Blood Guilt

by Ben Cheetham

  “Well for one thing, he doesn’t fit the profile. He’s too old, too cautious. For another, he doesn’t fit the physical description.”

  “Yeah, but like you said, there might be an accomplice.” As Harlan shook his head, Susan continued insistently, “It’s possible though, isn’t it?”

  “It’s possible, but I don’t think it’s the case.”

  “Why? If you’re willing to suspect someone like Neil, then why not a pervert like Jones?”

  Harlan sighed. “I’m sorry, but I…well, I just don’t believe Jones is our man.”

  Susan frowned, picking up on Harlan’s hesitation. “You still haven’t told me what happened last night. Not really.”

  “You know what happened. I went to Jones’s house and questioned him.”

  “Yeah, but did you do it like I asked you to? Did you make him tell you the truth?” When Harlan gave no reply, the lines on Susan’s forehead intensified. “You didn’t, did you?”

  “I questioned him thoroughly.”

  Susan dismissed Harlan’s words with a contemptuous hiss. “The coppers questioned him thoroughly. They questioned the shit out of him for two days and got nothing. I wanted you to do more than just ask questions. That was the whole reason I came to you for help.”

  “I know.”

  “So why didn’t you do it?”

  Harlan blinked as the image of Robert Reed lying on the snowy, blood-stained ground flashed through his mind. “I did what was necessary.”

  “No you fucking didn’t. Not unless you beat that bastard until he was nearly dead.”

  “I…I…” Harlan stumbled over his words, as if he were struggling to make a shameful admission. At last he spoke in a sudden rush. “I couldn’t do it.”

  Susan rose from her seat, white with rage. “Oh, so you could kill my Robby, but you can’t hurt that filthy paedo!”

  This time Susan’s savage words were enough to draw glances, even in that place. Harlan raised his hands as if to say, calm down, but his gesture only angered her more. “You know what you are?” she hissed. “You’re a coward. A sick, twisted coward!”

  “Sit back down.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Please, let’s talk some more.”

  “I’ve got nothing left to say to you.” Susan’s voice dropped a tone, but remained taut with emotion. “Not unless you’ll go back there, back to that fucker’s house and do what I asked.”

  The suggestion was enough to make Harlan’s pulse beat in his throat. “Even if I agreed to do that, I wouldn’t be able to get near him. The police will be watching his house. Garrett can’t afford for anything else to happen to him. His reputation’s on the line.”

  “So don’t go to his house. Get him when he goes shopping or whatever. I don’t give a toss how you do it, just do it.”

  “This isn’t the way to go. There are other avenues, other lines of investigation I–”

  “No. This is the way, and this is the only way for you. Do you fucking–” Susan’s voice caught in her throat. Tears swelled into her eyes. Her lower lip trembled briefly. Then she got hold of herself and continued, “Do you understand?”

  Harlan stared at Susan with a kind of pleading in his eyes, but her resolve didn’t waver. His body leaden with anxiety, he nodded. She frowned at him a few seconds, as if trying to work out whether or not she believed him. Then she turned and hurried from the café into Neil’s arms. Her self-control crumbling like a sandcastle in front of a wave, she pressed her face against his shoulder and sobbed. Neil shot Harlan a glance that almost dared to be angry. This time it was Harlan who dropped his gaze to the tabletop. When he looked up a minute or so later, Susan and Neil were gone.

  Noticing how dry his mouth was, Harlan swilled back the dregs of his coffee. He approached the counter and held up fifty-quid. “If anyone asks…” He trailed off meaningfully.

  “I never heard nothin’,” grunted the man behind the counter.

  Harlan handed him the money and left. Head lowered in thought, he made his way slowly along the quiet street. He imagined himself beating Jones with the truncheon until his flesh was a pulpy mass and blood oozed from his face. He began to feel light-headed, dizzy. Susan’s bitter words echoed in his ears. You’re a coward. A sick, twisted coward.

  Maybe she’s right, thought Harlan. Maybe that’s what I am. A sick, twisted coward without the courage to do what needs to be done, without the courage to live, without the courage even to end my own misery.

