Humber Boy B (26 page)

“Because you already do. And you always have. So please, can we stop pretending? You have a chance, Cate, to make it up to me. Finally, you can be on my side.”

At home, Cate got herself another drink before she lifted the lid, carefully removing the envelopes with the tips of her fingers. Some had ripped corners, some were neatly taped down, and she felt some regret at having to tear through them.

The first letter was dated twenty-five years ago, when Liz would have been just twelve.

Darling daughter
,

You looked so pretty yesterday in your summer dress. Just like a princess from a fairy tale. If only it were that simple, that you could be rescued from a tower and live happily ever after! But, as in all stories, there is a witch in the kingdom. We must not tell her anything, my darling. I fear it would kill her. And you know how weak your mother is. Keep this safe
.

Dad
.

Cate read on, each letter helping her to finally understand why Liz had never had dates, why she never wanted any boy to call her at home. What Cate had jealously interpreted as a father’s love for his favoured child was actually an ugly, terrifying thing. And when Liz fled, their father had decided to leave too, no longer interested in the family left behind.

Liz had said that Cate had always known. She believed that Cate had failed her, had wilfully ignored what was going on. And maybe she was right. So now Liz was involving the police, and she wanted Cate to help her. To be on her side, as she put it. Cate put the box aside and buried her face in her hands, not sure if she had the strength. Not sure she could.

68

The Day Of

The four children climbed the steps up to the narrow walkway and then began to make their way along the bridge. Above them, on the road, cars thundered past, ignoring the fifty mile an hour limit. The few drivers who did notice simply saw a group of kids messing around. Nothing to worry about, nothing they would even remember if it wasn’t for what came later.

On the path the children ran their hands along the steel tubes, the vibrating metal that supported the bridge. The only colours were the green painted steel and the orange warning signs. Looking over the river they could see East Hull in the distance, the flat roof of Hull Royal where all four had been born, the glass turret of The Deep aquarium where Ben had celebrated his tenth birthday. Their lives were set out before them.

Out in the water, red buoys moved to the swell of the tide, their bells calling out, though there were no boats on the river, just the children to listen to their warning.

Noah knelt on the gravel to re-tie his shoe lace, then placed his forehead on the dead fish and began to mutter a prayer, but backwards. Cheryl snorted.

“You can’t just conjure the Devil like that!”

Noah looked up, black eyes glinting defiantly. “How do you know? It worked for us once. It’s going to happen again. I’m going to ask him to remove the curse. The fish is a sacrifice, in my place.”

“Bollocks. The Devil’s not going to come to this bridge just for a dead fucking fish, is he? He’s got more important things to do.”

Noah ignored her, stood against the railing and held the fish, more dead than alive, over the water.

He wasn’t afraid anymore. It was as if watching the film had made him brave, or at least made him feel there was a force out there bigger and stronger than him. It reassured him, the feeling that someone else was in charge even if that person was the Devil. Noah wanted proof, that there was something out there.

He thought of his mum, down in London, fighting for teacher’s rights or whatever, but he wanted to do something even more immense. Like save a life. Even if it was just a fish.

“Throw it then, lad,” Adam said, pushing his shoulder.

Noah lifted the fish high to the heavens. One glazed beady eye seemed to consider him, he felt its grey heaviness pulse in his hands.

“A sacrifice to the dark lord!” he shouted.

Cheryl doubled over in hysterics. “Who the fuck are you, Harry Potter?”

Noah hurled the fish over the side, but it landed with a splat on the other side of the barrier, on the concrete lip that jutted over the River Humber.

“Good one,” groaned Adam.

“It’s dead anyway,” said Ben.

But Noah put both hands on the barrier and pressed his body up, his right leg quivering as he raised it to try and swing over.

“Stop it, Noah!” cried Ben, grabbing the fabric of his T-shirt.

“Jesus, boy, what the fuck are you doing?” Adam had caught Noah by the belt of his jeans and along with Ben they yanked him back to the safe side of the barrier.

Noah seemed to give in, started to cry hopelessly, afraid of what would happen now his sacrifice had been rejected. He cried for the dying fish. Because he wasn’t a hero. Because his mum was marching in London and not with him. Just because.

