Blood Guilt (3 page)

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?”

Without waiting for a
response, Susan turned and stalked away. Leaving the money scattered over the
carpet, Harlan made his way to the sofa and dropped onto it as if his body was
impossibly heavy. So that was that. There could be no redemption. She would
give him no chance.

Harlan’s mobile phone
rang. It was Jim. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you since last night,” he
said. “Has she been to see you yet?”

“If by she you mean
Susan Reed, then yes.”

“Shit. She phoned me
demanding to know where you live. Sorry, Harlan, but I had to tell her,
otherwise she was threatening to tell your parole officer what you did. Just
what the hell were you thinking? If she reports you, you could get sent back to
prison.”

I already am in prison
,
thought Harlan,
a prison that holds me captive more securely than any
manmade structure could
. He said with a fatalistic calmness, “Maybe that’d
be for the best.”

“What are you talking
about? Are you okay? Do you want me to come over?”

“No, I don’t want you
to come over. And don’t ring me again either.”

Harlan hung up. He
returned to bed and lay awake, embracing the guilt, letting it consume him. The
phone rang several times. He ignored it. When the sun softened to twilight he
got up, haggard and sunken-eyed. Mechanically, he dressed and ate.
Mechanically, he made his way to work.