Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

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 happened 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.”

Eve watched with an air of resigned sadness as Harlan shakily swilled back the painkillers. She said nothing. There was nothing left for her to say. After a while, he closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

Eve woke Harlan up three more times during the night. The final time, it was getting light and she held a tray with toast and tea on it. After a silent breakfast, Harlan went through to the bathroom. He still felt headachy and dizzy, but when he looked in the mirror he saw that his pupils were no longer dilated with concussion. When he left the bathroom, Eve was waiting for him in the hallway. She had her coat on.

Harlan managed a thin smile, although a heavy, hollow ache wrung his chest at the thought of her leaving. “Thanks.”

Eve nodded, turned and left.

From the living-room window, Harlan watched Eve get into her car and drive away. Swallowing a sigh, he dropped onto the sofa and watched the morning news. Still no mention of Jones. Garrett was doing a good job of keeping a lid on the whole affair. It was only a matter of time, though. Not that there was much chance of Jones going to the media — characters like him thrived in the shadows. But every police department had its leaks.

What are you going to do now? Eve’s question came back to Harlan. The answer was simple. He was at a dead end, and there was only one thing he could do — turn around and go back over old ground, see if he’d missed anything. He retrieved his phone from the table and called Jim. “Tell me about Neil Price.”

“I’ve already told you everything you need to know. He’s clean as a baby. Never even had a speeding-ticket.”

“Everybody’s got some dirt somewhere.”

“The guy doesn’t do drugs, he doesn’t gamble, his computer’s clean. The only thing we dug up on him even vaguely interesting is that he got into some credit-card debt in his early twenties.”

“How much?”

“I can’t remember exactly. Nine or ten thousand, I think. But he finished paying it off a couple of years ago.”

“No outstanding loans?”

“No. His credit-record’s clean now.”

“What about to loan sharks?”

“Not that we know of.”

“Yeah, but we know he has the potential to get himself into debt.”

“Don’t we all? I’ll bet if I added up how much I owe on credit-cards, car loans and all the other crap, it’d be a good few thousand quid.” Jim let out a sigh. “Look, I’m telling you, Harlan, he’s just some poor kid who got caught in this mess through no fault of his own. And besides, I don’t think he’s got it in him to pull something like this.”

“How do you mean?”

“If you’d met Price you’d know what I mean. He’s the kind of guy who lets people walk all over him. He lives with his parents on the Manor. His mum’s this little mouse of a woman. But his dad’s a real tyrant. An unemployable drunk. The impression I get is that Neil and his mum spend most of their lives running around after him.”