by Ruth Dugdall
“The thing with you, my darling, is you’ve always been so self-righteous. But has it ever occurred to you that you might have some responsibility for what happened?”
Cate listened to her mother drive away, her back to the front door, her chin pointed toward the light. Could it be true, that she had been part of the reason why Liz left? If so, it sounded like she might finally be about to find. And Cate, to her own surprise, discovered that the idea terrified her. Liz’s leaving had been like a rock in a pond, but the ripples had now settled. Even if her life wasn’t everything she wanted, it wasn’t bad, and she didn’t want Liz to change that.
28
Ben
The mop is frozen in my hand. I’m so mesmerised by the biggest tank, by the secret world of water and rocks, that I’ve forgotten I’m supposed to be cleaning the whole area. I’m hypnotised by the fish, all different types, swimming amongst floating jetsam, all sizes and shapes, getting along, bumping noses and not minding. How can they be so peaceful, despite the closeness, despite being so different?
My thoughts run on, unchecked, as the fish gape and float by.
River fish, the same fish that would live in the Humber, the type that gets hooked on lines or caught in nets. Was it fish like these that Noah saw as he drowned, bubbles of precious air leaving his nose and mouth, if it wasn’t the impact that got him first.
A line of silver sharp-finned fish, each the size of my palm, peer out. Of all the fish in all the tanks these alone watched the watcher with bulging, accusing eyes.
“Penny for them?”
I jump, steady myself, and return briskly to the task of mopping the floor where a hyperactive toddler dropped a sippy cup of juice earlier this afternoon. Leon has already turned the aquarium sign to ‘closed’ and washed up our tea mugs.
“Sorry, Leon. I was just watching the fish.”
“You’re alright, lad. Nice to know you’re so interested. Now, I’ve a question for you. I’m wondering if you’d like to come to mine for Sunday lunch? Meet the missus.”
Startled, I feel the colour rise from my neck to my cheeks as I scrub harder at the floor though signs of the spillage are all gone.
“Oh. When?”
“Sunday. Lunchtime.” Leon laughs at his humour, then starts coughing. When he speaks again his tone is one of extreme politeness, “If you’re free tomorrow, that is.”
“I’m free.”
For the first time the words mean something. I put the mop and bucket into the cupboard and wait, watching carefully as Leon draws a simple map of how to find his house, a buzzing inside announcing I am coping, I’m being ‘rehabilitated’ as the parole board put it. Sunday lunch, it sounds formal and proper though Leon is neither of these things so maybe it will just be a sandwich, like Leon brings to the aquarium each day wrapped in silver foil.
“And make sure you arrive hungry,” he then says.
The prospect of a proper sit-down meal is both terrifying and thrilling.
Leon’s pencilled map, with arrows and the bridge and pub sketched in, spent Saturday evening and night propped next to the bed on the bedside table. Now the map is in the kitchen, on the window ledge. I’ve studied it so carefully I could probably walk to Leon’s house blindfolded, yet I still fold it carefully and put it in my back pocket.
It’s just gone eleven, but I don’t want to be late and I need to call at the Spar first. I’ve noticed before that they have flowers outside, in a black bucket, and I’m planning to buy some.
It’s Shirl on the till again.
“Hello, love. Date is it?”
“Sunday lunch.”
She looks me over, taking in the new shirt, the pale blue one from my shopping trip with Kevin to buy my release wardrobe. This shirt is meant for job interviews. The collar is uncomfortable, unused as I am to fitted clothes, but Shirl looks like she approves. She turns her attention to the flowers.
“Nice. I love chrysanths.” Shirl peels off the price label and wraps the flowers in pink paper, carefully taping them into a funnel, and hands them back to me like they are precious. “I hope she likes them.”
