Blood Guilt (2 page)

Harlan had known she
meant it, and suddenly his anger had disappeared and panic had risen in him at
the thought of losing the only thing left for him to love. “You’re right,” he’d
said. “I’ve got to stop doing this.”

That same day Harlan
had cleared out Tom’s bedroom and taken down every photo of him in the house.
“You don’t need to go that far,” Eve had said, shocked.

“Yes I do,” he’d
replied. “If I’m going to put this behind me, I can’t be surrounded by things
that remind me of him.”

So Harlan had pushed
the memories down. Down and deep. He’d locked them away and swallowed the key,
and for a while it’d worked. They’d got on with their lives, even trying for a
baby. Trying and trying but not succeeding. After a year, Harlan had started to
get scared. “Maybe we should see a doctor,” he’d suggested to Eve. She’d agreed.

Harlan didn’t want to
look inside the box, but somehow he couldn’t stop himself. With hands that
would’ve trembled but for the alcohol flooding his veins, he pulled away the
masking-tape and opened it. Thomas’s rosy-cheeked face beamed up at him from a
photo-frame. He had Harlan’s intense dark eyes and thick brown hair, and Eve’s
full lips and cute snub-nose.

Harlan’s breath came
out in a sudden gasp, as if he’d been punched in the stomach. The tears welled
again. This time he couldn’t stop them. They fell onto the photo, onto Thomas’s
favourite teddy-bear, onto his lucky pyjamas. He slumped forward, pressing his
face into the box’s contents, inhaling deeply, smelling the remnants of his
son. He was still in the same position an hour later when Eve poked her head
into the attic. “Harlan?” she said.

His mouth twitching
with resentment, Harlan raised his tear-stained face to glare at Eve. His anger
was almost tangible, filling the space between them like invisible tentacles
ready to strike. “Go on, say it,” said Eve, her voice flat, emotionally
drained. “Say what you’re thinking. It was my fault, right? I should’ve been
watching him more closely.”

“Yes!” The word came
out in a loud hiss, like a release of pent up steam.

They stared at each
other. Harlan was struck suddenly by how much Eve’s face had changed since
Tom’s death. Everything about it – skin, smile, eyes – had once been soft.
There was no softness now. Her face was thinner, worn into hollows beneath the
cheekbones, her eyes were sharp, and lately her mouth had assumed what seemed
to be an almost permanently downturned position. She looked older – not old,
but not young anymore either – and very tired. Like that day in Tom’s bedroom,
the tentacles of Harlan’s anger suddenly withered and sucked back in on
themselves. He made to speak, to apologise, but before he could do so Eve
ducked out of sight. He hurried after her into their bedroom.

“I’m sor–” Harlan
started to say, but he broke off as Eve pulled a suitcase down from the top of
the wardrobe. “What are you doing?”

Eve didn’t reply. She
started flinging clothes into the suitcase. When Harlan caught hold of her arm,
she jerked around to glare at him with such implacable fury that he released
her and took a step backward. She stormed past him into the bathroom, returning
with an armful of cosmetics to dump into the suitcase. As she hauled the
suitcase downstairs, Harlan said, “Please, Eve, don’t do this. I’m sorry. I
should never have said what I did.”

Eve paused at the front
door, turning to Harlan. “Why not? It’s what you think, isn’t it?”

He dropped his gaze
from hers, his broad shoulders slumping like a defeated boxer’s. Sighing, Eve
continued a shade more softly, “I should’ve done this months ago, but I
stupidly kept telling myself there was still a chance we could make it in time.
Now I know what you really think. And no amount of time will be enough to
change that. It’s over, Harlan.”

As Eve turned to head
for her car, Harlan’s mind reeled with conflicting desires. Part of him
desperately wanted to try and stop her. Another part told him to let her go.
After all, whether or not she was right, what future did she have to look
forward to with him? Maybe in time he could come to terms with Tom’s death. But
he’d always be sterile. And as far as he was concerned, a childless future was
no future at all. No, better to let her go while she was still young enough to
start a family with someone else.

