Blacklands (19 page)

Under normal circumstances, Avery would have been happy to end the interaction right there. He didn’t crave company or conversation. But now he had a purpose, he knew he needed to make more effort.

And suddenly it
was
an effort. For what seemed like forever, Avery scoured his brain for an opening gambit that would not seem forced. Or suspicious. Or queer. Finally Arnold Avery—serial killer, outsider, freak of nature, observer of no rules but his own—turned his face to the dirty skylights that let grudging daylight into the wing and observed like a commuter: “Fucking awful weather.”

Ellis cocked an eyebrow at him and then glanced upwards, bemused by the observation. “To be out in,” quipped Avery, breaking into a smile.

Ellis got it, thank god, and snorted a small laugh. “Lucky we’re in here, then,” he said, and Avery grinned some more to let Ellis take ownership of the joke. The great ox.

Ellis was new on the block. He might know what to do with the impression of a key made in soap. He might
not
. But he might.

“Arnold,” he offered, extending his right hand like a lawyer at a conference.

“Sean,” said Ellis, his big, rough hand squeezing Avery’s smaller one. Avery didn’t like that—being made to feel small and weak—but he smiled through it.

“Food here is shite,” said Ellis, giving Avery free information. That information was that Ellis hadn’t been here long (which explained why Ellis was speaking to him in the first place) and that Ellis hadn’t been
anywhere
for too long, because prison food was shite wherever you were and that was just a fact. Arnold Avery had stopped mentally whining about prison food so long ago that it was a surprise to him that anyone didn’t have this knowledge knitted into the very fiber of their being like the autopilot of breathing, or of their own sexual preference.

“Shit on tin,” he agreed sociably, happy that Ellis was now leading the conversation. “You got money for the shop?”

The shop sold biscuits and chocolate and fruit at inflated prices that meant a day’s work might yield an overripe banana if you were very lucky.

“Yeah,” said Ellis, “my wife sends me cash.” He reached into his back pocket for a fold of clear plastic laminate which held a photo. He held it out proudly, openly inviting and plainly expecting compliments on his choice of mate.

Avery took the photo from him and studied Mrs. Ellis looking up from an ugly but expensive-looking flock couch. Doe eyed, pale skin. Early thirties. She would have been stunning twenty-five years ago.

He heard Finlay approaching. Those flat feet, those careless keys.

“What have we got here?” said Finlay with mock camaraderie.

“Photo of Sean’s wife, Mr. Finlay.”

“Let’s have a look, then.” Finlay took the photo from Avery’s hand without waiting for permission and squinted at the woman who now starred in his most lurid fantasies.

“Very nice, Ellis,” he said carefully.

“Breathtaking,” added Avery, trying but failing to keep a touch of irony from his voice.

“Yeah, she is,” said Ellis.

Finlay handed the photo back to Ellis and Avery watched the big man’s dark brown eyes soften with a chimplike quality as he stroked a callused thumb across his wife’s face before putting it in his pocket.

“Later, mate,” said Ellis as he turned away and wandered off down the walkway with a slump to his broad shoulders.

“Later,” said Avery, although he despised the ungrammatical.

He didn’t know love but he had a hound’s nose for vulnerability, and he added that to the small but growing collection of information that he’d started hoarding like trinkets.

Finlay winked at Avery. “Wonder who’s nailing her now …”

Avery shrugged and Finlay changed tack—regarding him through what he fondly imagined were cunning eyes.

“Not like you to socialize, Arnold.”

“Just fancied a change, Mr. Finlay.”

“Your shrink’ll be pleased.” Finlay laughed at his own joke, and Avery raised his eyebrows in apparent appreciation. “You ever give your mate that old computer?” The oaf twirled his keys, unaware of how tenuous his grip on personal safety really was.

“Not yet, Mr. Finlay.” Avery gave a very small smile. “But when someone keeps asking for something, you know that eventually you’re going to have to give it to them.”

“That’s very true, Arnold.”

The keys clanked to the floor and he drew in a deep breath as if preparing to dive to a reef to retrieve them.

Avery moved swiftly to scoop them up. He saw a flicker of panic in Finlay’s eyes in the moment before he casually handed them back and turned to gaze down through the safety netting, as if the action had barely registered on him. Beside him he heard Finlay clip his keys to his belt. It didn’t worry him; Finlay was a lazy bastard and the caution wouldn’t last.

“Thank you, Avery.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Finlay.”

Chapter 24

M
IRACULOUSLY, IT TOOK
S
TEVEN AND
U
NCLE
J
UDE ONLY HOURS
to clear years of vegetation and rubbish from the back garden.

Both were stripped to the waist and sweating—Steven wiry and pale, Uncle Jude broad and nut brown.

Steven blew his cheeks out in satisfaction, sweat dribbling into his eyes; he wiped it away, happily aware that he’d left dirt in its place.

Lewis was unimpressed. “What about snipers?” he whined. “There’s nowhere to hide now!”

True to form, Lewis had come round at ten to help clear the back garden, and had proceeded to direct operations through mouth-fuls of Lettie’s cold leftover spaghetti Bolognese which he spooned straight from the Pyrex dish.

