Jones’s eyes narrowed a
fraction, as if something had just occurred to him. He heaved an asthmatic
sigh, the defiance draining from his features. “Okay, so I did some…some bad
things once. But I haven’t done anything like that in years. Not since I
started painting. You see, painting, well, it’s an outlet for my emotions. It’s
what keeps me straight. As long as I can paint, I’m alright.”
“And do you only paint
what you see?”
“Yeah. I’m a realist. I
can’t allow myself to fantasise.”
“So where did you do
that drawing of the man and the boy holding hands outside a tunnel?”
Jones was silent a
moment, brows drawn together, as if unsure which picture Harlan was referring
to. Then he said, “Oh that little thing. I did that years ago, while I was
doing my time. It’s…it’s nowhere. It’s what’s inside me. The darkness that
calls to me. Y’know?”
Harlan knew. He’d spent
years trying to see through other peoples’ darkness. He also knew deceit when
he heard its hesitating voice. He brought the truncheon down with concussive
force inches from Jones’s head. The bound man flinched and quivered and gave a
choking little sob, as his captor snarled, “Either you stop bullshitting me, or
I’m gonna start breaking bones.”
“Don’t hurt me, please!
It’s the truth. So help me Christ, it’s the truth.”
“Christ can’t help you
now. Only you can help yourself.” Harlan leaned in close, applying pressure to
Jones’s injured arm. “Where did you do that drawing? This is the last time I’m
gonna ask nicely.” His voice was full of quiet menace, but inside his heart was
thumping wildly.
Jones grimaced, tears
spilling over the piggish folds of skin beneath his eyes. His mouth opened. It
closed. It opened again, but still no words came. Finally, his breath coming in
rancid gasps, he screwed his eyes closed and shook his head. Seeing that he
wasn’t going to get another word out of his captive unless he followed through
on his threat, Harlan raised the truncheon high. His own breathing grew more
rapid despite his best efforts to keep it regular, as the truncheon hung in the
air for one second, ten seconds, thirty seconds, a minute. Tremors passed up
his body into his arms. He seemed to be struggling against some invisible force
that prevented him from striking Jones. It was hot under the balaclava, and
worms of sweat slithered into his eyes, blurring his vision. He swiped a hand
across his eyes, trying to wipe the stinging sweat away, but also vainly trying
to rid himself of the image of Robert Reed that loomed before him, blood
fanning from his shattered skull. He made as if to look away. But there was no
looking away. Suddenly, as if he’d been punched in the solar plexus, his body
sagged and his arms dropped limply onto his lap. He sat for long seconds,
staring at the threadbare carpet, though seeming to stare at nothing. Letting
the truncheon fall to the floor, he staggered from the room.
Harlan’s legs almost
gave way as he squirmed through the window and dropped to the ground. He
squatted on his haunches for a few seconds, yanking off the balaclava and
sucking in lungfuls of the cold, cleansing night air. Then he approached the
gate, and after a glance to make sure the alley was clear, set off walking fast
– but not too fast – in the direction of his car.
He detoured down some
steps at the side of a bridge to toss his gloves, balaclava, sweatshirt and the
contents of his rucksack into the river Don’s murmuring waters. Looking at the
deeper darkness under the bridge, he thought about the drawing. He felt in his
bones that Jones knew something about something. It was another question,
however, whether that something had anything to do with Ethan’s abduction.
Jones was obviously a dangerous man – a predatory pervert with a few
millimetres of fragile paint and canvas between himself and his next victim.
But was he the type to go breaking into someone’s house and snatching a kid?
Harlan doubted it. He was more the type to patiently groom his victims, ply
them with gifts and favours, gain their trust. He was also a bit long in the
tooth and heavy in the gut to be climbing through windows and creeping about
houses. What really made Harlan doubt Jones’s involvement, though, were the
paintings. There’d been no trace of hesitation in Jones’s voice as he spoke
about what they meant to him. As repulsive as they were, they were clearly a
sincere attempt to channel his thoughts, his emotions, his desires into
something that, as he’d said, kept his darkness at bay. Of course, the attempt might’ve
been unsuccessful. But even if that was the case, it seemed highly unlikely
that Jones would look so close to home for his victims. That would’ve been a
suicidal move for someone so locally notorious. And Jones wasn’t suicidal. He
was a realist. A survivor.
