Blacklands

by Belinda Bauer

  “Oh yes?” inquired Avery coolly. “What for?”

  Lewis had talked himself into a little corner. On any other day he’d have told the stranger, Steven knew. He’d have blabbed and then watched the stranger’s reaction; if it had been awe, Lewis would have taken credit for the joint operation; if it had been disgust, Lewis would have rolled his eyes and jerked a thumb at him.

  But because this was their first time back together—and because a strange, unspoken shift had taken place in their relationship—Lewis seemed uncertain of whether to reveal their true mission.

  Lewis looked at Steven and was surprised to see his friend was even more pale than usual. Steven looked sick. But still, it was Steven who now picked up the conversational baton.

  “Orchids.”

  Avery only raised his brow again. This time Lewis almost joined him. Steven ignored it. “Sell them to the garden center.”

  Avery eyed him carefully. “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Yes.”

  Lewis shot a worried look at Steven and then at the man, but the man didn’t look too perturbed by the revelation.

  In fact, he shrugged and almost smiled—just the tips of prominent teeth breaking out briefly before being recaptured by his ruby lips.

  “Oh well,” he said.

  There was another lumpy silence.

  “Are there any round here?”

  “Any what?” said Lewis.

  “Any—” Avery cleared his throat politely, his fist in front of his mouth. “Any orchids.”

  Lewis flickered a sidelong glance at Steven. He’d got them into this—he could bloody well get them out.

  “No,” said Steven, scanning the ground. “We should go.”

  “Don’t.”

  Both boys looked up at the man. Lewis thought that was strange—saying “Don’t” like that. Most people you met on the moors couldn’t wait to have you walk away and disappear and restore their illusion of splendid isolation. But this man said “Don’t” as if he really didn’t want them to leave.

  Lewis was not a sensitive boy, but he felt the first vague itch that told him something was not quite right.

  Arnold Avery had recognized SL immediately—the shape of him—from the photograph.

  Now SL stood before him with his anorak tied around his whippety waist, his bony arms projecting from a red T-shirt, his dark hair poorly home-cut, his body turned slightly away.

  On the back of his T-shirt was the word LAMB. The boy’s name was S. Lamb.

  Lamb.

  He had to keep from laughing.

  Now S. Lamb and his more robust friend were both looking at him because he’d said “Don’t” in that stupid, needy way.

  A flash of Mason Dingle and a bawling child. Avery was angry with himself, but controlled it so it wouldn’t show.

  He had to be careful. There were two of them. S. Lamb had a spade slung over his shoulder. They were older than most of the others. Bigger than he remembered children to be. He’d said “Don’t” and both of them had looked up in surprise.

  He had to be careful.

  He had to smile.

  So he did, and saw the rounder boy’s face relax immediately. He was not unattractive.

  S. Lamb glanced at him but still looked pinched and wary. Understandable, thought Avery—a strange man on the moors; a boy should be on his guard. He was proud of SL’s open suspicion, and felt a little better about the way he’d been played by a boy. At least it wasn’t a stupid boy.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “My name’s Tim.” He looked pointedly at the bigger boy until he cracked.

  “I’m Lewis. He’s Steven.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  Steven Lamb. Avery dared only a brief glance and nod at Steven Lamb because he did not want to telepathically transmit the images in his head—images of Steven Lamb’s dark eyes bulging from their sockets in terror; of his own fingers around Steven Lamb’s slender throat as the blood rose like geysers in both of them, but for different reasons; of a scant but ironic map of Exmoor with the initials SL forever beside WP.

  “I have sandwiches.” Avery reached past the towrope to get them and added, more casually: “If you want.”

  Lewis did want.

  Of course.

  Steven watched Lewis close the distance between himself and Arnold Avery. He held his breath as Lewis reached for the sandwich. His warning shout caught in his throat as Lewis’s hand almost touched Avery’s.

  Nothing happened except that Lewis got a sandwich. Steven grunted in relief.

  Avery looked at him now, holding out another sandwich.

