Humber Boy B (8 page)

“You don’t need to pretend any more, Ben. It’s okay. This room may be stuffy but it’s also a place you can be honest.”

He blinked at her and she caught the glimmer of tears.

“But you write everything down.” He looked at her notebook, at the tower of court papers. “Just like they all did. Assessing me, analysing.”

Cate knew it was true, and also that some of the staff had used his story. The first social worker to meet him after Noah’s death had even published a book:
The Face of Evil
. She turned away from her desk and put her hands in her lap to show she had no pen. She wasn’t making notes.

“I feel scared when I’m out of the flat. But I still went to McDonald’s. I helped a woman find the correct money.”

Cate nodded, smiled, “That’s a great start. If you can manage the queues at McDonald’s I’d say nothing could beat you. Personally, that place brings me out in hives.” She paused. “But you haven’t spoken with anyone, no-one knows?”

“Course not.” He looked angry, and she reminded herself that he had kept his secret for years. “I’m not stupid.” He pulled a ragged piece of skin from his thumb with his teeth. “I know I can’t tell anyone who I really am. I said goodbye to family.”

“I’m afraid that was necessary,” Cate said, though she could hardly imagine how tough it must be. She hadn’t seen her father and sister in many years and knew how painful this sometimes felt, but at least she had Amelia. To have to say goodbye to everyone, to everything you’d ever known, and at such a young age, she couldn’t begin to comprehend.

“If anyone finds out you’d have to move me,” Ben stated in a flat passionless voice. “It’d be a lot of work.”

“It’s not about that, Ben. You could be hurt,” Cate said, carefully. “Most people talk about Humber Boy B as evil. You’re a demon to them. There’s a Facebook page set up purely with the intention of tracking you. No-one can know who you really are. You’re Ben now. This is it, your chance to begin again.”

They looked at each other for a long moment and Cate felt his desperation. She was Ben’s hope for a normal life, his guide in this new start.

“Okay, Ben. We’ve got you a place to live. Now we need to move on to step two, a job.”

Over lunch in the staff room, Cate made her announcement, gnawing on a piece of celery as she told Paul, “I’ve got Ben a work placement. Something to use his skills.”

Paul gaped at her, reached up with one hand and closed his mouth in a mocking gesture of disbelief. “You’re utilising his skills in throwing people off bridges? Where is this job, Go Ape?”

“Funny.” She finished her salad and closed her plastic lunch box, one of Amelia’s old ones with Hello Kitty smiling on the lid. Cate cocked her head to one side to look at her friend. “But I’m really determined to help him.”

“Cate, this isn’t the eighties, you can’t just ‘help him’. Whatever would the parole board say? You need to address that boy’s offending.”

“I know that, and we’ll get to it, but I need to work differently with Ben. He’s just a kid.”

“You’ve worked with teenagers before.”

“Not teenagers who’ve never been to the cinema, who don’t know how to open a tin of beans.”

Paul squirted a fish-shaped carton of soya sauce onto his M&S sushi, took his mini chopsticks and tucked in. “So,” he said, chewing on raw tuna, “where’s the placement?”

“I’ve spoken with the Community Punishment team, been through all their contacts. Ben fancied something with animals, so I found the next best thing and got him a placement at the aquarium.”

Paul poked a chopstick into the fish. “Oh, nice. I’ve always fancied working with animals myself. Oh, wait… I do! And so do you, Cate. Remember?”

“Thing is Paul, he’s not. I know as far as Facebook or
The Mail
are concerned he’s evil, but he’s just a messed-up kid. At least if the vigilantes are looking for a monster with two horns they won’t find our boy.”

“He’s not ‘our boy’. He’s a convicted killer. Now go and see if anyone left some birthday cake in the fridge, Cate, and start focusing on that.”

16

Ben

At the aquarium a man is seated behind the desk, he’s an old bloke with glasses and not much hair on his head but a bunch of it coming out of his ears. He reminds me of my old primary school teacher, Mr Palmer, so I think he’s going to be strict, but when he notices me he smiles, and his face changes. I see that to the side of the reception is a small room and the door is open so I can hear the sound of voices, chatter and laughter. I start to step away, but then I hear the jingle and realise it’s not a group of people, it’s only the TV.