I follow the map, taking the path that runs just under the Orwell Bridge, past The Star pub that Leon has indicated in the obvious way, and along until I see the line of red brick box homes and realise that he lives in one of the houses I saw the other day from the riverbank. Where I lived in Hull, there were lots of streets like this, the dog shit and litter, the taped-up windows. But when I get to Leon’s home I see that it’s not like my old home at all. The front yard is neat and cared for and the gate is dark with wood varnish. The gate has a wooden plaque with a squirrel painted beside it, holding number 3 like it was a nut. Opening the gate, I see that in the window of the front room sits another squirrel, this time pottery and red with pointy little ears. I reach for the door knocker, hesitate, then rap the bronze squirrel’s tail onto the wooden door, too lightly to be heard, but the door opens anyway.
Leon beams at me, looking so different that I realise for the first time that what he wears at the aquarium, a navy short-sleeved shirt, is a uniform. Now he looks much more relaxed, in blue jeans and a burgundy T-shirt with a Native American pictured on the front.
“How!” he jokes, though I only get it when he holds up one hand in greeting. “Come in and meet the old gal.”
“I wish I still was a girl.” A woman is stood in the doorway to the kitchen. Behind her wafts the delicious scent of roasting meat. She has her hands in oven gloves, her body wrapped in a pink frilly apron, and her face lit with a heartbreaking warm smile.
One thing about prison, there weren’t many women. Just a few officers, the odd teacher, but most of the adults I’ve known have been men. I suddenly worry that I won’t know how to talk to her.
“Er, hi.”
“Hello, love. I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Issi.”
I thrust the flowers awkwardly into her oven-gloved hands and she holds them with such surprise and delight that I wish I’d bought chocolates too.
“Well, come on in. Mi casa is sur casa, isn’t that what they say, Leon?”
“Something like that, love.” He gives me a wink. “Come on, Ben. I’ll get you a tinnie.”
The front room is like no other I’ve ever been in. There are so many things, it’s like a shop. Pottery and lace and cushions and squirrels, china ones and others sewn onto fabric and trapped in frames. And this makes it seem magical, like a fairy tale house and so unlike my home back in Hull, where the only ornament was an ashtray, no pictures hung on the nicotine-stained walls, and the sofa had long ago lost its cushions to the various usually vicious dogs that Stuart would sometimes bring home after a night on the razz, only to forget about them when he went back to sea leaving my mum to find them new homes or just let them loose to find homes of their own. Leon pushes a cool can of beer into my sweaty hand as Isabel calls from the kitchen.
“Show Ben the garden, love, while I finish the dinner.”
The garden, though maybe only twelve feet square, is like a patch of Eden. Each blade of grass is so green and lush that they look edible, and the fragrant border of so many flowers makes me ashamed of my bunch. Issi could pick fifty flowers in her own back yard. There’s a birdbath, a bench, everything so neat and perfect.
“Wow,” I say, and mean it.
“See, it’s not fish that I like, it’s this,” Leon points to the fences where a white flower is growing, covering the wood with delicate green leaves. “Gardening is my thing. Helps me relax.” He sips a beer and raises the can. “Along with this.”
It’s good to see him like this and I’m enjoying my beer too. It’s cool and not too strong, so though it makes me feel easy in my skin, I’m not going to get drunk.
“You’re doing well at the aquarium, Ben,” he says. “I’m really glad I took you on. I wasn’t sure, you know. For the boss, taking on someone from Community Service is just free labour, and he only comes down from Great Yarmouth once a month, so if there was
a problem he wouldn’t be the one to deal with it. But it’s worked out well.”
He blushes, and I can see that though he planned to give this little speech it makes him feel awkward, so I sip more beer, say thanks, and then ask him some more about his garden. In the end, he gives me a tour of it, showing me all the plants and flowers, telling me about the soil, so in just twenty minutes I feel I know more about gardening than I ever learned when I was on the outdoor team at Glen Parva, and that was for sixteen months.
Finally, Leon sits on the bench, hands clasped on his knees and breathes deeply, looking at something in the corner of the plot, the sunniest spot. It’s a ceramic statue, knee-high, of a footballer. A pottery boy kicking a ball, and at his feet is a plastic-framed photograph of a boy who looks about ten or eleven, wearing a blue and white football strip, grinning widely despite the goofy teeth.
