Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

Harlan looked at Eve, sadness, guilt and fear all mingling in his expression. But most of all fear. Fear that she and his unborn child would come to some harm — harm he might’ve prevented — while he was away from them. “We’re not going away, are we?” she said, reading his eyes.

Harlan shook his head. “There’s something I have to do. And I have to do it alone.”

With fatalistic resignation, Eve accepted his words. “How long will this something take?”

“I don’t know. Maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe…I don’t know.”

“And when this thing is done, when it’s over, what then?”

Harlan hesitated, only for a second, but long enough for Eve to catch it. “We can do what we planned.”

Eve pulled over. She gazed out the window, eyes unfocused, seeming to stare off into some other place, as if she was putting mental distance between herself and Harlan. He started to reach for her, but stopped when the knuckles of her hands gripping the wheel tautened. She deserved more of an explanation, he knew. She deserved more than him. But he couldn’t give her either of those things. Heaving a sigh, he got out of the car. As he did so, she murmured, “It’ll never be over.” She drove away without giving him a glance.

Shoulders stooped as if he was carrying heavy bags, Harlan made his way up to his flat. As quickly as his battered body would allow, he changed into clean clothes. Then he headed for his car. Its interior had been cleaned, but there were still faint brown tide-marks where Jones’s blood had soaked into the front passenger-seat. He drove to the garage he’d bought it from and part-exchanged it for an Audi with tinted windows. Then he bought some black electrical-tape and scissors. After cutting the tape to the right width and length to alter the Audi’s registration number, he headed for Jones’s house. He parked a few doors along from it. Nothing had changed, except the bowed, water-logged window boards had been replaced with metal grilles — no doubt, by the police. They had a duty to protect all citizens, even scumbags like Jones. There was no way he was breaking into the house again. Not that he intended to. As far as he could see, there was only one way to connect Jones to Jamie Sutton — the painting. He had to find the painting. He doubted whether Jones would reveal its hiding place, even under torture. If he did, his life would be as good as over anyway. Besides, Harlan was convinced that sooner or later Jones would unwittingly lead him to the painting. Jones’s paintings were his trophies. He needed them to keep his fantasies alive. Right now, that need, that desire, might only be an itch in his groin, but it was an itch his ruined hands were unable to scratch, an itch that in a week, or maybe a month would develop into a craving that demanded to be satisfied.

Harlan settled down to wait for Jones to appear. He didn’t have to wait long. The front door opened, and as cautiously as a rabbit emerging from its burrow, Jones poked his bleary-eyed, unshaven face out. After making sure no one was lurking around, he left the house, wheeling a little tartan shopping trolley behind him. Moving with quick, shuffling steps, gripping the trolley’s handle clumsily in his plaster-of-Paris-encased hands, he made a pathetic sight. When he reached the end of the street, Harlan got out and followed him. He guessed Jones wouldn’t be going far, and he was right. Jones crossed a road and went into a Co-Op. Through the storefront window, Harlan watched him load the trolley up with White Lightening. After paying, Jones hauled his liquid diet homeward. Harlan stayed well out of sight until Jones was back in his house. Then he too went into the store. He bought a six-pack of Coke, plenty of sugary snacks and some Pro-Plus to keep himself awake and alert through the long hours of the night.

Jones didn’t emerge from his burrow again for a couple of days. When he did, it was only to visit the shop for more booze and some bread and milk. That afternoon, figuring Jones was more than likely slumped in an alcoholic stupor, Harlan allowed himself a short nap. He dreamt about Eve. She was on some swings, massively pregnant. “Be careful,” he kept shouting at her, but she ignored him, swinging higher and higher, nearly falling. He awoke with an intense urge to call her. He resisted it, telling himself she’d call him if there was anything wrong, knowing that the sound of her voice would only cause him to question his resolve to do what was necessary, what was right.

What is right? Harlan asked himself that question a lot during the tedious hours of his vigil. He’d once thought he knew the answer: the law was always right simply because it was the law. A few years on the force had knocked that naivety out of him, but he’d still retained a basic faith in the importance of obeying the law. That, too, was all but gone now, leaving behind a chasm full of doubt and more questions. Questions like: what if Jones leads you to the painting, and you hand him over to the police, and they somehow let him squirm through their fingers again, is that right? He knew he couldn’t allow himself to listen to such questions. If he did, he might as well just snatch Jones off the street, drive him out to some isolated spot and cut his throat. And that would make him as much of a monster as Jones. Wouldn’t it? Of course it would, he kept telling himself. But every time he did so, his mind’s voice was a little more hollow, a little less sure. Often he would raise his eyes to the sky, like a doubting priest imploring God to give him the crumbs of faith he needed. Sometimes those crumbs came in the form of news articles about criminals who’d been convicted and got their just deserts. But such crumbs never sustained him for long. Always the doubting, questioning voice returned. What if, what if, what if…

Harlan quickly got to know Jones’s routine. At eleven PM Jones’s bedroom light came on and stayed on all night. At nine AM Jones opened his upstairs curtains, but never the downstairs ones. Every two days at noon, when the street was quietest, Jones visited the shop. If he encountered anyone in the street, they would often cross to the opposite pavement, shooting him wary glances. Some stared at him with open hostility. Whichever, he would quicken his pace, gaze fixed on the ground. Harlan spent some time watching the backyard gate, but Jones never left the house that way, probably because he was afraid of being jumped in the alley. He never left the house after dark either. Which was just as well because gangs of hoodie-wearing teenagers often bombarded it with bricks and bottles, until the police arrived and sent them scattering in all directions. One night Harlan was awoken from another thin, troubled sleep by the sound of two drunken men trying to kick their way into Jones’s house. After five minutes of vainly pounding away, they satisfied themselves with pissing on the front door, then staggered off, laughing.

After several weeks, a man wearing what looked like a medical uniform visited Jones. The next time Jones showed his face, his plaster-casts had been removed. His fingers were still too swollen to fully curl around the trolley’s handle. But from then on, the man, whom Harlan assumed was a physio, visited every three or four days. And with each visit Jones’s fingers grew a little more flexible, until finally they could curl into fists. Harlan saw them do so one afternoon when a couple of boys, maybe thirteen-years old, abused Jones in the street. “Fuckin’ pervert!” yelled one of them. “Peado!” added the other, flinging a bottle that popped on the pavement next to Jones. He threw back an angry glance, hands balled at his sides. The boys sneered at the warning in his eyes, but didn’t approach him.

After that a change came over Jones. His posture became more upright, less shuffling. He stopped lowering his gaze from the people he saw in the street. He began to venture further afield, visiting other shops. One time, he lingered outside a toy shop, pretending to read a newspaper. Harlan’s blood burned as he watched Jones watching the children play in the aisles, the more so because the store had been a favourite of Tom’s. The thought that Jones might’ve sneaked yearning peeks at his son made him palpitate with the urge to violence. That afternoon, Jones visited an art supplies shop. Harlan’s heart dropped as he watched Jones browse its aisles. If Jones started painting again, his urges would be kept in check for a time, maybe for a very long time. Jones picked up a brush and practiced moving it up and down a canvas. With every stroke, Harlan could feel his chance at being the father he so desperately wanted to be slipping further away. Jones’s fingers fumbled the brush. He retrieved it and tried again. The same thing happened. Shaking his head in pained frustration, he stormed from the shop. Harlan released a breath of relief.