Blacklands

by Belinda Bauer

  Steven realized the evidence of Lewis’s betrayal now lingered only in his heart. He glanced automatically towards the back of Lewis’s house—to Lewis’s bedroom window—and saw movement there, as if a face had been rapidly withdrawn beyond the dark reflection of the glass. Lewis? Maybe. The mist made everything doubtful. Steven watched but nothing reappeared. He shouldered his spade with the practiced ease of an old soldier and turned away from the vegetable patch.

  As he walked back through the house, he could hear his nan stirring upstairs—the little cough she tried to quell behind her old-lady fingers, the creak of boards under her pale, slippered feet. The thought of leaving her like this—the way she had been for as long as he had known her—and returning to somebody new and wonderful made him ache anew for it soon to be over.

  Careful not to bang anything with his spade, Steven left the house and pulled the front door quietly shut behind him.

  He was almost at the stile when Lewis caught up to him.

  Lewis was out of breath, and Steven was at a loss for what to say to him, so for several seconds they just stood and faced each other silently, squirming a little at the awkwardness of it.

  Then Lewis glanced at the spade and said: “Want a hand?”

  Part of Steven wanted to shout “No!” very loudly and with feeling. But when he opened his mouth, he said: “I didn’t think digging was your thing.”

  Lewis’s blush deepened and spread to the tips of his ears and down under the neck of his T-shirt. For Steven it was a confirmation and an apology, and he accepted both with a shrug. “You got something to eat?”

  Lewis nodded eagerly and pulled a carrier bag from the pocket of his waterproof. It was folded around some squarish thing that was probably a sandwich. Steven didn’t ask what was in it and Lewis didn’t volunteer; they both understood they’d have to work their way up to that again.

  “Okay, then.”

  Steven climbed over the stile, which was slippery from the mist, and Lewis followed.

  The promise of the dawn faltered as the boys trudged up the hill onto the moor. Fifty yards above the village they broke through the mist briefly, then were enveloped again as the little breeze dragged more off the sea and over the sun.

  It wasn’t bad. Steven estimated they could see twenty or thirty feet ahead of them. He could tell that the air beyond the mist was warm. It had been an uncommonly clement season and heather and gorse were blooming early in slow drifts of mauve and yellow.

  Lewis hadn’t bothered putting his sandwich away after showing it to Steven, and quickly ate the first, good half. He wrapped the bad half again carefully.

  Two hundred yards farther up the track, he ate that too.

  At the fork, Steven turned left behind the houses instead of his usual right, and Lewis spoke for the first time since the stile.

  “Where you going?”

  “Blacklands.”

  “Why?”

  “To dig.”

  “I—”

  Lewis bit his lip with a squeak, but the words “told you so” hung in the wet air. No matter. Steven appreciated the act of will it had taken for Lewis to swallow the jibe. They walked on in silence while the sky lightened and the tentative birds finally got the hang of the dawn chorus.

  As they approached Blacklands, Steven saw the postcard again in his mind. He had it in his back pocket but he didn’t want to get it out in front of Lewis and have to explain things.

  He knew from geography lessons what the Friar Tuck haircut symbol meant—it marked a rise in the ground. And he also knew exactly where that rise was. It looked very like the burial mounds on Dunkery Beacon—just closer to home. That thought made Steven stop and look back down towards Shipcott. It was invisible—still covered in mist below and behind them.

  Another five minutes brought them to the mound at Blacklands and Steven turned again and looked down the moor to where he knew the village lay.

  “Why d’ you keep stopping?”

  Steven didn’t answer Lewis. He glanced above them at the mound, remembered the map, the positioning of those initials he’d been so desperate to see.

  He started to skirt the rise, zigzagging a little through the heather. Lewis followed him. The dew was thick on the flowers and their jeans were soaked in seconds.

  Lewis shivered. Steven stopped and took his bearings.

  Here. About here.

