Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

“I’m fine. The blood turned my stomach, that’s all.”

A flicker of surprise crossed Harlan’s face. Gripping the bed’s support frame, he lowered himself into a wheelchair from which hung plastic bags full of bandages and pill boxes. After he’d scribbled his signature on a few forms, Eve wheeled him to her car. He shook his head as she moved to help him into the passenger seat and gestured at the wheelchair. “Get rid of this thing.”

“But the doctor said-”

“I don’t give a shit what she said. Get rid of it.”

Sighing, Eve returned the wheelchair to the hospital building.

For some time they drove in silence, Harlan staring out the window, casting occasional thoughtful glances at Eve. “How you feeling?” he asked.

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“It’s just you’re not usually the type to get queasy at the sight of blood.”

“Instead of worrying about me, Harlan, you should worry about looking after yourself. I’m assuming you don’t want me hanging around once we get to Susan Reed’s house.”

“I’ll be okay. I’m not planning on doing anything more strenuous than talking. I just want to be there for her, make sure she doesn’t try anything stupid.”

“What makes you think she wants you to be there for her?”

“Because I’m all she’s got right now.”

Eve flicked Harlan a glance and he could see her thoughts. She was thinking: what about me? Who the fuck have I got? She didn’t say it, though. However much she was hurting, she knew it was nothing compared to Susan Reed’s pain. When they arrived at Susan’s house, all the curtains were closed. Eve looked at Harlan like a mother would look at a child she was reluctant to let out of her sight. “I’ll wait in case she doesn’t let you in.”

Harlan shook his head. “If she sees you it’ll make her angry.”

Eve frowned. “Why? Because she can’t stand to think you might have any happiness in life?”

Harlan held in a sigh. He didn’t have the energy for this now. “Thanks for the lift, Eve. I’ll call you.”

“When? In the next fucking life?”

The sigh escaped. Harlan reached for the door-handle.

“Wait.” Eve put her hand on his arm. Her voice came more softly. “If you need me to change your bandage, cook you a meal, whatever, you know where I am.”

Mustering up a small smile, Harlan nodded and squeezed Eve’s hand. Their eyes mirrored each other’s sadness — not the sadness of lovers parting, but a deeper, more profound sadness of shared loss. She took the key out of the ignition and proffered it to him. “Take it,” she insisted as he shook his head. “Please, Harlan, for me. I won’t be able to rest otherwise.”

Harlan accepted the key. “Thanks.”

Eve leaned in towards him hesitantly, as if unsure whether to kiss him. She didn’t kiss him. She just murmured, “I love you.” Then she got out of the car. Harlan watched her until she reached the end of the street, before slowly approaching and knocking on Susan’s front door. No answer. He knocked again. Still no answer. Not even a twitch of the curtains.

“Susan,” Harlan called through the letterbox, voice tight with the pain of bending. “It’s Harlan Miller.” To his relief, after a few seconds, his straining ears caught the sound of feet descending the stairs. His relief evaporated when the door opened and he saw Susan. He expected her to look bad, but her face, ashen and cadaverous with deep bruised circles under the eyes, was even ghastlier than he’d imagined. He’d seen corpses that looked more alive than she did. Gaze darting over his shoulder, she motioned for him to come inside. She closed the door quickly behind him and shot the lock.

The small living-room was gloomy and stale smelling. Like a tomb. The thought popped unbidden into Harlan’s head. It made him feel a little suffocated, and he resisted an urge to fling open the window. Leaflets with Ethan’s face on them were piled on every available surface — the carpet, the sofa, the hearth, the television. “Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked, one hand pressed over his bandage. Susan shook her head. Picking his way through the leaflets, he limped to the sofa, cleared a space and carefully lowered himself onto it.

From somewhere Susan dredged up a smile that only made her face seem more deathlike. “You look worse than I feel.” No I don’t, thought Harlan, as she continued, “Shouldn’t you be in hospital?”

“I wanted to see you. Are you alone?”

“Kane’s asleep upstairs. Poor thing, he’s tired out after what-” Susan broke off with a sheepish glance at Harlan.

He finished her sentence for her. “After what happened last night. I heard about that.”

“It was an accident. I didn’t try to-” Susan started to say, but broke off again, her eyes dropping guiltily away from Harlan’s. She shook her head. “I can’t lie to you. Not after what you’ve done.”

“So you did try to kill yourself.”

Susan glanced at the ceiling. Her voice dropped low. “Maybe I did. I don’t know. All I know is I wanted to sleep. Just sleep and sleep and not have to think about anything anymore.” Her razor-thin shoulders shuddered as she heaved a breath.

“And what about now? Do you still feel the same way?”

“Yes and no. One minute I’m okay. Well, as okay as I can be. The next I’m having all these thoughts.”

“What kind of thoughts?”

“Ugly thoughts. But I’m not going to listen to them. I can’t. Kane needs me.”

“Ethan needs you too.”

Susan’s eyes filled with a bright sheen of pain. She gave a vehement shake of her head. “Ethan’s dead.”

“Don’t say that.”

“But I am saying it.” Her voice had a shrill note in it, fast edging towards hysteria. “Ethan’s my son, and I’m saying to you that I feel in my bones and my heart that he’s dead.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Yes, yes. He’s dead, dead, fucking dead!” Tears choked her voice. Her head drooped like a flower beaten down by a storm.

“Look at me, Susan. Look at me and believe me. There’s a chance Ethan’s still alive. It’s only a small chance. But there’s hope.”

Susan lifted her eyes uncertainly. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” Before Harlan could reply, she answered her question. “No you wouldn’t. You’re the only one who’ll always tell me the absolute truth. I see that now.”

Susan was right, Harlan realised. No one had more reason to hate him than her, yet she was the only person he could bare his soul to without fear. In some twisted way, he was closer to her than he was to anyone, even Eve. “What have the police told you?”

“Only what it suits them to. Just that you were injured rescuing Jamie Sutton from that man-” Susan shook her head, a curl of hatred distorting her lips. “No, he’s not a man. Richard Nash is a sick animal.”

“Have they shown you a photo of him?”

“Yes, but I didn’t recognise him. I keep asking them questions — questions like, what makes you so sure he was the one who took Ethan? And I never get a straight answer. Christ, it makes me feel like I’m a fucking suspect.”

“You are a suspect.”

Susan’s eyes swelled with indignation. “I’d stab myself in the heart before I hurt my own children.”

“I know it’s hard to take, but the fact is everyone’s a suspect until a case is solved. That’s just the way it has to be.”

“I understand that, I suppose,” Susan muttered begrudgingly. She clutched two handfuls of her hair. “But it still makes me so frustrated I feel like tearing my fucking hair out.”

“Just sit down and listen to me, Susan, and I’ll tell you why there’s hope Ethan might be alive.”