  This was it. This was the moment when Steven had to decide. To take the killer’s sandwich, or to fling aside his spade, turn, and run back down the moor to home.

  It was Barnstaple all over again. Without Lewis, he could have run. Taken Avery by surprise and outdistanced him. The man was fifteen feet away, and seated. Steven could have thirty yards on him before he stood up and started running. He was fast and had no doubt that fear would make him faster.

  But with Lewis? Lewis was eating the man’s sandwich; if he suddenly yelled a warning and turned tail, Lewis would be confused. He wouldn’t run. And even if he did run, he wouldn’t realize he was running for his life. The very act of running would tell Avery that Steven had recognized him.

  Even if Avery didn’t catch him, he’d catch Lewis for sure. And Steven couldn’t leave Lewis in the hands of a serial killer.

  Steven throbbed with guilt at his own stupidity. He had baited a trap for Avery and fallen into it himself. Now he felt wholly responsible for Lewis’s safety as well as his own.

  No, running was not an option.

  So Steven willed his legs to move, forced his hands to reach, ordered his lips to mumble “Thank you” as he took the other sandwich from the man he now knew planned to kill him.

  Chapter 38

  THE SANDWICH WAS CHEESE AND TOMATO. STEVEN GRIMACED AT the first bite but swallowed anyway, not wanting to provoke Avery.

  Lewis’s defenses were down now that he was eating again. He told Avery about the moor—making up what he wasn’t sure of—and Avery nodded and listened and asked pertinent questions.

  Steven was dimly aware of Lewis swelling proudly under Avery’s attention. Some part of him felt sick at the ease with which Avery made Lewis relax and open up to him.

  But most of him—all the important parts—were churning with a million flashing images: biro crosses on a map; a single white pixel of buckteeth; the Lego space station in the gloomy blue bedroom; the smell of the earth; the taste of it in his mouth; the tooth wobbling in the sheep’s jaw; running across the moor with his heart in his mouth; legs kicking through an open van window; his nan waiting. Forever waiting.

  And this was the image that finally stopped the crazy spinning in his head. His nan waiting for Billy, and waiting for him. He’d wanted so much to put an end to her misery, but he was only going to make it worse. Arnold Avery was going to kill him and then his nan would be waiting for both of them forever, and his mother would become his nan at the window, waiting as she had, even after Nan was dead.

  And Davey? What would happen to Davey? Davey wasn’t used to being ignored but he would be, and he had nobody else in the world who loved him. All of the people who loved him would be gone—or as good as.

  Steven felt sick.

  He’d fucked up. Fuck. He’d fucked up. He was a stupid fuck. Fuck.

  “Fuck” was not a big or bad enough word for what he was, but it would have to do for now. What had made him think he could do this? He was so stupid he deserved to be murdered, but he felt bad for Nan and Mum and Davey and Lewis.

  Then he remembered what he was here for. Why he’d started this in the first place. And why he couldn’t leave now …

  He shuddered at the horror of that truth.

  “Cold?”

  Steven jerked as Avery spoke, and realized he was shaking.

  “Yeah.” He was also gripping
his sandwich so tight that his fingers had gone through the bread and he could feel the hated wet tomato like slime on his fingertips.

  “Want a jumper?”

  Avery took off the pale green cardigan and Steven noticed it matched his strange, washed-out eyes. The last eyes Uncle Billy ever looked into.

  His throat closed and he made another attempt before he could squeeze out: “No.”

  Avery regarded him coolly and Steven looked at his messed-up sandwich, feeling his cheeks burn under the scrutiny.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Avery’s right hand loosen from the cardigan and move towards him. He watched the goose-bumps stand up on the flesh of his own arm, and then the gentle touch of the man’s finger on his cheek.

  “You have butter on your face.”

  Steven’s stomach rolled and he burped softly and remembered that he’d eaten tomato.

  Remembered Yasmin Gregory’s Tuesday knickers.

  Remembered that what the newspaper referred to vaguely as “bodily fluids” disgusted Avery.

