They held each other
for a while, then they set about preparing a meal. “You know what we should
do,” said Eve. “We should get out of the city for a few days. Go to the east
coast. You remember that little B&B we used to stay at?”
Harlan remembered, but
he made no reply. The mere thought of leaving the city was almost enough to tip
him back over into the seething storm of guilt.
“I know you’re not
comfortable with the idea,” continued Eve, “but I really think it would do you
the world of–” She broke off at a knock on the front door.
Harlan stiffened as
though the sound frightened him. He looked towards the door, eyes standing out
of their sockets.
“You want me to see who
it is?” Eve tried to sound casual, but a note of unease crept into her voice,
as though, despite her best efforts, she was starting to be infected by
Harlan’s mood.
Harlan shook his head.
He knew who it was. He knew it in his bones. His movements tense, he approached
the door and opened it. And there she was, Susan Reed. She looked even thinner
than she had done on the television, almost anorexically so. Her hair was
greasy and uncombed. There were bluish smudges like bruises under her eyes. Her
arms were hugged across her stomach as though she was in pain. For what seemed
a long moment, she stared silently at Harlan, then she said, almost murmuring,
“Can I come in?”
Catching a faint tang
of alcohol on Susan’s breath, Harlan stepped aside. Warily, as if entering
enemy territory, she moved past him. He bit back an urge to apologise as she
paused at the kitchen door, looking at Eve, who’d turned noticeably paler under
her makeup. Their faces set into hard masks, the two women faced each other a
few seconds. A bitter little smile of understanding tugging at the corners of
her mouth, Susan continued into the living-room. “Nice place you’ve got here,”
she said without a hint of sarcasm.
This time Harlan couldn’t
hold his apology in. “Sorry.” The word came out in a tortured whisper.
Susan made a
contemptuous hissing noise, as if to say,
yeah sure you are
.
“What do you want?” Eve
asked, her voice polite but cold.
Susan shot her a savage
glance, as if she considered her presence to be some kind of betrayal. “I want
to speak to your boyfriend or husband or whatever he is alone.”
Eve folded her arms.
“Well you’re going to have to say what you’ve got to say in front of me,
because I’m not going anywhere.” She turned to Harlan. “Am I?”
Harlan struggled to
return Eve’s gaze. “I’m sorry, Eve, but I think you should leave. I’ll call you
later.”
Eve stared at Harlan a
moment, the hurt plain on her face. She leaned in close to him and her voice
came in an aggrieved but concerned murmur. “Just remember what I said. You owe
yourself. You owe us.” Then she snatched up her coat and handbag and left.
An uneasy silence
descended between Harlan and Susan. He motioned for her to sit on the sofa, but
she shook her head. “Do you want a cup of tea or something?” he asked. Again,
she shook her head. She fidgeted with her hands, her eyes darting around the
room as if searching for something.
At last, Susan began,
“I need–” But she broke off, struggling to bring herself to say what was on her
mind. Swallowing a breath, she forced herself to look Harlan in the eyes. “I
need your help.”
“I’m willing to do
anything I can to help you.”
“Do you mean that?
You’ll really do
anything
.”
Susan’s voice carried
an edge that made Harlan hesitate a second before nodding. “I just don’t see
what I can do that the police aren’t already doing.”
“You can talk to
William Jones.”
“What would be the
point of that? The police obviously don’t think he’s involved.”
“Yeah, well they’re wrong,”
Susan returned with a sneering scowl that mingled contempt with barely
suppressed rage. “That fucker’s hiding something.”
“What makes you think
that?”
“’Cos I saw him. I saw
that sick pervert watching my Ethan and the other kids come out of school. And
I saw him in the park with his paints and things, painting pictures of the kids
in the playground.”
“That’s certainly
incriminating, but as I understand it Jones goes for girls, not boys.”
“He goes for little
kids. Girls and boys. Ask anyone around where I live and they’ll tell you what
that filth, that fuckin’ vermin goes for.”
As Susan spoke, her
voice grew loud and splotches of angry red stood out on her pale cheeks. Harlan
held up his hands in a calming gesture. “Okay let’s assume you’re right. If the
police can’t get him to talk, what makes you think I can?”
“Because you can do
things the police can’t.” Susan’s eyes glittered with the same brutal intent
that suffused her voice. “You can make Jones talk.”
The deep lines that
marked Harlan’s face grew deeper. The idea of trying to beat a confession out
of a suspect went against both his natural instincts and everything he’d been
taught. As far as he was concerned, police who used violent tactics were
little, if any better, than criminals themselves. But even if he’d been willing
to do as Susan asked, he wasn’t sure that he could do it. Merely thinking about
it brought on a twinge of the same paralysis that’d gripped his limbs like a
vice when Carl Gallagher attacked him. He dragged his feet across the room to
the window and stared at the leaden grey sky.
“You said you’d do
anything,” Susan reminded Harlan, her voice insistent and pleading at the same
time.
“I know, but–”
“But what?”
Harlan turned to Susan.
“I can follow Jones night and day. He won’t be able to make a move without me
knowing it. I can even break into his house and search it while he’s out.”
She shook her head.
“The police have already done all that and it got them nowhere. Why do you
think I’m here?” For a second, tears trembled on her eyelashes. She swiped them
away as if she hated them, and when she next spoke her voice was edged with
steel. “You want a chance, don’t you? A chance to wipe your conscience clean.
Well this is it, and you better fucking believe me, it’s the only one I’m ever
gonna give you. You do this one thing and then you can forget about me and my
kids forever.”
Not forget about you
,
thought Harlan.
Never that
.
