Blacklands

Steven took Davey’s hand and hurried him towards the library but Davey made himself heavy and awkward as they passed a sweetshop and once again Steven had to wait while Davey peered at every bar, every packet, and into every jar until finally he emerged with a quarter of jelly worms and a Curly Wurly. He tried to stop again at the shop on the corner selling radio-controlled cars, but Steven yanked him onwards.

Without the sun to struggle through its high, dirty windows the library was gloomy and cold.

The librarian—a young man with an earring, a zigzag shaved into the side of his head, and a name tag reading “Oliver”—led Steven to what he grandly called “the archives” with a suspicious air. “The archives” was an alcove behind the reference section—and out of sight of his desk.

“What year?”

“June ’90.”

“1890 or 1990?”

Steven pulled a puzzled face. It had never occurred to him that they would have newspapers going back to 1890.

“1990.”

Oliver sighed and peered up at the giant books on the top shelves. Then he turned on a pulsing fluorescent and looked again.

Then he looked intently at Steven and Davey as if trying to find something wrong with them—something that would give him an excuse not to help them.

“He can’t eat those in here.”

“I know,” said Steven. “He won’t.”

Oliver snorted and held out his hand for the sweets. Davey instinctively withdrew them.

“I’m not having Curly Wurly all over my archives.”

Davey looked at Steven for guidance.

“Give them to him, Davey. He’ll keep them safe for you.”

Reluctantly Davey handed them over.

Oliver kicked a stool noisily across the floor and climbed onto it, dragging down a huge bound volume which he then dropped onto the desk with a petulant bang.

“No eating, no cutting out, no folding or licking the pages.”

Steven blinked; why would he lick the pages?

“Got it?”

“Got it.”

Steven sat on the only chair and Davey sat on the floor and started to open his jacks. Oliver hovered in the doorway but Steven ignored him until he left, then opened the giant book.

The Western Morning News used to be much much bigger. It was weird to see the same banner title on this huge newspaper. Steven felt like an elf reading a human book as he paged carefully through the tome. He giggled at the thought and Davey looked up at him.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing.”

The internet had been okay but patchy. Avery’s case predated the internet, and Steven had the frustrating feeling that there was lots it wasn’t telling him. At least the internet didn’t smell like old socks, though.

Davey was struggling to open the plastic sphere, his tongue stuck out in concentration.

“You want me to do that?”

“I can do it.”

The paper was yellowing and painfully thin. In places the ragged edges were torn. Steven stood up so he could handle the tome more efficiently.

ABUSED, TORTURED, KILLED. The headline ended Steven’s search.

There was a picture of Arnold Avery—the first Steven had seen. He instinctively drew closer to the page so as not to miss a single detail. The photo would have looked equally at home on the sports pages—a young man who’d scored twice against Exmoor Colts or taken three wickets for the Blacklanders.

Steven was thrown. He had expected … well, what had he expected? His mental image of Avery up until now had been vague—maybe not even human. Avery had been a dark shape in an Exmoor fog, a collage of movement and muffled sound lingering on the edges of a nightmare.

But here was the real Avery, staring into a policeman’s camera with a shameless directness, his dark fringe flopped fashionably over one eye, his slightly snubbed nose giving him an amiable look, his wide mouth almost shut and almost smiling. Steven noted that Avery’s lips were very red. It was a black-and-white photo, but he could tell that much. As he studied it more closely, he could also see that the reason Avery’s mouth was only almost shut was that he had protruding teeth. A pixel of white suggested it.

Steven tried to get disturbed by the picture but Avery looked more like a victim than the perpetrator of the crimes of which he’d been convicted.

There were pictures of Avery’s victims although at this point in the proceedings the News called them “alleged” victims.

Little Toby Dunstan was described in the caption as “youngest victim.” A laughing six-year-old with sticky-out ears and freckles even on his eyelids. Steven grinned: Toby looked like fun. Then he remembered—Toby was dead.

There was a graphic on the front page too. It was a map of Exmoor. Steven unfolded a scrap of paper from his pocket and copied the shape—a rough, crinkled rugby ball. The graves of the six children who had been found were marked with Xs and arrows which pointed to six photos—one of each confirmed victim. The same picture of Toby Dunstan, a different one of Yasmin Gregory, then Milly Lewis-Crupp, Luke Dewberry, Louise Leverett, and John Elliot.