  Harlan didn’t hear the fast-approaching footsteps until they were right behind him. Before he could turn to see who they belonged to, something hit the back of his head hard enough to stagger him. White sparks exploding silently in front of his eyes, he flung up his arms to shield his head. A second blow deflected off his forearm, sending an electric current of pain up to his shoulder. A third found its way through to his skull, connecting with an ugly, hollow sound, buckling his knees. As he went down, he managed to drop his shoulder and roll away from his attacker. Through a haze of tears, he saw a baseball-bat wielding figure loom over him. Even dazed as he was, he made a mental note of his attacker’s physical characteristics – five foot five or six, medium build, wearing baggy blue jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. A scarf was wrapped around the lower half of the figure’s face, so that all Harlan could see was a pair of eyes – young-looking, hazel-brown eyes so swollen with hate they seemed ready to pop out.

  As the figure raised the bat for another strike, Harlan kicked upwards. His foot slammed home. With a loud “Oof”, the figure doubled over. For a second or two, Harlan and his attacker writhed separately, each lost in their own pain. Then Harlan grabbed his attacker’s arm. Jerking free, the figure straightened and began to stagger away. Harlan attempted to follow, but as he pushed himself up onto his knees his vision blurred in and out. He reached up and felt a wetness on his scalp. He looked at his hand. Blood. He could feel it now, trickling warmly down the back of his neck. Groaning with the effort, he clutched a lamppost and dragged himself upright. The figure was almost out of sight at the far end of the street. As he stepped away from the lamppost, the pavement seemed to dip, then drop away vertiginously from beneath his feet. He felt himself tumbling through the air, then he slammed into the ground with enough force to wind him. He lay facedown, his eyeballs rolling, struggling vainly to rise onto his elbows. Then he was falling again, going down, down into impenetrable blackness like a well.

  Chapter 11

  After what might’ve been minutes or hours, a voice called Harlan back to the conscious world. “Mister,” it said, urgent and concerned. “I saw what happened.” His eyes flickered open. He was on his back now. Whether he’d rolled over by himself or someone had turned him over, he didn’t know. A young woman gazed down at him, her face blurry in patches. “Just lie still,” she continued, as he tried to sit up. “I’ve phoned for an ambulance.”

  Her words lent Harlan the strength to clamber to his feet. The police wouldn’t be far behind the ambulance, and that would mean serious trouble. “I’m fine,” he said groggily, brushing away the woman’s helping hands. Using the buildings for support, he slowly worked his way along the street. Dimly aware of sirens away in the distance, he went into a public toilet, washed the blood from his hands and applied a wad of tissue to the back of his head. Then he staggered to a nearby taxi-rank and ducked into a black-cab.

  “You okay, mate?” asked the cabbie.

  Harlan nodded and wished he hadn’t when a blinding pain pulsed from his skull. He gave the cabbie an address not far from the Northern General Hospital. As the cab negotiated the congested city roads, he closed his eyes and summoned up an image of his hooded assailant. Who could it be? Not Ethan’s abductor – when Harlan had grabbed his attacker’s hand he’d noticed it was as hairless as a child’s. The attack hadn’t been random, though. That much was obvious from the hate in those hazel-brown eyes. It was equally obvious that the attacker must’ve followed Susan and Neil to
the café, since he was certain no one had followed him. Which meant either that one of them had told someone else about the meeting, or the attacker had overheard them discussing it. If what Susan had said about Neil was true – which he had no reason to suspect it wasn’t – the second possibility was the most probable. And there was only one person he could think of who could easily get into close enough proximity to overhear them – Kane. What’s more, the boy was the same height and build as his attacker, and he certainly had more than enough motive to want to hurt him.

  Harlan paid the driver, and swaying like a drunk, made his way to A&E. He gave the receptionist a false name and address and told her he’d tripped and hit his head. Under local anaesthetic, a doctor stitched and bandaged the lesions on his scalp. Then he was given a head x-ray. “There are no fractures and no signs of serious brain injury,” said the doctor, examining his x-rays. “Luckily for you, you’ve got a remarkably thick skull. I’ve seen people end up in a coma from less severe injuries.”

