by Ben Cheetham
“Do you mind? I can stay if you want?”
Harlan shook his head. “He needs you a lot more than I do.”
Susan released Harlan’s hand, saying in a hesitating kind of way, “I guess we’ll talk soon.”
Harlan nodded. “I’ll call you.” Even as he said the words, he realised he wouldn’t be calling Susan. As much as he wanted to keep tabs on how she, Kane and especially Ethan were doing, he also knew it wouldn’t do any of them any good to remain in contact. All it would do would be to keep the embers of the past glowing. Now was the time to let that fire die and build another. From her hesitation, he guessed Susan felt the same way, even if she didn’t consciously recognise it.
“Take care.”
“You too.”
As Susan headed out the room, Eve stepped into it. The two woman exchanged a glance. Susan smiled faintly and nodded almost imperceptibly. Eve replied in kind. There was no particular like or dislike in either of their eyes, simply acknowledgement. Eve’s brow creased in a slight wince at the sight of Harlan, as if it hurt her to look at him. She made as if to take his hand, but hesitated. She stared nervously at him, unconsciously touching her belly as she waited for him to speak. “She came to say thank you,” he told her.
“And what does that mean for us?”
“It means I want us to start again, build a new life, maybe in a new place, just the two of us – that’s if you’ll have me.”
The lines faded from Eve’s brow, but her nervousness remained. “Of course I’ll have you,” she began in a soft, almost tentative voice. “I don’t care whether we stay here or move to the other side of the world, just so long as we can be together. But–” She broke off with a little swallow.
Harlan frowned. “But what?”
“Wherever we are it won’t be just the two of us?”
“What do you mean?”
“For an ex-copper, you sure are slow catching on sometimes.” Eve took Harlan’s hand and very gently placed its palm against her stomach.
He stared up at her, feeling hope flicker in the darkness that’d grown like a tumour inside him, but hardly daring to believe it. “You mean…”
“I’m pregnant.”
Pregnant! Was it possible? Or was it the effects of concussion and painkillers playing tricks on him. “How?”
“How do you think? Remember, Harlan, that doctor didn’t say you were infertile, he said you’d find it very difficult to conceive.” Eve smiled. “You look as if you’re wondering whether or not you’re about to wake up. Well don’t worry, you’re not dreaming. This is real. I’m…we’re going to have a baby.”
“A baby.” Suddenly tears filled Harlan’s eyes, and laughter filled his mouth. “We’re going to have a baby!” He pulled Eve to him and kissed her hard and full on the lips.
“Easy, tiger,” she gasped, laughing too.
Harlan eased his embrace. He gently touched Eve’s stomach and softly spoke to it. “Sorry, little baby, Daddy got a bit carried away. I promise it won’t happen again. From now on I’ll handle mummy as if she was made of glass.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m made out of something a lot tougher than glass.”
A look of guilt came into Harlan’s eyes as he thought about everything he’d put Eve through. He started to drop his gaze, but she lifted his chin.
“This isn’t the time for sad thoughts, Harlan. Like you said, this is the time for putting the past behind us and starting fresh. All that other stuff – the grief, the guilt – that’s over with, isn’t it?”
Harlan nodded, wanting to believe she was right, needing to believe it. Tom would always be with him, of course. As would Robert Reed. But maybe he could start to remember the good times with Tom. And maybe, just maybe he wouldn’t feel like tearing his own guts out every time the image of Robert Reed lying on the snowy pavement came into his mind. He kissed Eve again, as gently as a breeze this time. Then he pulled back his sheets and got out of bed.
“What are you doing?” asked Eve.
“What does it look like? I’m discharging myself.”
“But you’re not well enough.”
“I feel great. Better than I have done in years. And besides, I’m not letting either of you out of my sight. This time things are going to be different. No working long hours at a job that sucks me dry. No losing sight of what really matters. This time it’s just going to be the three of us all the way.”
“Sounds wonderful. Unfortunately someone has to go to work and pay the bills.”
“You’re forgetting. I’ve got a couple of hundred thousand quid coming my way. If we’re careful, we should be able to live off that for a good few years.”
“And what about when it runs out?”
Harlan shrugged. “We’ll work something out.”
Eve raised an eyebrow. “Work something out? That doesn’t sound like you, Harlan.”