Harlan watched Eve get
into her car, watched her pull away. Then he too left the house. He didn’t
close the front door behind himself. He didn’t care if the place got ransacked
and trashed. All he cared about was getting so drunk he’d forget everything,
even his own name. The snow came down in swirling flurries, settling in a
rapidly thickening layer on the ground. He almost slipped over several times on
his way to the pub.

It was a Friday, and
despite the weather, the pub was busy. A large group of men and women occupied
several tables in the centre of the bar. From their flushed faces and loud,
laughing voices, it was clear they’d already knocked a good few back. As Harlan
made his way past them, he tripped over an outstretched foot and staggered against
a table, knocking over a glass of wine.

“Fuckin’ watch it!”
yelled a shaven-headed man about Harlan’s age, wearing a t-shirt that showed
off bulging tattooed biceps. The kind of tough guy type Harlan used to deal
with every day of the week when he was walking the beat.

“Shit, I’m soaked
through!” said a woman at the man’s side, springing up. She was a little
younger, thirty or so, bottle-blond, a pretty face hidden behind too much
makeup. White wine streamed down her figure-hugging dress. “Look at my dress,
it’s ruined.”

“Sorry,” said Harlan,
taking out a handkerchief and proffering it her.

Standing, the man
slapped his hand away. “You trying to touch her up or something?”

The man fixed Harlan
with a practised hard stare. He was a couple inches taller than Harlan and more
heavily built. But his muscles were running to fat, whereas Harlan’s were
whipcord tight beneath his clothes – the result of a youth spent in sweaty
boxing gyms. Harlan held his gaze, not aggressive, but letting him know he
wasn’t about to be intimidated. The man blinked, obviously not used to someone
standing up to him.

“Look, let me buy you
both a drink to apologise,” offered Harlan.

“Fuck drinks. That
dress cost a hundred quid. What you gonna do about that?”

“Well I’m not going to
give you a hundred quid.”

The two men faced each
other silently. Some part of Harlan wanted the man to go for him, wanted to
feel the good, clean pain of punching and being punched. That kind of pain he
could handle. “Leave it, Rob,” said the woman. “It’ll come out in the wash.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Rob’s face relaxed into
a mean little smile. “I’ll have a lager, she’ll have a large white wine,” he
told Harlan.

Faintly disappointed,
Harlan approached the bar and ordered the drinks, plus a double Scotch for himself.
He took the couple their drinks, not bothering even to look at their thankless
faces. Then he returned to the bar and went to work on the whisky. At first he
was half aware of Rob shooting an occasional dark glance his way. But after a
while he noticed nothing, except whether his glass was full or empty. At
closing time, he reluctantly made his way outside, taking small, jerky steps
like a toddler learning to walk.

It’d stopped snowing,
and the pale luminance of a full moon made the streets seem paved with
shattered glass. A group of people were throwing snowballs at each other in the
road. Harlan barely gave them a glance. He was thinking about the house. A
shudder passed through him at the thought of spending the night there with only
the ghosts of unwanted memories for company. He took out his mobile phone, and
speed-dialled Jim. After four or five rings, his partner picked up. “What is
it, Harlan?”

“Eve’s left me.”

“Shit, I’m sorry to
hear that.”

“Can I come over?”

Jim sighed. “Sure.”

“Thanks, Jimmy.”

As Harlan hung up, a
voice rang out behind him. “Hey fuckhead!” He glanced over his shoulder, and a
snowball hit him hard in the face. He wiped it away, and through a blur of
tears, saw Rob approaching him with that same smile on his face. The woman was
dragging at Rob’s arm, slowing his progress. He jerked free of her and pointed
at Harlan. “You owe me a hundred quid.”

The woman grabbed his
arm again. “Please, Rob,” she said, her eyes pleading with Harlan to walk away.
But Harlan wasn’t about to walk away, not until he was sure Rob wouldn’t
rabbit-punch him. Rob stopped about fifteen feet away from him, and Harlan
thought,
this guy’s all bark and no bite
. He turned and started walking
to jeers of, “Wanker!” from Rob’s mates. Another snowball hit the back of his
head.
Just keep walking
, he told himself, gritting his teeth. A third
snowball burst on his back. He stopped and turned to face Rob. Even as he did
so, his mind said,
what are you doing? Don’t be stupid.
But his heart
was almost grateful to Rob. Here was a chance to take out his anger and
frustration on someone who needed teaching a lesson.

