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
…