“Shut the fuck up,” said Adam, calmly stepping closer to Noah. “If anyone should be howling off today, it’s me.”

“Or me,” said Cheryl, who was leaning against the concrete platform that led to the SOS telephone. She’d watched the whole fish incident without a word, but now she pushed herself up and moved toward Noah. She grabbed his chin in her right hand, squeezed it so his lips puckered.

“You think you rule the world, don’t you? Think you can control everything, because Mummy loves you. Little brat.”

None of the boys saw the slap coming, but it hit Noah hard on the left cheek. He reeled, arms circling, falling back against the barrier.

Adam gaped at Cheryl, shocked and awe-struck, confused by the girl’s sudden brutality.

“What you chowing at him for? He didn’t do owt to you.”

Cheryl held her hand, like it was she who was the victim. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

“He did. He ruined everything.” She glanced at Noah, and saw his lip was bleeding where her nail had caught it, then looked at the floor. “Just by existing.”

Noah held his palm to his bloody lip, still crying. Staring at Cheryl as if the Devil had indeed appeared.

Adam gingerly went to comfort Cheryl, delighted when she didn’t stop his hand touching her wrist. He asked softly, “What’s wrong, lass? Why are you so mad at him?”

She allowed herself to be comforted, walked into his hug then turned to Noah.

“My dad’s fucking his mother,” Cheryl spat. “She’s supposed to love him. She said so!”

Noah looked up, his face contorting as upset shaded with indignation. “You’re a liar! My mum is a Christian and my dad knows everything and he’ll be after you if you say things like that. So you better watch it.”

“It’s you who’d better watch it,” she said, then her voice became muffled against Adam’s chest and whatever she said next was lost. She whimpered, still in pain, and bleeding too now.

The dead fish lay forgotten on the concrete shelf.

Down below, the warning bell rang once again.

69

Now

FACEBOOK: FIND HUMBER BOY B:
FOR ANSWERS, NOT VENGEANCE

Noah’s mum:
I saw her today, HBB’s mother. She was in the high street, doing her shopping I suppose though she looked totally lost, staring into the window of Boots with her carrier bags dangling from the ends of her fingers. At first I thought she hadn’t seen me but then I realised she was doing her best to look the other way. I crossed the road to Boots, stood directly behind her to see if she had the nerve to speak to me. Our eyes met in the glass of the shop window but she didn’t turn around.

She was supposed to be looking after Noah that day, I’d trusted her. I found out at the trial that she’d spent the day in bed, spent the money I’d given her for Noah’s lunch on a bottle of vodka. Depressed, they said, plagued by migraines. And she looked depressed today too. But her son’s alive, isn’t he? What’s she got to mope about? Her son is free.

Silent Friend:
She should hang her head in shame for birthing such evil.

Noah’s mum:
She should. But it wasn’t just one thing that led to my son’s death. There are lots of people who let Noah down that day. I am trying to come to terms with that. But what I’m struggling with most is HBB being free.

Silent Friend:
Jessica, I am sorry. I am one of those people. Which is why I won’t let you down again. I see you are asking for answers, not vengeance. But what if vengeance is the answer?

70

Ben

I wake to a vision so golden I think I must be dreaming. The sun is spying on us between the gaps in the curtains, casting a sheen over Cheryl’s pale skin and yellow hair. Our shared sweat from last night has dried like glitter on her breasts and stomach.

I don’t move, daren’t move, because this moment is so special. A girl, a beautiful one, in my bed. Maybe my face is swollen and my nose is broken but something good has happened too.

Adam pops into my head, uninvited. My brother, who loves Cheryl. The thought nudges at me –
you bastard, she wrote to you in secure, she visited you. You got out years ago
.

Can it be that in the end I’ve come out on top? Because she chose me, she could have left with him, but something made her stay. My nose throbs and I wonder if it could have been Adam, if he was the person who attacked me. Whoever it was wore a balaclava. I remember that. Why wear one, unless it was a face I would recognise? Or if not Adam, then someone acting on his say-so. Someone he told where to find me, maybe someone he met that day in the library. Or, could it have been Stuart? He never liked me, and he blamed me for what happened on the bridge. Yes, he would certainly break my nose with no regrets.