Uncle Jude winked at Steven and Steven grinned. Lewis clattered the spoon back into the empty dish.

“I don’t know why you don’t just
buy
some fucking carrots.”

Steven said nothing. Buying carrots did seem like the more sensible option. He felt stupid but also angry with Lewis, so he just kept on digging.

Lewis slid off the low wall. “See you later,” he said coldly.

“Aren’t you going to help dig?” said Steven appeasingly.

“Nah,” said Lewis, “you’re doing it all wrong anyway.”

He disappeared through the back door and Steven frowned after him.

“Don’t mind him,” said Uncle Jude.

So Steven didn’t.

He and Uncle Jude drank from the hose and laughed about stupid things, and when his nan refused to let them in for tea so grubby, they stripped down and marched into the kitchen in bare feet and underpants, making Davey and Lettie laugh. Nan turned away but Steven knew she wasn’t angry—or even mildly annoyed—by the way she didn’t purse her lips or bang the spoon as she dished out the stringy grey stew.

By nightfall he was aching and exhausted but there was a patch of newly turned, newly weeded black earth in the garden, seeded and marked in neat rows with string, and protected from cats and birds by a canopy of chicken wire.

As he drifted off to sleep, Steven thought that his spade had never felt so right in his hands as it had today, and that Arnold Avery and Uncle Billy and the Sheepsjaw Incident seemed like a bad dream he had once had as a very small and distant boy.

Chapter 25

W
HEN
S
EAN
E
LLIS’S HOT WIFE BURST INTO TEARS HE WAS
shocked, then embarrassed by the outburst. He was not a man who liked to show emotion in public. Even when the judge had sentenced him to a minimum of sixteen years, he’d maintained his composure, and had turned to wink reassuringly at his wife as he was taken down to the cells.

Now, as she bawled, his first look was around at his fellow cons to gauge their reactions. When he saw only mild interest, he turned his attention back to his wife, whose name was Hilary.

“Hilly,” he said softly, “what’s up, baby?”

Hilary Ellis bawled harder into her clenched fists, her face becoming hot with emotion, her cheeks streaking with mascara.

“You don’t want me anymore.”

“What?”

“You don’t want me anymore!”

Sean Ellis was confused. He adored his wife. He missed his wife so badly sometimes it hurt. He wanted her—had always wanted her—and had never wanted anybody else since he met her. The torture of being in prison was not his confinement, but the fear that she would gradually drift away from him; that she would start to leave longer and longer gaps between visits; and that one day he would receive, not a visit from his hot wife, but divorce papers from a cold lawyer. The near expectation of those divorce papers had kept Sean Ellis awake at nights for two long years in a way that the faces of a couple of surprised bank tellers had never managed to do. The terror of losing her had even led him to turn in his drug-dealing cellmate—a betrayal that had earned him two years off his sentence, and a swift trip to the VPU where he might have a chance of completing his time in safety.

And here she was, crying that
he
did not want
her!

Sean Ellis was as confused as it’s possible for a man to be—which is very.

“Sweetheart, how can you say that?” He grasped her hands and looked with love and amazement at her red, blotchy, black-streaked face. “I love you! I want you! Of course I do! Are you nuts? Who wouldn’t want you?”

“But the pictures!” she wailed. “You don’t like the pictures! You never say anything about them! You think I’m a whore!”

Conveniently within earshot, Officer Ryan Finlay twirled his keys nervously.
Fuck
.

Ellis pushed tear-dampened hair from his wife’s face and cupped her cheek. “What pictures, baby?”

He listened to her hitching, halting, hiccuping description of the photos she’d been sending him every week since his incarceration, and felt himself move grindingly from confusion to cold, cold fury.

Chapter 26

W
HEN
A
RNOLD
A
VERY’S LATEST LETTER WHISPERED SILENTLY
onto the doormat, Steven was not there to pick it up.

Lettie said she’d make tea and slid quietly out of the warm bed.

She looked in on the boys as she passed the half-open bedroom door. In the flat grey of dawn, Davey was a crooked splay of arms and legs, while Steven was pressed against the wall, flat and out of the way in the too-small Spider-Man pajamas she’d bought him for last Christmas. They were halfway up his shins, and the top and bottoms no longer met, exposing a pale slice of skin and the vague knobs of the base of his spine. The sheet and duvet were in a haphazard bundle at Davey’s feet.

Only the kitchen clock kept company with the sound of the two boys’ quiet breathing and Lettie felt a small electric tingle pass through her like the ghost of love.

At the foot of the stairs she picked up the post, mentally sighing at all the little windows.

Nan was in the kitchen pouring the last of a pint of milk over two Weetabix.

“I didn’t hear you,” said Lettie, unreasonably put out that she was no longer alone.

“Couldn’t sleep,” said Nan.

Lettie put the kettle on and sifted through the bills. The only envelope without a window was a flimsy brown one addressed to SL, 111 Barnstaple Road, Shipcott, Exmoor, Somerset. Must be for Steven.