The Woman on the Pier

by B P Walter

  I don’t know if I passed out or if the world started spinning too fast for me to see. But at last the screen comes back in front of my eyes again and I can read the article. Bits of it.

  Three Conservative MPs and a number of other prominent figures are to be named tonight in an episode of ITV’s investigative news and current affairs documentary series Insight. The programme, which has reportedly been two years in the making, will allege Nathaniel Jones, MP for North Forrest, Peter Catton, MP for Heldford, and Ernest Kellman, MP for Rowland Park, have participated in the organised sexual abuse of children and committed further sexual offences against other vulnerable people over a number of years. Mr Kellman, pictured, was seen walking to his central London home earlier today in the company of Jacob Wakefield, QC, and two advisors from Allerton & Quinn Consultancy Services, Millbank. When asked for a comment, Mr Kellman replied, ‘It’s all nonsense.’ According to the programme’s producers, the report will include ‘details of a wide-reaching paedophile ring, operating amongst high-profile members of Parliament, in association with the trafficking of women for sex and, in the case of two of the MPs and other unnamed individuals, an alleged assault relating to their days at Oxford University.’

  I’m not able to read any more. The images I’ve tried for years to push away are flooding to the front of my mind. They’re everywhere. Every part of my brain is full of that room and that door – the door that would open to let in another man. And then another. Until the night ended and I’d wake up to find Dad driving me home. Telling me not to talk about the nightmares I’d had. Real boys don’t talk about nightmares, he would say. They just deal with them.

  My eyes flick back to the three men at the top of the news piece. Three smiling men, with the photos taken from event shots or TV debates. I couldn’t swear to seeing two of them. I might have done. There were so many of them, and usually they covered their faces. But the blond man… his face has always been with me. And now I know I didn’t imagine it.

  After a few hours of sitting there, my old laptop finally going into sleep-mode, my back aching from being in one position for a long time, my mind does finally turn to her. Jessica. Because I know, if she were alive, the first thing I would have done would be to message her. Send her the link to the news article. Tell her everything.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Mother

  May. Three months after the attack.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Alec asks as he hands me a sports bag filled with things from the wreckage of my car – some jumpers, a couple of magazines, some comfortable shoes. I zip up the top of it to protect the contents from the rain, now spitting but threatening to start again.

  ‘I want to stay,’ I say. ‘I need to clear my head. Recover in peace. Find out why… find out a few things for myself. I think it’s better for the both of us, don’t you?’

  He looks down at the floor. His expression is sad, troubled. Hurt. ‘I didn’t mean all the things I said. I think we both lost it a bit in there… and I don’t think you should be on your own after your accident. What if you have a relapse?’

  I hold up a hand. ‘Please, Alec. Just go. I’ll be fine. And if I have any concerns, I’ll get a taxi to the hospital or phone for help.’

  He looks unimpressed. Then nods. ‘Your room is paid for for another week. If you still want to stay after then, well…’

  ‘I’ll pay for it from then on.’

  He grimaces. ‘I wasn’t talking about the money. I meant if you want to come home.’

  I look at my shoes.

  ‘OK. Well… bye.’ He goes to kiss me, then stops and pulls himself back. ‘Oh, there’s another phone in the bag. It was in the car.’

  ‘But… mine still works. I don’t need another one.’

  ‘I know yours still works. I think we’ve covered that,’ he snaps. Then he shakes his head. ‘It’s not a new phone. I think it’s Jessica’s. You had it with you in the crash.’

  Then he turns on his heel and walks away. Back down the rain-drenched street, away from the hotel.

  I stand and watch him go, lingering a while after he’s disappeared from sight. Then the rain starts up properly again, announcing its arrival with a cacophony of wind and water, threatening to destabilise me from my position on the hotel steps. I pull my cardigan close around me and walk back inside.

  ‘I’d like food in my room tonight,’ I tell the man in the desk. ‘Is there a menu I can take up with me to choose from?’

  He smiles. ‘No problems, there should be a room service menu in the drawer of the desk in your room, but if there’s anything else you’d like that’s not on there, do just call the number and I’m sure the kitchen will be able to accommodate most things.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, returning his smile, and take the lift back up to my floor.

  Inside my room, I put the bag on the bed and take out the clothes, along with the other bags of belongings that had been packed up for me, ready to take home. I like the room, I decide. Although not homely, it feels comfortable and clean; a nice space for me to get my thoughts in order, reboot, reset, put some distance between me and the horror of the accident.

  When I get to the bottom of the bag, my fingers touch something smooth and solid. I take it out. It’s an iPhone. The one Alec mentioned. Jessica’s iPhone. I try to turn it on but the screen stays blank. I fish around in one of the other bags, presuming I’d have brought a phone charger with me. I’m correct – there are two. I plug both into the sockets next to the bed and watch them for a few minutes until the Apple logos appear on the screens. Jessica’s phone starts up properly first and it takes me a moment to suss out the passcode – her date of birth – and then start scrolling through her photos. Pictures of her friends, shots clearly intended for Instagram of blueberry pancakes and smiling friends.

