Blood Guilt

by Ben Cheetham

  “Look, let me buy you both a drink to apologise,” offered Harlan.

  “Fuck drinks. That dress cost a hundred quid. What you gonna do about that?”

  “Well I’m not going to give you a hundred quid.”

  The two men faced each other silently. Some part of Harlan wanted the man to go for him, wanted to feel the good, clean pain of punching and being punched. That kind of pain he could handle. “Leave it, Rob,” said the woman. “It’ll come out in the wash.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Rob’s face relaxed into a mean little smile. “I’ll have a lager, she’ll have a large white wine,” he told Harlan.

  Faintly disappointed, Harlan approached the bar and ordered the drinks, plus a double Scotch for himself. He took the couple their drinks, not bothering even to look at their thankless faces. Then he returned to the bar and went to work on the whisky. At first he was half aware of Rob shooting an occasional dark glance his way. But after a while he noticed nothing, except whether his glass was full or empty. At closing time, he reluctantly made his way outside, taking small, jerky steps like a toddler learning to walk.

  It’d stopped snowing, and the pale luminance of a full moon made the streets seem paved with shattered glass. A group of people were throwing snowballs at each other in the road. Harlan barely gave them a glance. He was thinking about the house. A shudder passed through him at the thought of spending the night there with only the ghosts of unwanted memories for company. He took out his mobile phone, and speed-dialled Jim. After four or five rings, his partner picked up. “What is it, Harlan?”

  “Eve’s left me.”

  “Shit, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Can I come over?”

  Jim sighed. “Sure.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy.”

  As Harlan hung up, a voice rang out behind him. “Hey fuckhead!” He glanced over his shoulder, and a snowball hit him hard in the face. He wiped it away, and through a blur of tears, saw Rob approaching him with that same smile on his face. The woman was dragging at Rob’s arm, slowing his progress. He jerked free of her and pointed at Harlan. “You owe me a hundred quid.”

  The woman grabbed his arm again. “Please, Rob,” she said, her eyes pleading with Harlan to walk away. But Harlan wasn’t about to walk away, not until he was sure Rob wouldn’t rabbit-punch him. Rob stopped about fifteen feet away from him, and Harlan thought, this guy’s all bark and no bite. He turned and started walking to jeers of, “Wanker!” from Rob’s mates. Another snowball hit the back of his head. Just keep walking, he told himself, gritting his teeth. A third snowball burst on his back. He stopped and turned to face Rob. Even as he did so, his mind said, what are you doing? Don’t be stupid. But his heart was almost grateful to Rob. Here was a chance to take out his anger and frustration on someone who needed teaching a lesson.

  As Harlan advanced towards him, Rob spread his arms and shouted, “Come on then!”

  Harlan swung wildly, something between a straight punch and a wide-sweeping haymaker. Somehow, by some quirk of luck, his fist connected flush on Rob’s chin. Both feet shot out from under the bigger man and he catapulted backward. As his head hit the pavement, there was a sound like breaking eggs. A sickening, stomach-churning sound. He didn’t cry out, his arms twitched a little spasmodically, then he lay still, eyes closed.

  “Rob!” cried the woman, dropping to her knees, putting her ear close to his mouth, frantically checking for a pulse. “Oh God, he’s not breathing. I can’t feel his pulse. Shit, shit–” Her shrill voice choked off into gasping panic breaths.

  “Call an ambulance!” yelled someone.

  Harlan just stood in mute, uncomprehending stupefaction, watching blood spread like a halo through the snow under the prostrate man’s head. The blood looked oily black in the moonlight.

  “Help him! Help him!” shrieked the woman.

  Harlan flinched like someone jerked suddenly out of a trance. He stooped towards Rob. The woman screamed, her eyes swollen with fear, anger and hatred. “Get away! Get away from him you murdering bastard!”

  No, not murder, said the policeman in Harlan. Manslaughter. “I know CPR.” His voice sounded eerily distorted in his own ears, like an echo. A strange feeling of disconnection came over him, reinforced by the dreamlike hush of the snow muffled city. The feeling was dispelled by the sting of the woman’s nails raking at his face. Two of her friends grabbed her.

