Humber Boy B

by Ruth Dugdall

  Standing in the evening gloom, his body caved and his face downcast, I see the brother who let me down. The brother who blamed me for everything.

  “Fuck you, Adam. Cheryl can stay if she wants.”

  Anger turns to energy, turns to power, and he moves forward, jabs his fist up like he wants to hit me, though his face is slack and his eyes are wet.

  Cheryl steps forward again, she puts a hand on his shoulder and pulls herself up so her mouth is against his ear, whispering something.

  When she turns back to me I see the determination on her face, the same look I remember from the bridge. Adam, finally defeated, goes to his car. He must see that look of Cheryl’s too. There’s no point in arguing.

  We stand together, Cheryl and I, by the water and watching as Adam does a clumsy three-point turn that takes his wheel dangerously close to the edge of the marina. Then he floors the car and is gone, tyres skidding on the pavement and hot fumes where the car once was. I feel his pain like a slap, as I always did when Adam was hurt by someone he loved.

  Cheryl choosing to stay with me must feel as bad as when Stuart left that day. He’s my brother, and I ache for him, but it doesn’t hurt enough for me to turn her away. Although I know he’s hurting I have a growing anger inside at what he did to me. What he put me through.

  It’s gone forever, the relationship we used to have back when Adam taught me how to skim stones and how to build a go-kart from the old pram in our shed.

  Adam is gone. And I’m alone with the girl from the bridge.

  49

  The Day Of

  “You’re nithered, lass. Come here and let me warm yer up.”

  Adam moves so Cheryl is snuggled in closer to him, and puts an arm around her bare shoulder. She should really go back to her dad and get her clothes, but he can’t stand to let her go just yet and being so close to her when she’s only wearing a swimsuit is a thrill he’s never felt before.

  Cheryl rests her head on his shoulder, wincing as yet another stab of pain hits her in the lower abdomen. “So, where have you lot been, anyway?”

  The three boys look at each other, two pairs of eyes large and startled but Noah’s, still holding the dead fish, spark to life.

  “We saw a horror film and then we conjured the Devil,” he babbles, his voice loud and high, revealing how very young and frightened he is, but also how excited. “We did a Ouija board and it worked.”

  Cheryl pulled a face at the little brat. “What are you even talking about? Who believes in the Devil anyway?”

  “I do,” said Noah, serious now. “If you believe in God you have to believe in the Devil too. My mum says.”

  His mum, oh yeah, Jessica. Dad’s ex-lover who wears a cross around her neck but still shows her red camisole at the top of her open-necked blouse. Cheryl had known about the affair for months, had seen Jessica playing house with her dad, ignoring her wedding vows. Cheryl knew exactly how much Jessica believed in God and the Devil. All that was bullshit, Cheryl knew it now, all of it was a lie because Jessica had let her and her dad down. Everybody would fuck you over in the end, given the chance.

  Cheryl looked at the earnest boy and saw Jessica in his eyes and chin.

  “You’re an idiot,” she told him. “There’s no Devil or God.”

  “You’re wrong,” he stood his ground, his dark eyes unsettling in the way they didn’t move from her face. “The Devil spoke to us.”

  “Oh yeah? And said what?”

  Noah hesitated, feeling them all waiting for him to answer.

  “The Devil said… he said… that something is going to happen today. Someone is going to die.” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word ‘murder’ that the glass had spelt out.

  “Well there you go,” said Cheryl, pointing a finger at the fish. “That’s your dead thing. Now what about resurrection and all that bullshit? If you can speak to the Devil, prove it.”

  “No,” said Noah, his lip wobbling and his eyes drowned with hot tears, “It stopped at the letter N. I think it meant me.” He looked at the fish in his arms. There was blood around the gills, which gaped, revealing pink flesh. The fish had round eyes, a hollow mouth.

  He was used to its weight now, the slippery grey skin.

  “What should I do?” he asked, helplessly. The tears fell down his cheeks, landing on the tarmac.

  “You’re the Devil worshipper,” Cheryl told him sharply. “You tell me.”

