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The last of the night had faded and left a pale, blank sky into which the sun crept lazily from under the horizon.

Avery climbed to the top of the mound and looked down.

The excitement bubbled up in him and he clenched his knuckles white and ground them into his own thighs to stay sane for a little while longer.

He wasn’t sure he could do it.

He whined and bit his lip. His breathing was jagged in his chest and his heart bumped loudly in his ears and sinuses.

Right here. He was right here. A place he thought he might never be again. Everything was worth it. If they rushed him now and dragged him off the moor on a bed of fire, it would have been worth it—just to stand here and smell the wet heather and the dank earth beneath it.

Avery tasted blood where his lip leaked into his mouth. He didn’t know how he would stop his head bursting with need, but he knew he had to. He wanted this feeling to last as long as he could make it; knew it could get even better if he were very, very lucky.

But right now he had to keep a lid on things. He had to get a grip.

He squeezed his eyes shut to blot out the overwhelming visual stimulation.

Don’t blow it.

Don’t blow it.

Don’t blow it.

Whining, sweating, and trembling with effort, Avery slowly regained dominion over Exmoor and his own body.

His whining tapered, he stopped gasping for every breath; his fists loosened, leaving half-moon cuts in his palms like little stigmata.

He felt the dawn air filling him to bursting with life and self-possession. The sun made him shiver with anticipation, while the first skylark sang his praises.

When he finally opened his eyes, he felt like god.

Calm. Patient. Controlled.

Powerful. Vengeful.

He spread a plastic bag in a patch of wet white heather and sat gently, feeling the moor embrace him like an old lover.

And an hour later, when the boys rose up towards him through the mist, Avery’s eyes blurred with the sheer beauty of it all.

They were like angels emerging from a cloud so he could welcome them into heaven.

Chapter 37

“HELLO,” SAID LEWIS.

“Hello,” said Arnold Avery, serial killer.

Steven said nothing. What could he say? Hey, Lewis, don’t talk to him—he murdered my uncle Billy …

Anything Steven said right now would require so much explanation, and so many questions from Lewis, that he wouldn’t be able to think straight. And something told him that this was a point in his life when straight thinking was going to be critical.

He’d already nearly given himself away, but had looked across the heather just in time, before Avery could see the shock of recognition on his face.

Now, as he regarded the moor with eyes that saw nothing but dead newsprint children, Steven’s mind spun in pointless overlapping circles. A Venn diagram of confusion. How could this be? This was impossible. Arnold Avery was in prison, not here. Here was where Steven was supposed to be, not Avery. Possibilities far crazier than mere escape raced through his head—a dream, a drug-induced hallucination, a Hollywood body swap, a reality TV show to gauge the reaction of boys meeting their worst nightmare. It took half a second that felt like half a lifetime before he came to the idea of escape and settled there uneasily. It was the worst of the options.

Gradually the wild rush of adrenaline subsided to manageable levels. His breathing was still uncertain but at least he wasn’t about to soil himself. He glanced back at Avery. It was definitely him. He questioned himself closely on this point—wanting to have made a mistake—but he was sure. Steven supposed that the context and the occasion had primed him to recognize the killer, even though Avery was the last person he’d expected to see.

Still, he had the advantage: Avery didn’t know Steven and therefore had no reason to believe that Steven would know him. If he was to maintain that advantage, he had to act normal.

Taking a deep, shuddery breath, Steven forced his head back around and blinked at the sheer reality of the man who had filled his life for so long, right here, sat above them on a bed of less common white heather, his forearms resting casually on his knees, his jeans rising from his black work boots enough so that Steven could see his cheap blue cotton socks.

He stared at Avery’s socks and felt an odd sense of wonder.

Socks were so normal. So mundane. How could someone who pulled on socks in the morning be a serial killer? Socks were not hard or dangerous. Socks were funny; foot mittens, that’s what socks were. They made a knobbly hinge of your toes and became comical sock puppets. Surely anyone who wore socks could not truly be a threat to him or anyone else?

Steven realized they were both looking at him while he stared at the socks. Lewis looked puzzled and Avery quirked an amused eyebrow at him, as if they shared a secret.

Which they did, of course.

Steven reddened. He had to act normal. If Avery had any idea he knew who he was …