by Ruth Dugdall
Cheryl was gone by now, but she had changed the atmosphere. As if she was still here with Adam. Ben could feel her influence on his brother, the way she had swept him along with her. And then Ben thought that Adam wasn’t acting like Stuart in this, but like their mother. His head was a mess because someone kissed him, showed him something approaching affection. Big fucking deal.
He grabbed Adam and tugged him, “Let’s go home, our kid. Come on!”
But Adam leaned into Ben and hissed, “Cheryl made me promise. She said I should just do it, he’s such a fucking runt anyway.”
Runt. The word their mother used for Ben. It was he who was the runt, not Noah.
“Do what?” asked Ben, though he could see the murderous intent in Adam’s eyes.
“Do what the Devil said,” said Adam, stepping towards the younger boy.
Noah, turning to climb back over the railing, saw Adam moving towards him. The younger boy, wide-eyed, began to scream.
It was as if the horror film was playing before his eyes, only this time the Devil wasn’t invisible, throwing objects around in the dark. This time the Devil was wearing a Hull Rovers rugby strip and answering to the name of Adam. In his panic and fear Noah slipped, fell down so he was holding onto the bridge by the railings, one of his legs dangled over the edge and the red trainer fell from his foot. And Adam still kept moving forward.
“No!” yelled Ben, trying to stop his brother, seeing Adam’s life run before him as a wasted thing. “I won’t let you!”
I won’t let you. The final words as Ben took his brother’s place. He didn’t feel himself act, just like he hadn’t felt himself push the glass that had conjured the Devil. But the worst happened and only when the boy had lost his hold on safety, and was falling back into the sky, did Ben realise what he had done.
100
Now
FACEBOOK: FIND HUMBER BOY B
Noah’s mum: When I started this page I thought I wanted to see Humber Boy B but I have no words. Because nothing he can say can bring my son back.
This is my last message. After this, there will be nothing more to say.
A black umbrella, as still and as secure as a roof, is waiting for me. Under it is two bodies with no heads. The heads are hidden inside, untouched by the rain, and belong to my two Silent Friends. Beside them, stood with head bowed out of the protection of the umbrella with rain dripping from his hair to his cheeks, from the end of his nose, is a young man. How can a person look so normal, just a boy I would pass in the street, when he ruined my life?
I must go now. I need to call him by his name, I need to look in his face. And then there will be just one more thing to do.
101
Cate
By the time Cate reaches the group on the bridge, ten of her twenty minutes is already gone. She slows a few paces from the scene, trying to work out what is actually happening. There is a woman, and Cate recognises her, she’s seen her Facebook pictures.
When she is close enough Cate feels afraid, wonders why she ever asked Olivier to let her do this alone. This is beyond her control, and Ben’s eyes are already dead, his slight body already wedged by the greater force of the man beside him, who is hidden under an umbrella, his beefy hand on Ben’s shoulder. He must be Roger Palmer.
“Ben,” Cate offers, desperately opening her arms because it is all she can think of to do. “Come to me.”
But he isn’t going to move.
Ben looks drenched, but not just by rain, by the past and its weight that clings to his clothes, his skin, his hair. Cate goes closer to the woman, sensing her stiffen.
“You must be Noah’s mum.”
“I’m nobody’s mum. Not anymore.”
Cate slowly approaches Jessica, who stands as still as a statue, her face a mask of grief. Roger looks at Cate, but then back to Jessica and she sees devotion there, mixed with something ugly. Anger or regret. She can feel his energy, his resolve, even across the distance of yards.
“Roger, I read your statement. I know that Noah’s death had a terrible effect on you, that it stopped you working, caused your depression. But whatever you’re planning today can only make that worse.”
Roger faces Cate, and she sees the sag in his jowls, the tired eyes, the lines. This is a ghost of a man.
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know more than you think. I know that killing Ben won’t help you. You have your daughter to think of.”
“And what about her?” Roger said, pointing at Noah’s mum. “You think anything you say can stop her? She has no-one to consider, not now.”
The loss of a child, the most terrible thing in the world. And if that child is murdered there can be no peace. Cate believes these things, yet she also believes there is a better way than this. She cautiously approaches the barrier, where the woman is leaning over.
Ben’s death feels close, pressing on them all, and Cate knows that only Jessica can save him. Roger will only stop if she says so.
“Jessica, please?”
The woman shakes her head, hunches her shoulders. “Nothing is changing my mind,” she says.
Cate feels how the seconds are speeding by, the sand is almost drained from the glass. Roger holds Ben’s shoulder with one hand, the barrier of the bridge with the other. Ben is just one swift throw from the fall. The barrier comes to Ben’s chest but that is nothing, no barrier, to the deep drop in to the swirling river below.
Jessica faces Ben, clears her throat, tries to speak to him, but her voice is a thin reed that the wind cruelly whips from her throat leaving her speechless. Cate knows, because she is a mother too, the question she asked: Why?
Olivier had promised to give Cate twenty minutes but he should be here, his strength could match Roger’s and save Ben. Instead, she is all that stands in the way of Ben’s death.
