Humber Boy B (19 page)

She’s feeling invisible today, her dad isn’t watching her, he’s too busy piercing a wriggling maggot as bait. She thinks of all the years after her mum left when she longed to be invisible, like she is now, but now that her dad is ignoring her she hates it. How can he just act like nothing’s happened when Jessica has dumped him, and their chance of being a normal family has gone? Cheryl thinks Jessica was her dad’s last chance. Her mother left, and there’s been no-one since. He was lucky to get Jessica, is a fool to just let her slip away while he tries to catch a fucking fish.

The wind picks up, but Cheryl doesn’t put her clothes back on over her swimsuit, she just grabs her towel and wraps it around her waist, telling herself she’s an Egyptian princess, Cleopatra moving through the reeds.

Her dad is like a garden gnome, bent over his rod, his green tent around him. He might even be asleep. She doesn’t even bother telling him that she’s going, she just walks away.

The boys are sat in a line on the hump of the hill.

“You lads look like the three wise monkeys. Not.” Cheryl laughs at her own joke, standing in front of them, aware that they are looking at her swimsuit. It’s tight on top and her boobs are bulging round the sides. She puts her hands on her waist to re-adjust the towel.

“So,” says Cheryl, kicking the sole of Noah’s red trainer with her bare foot because she can’t stop herself from taunting him. “Where’s your mam?”

Noah’s eyes widened at the question, as if just realising that he’d lost her. “In London. For the strike.”

“And she left you on your own?” Cheryl kicks the shoe again, but softer this time.

“She sorted for me to go round Ben’s.” He looks at his friend then, and there’s a spark of resentment. “His mum is supposed to be looking after me but she’s sick.”

“Sick in the head,” said Adam, bitterly. “She can’t even look after herself right now.”

“You know she gets migraines,” Ben muttered. He didn’t say that this was always after downing a bottle of spirits.

Noah pulled his legs up, knees to his chin, and stared out towards the water. “Mum didn’t want to leave me. There was nowt she could do about it, ’cos it’s the teacher’s strike today. She had to go to London, she’s a union rep.”

Cheryl knew this, of course. She also knew that her dad should be there too, if he hadn’t rowed with Jess last night. And here he was, the precious son who couldn’t possibly cope if Jess had left Dave like she’d promised, who couldn’t stand to live with Cheryl and her dad.

Noah was the reason Jess had ended things, the reason Cheryl had lost her chance at having a family. Those few months when Jessica was around everything changed. Jessica had cooked and cleaned and kissed her dad, and he in turn had started to treat Cheryl like a normal daughter.

She couldn’t go back to the way things had been before then. She would rather die.

Noah quivered at the chill that wrapped around him. Cheryl stared at him as if to memorise his face, thinking how pathetic he was to be so shivery and weak when she was only wearing a swimsuit and towel.

“What’s a union rep when it’s at home anyway?” Adam asked.

Cheryl put on a superior voice, “It means she voted on the strike, so she has to go to London and spend the day holding a poster. My dad didn’t want to go because he didn’t want to see the slut.” This final insult she spat at Noah, since Jessica wasn’t here.

Noah frowned, bit his lip.

“Do you know who my dad is?” Cheryl asked, curious to discover what the boy knew.

Noah nodded, without looking up. “Course. He works with my mum, they teach together.”

That’s not all they do together
, Cheryl wanted to say, but what would be the point because that was over now and Jess wouldn’t be moving in. It would just be her and her dad, forever and ever. And it was Noah’s fault.

“He’s over there now,” Cheryl jerked her thumb behind her. “Fishing. He doesn’t even know I’m here. He’s got a bucket of ugly fish and that’s all he cares about.”

“Has he?” Noah’s face lit up, as if getting a fish was the most important thing in the world. Then he hesitated, realising that this strange girl did not seem to like him. “Think you could get one? To look at, like.”

“If I wanted to.” Cheryl enjoyed withholding something the boy seemed to want so desperately.

“Will you get us one?” he begged. “Please.”

Cheryl disappeared in the gap in the hedge, glad to have a mission even if it was a slimy one, and returned moments later heaving the weight of a large grey bucket.