  Steven could barely believe that after years of random digging, he was about to bend to the task with real focus, based on inside information. Of course, there was still a big patch of ground to cover—probably half an acre—but compared to the whole of Exmoor, half an acre was a pinprick. This was the place. Somewhere here, Arnold Avery had buried the uncle he never knew and now he was going to start the task of finding him for real. Steven didn’t care how long it took him now. Nothing would keep him from returning Uncle Billy to his family.

  Far from feeling excited and triumphant, the thought of succeeding suddenly made him overwhelmingly sad. Once more he looked down into the sea of mist and knew that—on a clear day—he’d be able to see his house. Uncle Billy had been buried within sight of his own backyard. His heartbroken mother, who had watched the searchers on TV prodding miles of heather and gorse, could have glanced out of the back bedroom window and seen her son’s shallow grave.

  Steven shivered and turned away from Shipcott.

  “Cold?” Lewis regarded him with sharp eyes.

  “Nah.”

  “Where we going to dig, then?”

  “Here, I guess.”

  Steven turned a slow circle to pick a spot—and stopped dead.

  From a patch of white heather not twenty feet above them, a man was watching.

  Steven flinched in surprise.

  Then—before the flinch was even over—he felt his bowels loosen in shock as he recognized Arnold Avery.

  Chapter 36

  AVERY HAD ARRIVED IN SHIPCOTT JUST AFTER 5 A.M.

  Unlike the towns of Bideford and Barnstaple and South Molton, Shipcott had barely changed. No new road layouts, no mini-roundabouts, no one-way systems. The one in Barnstaple had stolen damn near half the night from him as he looped and reversed and came at the town square what felt like a dozen times from different directions.

  Finally he’d stopped at a newsagent’s shop, donned the green cardigan to hide the blood on his sleeve, bought a Daily Mirror, and asked directions.

  Then he’d gone back to the car and stared at the face on the front page under the headline: CHILD KILLER ON THE RUN. The photo was a small fuzzy thing he’d been used to seeing clipped to Dr. Leaver’s file. Dr. Leaver himself had taken the picture at their first session, and Dr. Leaver had been wise to go into abnormal psychiatry because his photography skills left a lot to be desired.

  Not for the first time, Arnold Avery thanked god for incompetence, but felt a pang. Had he missed his chance? If he was on the front pages today, then surely he must’ve been yesterday? Maybe SL knew he was out, or had been warned not to leave the house.

  He suppressed the desperation that that thought sparked in him and checked out his face in the rearview mirror. He looked only vaguely like the photo on the front page of the Mirror and, even if it had been a dead ringer, most people were not observant. Avery remembered that from before—remembered all the times he could have been stopped, if only people had kept their eyes open, made connections, believed their guts.

  Nobody did. Sometimes he felt invisible.

  Circling North Devon in a confusion of new roads had run his petrol low and he pulled into a service station. As he wrestled increasingly stupidly with the buttons and hoses and multiple choices, he had prepared a cover story about being French. But the bleary-eyed boy at the pay window barely looked at him, saving Avery a smile, a lie, and a bad accent.

  Once he was in Shipcott he knew exactly where he was going.

  He drove past Mr. Jacoby’s shop and noticed that it was a Spar now. Globalization comes to Exmoor, he thought with a wry
little smile. The shop wasn’t open yet, and piles of bound newspapers lay outside, waiting to be sorted and sold so that the residents of Shipcott could hold his fuzzy face in their hands and be guarded against him.

  He drove through the sleeping village. At the turning to a deadend street he noticed that he was on Barnstaple Road and his heart started to race even as he slowed to a crawl, peering at the houses, their colors distorted to variations on peach by the sodium glow of the streetlamps in the dull grey of dawn.

  Number 109 … 110 … 111.

  Avery stopped the car without bothering to pull into the curb, and stared at the house where SL lived.

