The Girl Who Broke the Rules

CHAPTER 9

Soho, London, Skin Flicks Media Group, later

‘Yeah. Come up,’ the girl said through the intercom. ‘Top floor.’

The buzzer sounded. George pushed the heavy green door inwards and started to climb the stone stairs two at a time. The air was heavy with that smell of damp and neglect that you got in Victorian buildings. Peeling magnolia paint and ingrained dirt from who knew when. A musty tang that made her sneeze. She was careful to pull down the sleeve of her sweater and put it between the handrail and the naked skin of her palm.

Rhythmic, dance-music thump issued forth from the music business on the first floor. Stoking up the dust, no doubt. George covered her mouth with her free hand to avoid inhaling it.

Second floor up, two bearded white boys dressed in pastel-coloured jeans and ugly Fair Isle jumpers descended as she climbed. Talking about the tedium of a sweaty editing suite.

Pausing on the landing, struggling to catch her breath, she regretted the two cigarettes she had smoked in quick succession on the way from Piccadilly Circus through the narrow Soho backstreets.

Above her, a woman leaned over the balcony at the staircase’s summit. Lines etched deeply into a well-scrubbed face. Welcoming smile. Poorly dyed orange hair and a loose fitting jumper that draped over pendulous breasts. She looked like somebody’s mother.

‘You Georgina McKenzie?’ the woman asked.

‘Yes. Sharon Williams-May’s niece.’

George shook the woman’s hand as she finally reached the top step. Made a mental note to use some anti-bacterial gel on the way out.

‘I’m Marge, Dermot’s PA. Come in. He’ll see you shortly.’

George followed Marge beyond a steel security door which announced, by dint of an engraved brass plaque, that this was the London office of Skin Flicks Media Group, parent company of Skin Magazine, Skinclicks.com, Skin Licks Gentlemen’s Clubs and Skin Dicks Adult Toys. Spotlit, framed covers from Skin Magazine, hanging in a perfect line along the red crushed velvet walls, guided her down a narrow corridor. The covers featured an array of topless girls sporting disproportionately enormous pneumatic breasts on top of tiny, bony chests. All pouting lips, spidery eyelashes and big hair. The photographic trail opened out onto the reception area. Black carpet. More red velvet on the walls. Black leather sofas.

After some ten minutes, during which time George noted, with a degree of surprise, that the sofa she sat on smelled good and was soft to the touch – not like the hard, cheap crap Aunty Sharon owned, which had the fishy stink of a bad tannery – a white-haired, moustachioed man bordering on elderly leaned out of an office door and waved her into an office.

Smiling benignly. Red-faced. His gut overhung his baggy slacks by some margin. His legendarily large feet were clad in moccasins. George marvelled that this innocuous-looking man, who could be a semi-retired chip-shop owner, judging by his appearance, was one of the most successful creators of multi-platform erotica and related branded merchandise in Europe.

‘So, you work for me, do you?’ he asked, running an arthritic-looking hand through the thinning white hair.

‘Yes, Mr Robinson,’ George said. ‘I’m one of the cleaners at Skin Licks on Peter Street. My Aunty Sharon has been a barmaid there for ten years.’

Dermot Robinson appraised her through rheumy eyes and rubbed a purpling nose, both of which attested to late nights and too much scotch. ‘You could be a dancer with a body like that,’ he said, stretching out the vowels with his East End tongue. ‘Want a promotion? My girls earn good money.’

George opened her pad and clicked her pen into life. ‘That’s not what I’m here for, but it’s kind of you to offer. I’ve been keen to interview you for my PhD for over a year, Mr Robinson. Thanks so much for this.’

This unprepossessing Soho porn king crossed his enormous feet on his desk top and leaned back in his chair. Arms behind his head. A man at ease with the world and with women.

But not women like her.

George cleared her throat and read her first question aloud. ‘Your harder stuff. The SM magazines and websites that are subsidiary Skin Flicks brands – do you create the content to meet an existing demand, or do you think your content drives consumer tastes in erotica?’

‘You think I’m a dirty old man? That Skin Flicks is just my own personal fantasy?’ Dermot Robinson leaned over the desk as far as his gut would allow. Stretched his arms wide along the rosewood. Narrowed his eyes at George and tried to see what she had written on her pad. ‘You can put in your notes that this is a multi-million-pound business, love. You think it’s all budget home movies and readers’ wives?’

She shook her head avidly. ‘Not at all.’ Though she had seen the production values of many a porn film, and a sizeable proportion looked like they might have been recorded on amateur equipment. George had wondered if any of the Skin Flicks filming was done within the offices to cut costs.

‘My last film cost me over a million to make,’ Dermot said. ‘Think about it. All them staff. Location. Catering crew. Consultants for this. Advisers for that. Editing and post production.’ He pointed to a blown-up black and white photograph of him receiving an award in a dark and dingy-looking place. ‘See that? That’s me, getting a SHAFTA. Know what that is?’

