He was so tired of his life.
But she’d slapped his head.
So, instead of apologizing, he yelled: “Fuck you too!” then pushed past his mother, ran upstairs, and slammed his bedroom door so hard that she came pounding up the stairs in a fury.
He knew he’d gone too far.
If she hadn’t been so angry Lettie would have seen how scared he was—standing by his bed, eyes wide, hands splayed before him in surrender, no longer sure she had any control.
“Mum, I’m sorry!”
But it was too late and she slapped his head again—and then again, and hit his arms and hands and ears and, finally, rained slaps and weak, side-fisted girl punches down on his back as he cowered over his bed with his head between his elbows.
It was Davey’s hysterical screaming that brought Lettie back to her senses at last. She gathered her favorite son into her arms and shushed him gently.
“You see how you’ve upset Davey!” she shouted at Steven, in a voice shrill with guilt. “Now come down for tea.”
“I don’t want any tea.” His voice was muffled in the bedspread.
“Fine,” said Lettie, hefting Davey higher onto her hip. “Don’t have any, then.”
Steven heard them leave and go downstairs. He heard Lettie’s voice, low and gentle with Davey, and some part of him understood that she was trying to make up for what she’d done—even if she wasn’t making it up to him.
He sniffled and hitched and started to feel the places where his mother’s ring must have caught him—his left ear, his left wrist, a stinging on his shoulder blade. He put his finger to the ear and found a little spot of blood. His ears also rang a little and his right cheek burned from a slap. He crept onto the bed, turned to the wall, and curled more tightly into a ball. He hugged himself, suddenly cold but not wanting to move again to get under the covers.
The touch of something soft on his shoulder startled him. Nan had picked up the bedspread behind him and folded it over him. He met her eyes briefly, but she straightened up and turned to leave.
“Nan?”
He expected her to stop and look back at him, the way it happened in the movies, but she kept going, disappearing down the hallway.
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.
