Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

“Any other developments I should know about?”

“The pathologist’s report on the body came in. We got a dental ID. His name’s Lee Dale. He was an eight-year old Stockport boy who went missing on his way home from school in 2003.”

“That’s the year Jones and Nash met. Don’t tell me that’s coincidence.”

Jim shook his head. “You know what I think about coincidences.” The furrows on his forehead turned into ravines. “Problem is we still can’t connect Jones to the crime scenes.”

“For fuck’s sake, Jim, he took me to the caravan. What more do you need?”

“Hard forensic evidence. You know as well as I do what’d happen if we prosecuted Jones on the basis of information you tortured out of him: you’d be the one who ended up in prison, not him.”

“Don’t go cutting any deals with that fucker just to keep me out of prison.”

“No one’s cutting those kinds of deals. If Jones agrees not to press charges, it’ll be because he knows we’ll make his life a living hell otherwise. If we get any evidence on him, he’s going down. It’s as simple as that.”

“And if you can’t get the evidence, what then?”

“We will. Even if there are no forensics and Nash refuses to crack, I’ll find some way to nail the bastard. Trust me.”

Harlan did trust Jim. But he didn’t trust the system. He’d seen scumbags like Jones slip through its net too many times. And Jim was a dutiful, if somewhat pessimistic, servant of the system. That was why he’d been partnered with Harlan — to rein in his maverick tendencies. And it’d worked, for the most part, whilst they were partners. But they weren’t partners anymore. He thought about Jamie painting a picture in the air in his car. If bodies were Nash’s trophies, paintings were Jones’s. Somewhere there was a place where Jones kept his most prized trophies. Finding that place was the key to nailing him. But how to find it? Harlan heaved a sigh, hoping Jim would prove right and he’d never be forced to search for the answer to that question. “So what else did the pathologist’s report say?”

“Exactly when Lee Dale died can’t be established for certain, but the advanced state of decay indicates he’s been dead for around seven years. Which means Nash kept him alive for a year or so. Cause of death was inconclusive. He’d suffered more than a dozen fractures, but no single injury that was enough to kill him. Most probably he died from an accumulation of injuries combined with the effects of malnutrition.”

The dark thing that lurked in the far regions of Harlan’s psyche whispered to him as he thought about Lee Dale being slowly tortured and starved to death. His fingers dug convulsively into the mattress.

“You okay?” asked Jim.

“Just a little pain in my side.”

“I’ll go. Let you get some rest.”

“Any news on how Susan Reed’s doing?” Harlan asked, as his ex-partner stood to leave.

Jim shook his head, but something about his eyes, some flicker of awkwardness, told Harlan that he was keeping something from him. “Don’t bullshit me, Jim. I know you too well.”

Jim dredged up another sigh. “Okay, here’s the thing. Her other boy, Kane, found her collapsed unconscious yesterday.” As Harlan started to sit up in alarm, Jim added quickly, “Don’t worry, she’s fine. He called for an ambulance and the paramedics pumped her stomach.”

“What’d she taken?”

“A shit load of booze and some sleeping-pills.”

“She tried to kill herself.”

“She says it was an accident. Claims she just wanted to get some sleep.”

Harlan shook his head doubtfully. “Where is she now?”

“At home. She refused to go to hospital.”

“Who’s with her?”

“Just her son, as far as I know.”

Harlan’s brow creased. “Why the hell isn’t there a uniform with her?”

“She wouldn’t let anyone else in the house.” Jim’s phone beeped as a text message came in. He flipped it open. “The meeting’s set up for half-ten. Shit, I’d better get a move on. I’ll call you, let you know how it goes.” He hurried from the room.

Even before Jim’s footfalls had died away, Harlan was punching the call button to summon a nurse. His fingers drummed against the mattress as he waited. When a nurse finally poked her head into the room, he said, “I need to see the doctor.”

“Doctor Hill’s doing her rounds right now. She’ll be looking in on you in a bit.”

Irritation surged up in Harlan. But before he could retort that he wanted to see Doctor fucking Hill right this fucking minute, Eve’s smiling face appeared at the nurse’s shoulder. Her smile faded at the sight of Harlan. As the nurse moved away, Eve approached him, carrying a brown paper bag of fruit. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’ve got to get out of this fucking place.”

“Why?”

Harlan told her about Susan. “I need to see her, otherwise…” He couldn’t bring himself to say what he feared might happen otherwise.

“But surely you’re not ready to be discharged yet. Your wound could-”

“Fuck my wound,” cut in Harlan. Seeing Eve blink at the harshness of his retort, he gave her an apologetic look. “Look, when the doctor gets here, just back up whatever I say to her, will you?”

Harlan was sat on the edge of his bed when Dr Hill arrived. “You should be lying down,” said the doctor.

“I want to be discharged,” said Harlan.

“I’d strongly advise against that. We need to keep you under observation for at least another forty-eight hours.”

“I feel fine.”

“You need total bed rest. If you walk, you could tear your stitches.”

“I promise I won’t walk a step. Eve will make sure of that, won’t you?”

Eve’s lips pursed into a tight line, but she nodded.

“Before you can go anywhere, I’ll need to examine you.” Dr Hill took Harlan’s temperature and checked his blood-pressure. Then she carefully peeled back the bandage and sterile gauze pad. The stitches looked like an ugly, puckered mouth. The skin around them was storm-cloud black, fading to purplish yellow. The colour leached from Eve’s face at the sight. “All your vitals are normal and there’s no sign of infection.”

“So I can leave.”

“Are you dead set on this?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then, I can’t stop you from doing it, but before you go there are a few things we need to sort out.”

Dr Hill explained to Eve that the wound needed redressing every day for the first week and demonstrated how to apply a fresh bandage. Then she spoke about what tablets Harlan had to take and when to take them. Finally, she headed off to sort out the discharge arrangements and find a nurse to help Harlan get dressed. “Get dressed in what?” asked Harlan. He had a hazy memory of his trousers and sweatshirt being cut off him when he arrived at A amp;E. His wallet, phone, shoes and socks were in a plastic bag in the bedside cabinet, caked in dried blood.

“There are some shops downstairs. I’ll see if I can find you something,” said Eve. She weighed Harlan up. “You’ve lost a little weight since I last bought clothes for you.”

Harlan managed a smile. “I guess that’s one good thing prison did for me, got rid of my love handles.”

Soon enough Eve returned with a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a hooded sweatshirt she’d found in a charity shop. “Not exactly the height of fashion, but I figured tracksuit bottoms would be the most comfortable thing.”

Harlan pulled on the sweatshirt. A nurse helped him into the tracksuit bottoms while Eve cleaned the blood off his shoes as best she could at the sink. Clapping her hand to her mouth suddenly, she rushed retching from the room. Harlan looked at her with concern when, after several minutes, she returned. “Are you okay?”