Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

Harlan smiled thinly. “Yeah.”

He ducked into the car. Susan didn’t open her eyes. Still gripping her hand, Kane sat hunched down in the backseat as if trying to hide from someone. As the car pulled away from the station, it started raining.

The journey passed in silence, except for the continuous drumming of the rain on the roof. When they arrived at Susan’s house, without a word, she got out, pulling Kane after her. Harlan followed her into the living-room. She slumped into the armchair and closed her eyes again. Kane stood staring at her, as if he wanted to say something, maybe to make her feel better, or maybe to seek reassurance himself. “Mum,” he said, with a tentative tremor. No response. He tried again. “Mum.” Still no response. His lips quivered, his forehead tied itself into a knot. “It’s not my fault,” he yelled, jerking around and running upstairs. A door slammed, music began to thump against the ceiling.

Harlan lowered himself onto the sofa and was reminded by a jolt of pain that it was time for his pills. As he swallowed them dry, he wondered what Kane had meant: that it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t recognised Nash’s voice, or that it wasn’t his fault Ethan had been abducted. Either was possible. After all, he might feel a coward for not trying to stop the kidnapper. Harlan was about to head upstairs and try to reassure Kane that he had nothing to feel guilty about, when Susan said, “What if Kane’s right? What if Nash isn’t the one?”

“He’s the one.”

Susan opened her eyes and looked at Harlan with piercing intensity. “How can you be certain?”

“I can’t,” he admitted. “All I can do is trust what the evidence and my instincts are telling me.”

Susan heaved a breath, and a soul-destroying weariness came into her eyes as she glanced at the ceiling. “I’d better go talk to him.”

“It’s alright. I’ll go. Close your eyes, get some rest.”

Susan started to frown, but she was too exhausted to inquire as to what made Harlan think Kane would speak to him. She merely made a sound as if to say, rest? How the hell can I rest?

One hand pressed against his throbbing wound, Harlan climbed the stairs and knocked on Kane’s door. The boy’s voice rose over the music. “Go away!”

“It’s me, Harlan.”

There was a moment’s hesitation. Then the music went off and the door opened. Kane had his wannabe tough guy face on — a face that made him look uncannily like his father. “What do you want?”

“Just to talk. Make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. Why shouldn’t I be?”

“You seemed upset.”

“Yeah I was, ’cos she,” Kane stabbed a finger at the floor, “doesn’t believe me about that man not being the one who took Ethan. None of you do.”

“It’s not that we don’t believe you. It’s just that you were very scared when your brother was taken.” Seeing a frown form on Kane’s face, Harlan added quickly, “And there’s nothing to be ashamed of in that. Anybody would’ve been. But what you’ve got to understand is, fear does strange things to people. It makes them see and hear things differently.”

An angry vein popped out on Kane’s forehead. “There’s nothin’ wrong with my hearing. It wasn’t fuckin’ him!”

There was such conviction in Kane’s voice that Harlan found himself almost believing him. Almost, but not quite. Everything pointed to Nash. It had to be him. Who the hell else could it be? He raised a placatory hand. “I didn’t come up here to argue. I just wanted you to know that you’ve got nothing to feel bad about. You did really well at the line-up. I’ve seen grown men fall apart at those things. But you held it together. You should be proud of yourself.”

Kane’s tough-guy mask slipped a little. Hesitancy replaced his anger. “You really think so?”

“I know so.”

“You want to come in my room? We could play on my Xbox.”

Harlan looked beyond Kane. There was nowhere for him to sit comfortably except Ethan’s bed, which would’ve been like trespassing on something sacred. His gaze moved to the damp patch over the rain-lashed window. Water was seeping down the wall, dripping in a steady stream into a cardboard box crammed full of plastic action-figures and other cheap toys. “It always does that when it rains,” said Kane, following Harlan’s line of vision.

“You’d better move that box.” Harlan started to turn away.

“Where are you going?” There was an anxious edge to Kane’s tone.

“To get a pan or something to catch the drips.”

Harlan went down to the kitchen and rooted through the cupboards until he found a large pan. As he made to take it upstairs, Susan opened her eyes and asked, “How is he?”

“He’s okay. A little shaken up, but okay.”

Susan glanced at the pan. “What’s that for?” When Harlan told her, she heaved a sigh. “The roof’s fucked. I had it fixed a couple of years back, but when it rains hard water gets into the boys’ room.”

“Whoever fixed it didn’t do a very good job then, did they?”

“It wasn’t the roofer’s fault. He wanted to replace some tiles, but I couldn’t afford it. So he just had to patch it up as best he could.”

“Have you got his number?”

Susan shook her head. “He was a mate of Neil’s. I can’t even remember his name.”

“Well we need to get someone out to fix it, otherwise Kane’s going to end up with pneumonia.”

Susan’s breath came with a tremor through her nostrils. She tugged at her hair as if trying to uproot it. “Oh Christ, I can’t handle this. Not now.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll sort it out. You got a Yellow Pages?”

“I think there’s one somewhere around here.” Susan’s gaze skimmed over the piles of missing-person posters.

“I’ll take this up to Kane while you look for it.”

When Harlan got upstairs, Kane had dragged the box away from the wall, exposing a patch of black fungal mush where once there’d been plaster. Harlan placed the pan under the drip. It began to fill slowly but surely. “We need something bigger. That’ll be overflowing in no time. Can you think of anything we could-” He broke off as he turned and saw Kane’s face. The mask had fallen away completely, revealing the fear that lurked behind it.

“He looked at me.” Tears hovered in Kane’s voice. “At the police station, that man Mum went for, he looked at me, and I looked at him, and, and…” He trailed off, trying to choke back the tears now forming in his eyes, lowering his head as if he was ashamed.

Harlan put his hands on Kane’s shoulders. The boy tensed a little, but didn’t pull away. “Look at me, Kane.” Kane reluctantly met his eyes. “You don’t need to worry about him. He won’t ever be able to hurt you. They’re going to put him in prison and never let him out.”

“What if he escapes?”

“He won’t. They’ll lock him away in the deepest darkest hole they’ve got. Do you hear?”

Kane nodded. Some, but not all, of the fear left his eyes. Harlan squeezed his shoulders. “Good. Now keep an eye on that pan.” He returned to Susan, who was in the kitchen, making tea. She pointed to a Yellow Pages on the table. He flicked through it, phoning roofers until he found one willing to come as soon as it stopped raining. Susan handed him a mug. It felt heavy as a rock as he lifted it to his lips. “I think I need to lie down.”

“What you need is something to eat. Get yourself on the sofa and I’ll bring you a sandwich.”

Harlan went through to the living-room and slumped onto the sofa. He was asleep within seconds. When he awoke, there was a sandwich waiting for him on the arm of the sofa. As he took a bite, his attention was drawn to the window by the clatter of a ladder outside. He rose and peered between the curtains. It’d stopped raining. A pair of workmen’s boots disappeared up the ladder. “They came while you were sleeping,” said Susan, entering the room and sitting down.