  “We could save it,” said Ben, suddenly desperate to help his friend, guilt nibbling uncomfortably for the distress he’d caused. But he didn’t push the glass in the end. It must have been Adam. “Let’s throw it back in the water. Try and shock it back to life. I saw this hospital programme last week and this lad had been dead for like, six minutes or something, but they gave him a shock and he started to breathe again.”

  Noah’s face lit from inside with happiness, as if Ben’s suggestion would remove the curse of the Ouija board. “Let’s try it.”

  “From up there,” said Cheryl, pointing up to the Humber Bridge. “To show the Devil we’re not scared.”

  Because she wasn’t. Not now the life she’d prayed for was never going to happen. She was untouchable in her anger.

  50

  Now

  FACEBOOK: FIND HUMBER BOY B

  Noah’s mum: I’ve been getting private messages to say that HBB may be in the East of England. I would like it on public record that whilst I agree that this EVIL MONSTER needs to be locked away, I don’t, and never have, supported violence.

  Silent Friend: Really?

  Noah’s mum: As God is my witness. I don’t want him dead. I want him to live with the consequences.

  Silent Friend: Jessica, you are a better person than me. You always have been.

  51

  Cate

  Paul was reading the latest Facebook postings over Cate’s shoulder. “Fuck me, private messages? This is not sounding good. Do you think it’s connected to the brother arriving?”

  “Could be. And it gets worse. When I got to the flat the brother had brought his girlfriend. She was a real piece of work, sitting around half-naked. It was fairly clear that she was getting a kick from being there and she could have told anyone about Ben. It’s like a runaway train we have no way of stopping.”

  “I think you need to arrange an emergency Risk Management meeting.” He cleared his throat knowingly. “Which means you’ll have to call Olivier, which I’m assuming won’t be a hardship. I see you’ve done something with your hair.”

  Cate ran a hand over her sleek, auburn bob, which had been straightened and treated. “Why does everyone think that if a woman changes something about her appearance it has to be because of a bloke?”

  “So, it’s nothing to do with Olivier?”

  “Of course it bloody is. He comes from a country were women spend ten percent of their salary at the beauticians.”

  “Well, you look great, hon. And change is always good,” Paul added, cautiously. “Do I take it that the sexist French dickhead is treating you okay?”

  “He is when we’re on dates. Attentive, charming.” Cate shrugged her shoulder, flicking her new haircut so it sat neatly to one side. “But in meetings he’s still a dickhead.”

  “Hopefully you don’t tell him that?”

  “Only in my mind,” said Cate, smiling.

  When Paul left, Cate turned her attention back to her lifer. Humber Boy B was causing her sleepless nights, and she wasn’t sure what she could do to fix it. His placement felt compromised; he should never have sent the card to his mum, never have let Adam into his flat, and the cocky girlfriend just added to the problem.

  “But we’re brothers,” Ben had protested. “I couldn’t just turn him away. We’re joined by blood. You know?”

  She didn’t know if he had meant their shared DNA or Noah’s blood that had been spilt. And she doubted that siblings had the strong bond he suggested. Cate couldn’t think of anyone she knew who was truly close to their siblings on
ce they were adults. A shared childhood didn’t always establish a bond in later life; it might actually guarantee the opposite.

  Of course Cate was biased.

  Liz had left that message about wanting to meet, and she’d chosen the pub where Cate had worked back then. Liz would be thirty-three now, but there was no way of answering Amelia’s questions about if she had children, if she was happily married. Had Liz managed that feat, a relationship that could endure the bad weather life throws at love, while Cate had failed? But all of these questions came to nothing against the one simple fact: Cate did not want to see Liz.

  Not to satisfy her curiosity on these questions, not to hear why she was now trying to get in touch and most of all not to hear why she had left in the first place. She was too afraid.

  But, the old scar was puckering at the edges.

