Belinda Bauer - Blacklands

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.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Priddy!” he replied smartly and snapped a salute.

Both men laughed but didn’t stop.

There were no alarms. Alarms only stirred up the other prisoners. Escapes, riots, fights—all these were only evidenced by crackling radios, red, sweaty screw-faces, and the unusual sound of running feet as reinforcements flooded the affected area.

Avery set the bench down fifty yards away beside one of the four gates.

He walked—although he wanted to run—to the back of E-wing where Yasmin Gregory’s bench was. He passed two other benches on the way, but they weren’t his. He knew it was stupid and that he’d blame himself if he failed, but he wanted—needed—to do this.

He staggered back to the gate with the YG bench and, with a surprisingly steady hand, he pulled Finlay’s keys from his pocket.

The first one worked, and Avery knew that fate was smiling down on him.

Two benches, each six feet long. One wall, twelve feet high.

It was meant to be.

He dragged the benches through and locked the gate behind him, then put Toby on top of Yasmin and tentatively tested their balance and strength by shaking the tower of wood.

Toby had been the second bench he’d made and was not as strong as Yasmin, which was the fifth. But both were strong enough.

After a couple of false starts where his weight threw the balance off and he teetered dangerously, Arnold Avery scaled the wooden tower named for his child victims, kicked them away without even glancing behind him, and then dropped carefully from the top of the wall onto the wide-open expanse of Dartmoor.

STEVEN PEELED OFF HIS SOCKS AND STEPPED GINGERLY INTO HIS cold, wet trainers outside the back door.