Blacklands: A Novel

by Belinda Bauer

“So someone like that gets sent to a cushy nick like this and he does a bit of woodwork and you write your little reports and block up his window and he keeps his nose clean and says, ‘Yes, Dr. Leaver,’ and ‘No, Dr. Leaver,’ but at the end of the day it all means nothing because we’re like a fucking hospital. We just have to patch ‘em up and kick ’em out because we need the beds.”

  Hoping to prod Leaver into a response, Finlay had only succeeded in getting all red in the face. He glared at Leaver now but the doctor calmly watched Avery until he’d disappeared from view through the double doors. Then for the first time Leaver turned and looked directly at Finlay—and for the first time the prison officer looked into the eyes that had sought light in the black souls of a thousand twisted killers, and felt a chill straight out of a bad horror film.

  “Oh, we’ll always have a bed for Arnold Avery.” Leaver smiled emptily. “He’s going nowhere.”

  Chapter 27

  FATHER’S DAY IN LEWIS’S HOUSEHOLD WAS NOT A BIG DEAL. Lewis often forgot and when he did, his mother would produce a random card for Lewis to scribble in and present along with a fumbled, jumbled mumble of awkward feelings. Sometimes she had to scribble in it herself because Lewis forgot. Sometimes she forgot too—and then when the day came round, it had to be enough that the thought counted. Even if that thought rarely came before midmorning when Radio 2 would start to play Father’s Day dedications and Lewis’s dad had to pretend it was enough for him just to be at home with his wife and son.

  Lewis went straight to the magazines while Steven looked over the paltry selection of Father’s Day cards in Mr. Jacoby’s shop. If he were going to buy one—which he wasn’t, of course—which would it be? Racing cars? Pints of foaming beer? Dirty cartoons? There was one with a flowerpot, a spade, and a carelessly discarded pair of gardening gloves, but Steven thought it looked like an old man’s card and Uncle Jude was not an old man.

  He also wasn’t Steven’s father.

  The thought brought with it a sad pang, poorly concealed by a hurried jab of faked carelessness that felt tinny and hollow in his heart.

  “You getting a Father’s Day card?”

  Lewis looked up at him vacantly from BMX Monthly, even though he didn’t have a BMX and was an overcautious rider of the smart new bike he did have.

  “Shit. Suppose so. Chuck one over, will you?”

  “Which one?”

  “Any one.”

  Steven eyed the cards again more carefully. None of them seemed to suit Lewis’s dad. There wasn’t a card with a crossword or a cardigan on it. He finally decided on the foaming beer because he had once seen Lewis’s dad going into the Red Lion and because he could remember opening Lewis’s mother’s well-stocked fridge to get them each a Kit Kat, and seeing a six-pack of Bud Light. It had stuck in his mind because it had seemed a very American thing for Lewis’s dad to drink. Very sporty.

  “This okay?”

  “Yeah,” said Lewis, not looking at it. “Lend us two quid, will you?”

  “I haven’t got two quid.”

  Lewis looked at the price on the back of the card.

  “One twenty, then. My mum’ll pay you back.”

  Steven only got two pounds a week pocket money. Sometimes not even that if the gas meter needed feeding.

  He sighed and rummaged in his pocket. Over the years Lewis had borrowed what felt like hundreds of pounds from him and never paid a single penny back. Steven had brought it up once and Lewis had told him not to be so tight.

  “I’ve only got one fifty.”

  “That’ll do.”

  Lewis paid Mr. Jacoby and pocketed the thirty pence change.

  Avery had no idea it was Father’s Day until an excited ripple came back down the breakfast queue that they were having kippers.

  The news reached the man ahead of him, who turned around, saw Avery was behind him, closed down his face, and turned back towards the steaming trays and the echoes of metal on metal. And so the chain of information broke right there and all the men beyond Avery were deprived of the anticipation of a rare treat.

  “What’s up?” said Ellis with no great interest.

  “Use your nose, Ellis!” Ryan Finlay laughed at his own joke. He had to because no one else did.

  “Kippers,” said Avery.

  “What?”

  “We’re having kippers.”

  “What for?”

  “Father’s Day.”

  Ellis had already picked up porridge at the first serving counter. Now Avery observed Ellis watching Finlay as he strolled down the line. As usual, Finlay twirled his keys on his porky fingers like a doomed gunslinger, then turned and headed back towards them.

  Avery’s pale eyes flickered with interest between Ryan Finlay and Ellis, who had taken to focusing his slightly vacant gaze on Finlay whenever he caught sight of him.

  Ellis had been a waste of time as far as the keys were concerned. In fact, even the soap was giving up on the plan, and had shrunk to the point where it was more scum than solid matter. Avery was seriously considering abandoning the soap molds as a failed experiment.

  Anyway.

