Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

“Christ can’t help you now. Only you can help yourself.” Harlan leaned in close, applying pressure to Jones’s injured arm. “Where did you do that drawing? This is the last time I’m gonna ask nicely.” His voice was full of quiet menace, but inside his heart was thumping wildly.

Jones grimaced, tears spilling over the piggish folds of skin beneath his eyes. His mouth opened. It closed. It opened again, but still no words came. Finally, his breath coming in rancid gasps, he screwed his eyes closed and shook his head. Seeing that he wasn’t going to get another word out of his captive unless he followed through on his threat, Harlan raised the truncheon high. His own breathing grew more rapid despite his best efforts to keep it regular, as the truncheon hung in the air for one second, ten seconds, thirty seconds, a minute. Tremors passed up his body into his arms. He seemed to be struggling against some invisible force that prevented him from striking Jones. It was hot under the balaclava, and worms of sweat slithered into his eyes, blurring his vision. He swiped a hand across his eyes, trying to wipe the stinging sweat away, but also vainly trying to rid himself of the image of Robert Reed that loomed before him, blood fanning from his shattered skull. He made as if to look away. But there was no looking away. Suddenly, as if he’d been punched in the solar plexus, his body sagged and his arms dropped limply onto his lap. He sat for long seconds, staring at the threadbare carpet, though seeming to stare at nothing. Letting the truncheon fall to the floor, he staggered from the room.

Harlan’s legs almost gave way as he squirmed through the window and dropped to the ground. He squatted on his haunches for a few seconds, yanking off the balaclava and sucking in lungfuls of the cold, cleansing night air. Then he approached the gate, and after a glance to make sure the alley was clear, set off walking fast — but not too fast — in the direction of his car.

He detoured down some steps at the side of a bridge to toss his gloves, balaclava, sweatshirt and the contents of his rucksack into the river Don’s murmuring waters. Looking at the deeper darkness under the bridge, he thought about the drawing. He felt in his bones that Jones knew something about something. It was another question, however, whether that something had anything to do with Ethan’s abduction. Jones was obviously a dangerous man — a predatory pervert with a few millimetres of fragile paint and canvas between himself and his next victim. But was he the type to go breaking into someone’s house and snatching a kid? Harlan doubted it. He was more the type to patiently groom his victims, ply them with gifts and favours, gain their trust. He was also a bit long in the tooth and heavy in the gut to be climbing through windows and creeping about houses. What really made Harlan doubt Jones’s involvement, though, were the paintings. There’d been no trace of hesitation in Jones’s voice as he spoke about what they meant to him. As repulsive as they were, they were clearly a sincere attempt to channel his thoughts, his emotions, his desires into something that, as he’d said, kept his darkness at bay. Of course, the attempt might’ve been unsuccessful. But even if that was the case, it seemed highly unlikely that Jones would look so close to home for his victims. That would’ve been a suicidal move for someone so locally notorious. And Jones wasn’t suicidal. He was a realist. A survivor.

As Harlan drove to his flat, he wondered what he was going to tell Susan. Whatever he told her, he knew she was going to be as angry and dissatisfied with him as he was with himself. Why hadn’t he been able to do what needed to be done? What was he afraid of? Not prison. Prison held no fear for him. It wasn’t simply that he was afraid of hurting others, either. It went deeper than that, right down to the roots of his psyche. He’d seen the darkness that existed there. He knew what it was capable of. And that was what scared him more than anything else.

At the flat, physically and emotionally spent, Harlan crashed into bed fully dressed. Within seconds he was dreaming. Tom was stood at the entrance to a dark tunnel. Jones was stood next to him. They were holding hands. Tom was looking at Harlan. He didn’t seem scared. There was a strange, sorrowful blankness in his eyes. Jones bent and whispered something to Tom. To Harlan’s horror, the two of them turned and headed into the tunnel. “Tom, stop!” cried Harlan. “Don’t go in there.”

Tom didn’t seem to hear.

“Let my son go, you fucker,” yelled Harlan. “Let him go or I’ll kill you.” He tried to give chase, but his feet felt glued to the ground.

The darkness closed like a fist around the two figures. “Tom!” screamed Harlan. “Tom!” There was no reply, except the echo of his own voice. He collapsed to his knees, weeping with impotent despair and rage.

Harlan was woken by an insistent and ominously regular knocking at his door. It was a knock he recognised, a knock he’d fully expected. It sent a thrill down his back. Not rushing, he rose and went through to the toilet. By the time he was done in there, he’d composed his thoughts and appearance. “Mr Miller,” shouted a male voice, impatient but professional.

“Coming,” called Harlan, flushing the loo. He opened the door and found himself faced by the steely eyed DI Scott Greenwood and his po-faced partner DI Amy Sheridan. “Sorry about that. How can I help you?”

“We’d like you to accompany us down to the station,” said DI Greenwood.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“We’re just here to fetch you. The DCI wants a chat.”

“A chat?” Harlan frowned. “About what?”

DI Greenwood’s purse-lipped expression made it clear that whether or not he knew the answer, he wasn’t about to tell Harlan.

“Am I under arrest?” asked Harlan.

“No.”

“And what if I don’t feel like going down the station?”

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” put in DI Sheridan. “The choice is yours.”

“It doesn’t sound like I’ve got a choice.” Harlan pulled on his shoes and coat, and followed the detectives to their car. They rode to the station in silence, punctuated by brief spurts of gabble on the two-way radio.

DI Greenwood led Harlan to an interview room while DI Sheridan went to inform Garrett of their arrival. When the DCI entered the room, Harlan asked with feigned puzzlement, “What’s this about?”

A scowl creased Garrett’s pink, well-scrubbed face. “Don’t play games with me, Miller. You bloody well know what this is about.”

“Sorry, but I-”

Before Harlan could finish, Garrett brought his hand down on the table with a bang that reverberated around the room. “Where were you last night?”

“At my flat.”

“All night?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Alone?”

Harlan nodded. He expelled an impatient breath through his nostrils. “Look, either you tell me what I’m doing here or I’m leaving.”

Garrett regarded him with narrowed, probing eyes. “William Jones. Recognise the name?”

“Of course. It was all over the newspapers.”

Garrett gave a small wince, as if the fact pained him. “Have you ever met him?”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

“Well, not a hundred percent. I’ve met a lot of scumbags in my time. You know how it is. After you’ve been on the job for a few years, the faces and names all start to blend together.”

“I’m not-” began Garrett, his voice rising. He stopped himself, took a breath and continued in a controlled voice, “I’m not talking about when you were on the job. I’m talking about since Ethan Reed’s abduction.”