“Hasta got one?” Noah pushed himself to standing, and Ben too pressed forward, both boys crowded round her. Adam, pretending to be cool, looked over Cheryl’s shoulder, at the fish, then at her breasts. All four children were circled around the bucket as their heads were pelted with regular drops of rain.

“That one’s huge!” Noah crowed.

“What is it?” Ben said.

“A carp, stupid,” Cheryl told him.

“But it’s not moving.”

“It is,” Noah said, poking a finger into the brown water and touching its head. Then he said, “Oh, that’s just the water. The fish is dead.”

“It’s just sleepy,” Cheryl said, in a voice of authority. “Don’t poke it!”

“There’s blood.”

“Fish don’t bleed.”

“What’s that, then? It’s horrible.”

They were silent then, all staring at the large fish wedged amongst the small ones in the bucket of dark water.

“Are you going to have it for your tea?” Ben asked Cheryl, in wonder. The fish didn’t look like the type Stuart brought back with him.

“Dad’ll want us to have it for us tea.” Cheryl said, suddenly tipping the bucket up so the fish flopped out onto the grass, then righting the bucket so the other fish were saved. “But that’s his tough shit.”

And with both feet, bare and pale, she jumped on the fish so its guts spurted out in a white and red mass on the ground.

“No!” cried Noah, his hands over his eyes as if he couldn’t bear the destruction of such a blameless creature.

“That’s so gross,” said Adam, with a grimace. But when Cheryl looked at him he changed his expression and grinned. He held out his hand for Cheryl, steadying her as she wiped her feet clean on the grass, her towel slipping its knot at her waist. She took his hand and she led him up the bank like she was a queen, regally taking a seat in the undergrowth and pulling Adam down beside her, her towel slipping from her waist.

The two younger boys stood over the body of the ruined fish, until Noah couldn’t take it any longer. He collected the fish in his arms, like it was a broken toy, as if this gesture would make it start to live again.

46

Now

FACEBOOK: FIND HUMBER BOY B

Noah’s mum:
My church have been raising a collection, they have £15,000, and they’ve asked what I would like it used for. Something in Noah’s name.

It took Dave and me a long time to decide, and we thought about what Noah would have enjoyed. He loved football, of course, so we toyed with that idea but, finally, we’ve decided on a skate park. He had his scooter with him the day he died, and he loved scootering around the estate. Lots of local kids still do, and I’d like them to have a safe and fun place to go. So the money will build a skate park on the waste land (brown field) that’s just beside the entrance to the Humber Bridge, next to the viewing area. The café is all closed up now, but a skate park would make it more attractive for a local business, so maybe the whole area will become a nice place to visit.

We looked at the location yesterday, with the fundraising team from church, and I was sad to be there. I always am. But I think the skate park will help this.

I want to go to the Humber Bridge and see children playing, having fun. Something good that will live on long after we’ve gone and joined Noah in heaven.

Silent Friend:
That £15,000 could be used as a reward, Jessica, which would be a better way to spend the money.

Dave:
We don’t know who you are, but that is church money, for healing. It’s not blood money.

Silent Friend:
But it should be. £15,000 would be a small price to pay to see Humber Boy B dead.

47

Cate

Cate could see that Ben was agitated, even more than usual. There was a battle going on behind his eyes, one she recognised from personal experience as the weighing up of whether to talk or keep something inside.

“Ben, I want you to listen to what I’m about to say because it’s important. In this room, like nowhere else in your life, you have to talk. And I know that’s much easier for me to say than for you to do, believe me, but I can tell that something is wrong. So I want you to take a very deep breath and tell me. What’s the problem?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” he begins and she feels the wariness creeping inside. So many conversations in this room started with that very sentence.

“It’s not my fault he’s here. I didn’t invite him, I’ve not seen him since the trial.”

“Who are we talking about, Ben?”

“My brother, Adam. Humber Boy A is in Ipswich. In my flat.”

Paul whistled, pointed his pencil at his forehead as though it was a gun and pulled his thumb like the trigger.

“Great. This is all we need at three o’clock on a Friday afternoon.”

Cate, having rapidly terminated her session with Ben with a warning that she needed to pass on what he had told her, was now stood in Paul’s office, her hands placed on his desk as she leaned forward to hear what her manager would advise. “You think I need to recall him?”