Cheryl stirs, opens her eyes, shades her face with her arm and sees me watching her. “That’s creepy. Stop it.”

“Sorry.” I adjust my position, roll onto my back, but she places her hand onto my bony chest and tugs me back onto my side so she can see me.

“Stop being sorry,” she says. “You’ve spent eight years being locked up. That’s enough sorry for a whole lifetime.”

“Not everyone thinks so,” I say, bitterly, and she looks at my puffy face, my swollen nose. On the pillow are flakes of dried blood.

“Then think of me as your guardian angel,” she says, touching my tender face. “My job is to protect you.”

And as she says this, her lower lip quivers, her eyes narrow and an unexpected tear falls from one eye, down her pretty face to her chin.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, though really I’m wondering if this is because she loves me. People cry for someone they love, I saw that with Noah’s mum at the trial, I see it with Issi when she talks about Michael. Does Cheryl love me?

“Nothing,” she says, sniffing so the tears stop. “Honestly, I’m sure it will all be okay. Now.”

And she must mean Adam, getting away from him and choosing to be with me. If she means anything else, I don’t want to know.

71

Cate

“There’s something the Risk Management meeting refused to accept, Paul. That whoever Silent Friend is, it isn’t just a stranger who’s horrified by what Ben did. It’s someone who knows him, who knew him back when he was ten.”

Drained from another sleepless night, Cate realised that she had been fooling herself for years. Deep down she had always known why Liz left. And this has led her to the conclusion that, in Ben’s case too, the answer is in the past. That it always is.

Paul mulled this over, whilst adjusting his cufflink, shaped like a black and white humbug. “I agree, that’s likely. But how are you going to uncover who that person is? You’re not a detective.”

“I don’t need to be. If I can just unpick enough of Ben’s story to find this person, before it’s too late, that’s the only way to save Ben. He’s a sitting duck and no-one but me is acknowledging that fact.”

She may have ignored the truth of her own childhood, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have clarity about Ben’s. She was one step removed, a professional. It was harder to see clearly when the subject was your own family.

“It all depends on Ben, though, doesn’t it?” said Paul. “If he’s willing to open up to you.”

“It all depends on me,” corrected Cate. “If I can make him feel safe enough to want to.”

Ben took his seat and watched as, sat at her desk, Cate took three marker pens, blue, red and green, and wrote the three boys’ names on the large sheet of paper in front of her.

NOAH
ADAM
BEN

She had hesitated over ‘Ben’, knowing it wasn’t his name then, having seen his given name repeated in the witness statements many times, but if she started to use this name in her head, or on paper, what would stop her slipping up when she was with him or in a meeting. So, Ben it was. She added ages:

NOAH, 10
ADAM, 14
BEN, 10

The relationship between the three boys had led to what took place that day, if she could only pull it apart a little it may reveal itself. She drew circles around each name, overlapping them when they shared something:
friendship. Siblings. Same school
.

Noah was Ben’s friend, not Adam’s.

Adam and Ben were half-brothers, same mother, different fathers.

According to the witness statements, Adam should have been in Scarborough with his dad, but he’d gone back to sea on a last-minute call.

“Why wasn’t Stuart going to take you to Scarborough?” she asked.

“He hated me,” said Ben.

“Why’s that?”

Push, one more step. Ask the question he doesn’t want to answer but hold his gaze so he knows it’s safe.

“Because I wasn’t his kid. I’m half-Icelandic.”

“How’s that, then?”

Ben leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes. “Stuart saved my dad’s life, out in the sea. And he came to say thanks. Got to know my mum. Then when I was born, with this blond hair, Stuart realised that she’d played away.”

“And does this man know he’s your father?” Cate asked gently.

Ben opened his eyes and gazed at the ceiling, as if in prayer. “Yeah, he knows. But he lived in another country, and Stuart didn’t exactly make it easy for him to keep in touch. But even if I didn’t have his DNA, I’m Stuart’s son really. He raised me. And he hated me.”