  I lock the phone once more and, finally, take a deep breath and turn to mine. On the screen I see the cascade of messages, some from a few friends who have heard about the crash, a couple from O2 telling me about a soon-expiring offer to get priority Beyoncé tickets (as if I cared), and a whole host of others from that number I don’t recognise.

  I saw the crash. Are you OK? I didn’t talk to the police in case I got you in trouble but I saw them and the ambulance and the medic people.

  * * *

  Going to sneak out tomorrow and come to the hospital. Please just message – say you’re OK.

  * * *

  Am at hospital – can’t find you. This is stressing me. Please text.

  * * *

  Came to hospital again today. Took ages to find you but I did and there was a man sitting by your bed holding your hand. You were talking to him. He your husband?

  * * *

  OK, I get that you probably don’t want to talk anymore. But I really want to see you.

  * * *

  Please. Answer me.

  I stare at the messages, first completely baffled, then with a mounting sense of pure horror. I was having an affair. Here. In this hotel.

  For a minute, my heart beats fast against my chest as I accept my own infidelity. Then, slowly, steadily, things seem to fall into place. Alec and I weren’t happy. The Piccadilly terrorist attack, as he’d described, must have triggered some emotional response, sent my post-trauma panic senses sky-rocketing. I must have just taken leave of my senses, come down here, picked up a man in a bar somewhere, maybe even another guest in this very hotel, and shagged him. And, by the looks of things, he’s got quite attached. Very attached. Borderline desperate, some could say. Although, to be fair, if he witnessed the crash, he too must be pretty shaken up. But why didn’t he come to the hospital with me? Why didn’t he run to the scene? Surely any normal adult, under those circumstances, would throw caution to the wind and rush to help?

  I ponder this for a long time. After a while my shoulder starts to ache and my stomach is twisting up inside of me. I need food and rest. I dial the number as the man on the desk instructed and ask for a
lasagne and chips. I don’t bother to check the menu but the woman at the other end seems unfazed and simply checks if I want it to contain meat or vegetables.

  When the food arrives, I plug the TV back into the wall and turn it on, startled by the sheer brilliance of the picture as I try out content on the in-built, and already signed-in, Netflix and Amazon apps. Halfway through both the lasagne and a documentary about the survival skills of seals and otters, a thought hits me like a dart, slicing through my sluggish, crowded mind. I pause the film, put the dish on the bedside table and grab my phone.

  I saw the crash.

  It’s there. The key to everything. Whoever this man is, whoever I was having an affair with, was standing nearby. Or looking out of a window, maybe. I can’t remember the name of the street where the accident occurred, but I understand, from my conversations with Alec, the hospital staff and, briefly, the police, that it was a suburban street, away from the main seafront. Although it isn’t definite, it seems very possible: the man must live on or around that street.

  I turn off the TV, take the lasagne on its tray and place it outside the door, then start getting ready for bed. I’ll need my strength for tomorrow.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The Boy

  Michael’s been acting strangely ever since that woman walked out of our house. Or rather, got thrown out by Mum. She’s been off her head most days since, which usually means Michael keeps out of the house. Part of me thinks it upsets him seeing her completely pissed or high, but the other part of me thinks he’d prefer to be out of shouting distance so he doesn’t have to clear up her sick if she doesn’t make it to the bathroom in time.

  I don’t really spend time with his mates – they leave me alone most of the time – but even I have missed seeing Nav and Asher hanging around outside either before or after school, waiting for him. Nav asked me at school if Michael really has flu – apparently the story he’s told people to cover his absence. I didn’t know what to say, so just nodded. One of the few times I’ve seen Michael in the kitchen getting food, he’s looked as if he’s about to cry, or has been crying.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I say one evening, when he drops his Coco Pops, scattering them across the floor.

  ‘Nothing,’ he snaps.

  I watch him as he tries to sweep them under the dishwasher with his foot, then he gives up and shakes what’s left into the bowl on the counter top. ‘Is this about that woman?’ I don’t know how, but for some reason, I know before I say the sentence that it’s likely to make him flip. And he does. With a few strides, he’s got his strong hands at my throat, pushing me up against the wall. ‘Don’t. Talk. About. It.’

  I should stop, quit before he hits me properly, but I gabble out, ‘Was she in the crash?’

  He presses tighter on me then, as if he’s going to strangle me. Then I see his face. The tears coming pouring down his cheeks. And he cries. It’s the first time I can remember him crying since he was, like, ten. He’s properly crying, and he’s loosening his grip and I’m sliding back down the wall and, weirdest of all, into his arms. He just falls onto me. And without thinking about it, I hug him. I hold him in my arms, clutching him tight around his shoulders, and let him cry into me, as if I was the older brother and he was the little one.

  After about a minute or two passes, I’m not quite sure where to go from here. I’m pleased he’s not trying to hurt me, but I’m not used to this kind of closeness with him. But he’s still crying, and doesn’t look like he’s going to stop. Something tells me this isn’t just about some random woman he’s shagging. So I ask him.