  Since all that hoo-ha with his slag wife, Ellis had done nothing but brood. Avery had done his utmost to jolly him out of it but the man was stuck in a loop of wondering about Ryan Finlay. Did he take the photos? Did he keep them? Would he give them back? What did Avery think he did with them? Should he demand their return? Avery regretted ever having said anything to him about Finlay stealing the photos. All it had done was make the only con who would speak to him useless, boring, and time-consuming. As with the soap, Avery was about ready to give Ellis up as a bad job.

  But now, with nothing to do but shuffle towards his promised kippers—and with Finlay almost level with them once more—he thought it might be fun to poke the bear with a stick.

  “You got kids, Sean?”

  Ellis looked vacantly at Avery. “What?”

  “Father’s Day,” said Avery slowly, as if to a child. “Have you got kids? You and Hilly?”

  “No,” said Ellis.

  Something started to swell in the ocean of Ellis’s brain.

  “Shame,” said Avery.

  “Yeah,” said Ellis, frowning into his porridge but not seeing it.

  Avery sighed heavily and then spoke carefully into the silence between them …

  “Probably never will now.”

  And suddenly, the fact that he’d been in prison for two years—and would be for at least another twelve—hit Sean Ellis like an anvil in the heart and sucked all the air from his chest like two-year-old shock.

  For a moment he swayed slightly, his eyes blank and his mouth slack, holding up the breakfast line.

  Ryan Finlay twirled his keys and said: “Hurry it up, Ellis!”—blissfully unaware that it was the last thing he’d ever say.

  Sean Ellis swung his tin tray into Finlay’s face. The tray was not heavy and the porridge bowl was made of plastic, but the power of Ellis’s sheer fury behind it felled the officer like a dumpy tree, blood jetting from his nose like water from a trick flower.

  There was a second—not even that long—when it could have gone either way. Men could have stood and watched Sean Ellis beat Ryan Finlay with his tray, porridge flying like mud, until the other screws pulled him off.

  Or all hell could have broken loose.

  And—after the briefest of moments—that was the way it went.

  The prisoners abandoned kippers, broke ranks, and dived onto Finlay. The dozen guards, who—just moments before—had been picking their noses in boredom, ran to help, batons flailing—like a poorly trained pub football team losing its shape because they were all chasing the ball.

  Some prisoners turned on them, others turned on one another—seizing the opportunity to settle old scores fast and hard and without the tiresome exchange of tobacco and sexual favors.

  Whistles were blown and screams of “Lockdown! Lockdown!” rang out in panicky voices as the sound of hatred, clanging trays, an
d overturned Formica tables echoed through the building.

  Avery adapted so fast he’d have blown a hole straight through Darwinism. Before Ryan Finlay even hit the ground, his thoughts spun from kippers and Ellis to the image of SL captured in tiny focus in the wing mirror of a car. As the other cons piled on top of Finlay, he dropped his tray over the keys which had tumbled docilely from the officer’s hand.

  Nobody saw. Nobody cared. Everybody else was fighting.

  You see, thought Avery calmly, this is why I don’t belong in here with all the stupid people.

  Then he bent to pick up his tray, sweeping the keys along with it until he was beyond the melee, and stooping casually to scoop them up.

  Despite all attention being focused elsewhere, and his own calm exterior, Avery knew he had to act fast. At any moment the guards could regain control of the kitchen and the opportunity would be lost. Even worse, the guards might not regain control of the kitchen.

  Child killers were considered by the scum of the earth to be the scum of the earth, and if the violence escalated Avery knew that a good proportion of it would be directed at him and others like him.

  Although he understood that speed was of the essence, Avery took a moment to look around. The civilian kitchen staff had disappeared behind the serving counters and through the KITCHEN STAFF ONLY door.

  Avery swung himself over the counter and dropped down behind it to give himself another moment of contemplation.

  He’d never been behind the serving counter. He glanced around him and saw he’d landed in a small pool of porridge, which had spattered his shoe. It was only a prison-issue black shoe, but Avery kept his stuff nice and irritation stabbed through him at the mess. He looked around for a cloth and saw old chips and bits of carrot under the counter. He grimaced; if he’d known how filthy this place was he’d never have eaten anything they gave him.

  He grabbed something white from a low shelf under the counter, which turned out to be a chef’s tunic.

  He was genuinely torn for a second between putting it on and wiping his shoe with it, but finally pulled off his grey Longmoor jersey with its royal blue strips on the ribbing, and dressed in the tunic.

  Moving the tunic had revealed a box of chocolate bars on the low shelf. Twix. Avery wasn’t a chocolate person but he grabbed a half dozen bars and jammed them into the pockets of his jeans.

  He also noticed another little pile of whiteness. Hats. Nasty paper hats that made the men and the women serving behind the counters all look like hairless, sexless cancer victims. Made them all look the same …

  Quickly he pulled one on, yanking it down low on his face before sliding it back to drag his hair off his forehead. He peered into the dull stainless steel cupboard door and saw a dough-faced nobody looking back at him. The dough-face broke into a brief, tense grin.

  Then, before standing up, Avery used his jersey to wipe the porridge off his shoe.