“Well, maybe this is the new me. And the new me isn’t going to waste a second worrying about money. Hell, when it runs out we could start our own business. Nothing big, just enough to get us by. But for now…” Harlan took Eve’s hands. “For now, let’s get out of the city and go somewhere quiet, somewhere we can lie in the sun and...and pretend the last few years never happened.”
“Okay,” Eve said, with an excited little laugh. “Okay, you’re on. I’ll ring work and hand in my notice.” She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed it, murmuring, “I think I’m going to enjoy spending all my time with the new you.”
Harlan gave her a wry look. “If I were you, I’d reserve judgement on that until we’ve been living in each other’s pockets for a few months.”
Harlan slowly dressed. Even with all the pills, there were pains in almost every nerve of his body. But he didn’t care. Nothing was going to stop him from being with Eve and his unborn child. Nothing.
An hour or so later, all the forms signed and medication doled out, they headed for the car park. Harlan blinked as they stepped outside. The morning seemed so bright, so fresh. He filled his lungs as if starved for air. Eve pointed out her car. He limped towards it, heavy on his feet, but light in his heart, and got into the passenger seat. As Eve negotiated the congested streets, he stared at the city, seeing the dirt and hustle, but not seeing it. He felt in a kind of daze. Suddenly, in the space of two moments, the life that’d been taken away from him had been returned. It was almost too much to take in. He kept replaying the moments. I want you to be happy…I’m pregnant…I want you to be happy…I’m pregnant…Susan and Eve’s voices went round and round in his head until they blended and became indistinguishable, forming a perfect circle of proof – proof that life was worth it, that there was light in the darkness, that a new day really had begun. He almost didn’t want to think about any of it, in case in thinking he found some flaw in the circle.
Harlan started at the sound of his phone. He took it out and a little squeeze of anxiety pressed against his chest when he saw who was calling.
“Who is it?” asked Eve.
“Jim.”
As if infected by his unease, Eve said quickly, “Don’t answer it.”
“It might be important.”
Eve shot Harlan a glance, her eyes intense, almost pleading. Her hand dropped to her belly. “This is important. This is the most important thing in the world.”
She was right, he knew. And in a way he felt instinctively, but didn’t quite comprehend at that moment, that was why he had to answer the phone. Eve’s blue eyes winced as he put it to his ear and asked, “What is it, Jim?”
His ex-partner’s voice came back down the line, low and apologetic. “It’s Jones.”
The squeezing became a painful weight. Hang up, his mind screamed. But the phone remained pressed to his ear as if glued there. “What about him?”
“He got out today.”
“What do you mean, got out?”
“They discharged him from hospital. We’ve got nothing to hold him on. No forensics. Nash is still saying nothing.
I’m so sorry, Harlan. I tried, I really tried, but…” Jim trailed off into a sigh of utter dejection.
As he listened, Harlan closed his eyes. With every word, the circle was crumbling, the future receding, the gap growing between his dreams of a bright new beginning and the bitter realities of his past. He suddenly felt a fool for allowing himself to hope that he could escape the darkness. There was no escape. Not now. Not ever. There was only wilful blindness. Better to face it full on, embrace it, use it. “No need to apologise, it’s not your fault.” His voice was flat, toneless, making it difficult to tell whether he meant what he said. He meant it. It wasn’t Jim’s fault, it was the system’s. The system had failed him. It had failed Jamie Sutton. But worst of all, it had failed his unborn child. The thought of it being born into a world where William Jones walked free made his stomach churn with rage.
“I just thought you’d want know.” Jim’s voice was edged with unspoken meaning.
The bastard knows I’ll go after Jones, thought Harlan. He’s using me to do what he hasn’t got the balls to do himself. For an instant, he felt like shouting, fuck you! How could you do this to me? Why couldn’t you just leave me alone? But his anger towards Jim died as quickly as it’d flared, and when he opened his mouth all that came out was a monotone, “I understand.”
Harlan hung up. He didn’t blame Jim for calling him. How could he? After all, both of them had seen the same things, and both of them wanted the same thing – Jones off the street, one way or another. But Jim was too invested in the system to go against it. So he’d turned to the only person he knew who stood outside it, maybe realising, maybe not, how dangerous the consequences might be. Harlan opened his eyes and his vision was filled by Bankwood House tower-block, its colourful exterior jarring with his grim mood. He noticed that his car had been returned.
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.
Chapter 24
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.
