Blacklands: A Novel

by Belinda Bauer

  Davey had birthday money. Three pounds. Steven fidgeted impatiently while Davey picked every rubber dinosaur out of a box and looked at it and then didn’t even buy one. He moved on to the next box, which was full of small clear balls with even cheaper toys inside them. After long and careful deliberation he chose one filled with pink plastic jacks; it cost seventy-five pence.

  Steven took Davey’s hand and hurried him towards the library but Davey made himself heavy and awkward as they passed a sweetshop and once again Steven had to wait while Davey peered at every bar, every packet, and into every jar until finally he emerged with a quarter of jelly worms and a Curly Wurly. He tried to stop again at the shop on the corner selling radio-controlled cars, but Steven yanked him onwards.

  Without the sun to struggle through its high, dirty windows the library was gloomy and cold.

  The librarian—a young man with an earring, a zigzag shaved into the side of his head, and a name tag reading “Oliver”—led Steven to what he grandly called “the archives” with a suspicious air. “The archives” was an alcove behind the reference section—and out of sight of his desk.

  “What year?”

  “June ’90.”

  “1890 or 1990?”

  Steven pulled a puzzled face. It had never occurred to him that they would have newspapers going back to 1890.

  “1990.”

  Oliver sighed and peered up at the giant books on the top shelves. Then he turned on a pulsing fluorescent and looked again.

  Then he looked intently at Steven and Davey as if trying to find something wrong with them—something that would give him an excuse not to help them.

  “He can’t eat those in here.”

  “I know,” said Steven. “He won’t.”

  Oliver snorted and held out his hand for the sweets. Davey instinctively withdrew them.

  “I’m not having Curly Wurly all over my archives.”

  Davey looked at Steven for guidance.

  “Give them to him, Davey. He’ll keep them safe for you.”

  Reluctantly Davey handed them over.

  Oliver kicked a stool noisily across the floor and climbed onto it, dragging down a huge bound volume which he then dropped onto the desk with a petulant bang.

  “No eating, no cutting out, no folding or licking the pages.”

  Steven blinked; why would he lick the pages?

  “Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Steven sat on the only chair and Davey sat on the floor and started to open his jacks. Oliver hovered in the doorway but Steven ignored him until he left, then opened the giant book.

  The Western Morning News used to be much much bigger. It was weird to see the same banner title on this huge newspaper. Steven felt like an elf reading a human book as he paged carefully through the tome. He giggled at the thought and Davey looked up at him.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing.”

  The internet had been okay but patchy. Avery’s case predated the internet, and Steven had the frustrating feeling that there was lots it wasn’t telling him. At least the internet didn’t smell like old socks, though.

  Davey was struggling to open the plastic sphere, his tongue stuck out in concentration.

  “You want me to do that?”

  “I can do it.”

  The paper was yellowing and painfully thin. In places the ragged edges were torn. Steven stood up so he could handle the tome more efficiently.

  ABUSED, TORTURED, KILLED. The headline ended Steven’s search.

  There was a picture of Arnold Avery—the first Steven had seen. He instinctively drew closer to the page so as not to miss a single detail. The photo would have looked equally at home on the sports pages—a young man who’d scored twice against Exmoor Colts or taken three wickets for the Blacklanders.

  Steven was thrown. He had expected … well, what had he expected? His mental image of Avery up until now had been vague—maybe not even human. Avery had been a dark shape in an Exmoor fog, a collage of movement and muffled sound lingering on the edges of a nightmare.

  But here was the real Avery, staring into a policeman’s camera with a shameless directness, his dark fringe flopped fashionably over one eye, his slightly snubbed nose giving him an amiable look, his wide mouth almost shut and almost smiling. Steven noted that Avery’s lips were very red. It was a black-and-white photo, but he could tell that much. As he studied it more closely, he could also see that the reason Avery’s mouth was only almost shut was that he had protruding teeth. A pixel of white suggested it.

  Steven tried to get disturbed by the picture but Avery looked more like a victim than the perpetrator of the crimes of which he’d been convicted.

  There were pictures of Avery’s victims although at this point in the proceedings the News called them “alleged” victims.

  Little Toby Dunstan was described in the caption as “youngest victim.” A laughing six-year-old with sticky-out ears and freckles even on his eyelids. Steven grinned: Toby looked like fun. Then he remembered—Toby was dead.

  There was a graphic on the front page too. It was a map of Exmoor. Steven unfolded a scrap of paper from his pocket and copied the shape—a rough, crinkled rugby ball. The graves of the six children who had been found were marked with Xs and arrows which pointed to six photos—one of each confirmed victim. The same picture of Toby Dunstan, a different one of Yasmin Gregory, then Milly Lewis-Crupp, Luke Dewberry, Louise Leverett, and John Elliot.