  Ben’s case, though just one of her groaning workload, was forcing her to ask questions: how can a ten-year-old boy commit murder, and his older brother avoid conviction? She had to know, in order to help Ben, but also for her own sanity, what exactly happened on that bridge? A dark place, one she couldn’t get Ben to visit just now, not while so much was happening around him.

  Cate felt the pressing need to escape these questions. The September sun was shining and Amelia was with Tim all weekend. Olivier’s number was a temptation, a lighter option, though her fingers slipped on the keys as she scrolled through her contacts and waited for him to pick up.

  “I was just wondering if the Novotel was so swanky that you didn’t want to see any more of Suffolk?”

  There was a beat, a laugh, then Olivier said, “Wonderful though the blue carpet and grey bedding is, it does get monotonous. Even the room information, I have noticed, is returned to exactly the same spot on the dresser. I assumed the chambermaid must use a mark, so I checked. I am pleased to say it is purely her own skill.”

  “That sounds very impressive. Maybe I should leave you to ponder your room some more?”

  “Please, no. I already know it so well it is in my dreams. And from the window I can see a roundabout, where I have looked for so long I am now familiar with the cars each day. Save me, Cate.”

  Cate smiled. “Be waiting in your hotel lobby first thing tomorrow morning. And watch for me coming round the roundabout.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  “And then I’ll show you why locals call this Ipo-rock-city.”

  “Mini-golf? First ringos and then this. Are there no art galleries or museums?”

  Cate supressed the urge to laugh as Olivier looked in confusion at the array of plastic bridges and tunnels, the mini-rivers that snaked around flags. He was dressed in red trousers, a check shirt and brown brogues, a look so very French that if he was any less relaxed in his skin it would be a cliché.

  “Sorry, Olivier. Sadly, probation salary doesn’t stretch to membership of a proper club.”

  Olivier looked at the child-sized golf club, with its blue plastic putter, and strode towards the first hole which was strategically placed between the legs of a plastic zebra.

  “The only mystery is why Novotel is half-empty, when Ipswich has so many tourist attractions magnifiques.”

  Cate chipped her ball past Olivier’s and it clunked satisfyingly into the hole.

  “Ah!” said Olivier, “Now I understand. We are here so you can whip my butt.” The American expression sounded all wrong in a French accent, and Cate didn’t stop herself from laughing this time, even if it was at Olivier’s expense. She was enjoying herself.

  They walked together over the mini-bridge that if played wrong would result in the ball being lost into a well some twenty centimetres deep.

  “I used to come here a lot,” she confided, after chipping the ball into the hole in just two shots. “My dad would bring me and my sister.”

  Olivier moved closer to her. “I can imagine you as a girl. Goofy teeth, bad hair. But very pretty eyes. But you know, Cate, what you are telling me means that you are a cheat. You have an unfair advantage today, as you know the course.”

  Cate looked him over. “I can imagine you as a child, too. The neatest room, the smartest clothes. Teacher’s pet. Maybe it’s time someone wiped the smugness from your handsome face.”

  Later, they walked into town and found a Turkish restaurant with pretty turquoise walls and pink velvet chairs. Cate felt Amelia would approve that she was choosing things because they were fun, colourful. She clinked glasses with Olivier and they shared a plate of vine leaves, olives and delicious salted cheese. She knew that when she saw Olivier next would be at the emergency meeting on Monday morning and he would be back to his sombre working persona, so she wanted to enjoy him being relaxed and soak up every minute of their weekend together.

  52

  Ben

  The orange sun sinks in the distance, dying rays gleam off the girders of the Orwell Bridge. I stretch my hands across the plush of the grey sofa, reclaiming it with my fingers. It’s all mine now that Adam isn’t here. When I bring my hands together in my lap they are clammy, cold. I am shaking.

  I’m relieved Adam is gone but also sad that so much was left unsaid. Eight years of hiding who I really was and here had been the one person who really knew what had happened that day on the Humber Bridge, and we didn’t even talk about it. Neither of us mentioned the trial, the lies, the secret we kept.

  Now that Adam is gone there is no-one to really talk to and my loneliness feels as complete as a wall in front of my face.

