Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

“That’s certainly incriminating, but as I understand it Jones goes for girls, not boys.”

“He goes for little kids. Girls and boys. Ask anyone around where I live and they’ll tell you what that filth, that fuckin’ vermin goes for.”

As Susan spoke, her voice grew loud and splotches of angry red stood out on her pale cheeks. Harlan held up his hands in a calming gesture. “Okay let’s assume you’re right. If the police can’t get him to talk, what makes you think I can?”

“Because you can do things the police can’t.” Susan’s eyes glittered with the same brutal intent that suffused her voice. “You can make Jones talk.”

The deep lines that marked Harlan’s face grew deeper. The idea of trying to beat a confession out of a suspect went against both his natural instincts and everything he’d been taught. As far as he was concerned, police who used violent tactics were little, if any better, than criminals themselves. But even if he’d been willing to do as Susan asked, he wasn’t sure that he could do it. Merely thinking about it brought on a twinge of the same paralysis that’d gripped his limbs like a vice when Carl Gallagher attacked him. He dragged his feet across the room to the window and stared at the leaden grey sky.

“You said you’d do anything,” Susan reminded Harlan, her voice insistent and pleading at the same time.

“I know, but-”

“But what?”

Harlan turned to Susan. “I can follow Jones night and day. He won’t be able to make a move without me knowing it. I can even break into his house and search it while he’s out.”

She shook her head. “The police have already done all that and it got them nowhere. Why do you think I’m here?” For a second, tears trembled on her eyelashes. She swiped them away as if she hated them, and when she next spoke her voice was edged with steel. “You want a chance, don’t you? A chance to wipe your conscience clean. Well this is it, and you better fucking believe me, it’s the only one I’m ever gonna give you. You do this one thing and then you can forget about me and my kids forever.”

Not forget about you, thought Harlan. Never that. Never completely. But maybe, just maybe, move on from the memory enough to start rebuilding my life properly. He heaved a sigh. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Susan matched his sigh with a sharp breath of relief. “What will you do to him?” There was something almost ghoulish in the trembling eagerness of her question.

“I don’t know,” admitted Harlan, his voice tight with strain. “Before I do anything, I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“Does anyone else know you’re here?”

“No.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way. Have you made any public threats against Jones?”

“I’ve only said the same as everyone else in my area’s been saying for years, that he needs his balls cut off and put in his mouth.”

Harlan frowned thoughtfully. “With Jones being so widely hated, there won’t be any shortage of suspects for an attack on him.”

“Yeah and you don’t have to worry about anyone saying anything to the coppers. They’d all be too busy celebrating if the bastard got killed.”

Harlan looked hard at Susan. “No one’s going to get killed.”

Her bitter blue eyes returned his gaze with a sudden flash of hatred so intense he involuntarily winced. “Not deliberately, but as we both know sometimes things happen that we don’t intend to happen.”

A sense of immobility spread through Harlan’s body like an injection of cement. Lumps stood out at the corners of his jaw where his teeth locked together. When he spoke his voice had a hoarse, hollow sound. “After I do this, the police are going to come straight to your door. So you’ve got to make sure you and your boyfriend have got solid alibis.”

“Neil works at the hospital from six until six every night except Sunday.”

“That’s good. Have you got a mobile phone?”

“Yes.”

“Give me your number.” As Susan told Harlan her number, he punched it into his phone. “I’ll call you and let you know when I’m gonna do it. Whatever you do, don’t come here again.”

“I won’t.”

A moment of silence passed between Susan and Harlan. She continued to look at him, her expression bouncing back and forth between anger, hate, fear and desperate hope so rapidly it made his head reel. Blinking from her gaze, he motioned towards the door. With a strange hesitating reluctance, she headed into the hallway. She turned suddenly and gripped Harlan’s wrist with her cold, damp hand. All that was left in her eyes was the agony of a mother fearing for her child. “I’m not stupid. I know that the chances are Ethan’s dead. But I’ve got to believe he’s still alive. And even if-” Her voice caught in her throat. Swallowing her pain, she continued, “Even if he’s not, I still want him back.”

“You realise it could take years to find him.”

“I don’t care how long it takes. The moment Ethan went missing my life stopped. Since then time has had no meaning.” Susan’s nails dug into Harlan like thorns. “Just get my little boy back for me.”

“I’ll try.”

Susan shook her head frantically. “Don’t try. Do it. Do whatever it takes.”

“I…” Harlan’s tongue could barely force the words out through his teeth. “I will.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, I’ll find Ethan.” As Harlan spoke, a sick feeling settled in his stomach. It was madness to make such a promise. A life of fruitless searching or a long jail sentence, as far as he could see those were the most likely outcomes of his words, but even so his conscience compelled him to say them.

A little of the tension left Susan’s face. She released Harlan’s arm, and with a seemingly unconscious movement, wiped her palm on her coat as if she’d touched something dirty.

Harlan opened the front door and poked his head out, glancing in both directions. When he was certain there was no one lurking about, he said, “Put your hood up and keep it up until you’re off the estate.”

Susan pulled up her hood. “When will you call?”

“Soon.”

Harlan watched Susan get into the lift, before shutting the door. He moved to gaze out the window again. She emerged from the tower-block and hurried, head down, across the car-park. Harlan scanned the streets for anyone who appeared to be watching her. There was no one. When Susan disappeared from sight, he lifted his gaze to the heavy-bellied clouds. He had his chance, but it was as thin as a razor blade. An all-or-nothing chance that would either allow him to retrieve his life completely or completely consume whatever was left of it.

He took out his phone. A long moment passed before he worked up the nerve to call Eve. She was on the other end of the line in a couple of rings. “I can’t see you for a while,” he told her.

“Oh really? Why’s that?” Eve didn’t sound surprised. There was a fatalistic quality to her voice, as if she’d prepared herself to hear what Harlan was saying.

“I can’t tell you why. And if anyone asks, you never saw Susan Reed at my flat. Okay?”

“Well if I’m going to lie about that, I might as well go the whole hog and provide you with an alibi as well?”

“Why would I need an alibi?”

Eve huffed her breath. “Don’t bullshit me, Harlan. I can deal with all the other crap. Just don’t bullshit me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any point trying to talk you out of whatever it is you’re going to do.”

“No.”

“You’re going to end up back in prison. You know that, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter what happens to me.”