Blacklands

say for sure that they were murdered? And murdered by one hand?

Arnold Avery had been convicted of six murders. Plus Uncle Billy. Plus … who knew how many? How many lay undiscovered in shallow graves? How many through the whole of history? Did he crush their bones underfoot as he walked home? Did their eyeless skulls peer down at him when he explored the old mines at Brendon Hills? Steven shivered and prodded the map out of alignment. As he carefully covered Johannesburg with Johannesburg again …

“Oh!”

Kids around him sniggered and Mrs. James looked up from marking papers.

“Something you want to share, Steven?”

But Steven had used the last of his breath to push out the exclamation, and had not yet been able to draw another.

The line Steven copied was even more crooked than it should have been. His hands shook; his whole body fluttered in a mixture of excitement and fear.

He pushed the AA Road Atlas away from him so hard that it slid off the old Formica kitchen table and broke its spine as it landed open on the floor. Steven didn’t even notice. This was not the first time he’d used the atlas. Then he’d copied the outline of Exmoor onto a sheet of artist’s paper to send to Arnold Avery. This time he’d captured it on tracing paper. The border was marked again, and Shipcott.

The TV was on in the front room but Steven still looked suspiciously down the hallway before unfolding Avery’s letter and smoothing it down on the table. He placed the tracing paper over the letter, with the “S” and “L” of “SincereLy” over the dot that was Shipcott. His heart thumped in his ears; “Your Great,” YG, and “TiDe,” TD, were both northeast of Shipcott towards Dunkery Beacon.

Avery was showing him the graves of Yasmin Gregory and Toby Dunstan.

He’d cracked the code.

Chapter 14

 

LETTIE LAMB CLEANED THE BIG HOUSE AND THOUGHT ABOUT HER elder son for the first time in a long time.

Of course, she thought about him every day. Why wasn’t he up? Had he done his homework? Where was his tie? But it had been days, weeks—maybe even months, she thought with niggling shame—since she’d thought about him.

And almost as soon as she’d had the thought, she tried to wrestle it into submission. She couldn’t think of Steven without thinking of Davey, and she couldn’t think of Davey without the guilt of knowing that he was her favorite, and she could never feel that guilt without thinking of her mother—Poor Mrs. Peters—and of how she’d loved Billy best.

This was a well-worn path—a wormhole linking time and people—so that when she thought of Steven, she thought of Billy. The two were so closely connected by her practiced brain that they were almost the same person. Steven and Billy. Billy and Steven. The fact that Steven was so close to the age that Billy had been when he disappeared only served to compound his sins. And although she loved Steven, she had to remind herself of that fact constantly when her resentment and guilt over Billy was so symbiotically tied to her own son.

Lettie rubbed at a water ring on the hall table. She tutted as if it were her precious mahogany.

It wasn’t her fault. Everyone had a favorite, didn’t they? It was only natural. And Davey would be anyone’s favorite. He was so cute and chirpy and said funny things without meaning to. Why should she feel bad about that? How could she help it? Steven didn’t help himself, with his isolated nature and that permanent little frown marking the middle of his smooth forehead. He always looked worried. As if he had anything to worry about!

Lettie felt that familiar flicker of anger at Steven. He always looked as if he had the woes of the world on his shoulders—cheeky little shit! She was the one who had to keep them all together; she was the one who scrubbed other women’s floors so Steven could get batter bits at the Blue Dolphin; she was the one who’d been left to bring up two children alone, wasn’t she? Not him! These were the happiest days of his life, for god’s sake!

The ring wouldn’t come out. Honestly, the more people had, the less they cared. She went into the kitchen and opened the larder. It was packed with the kind of impossibly exotic food that was beyond Lettie. All from Marks & Spencer. She barely even recognized it as food—there was no connection in her mind between what the Harrisons kept in their larder and the cheap, monotonous meals that appeared on Lettie’s table.

Help yourself, Mrs. Harrison always said. Of course, she didn’t mean to the wild-mushroom tartlets or the chicken in creme fraiche with baby corn and sugar snap peas. She meant to the snacks and biscuits she kept in what she called “the children’s cupboard.” Lettie had spent long minutes looking for something to eat in that cupboard but had never summoned up the courage to tear into the gift-wrapped chocolate biscuits, or to sully the foil on a pack of mature-cheddar and cracked-pepper savouries. Instead she took custard creams with her and ate them over the sink so as not to leave crumbs.

But she’d seen nuts in the larder—jars of Brazils and walnuts and almonds and macadamias. The Brazils were of such good quality that she couldn’t even find a broken one; she had to cut one in half.

She rubbed the Brazil-half over the water ring, watching it fade.

That letter Steven had got. That was why she’d been thinking about him. She felt a little bad about reading it when it was so obviously private, but dammit, she’d been yelling herself hoarse for fifteen minutes! Didn’t the boy have ears? Steven’s ears stuck out at odd angles, always red at the tips, not like Davey’s pretty, velvety little things.

The letter was curious. She’d wanted to ask him who it was from, but at the last second she hadn’t. Some small, sleeping part of her had remembered being twelve and having Neil Winstone write “Your hair looks nice” on the back of her English exercise book, and so she’d bitten her tongue.

Steven seemed too young, too detached—too bloody miserable—to have a girlfriend. But he’d obviously written at least one letter first. Thank you for your great letter. Lettie wondered what passed for a great letter in these days of text and email. More than two lines? Correct spelling? Or declarations of undying love?

Lettie was not happy for Steven. It was just another thing for her to worry about: How long would it be before some fouteen-year-old slag’s mother was at her door demanding a paternity test? Lettie frowned, seeing a future where she and the slag’s mother took turns to look after the baby while the slag tried vainly to pass her GCSEs; a future where she, Lettie Lamb, was a grandmother at thirty-four. Lettie suddenly felt physically ill and had to hold on to the hall table for support. She felt a sucking vortex tugging her towards death before she’d ever properly lived.

When was her turn?! When did she get a turn? How dare that little shit ruin her life. Again.

And then the guilt and self-pity ran together.

Her eyes burned and she jammed the heels of her hands into them before the tears could spoil her mascara. She still had two other houses to do before picking Davey up; she couldn’t arrive looking a mess, dragging everybody else’s day down along with her own.

She breathed deeply and waited for that crazy dizzy feeling to pass.

She was still holding the two Brazil nut halves in her hands. Seized by sudden defiance, she ate them both.