Belinda Bauer - Blacklands

Steven watched Lewis close the distance between himself and Arnold Avery. He held his breath as Lewis reached for the sandwich. His warning shout caught in his throat as Lewis’s hand almost touched Avery’s.

Nothing happened except that Lewis got a sandwich. Steven grunted in relief.

Avery looked at him now, holding out another sandwich.

This was it. This was the moment when Steven had to decide. To take the killer’s sandwich, or to fling aside his spade, turn, and run back down the moor to home.

It was Barnstaple all over again. Without Lewis, he could have run. Taken Avery by surprise and outdistanced him. The man was fifteen feet away, and seated. Steven could have thirty yards on him before he stood up and started running. He was fast and had no doubt that fear would make him faster.

But with Lewis? Lewis was eating the man’s sandwich; if he suddenly yelled a warning and turned tail, Lewis would be confused. He wouldn’t run. And even if he did run, he wouldn’t realize he was running for his life. The very act of running would tell Avery that Steven had recognized him.

Even if Avery didn’t catch him, he’d catch Lewis for sure. And Steven couldn’t leave Lewis in the hands of a serial killer.

Steven throbbed with guilt at his own stupidity. He had baited a trap for Avery and fallen into it himself. Now he felt wholly responsible for Lewis’s safety as well as his own.

No, running was not an option.

So Steven willed his legs to move, forced his hands to reach, ordered his lips to mumble “Thank you” as he took the other sandwich from the man he now knew planned to kill him.

THE SANDWICH WAS CHEESE AND TOMATO. STEVEN GRIMACED AT the first bite but swallowed anyway, not wanting to provoke Avery.

Lewis’s defenses were down now that he was eating again. He told Avery about the moor—making up what he wasn’t sure of—and Avery nodded and listened and asked pertinent questions.

Steven was dimly aware of Lewis swelling proudly under Avery’s attention. Some part of him felt sick at the ease with which Avery made Lewis relax and open up to him.

But most of him—all the important parts—were churning with a million flashing images: biro crosses on a map; a single white pixel of buckteeth; the Lego space station in the gloomy blue bedroom; the smell of the earth; the taste of it in his mouth; the tooth wobbling in the sheep’s jaw; running across the moor with his heart in his mouth; legs kicking through an open van window; his nan waiting. Forever waiting.

And this was the image that finally stopped the crazy spinning in his head. His nan waiting for Billy, and waiting for him. He’d wanted so much to put an end to her misery, but he was only going to make it worse. Arnold Avery was going to kill him and then his nan would be waiting for both of them forever, and his mother would become his nan at the window, waiting as she had, even after Nan was dead.

And Davey? What would happen to Davey? Davey wasn’t used to being ignored but he would be, and he had nobody else in the world who loved him. All of the people who loved him would be gone—or as good as.

Steven felt sick.

He’d fucked up. Fuck. He’d fucked up. He was a stupid fuck. Fuck.

“Fuck” was not a big or bad enough word for what he was, but it would have to do for now. What had made him think he could do this? He was so stupid he deserved to be murdered, but he felt bad for Nan and Mum and Davey and Lewis.

Then he remembered what he was here for. Why he’d started this in the first place. And why he couldn’t leave now…

He shuddered at the horror of that truth.

“Cold?”

Steven jerked as Avery spoke, and realized he was shaking.

“Yeah.” He was also gripping his sandwich so tight that his fingers had gone through the bread and he could feel the hated wet tomato like slime on his fingertips.

“Want a jumper?”

Avery took off the pale green cardigan and Steven noticed it matched his strange, washed-out eyes. The last eyes Uncle Billy ever looked into.

His throat closed and he made another attempt before he could squeeze out: “No.”

Avery regarded him coolly and Steven looked at his messed-up sandwich, feeling his cheeks burn under the scrutiny.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Avery’s right hand loosen from the cardigan and move towards him. He watched the goose-bumps stand up on the flesh of his own arm, and then the gentle touch of the man’s finger on his cheek.

“You have butter on your face.”

Steven’s stomach rolled and he burped softly and remembered that he’d eaten tomato.

Remembered Yasmin Gregory’s Tuesday knickers.

Remembered that what the newspaper referred to vaguely as “bodily fluids” disgusted Avery.

Hand shaking, and already slightly queasy, Steven braced himself and took another bite of sandwich.

Avery withdrew his hand and licked the butter off his forefinger with a quick pink tongue.

“What happened to your arm?”

Lewis was staring at the blood on Avery’s torn shirtsleeve, which he’d exposed by taking off the cardigan. Avery looked down at it and felt another pang of self-loathing. He was so careless! What was he thinking? Being reminded of his arm also made him feel woozy and tired. He hadn’t lost a lot of blood but the arm throbbed more now than it had yesterday. Perhaps it was becoming infected. It was bad, bad luck. Just when he wanted—needed—to be at the top of his game physically as well as mentally. And now the freckled boy was staring at it—only curious right now, but Avery knew that curiosity was a microstep from suspicion and fear and flight.

Or attempted flight.

Inwardly he grinned at a slew of memories of attempted flight and gathered inner strength from those.

“Got it caught on barbed wire coming up here,” he told Lewis.

Lewis nodded slowly. The sandwich had made him forget that he’d felt uneasy about Avery, but now that his mouth had done its work his brain was re-engaging—and something about the barbed wire story didn’t ring true. Not least the fact that there was no barbed wire on the moor. Surrounding farms had barbed wire, sure, but he couldn’t think of a nearby route onto the moor where anyone would have to negotiate anything more than a stone or wooden stile.

He got up and wiped his hands on his jeans.

“Thanks, mate,” he said. Then he looked at Steven: “We should go.”

Steven chewed, hating every second, then swallowed big chunks, his eyes watering.

“You go,” he said.

“Huh?”

“You go,” he said quickly, before he could lose his nerve. “I’ll stay.”

Lewis gave a confused laugh and glanced at Avery, who was looking at Steven with an odd expression on his face.

Steven was white, with two burning patches high on his cheeks, his eyes fixed on his sandwich. Lewis noticed he was trembling. He also noticed that the sandwich Steven was eating had tomato in it. As he watched, Steven took another bite and sloppily sucked a bit of errant tomato into his mouth.

Something was very wrong with his friend.

“C’mon, Steve!” He laughed again but it sounded so odd to his own ears that he cut it short, leaving a strained silence in its wake.

He’d been engrossed in his own sandwich but now he saw that Avery was squeezing the green cardigan between his hands, twisting and crushing it, his knuckles white with tension. His vague sense of unease became an ache in his belly.

“C’mon, you divvy. I got to be back soon.” It wasn’t true, of course, but Lewis suddenly felt the overwhelming need to be at home.

Steven hurled what was left of his sandwich at Lewis, hitting him in the chest.