Humber Boy B (3 page)

The train arrives so fast I have to jump back from the edge. When the doors open I step inside, look around and take a seat next to a window. There’s no-one else on the train, just a man bursting out of a blue shirt and navy jacket walking towards me, brandishing a machine, something to check that I’m legal. Fat Controller comes to mind but I know that’s not right, that’s from years ago when I wasn’t Humber Boy B.

I show him my warrant and he slides it into the machine, which spits it back out. Fat Controller looks down at me, he knows I’m from the prison. This must happen a lot, maybe it’s why they keep the train stopping at that station when all the locals must have cars and the village is tiny. He can’t see it, where my badness is hidden, can’t do anything but hand my warrant back and walk back down the train, a futile search for other people to check.

The train rumbles along the track, rocking me. I feel a bit sick, then I remember I’ve felt sick since I woke so it’s not the train causing it, but still I worry about vomiting. What would Fat Controller say if I puked on the floor, would he throw me off onto the next platform? Then how would I get to Ipswich?

Stuart had no patience with illness. “You think you feel sick, you wanna try being on a boat in a storm,” he’d say. “That’d stop your mithering.”

The train pulls into Ipswich, the platform is busy with businessmen, women in dresses, kids in blazers and ties, all stood chatting and reading papers and drinking coffee. It’s early, before nine, and they’re going to work or school. I hitch my duffel bag over my shoulder and start to walk towards the town centre, to the probation office. My first task in my new life as Ben.

I try not to think about my old life because it hurts. Since I got found guilty the nearest I got to Hull was Swinfen Hall Prison in the Midlands, though that hardly counts as north. Anyway, a prison is a prison and I never saw the outside world. I was near the Scottish border for two years but I never saw a loch or a mountain. The local news was my only way of knowing what the closest town looked like and I’d crane my neck to see beyond the newsreader for a glimpse of green or blue in the picture behind. But then they moved me to a Suffolk prison and the parole board thought it would be safest for me to be released here too. I’d like to be farther north, near my family, my mum and especially Adam, even if I can’t see them, but that isn’t possible. And Suffolk looks good to me so far.

How often do you look up into a tree? Sat down below, leaning on the tree trunk, do you ever look up to where the massive boughs hang above your head? You’d never expect it to fall and hurt you, though things happen like that. Things happen. The thing on the bridge happened when I was just ten. Just two weeks before I’d had a cake with candles and a football from Mum. It needed air, and we didn’t have a pump so I never got to use it. It was the last thing she ever gave me. The present from Adam was the best though.

It was a bow and arrow, not from a shop, but one he’d made with a perfectly bent piece of wood and some twine he’d nicked from somewhere. He made the arrows from doweling, sharpened the tips with his penknife and scored the butts for the best bit: real feathers. He must have searched for ages to find such perfect feathers, large and grey. I didn’t know what bird had gifted these, which tree gave the wood, I just loved it. He always knew what I wanted, even before I knew myself.

On my tenth birthday, playing with my bow and arrow, I had no idea that in just two weeks I wouldn’t have a brother anymore or a mum or even myself. I had no idea what was coming.

Mum wasn’t so good at birthdays but for my tenth, apart from forgetting a pump for the football, she got it about right. On Hull’s waterfront there’s an aquarium called The Deep, and we’d go past it if we were out Hessle way trying to kill a few hours. I’d always whine a bit, trying to pull her towards the long line of lucky kids. “Think I’ve got the brass for that?” she’d say. “Not meant for the likes of us. You want to see fish, you watch that Nemo DVD I got you. Or look in our freezer.”

So who knows where she got the money or what changed her mind but on my birthday we went. “It’s special, being ten,” she said. “Double digits. Besides, they take Tesco vouchers.”

The aquarium had promised so much over those forlorn walks past the outside, the posters of squid squirting black ink, the fluorescent jellyfish with tentacles like something from outer space. As I pushed through the turnstile I felt like I should just keep pushing, going round and round, forever trapped in that wheel of perfect anticipation so I didn’t get let down like when dad sent a postcard to say he’d soon be docked in England and he’d be sure to visit, but he never showed up, or when I had a parcel to open at Christmas and it was a hand-me-down jumper from my mum’s cousin who lived in Goole.