  Many years ago he had played poker. He hadn’t known what he was doing really and was nervous of losing and making a fool of himself. But it was only when he picked up a pair of aces and saw another two drop onto the table that he’d started to shake. That was how he knew that the trembling that now coursed through his hands, over his shoulders, and across his cheeks to his lips was a good thing. He held an unbeatable hand.

  As the car ticked over, Avery stared at the black windows of the tatty little house and imagined SL asleep inside it; imagined creeping up the stairs and opening each bedroom door noiselessly so he could stare down at the occupants, until he found SL, lying unwary and weak and at his mercy …

  Avery whimpered and jerked his imagination back from the brink. He was too close to reality to waste effort on speculation. If the worst had come to the worst and he was too late, then maybe he would have to return to 111 Barnstaple Road and take his chances. But for now … The spectre of the carelessness that had ended his divine pastime loomed large over Avery and kept him behind the wheel when he might otherwise have ventured onto the curb, the narrow pavement, through an unfastened window …

  That loss of control had haunted him for eighteen years. He wasn’t going to repeat that mistake.

  He left the village behind quickly and drove out to a farm-access track a few hundred yards beyond it. It was so overgrown that he passed it three times before recognizing the dark tunnel through the hedge and turning in. The Micra bumped and squeaked across the grass and potholes and the paintwork squealed in protest as it was ruined by brambles and blackthorn.

  When he could drive no farther, Avery got out with his bag of new supplies, popped a bottle of water and several cheese-and-tomato sandwiches into it, and walked up onto the moor.

  He was immediately hit by a sensory overload composed of sweet dew-sodden heather and the memory of the soft weight of a boy in his arms. The two-pronged assault left him momentarily faint with excitement and he had to stop and bend over with his hands on his knees until his breathing evened out.

  He had to stay focused. Avery had no illusions about his future. He knew he could not stay on the run for long—especially after what he had planned. While he had worked so hard and waited so long for his legitimate release, he had no experience of—or desire for—the life of a fugitive. After the event, his life would effectively be over. His only objective now was to stay in control long enough to make his fleeting freedom worthwhile.

  Slowly he felt the rush subside, and that control return to him. He knew he would have to be on his guard; the thrill of the moor alone was almost overwhelming. Coupled with the memory of this overgrown track and the possibilities that lay ahead, the sheer effort it took to remain calm brought Avery out in a sweat. His arm tingled and ached where the mystery groove had opened his flesh, and he felt a little light-headed but he ignored it; he thought it looked worse than it was and he didn’t care if he was wrong; it wasn’t going to stop him. Nothing would.

  He started up the hill again. His thoughts battered noisily at the smoked glass of his mind, desperate to be set free and run on ahead like yapping puppies. Avery was almost deafened by the ruckus. He took a deep breath and started to count backwards from a thousand.

  982 … 981 … 980 … 979 …

  He stopped and started again from the top.

  So, concentrating on getting the numbers right, Avery managed to stay in control all the way to Blacklands.

  He found the mound easily.

  There was mist in the valley below, hiding Shipcott, but up here the air was clear and might soon be bright.

  The last of the night had faded and left a pale, blank sky into which the sun crept lazily from under the horizon.

  Avery climbed to the top of the mound and looked down.

  The excitement bubbled up in him and he clenched his knuckles white and ground them into his own thighs to stay sane for a little while longer.

  He wasn’t sure he could do it.

  He whined and bit his lip. His breathing was jagged in his chest and his heart bumped loudly in his ears and sinuses.

  Right here. He was right here. A place he thought he might never be again. Everything was worth it. If they rushed him now and dragged him off the moor on a bed of fire, it would have been worth it—just to stand here and smell the wet heather and the dank earth beneath it.

  Avery tasted blood where his lip leaked into his mouth. He didn’t know how he would stop his head bursting with need, but he knew he had to. He wanted this feeling to last as long as he could make it; knew it could get even better if he were very, very lucky.

  But right now he had to keep a lid on things. He had to get a grip.