  He stood up, staying low so that anyone glancing in his direction would see only the top of the white hat above the countertop, and slid swiftly through the KITCHEN STAFF ONLY door. He was surprised to find it unlocked. This was a prison, for god’s sake! Did they really think a sign saying KITCHEN STAFF ONLY was a deterrent? If that had been the case then half the population of Longmoor would probably be free men, never having contravened a single TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED or WE ALWAYS SHOP SHOPLIFTERS sign. Christ, if it were that simple, they’d all have kept off the bloody grass and this place would be empty.

  Despite his predicament, Avery couldn’t help smiling as he considered what effect might have been produced on him if his neighborhood had been posted with signs reading DO NOT KILL SMALL CHILDREN.

  He turned round and doused his smirk as he saw the terrified civilian cooks and porters huddled against the far wall by the exit door, looking at him with scared suspicion. Immediately he turned against the door he’d just come through, seeking a lock and finding none.

  “Where’s the lock?” he said urgently.

  “Doesn’t have one,” said an acned boy whom Avery strongly suspected of snotting in his mustard pot. The boy didn’t look so smug now, thought Avery happily. His acne had flared with terror and his bottom lip trembled.

  “Help me block the bloody door before the whole lot come through it!”

  Avery grabbed a metal tray trolley and slid it against the door. He knew it was useless but this was just for show. A chubby middle-aged woman whose name tag read “Evelyn” bustled over, apparently having made the decision that Avery was to be helped on the basis that her enemy’s enemy was her friend.

  Together they tugged and strained to move a chest freezer across the doorway. Halfway through the task, four or five of the dozen or so staff hurried over to help.

  Once the freezer was in place, there was a pause, and Avery knew they were suspicious of him all over again.

  His mind raced and pinged for the way to play this, and he was grateful it had been recently exercised.

  He had three things on his side: first, civilian kitchen staff was a revolving-door job, he knew. He could only remember seeing Zit-boy and Evelyn before today—the others had not been at the prison long enough to register on his consciousness. Secondly, he was an unremarkable-looking man, and would not stand out in any crowd, let alone a crowd of men all dressed in grey and blue jerseys. And even if they did know him because of who he was, the tunic and, more importantly, the hairnet cum cap was a disguise that neutralized the features of anyone who wore it.

  The final point in his favor was that, apart from Zit-boy and an elderly man so bent that he looked like a circus monkey in his baggy checked trousers, they were all women. And fuck women’s lib, he knew that women were still less likely to challenge a man than most men were. Clinging to these truths, he puffed out his cheeks in mock relief and looked them all in the eye.

  “Nice day to start a new job!”

  “Yeah, shit,” said Zit-boy shakily.

  The others looked only slightly mollified. They were exchanging guarded looks and Avery realized he was going to have to keep moving if he wanted to get through this.

  He produced the keys. “Anyone know which one opens that door?”

  There was a ripple of relief.

  “Where’d you get those?” asked the chimp suspiciously.

  “One of the guards. Told me to get everyone the hell out of here.” As he spoke, Avery walked to the exit door and started trying the keys.

  “What happened to him?” said the chimp, jerking his head back towards the sound of the riot.

  “God knows,” said Avery with feeling. “I’m only interested in what happens to all of us.”

  It was a masterstroke. The kitchen staff still didn’t trust him, he could tell, but they now clustered around their only chance of escape like eager day-old chicks, prepared to risk following him as long as it was away from the sounds of mayhem that rang in their ears. The lesser of two evils, Avery thought with a little smile. It might be the only time in his life that even that derisory title would be accorded him.

  The fourth key turned the lock with a satisfying click, and Avery stood back politely to let everyone else through first. Now they started to nod at him and mutter “Thanks” as they passed. Only the monkey still looked chagrined at being released.

  A thump on the door behind them hurried them all through, and Avery locked the exit door.

  Evelyn was bustling ahead and as he hurried to catch up a half dozen guards hurtled past them. Avery recognized all of them, but their eyes slid over him in his white kitchen tunic and hat as though he were invisible.

  He knew that the kitchen staff would not allow him to walk out of the front gate with them. Once they were safely surrounded by guards who were not panic-stricken and running, someone—probably the monkey—would voice his suspicions.

  That was why, as they passed A-wing, Arnold Avery quietly slipped off the back of the group, stripped off the tunic and hat, stuffed them behind a large flowering shrub that he
didn’t know the name of, then headed for the chain-link fence.

  Rumor had it that the chain-link was under such high tension that a spade jammed into it with enough force would split it open like a popped paper bag. Avery didn’t believe that rumor. And he didn’t have to. He had the keys to the kingdom.

  Just before D-wing he passed In memory of Toby Dunstan. Two screws were hurrying his way and Avery knew that trying to hide anything from a screw was the quickest way to get stopped, questioned, and searched. So he made sure that they’d seen him clock them before he picked up the bench and—with difficulty—hoisted it onto his shoulder.

  “Stealing that, Avery?” said one as they hurried by, their suspicions allayed by the boldness of his move.