  I’ve seen them die, thought Harlan. “So I’m okay to go.”

  “You have a concussion. As a precautionary measure, we’d like to admit you overnight for observation.”

  “I’d rather go home.” By the morning, Harlan knew, there was every chance the police called to the scene of the attack would trace him to the hospital.

  “Well that’s your choice, although I’d strongly advise against it. Where do you live?”

  Harlan’s head throbbed with the effort of remembering the false address he’d given the receptionist.

  “You mustn’t drive for forty-eight hours. Is there someone you can call to pick you up?”

  “Yes,” lied Harlan.

  “Good. Also, you need to rest, but you should try to stay awake for the next twelve hours. If you do fall asleep, you need to be woken every two hours at the most to make sure you don’t fall into a coma. And don’t rely on an alarm clock to wake you.”

  Harlan thanked the doctor, and trying to appear less groggy than he felt, made his way out of A&E. He caught a taxi to his flat. After swallowing some painkillers, he got into bed. He lay glaring at the ceiling, his fingers convulsively clenching and unclenching as he thought about those hazel-brown eyes. His anger wasn’t directed at Kane – he felt nothing towards him except guilt, sadness and sympathy – but at himself. It made him want to tear his own guts out to think that he was the cause of such fury, such hate.

  After a while, without even realising it, Harlan began to drift into a dream. He was at the entrance to the tunnel again. Only this time he was stood in Jones’s place, holding Kane and Ethan’s hands. He looked down at each boy and saw that their faces were masked with blood. And the boys looked up at him and spoke. “Dad,” they said in unison.

  With a gasp, Harlan dragged himself back to wakefulness. Fighting an urge to vomit, he rose and tottered through to the kitchen to make a strong black coffee. He lay cradling it on the sofa, watching the television. There was nothing on the news about what’d happened to Jones – no doubt, Garrett was doing everything in his power to hush it up. As he listened to the droning voice of the news-reader, an immense weariness came over him, as if lead weights were attached to his eyelids. This time the sound of his mug clattering to the floor jerked him back from the edge of sleep.

  Harlan fetched a tea-towel to mop up the coffee. The effort of doing so was enough to make his skull feel as if it was splitting apart. Not knowing what else to do with himself, he sat at the table, head on his hands. Alternating waves of nausea and drowsiness broke over him. Realising he’d be swept away by them unless he did something, he took out his mobile phone. He thumbed through the contacts list to Eve’s name. He stared at it for a long moment. Heaving a sigh, he pressed the dial button.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” Eve asked on picking up the phone, her voice swaying between hope and anxiety.

  “Can you come over?”

  “Have you found Ethan?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” The word came out in a breath of disappointment. “Then what’s changed?”

  “I’m too tired to speak over the phone, Eve.” Harlan spoke slowly, but even so his words blurred into each other.

  “Are you okay, Harlan? You sound strange.”

  “I’m fine. I just need to see you.”

  The line was silent for the space of a few breaths. Then, with a sharp little sigh in her voice, as if she was irritated with Harlan or herself, or both, Eve said, “Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Harlan moved his chair to the window and sat in the gathering dusk, watching for Eve. His forehead was nodding against the glass when her car pulled into view. He dragged his feet to the front door, reaching it as she knocked. The look that came over her face when she saw him added one more thin layer to his guilt. She put her hand to her mouth, shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” Harlan said. “I wouldn’t have called you, only I need someone to help me stay awake. I’ve got a concussion. It’ll be okay, but the doctor says I shouldn’t sleep for longer than two hours at–” He broke off, swaying on his feet.

  Eve darted forward to support Harlan. She helped him into bed and sat on the edge of the mattress, gazing at his pale, drawn face. “Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?” he said.