  ‘Is this about Dad?’

  The reaction is instant. He pulls away from me, out of the hug and pushes me backwards. ‘What? Why you saying that?’

  ‘Because…’ I’m trying to get my thoughts together but they’re starting to swim around my head, ‘because when I’m upset… usually, in the end, it’s got something to do with Dad. Not always. But usually.’

  He sniffs and wipes his eyes roughly with the back of his hand. ‘It’s just… she was going to tell me something… something she seemed to think was… like… important. And then that bitch came in and threw her out… no reason to… and I can’t… I just… I just think, why didn’t she do that when I really needed her to? When we really needed her to? When he used to lead those men up the stairs to our bedrooms… Or take us out to the van… while we were sleeping… to some horrible, horrible, place… Why didn’t she fucking come in screaming and shrieking then? She just let it fucking happen.’

  He’s ranting, shouting and crying at the same time, and I don’t know what to do. I’ve never seen him like this, as if he’s close to losing control, as if all the torment I know must be there is rushing to the surface.

  I reach out to try and put my hand on his shoulder, but he flinches and pulls it away, but I try again, desperate to calm him down. He’s stronger than me, but he’s not putting up much of a fight, and after a few attempts I’ve got him again in my arms, and he’s back sobbing into my shoulder. ‘It’s going to be OK,’ I say, because it’s what people say in films when someone’s crying on them. He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t need to. We both know it’s a lie.

  Once he’s all cried out he coughs a few times and pulls himself away from me, gentler this time. Then something makes him stop. He looks down towards his legs and says, ‘What the fuck?’

  I look down. There’s a dark, reddish-brown mark on the light grey of his tracksuit bottoms, just above the right knee. Then he looks over at my legs and I hear him take his breath in. ‘Christ… you’re bleeding… what is that?’

  I’d been cutting upstairs earlier in the evening when I’d got back from school, before having one of my half-sleep, half-nightmare naps. I’d pulled on a T-shirt and boxers to go downstairs. I should have chosen different clothes. The white material of the left leg of my boxer briefs is a shocking red around the side of my crotch, and there’s a large trail of blood dripping down the inside of my thigh, down past my knee. I can tell immediately that the cut’s opened up. And now I can see the blood, I can also feel the pain. The throbbing, aching sting of it, coursing through the whole area, through my leg and up into my stomach, as if I’m becoming inflamed, zone by zone, until eventually all of me will be ablaze with agony.

  ‘That’s… not fucking normal.’ Michael’s backing away as if scared.

  ‘I’m… it’s… it’s nothing. Just a cut.’

  ‘Pretty big cut. You should put a plaster on it or something. Let me see…’

  ‘No!’ I shout. I do the only thing I can think of: I run. Out of the kitchen, away from my brother, and up the stairs. I only stop once I’m in the bathroom with the shower running. I don’t bother getting undressed, I don’t bother waiting until the water has heated up, I just climb into the bath and let it fall around me. Drop by drop, it soaks into my clothes, coats my skin and, slowly, I watch the blood fall off into the stream of water at the bottom of the bath and float towards the plug-hole.

  Now it’s my turn to cry. And I don’t have anyone to hold onto.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The Mother

  May. Three months after the attack.

  I sleep better than I’ve done in days. Compared to a hospital, the noises of a hotel are barely noticeable. I decide to go down to breakfast so I shower gingerly, taking care with my movements so as not to cause the throbbing pain in my joints to worsen. I grab the pharmacy bag of medications and then journey down in the lift to the foyer. A member of hotel staff greets me on the way into the restaurant quarter and I’m shown to a small table and told I can either order something off the menu or help myself to the continental breakfast buffet on the other side of the room. I opt for the buffet and pile my plate high with toast, some cold meats and cheese and an apple, along with a large glass of fruit juice. I didn’t realise how starving I was until I smelt the food and as soon as I’m back at my table I’m wolfing the food down as if I haven’t eaten in years. Hospital f
ood does this to you, apparently.

  Once my stomach is no longer empty, I rifle around in the medication boxes for the pain meds and begin popping the blister packs. I can see members of staff looking at me, but I don’t care how it looks. I’m sure they probably think these are pills to keep me stable, rather than various forms of codeine, ibuprofen, and paracetamol. I had hoped for something stronger, but the doctor didn’t seem to think it was necessary. Once my plate is cleared, I take out my phone and send the text I’ve been quietly composing in my mind ever since I woke up.

  Hi. I’m out of the hospital and want to meet. Is there somewhere nearby that would suit?

  I’m aware the phrasing sounds distant and probably a bit formal, but I want to keep it plain and neutral enough until I find out who’s at the other end of the number. A reply comes back almost instantly.

  YES. NOW? At the hotel? I’m on my way.

  Shit, I think. Maybe I should have made it clear I’d prefer to meet away from here. This already feels like my sanctuary, my place of shelter. Although one glimpse outside is enough to make me glad about not having to brave the elements – the sky is the darkest I’ve ever seen it for nine in the morning. It looks more like night rather than day and the horizon shows no sign of brightening.