In a movement that makes them all jump, Roger lets go of the black umbrella. It flies like a huge black bird into the sky and then drops to its warped destiny, a clatter of metal bones and vinyl wings as it catches on the rails.
Cate watches Roger, now abandoned to the elements, a naked revenge etched on his deeply depressed face.
But what of the girl, what of Cheryl? Who stands shivering just behind her father. Was Roger going to murder the boy, with his daughter as a witness?
“I’m sorry,” Cate says to Jessica, pleading with her. “I’m sorry that Ben killed your son. But he was a child himself.”
Ben, finally prodded to life, says, “I didn’t. He climbed over the barrier himself. It’s the truth.”
Jess shot towards him, propelled by anger, and grabbed Ben by the neck.
“You lying shit. You fucking little… ”
“No!” Ben places his hands over hers so it looks like they are both throttling the life from him. “I’m not lying. He slipped. I’m not lying.”
“The truth, Ben,” Cate says. “You need to tell Jessica the truth.”
And that’s when his whole body slumps and he begins to shake. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I couldn’t let Adam… I wanted to help Adam. Because… ”
He stopped speaking. Words would never explain properly.
102
Ben
Finally Jessica releases me, collapsing into sobs, and I grab onto the steel railing for support. Roger holds her and I catch my breath, looking out over the Humber where seagulls scream and dive. The wind blows my hair over my eyes, but still I can see too much of the water. Too much of the past is flashing before me.
A hand rests on mine and I think it’s Cheryl.
“Just breathe,” she says.
It’s not Cheryl. It’s Noah’s mum. She too is breathing deeply, trying to control her emotions as she stares out over the cold water.
“I’ve been here so many times,” she tells me, “just to get a breeze of him, just a pulse of my boy. I want him back so much.” And her hand tightens, gripping mine as if for support, as if it was Noah’s hand.
I want to say I�
�m sorry again, but there’s no use. Sorry isn’t enough, it’s an insult.
I press my stomach to the barrier, feeling hollow and still sick, though I know nothing can come up. I just want this over with.
“Please. Tell me why you murdered my son.”
And I take a breath of cold air, I close my eyes. That question, which I knew she would ask, I cannot answer. Because my answer won’t help. Won’t bring him back, won’t fully explain. When I do speak I’m surprised at what I say, as if somewhere inside of me there was a reason I wasn’t even aware of.
“I’m not a bad person. It was just a bad day.”
And then she slaps me, not hard because she misses and scratches my chin, but I see in her eyes that she wants to hurt me. I’m aware of Roger and Cheryl, flanking us like bodyguards, behind us but ready to pounce if I try anything. Cate is standing there too.
Noah’s mum moves, in a swift motion I wouldn’t have thought she was capable of, and wrenches her body up, one leg over, then the second, until she is over the barrier, standing on the wrong side just as Noah did that day. Her back is pressed against the barrier, her arms wrapped around it. She turns her head to look at me.
“Tell me!” she demands. “How did it happen? Noah was here, right where I am. What happened next?”
And her eyes are dark, just like Noah’s. It’s that moment again, when he stood just there. And I remember, I do, but it’s still not good enough.
“It was a fucked up day,” I say desperately, “Adam, my brother, he’d made this promise. To her!”
And there, a gasp. Then Cheryl is beside me, screaming, “Don’t blame me! Don’t you dare! It was just a joke, I didn’t mean it! Don’t be so fucking stupid.”
Noah’s mum leans forward and I think she’ll fall, but then I see her arms are still wedged around the steel ruts.
Roger moves towards his daughter, he looks wild, crazy. “What are you talking about, Cheryl? What was a joke?”
Cheryl is looking desperately from Noah’s mum to me, then back to her father.
“It’s your fault!” she screams. “I was just a kid, but you were the adult! Didn’t you think it affected me? Both of you. I just wanted a family, I would do anything for that. This last month, sending those messages on Facebook, I’ve felt like we have been a family. We’ve been united, haven’t we?” And she smiles, sadly, at Noah’s mum. “I’ve made up for my mistake, by bringing Ben here to you. Haven’t I?”
Roger and Jessica exchange a look and I recall what Adam told me that day. They were going to move in together, but Jess hadn’t wanted to upset Noah. Cheryl was blaming him for it. Just a family situation, just a domestic.
“It was your fault, Cheryl,” I say, feeling it for the first time with clarity. “You were the one who really murdered Noah.”
“Don’t,” Cheryl shakes her head, struggles to get the words free. “Don’t say it was me that caused it. I asked Adam, not you, and I never meant it. I never asked you to do anything.”
“But I loved my brother. I couldn’t let him wreck his life.” My hand went involuntarily to my mouth, as if to stop the words that were now tumbling out. Finally, the truth. “I couldn’t do that to him, but I could do it to myself. Because I’m no good, and I never have been. It never mattered what happened to me.”
On the bridge there was a moment of stillness. They all felt it, that Ben was saying something true and ugly and sad. And so very wrong. Because it had mattered, what Ben did, a great deal. Everyone stood on the bridge had felt the impact.
Tears are streaked down Jess’ cheeks, either from the wind or emotion, I don’t know.
“Do it to me,” she orders, her eyes fixed on mine. “I want to join my son, and I want you to do to me what you did to him. Push me!”