  Steven marked each child’s initials inside the rugby ball with a red pen. All of them were roughly clustered in the center of the moor. Shipcott was not marked but Steven could see the gravesites were between there and Dunkery Beacon. Three of them were on the west side of the Beacon itself.

  He had never seen the exact location of the graves marked before and was relieved that he’d been digging in the right general area all this time. Of course, what was a half-inch square on this map was several miles of open moorland in reality. But Steven felt new impetus seep through him just by dint of being reminded of his quest.

  He carefully folded up the scrap of paper, and started to read.

  The eleventh of June had been the first day of the trial at Cardiff. What this meant, Steven quickly realized, was that the prosecution told the court the highlights. It was like Match of the Day or those slick American TV dramas that always started with “Previously on ER…”

  Previously on Arnold Avery—Serial Killer…

  The prosecution barrister, whose name had been (and likely still was) Mr. Pritchard-Quinn, QC, made it all sound as if Avery was undoubtedly, indisputably, irrevocably guilty. There was no room in his mouth for “perhaps” or “maybe” because it was so full of words like “callous,” “cold-blooded,” and “brutal.”

  Mr. Pritchard-Quinn told the court how Avery had approached children and asked them for directions. Then he would offer them a ride home. If they took it, they were dead. If they didn’t, they were quite often dead anyway, once he had tugged them headfirst through the driver’s window.

  Steven marvelled at the sheer cheek of it. The simplicity! No stalking, no hiding, no grabbing and running, just a child leaning over too far—a little off balance—and a shockingly strong and fast hand. Steven thought of Uncle Billy’s feet kicking through the open window and felt his stomach slowly roll over.

  “Make it work.”

  Steven looked up. Davey had brought the pink jacks to the table. Now he held two of them out to Steven, pressing them together.

  “What?”

  “Make it work!”

  “What do you mean?”

  Davey got his grizzly face on. “It won’t stick! Make it stick!” At the same time he tried to force the two jacks together as if willpower alone could meld matter.

  “They don’t go together. That’s not what they’re for.”

  Davey looked at the jacks with mounting discontent.

  “Look, I’ll show you.”

  Steven picked the j
acks off the floor and found the small red rubber ball where it had rolled against the wall. He bounced the ball and picked up a jack, then bounced it again and picked up two.

  “See? That’s how it works.”

  The disgust on Davey’s face was plain.

  “You want to try?”

  Davey shook his head, slowly working out that he’d spent a large portion of his birthday money on something he had no interest in.

  “I don’t want them,” he said crossly. “I want my Curly Wurly.”

  “You can have it when we go,” said Steven.

  He knew the moment the words were out of his mouth that they were an invitation to Davey, and Davey seized it and RSVP’d in an instant …

  “I want to go.”

  “In a minute.”

  “I want to go now!”

  “In a minute, Davey.”

  Davey threw himself onto the dusty tiled floor and started to grizzle loudly, flailing his arms and legs about and scattering his jacks across the room.

  “Shut up!” Steven shushed but it was too late.

  Oliver appeared in the doorway, and they were out.

  The rain had stopped and the sun was trying its best but the cars still hissed past and sprayed unwary pedestrians.

  Steven knew he was walking too fast for Davey but he didn’t care; he yanked and tugged at his little brother to keep him going, ignoring the boy’s whines as he half jogged to keep up. It had been a wasted day; they only came to Barnstaple three times a year—Christmas, school clothes shopping in August, and for birthdays. Steven’s was in December, so his birthday trip was combined with the Christmas trip, but this was Davey’s birthday trip—1 March—so it would be months before Mum brought them back in to moan about the size of Steven’s feet and the rips in his school shirts.

  And what did he have to show for it? Nothing. A crude map and an enemy in the form of Oliver who would probably never let him back into the archives, or perhaps even the library. Stupid Davey with his stupid jacks.

  As they hurried, the faces of the throng of shoppers started to emerge at Steven as if he were noticing for the first time that a crowd was made up of individuals.

  Individual whats? Individual farmers? Chemists? Perverts? Killers?

  Steven felt a sudden eerie fascination with the shoppers of Barnstaple. Arnold Avery would have shopped. He would have appeared normal to his neighbors, wouldn’t he? The books Steven had read under his sheets were filled with quotes from friends—even family members—who were baffled when their “normal” neighbor, son, brother, cousin was exposed as a homicidal maniac. The thought of Arnold Avery or someone like him walking free on this street made Steven feel nervous. He looked around him warily and his grip tightened on Davey’s hand.

  A grey-haired man stared about as his wife cooed over something in Monsoon’s window, his eyes hooded and predatory.

  A girl in a dirty skirt played an old guitar badly and sang “A Whiter Shade of Pale” in a dull monotone while her lurcher shivered on a wet blanket, too dispirited to make a break for it.