‘Soft and Hard Adult Film and Television Awards,’ George said.

Dermot closed his eyes and nodded. ‘The stuff we do here is art. I got marketing people who market research my films to death before they even see a story board. What the punter wants, the punter gets. That’s why my products get picked up by the likes of X Broadcasting network in Canada. My films is seen all over the world, love. Internationally successful.’

‘But the violent content in some of them. Women being tortured. Some goes beyond standard BDSM, wouldn’t you say? Do men really want to see that?’

The Soho porn king rose and moved to his window, looking down onto Wardour Street below. Lord and master of all he surveyed, rolling up his sweater sleeves as though he were preparing for a fight with the entire West End. ‘Listen, darling, ain’t nothing been produced under my brand what’s not got artistic merit. I got good scriptwriters. Excellent camera men. Even medical people telling the directors what’s legit and what’s not. Looking after the health of my stars. And my legal team cost me a fucking fortune.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘You wouldn’t sleep nights if you seen my legal bills. Now the government’s banning all sorts of acts in UK porn. It’s gonna put the smaller guys out of business.’

He was side-stepping her questions. George checked her watch. Irritated. Drumming her pen on the pad. For a start, the SHAFTAs picture was hanging too high on the left by at least 5mm. And those feet. Robinson’s feet were preposterous. She knew he had starred in porn films himself back in the seventies. His shoe size reflected how well he was endowed in other areas. An erotic legend who was about as sexy as a bucket of cold sick, George reflected. She wanted to go. Her cleaning shift began in less than thirty minutes and she would be glad to exchange the luxurious black carpet of Skin Flicks’ head office for the smell of bleach in the store cupboard of Dermot’s titty bar.

No. Focus, George, she thought. You’re here to get the other side of the story. Don’t leave without it.

‘Do you think your erotica inspires men to commit sexually violent crimes against women, Mr Robinson?’

Dermot turned away from his view and stared at her in silence. ‘You understand the true nature of your average red-blooded male, love, you don’t need to ask that question.’

The phone rang, preventing George from asking her next questions. Dermot picked it up. Looked grave. Said, ‘OK. Jesus. Right. Well get another bloody girl in!’ and then hung up.

‘I’m going to have to cut our entertaining little tête-à-tête short, love,’ he said, scratching his moustache with a Biro. ‘Seems one of my actresses has gone AWOL. She was due on set two days ago. Now they’re telling me nobody’s seen the silly cow.’ He shook his head. ‘Can’t get the staff. You sure you don’t want a promotion?’

CHAPTER 10

Amsterdam, Norderkerk, later, then, van den Bergen’s apartment

The actress, or what was left of her, was stretched across the rear seat of the Lexus. Having a wide car was very handy under these circumstances. After the bombing of the Bushuis Library, vans were still drawing the attention of the police. You were far more likely to be stopped and searched in one of those. Plenty of room for explosives in the back, if you had aspirations to becoming a terrorist. But a luxury saloon in black, with no changes to the manufacturer’s specifications, gliding along, observant of the speed limit and traffic lights…who would pay attention to a car like that? Certainly not the police. It didn’t scream, ‘drug dealer’ or ‘master criminal’. It was discreet. Elegant. Moneyed. The tinted rear windows also helped with anonymity. It wouldn’t do for a passerby to peer inside, even if the actress’ body was covered by a black tarpaulin. Obviously, lining the leather seats with plastic sheeting had been a necessary precaution, although the woman’s blood and bodily fluids had long since ceased to flow. No, this was definitely the most comfortable, logistically most effective method of disposal.

The actress had been a surprisingly good conversationalist in the end. A vivacious woman. Talking about her unusual line of work had proven fascinating. Discussing her childhood in her country of origin was an eye-opener too. And she had been an excellent lay, of course. Though she’d had enough practice in her professional life, so it had hardly come as a surprise that she’d known one end of an erogenous zone from another. She had emitted some wonderful sounds from that surgically enhanced mouth. Like a wounded animal. Vulnerable. Pliable. Submissive.

They had shared a fun evening together. Collecting happy memories was important.

It had almost been a shame to destroy that glorious body. Well, not so much destruction, really. More of a surgical deconstruction. But then, a pact was a pact, and those months of scoping the actress out had had to pay off. Obviously, there was a tremendous buzz to be had from the act itself. Getting it just right was an art of sorts. Preparing the correct environment. Actively managing her ventilation, fluid levels and organ functions to keep her in optimum condition for as long as possible, before removing the body parts. Then, finally allowing her to die. It was no small joy to feel like the techniques were being improved upon each time. Definitely better than the preceding efforts. Mastery would come eventually. In the meantime, it had been a job well done.

