Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

The television was showing Ethan’s photo again, alongside a grainy photo of his mother’s grief-stricken face. With a jolt, Harlan realised he recognised the photo — it’d been used in a newspaper article about Susan’s husband’s death. If the media hadn’t done so already, Harlan knew it was only a matter of time before they made a connection between his release and Ethan’s abduction. Then his face would be splashed all over the news too. He’d be named as a person of interest, held up for public scrutiny. Regardless of his innocence, the stigma of association would make his life a hell on earth. He wouldn’t be able to leave the flat without attracting hostile looks and verbal abuse. His face drew into deep lines of distress. Not that he was bothered what the general public thought of him — fuck them. What bothered him was the thought of the pain that the media picking at the scars of past wounds would cause Eve — especially as it occurred to him that they might well try to draw some kind of spurious link between Thomas’s death and Ethan’s disappearance.

Once again, Harlan thrust his emotions aside and focused on what needed to be done. Nothing mattered now, except finding Ethan. He hurried into the hallway, grabbing his jacket and scooping up most of the remaining banknotes on his way out of the flat.

In the lift, Harlan phoned the warehouse foreman and told him he wouldn’t be able to make it in to work. “Good,” said the foreman. “And don’t bother coming in tomorrow either. You’re fired.”

The foreman hung up. Harlan sighed, thinking, so it’s already started.

Harlan made his way to a nearby public library, logged onto a computer and searched the local business directory for milkmen. ‘Darren Arnold amp; Sons’ served Susan Reed’s neighbourhood. He phoned them, and when a man picked up, he said, “This is DI Greenwood, Mr Arnold. I’m just going over your statement and I need you to confirm the registration number of the VW Golf you saw.”

“KY09 SGE.”

“Thank you.”

Harlan hung up, navigated to a car registration checker website and typed in the reg. ‘Renault Clio 1.2 16V’ came up on the monitor, which meant the milkman had either got at least part of the reg wrong or the plates were stolen. He phoned the local DVLA and asked for Pete Devlin — a guy he used to know back when he regularly needed to trace vehicles.

“Harlan, how the Christ are you?” said Pete. “When did you get out?”

“A few weeks ago. Listen, Pete, I need a favour. I’m trying to trace a car that pranged me and didn’t stop.”

“What’s the reg?”

Harlan gave Pete the number.

“Renault Clio,” said Pete.

“That’s the one.”

“I shouldn’t be doing this, but seeing as you’re an old friend. It’s registered to a James Barnshaw. 34 Chatfield Crescent.”

“What about the car’s history?”

“It’s clean.”

“Cheers, Pete. I owe you.”

Harlan Googled ‘James Barnshaw’ and the address. Nothing came up. He navigated to the phone book website, found Barnshaw’s number and called it. A woman answered. She sounded middle-aged and middle-class. “Can I speak to James Barnshaw, please?” said Harlan. “My name’s Detective Inspector Greenwood.”

“Is this about James’s number plates being stolen?”

“Yes, I just need to confirm exactly what happened?”

The woman sighed as if she was tired of repeating the story. “When James left the house last Wednesday morning, his number plates were missing. We didn’t hear or see anything.”

“What about your neighbours? Did any of them see anything?”

“No.”

Harlan thanked the woman and hung up. The fact that the plates were stolen gave credence to the idea that the Golf had been cruising Susan Reed’s street on some criminal expedition. But it also meant the lead was a dead end, unless the car had been caught on camera speeding, or driving away from a petrol station without paying, or some such thing — and even if it had, he didn’t have the means of finding out. The best use of his time at present, as far as he could see, was simply to get out there and search the streets for the Golf. He glanced out the window at the plainclothes sheltering from a sudden downpour in a shop porch. He deleted his browsing history, left the library and made his way hurriedly to the nearest second-hand car dealership. There was a black VW Golf on the forecourt. He went into the dealer’s office and slapped down the cash to buy it.

Harlan cruised the streets, searching for silver VW Golfs, scanning licence-plate numbers. There was little hope in it, but — for the moment, at least — he could see no other course open to him. He switched the radio on and tuned into the news, which was playing an edited version of Garrett’s statement. There was no mention of the VW Golf. It was always a tricky question — whether and when to make such information public. On the one hand, someone who’d seen the car or knew its owner or the owner themselves might well contact the police. On the other, if the car’s owner and Ethan’s kidnapper were one and the same, they might try to hide or destroy the car, or even worse, they might be panicked into killing the boy. Harlan guessed that if the information was released at all, it wouldn’t be until the four day mark passed. After that, in their minds Ethan was dead, so they’d have a shit lot less to lose by going public.

All day long Harlan vainly searched for the VW, circling outwards from the city centre, paying special attention to the uninhabited houses, cadaverous factories and pockets of woodland and wasteland in the lonelier parts of the urban sprawl. He wasn’t the only one searching. Almost everywhere he went there were uniforms doing their thing. Police helicopters hovered and circled over the city. He didn’t stop to eat, he only stopped to fill up on petrol. As the hours flashed past like silent lightening, a sense of frustration swelled in his gut. Outside the official information loop, he felt blind and helpless. He tried several times to ring Jim, but got no reply. He supposed his ex-partner was either too busy or too pissed with him to answer — Jim would certainly have heard by now what he was up to.

Harlan’s stomach gave a lurch when he heard his name on the radio. “Detectives are speaking to persons of interest in the case,” said the news reader, “including ex-police officer, Harlan Miller, who was recently released from prison after serving a four-year sentence for the Harlan reflexively snapped the radio off. After the space of a breath, he turned it back on, wondering who the other persons of interest were. But no more names were mentioned.

Before the news report was even finished, Harlan’s phone rang. A number he didn’t recognise flashed up on its screen. He answered the phone and waited for whoever it was to speak. His stomach gave another lurch when Eve’s voice came over the line. “Harlan?”

Harlan hadn’t spoken to Eve since starting his prison sentence. She’d written him, asking if she could visit. He’d written back, saying it would be for the best if she stayed away. He’d also told her he was sorry. It’d been wrong of him to blame her for Tom’s death — in some perverse way, killing Robert Reed had made him see that. Finally, he’d told her that the one thing she could do to help him through his sentence was to get on with her life. It’d hurt him deep and long to write that, but it was necessary.

Eve’s voice sounded different — no, not different, just changed. There was a softness to it that reminded him why he’d first fallen in love with her. A thickness rose in his throat. He swallowed it in a lump and shoved it far down. “I assume Jim gave you my number.”

“He’s worried about you.” There was a slight hesitation, then Eve added, “We both are.”