But I needn’t have worried – the aquarium was magical, walking through tunnels of glass as sturgeons and horseshoe crabs and wide-mouthed sharks swam above and around. Even Mum was impressed.

There was a section called Under the Humber. I remember two bicycles, covered in clams, the wheels all wonky. There was a play area built like a boat that the lady from the aquarium told us was an exact replica of a herring boat wrecked at the bottom of the river. I climbed into the bottom of the play-ship, amazed by the boxes of rope and rigging, replicas of things that rest at the bottom in a watery grave.

Still rest.

I can’t think about what else is under the water now, along with the broken boat and the abandoned bikes. A lost shoe, a boy’s scuffed red trainer. The Rolo wrapper from his pocket.

No. I can’t think about that, it is lost to the Humber.

My life isn’t really divided into two, it’s in three. Before I was ten. My time in prison. And now. A new start.

Ipswich. My new home. I hitch my bag up again and follow the bulk of the walkers towards town, following the flow of the buses and traffic, and hoping I’m not late for my first appointment at the probation office. My new life has begun.

5

The Day Of

Roger Palmer woke, not feeling like Mr Palmer, Sir, form tutor of 4P and deputy head of year, but feeling like himself. This was because school was closed.

Not a political man, Roger had hedged and ducked months of staff room conversations and debates, but he had still put his name on the sign-up sheet for the coach to London to march on parliament with the NUT.

“The bus leaves at eight, so make sure you frame,” announced Jessica Watts, head of year, organiser of Christmas plays, summer fetes and now strike action. And his lover for the past fourteen months.

Jessica was the reason why he’d put his name down for the coach, hoping to sit beside her on the journey, to maybe go for coffee in Covent Garden after the main event and talk some more about when she was going to move in with him and Cheryl.

He woke knowing none of this would happen now, last night she had ruined everything.

He peered at the alarm clock – eight-forty. The coach would be long gone. He couldn’t go and let her see him like this. He was angry that she’d ended things, just when they had started to plan for her to tell Dave about the affair. She’d been with her husband since they were seventeen, but that marriage had run its course. Once Noah started school, Jess had decided to turn her life around. She had completed an access course, then a degree and trained as a teacher, caught up on everything she’d given up when she fell pregnant. Now she was moving forward and leaving Dave behind. Her affair with Roger was part of that, her new life, she’d told him so, hadn’t she?

But now she’d gone and changed her mind.

“I can’t, Roger. I want to be with you, God knows I do, but I can’t take Noah away from his dad.”

She’d rubbed the salt in a bit, saying how she couldn’t expose Noah to the pain of parental divorce, playing on Roger’s own experience when Rachel left. All the times he’d told Jess how damaged Cheryl had been by the split, how she sometimes acted out to get attention. He’d been called to the high school on a few occasions because they said she was bullying younger girls, locking them in the loos and making them cry, but he’d soon sorted it out and made sure she didn’t misbehave again. “I’m doing my best with her, but her mother walked out on us,” he told the school counsellor, who was starting to interfere. The woman had changed her tone then, a look of pity on her face, saying it can’t be easy, a man raising a teenage girl alone. Jess had said the same thing, and he wasn’t above taking advantage of such sympathy. It was true, after all, that they had both been damaged by Rachel’s selfish behaviour. But his own words were now being used against him as a reason for Jess to stay with a man she didn’t love. Jess, the feminist, having to concede that Noah needed his dad, needed the convention of two parents under the same roof, even if those parents didn’t love each other. It was utter bullshit.

“Noah will be happy, he’ll adjust,” he had tried to reassure Jess. “Children are so resilient. Look at Cheryl, she’s much better now, hardly ever has tantrums and that silly bullying phase has totally stopped. And she never even mentions her mum. And we’ll make sure Noah understands, won’t we? We’ll be a new family for him.”