  He squeezed his eyes shut to blot out the overwhelming visual stimulation.

  Don’t blow it.

  Don’t blow it.

  Don’t blow it.

  Whining, sweating, and trembling with effort, Avery slowly regained dominion over Exmoor and his own body.

  His whining tapered, he stopped gasping for every breath; his fists loosened, leaving half-moon cuts in his palms like little stigmata.

  He felt the dawn air filling him to bursting with life and self-possession. The sun made him shiver with anticipation, while the first skylark sang his praises.

  When he finally opened his eyes, he felt like god.

  Calm. Patient. Controlled.

  Powerful. Vengeful.

  He spread a plastic bag in a patch of wet white heather and sat gently, feeling the moor embrace him like an old lover.

  And an hour later, when the boys rose up towards him through the mist, Avery’s eyes blurred with the sheer beauty of it all.

  They were like angels emerging from a cloud so he could welcome them into heaven.

  Chapter 37

  “HELLO,” SAID LEWIS.

  “Hello,” said Arnold Avery, serial killer.

  Steven said nothing. What could he say? Hey, Lewis, don’t talk to him—he murdered my uncle Billy …

  Anything Steven said right now would require so much explanation, and so many questions from Lewis, that he wouldn’t be able to think straight. And something told him that this was a point in his life when straight thinking was going to be critical.

  He’d already nearly given himself away, but had looked across the heather just in time, before Avery could see the shock of recognition on his face.

  Now, as he regarded the moor with eyes that saw nothing but dead newsprint children, Steven’s mind spun in pointless overlapping circles. A Venn diagram of confusion. How could this be? This was impossible. Arnold Avery was in prison, not here. Here was where Steven was supposed to be, not Avery. Possibilities far crazier than mere escape raced through his head—a dream, a drug-induced hallucination, a Hollywood body swap, a reality TV show to gauge the reaction of boys meeting their worst nightmare. It took half a second that felt like half a lifetime before he came to the idea of escape and settled there uneasily. It was the worst of the options.

  Gradually the wild rush of adrenaline subsided to manageable levels. His breathing was still uncertain but at least he wasn’t about to soil himself. He glanced back at Avery. It was definitely him. He questioned himself closely on this point—wanting to have made a mistake—but he was sure. Steven supposed that the context and the occasion had primed him to recognize the killer, even though Avery
was the last person he’d expected to see.

  Still, he had the advantage: Avery didn’t know Steven and therefore had no reason to believe that Steven would know him. If he was to maintain that advantage, he had to act normal.

  Taking a deep, shuddery breath, Steven forced his head back around and blinked at the sheer reality of the man who had filled his life for so long, right here, sat above them on a bed of less common white heather, his forearms resting casually on his knees, his jeans rising from his black work boots enough so that Steven could see his cheap blue cotton socks.

  He stared at Avery’s socks and felt an odd sense of wonder.

  Socks were so normal. So mundane. How could someone who pulled on socks in the morning be a serial killer? Socks were not hard or dangerous. Socks were funny; foot mittens, that’s what socks were. They made a knobbly hinge of your toes and became comical sock puppets. Surely anyone who wore socks could not truly be a threat to him or anyone else?

  Steven realized they were both looking at him while he stared at the socks. Lewis looked puzzled and Avery quirked an amused eyebrow at him, as if they shared a secret.

  Which they did, of course.

  Steven reddened. He had to act normal. If Avery had any idea he knew who he was …

  Steven didn’t finish the thought; it was too frightening.

  The silence was a physical thing between them. Avery was used to silence and Steven was reluctant to puncture the stillness until he had some idea of what he might say.

  So it was left to Lewis to take the lead, as always.

  “Nice day.” The perennial favorite of walkers.

  Avery nodded slowly. “So far.”

  Steven shivered and Lewis frowned at him, like he was somehow letting the side down.

  “We’re digging,” offered Lewis, jutting his jaw at Steven’s spade.