Paul slumped in his chair. “Parole condition of non-contact?”

“No direct or indirect contact with victim’s family. No entry to Humberside.”

“But nothing about co-d?”

“Not on the licence. But they’ve always been kept apart.”

“I should bloody hope so. If they’d been kept apart on that day maybe that poor kid wouldn’t have ended up floating in the Humber. Right, so we don’t need to recall.”

Cate saw that Paul was relieved, recall could be a lengthy process and the weekend was almost upon them. But she wasn’t willing to let go of the option that easily.

“What about for Ben’s own protection? The postings on Facebook from Silent Friend are getting more threatening. The last one said Humber Boy B should be dead. The posts suggest he knows where Ben is, and now the brother shows up. Something’s very wrong.”

“Agreed. We do need the co-d gone from the flat, preferably from Suffolk, pronto. Got it?”

“That’s it?” Cate released the desk, the edge of which she had been gripping in her hands since she walked in. “No recall.”

“Not unless the brother won’t leave. But since I have tickets for Peter Grimes at Snape Maltings tonight, I know you’ll make sure he does.”

Cate drove straight to the marina, but when the door to Ben’s flat is opened it isn’t him standing there, it’s a girl of about twenty, lean and leggy with a damp ponytail of blonde hair, and wearing only a towel.

Cate feels her jaw drop and steps back to check she’s at the right flat.

“Yes?” the girl asks, and Cate can hear the north in her voice, even with this one word.

“I’m looking for Ben. Is he here?”

The girl opens the door wider and stands back, one hand on her hip, “Well where else would he be?”

Seeing Ben and Adam sat together on the sofa it is obvious they are brothers. She knows they have different dads, and Ben is blond where Adam is dark, but they have the same facial shape, the same sharp cheekbones, the same blue eyes. Adam is significantly more confident, though; Ben gazes at the floor. But Cate doesn’t know who the girl is, and she can’t speak openly until she does.

“This is my probation officer,” says Ben, directing his words to the ground, “and this is my brother Adam and his girlfriend. She knows.” Here he looks up, saying this with feeling, glancing at Cheryl who is perched on the arm of the sofa next to Adam, still wearing just a towel.

Cate hesitates. Whatever this girl knows, it may not be the whole story. And if she knows then how many others do too?

“Do you want to go get dressed?” she says, not hiding her tone of disapproval.

“I’m alright, ta.”

Though the girl had clearly just got out of the shower, she had no intention of going anywhere, and this made Cate nervous. She could see the girl wasn’t moving.

“These are sensitive times, Adam. There are a lot of people looking for Ben right now, and you being here would make it easier to put two and two together.”

Adam looks at his girlfriend before he speaks. “Is there a law that says I can’t be here?”

“No law. Just common sense.”

Ben clears his throat, his voice is unexpectedly firm. “The thing is, Adam, I’m not used to being around people like this. It’s stressing me out. I need some space, to suss out how to live.”

Adam looks surprised, then angry. “You asking me to leave, our kid?”

Ben bites his lip, looks towards the window whilst he gathers his strength. Then he says clearly, looking his brother squarely in the face, “No, Adam. I’m telling you.”

Cate wants to cheer, but she settles for a satisfied smile. There is hope for Ben, after all.

48

Ben

Adam presses the horn, hard. The Mazda is already juddering, Adam’s hand is on the handbrake ready to release it. “Come on, Cheryl. It’ll be gone midnight when we get back home as it is.”

But she doesn’t move, she just stands near the car, stretching her arms to the evening sky and rolling her shoulders as if she is about to exercise or dance.

“I’m not coming.”

I’m as surprised by this as Adam, I gape at her and wonder what game she’s playing now.

“If that’s okay with you?” she says, turning to me, smiling sweetly like she did at Adam when he turned the air conditioning on yesterday. I feel like I’m being played, but for the life of me I can’t think why. I have nothing more to give.

“It’s a long journey and I’ve only just arrived.”

She says it like coming to Ipswich is a holiday. I don’t know how to respond, because she’s trouble and she needs to go, of course she does, but at the same time the thought of being alone with Cheryl makes the skin on the back of my neck tingle.