Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

It wasn’t hard for Harlan to find her. He looked up her name — he’d learnt that at the trial too — in the phonebook. Susan Reed. A common name. There was almost a page of them. Now he had something to fill the empty hours. A purpose. Every afternoon, he headed out with a list of names and addresses in his pocket. He worked methodically down the list, staking out the addresses until he was sure the Susan Reed he was looking for didn’t live there. Of course, he realised, there was always a chance she’d moved away from the area. But he didn’t think it was much of a chance. She was a local girl, uneducated, a mother. Not the type to uproot and start again somewhere else.

After a fortnight he found her. He was nursing a coffee in a scruffy cafe opposite a row of two-up, two-down terraced houses when he saw her. He almost didn’t recognise her. Her once bleached-blond hair had grown out to its natural mousey-brown colour. It hung in greasy strands around her makeupless, puffy-eyed face, as styleless as the clothes that hung around her body. She’d lost weight, but not in a good way. There was a brittleness about her movements, a jerkiness that spoke of nerves stretched close to breaking. Two boys trailed behind her, dressed in school-uniforms. Ethan and Kane. Her sons. Her fatherless sons. They’d be about eight and twelve years old now. Ethan, the younger brother, bore little resemblance to his father. He was small for his age, and had pale, delicate features and dreamy, introspective blue eyes. Kane, on the other hand, was the spit of his dad. He was as tall and well-built as a boy of fourteen, with short-cropped hair and a flushed frowning face. They were kicking a football along the pavement. Suddenly, for no reason Harlan could see, Kane hoofed the ball into Ethan’s face. The smaller boy staggered and almost fell, clutching his face with both hands. Susan turned and snapped something at Kane. She clipped him across the ear, before stooping to examine Ethan’s smarting cheek. Kane made to retrieve the ball, but Susan snatched it off him and stalked away with it under one of her arms and Ethan under the other. Kane dragged his feet after them, the sullen resentment of an older sibling towards a younger one glimmering in his eyes.

Harlan watched them enter one of the houses. Through the downstairs window, he saw them take off their coats and dump their bags. A television flickered into life. Ethan sat on a sofa in front of it, his face palely illuminated, while his brother followed their mother into the back of the house. Maybe Harlan was just seeing what he expected to see, but the boy’s expression seemed to speak of someone who’d known more sorrow than happiness, more anxiety than contentment. A kind of sick, guilty agony burned through Harlan. He hurried from the cafe, hurried all the way to the bank. There was just over ten thousand pounds in his account — his share of the equity from the house. He hadn’t wanted it, but Eve had insisted. He emptied his account, put the cash in an envelope and wrote ‘Susan Reed’ on it. Then he returned to the house and posted the envelope through the front door. Ten thousand pounds. Not much in return for the loss of a husband and father, but something. Before he could turn away, the door opened. It was Ethan. He looked curiously up at Harlan, his mouth a flat line.

Harlan couldn’t help but blink. Not wanting to scare Ethan, he smiled, but the smile felt unnatural, more like some strange kind of grimace. He pointed at the envelope. “That’s for your mum. Tell her I’ll send more as soon-” He broke off as, to his horror, tears spilled from his eyes.

“Are you okay?” asked Ethan.

Harlan nodded, quickly wiping his tears away. “I…I’m-” he stammered, his voice catching.

“Ethan!” The shout came from the rear of the house.

“That’s my mum. I have to go see what she wants.” Ethan bent to pick up the envelope. “Bye.” He shut the door.

“I’m sorry,” murmured Harlan, before turning and moving slowly away.

He headed to work, even though there were a couple of hours till his shift started. The foreman was happy to let him start early, just so long as he didn’t expect to be paid extra. He threw himself into the work with even more than his usual fervour, blotting out Susan Reed and her sons’ faces through a blank repetition of monotonous movement. But after work, lying in bed, he saw them again, and it burned him worse than battery acid.

Harlan was floating on the edge of a Valium-induced haze, when a hammering at the front door jerked him upright. Groggily, he pulled on his jeans and made his way to the door. The instant he opened it, a wad of banknotes hit him in the face. “I don’t want your fucking blood money!” hissed Susan Reed, her face contorted into sharp lines of rage. Harlan made no attempt to dodge out of the way as she drew her arm back to fling another fistful of fifty-pound notes at him. “You think you can buy away your guilt? Well you fucking can’t. It’s yours for the rest of your pathetic little life, and I hope it eats at you every second of every day.” Susan stabbed a trembling finger at Harlan. “Come near me or my boys again and I’ll fucking kill you. You hear me, you bastard?”

Without waiting for a response, Susan turned and stalked away. Leaving the money scattered over the carpet, Harlan made his way to the sofa and dropped onto it as if his body was impossibly heavy. So that was that. There could be no redemption. She would give him no chance.

Harlan’s mobile phone rang. It was Jim. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you since last night,” he said. “Has she been to see you yet?”

“If by she you mean Susan Reed, then yes.”

“Shit. She phoned me demanding to know where you live. Sorry, Harlan, but I had to tell her, otherwise she was threatening to tell your parole officer what you did. Just what the hell were you thinking? If she reports you, you could get sent back to prison.”

I already am in prison, thought Harlan, a prison that holds me captive more securely than any manmade structure could. He said with a fatalistic calmness, “Maybe that’d be for the best.”

“What are you talking about? Are you okay? Do you want me to come over?”

“No, I don’t want you to come over. And don’t ring me again either.”

Harlan hung up. He returned to bed and lay awake, embracing the guilt, letting it consume him. The phone rang several times. He ignored it. When the sun softened to twilight he got up, haggard and sunken-eyed. Mechanically, he dressed and ate. Mechanically, he made his way to work.

After work, on his way back to the flat, Harlan bought a bottle of whisky. He poured a shot and swallowed it — the first drop of alcohol he’d put to his lips since that tragic, fatal day. Jesus Christ, it tasted good. Then he popped all the Valium he could find out of their blister-strips and lined them up on the table. Finally, he propped a photo in the centre of the table of himself, Eve and Thomas. They were on a seaside pier, Eve hugging Tom, Harlan hugging both of them. Behind them the sea sparkled in the sunlight. All three of them were smiling. Harlan stared at the photo, a sheen of tears over his dark eyes. He was still staring at the photo an hour or so later when someone knocked at his door. He ignored the knocking. It came again, louder and accompanied by a terse, insistent voice. “Mr Miller, if you’re in there, open up. This is the police. We need to talk to you.”

Harlan’s first thought was, so she’s reported me, but then faint lines of doubt marked his forehead. Even if he was right, his parole officer would’ve surely been in touch to get his side of the story before sending some uniforms around to pick him up. “Who’s we?”