  “No!” she wailed, as they dragged her away. “Rob! Rob!”

  Harlan felt for a pulse. Nothing. He listened for breath. There was none. He gently tilted Rob’s head back, opened his mouth and checked nothing was obstructing his windpipe. He pinched Rob’s nose shut and breathed twice into his mouth. Then placing his hands, one on top of the other, on Rob’s breastbone, he compressed his chest. He checked for breathing and a pulse again. Still nothing. He thumped Rob’s chest.

  “Stop him!” The woman’s shrill, sobbing voice cut through the air. “Call the police!”

  I am the police, thought Harlan. His next thought was, no you’re not. You’re not a policeman, you’re not a husband, and you’re not a father. The man you were is as dead as this poor bastard. Everything he was is gone. It’s over. Finished. Nothing can bring him back.

  Harlan stopped CPR. Slowly, as if he was being dragged down by some irresistible weight, he bowed his head until it rested in the snow.

  Chapter 1

  With a smooth, effortless motion, Harlan did push-ups on his cell floor. On reaching the required number, he picked a diary off his narrow bunk and totted up the final tally. Four hundred and ninety-two thousand mind numbing push-ups in four years. Making a mental note that he was never going to do another one, he glanced at his watch. Nine AM. Not long now.

  His gaze travelled blankly around the cramped segregation cell where he’d been kept for his own protection since word somehow got out that he used to be a copper. Four, three, even two years ago, his sharply chiselled features would’ve assumed an expression of disgust verging on hatred, as he took in the drearily oppressive walls, the barred window with its plastic curtains, the stark fluorescent light, the small television, and the stainless steel integrated toilet and sink unit. But at some point – he couldn’t remember exactly when – a kind of resigned acceptance had kicked in. Just do the time and let everything else go, he’d told himself. Only he hadn’t been able to let everything else go. Each night at lights out, he’d focused on the continuous din of his fellow inmates calling to one another, vainly trying to stay in the here-and-now. But his mind was stuck in a loop, constantly being drawn back to the moment of drunken rage when he’d deprived a wife of her husband, and two young boys of their father – he’d found out at the trial that the man he killed had two sons, aged four and eight. At the time, he’d become so filled with self-hatred that he contemplated suicide. Even now, thinking about it made him unconsciously clench his hand and pummel it into his thigh.

  A guard opened the windowless steel door and wordlessly motioned for Harlan to follow him. They made their way along a corridor lined with cells to a heavily barred door. Several more corridors and barred doors brought them to the reception area, where after having his ID verified and signing a bundle of forms, he was handed his street-clothes, his personal belongings, an envelope from the housing advisor, forty quid and a travel voucher. After getting changed, he was escorted to the outer door. And then, suddenly, he was outside in the car-park. He stood there a moment with the cod-medieval battlements of HM Prison Leeds looming behind him, just breathing in the morning air and feeling the sun on his face.

  “Harlan!”

  Harlan blinked in surprise at the sound of his name being shouted. He wasn’t expecting anybody to be waiting to meet him. Recognising the deep, smoke-roughened voice, he looked in the direction it’d come from and saw Jim Monahan approaching. Jim hadn’t changed, except maybe he’d gained a few pounds. “Jim, what are you doing here?”

  “What do you
think? I wasn’t about to let you walk out of here alone.”

  “But how did you know I was getting out today?”

  “Eve told me. She was going to come herself, but she didn’t think you’d want to see her.”

  “She was right. Me and Eve, we’re the past, and wallowing in the past wouldn’t do either of us any good.” Harlan’s voice was full of conviction, but a vague flicker of disappointment showed in his eyes. From inside the prison came the muffled clang of a door closing. A shudder passed through Harlan. “Where are you parked?” Jim pointed and Harlan started towards the car.

  After they’d driven a couple of streets and the prison had been blocked from view, Harlan asked, “So how is she?”

  “She sounds good.” Jim gave him a hesitating glance. “You know she’s living with someone?”

