Blacklands by Belinda Bauer Read Free Book Online

and to the point.

    But what really impressed Arnold Avery was the word “Sincerely.”

    The first letter Steven Lamb wrote to Arnold Avery had been returned to him so blotted by thick black felt tip that it was unreadable. The censor had finally given up three quarters of the way through and had not even passed it on to the prisoner. He had merely scrawled “Unacceptable” across the last quarter of the letter and sent it back to Shipcott.

    Steven was humiliated. He felt like a little kid who had been caught sneaking into an 18 film in a false moustache.

    It was days before he forgave himself and regained the confidence to make another attempt. He was only twelve, he reasoned; he couldn’t be expected to get stuff like writing to serial killers right the first time.

    Over the next week he composed the letter again and again in his mind, each time paring and shaving and whittling until he decided to start from the other end of the scale of information required. That resulted in the first 90 percent of the letter.

    What took him another two weeks to wrestle with was whether to use “Yours sincerely” or “Yours faithfully.”

    Although this was a personal letter where the name of the intended recipient was known to him, “Yours sincerely” stuck in Steven’s craw. He just couldn’t do it.

    And yet, Mrs. O’Leary would have quibbled over “Yours faithfully.”

    It kept Steven awake at night and left him staring vacantly into space in history and geography classes. His preoccupation reached its climax when he sat next to Lewis the whole of one breaktime without saying a word. After three attempts to engage Steven in conversation, Lewis called him a “tosser” and stalked off.

    Steven knew he had to commit to one or the other.

    It was only when he actually put pen to paper—using his neatest block capitals—that he suddenly had the brainwave of writing “Sincerely” instead of “Yours sincerely.” It solved every problem he’d had. He was sincere in his request, but he sure as hell wasn’t Yours.

    Steven posted the short letter with high hopes.

    Ten days later, he received a reply.

Chapter 8

    “S CUM-SUCKING EGG AND TOMATO .” L EWIS GLARED AT HIS sandwich, then squinted up at Steven. “What you got?”

    Steven leaned on his spade and wiped sweat off his face with his bare arm. He hesitated as if he might lie, but finally it was too much trouble.

    “Peanut butter.”

    “Peanut butter!” Lewis got up. “You want to swap?”

    “Not really.”

    Lewis knew he wouldn’t want to swap. Tomato made Steven sick. He knew that, and he knew Steven knew that he knew that, but the thought of peanut butter instead of egg and tomato made him selfish.

    “Ah, bollocks; you can take it out. Half and half. Can’t say fairer than that.”

    He was already rummaging in Steven’s Spar bag. Mr. Jacoby’s shop used to be Mr. Jacoby’s shop. Now it was a Spar and Mr. Jacoby had to wear a green Aertex shirt with an arrowhead logo on his ample bosom.

    Steven looked helplessly at Lewis’s back.

    “Don’t take the good half.”

    He sighed inwardly. Having Lewis with him was a mixed blessing.

    When he was on his own, Steven dug and dug and dug and ate his sandwiches and drank his water and dug some more. On a good Saturday he could dig five holes. Each was the length, depth, and breadth of an eleven-year-old boy, although Steven was not stupid enough to think that this gave him any advantage. He understood that he’d have stood a similar chance of success if he had dug a series of two-foot-wide, four-foot-deep holes shaped like elephants. But he was looking for a body of a particular size and shape, and the holes he dug were a constant reminder of that. It was an exhausting and usually solitary pursuit, but a strangely satisfying one.

    But when Lewis made his occasional forays onto the moor everything changed. Certainly, it was more companionable and there was less chance of the hoodies chasing