“Hello, lad. You must be Ben?”

I jolt, eyes open and nod. To the side of reception is a tank, and inside are orange and black clown fish, prettily darting between lime green plant tentacles.

“So, Ben, the lady from, y’know, probation, she told me you like fish?” he asks, conversationally.

“Yes. I especially like the… ” I want to say atmosphere or peace but something tells me this is the wrong answer. “Carp.” I haven’t thought about carp in eight years, yet the word just popped out.

“Hmm. Sullen buggers they are. Never ones to break a smile or a sweat, just bob around in their own sweet time. We’ve got a tankful of big ’uns just like them, through there.” He points with his rolled up newspaper to the lower part of the aquarium. “Moody buggers, they are.”

This makes me smile and he grins back. I imagine he doesn’t have many people here to appreciate his humour, the place seems empty. He unrolls his paper and I look back at the clown fish, feeling more awkward now that the silence has been broken.

“Okay, so my name’s Leon. I’ll show you round, but first do you want a cuppa?”

“Please.” The truth is, I’m gasping for a drink. I still haven’t bought a kettle, so all I’ve had for breakfast is tap water and a chocolate bar.

“The staff room is in there,” he jerks a thumb to the small room. “Make me one too. Milk, two sugars.”

I realise that this means something, that he’s giving me my first job. It may mean he accepts my presence, or that he can’t be arsed to make his own tea, but either way I’m glad to once again have someone telling me what to do.

The staff room is a cupboard with no windows. There are posters taped up, a football league table and a picture of a cat hanging from a branch by its claws. The officers in prison used to put posters in their office, the prisoners had pictures of women on their walls, but I never did. I couldn’t think about girls, not properly. Not when the last time I spoke to one was eight years ago, just moments before my life was about to change forever. That girl was with her dad, and she was doing gymnastics in the Humber. She was wearing a vest top and cut-off shorts and was every bit as pretty as the girls in the wall posters. But her face became mixed up with what came after, so I can’t stand to think of it. I fill the kettle with water, and while it boils I watch the TV.

It’s an American show, loud voices, tanned skin, big hair. An older woman with a plunging neckline is giving three other woman, also with plunging necklines, advice on finding a man. “Don’t give it away!” the busty woman orders. “Make him wait for it.”

I can hear the water in the kettle bubbling so I pour it into mugs, not sure whether to use one teabag or two. I opt for one, dipping it between the cups, then agonise over how much milk to add. This simple thing, another lesson I have yet to master.

I return to reception, where Leon is reading the creased paper, and hand him his mug. He sips, then smacks his lips. “Perfect,” he says, and I feel unreasonably delighted with myself. Because I don’t want the moment to end, and I have nothing better to say, it tumbles out of me.

“That show on the telly is weird.”

“Yeah?” He raises his eyebrows. It’s just background noise to him, and he probably doesn’t even know what’s on right now.

“It’s dating advice. But like a quiz game too. These three women, they all want to date this man who’s a millionaire.”

The man whistles. “I wouldn’t mind advice on that, meself. Then I wouldn’t have to work in this crap-hole.”

My mouth sags. The aquarium seems so peaceful and calm, how can it be a crap-hole? I think he sees how upset I feel and then he says, more softly, “If you like fish it’s different. Me, the only fish I like come battered with chips.” Then he shrugs. “But it pays the bills, so I shouldn’t complain.”

Not for me, though. This job is voluntary, to get work experience that Cate said is important for my CV. Leon seems to realise his gaff.

“One thing, Ben. I know you’re here as part of your Community Service or whatever they call it now, so you’ve done something wrong. I just want to say this: your probation officer never told me what you done and I never asked. As far as I’m concerned, you’re here on work experience and as long as you keep making tea this good you and me will get on just dandy. Okay?”

17

The Day Of

The damned sun was still making its way into the room, even though Yvette had pegged the curtains together and piled two pillows over her head, which was throbbing like a swollen toe. She hadn’t even drunk that much, though the vodka bottle was empty. It was mostly Stuart, and spirits always made him angry. He shouldn’t have bought the bottle anyway, that money was meant to buy food. She had a splitting headache, but not ’cos of booze. It was stress, she probably had a brain tumour. Damn that man. Fuck him. Leaving again, just like he always did. Letting Adam down, pissing off just when she’d started to think that this time he’d stay for keeps.