  Hand shaking, and already slightly queasy, Steven braced himself and took another bite of sandwich.

  Avery withdrew his hand and licked the butter off his forefinger with a quick pink tongue.

  “What happened to your arm?”

  Lewis was staring at the blood on Avery’s torn shirtsleeve, which he’d exposed by taking off the cardigan. Avery looked down at it and felt another pang of self-loathing. He was so careless! What was he thinking? Being reminded of his arm also made him feel woozy and tired. He hadn’t lost a lot of blood but the arm throbbed more now than it had yesterday. Perhaps it was becoming infected. It was bad, bad luck. Just when he wanted—needed—to be at the top of his game physically as well as mentally. And now the freckled boy was staring at it—only curious right now, but Avery knew that curiosity was a microstep from suspicion and fear and flight.

  Or attempted flight.

  Inwardly he grinned at a slew of memories of attempted flight and gathered inner strength from those.

  “Got it caught on barbed wire coming up here,” he told Lewis.

  Lewis nodded slowly. The sandwich had made him forget that he’d felt uneasy about Avery, but now that his mouth had done its work his brain was re-engaging—and something about the barbed wire story didn’t ring true. Not least the fact that there was no barbed wire on the moor. Surrounding farms had barbed wire, sure, but he couldn’t think of a nearby route onto the moor where anyone would have to negotiate anything more than a stone or wooden stile.

  He got up and wiped his hands on his jeans.

  “Thanks, mate,” he said. Then he looked at Steven: “We should go.”

  Steven chewed, hating every second, then swallowed big chunks, his eyes watering.

  “You go,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “You go,” he said quickly, before he could lose his nerve. “I’ll stay.”

  Lewis gave a confused laugh and glanced at Avery, who was looking at Steven with an odd expression on his face.

  Steven was white, with two burning patches high on his cheeks, his eyes fixed on his sandwich. Lewis noticed he was trembling. He also noticed that the sandwich Steven was eating had tomato in it. As he watched, Steven took another bite and sloppily sucked a bit of errant tomato into his mouth.

  Something was very wrong with his friend.

  “C’mon, Steve!” He laughed again but it sounded so odd to his own ears that he cut it short, leaving a strained silence in its wake.

  He’d been engrossed in his own sandwich but now he saw that Avery was squeezing the green cardigan between his hands, twisting and crushing it, his knuckles white with tension. His vague sense of unease became an ache in his belly.

  “C’mon, you divvy. I got to be back soon.” It wasn’t true, of course, but Lewis suddenly felt the overwhelming need to be at home.

  Steven hurled what was left of his sandwich at Lewis, hitting him in the chest.

  “Just fucking go, will you! Just fucking go!”

  Lewis’s eyes were round with surprise. He took a step backwards.

  Steven got up, shaking, and closed the gap between them.

  “I know what you did to the garden.”

  Lewis flushed deep red. “W-what?”

  “You heard me. I know what you did. Now fuck off!”

  Steven shoved Lewis in the chest with the shaft of the spade, making him stumble backwards down the mound. Steven came after him and shoved again. Lewis fell onto his backside in the heather, and panic burst on Steven’s face. He grabbed Lewis by the shoulder, trying to lift him and push him away at the same time. Lewis stumbled once, twice; Steven screamed over him: “I hate you! I fucking hate you! Just piss off home! Just go!”

  Bits of sandwich and spittle fell onto Lewis from Steven’s furious mouth. He scrambled to his feet and Steven came at him again. This time Lewis skipped out of the way down the track.

  “Are you nuts?” he yelled at Steven. “Are you pigging crazy?” Again he glanced at the man—as if for support.

  “He’s nuts!” Lewis yelled, but the man was not looking at him. He was looking at Steven; his red, red lips had drawn back to reveal his sharp white teeth in a grimace of concentration. More than Steven’s sudden attack, that sight made Lewis’s insides lurch dizzily and suddenly he had to get away. Had to. Couldn’t stay another second. Primeval fear gripped him and he cried out as if struck—then turned and ran.