Never completely
.
But maybe, just
maybe, move on from the memory enough to start rebuilding my life properly
.
He heaved a sigh. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
Susan matched his sigh
with a sharp breath of relief. “What will you do to him?” There was something
almost ghoulish in the trembling eagerness of her question.
“I don’t know,” admitted
Harlan, his voice tight with strain. “Before I do anything, I need to ask you a
couple of questions.”
“Go ahead.”
“Does anyone else know
you’re here?”
“No.”
“Good. Let’s keep it
that way. Have you made any public threats against Jones?”
“I’ve only said the
same as everyone else in my area’s been saying for years, that he needs his
balls cut off and put in his mouth.”
Harlan frowned
thoughtfully. “With Jones being so widely hated, there won’t be any shortage of
suspects for an attack on him.”
“Yeah and you don’t
have to worry about anyone saying anything to the coppers. They’d all be too
busy celebrating if the bastard got killed.”
Harlan looked hard at
Susan. “No one’s going to get killed.”
Her bitter blue eyes
returned his gaze with a sudden flash of hatred so intense he involuntarily
winced. “Not deliberately, but as we both know sometimes things happen that we
don’t intend to happen.”
A sense of immobility
spread through Harlan’s body like an injection of cement. Lumps stood out at
the corners of his jaw where his teeth locked together. When he spoke his voice
had a hoarse, hollow sound. “After I do this, the police are going to come
straight to your door. So you’ve got to make sure you and your boyfriend have
got solid alibis.”
“Neil works at the
hospital from six until six every night except Sunday.”
“That’s good. Have you
got a mobile phone?”
“Yes.”
“Give me your number.”
As Susan told Harlan her number, he punched it into his phone. “I’ll call you
and let you know when I’m gonna do it. Whatever you do, don’t come here again.”
“I won’t.”
A moment of silence
passed between Susan and Harlan. She continued to look at him, her expression
bouncing back and forth between anger, hate, fear and desperate hope so rapidly
it made his head reel. Blinking from her gaze, he motioned towards the door.
With a strange hesitating reluctance, she headed into the hallway. She turned
suddenly and gripped Harlan’s wrist with her cold, damp hand. All that was left
in her eyes was the agony of a mother fearing for her child. “I’m not stupid. I
know that the chances are Ethan’s dead. But I’ve got to believe he’s still
alive. And even if–” Her voice caught in her throat. Swallowing her pain, she
continued, “Even if he’s not, I still want him back.”
“You realise it could take
years to find him.”
“I don’t care how long
it takes. The moment Ethan went missing my life stopped. Since then time has
had no meaning.” Susan’s nails dug into Harlan like thorns. “Just get my little
boy back for me.”
“I’ll try.”
Susan shook her head frantically.
“Don’t try. Do it. Do whatever it takes.”
“I…” Harlan’s tongue
could barely force the words out through his teeth. “I will.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise. Whatever it
takes, however long it takes, I’ll find Ethan.” As Harlan spoke, a sick feeling
settled in his stomach. It was madness to make such a promise. A life of
fruitless searching or a long jail sentence, as far as he could see those were
the most likely outcomes of his words, but even so his conscience compelled him
to say them.
A little of the tension
left Susan’s face. She released Harlan’s arm, and with a seemingly unconscious
movement, wiped her palm on her coat as if she’d touched something dirty.
Harlan opened the front
door and poked his head out, glancing in both directions. When he was certain
there was no one lurking about, he said, “Put your hood up and keep it up until
you’re off the estate.”
Susan pulled up her
hood. “When will you call?”
“Soon.”
Harlan watched Susan get
into the lift, before shutting the door. He moved to gaze out the window again.
She emerged from the tower-block and hurried, head down, across the car-park.
Harlan scanned the streets for anyone who appeared to be watching her. There
was no one. When Susan disappeared from sight, he lifted his gaze to the
heavy-bellied clouds. He had his chance, but it was as thin as a razor blade.
An all-or-nothing chance that would either allow him to retrieve his life
completely or completely consume whatever was left of it.
He took out his phone.
A long moment passed before he worked up the nerve to call Eve. She was on the
other end of the line in a couple of rings. “I can’t see you for a while,” he
told her.
“Oh really? Why’s
that?” Eve didn’t sound surprised. There was a fatalistic quality to her voice,
as if she’d prepared herself to hear what Harlan was saying.
“I can’t tell you why.
And if anyone asks, you never saw Susan Reed at my flat. Okay?”
“Well if I’m going to
lie about that, I might as well go the whole hog and provide you with an alibi
as well?”
“Why would I need an
alibi?”
Eve huffed her breath.
“Don’t bullshit me, Harlan. I can deal with all the other crap. Just don’t
bullshit me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I don’t suppose
there’s any point trying to talk you out of whatever it is you’re going to do.”
“No.”
“You’re going to end up
back in prison. You know that, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter what
happens to me.”
“Of course it bloody
matters.” Eve’s voice was sharp with irritation. But it softened as she added,
“It matters because I love you and I want to be with you.”
I feel the same way
,
thought Harlan. He didn’t say the words, though. It wouldn’t have been fair.
“So when can I see
you?” asked Eve.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you
don’t know? How long are we talking about here? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?”
“However long it
takes.”
“However long it
takes.” Eve repeated the words as though struggling to understand them. “So I’m
supposed to spend my life in limbo, waiting for you.”
“I’m not asking you to
wait for me. I’m just trying to be as straight as I can with you.”
“Oh, thanks.” Eve’s
voice was loaded with sarcasm and hurt.
“I’m sorry, Eve.”