She wants to die. She wants me to be responsible.
“Stop!”
Quick feet move toward us. Cate reaches for Jessica.
Here to rescue me, just like she said she would. But it is not me who needs to be saved.
“Please, Jess,” Cate begs. “Climb back over the rail.”
Noah’s mum looks hypnotised by the water below. Her arms are shaking. She turns, looks like she is wondering what to do. But then she lifts her head, listening. Police sirens are approaching.
“You’re not going to help me, are you?” She turns her face to Roger. “None of you will put me out of my misery.”
And then I see what I must do.
I step towards Jessica and push her hard, much harder than I pushed her son, sending her to rest with Noah. I do as she asks. It is what she wants.
103
Now
A figure falls from the Humber Bridge. Not a boy, but a woman.
The survivors on the bridge each cling to the railing, looking down, calling to the wind. But there is nothing to be done.
Humber Boy B watches, as his future once again becomes certain.
104
Cate
Ben sits beside Cate in the back of the police car. The silence ticks by.
“You’ll be taken to the police station, then remanded,” Cate tells him.
He doesn’t answer.
“There’s nothing anyone can do now. It’s finished.”
And she may be talking of Noah, or of Jessica. Both of whom are lost forever.
“She wanted me to do it, she’d planned it all along,” Ben said, shaking his head in shock. “I thought they were going to kill me, but instead, I helped her die. And that was worse.”
Olivier helped Cate from the car and put a blanket around her shoulders but she still felt cold, her teeth were chattering. Cate’s helplessness at not being able to stop Ben pushing her, the shock of seeing Jessica’s body fall to the cold river below, finally released from her grief.
Oliver looked out to the river, where the Humber Rescue team were pulling Jessica’s body from the water.
“She made her own choice today, Cate. She wanted her son’s killer back in prison and she’s achieved that. He’ll never be free now.”
Cate sighed, leaned back.
Olivier held her close. “There are no good answers to any of this. I’m sorry, I wish there were, but that’s the sum of it. People, we want things to be neat. We want right and wrong, good guy and bad. Cowboy and Indian. But life is just a mess.”
She knew he was right and moved further into his embrace so he could soothe her with words.
“Cate? You can’t change what just happened on that bridge, but don’t let it take your life too. Take the chance you have.”
He left her then, returning to his work as a detective. He would take statements from Roger and Cheryl, who had both already been taken to Hull police station where they would be charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment. She herself would be required to give evidence, but there was no doubt that Ben would be returned to prison for life.
The only question was about her own future, hers and Amelia’s. But Olivier had reminded her that she, like everyone else today, had a choice. And she was going to choose a different path. A better future.
Arriving back in Ipswich many hours later, Olivier didn’t come into the house with Cate. She simply wanted to strip off her clothes, take a shower and go to bed. Before she left the car she reached her hand out and he grasped it, kissed her fingers.
“This wasn’t your fault, Cate. Remember that.”
She watched his car pull away and turned to the house, where Amelia was waiting with her grandmother. Cate needed to see her daughter, needed to hold her. Watching Jessica fall from the bridge, it had made her feel the fragility of life, the need to clasp love tight as it was so vulnerable.
“Hey, Mum.”
And because Amelia had not been on an exhausting trip to Hull, had not seen a grieving woman fall to her death, she tried to walk past, but Cate grabbed her daughter, smothered her with a hug, kissed her cheek.
“Okay, Mum, you were only gone a day.”
But in that day everything had changed.
The Day Of
“I can’t do it,” Adam said. He stopped walking forward.
Ben had never seen his brother this way. So upset, shaking and his voice wobbling.
“Fuck, I can’t do it.”
It disturbed Ben, to see Adam like this. He’d always been the strong one, making sure Ben got food, getting him out of bed each day, taking him to school. Adam had been mother and father and best friend. And now he was dissolving. Right in front of him.
“Adam, it doesn’t matter.”
But Adam howled. “Fuck him, leaving like that. Fuck her, for letting him.”
Ben knew this wasn’t about Cheryl, not only anyway. It was today, this fucked up day that had been wrecked from the start. They should have all stayed in bed, done the same as their Mum, refused to get up and see the light.
Adam was on his knees, crying, shaking. Ben couldn’t comfort him, he didn’t have the words. And he would do anything, anything at all, to help his brother.
And there was Noah, the wrong side of the barrier, still screaming. He’d slipped down, standing on the ledge though one foot was missing a shoe, hanging on desperately to the railings, sobbing in fear and frustration at the whole mess of it.
It was too easy.
In that moment, that split-second, it was simply too easy to step forward and give him one single shove.
Ben watched Noah plummet and felt what he had done, the tingling power that grew, swelled along his arms and to his chest which was flooded with relief at his own strength. The adrenalin rush hit him hard. His whole body shook, violent shivers so he had to grab the railing as he gasped in air. He wanted to run, to jump in the air. He wanted to ride the euphoria for as long as it lasted, he had never felt it before.
The CCTV camera caught the brothers running from the scene. And they caught Ben grabbing his brother, in what looked like an ecstatic embrace.
106