I don’t know Issi has joined us in the garden until she says, “That’s our boy.”
Leon clears his throat and looks at his shoes, but Issi comes beside me and grips my arm, gesturing to the photo with such a clear gaze of love and pain that I feel ill.
“Our Michael.”
Then she releases me, so quickly that I wonder if I imagined it, and claps her hands together, changing the heavy atmosphere with the command, “Lunch time!”
Chatter over lunch is surprisingly easy. We talk about the aquarium, how hard Leon works, how much it’s helped having me there. They tell me of their home, how they’ve lived here so long, how the neighbours came and went and had no decency. Finally there is a comfortable silence as we tuck into the beef and vegetables. I catch Issi watching me approvingly as I wolf down my third Yorkshire pudding.
“It’s nice to see someone enjoying their food. Michael had a good appetite too.”
“Issi… ” Leon seems to be urging her to be quiet, and I’d like to say to her that it’s alright, that I don’t mind her talking about her dead son, but I can’t do it. Instead I continue to eat, slower now.
“Leon doesn’t eat much. I give most of his food to the birds. Nice to see someone enjoying what I make.”
There’s an edge of reproach and I nervously remember family rows over food, though we never sat down like this over roast beef. More likely over a Chinese curry on a Friday night, if Stuart was feeling flush, or a pot noodle if he wasn’t, but get us all in the same room and something was bound to kick off.
Wanting to break the new mood, Leon grabs his girth and declares, “I don’t think anyone would accuse me of being anorexic, love. I just can’t eat for two.”
It was there anyway. I could feel it. The gap in their lives, the space that Michael had left, with Issi unable to cook less food and accept he has gone forever. If only it could be fixed by simply by eating three Yorkshire puddings. I’m sitting in Michael’s chair, but I can never be him. If these kind people knew what I did they’d ask me to leave, maybe worse. They’ve known loss, and I’m the bringer of it, so what else could I expect?
That night, back in the flat, my heart aches. In that lonely space between asleep and awake I wonder if Leon and Issi could ever love me. I’ve never kissed a girl, never had a crush even on a teacher, never felt anything like yearning before. And now I do, but it’s not for a girl, or sex, but for two old people. Old people with squirrels and a memorial garden to a boy who’d liked football with goofy teeth. They never said how he died, or how old he’d been, but the gap was still there in their lives.
There’s a gap in my life too. A mother who hasn’t replied to my card, who didn’t visit when I was locked away. A step-dad who sold a story to the papers about how evil I am. No, I can’t go there. If I do, I just might start to wonder where Noah fits into the picture, how I became Humber Boy B, and that’s something I can’t bear to do. I decide to just think about the Sunday lunch, how this was a good day. How things might be alright, after all.
29
The Day Of
Nazma liked the window ledge, it was her favourite spot in the whole house. The ledge was wide enough for her narrow body, and with the curtain pulled across it felt cosy, but best of all she could look out over the estate, the houses and the park, and see what was going on without anyone even noticing. Somehow Nazma never really got noticed by anyone.
Now, she was sat with a book, losing herself in the story of a group of children who lived on an island with no parents. She liked to read, but sometimes felt she’d rather be outside if only someone would call and ask her to play. Sometimes she saw other kids from school, roller-skating or skateboarding up ramps on the kerbs, but she didn’t join them. It was hard to make friends when you were different, and anyway her mum worried if she was out. Also, she told Nazma that working hard at school would mean that she would have a good future, a career. Her mother worked so hard in the shop, but the rewards were slight, and she repeatedly said that she wanted more for her daughter. Not more money, though this would hopefully come, but more respect.
“A doctor, an accountant. These are jobs that matter in the world,” her mother often told her.
Nazma sighed, wished she had a sibling with whom to share this burden of responsibility to achieve and so please her mother, and turned back to her book, Swallows and Amazons, losing herself in the childish thrill of island life, the problem of how to start a fire with no matches. She did not want to be a doctor, she was no good at science or maths. She wanted to start a fire with sticks and build a tree house.