  “I’d say it’s fairly obvious what happened. Susan Reed thinks that man they released, William Jones, may know something. And she asked you to question him. And when you did, he attacked you.”

  Harlan smiled faintly through the pain in his head and heart. “Not bad. That’s almost exactly right. Have you ever considered a change of career? You’d make a pretty good copper.”

  “No I wouldn’t. I don’t enjoy sticking my nose into other peoples’ business. And I don’t like the police much, anyway.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “Besides, you said almost right. So what did I get wrong?”

  “Jones didn’t do this to me.”

  “So who did?”

  Harlan took a long breath and told her everything. She deserved that much at least. Besides, it felt good to get it all out. When he got to the part about how he hadn’t been able to bring himself to hurt Jones, his eyes dropped away from Eve’s. “Susan Reed thinks I’m a coward.”

  “A coward is the last thing you are, Harlan. You’ve just seen too much hurt.”

  “Maybe not a physical coward, but a moral coward. I mean, for Christ’s sake, I killed an innocent man, but I couldn’t hurt a child-abuser who might hold the key to finding Ethan.”

  Eve shook her head. “You’ve got it the wrong way around. You’d be a moral coward if you hurt Jones.”

  Harlan made no reply, but his expression was unconvinced.

  “Do you really think Jones knows where Ethan is?” asked Eve.

  Harlan was momentarily silent in thought, then he said, “No. But he knows something about something.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Just a hunch. I’ve questioned enough people to know when someone’s hiding something.”

  A ripple of unease passed over Eve’s features. “You don’t think Jones is…” she paused and gave a little shudder, before continuing, “doing something to some other child, do you?”

  Harlan thought about the paintings. “I don’t know. I think he’s fighting what he is, but maybe it’s a battle he’s losing.”

  Eve’s frown deepened. “It horrifies me to think that there are people like that out there.”

  “Then don’t think about it. You’ve no need to.” The instant Harlan said the words he wished he hadn’t.

  “Why haven’t I?” Eve demanded to know, the hurt plain in her eyes. “You don’t need to be a mother to feel that way. You just need to be alive and human.”

  Alive and human. The words seemed to throb in Harlan’s mind. It’d been a long time since he’d truly felt either of those things. “I’m sorry.”

  Eve’s features softened. “Forget it,” she sighed. “So what happene
d after you left Jones?”

  Harlan told the rest of the story. When he finished, Eve asked, “Do you have any idea who attacked you?”

  “Kane.”

  Eve’s eyebrows lifted. “Ethan’s brother. How can you be sure it was him? You said your attacker wore a scarf over their face.”

  “Yes, but not their eyes. You should’ve seen his eyes, Eve. The hate in them…” Harlan’s voice trailed off with a tremor, as a pain that was nothing to do with the lesions on his scalp poured out from his brain.

  A moment of silence passed between him and Eve. He could see she wanted to say something to comfort him. But he knew as well as she did that there was nothing she could say. He cleared the knot from his throat. “Susan wants me to question Jones again, properly this time.”

  “And are you going to?”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “So what are you going to do now?”

  “I’m not sure. All I know is I’ve got to do something. If nothing else, I must make Kane see how sorry I am.”

  “How? By spending your life searching in the shadows for a boy you’ll probably never find?”

  Harlan looked at Eve with a desperation close to tears. “What else can I do to make him stop hating me?”

  “Oh Harlan,” murmured Eve, sympathy shining in her eyes as she reached to touch his face.

  “Don’t.” Harlan moved his cheek away from her. “I don’t want sympathy. I just want to stay alive until this thing’s done.” He stared out the window. All he could see was blackness and stars. A strange sensation came over him, as if he was falling into the night sky. His eyelids drooped. “Wake me in two hours,” he managed to mumble before sleep overpowered him.

  Seemingly only seconds later, Harlan felt himself being shaken awake. “It’s been two hours,” said Eve.

  As Harlan rolled over to look at her, pain crackled through his skull. “Painkillers, please,” he groaned.

  Eve fetched him a couple of tablets and a glass of water. “Are you hungry?”

  “No.”