Roger wondered why he wasn’t enough for these women, not just for Jess but for Rachel too. Since his divorce he’d been the sole carer for his daughter, one of the few men who worked at Bramsholme Primary and not even faculty leader because each evening, each holiday, he rushed home to look after his daughter. He’d told Rachel, in no uncertain terms, that if she left, she was never to come back. She’d be walking out on both of them.

He had thought that with Jess there would be a fresh start, a chance to try again. Seemed he was wrong. She was just like the rest. If there was one thing he promised himself it was that Cheryl wouldn’t turn out that way. Not if he had anything to do with it.

On the first day of his heartbreak the sun was shining and his daughter was unusually quiet, though he could hear the cheery tones of presenters on CBBC – he could only guess they took drugs to stay so perky, to allow themselves to be dressed so garishly, as if wearing red jeans and yellow T-shirts would make children feel comfortable around them. Neutered adults, with clown smiles.

“Switch that rubbish off, Cheryl.” She wasn’t even watching the screen, but concentrating on the iPad on her lap. “No more Facebook or Instagram or whatever it is you’re doing. We’re going to get some fresh air.”

“I thought you were going to London?”

Dull voice, the tone that meant she’d been hooked up to her electronic babysitter for hours whilst he’d overslept.

“Change of plan.”

Father and daughter looked at each other, Roger wondering if he would get away with saying as little as this.

“You said it was important to stand up for your rights,” said Cheryl, sulkily. “So why aren’t you there?” She jabbed a finger at the iPad, which was showing a scene in London, teachers with placards.

“Because I’m here with you. And we are not going to waste today. We are going to do something interesting and healthy. And educational.”

“What’s that, then?” Cheryl asked without enthusiasm.

“Get dressed. We’re going fishing.”

6

Now

FACEBOOK: FIND HUMBER BOY B

Nicky:
Did HBB have a birthmark on his chest? We went swimming yesterday (Manchester city pool) and there was a skinhead thug giving another boy a hard time. The thug had a large birthmark that looked like Brazil over his right nipple. Could it be him?

Noah’s mum:
I’m publishing this photo of him playing in our garden with Noah. They were having a water fight so both boys are topless and as you see, no birthmark. But please keep looking.

Nicky:
Sorry I couldn’t help.

Noah’s mum:
You’re trying. Every day is a struggle, knowing he is free, but this site gives me hope that one day I’ll get the answer I need. You can see in the photo how both the boys are happy. This was just a week before the murder. So why did it go wrong, why did my boy have to die? The only person who can answer me is out there, somewhere. Please help me find him.

Silent Friend:
I’ll do my best. I promise.

7

Cate

The trial notes sat on Cate’s desk in a fat tower. She had never seen a dossier like it.

“Fuck. It’s going to take me a month to wade through that lot. I’ve only read one statement so far and that took me an hour it was so long.”

“So don’t,” Paul said, grabbing a handful of crisps from the open packet on her desk.

“Hey! Buy your own lunch,” she said.

“I’ll buy you lunch too, Cate, if only to stop you wasting time with that pile of paperwork. That was all written eight years ago and you have the real live boy coming in any minute. Just talk to him, that’s the magic formula. You won’t find the answer in that stack of legalese.”

Cate’s stomach growled. Breakfast had been hours ago.

“Okay. But it better be quick. He’s expected at one.”

She reached for her jacket and followed Paul out, tempted by the thought of a proper lunch but still unconvinced that he was right about the paperwork. Every case she had worked, every single one, she had read the Crown Prosecution papers in full. To not do so now, simply because of the size of this task, felt not just lazy but negligent. She knew that she would work her way through those papers, because she owed it to the boy who died, and to his family, to work this case right.

She also owed it to Ben.

When he was first interviewed, Ben didn’t have any explanation, no insight into why he had thrown Noah from the bridge, but maybe someone who’d submitted a witness statement did. The top one had been from Roger Palmer, a teacher at their school, the man who’d witnessed the attack from the riverbank below and tried to rescue Noah. Other statements, other views on what had taken place, would be deeper in that pile.

“Come on, Cate! Let’s talk catwalk fashion and latest hairstyles and forget about crime, even if only for half an hour.”