Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

The cold feeling came up stronger and stronger. Harlan let it rise into his gullet, hard and big as a fist, knowing he’d need it when he came face to face with Jones. A cursory examination of the remainder of the room revealed a threadbare sofa and two armchairs piled with boxes of paint, brushes and blank canvases; no carpet, only bare paint-spattered floorboards; bin-liners bulging with empty cans of super-strength cider and bottles of cheap sherry; the greasy remnants of a meal; the ashes of a long dead fire. There were three doors. One stood open, leading to a small, pot-cluttered kitchen. Very quietly, very slowly he opened one of the other doors. It led to a hallway that terminated at the front door. The third door opened onto a flight of stairs. Wincing at every creak, he padded up them. Like the living-room, the stairwell was papered with artworks. Halfway up, Harlan paused as one in particular caught his eye. It depicted two figures drawn in silhouette — an adult and a child holding hands at the entrance to a yawning black tunnel. Harlan wondered whether the drawing represented reality, or whether it was some kind of symbolic representation of Jones’s relationship with children. Whatever the case, the grim little drawing was somehow truer and less distorted than its more garish neighbours.

Harlan stiffened at a sound from upstairs — a sort of asthmatic snuffle followed by a phlegmy cough. He waited until silence resumed, before climbing to the landing. To his right a short hallway led to a bathroom, from which emanated a tang of stale urine. To his left was a closed door. Pressing his ear to its chipped paintwork, he heard a low snore. He switched off his torch, and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, before easing the door open. In the faint ambient glow of the city that filtered through the bedroom curtains, his eyes traced the outline of Jones’s sleeping figure on a single bed. He was laid on his back beneath a tangle of blankets, his round-bowl of a belly gently rising with each snore. His right hand gripped what looked like an old-fashioned police truncheon. Harlan couldn’t clearly make out Jones’s face, but he knew from the newspapers that he was a late middle-aged man with the vein-streaked skin and puffy eyes of a heavy drinker. The vinegary smell of cider hung in the air like an invisible smog.

Keeping his breathing low and shallow, Harlan approached Jones. He paused at the bedside, staring down at the sleeping man. A tremor ran through him as the image of Robert Reed wormed its way into his mind. With a shake of his head, he shoved it back down through the layers of his consciousness. In its place he pictured Ethan — Ethan stood hand-in-hand with Jones at the entrance to a tunnel. The image seared through him like cold flames. It took hold of him and made him reach to snatch away the truncheon.

Jones’s eyelids flickered. “Wha…?” he slurred.

With a fluid, practised movement, Harlan flipped Jones onto his belly and twisted his arm up behind him. Jones struggled furiously to break free, bucking like a maddened bull as Harlan straddled his squat, powerfully built body. Harlan twisted harder. Something popped. Jones gave out a muffled scream and his struggles subsided. For a moment both men were still and silent, except for the sound of their accelerated breathing. Then, his voice ragged with pain and fear, Jones said, “What do you want?”

Harlan pressed the point of his screwdriver against Jones’s neck. “Move and you’re dead,” he hissed, trying to disguise his voice by talking through his teeth.

“Please, you don’t need to hurt me anymore, I’ll-”

“Shut the fuck up. Don’t speak unless I ask you a direct question.”

Harlan took out the duct tape. Jones whimpered as Harlan wrapped it tightly around his wrists and ankles. When he was done, he rolled Jones onto his back again. The beam of his torch explored the bedroom — more paintings; some cheap-looking furniture; a bedside table cluttered with brown-plastic pill bottles; a stack of newspapers, the uppermost carrying a photo of Ethan. The light lingered on some pale rectangles on the tobacco-stained walls where pictures used to hang, before landing on Jones’s face. Jones’s bloodshot eyes blinked in their folds of bruised-looking flesh. Quivers ran through his sallow, stubbly cheeks. His chest rattled as he sucked in deep panic breaths. Harlan picked up the truncheon and balanced its skull-cracking weight on his palm. “I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to tell me what I want to know,” he began in a quiet, tightly controlled voice. “What do you know about Ethan Reed’s abduction?”

“Only what I’ve read in the papers.”

Harlan hefted the truncheon menacingly. “You know a lot more than that.”

Jones flinched, pressing back against the pillows and speaking in a trembling whimper. “I don’t. Honestly. Why do you think the police let me go?”

“You know where Ethan goes to school and which park he plays in, don’t you?”

“I’ve seen him around,” admitted Jones.

“Have you painted him?”

“I dunno.”

Harlan aimed the torch at the pale rectangles. “Where are the pictures that hung there?”

From the flash of anger that passed over Jones’s face it was clear the question touched a sore spot. “The police took them.”

“Why?”

“They thought one of the children in them looked like Ethan.”

“And was it him?”

“I told you, I dunno. Maybe. I paint so many that I forget.”

“You like painting kids.”

It was an observation, not a question, but Jones spoke anyway, a fiercely protective note vying with the fear in his voice. “Yeah. So? It’s not illegal, is it?”

“No, but abducting and molesting them is.”

“I’ve never abducted a kid in my life.”

“You’ve molested them, though.”

Red splotches rose up Jones’s throat, mottling his face. “I took some photos of a girl once, for artistic purposes. But I never laid a hand on her.”

“That’s not what she said.”

Jones jutted his chin up at Harlan. “Yeah, well she was a lying little slut.”

“Forensics don’t lie,” Harlan pointed out, his voice growing cooler as Jones’s grew more heated. The old feeling of controlled calmness he used to get from phasing out suspects and pushing their buttons was seeping back in. “I’ve read the newspaper reports. Traces of your semen were found on her clothes.”

Jones’s eyes narrowed a fraction, as if something had just occurred to him. He heaved an asthmatic sigh, the defiance draining from his features. “Okay, so I did some…some bad things once. But I haven’t done anything like that in years. Not since I started painting. You see, painting, well, it’s an outlet for my emotions. It’s what keeps me straight. As long as I can paint, I’m alright.”

“And do you only paint what you see?”

“Yeah. I’m a realist. I can’t allow myself to fantasise.”

“So where did you do that drawing of the man and the boy holding hands outside a tunnel?”

Jones was silent a moment, brows drawn together, as if unsure which picture Harlan was referring to. Then he said, “Oh that little thing. I did that years ago, while I was doing my time. It’s…it’s nowhere. It’s what’s inside me. The darkness that calls to me. Y’know?”

Harlan knew. He’d spent years trying to see through other peoples’ darkness. He also knew deceit when he heard its hesitating voice. He brought the truncheon down with concussive force inches from Jones’s head. The bound man flinched and quivered and gave a choking little sob, as his captor snarled, “Either you stop bullshitting me, or I’m gonna start breaking bones.”

“Don’t hurt me, please! It’s the truth. So help me Christ, it’s the truth.”