  A young man walked towards them. Scruffy yellow hair like Kurt Cobain, a brown goatee, bike jacket. Alone. Was alone bad? Steven caught his eye and wished he hadn’t. The young man appeared uninterested, but maybe that was a ruse. Maybe he would walk past Steven and Davey to lull them into unwariness and then turn and slip his fingers around Davey’s right arm, starting a tug-of-war which a screaming, pleading Steven could never hope to win, as shoppers stepped politely around them, not wanting to get involved …

  “Ow, Stevie! You’re hurting!”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  They were almost at Banburys.

  “Where you going, Lamb?”

  The hoodies.

  Steven’s heart bumped hard, then sank; he was a good runner and fear made him a very good one. On a Saturday in Barnstaple he would have lost the hoodies easily. Without Davey, that is. His anger at his brother flared again.

  “Nowhere.” Steven didn’t look into their faces.

  “We’re going to meet Mummy,” said Davey. “We’re going to have cakes.”

  The hoodies laughed, and one made his voice squeaky and gay. “Going to meet Mummy. Going to have cakes.”

  Davey laughed too and Steven suddenly felt his anger swing from his brother and redirect itself at the leering hoodies. He couldn’t fight them, and if he stayed where he was he was going to get pounded. His only advantage was surprise—right now, while Davey was laughing …

  Emboldened by the crowds of shoppers, Steven lunged past the hoodies, almost pulling Davey off his feet. The three boys were momentarily stunned by his sheer nerve. Then they came after him.

  Davey was initially surprised by the speed of the move but one look at Steven’s face told him this was serious and he did his best to keep up. Elbows and hips banged his head as Steven towed him heedlessly through the crowds. The pair of them bounced off shoppers like two small, scared pinballs.

  If he’d been alone, Steven would have run as far and as fast as he could, but with Davey in tow he knew he had to make every step count, so he headed straight for Banburys’ glass doors a mere twenty yards away.

  The hoodies realized his destination and tried to cut Steven off. They weren’t as fast, but they were more brutal and less inclined to go around people. Davey screamed as the crowds parted to show the hoodies just feet away from him.

  A woman with a buggy wandered unsuspectingly into their path.

  “Fuck!”

  One of the hoodies crashed over the buggy and the other two were distracted long enough for Steven and Davey to burst through the glass doors of Banburys.

  A fat, middle-aged security guard immediately turned towards them, and Steven forced himself to stop running. Davey peered behind them, scared although he didn’t know why.

  Outside, the hoodies were hurling insults behind them at the angry mother, and barrelling towards the doors.

  “Stevie … ?”

  “Ssssh!” Steven jerked his hand to make him pay attention and led him at a sedate pace towards the racks of bags, beads, and belts. The security guard frowned—stymied in his readiness for action now that the two boys had slowed right down and started to look like customers.

  The glass doors banged open and the hoodies ran straight into the guard.

  Steven looked back as he and Davey stepped onto the escalator. The hoodies were angrily yelling about their rights while the security guard hustled them out of the doors.

  “We’ll get you, Lamb!”

  Polite shoppers looked around, confused. Steven reddened and looked straight ahead; Davey gripped his hand as if he’d never let go.

  Chapter 10

  AVERY WAS SURPRISED. THE LETTER SAID NOTHING! IT DID NOT beg, it did not plead, did not offer to help him at his parole hearings—the first of which had already taken place without him, and had led to his transfer from Heavitree to the lower-category Longmoor.

  He read the letter again and a slow anger started to smoulder inside him. His own letter had been offhand and cryptic; he knew, because he’d taken some days to work out the precise tone he wanted to convey—ignorant, to get past the censors, and yet with enough of a tease in it to tempt a smart and determined reader into an answer. Avery’s in-tray had been empty for eighteen long years and he barely dared admit even to himself the thrill it gave him to receive a letter. Even more, to receive a letter dealing with his favorite subject. And—the ultimate—to receive a letter from someone connected in some way with the family of one of the children.

  SL’s first letter had opened for Arnold Avery a Pandora’s box of memory and excitement. He had started with WP and examined that memory from every aspect; it had taken him days—and those were days when he was no longer held at Her Majesty’s pleasure, but in the grip of his own; days when Officer Finlay’s blue-veined nose lost the power to provoke him; days when being handed a small paper tub of snot instead of mustard with his hamburger was water off a duck’s back. T
hey were days when he was free.

  Then he had gone back to the beginning and savored each of the children anew, and prolonged the ecstasy to almost a month’s duration.

  And now this letter.

  SL had promised to be a serious correspondent but he was a tease. Like a woman! Like a child! In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if SL was a woman after all! How dare SL start a correspondence and then send him this nothing of a letter? SL could go fuck herself!