Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

“What about Yates?”

“I can’t see his car. It could be parked around back.”

“Get out.”

“Aren’t you going to wait for the police? Martin used to box. He’s a bit slow on the uptake, but he’s fast with his fists. You’re in no fit state to-”

“Shut up and do as I say.”

Neil got out of the car. Grimacing, Harlan did likewise. His body felt heavy as a sack of coal. Neil was right, he was in no fit state, but he couldn’t take the risk that harm might come to Ethan while he waited out here. Leaning on the car, he limped around to the boot and opened it. “Now get in there.”

Neil shook his head.

Harlan put the knife to Neil’s throat. “Fucking do it.”

Neil’s tongue flicked nervously across his lips, but he held his ground. “You need my help to get into the flat. I know where the key’s hidden.”

“Tell me.”

“I’ll show you. Look, we’re wasting time. Martin might be up there right now, wondering what’s going on and what to do with Ethan.”

For a tense moment, the two men looked at each other. Knowing he didn’t have the strength to force Neil to do as he demanded, Harlan gestured at the flats with his knife. “Move.” As they approached them, he held onto Neil’s arm, more for support than to prevent Neil from making a break for it. He caught a glimpse through a crack in some curtains of a woman he assumed to be Paula. She was slumped low in an armchair, sipping from a can of lager, eyes vacantly staring from under a fringe of peroxide blond hair, black at the roots. She looked thirtyish, but it was difficult to tell with all the makeup pasted on her face. Her heavy-set body was squeezed into pink leggings and a matching vest-top. A Celtic band tattoo encircled one fleshy bicep. There was no anxiety in her face, no sign that Martin had told her about Neil’s silent phone call. Drawing hope from this, Harlan hurried past the window into a gloomy, piss-stinking stairwell.

When they reached the second floor landing, which was lighted only by the glow of the streetlights, Harlan leant heavily against a wall, struggling to find his breath. Neil approached a door, felt above its frame and found a key. Harlan held out his hand and Neil handed over the key. Harlan raised a finger to his lips. As quietly as possible, he unlocked and opened the door. A faint damp smell wafted out. The hallway was almost pitch-black. He stood listening for a few seconds. Not a sound. He tried a light-switch, and wasn’t surprised when nothing happened. Neil nudged him and pointed to a torch on the floor. That decided him — Yates wasn’t there. He picked up the torch and switched it on. Its pale beam illuminated a dingy blue carpet and matching wallpaper, which was peeling away in places. There were two closed doors in the right wall. A third door stood a few inches ajar at the far end of the hallway.

“Which room?” whispered Harlan.

Neil shrugged. “This is the first time I’ve been here.”

Pushing Neil ahead of him, Harlan approached the first door. It opened onto a tiny room with bare floorboards and mould-studded white walls. Several bulging black bin liners were piled in one corner. What looked like bed sheets stained with excrement and vomit had spilled out of one of them. Just inside the door was a chest of drawers with no drawers. Brown medicine bottles and silver blister packs cluttered its surface. Harlan read their labels. Blackcurrant flavoured Codeine Linctus, Diazepam and Traveleeze travel sickness tablets. He glanced darkly at Neil. “You’ve been drugging him.”

“Not enough to hurt him, just enough to keep him subdued. I know what dose to give from working at the hospital.”

“They don’t give Diazepam to kids.”

Neil blinked away from Harlan’s hard, condemning eyes. With the tip of his knife, Harlan prodded Neil towards the second door. When he saw the drawn bolts that’d been crudely fitted to the top and bottom of the door, his heart began to pound. He quickly unlocked them. The first thing he saw as he opened the door was the drawings. The lower portion of the room’s walls was covered in colourful childish pictures of houses, vehicles, trees, people, animals and cartoon characters. ‘Mummy’ ‘Kane’ and ‘Ethan’ was written above the heads of three figures holding hands. Against the opposite wall, underneath a window that’d been boarded up from the inside as well as the outside, stood a bucket containing a stinking stew of piss and shit. The sight yanked Harlan’s mind back to the dungeon where Jamie Sutton had been held, and he felt a dark tide of rage and revulsion rising. It surged up his throat like choking flames when he saw the mass of crumpled blankets on a mattress. Comics, colouring pens, crisp packets, chocolate bar wrappers and Coke cans littered the bed and threadbare carpet.

For several barely drawn breaths, Harlan stared at the bed as though turned to stone. Then, from deep within the blankets, came a flicker of movement. Forgetting his pain, he dashed forward and pulled the sheets away to reveal Ethan’s face, very pale, but alive. Alive! Oh God, the relief. It hit him like a punch to the gut, forcing his breath out in a rush. The boy was wearing filthy Spiderman pyjamas. He’d lost weight, making him look as if he might break at the merest touch, but there was no sign of any injuries. His eyes were closed, the eyeballs moving rapidly beneath their lids. A frown rippled across the smooth surface of his forehead. His dry, cracked lips twitched in a silent scream, but he was unable to pull himself from the depths of whatever nightmare he was trapped in.

“Ethan,” said Harlan. No response. He repeated the boy’s name louder, tapping his cheek. Ethan’s eyelids flickered and a soft moan escaped his lips, but he still didn’t wake. Harlan put the torch down, its beam facing the doorway. Gently sliding one arm under Ethan’s neck and the other behind his knees, he attempted to lift him. The boy was light as a pillow, but he felt heavy as lead to Harlan. His whole body shook with the strain. His head swam in a flood of dizzy agony.

“Here, let me help,” offered Neil, stepping forward.

“Don’t fucking touch him!” hissed Harlan, flashing him a look of violent wrath. It was then that he saw the figure wearing a balaclava stood behind Neil. The figure was about Harlan’s height and build. In one hand — the backs of which were covered with curls of dark hair — he held some kind of old-fashioned revolver with a long barrel, which was aimed at Harlan.

“Put him down.”

Harlan recognised the voice immediately. It was the same voice he’d heard over Neil’s phone. He lowered Ethan back onto the mattress and stood with his body shielding him, hands spread.

The eyes staring tensely out of the balaclava flicked towards Neil. “What the fuck’s going on?” their owner demanded to know. “Who’s he?”

“He’s the one I told you about,” said Neil.

“The ex-copper?”

Neil nodded. “Put the gun down, Martin.”

“Don’t use my fuckin’ name.”

“He already knows your name. He knows everything.”

“What? How the fuck-”

“I told him.”

Martin’s eyes popped wide. “Why?”

A sigh heaved from Neil. “Does it matter?”

“Course it fuckin’ does. Now tell me or I’ll blast a hole in your face.”

“Do that and you’ll go down for murder as well as kidnapping,” said Harlan.

“They’ll have to catch me first.”

“You’re already caught. The police are on their way.”

Martin cocked his head, listening. “Then why don’t I hear no sirens, eh?”

“Sirens would warn you they were coming. I know how they work, and believe me, right now this building’s being surrounded by armed units. If you want to get out of here in one piece, I suggest you do as Neil says and put the gun down.”