  Steven watched him go, feeling the thread of his life unravelling and trailing down the track behind his friend as if caught on his heel, leaving him with nothing but a black, hollow chest and bits of bloody tomato free-floating in his rolling gut.

  He felt Avery swishing slowly down the hill behind him, wet heather stroking his ankles, a knife, a rope, a gun at the ready.

  A shudder passed through him and he spun round on a sob.

  Avery hadn’t moved.

  For a long moment they regarded each other. Steven pushed tears of panic out of his eyes with the heel of his hand, feeling how strange was the disconnection that allowed him to think that Avery would attribute them to his row with Lewis. It was almost as if his mind had unravelled a bit too far and was now able to consider his own actions from a little way off. The coldness of that scared him but he clung to it nonetheless—it was almost like having someone else in his head, someone else to make decisions—and it was the only thing keeping him from curling into a ball of pissing terror in the heather to await the inevitable.

  “You okay?”

  Steven nodded, biting his lip. There was more silence.

  Avery stood up and brushed the seat of his pants carefully, then made his way down the mound.

  Steven saw that the man’s jeans were soaked to the knees and it made him aware that his own were the same, cold and stiff against his shins.

  His nerve endings twitched, jumped, screamed to turn and run.

  But he just stood there and waited for the killer to come to him.

  Why?

  The voice observing him demanded an answer. Steven didn’t have one, just a buzzing jumble of words and images like the pieces of a jigsaw when the box was first opened. He knew that those random pieces made a picture—a country garden, sailing ships, puppies in a basket—but the pieces in his head were fragments and some were turned facedown and it would take more than a demanding voice to assemble them into something coherent. Something useful.

  Avery stood so close to him now that Steven had to look up into his face.

  “What was that all about?”

  His voice was kind and his expression was sympathetic. His features were making all the right moves, but his eyes were elsewhere, thinking other things.

  He put a cold hand on Steven’s shoulder.

  Lewis could not remember running; he could only remember being on the moor and suddenly being off it.

  He had eaten the good half of too many sandwiches to be a fit boy, but adrenaline filled his lungs and squeezed his hea
rt more efficiently than any conditioning that could have gone before or would ever come again.

  The stile at the bottom of the track scraped his shins and tore his knee as he barely broke stride to clear it.

  He turned left onto the narrow, still-misty street—the only one of any note through Shipcott—and wondered at the way his frantic footfalls smacked sharply and echoed off the canyon of bright, bow-walled cottages.

  Lewis had no idea why he was scared, and so he worried about how to impart his fear to anyone who could help him. But he knew he would have to try, because instinctively he knew this was not a job for a secret agent or a sniper, or even a famous footballer.

  This was a job for a grown-up.

  It was early on a Saturday morning but the mist gave Shipcott a dead, eerie feeling and the street was unusually empty. He rounded the short curve in the road and saw why.

  There was a little knot of people outside Steven’s house, spilling off the narrow pavement and into the road.

  Grown-up people. Thank god.

  Lewis almost cried with relief.

  Lettie was in the bathroom when the knock came on the door. At the first rap she frowned, wondering who it could be so early on a Saturday. But then she frowned because it wasn’t really knocking; it was pounding. Pounding of the type Lettie had only ever seen on TV where the drunken husband goes round to confront his errant wife’s new lover. Pounding like police.

  It scared her, angered her, and galvanized her all at the same time.

  She hurried downstairs and opened the door a crack, her left hand holding her robe closed, not because she was afraid it would swing open but to let the pounder know that she disapproved of his rudeness.

  It was Mr. Jacoby. Holding a newspaper.

  Lettie experienced a second of complete disorientation during which she wondered whether they now had a newspaper delivered and, if so, why they had ordered the Daily Mail, and—even stranger—why Mr. Jacoby was making the deliveries himself instead of leaving it to Ronnie Trewell, who seemed to have spent at least ten of his fourteen years trudging up and down in the rain with a DayGlo sack pulling him so badly off center that, without clearly marked pavements, he would have wandered around in circles all day.