As Harlan drove to his
flat, he wondered what he was going to tell Susan. Whatever he told her, he
knew she was going to be as angry and dissatisfied with him as he was with
himself. Why hadn’t he been able to do what needed to be done? What was he
afraid of? Not prison. Prison held no fear for him. It wasn’t simply that he
was afraid of hurting others, either. It went deeper than that, right down to
the roots of his psyche. He’d seen the darkness that existed there. He knew
what it was capable of. And that was what scared him more than anything else.
At the flat, physically
and emotionally spent, Harlan crashed into bed fully dressed. Within seconds he
was dreaming. Tom was stood at the entrance to a dark tunnel. Jones was stood
next to him. They were holding hands. Tom was looking at Harlan. He didn’t seem
scared. There was a strange, sorrowful blankness in his eyes. Jones bent and
whispered something to Tom. To Harlan’s horror, the two of them turned and
headed into the tunnel. “Tom, stop!” cried Harlan. “Don’t go in there.”
Tom didn’t seem to
hear.
“Let my son go, you
fucker,” yelled Harlan. “Let him go or I’ll kill you.” He tried to give chase,
but his feet felt glued to the ground.
The darkness closed like
a fist around the two figures. “Tom!” screamed Harlan. “Tom!” There was no
reply, except the echo of his own voice. He collapsed to his knees, weeping
with impotent despair and rage.
Chapter
10
Harlan was woken by an insistent
and ominously regular knocking at his door. It was a knock he recognised, a
knock he’d fully expected. It sent a thrill down his back. Not rushing, he rose
and went through to the toilet. By the time he was done in there, he’d composed
his thoughts and appearance. “Mr Miller,” shouted a male voice, impatient but
professional.
“Coming,” called
Harlan, flushing the loo. He opened the door and found himself faced by the
steely eyed DI Scott Greenwood and his po-faced partner DI Amy Sheridan. “Sorry
about that. How can I help you?”
“We’d like you to
accompany us down to the station,” said DI Greenwood.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“We’re just here to
fetch you. The DCI wants a chat.”
“A chat?” Harlan
frowned. “About what?”
DI Greenwood’s
purse-lipped expression made it clear that whether or not he knew the answer,
he wasn’t about to tell Harlan.
“Am I under arrest?”
asked Harlan.
“No.”
“And what if I don’t
feel like going down the station?”
“We can do this the
easy way or the hard way,” put in DI Sheridan. “The choice is yours.”
“It doesn’t sound like
I’ve got a choice.” Harlan pulled on his shoes and coat, and followed the
detectives to their car. They rode to the station in silence, punctuated by
brief spurts of gabble on the two-way radio.
DI Greenwood led Harlan
to an interview room while DI Sheridan went to inform Garrett of their arrival.
When the DCI entered the room, Harlan asked with feigned puzzlement, “What’s
this about?”
A scowl creased
Garrett’s pink, well-scrubbed face. “Don’t play games with me, Miller. You
bloody well know what this is about.”
“Sorry, but I–”
Before Harlan could
finish, Garrett brought his hand down on the table with a bang that
reverberated around the room. “Where were you last night?”
“At my flat.”
“All night?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Alone?”
Harlan nodded. He
expelled an impatient breath through his nostrils. “Look, either you tell me
what I’m doing here or I’m leaving.”
Garrett regarded him
with narrowed, probing eyes. “William Jones. Recognise the name?”
“Of course. It was all over
the newspapers.”
Garrett gave a small
wince, as if the fact pained him. “Have you ever met him?”
“No.”
“You sure about that?”
“Well, not a hundred
percent. I’ve met a lot of scumbags in my time. You know how it is. After
you’ve been on the job for a few years, the faces and names all start to blend
together.”