She hadn’t seen it coming. Stuart had talked about quitting the trawlers so he could be here more often. He was trying to get in at Smith and Nephew’s, knew a bloke who knew a bloke. But instead he was gone again, with his duffel bag and his all-weather kit. He couldn’t give up the sea, but he could give her up.

It was over. So he said.

He’d said it was her drinking, he said it was the way she couldn’t get her act together, then he’d said it was Ben. And that was the part that really stuck with her, the reason she thought most likely. He couldn’t live with ‘that kid’ and when she asked what he meant he’d said something about a ‘constant reminder’.

Yvette occasionally looked into Ben’s face and remembered that time when Stuart had been gone too long and she was lonely, grateful for a little bit of kindness from a man who was indebted to her, but mostly she just saw Ben. Her kid, her son, no-one else’s. For ten years, Stuart had never let it go, not that it was the only time she’d had another man but here was the evidence, walking around their home. It was why Stuart hated Ben, not that the kid could help where he came from.

A moment of defiance, maybe it was high time that Stuart pissed off.
Good riddance! Why should Ben have to put up with a step-dad like that? They were better off on their own, the three of them
. Then the anger was gone and she simply felt defeated.

How would she cope without him? When he came home, there was brass and there was food.

If only she could get some damned sleep, get rid of the headache, the world would feel a whole lot better when she woke, but Adam was in the bedroom next door, roaring about T-shirts and getting ready for a day-trip that wasn’t going to happen. He’d find out soon enough. She groaned and slid deeper under the covers, putting off the moment, but then the bedroom door was flung open and she knew the moment had found her anyway.

Adam looked around the room.

“Where’s me dad?”

She could hear in his voice that it had taken just a second for him to know Stuart was gone again. Doing what he always did when the going got tough.

“Gone. On the Icelandic boat.”

Adam’s face was drained of colour, his lower lip trembled, and she knew as well as if she felt it herself that the disappointment was crushing. And she couldn’t find the words to comfort him, she couldn’t say anything, her son looked so broken hearted. Instead she just opened her arms, her fingers beckoning him, desperate to hold him and make it better. Tell him that his dad may be a shit but she loved him and that was what mattered.

But Adam glared at her accusingly, like it was she who had ruined the plan. He saw the vodka bottle on the floor and he turned back to his own room. To Ben, the only person he seemed to trust with his pain, and Yvette returned to her own.

18

Now

FACEBOOK: FIND HUMBER BOY B

Noah’s mum:
Today is our sixteenth wedding anniversary. I met Dave when I was seventeen and he gave me our precious son, Noah, may he rest in peace. Did you know that half of all parents who lose a child, divorce within a year? Not us, though. Happy anniversary, Dave. Thank you for everything, and I’m only sorry that I can’t always be there for you. But everything I do is for our boy, you know that, don’t you?

Dave:
Happy anniversary, Jess. I love you and admire you, my powerhouse of a wife.

Silent Friend:
Congratulations. It can’t have been easy for you to make it through.

19

Cate

“Mum! Stop staring at me.”

“Sorry, love.”

Amelia was right though, Cate had been staring as Amelia painted her nails, inexpertly, dripping blue polish on the white Ikea table, but that wasn’t what Cate was thinking about. She was marvelling at how grown up her daughter looked. Ten years old and so fully formed, with whispery blonde hair and large green eyes, Cate was glimpsing the woman her child would one day become.

“I’ll take my nail polish set when I stay at Dad’s tomorrow night. Maybe Sally will let me paint Chloe’s nails.”

“You better pack pink then. I don’t think you’ll be allowed to paint your half-sister’s nails blue. And take the remover, once you’ve finished wiping the mess from the table.”

Amelia enjoyed having a half-sister, so much so that she got annoyed when Cate used that phrase. “She’s my sister, Mum. There’s no half about it.”

No half about any of it, not with Amelia.

Amelia lazily put some remover on a cotton pad and began to half-heartedly wipe up the mess, noticing that Cate had a stack of papers in front of her. “What’s all that?”