His voice was cracked with crying, but he spoke anyway, as if she were listening to him; as if she cared.
“I did appreciate the socks. I kept them for special.”
Steven thought he heard her pause at the top of the stairs, but he couldn’t be sure.
Chapter 20
THE PHOTOS WERE CRAP.
The ones he’d taken from the top of Dunkery Beacon were blurred by wind shake and the one he’d taken from the car park had the front wing of a car encroaching into the left-hand side of the frame.
But because he’d spent the last of his pocket money on getting the film developed—and because it was at least in focus—that was the one Steven sent to Arnold Avery.
Chapter 21
PRISON OFFICER RYAN FINLAY ENJOYED CONFISCATING PHOTOS sent to prisoners, and today was no exception.
Usually the photos were blurred, scuzzy shots of prisoners’ wives and girlfriends lying on unmade beds wearing mismatched lingerie. Sometimes the pictures included some small, careless domestic detail that shattered whatever shaky fantasy was being offered. A tabby cat; a grubby child peering through the bars of a cot; Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes on the bedroom floor.
Sometimes the prisoners got their photos and sometimes they didn’t. In this respect, Ryan Finlay was god.
Total nudity meant immediate confiscation, as did any lewd act or simulation of the same. Those photos were supposed to be destroyed and, if the prisoner’s wife was a dog, they were—although not before much passing round and disparaging remarks in the staff canteen. The prisoner concerned would merely get a tag on his letter, if one had been enclosed, which said “Contents Confiscated.”
Sean Ellis had never had a letter without a tag. His wife was so hot and so uninhibited that the photos she often enclosed formed the backbone of Officer Ryan Finlay’s personal collection, and the bank robber who’d shot two tellers in the face at a small branch of Barclays in Gloucestershire had probably forgotten what his wife looked like under the demure beige mac she always wore to visit him. Ellis never complained, and that made Finlay and the other men laugh. The poor bastard probably thought his missus was sending him pictures of the family mutt.
Today Finlay and PO Andy Ralph sat at the Formica desk in the post room, carelessly ripping open envelopes addressed to prisoners.
“What do you think?” Ralph held up a photo from a freshly torn envelope. It showed a small blond girl with no front teeth, dangling a docile cat down her chest.
“Who’s it for?”
Ralph glanced at the envelope. “Karim Abdullahai.”
Finlay shook his head. “That pervert’s as black as the ace of spades. Doesn’t look like a relative to me.”
Ralph—whose own skin tone was a shade away from coal—tossed the photo aside and put a tag on the letter without comment.
Mrs. Ellis’s photo was relatively tame today—her face blank as she lifted up a pale blue tank top to expose her perfect breasts.
“Jesus, would you look at the tits on that.”
Ralph peered over and grinned.
“Double fucking handful.” Finlay sighed. It had been years since he’d had a nice firm double handful. He’d have needed a cardboard box to cart his Rose’s stretched, wrinkled tits about in.
The photo was hardly lewd and, if it had been any other wife or girlfriend, Finlay would have passed it on without hesitation, but he couldn’t have Ellis realizing that all those photos he’d never seen might look very much like this one and starting to make a fuss, so he slapped a tag on the accompanying letter and stuffed Mrs. Ellis in his pocket.
They worked in silence for a few minutes, struggling to read barely legible letters, sorting photos and tiny gifts—six safety-razor blades, a dozen Trojans,
Ralph looked briefly at a photo of a tired-looking redhead holding a pizza box, and read from the accompanying letter: “ …
He sighed. “Misspelled fucking
He took the censoring black felt-tip and corrected both spellings before putting it on the Go pile and picking up the next letter, which was addressed to Arnold Avery.
There was no letter and the badly composed photograph barely warranted a glance. It certainly did not warrant seeking the permission of the senior screw. Andy Ralph was well able to discern what was lewd, what was inciting, and what was fetishistic. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that a photo of a car and a rainy hillside was none of the above. Least of all Ryan Finlay.
The racist Paddy bastard.
When Arnold Avery saw the photo he felt faint. He thought he might collapse with the sheer erotic charge of it. He immediately wanted to cry that it was not night, not dark, even though his cell was always gloomy because of the board across the window. Well, Leaver might have blocked the view of one moor through the bars, but he held the view of another in his hand that was even sweeter.
His killer’s eye had found the spot immediately. Yasmin Gregory. There she was. Or there she had been until sometime after his arrest when the forensics teams had moved in and Exmoor had started to give up its grim secrets. They hadn’t allowed him back on the moor, even to point out the bodies. They knew too well it was what he wanted—one more chance to feel the holding soil between his fingers; one more peer into the filthy holes he’d dug out of the heather—and they cruelly denied him that even when they finally had to call off the search for more victims. But they couldn’t erase his memories. Couldn’t then, and couldn’t now, as they washed over him like a spicy balm.
He had parked in this place. Close to where the car was in the picture SL had taken. He had carried YG up that narrow track towards the summit of the rounded hill. He could feel her now, light in his arms, and remember how she’d felt under him when she was still warm and hurting.
He shook himself like a dog. Not now! Not now! This was too good, too intense a feeling to waste in daylight. He had to stop looking at the photo. He had to do something to distract himself until lights-out.
He slid the photo under his pillow and opened the book he was reading. It was a good book—
Lunch was a small relief, although his leg bobbed nervously throughout.
The afternoon dragged horribly; supper brought more brief respite. Lights-out was at 10 P.M. but at 8:30 P.M. Avery took the photo from under the pillow and studied it anew, storing up the image for when he was alone in the dark.