  A sudden deep ache filled Harlan’s chest. “I do now. That’s good. I’m glad. Glad she’s happy and getting on with her life.” Even in his own ears, his voice sounded too controlled to pass as natural. The policeman in him would’ve characterised it as revealingly unrevealing. For the first time in years, he found himself wanting a smoke. “You got a cigarette?”

  Jim handed Harlan a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He sparked up and leaned his head against the head-rest, gazing out the window. The streets looked grubby and unwelcoming; the buildings drab and depressing. People were rushing around, each caught up in their own little world, their faces as cheerless as their surroundings. He sighed. “Some shit never changes.”

  “So where do you want to go?”

  “The housing advisor sorted me out a flat.” Harlan took a sheet of paper out of the envelope and showed Jim the address.

  Jim frowned. “Bankwood House, Callow Mount. That’s a shithole of a tower-block in a shithole neighbourhood.”

  “Yeah, well you should’ve seen my last place.”

  “Tell you what, why don’t you doss down at my place? Just until you’ve had a chance to find your feet.”

  “What about Garrett? He’s not gonna be impressed if he finds out you’re associating with an ex-con.”

  Jim grinned. “Aw, fuck him.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but it wouldn’t be fair on you. Besides, and don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t be around that right now.”

  “Around what?”

  “Y’know, police talk.”

  “Oh right, so I’m the past too, am I?”

  Harlan made no reply. They headed out of Leeds, following the signposts for Sheffield. Jim made a couple of attempts at small-talk, but when Harlan’s responses were brief or non-existent, he gave up and they rode in silence. An hour or so later, they pulled into the car-park of a tower-block, one of a cluster of six clad in various shades of green and brown, like towering trees of concrete and steel. A gang of sullen youths, all bling, white trainers, tracksuits and baseball caps loitered against a graffiti-tagged wall. In the centre of the car-park a stripped car squatted on its wheelless axles.

  “Well, here we are,” said Jim. “Home sweet home.”

  Harlan collected his few belongings from the backseat. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “No problem. You want me to come up with you?”

  “I think I’d rather be alone right now.” Harlan managed a smile. “Besides, from the looks of those kids, leave your car here and you’ll be lucky if it’s still got wheels when you get back.”

  “Listen, Harlan, I know you feel you need to make a clean break, but if you change your mind about my offer, or if you just want go out for a drink, or whatever, give me a call.”

  “I will. See you, Jim.”

  As Harlan headed into the stairwell, the youths cast knowing glances at his sallow, sun-starved face and the prison-issue plastic bag that contained everything he owned. He caught the lift to the twelfth floor. The first thing that struck him on entering his flat was the acrid stink of cleaning chemicals. Behind which lurked a faint tang of something else, something coppery sweet. He knew what the smell meant. Someone had recently died in the flat, and their body had lain undiscovered long enough to begin decomposing. He made a quick tour of his new home: whitewashed walls; cheap, thin carpets; a bedroom with a bed and bare mattress; a tiny kitchen; an equally tiny, windowless bathroom; a living-room with a hard-looking sofa, a fold-up table and two chairs. He opened a grimy, weather-stained window as wide as it would go, then pulled a chair over to sit in the current of air. He thought of Eve living with someone else. Loving someone else. And again an ache filled his chest. “Let it go,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “Let it go, let it go…”

  Chapter 2

  Harlan quickly settled into a routine that left little time for reflection. Seven nights a week, at eight o’clock he started work at the warehouse where his parole officer had found him a job loading and unloading delivery vehicles. It was long hours of arduous, mind deadening work, but that was fine with him. He slept – more often than not with the help of a Valium – from seven in the morning till two in the afternoon. That left six hours until his next shift. Those empty hours were the most difficult. Sat in his flat with only the sound of the wind shrieking against the windows for company, time seemed to stretch out like an elastic band before him. So he took to walking the streets, but that didn’t stop him from thinking, didn’t stop his mind from endlessly looping back. A feeling was growing in him. He tried to ignore it, but as the weeks drifted by it strengthened almost to a compulsion. He had to find the woman. He had to see her. Not speak to her, just see her, see how she was doing.

  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 café 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 café, 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?”