Now, there was just the disposal to take care of. The arrangement of the body and location in which it was left would be important to the way the police regarded the deaths and the investigative path that they took.

Pulling up outside the church, nobody was in sight. The terrible weather always drove people indoors. For a slightly built woman, the body of the actress was cumbersome. Dead weight flung over the shoulder, still obscured by the tarp. This final stage had to be deftly executed. Quickly now, with a beating heart, praying nobody was watching. It wouldn’t do to be interrupted or identified.

Whipping off the tarp at the last moment to reveal the shell that was once inhabited by an actress, famous within tight, specialist erotica circles. Admittedly, the end product didn’t look very nice. Empty eye sockets weren’t exactly a turn-on. But that was collateral damage, really. An unavoidable side-effect of the…what was it again? Oh, yes. Surgical deconstruction. That was a good one. Witty. Best to remember this woman the way she had been on the film set, and afterwards in bed. Happy memories only. Find the positives.

Of course, there was the hunt for the next subject to look forward to. And it would be imperative to keep an eye on that tall policeman who was heading up the case. The haunted-looking one with the white hair. Perhaps a little trip out to his apartment was in order. The view was astoundingly clear and uninterrupted from the street below…

At home, as the pan of pasta boiled, van den Bergen leaned over the kitchen worktop. Clutched at his stomach.

‘Jesus, help me,’ he implored a God he had no faith in whatsoever.

The pains were sharp tonight. Presenting near his kidneys. Perhaps he had kidney failure. Was that one of the symptoms? Maybe. He would Google it, although George had told him the internet was not his friend, as far as Googling illness was concerned. Every spasm, every ache, every blemish was cancer. Fast-forward to the apocalypse. He’d been that way for a long time. But now the five-year mark was upon him, it was worse. And, of course, he had something legitimate to worry about, given what he had stupidly done to his body.

He stared down at his phone, as if that had the answers. ‘Text back, goddamn it!’

Reflected in the shine of the grey tiled splashback, he considered the fragmented representation of himself that stared back at him. A scowling middle-aged man with sunken cheekbones and dark patches under his eyes. Glasses hanging at the end of a chain around his neck atop an old shirt that had a frayed collar. All wrapped up in a moth-eaten cardigan he’d had since 1995.

‘You’re a mess!’ he shouted at the grey cubist counterfeit. ‘Who would ever find you attractive? Not Andrea, that’s for sure.’ He conjured an image in his mind’s eye of his ex-wife. Happy now, with that balding prick, Groenewalt. Both of them living high off the hog thanks to the maintenance payments he still had to fork out from his modest chief inspector’s salary; atoning for a teen romance that outlived its natural best-before-date because of Tamara’s arrival. A marriage which had now been defunct for more than a decade. No, that hard-faced cow, Andrea, wouldn’t look twice at him any more. ‘Tamara thinks her dad’s some geriatric joke, too. And George…’

Feeling irritation bite, he dug his long finger inside the frayed hole in the shirt fabric and ripped along the collar’s edge. ‘Sort yourself out, van den Bergen. Get a fucking haircut!’

When the pasta pan started to spit water all over the hob, he flung it into the sink in temper, fusilli everywhere. Poured himself a glass of orange juice. Downed two codeine and winced.

He was poised to call George when his phone rang shrilly.

‘Van den Bergen. Speak!’

It was Elvis. Sounding hyper. As if Elvis sounded anything apart from bloody wired, like a kid on sugar. ‘We were just finishing up, boss, when we got a call.’

Involuntarily, he groaned down the phone at his detective. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Sorry, boss. I know you’re coming down with this stomach thing or something but—’

‘Spit it out.’

‘There’s another body. A woman. Left at the back of the Norderkerk.’

Van den Bergen sighed. Hastily grabbed a fistful of almost-boiled pasta from the bottom of the sink. Poised to down this makeshift dinner to keep the codeine company. ‘I’m on my way.’

CHAPTER 11

South East London, very late

‘Hey. You’re back,’ Ad said, sleepily.

He rolled over, putting himself at the edge of the single bed, facing her. Flicked back the duvet, so she could clamber in and nestle into his bare chest. Groggy. He had only half-slept, of course. One ear constantly on alert for the key in the door. It wasn’t lost on him that she’d actually returned from work a full hour ago, and had sat downstairs with Sharon, swigging that drink they drank. What was it? Rum n Ting. Conspiratorial giggling about something or other. He only hoped he wasn’t the butt of their jokes. But how could he be? He’d been there for more than forty-eight hours and had only seen George for about three of those in a state of wakefulness. ‘Good day?’

‘Knackering,’ she said.

Failing to ask him about his day, which he had spent sprawled on Aunty Sharon’s fishy sofa, propped on overstuffed cushions that stank of baking and hairspray, watching some daytime soap on television called Doctors. Stuffing his face with fruitcake to stave off boredom.