A movement outside made her look up from her book. Approaching the shop were a trio of boys. Two had their heads down, so she couldn’t see their faces, but one of them looked up and she saw it was Noah. She’d known him for five years, ever since they both started primary school. He stopped, crouched down to tie his shoelace, and when he righted himself she raised a hand to the window and pressed the glass, it felt cool under her palm. He waved and she grinned at him as he disappeared into her mother’s shop. She could hear the bell tinkling over the door and imagined him standing at the counter.
Nazma fantasised that in a minute her mother would call up to her, say that Noah had asked if she would like to go out and play. She closed her eyes and imagined laughing, running, the sun on her arms. She could tell him what she had learned from the book, how to build a raft with logs and twine. How to boil water and let it cool before drinking it. She would surprise him with how much she knew.
She waited. Eventually the boys re-appeared outside, quickly breaking into a run. Noah disappeared down the street without even looking back. She saw that his shoelace had come undone.
Nazma returned to her reading.
30
Now
FACEBOOK: FIND HUMBER BOY B
Silent Friend: I’ve found him. I saw him coming out of his flat, a nice one too. What do you want me to do now?
Michael Farrow: They’ve given him a nice flat? That takes the biscuit. Do-gooders make me sick. Bring back capital punishment, that’s what I say.
Silent Friend: I was thinking along the same lines myself.
Noah’s mum: I don’t believe in the death penalty. But I do believe in punishment, and eight years is nothing for what he did. Why does no-one listen to the victims until it’s too late? Until we are backed into a corner with only one way forward?
31
Cate
Walking into the conference room on Monday morning, Cate’s first observation was that Olivier’s open-necked shirt revealed a surprising amount of chest hair. Her second was that he hadn’t even looked up from his iPad to say hello. She had dressed so carefully too, choosing a green silk blouse that she’d bought in the summer sales but never had occasion to wear and a pencil skirt that she usually only wore in court. Even her make-up had taken longer than usual, and she’d dipped into Amelia’s growing stash for a suitably girlish lip gloss. All of this had made her fifteen minutes late and he hadn’t so much as glanced in her direction. The bastard was surfing Facebook.
“Morning, Cate.” Penny, at least, looked pleased to see
her. “You’re looking good. Going somewhere?”
Damn. But at least Olivier was looking up now, his appraising glance sweeping over her and then locking with her own. He really did seem to have a lot of chest hair. Very dark.
“Er. Just celebrating the reprise in the weather, Penny. It’s like summer.”
“Not for me,” said Olivier, fixating back on the screen of the iPad so she couldn’t see his expression. “I went to a ski slope on Saturday.”
That, at least, made Cate smile to herself. She forced herself to notice Ged, still in sweaty tweed, who gave her a nod. “Hi, Ged. How are you?”
“Fine.” But he didn’t look it, arms crossed across his chest in a pose that clearly said he didn’t want to be there.
Stephen Flynn entered, thankfully running even more late than Cate, with a fat file that he chucked into the centre of the table. “Bloody Facebook. I could sue that Zimmerman bloke, trouble he’s caused.”
Cate looked to Penny for an explanation but it was Olivier who pushed the iPad towards her, open at the page entitled FIND HUMBER BOY B. He touched the latest message with his pen.
Silent Friend: I’ve found him… What do you want me to do now?
“It could be a lie,” Cate offered. “You know, all those people who make calls to Crimewatch just because they want to be involved with something.”
“Possibly. Or maybe he thinks he has found Ben, but he’s wrong.” Olivier said, scrolling on the iPad and pointing out the picture of Ben playing with Noah in a paddling pool. “The pictures on this site are very old, no-one could be sure what this boy would look like in eight years.”
“What makes you think it’s a he?” Cate said. “Silent Friend could be a woman.”
Olivier actually snorted with laughter. “It’s not a woman! Women do not become vigilantes.”