Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

Harlan rested his head against his clenched fist, disappointment coursing through him. “Where’s Gallagher been hiding out these past few weeks?”

“He’s been sleeping in his car, moving from place to place to avoid detection.”

“What was he doing at the church?”

“He was going to rob the donation box.”

It was the answer Harlan had expected. As far as he could see, there were no holes in Gallagher’s story, no unanswered questions. The lead was a dead end, which meant his life remained a dead end. He ground his knuckles into his forehead in frustration. “Thanks for letting me know, Jim.”

“No problem. I don’t give a toss what Garrett says, you deserve it after what you did.”

“Have you got any other leads?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, Harlan.”

There was a weariness in Jim’s voice that answered Harlan’s question well enough. “You haven’t, have you?”

Jim was silent a moment, then he admitted, “We’ve got shit-all. Unless we get a lucky break, I can see this one going on and on.”

On and on. Harlan grimaced as the words echoed like a bell inside his head. On and on, like being trapped in waking nightmare. Without knowing what happened to Ethan, there could be no funeral for him, no closure for his family, no time to grieve or heal. All there could be was uncertainty and pain. The thought of it was almost too much to bear.

Harlan tried to say goodbye to Jim, but his throat was closed up so tight the words wouldn’t come. He hung up and lay back on the sofa, eyes closed. He wasn’t floating anymore, he was falling, plunging helplessly into darkness. He jerked upright at the sound of Eve calling to him from the bedroom. He couldn’t let her see him in this state. He had to get out of there. Pulling his clothes on as he went, he rushed out the front door.

For days Harlan hermited himself away in his flat, ignoring phone calls and knocks at his door, venturing outside only when he ran out of food and to report to his case officer. He didn’t watch the news anymore — hearing about the police’s continued lack of progress only made him feel his helplessness with an even more oppressive weight. He spent most of his time in bed seeking the blankness of sleep, or sitting staring out the living-room window at a world he was in, but wasn’t part of. He could see no way forward, no way back. He was at a dead end, stuck in a morass of confused thoughts and emotions. What to do? What to do? Sometimes he’d jerk awake clutching his head as if to keep it from exploding.

After maybe a week — he’d started to lose track of time — Eve came knocking. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to contact him. His phone was full of messages from her, asking and then pleading with him to ring her back. “Harlan, are you in there?” she called.

Harlan approached the door, but made no reply.

“Please speak to me, Harlan. You don’t have to open the door. Just let me know you’re okay.”

Harlan’s face creased into lines of distress. It hurt him to hear Eve sounding so worried. But still he said nothing.

“I’m not angry with you,” she continued. “I understand why you left like that the other day. I’ve spoken to Jim. I know how much it must’ve hurt you to find out the man you caught wasn’t the one who took Ethan Reed.”

“Please go away,” Harlan murmured, barely audible.

“I’m not leaving until you speak to me.” Eve’s voice was as resolute as it was concerned. “Do you hear me, Harlan? I don’t care if I have to stand here all night.”

Harlan knew she meant it. She could be as stubborn as him when she wanted to be. That was one of the reasons they’d worked so well together. “Please go away,” he repeated louder, his tone apologetic.

He heard Eve draw a breath of relief. “If that’s what you really want, I will. But not until you tell me why.”

“You don’t need me in your life, Eve.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of what I need.”

“I’ll just end up hurting you again.”

“Better that than going through life feeling nothing, which is what I’ve felt this last four years.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you could feel what I feel.” Harlan’s words came in a pained, weary breath. “I’d give anything to feel nothing.”

“But then you wouldn’t be you, and I wouldn’t love you like I do.”

Harlan closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against the door. It made him want to weep with joy to hear Eve say she loved him, but it also made the guilt flare like a furnace in his heart. How could he let himself love and be loved when Susan Reed and her family were enduring such torment? Bile rose up his throat at the thought of him enjoying himself while Ethan, if he was still alive, was subjected to God knows what kind of horrors.

As if reading his thoughts, Eve said, “It seems to me that you want to punish yourself because you think you’re somehow to blame for what’s happened to Ethan. But you’re not to blame.”

“How do you know? If I hadn’t killed his father, he might not have been taken.”

“Maybe that’s true, maybe not. But either way, it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve paid for what you did.”

“I’ve paid my debt to society, but not to them, not to Susan Reed and her kids.”

“You’ve done everything you could possibly do to try and get that boy back.”

“Have I? I don’t know. Maybe there’s something else I can do.”

Eve released an exasperated sigh. “If there was, you’d be out there doing it.”

She was right, Harlan knew. He’d racked his brain for some other line of inquiry to follow, but there wasn’t one. He ground his forehead against the door in frustration.

“You have to forgive yourself for what happened, Harlan,” continued Eve, “because there’s no way of going back and changing it.”

Harlan shook his head, muttering with savage self-recrimination, “I can’t forgive myself.”

“If you don’t, you’ll throw away any chance of happiness we’ve got.”

“You don’t need me to be happy, Eve.”

“There you go again. Telling me what I need. Believe me, Harlan, I’ve tried to move on from you. I thought I had done, until I heard your voice. Christ knows why after everything you’ve put me through, but the fact is I need you. I need to be with you.”

Again, Harlan’s chest ached with a contradictory mingling of joy and guilt. “You don’t seem to understand. I can’t wipe this blood off my hands. It’ll be there forever, tainting everything I touch.”

“No, Harlan, you don’t understand. I’m not scared by that. I’m scared of being alone.”

“I don’t want to be alone either.” Harlan’s voice grew low with longing. He’d learnt all about loneliness in jail — the kind of loneliness that was so severe you felt it like a physical pain. “I want to fall asleep with you in my arms every night and wake up with you beside-” He broke off. He could feel his resolve weakening with every word. He pushed himself away from the door. “I’m sorry, Eve, I can’t talk anymore.”

“So that’s it.” Eve’s voice was on the edge of tears. It took hold of Harlan and stopped him from retreating any further. “You’re just going to hide in there and drive yourself crazy agonising over something you can’t do anything about.”

“Please go. Please!”

“Okay, but first I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything stupid like kill yourself.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” The thought of suicide hadn’t crossed Harlan’s mind since Ethan went missing.

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow to make sure you’ve kept your promise. I’m not going to give up on us so easily.”