What had happened to him? Where had he gone?
Hot on self-pity’s heels came an anger so intense that it struck Steven an almost physical blow. He threw up an arm as if he could ward it off. The anger was blinding. In a single violent motion Steven rolled onto his knees and tore at the heather and grass, ripping up great handfuls, gouging the soil with his fingernails, slapping the sodden turf. He beat and flailed and kicked and pounded as the heather flicked rain at him. A high whining sound in the back of his throat was punctuated by little mewling breaths that kept him alive for this one purpose—to assault the very planet.
When Steven next had a conscious thought he was kneeling with his forehead on the ground, prostrate before nature. There was scrub in his fists and in his mouth, as if he’d tried to chew through the Earth.
He sat up slowly and looked at the feeble inroad his hysteria had made into the moor. A few scattered clumps of uprooted grass; heather torn from its stalks, now dying on the ground, a couple of small, muddy exposed patches fast filling with water. It was nothing. Less than nothing. An Exmoor pony pawing for winter grass, a deer lying down to sleep, a sheep squatting to shit would have left more of a mark than Steven had in all his fury.
He stood up shakily into the white sky. His spade was where he had dropped it aeons ago; his lunch box and map nearby—alien artifacts that had no meaning for him in this end-of-the-world fog.
He turned to go but had no idea where he was. Ten feet in any direction was as far as he could see, and then there was nothing. Something far back in his ordinary boy’s mind stopped him from stumbling blindly into the swirling void. He had been caught on the moor before like this, enveloped by fog and wholly lost. This whiteness sneaked up on you, even on a sunny day out of a blue sky. Two years ago he’d sat beside an empty grave for three hours in total whiteout before summer reemerged and he could find his way home.
The memory pulled Steven back to something like normality and he had the sense to stay where he was.
He was cold, but he’d been colder. He was wet, but he’d been wetter. He wasn’t hungry—yet. He wasn’t injured and, as long as he didn’t walk stupidly into the fog, that should remain the case.
He glanced down at his spade and it seemed familiar to him once more. Not lovely, but at least familiar.
The rain was coming down again and Steven upended his lunch box and put it on his head. The rain that was gently cushioned by the heather turned into a tin-roof rattle on his skull.
Being still would only make him colder. With reluctance, he leaned down and picked up the spade. He found the place where the first sliver of ground had been broken and dug the spade in again. It was a halfhearted effort, but his next strike was better and, by the fourth, Steven was back in a rhythm.
By the time the hole was half dug, Steven knew he would carry on, even when the point was not merely to keep himself warm.
Digging had given his life purpose. It was a small, feeble purpose and was unlikely to end in anything more than a gradual tapering off into nothingness.
But purpose was something, wasn’t it?
A small, mean voice somewhere nagged that it meant nothing. It all meant nothing.
But there was another, stronger voice in Steven. It had no answers, only another question, but it was this question that kept him digging until well after an unseen sun set in the invisible sky.
If it all meant nothing, why did it matter so much?
Chapter 13
“STEVEN! BREAKFAST!”
“I’m coming!” Steven’s hands shook as he opened the letter from the serial killer.
Steven turned the page over with trembling hands and held it up to the light. Nothing. The paper was cheap and thin—no impressions could have been scored into it. He turned the toilet light on, but there was no mark on the reverse of the letter.
Steven frowned. What was the point of Avery writing back if he was not going to help him? Avery’s previously neat and even handwriting had been replaced by an uneven script, dashed off carelessly, using inappropriate capital letters.
“STEVEN!!”
“COMING!!”
From his reading he knew that serial killers liked to play games—first with their victims and then with the police. They liked to show off. From what he could tell, that was how most of them were caught. If they were caught.
Maybe Avery just liked getting letters and was tempting him to keep writing.
But then surely he would make more of an effort to lure his correspondent into a reply this time?
Steven couldn’t work out whether thanking him for his “great letter” was sarcastic or not. He’d be the first to admit that his letter had not been top-drawer stuff, but if Avery had found and understood the clue, then maybe he thought that
Steven jumped as the toilet door banged open. His mother was red in the face from running upstairs.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Mum! I’m on the toilet!”
Lettie looked down at him. “With your trousers up? I’ve been yelling at you for ten minutes!”
She noticed the letter in his left hand.
“What’s that?”
Steven reddened and folded it. “Nothing.” He looked at his mother and saw an expression of flinty patience come over her face. She wasn’t going to let it go.
“Just a letter.”
“Who from?”
Steven writhed under her stare.
“Give it here.”
She held out her hand.
Steven didn’t move but when Lettie reached down and took the letter from him, he didn’t have the guts to actively resist her.
Lettie unfolded the letter and read it. She was quiet for a lot longer than it could possibly have taken to read it, and Steven looked up at her apprehensively. Lettie was staring at the letter as if it contained hidden instructions on how she should react. She turned it over briefly and Steven thanked god that AA had not scored a map into the reverse.
After what seemed like aeons, Lettie suddenly handed it back to him.
“Come down right now.”
Steven was stunned. He followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen, where a bowl of Cheerios softened in the milk.
Nan folded her arms and glared at him.
“Where was he, then?”
“In the loo.”
Nan snorted as if she knew what boys his age did in the loo and it had very little to do with what any decent person would be doing in there. Steven started to redden at the mere thought and Nan snorted again—her lowest expectations confirmed.
“Oh, leave him alone, Mum.”
