confront something like this? I held no meaningful beliefs in evil spirits or voodoo, but I never anticipated such a strange situation; I imagine few people have. In such moments it’s impossible not to let your mind wander over myths and legends, to fear the supernatural.