Belinda Bauer - Blacklands

There was little heather on Dartmoor, just prickled gorse and sheep-shorn yellow grass. There was no gentle beauty and purple haze.

Dartmoor was not Exmoor, but Avery would still have liked to watch the seasons change from his narrow window.

But his window had been blocked on the orders of his prison psychiatrist, Dr. Leaver, who theorized that even visual contact with the moors would be counterproductive to his attempts to purify Arnold Avery’s psyche.

Avery’s bile rose in his throat along with the hatred and fury he now reserved exclusively for Dr. Leaver and Officer Finlay.

It amazed him that Leaver couldn’t understand that this was Dartmoor, and so held nothing but a passing aesthetic interest for him. The fact that both were moors was apparently sufficient reason for Leaver—a cadaverous man in his fifties—to decree the blocking of the window, which left Avery depressed and mopey, even in the summer months.

The terrible catch-22 he faced was that Leaver was half right. While he was mistaken in thinking that Avery gave inordinate weight to the moor he might have seen from his window, Avery would only have been able to convince him of that fact by revealing the truly awesome weight he gave any idea, sight, or mention of Dartmoor’s smaller, prettier, more gentle cousin on the north coast of the peninsula.

If Leaver—or anyone else—had had any idea that merely hearing someone say the word “Exmoor” could give him a daylong erection, his paltry privileges would have been suspended faster than Guy Fawkes from a rope.

Avery had never killed an adult but he knew he could kill Dr. Leaver. The man’s monstrous ego was fed by the power he held over the inmates he counselled. Avery was not empathetic, but he recognized his own sense of superiority in Leaver within five minutes of settling in for their first session together. It was like glimpsing his own reflection in a mirror.

He knew that Leaver was clever. He knew that Leaver liked to show off how clever he was—especially in an environment where he had every right to feel that way. After all, any con who was smarter than Leaver had, at the very least, to concede that they’d fucked up badly enough to get caught.

Avery had no problem with Leaver flaunting his intellect. A man who had a talent should use it; a footballer played football, a juggler juggled, a clever man outwitted others. It was Darwinian.

In Leaver’s presence, Avery was a bright man who had flashes of intellectual connection that made him a cut above the run-of-the-mill burglar cum barroom brawler. Clever enough to interest Leaver but never clever enough to alert him or threaten his ego.

He asked Leaver’s advice and always deferred to Leaver’s decisions, even if they had an adverse effect on him. The boarding up of his window was a case in point. When Leaver had suggested it might help, Avery had suppressed the urge to tear the man’s throat out with his teeth and had instead pursed his lips and nodded slowly, as if he were examining the idea from every conceivable angle, but with the best of intentions. Then he’d sighed to show that it was a regrettable necessity—but a necessity nonetheless.

Leaver had smiled and made a note that Arnold Avery knew would bring him closer to the real life waiting for him outside these walls.

The benches were another step on the freedom ladder. But the benches were enjoyable to make. And had the immense added attraction of the nameplates…

Avery stroked the wood under his dry hands and reached for a shiny brass plate with a screw hole in each corner.

“Can I have a screwdriver please, Officer?”

Andy Ralph eyed him suspiciously—like he hadn’t used a screwdriver a thousand times before without running amok—then handed Avery the Phillips-head screwdriver.

“Flathead please, Mr. Ralph.”

Ralph took back the Phillips and gave him the flathead, even more suspiciously.

Avery ignored him. Idiot.

He looked down at the plate in his hand and smiled as he remembered the scene of what had been—until SL’s letters—the greatest power trip since his incarceration…

“I hear you’re building benches, Arnold.”

“Yes, Dr. Leaver.”

“How do you enjoy that?”

“Good. I like it. It’s very satisfying.”

“Good. Good.” Leaver nodded sagely as if he were personally responsible for Avery’s upped satisfaction quotient.

“Thing is…, ” started Avery, then stopped and licked his lips nervously.

“What?” said Leaver, suddenly interested.

“I was thinking.”

“Yes?”

Avery shifted in his seat and cracked his knuckles—the picture of a man struggling with a great dilemma. Leaver gazed at him calmly. He had all the time in the world.

“I was thinking…” Now Avery dropped his voice so it was almost a whisper, and looked down at his own scuffed black shoes as he continued haltingly. “I was thinking maybe I could put a little brass plaque on my benches. Not the shitty one I made first, but some of the other ones. The good ones.”

“Yes?”

Avery scraped a match under his fingernails, even though they were already clean.

“With names on.”

His voice disappeared in the whisper and he dared not look at Leaver, who now leaned forward in his seat (to give the illusion that he was part of a conspiracy—Avery knew the moves).

“Names?”

“The… names…”

Avery could only nod mutely, staring at his lap—and hope that Leaver was even now imagining that tears filled the killer’s eyes—and that he had cottoned on to what he was trying to say.

Leaver slowly straightened up again, clicking the top of his Parker pen.

Avery wiped his sleeve across his bowed face, knowing it would add to the illusion of a man in personal hell, and Leaver fell for it, hook, line, and psycho-sinker.

The fucking moron.

Avery screwed the brass plate to his best bench yet and stood back to admire his work.

Oh, his benches were his ticket out of here all right. But they were also tickets to previously unimagined pleasure while he was still stuck in this grimy hellhole.

Now his benches graced the yard and walkways that already evidenced the work of other prisoners, with their foolproof flowerbeds and neat verges. And every time he was allowed out for exercise, Avery made a beeline for one of them.

Other prisoners made benches. Other prisoners now started to put little plaques on them, most with the names of their children or lovers or mothers.

But Avery had no interest in sitting on other benches. He luxuriated against the plaque IN MEMORY OF MILLY LEWIS-CRUPP; he pressed JOHN ELLIOT, AGED 7 with a thumb he’d rubbed dirty just for the occasion; and, on one memorable afternoon, he rubbed himself discreetly against the back of a bench while staring at the brass words:

And while he did, a large part of him savoured the delicious irony. He was way too smart to show Leaver just how clever he really was.

Or how angry.

Or how desperate to hear from SL.

Despite his newfound control and patience, Avery could not help wondering whether he’d done the right thing in not replying to SL’s last demanding missive.

For the first two weeks after he’d received the bald “WP?” he’d enjoyed knowing that SL was waiting for something that he, Arnold Avery, wasn’t going to give him. That had been satisfying and empowering, and Avery had been energized by the experience.

The next two weeks had been more difficult. While his self-satisfaction continued to some degree, he also missed anticipating SL’s reply to any letter he might have sent. He had to keep reminding himself that he was doing the right thing. But his resolve was tested and he started to wonder if SL had given up. People had no staying power, he worried. Avery had staying power, but he was exceptional. SL had been impatient, so maybe he had also been angry or frustrated or just tired of the sport. The thought that SL might not realize that he was now required to make a concession to appease Avery scared him.