Blacklands

Chapter 34

ARNOLD AVERY’S ARM BLED ON AND OFF ALL DAY LONG ON FRIDAY.

Now and then he felt dizzy, but wasn’t sure if it was because of the blood loss or the ebbing sugar rush of the cherry Bakewells.

He’d walked until it was dark on Thursday night, and then tried to sleep, but the cold was having none of it. After an hour of sitting hunched, teeth clattering, wrapped in the too-small green cardigan, Avery had got up and continued walking in the dark. It was slower going, but it was going, at least.

Could be worse, he thought. Could be raining.

He felt better for walking. He needed to get to Exmoor before his postcard did. The thought of SL finding WP without him made him feel sick and fluttery.

In the early hours of Friday morning—at about the same time as Uncle Jude had been picking up his truck keys and leaving quietly so as not to wake Steven and Davey—Arnold Avery had reached Tavistock and stolen a car.

It was surprisingly easy.

He’d found several parked cars with their doors unlocked in the driveways of various homes. That’s the countryside for you, he’d thought as he ran his hands around their interiors and inside their glove compartments.

One driveway held a scuffed BMW parked behind a small red Nissan hatchback. The hatchback had the keys under the sun visor. The car started on the first turn of the key and, with the BMW blocking his reverse exit, Avery had simply swung the hatchback in a juddering L-plated arc across the front lawn and through the token fence.

In seconds he’d been driving north, hunched spiderlike over the wheel in a seat that was adjusted for a very small woman, his knees banging the dash, his heart racing in time to the engine, which—for some panicky reason—he couldn’t kick out of third gear.

In a lay-by he’d levered the seat into a more comfortable position and searched the car. On the backseat was a child’s picture book—The Weird and Wonderful Wombat—and a box of tissues. There was a tool kit in the boot, along with a towrope and a plastic bag of women’s magazines. He took the magazines out of the bag and put the towrope in it, along with the wheel brace. He almost closed the boot, then leaned in and picked up a copy of Cosmopolitan. He might have a long wait.

As he shut the boot, he was overcome by dizziness and fatigue. It took a huge effort to get back in the car and find the ignition with the keys, but he did it in the end. He turned the Nissan off the main road and drove jerkily down a series of haphazard lanes until he could pull into a field behind a hedge.

Then he crawled into the backseat and slept.

When he woke it was late afternoon and he felt a lot better. His arm still throbbed but had stopped bleeding entirely. His shirtsleeve was stuck to his arm but he decided to leave well alone.

He drank more water, ate a cheese-and-tomato sandwich, and pissed with abandon into the hedge, enjoying the sensation of the gentle afternoon breeze caressing his penis. It felt like freedom.

Reinvigorated, Arnold Avery set off again, this time triumphing over the vagaries of the Nissan Micra gearbox. Without the scream of the straining engine, his heart slowed to the point where he could think clearly once more.

He tried not to think about what his immediate future held. It was just too distracting. Too exciting.

Instead he tried to concentrate on relearning to drive; on the smell of the hedgerows that slapped against the passenger window now and then; on the smooth black ribbon of road that presented mostly forgotten sights around every corner.

That was exciting enough.

For now.