George disrobed and pulled on a baggy T-shirt that sported some musician’s name. One of those English acts he didn’t recognise. Dubstep something or other. Maybe that wasn’t even a musician. He couldn’t keep up with George’s likes and dislikes. Deep house. Garage. Old skool. It was an entirely different language for a small-town Groningen boy like him; serving only to estrange, where once it had exerted a strong, magnetic pull. But still. She was a sight for sore eyes, even silhouetted against the landing light.

‘Come here, hard working genius. I’ve missed you.’ He had kisses for her, filled with desperation and longing and ardour and not a little disappointment. Here was his erection, pressed into her warm, voluptuous body. ‘Oh, I love you so much.’ A hand between her legs. He would show her how he had been thinking of her all day long. Surely, she must have given him some thought, in amongst her mysterious schedule of ‘research’ and ‘work’, none of which she ever expanded on.

George pushed him away. Treated him to a peck on the cheek. ‘Aw, I’m sorry, Ad. Do you mind if we don’t?’ Turned her back on him and shuffled to the other side. ‘I’m proper shattered. I’ve not stopped all day.’

In such a narrow bed, his knees inside her knees, his erection touching her bottom technically counted as spooning. Didn’t it? Spooning was what you did when you were in a comfortable relationship. He could definitely do spoons.

Deflating slowly, he asked, ‘How come you’re always back so late? Last night. You were even later. I asked and you never answered me.’

There was a pause. A considered intake of breath.

‘Sometimes new people turn up. Last night, there was a bit of a set-to between Aunty Sharon and the manager. Then, there was some mess to clean up. I had to work longer, is all. It’s one of those jobs. It’s complicated. I’ll tell you tomorrow.’

In the darkness, breathing in the musty smell of old wallpaper and eavesdropping on the soporific sound of passing cars, at odds with the disconcerting whistles of insomniac youths, roaming the local streets and up to no good (he knew he was beginning to sound like his mother), he decided privately that she was being evasive. He wasn’t even entirely sure what ‘one of those jobs’ constituted. Cleaning something or other, though he didn’t know where. He would quiz her about it over breakfast, before he left for the airport.

When her phone buzzed insistently at 2am and she left the bedroom to answer it, he made another mental note to quiz her about that over breakfast too.

CHAPTER 12

Manhattan, New York, 1981

Laughter trilled from somewhere along the hall, carried laterally to the sleeping, dreaming girl along with a rotten perfume of cigarette smoke and alcohol. Though it was ring-fenced beyond several thick walls, the tendrils of this throbbing organism – her mother’s own experiment in grafting rare cultivars with exotic pond life and social climbers, fed by hedonism and infamy – crept under her bedroom door nonetheless.

The Police were in attendance, reggae beats syncopating badly with the even rhythm of her dream. Sting’s voice ushering her towards wakefulness. De Do Do Do, De Da Da Daddy’s home: sitting with his legs crossed in the modest garden of their large Mayfair townhouse, reading a medical journal in summery warmth. Watching him intermittently, revelling in his presence, she frolicked with her mother’s beloved terrier, Rudi, beneath the whippy branches of their small maple tree. Helping Gretchen to pour into glasses the cloudy lemonade, which, standing on a chair, she had helped to make and which she and her father would now drink together.

Except Daddy wasn’t home. And the thud, thud, thud of Blondie’s beating glass heart pushed sleep further and further away from the girl on unforgiving waves of sound, until she realised that this was neither their London house, nor their Berlin residence, nor the villa in Juan les Pins.

More laughter. Men’s this time. Deep and throaty. Glasses clinking.

Consciousness had taken a hold of her fully, now. The comforting dream had slipped beyond her recall. Soft Cell were complaining, instead, of having to endure ‘Tainted Love’. Staring at the high ceiling of that New York apartment, she considered that she might have liked that music, given half a chance. She was at an age, after all, where she had just started to take an interest in the charts. Top of the Pops on their television in London. American Billboard’s Hot 100. Full of new, exciting bands. Boys with lipstick, wearing black. Cheap-looking, stubby keyboards sporting mysterious names like Roland and Yamaha, that were a world away from the grand piano in the music room, at which she sat for hours every week, having Mozart drummed into her reluctant fingers by that stern old hag, Frau Bretschneider. Both instrument and teacher had been imported all the way from Berlin, like Mother’s favourite dinner service. But Mother and her friends were greedy. They had claimed the youthful synthesised beats as theirs. Though in truth, some of Mother’s younger friends had created those songs, thereby distorting even the soundtrack to her childhood with her mother’s notorious celebrity and her cronies’ sycophancy. How she’d like to run away, get away from the pain it drove into the heart of her.