“I’m not–” began
Garrett, his voice rising. He stopped himself, took a breath and continued in a
controlled voice, “I’m not talking about when you were on the job. I’m talking
about since Ethan Reed’s abduction.”
Harlan gave a wry
inward smile. Garrett was usually a calm, competent interviewer, but something
about Harlan got under his skin. It wasn’t hard to guess what that something
was – Harlan had been one of Garrett’s protégées, fast-tracked through the
ranks. He was supposed to be part of a new breed of detectives, someone who was
as likely to solve a crime using a computer as they were chasing down suspects
on the streets. Garrett had once regarded him as one of his greatest successes.
Now the exact opposite was true. “In that case, the answer’s a definite no. So
what’s happened to Jones?”
“What makes you think
something’s happened to him?”
“Well it’s obvious
something’s happened, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
Garrett glanced at DI
Greenwood. “Tell him.”
Flipping open his
statement pad, the detective recited, “Sometime between one and two AM last
night a masked intruder broke into William Jones’s house. The intruder bound Mr
Jones’s hands and feet, before questioning him about Ethan Reed’s abduction.
When Mr Jones said he knew nothing about it, the intruder threatened to torture
him. Mr Jones said again that he knew nothing, at which point the intruder
left. At approximately five AM, Mr Jones managed to free himself from his bonds
and phone the police.”
“And you think I was
the intruder.”
“I don’t think, I
know,” stated Garrett.
“Really? How do you
know? Where’s your evidence?”
Garrett shot Greenwood
another look, and the DI said, “Certain phrases the intruder used, in
particular the way he referred to forensic evidence relating to Mr Jones’s
conviction made him suspect that the intruder was, or had once been, a
policeman.”
With a look of
incredulous surprise, Harlan’s gaze flicked between his interviewers. “Is that
it? Is that you’re evidence?”
“That’s all we have
right now,” said Garrett, bending in close to Harlan. “But soon we’ll have more
evidence. Hard evidence.”
Harlan didn’t flinch
from Garrett’s gaze. “I can see how embarrassing this must be for you. But what
did you think would happen once the media got hold of Jones’s arrest? You might
as well have painted a target on the guy’s back. Half this city’s out for his
blood because of you. And now you want to make an example of someone, so that
no one else dares touch him. I understand that. I’d do the same in your
position. But I’m not the guy you’re after. Since we last talked, I’ve steered
clear of everything to do with Ethan Reed’s abduction. I haven’t even followed
the case on the TV.”
As Harlan spoke,
Garrett’s pink complexion deepened into an angry flush. “You’re right. That’s
what I’m going to do. I’m going to nail you up for everyone in this city to
see. Then I’m going to bury you so deep you won’t see the light of day for
years. You’ve made a fool of me for the last time, Miller.”
“Is that it? Are we
done? Or are you going to arrest me?”
“We’re done. For now. I
could have your property searched, but I don’t suppose you’d be stupid enough
to have left anything for us to find.”
“I don’t suppose I
would, if I had anything to do with this.”
As Harlan stood to
leave, Garrett added with a note of genuine sadness in his voice, “Do you know
what the real shame of all this is? You were the brightest and best DI I ever
had. I had such high hopes for you, Miller. Such high expectations. I gave you
the opportunity to go as far as your ability could take you, but you threw it
away.” He shook his head. “Such a waste.”
A ripple disturbed the
calm surface of Harlan’s face. “That’s what life is – a waste, a fucked up
joke.”
“If that’s really what
you think, why bother going on?”
“Sometimes I don’t
know. I really don’t.”
The two men stared at
each other a few seconds more, then Harlan turned away. DI Greenwood escorted
him from the station. “Do you want a lift home?”
Harlan shook his head.
He needed to walk and think about what he was going to say to Susan Reed.
Besides which, he’d suddenly noticed how hungry he was. He set off in the
direction of a nearby café he knew from his police days. As he rounded a
corner, a hand touched his shoulder. He turned and saw that it belonged to Jim
Monahan. “Christ, Harlan, tell me you didn’t do it,” he said.