  The sun is now fully lost, the sky inky, lit up by a few solitary stars. Dying planets, a teacher once told me. But what is the use, all this knowledge crammed in my brain, the exams I studied for, certificates gained, it still boils down to being alone, just me and my conscience.

  “Can’t you sleep, Ben?”

  Cheryl is in the doorway of my lounge, tussle-haired and wearing only a T-shirt. It’s my Superman T-shirt, she took it from my chest of drawers without asking.

  “No.”

  She sits next to me and the T-shirt rides up her leg.

  “Me either.”

  Two of us, silent and awake, watching the sky. I want to ask why she’s here, why she didn’t leave with Adam, but something stops me. I’d rather pretend that she’s simply here because she wants to be with me. She slides her hand in mine and rests her head against my shoulder, a gesture so intimate that I hold my breath in case any movement scares her away.

  Eventually I must fall asleep on the sofa, because when I wake Cheryl is gone. It’s early, just past eight, and I walk around the flat to check if she’s gone for good but her white sports bag is still by the door and her wash stuff is in the bathroom. Wherever she is, she’ll be back.

  I go to the bedroom, looking for my jeans, but poking out from under my bed is my canvas bag. Pulling it free I can tell she’s opened it, it’s not sealed as carefully as I would have left it, and the letters inside are jumbled. Cheryl has peered inside my very soul, without permission.

  The door slams, making me jump guiltily even though this is my bedroom, these are my letters. I look up as Cheryl walks into the room, still wearing my Superman T-shirt but with black leggings and black pumps, looking cooler than I ever did in it. She sees me holding my bag of memories but doesn’t react, as if she has done nothing wrong. I think then that this is a girl who never believes she is in the wrong, that she never thinks she may be responsible.

  She hands me a box.

  “Present for you,” she says.

  It’s a narrow box, black with white writing. It says Vans on the side, the make Kevin said I could never afford. I open the box and see a pair of red trainers, almost identical to the shoes Noah wore that day on the bridge.

  “Like them?” she asks, innocently.

  And I do, though I think I shouldn’t.

  “Don’t lose them,” she says. And I think of the trainer falling to the water below. I see that she knows this, and together we are locked in a moment of shared memory.

  “I’ll
try not to,” I say.

  52

  The Day Of

  Jessica Watts felt young and alive and vital, the banner in her grip, her voice croaky from shouting. She was energised by the swell of people around her, all teachers, all wanting the same thing. She hadn’t felt this wonderful since sixth form, when they staged a sit-in in the refectory to protest the school’s rugby club having a wet T-shirt competition at their end of term barbeque. That was the summer she fell pregnant, when her life course changed. But now she was back where she belonged.

  The sound of singing, many people chanting as one voice, was good to hear. It made her proud to be a teacher, proud also that she had decided to mobilise the apathetic staff at Bramsholme Primary, a school where no-one fought for anything much, because defeat was almost inevitable. But not today.

  Ending her relationship with Roger had been the right thing to do, he had become too controlling, creepy even. The problem was she had outgrown Dave, but Roger wasn’t the answer, this was. A purpose.

  The train back to Hull leaves King’s Cross in one hour, but she doesn’t want to go just yet. Doesn’t want this day to end. She’s felt young, a better person, being here. She doesn’t think about Noah, not today. She’s given him ten years of her life and wants just one day for herself.

  Just recently things had got bogged down at home, she made mistakes including getting involved with Roger. Too involved, she’d even started cooking in his home, cleaning up a bit. Acting more like a wife than a mistress. She’d tried to pull away, but he’d persisted and she’d been weak. Also, she’d felt sorry for his girl.

  When she’d first met Roger he had been her mentor and she was on her final teaching placement. It was he who had told her to apply to the school when she was qualified, he had sat on the interview panel. It wasn’t long before he was making it clear to her that she should be grateful to him. Looking back now, she could see that Roger had abused his power and she felt that ending her relationship with him was a good move. Now she would re-focus. Concentrate on her career, plan how to move on from Dave without using another man as a crutch.