As Harlan advanced
towards him, Rob spread his arms and shouted, “Come on then!”

Harlan swung wildly,
something between a straight punch and a wide-sweeping haymaker. Somehow, by
some quirk of luck, his fist connected flush on Rob’s chin. Both feet shot out
from under the bigger man and he catapulted backward. As his head hit the
pavement, there was a sound like breaking eggs. A sickening, stomach-churning
sound. He didn’t cry out, his arms twitched a little spasmodically, then he lay
still, eyes closed. 

“Rob!” cried the woman,
dropping to her knees, putting her ear close to his mouth, frantically checking
for a pulse. “Oh God, he’s not breathing. I can’t feel his pulse. Shit, shit–”
Her shrill voice choked off into gasping panic breaths.

“Call an ambulance!”
yelled someone.

Harlan just stood in
mute, uncomprehending stupefaction, watching blood spread like a halo through
the snow under the prostrate man’s head. The blood looked oily black in the
moonlight.

“Help him! Help him!”
shrieked the woman.

Harlan flinched like
someone jerked suddenly out of a trance. He stooped towards Rob. The woman
screamed, her eyes swollen with fear, anger and hatred. “Get away! Get away
from him you murdering bastard!”

No, not murder
,
said the policeman in Harlan.
Manslaughter
. “I know CPR.” His voice
sounded eerily distorted in his own ears, like an echo. A strange feeling of
disconnection came over him, reinforced by the dreamlike hush of the snow
muffled city. The feeling was dispelled by the sting of the woman’s nails
raking at his face. Two of her friends grabbed her.

“No!” she wailed, as
they dragged her away. “Rob! Rob!”

Harlan felt for a
pulse. Nothing. He listened for breath. There was none. He gently tilted Rob’s
head back, opened his mouth and checked nothing was obstructing his windpipe.
He pinched Rob’s nose shut and breathed twice into his mouth. Then placing his
hands, one on top of the other, on Rob’s breastbone, he compressed his chest.
He checked for breathing and a pulse again. Still nothing. He thumped Rob’s
chest.

“Stop him!” The woman’s
shrill, sobbing voice cut through the air. “Call the police!” 

I am the police
,
thought Harlan. His next thought was,
no you’re not. You’re not a policeman,
you’re not a husband, and you’re not a father. The man you were is as dead as
this poor bastard. Everything he was is gone. It’s over. Finished. Nothing can
bring him back.

Harlan stopped CPR.
Slowly, as if he was being dragged down by some irresistible weight, he bowed
his head until it rested in the snow.

Chapter
1

With a smooth,
effortless motion, Harlan did push-ups on his cell floor. On reaching the
required number, he picked a diary off his narrow bunk and totted up the final
tally. Four hundred and ninety-two thousand mind numbing push-ups in four
years. Making a mental note that he was never going to do another one, he
glanced at his watch. Nine AM. Not long now.

His gaze travelled
blankly around the cramped segregation cell where he’d been kept for his own
protection since word somehow got out that he used to be a copper. Four, three,
even two years ago, his sharply chiselled features would’ve assumed an
expression of disgust verging on hatred, as he took in the drearily oppressive
walls, the barred window with its plastic curtains, the stark fluorescent
light, the small television, and the stainless steel integrated toilet and sink
unit. But at some point – he couldn’t remember exactly when – a kind of
resigned acceptance had kicked in.
Just do the time and let everything else
go
, he’d told himself. Only he hadn’t been able to let everything else go.
Each night at lights out, he’d focused on the continuous din of his fellow
inmates calling to one another, vainly trying to stay in the here-and-now. But
his mind was stuck in a loop, constantly being drawn back to the moment of
drunken rage when he’d deprived a wife of her husband, and two young boys of
their father – he’d found out at the trial that the man he killed had two sons,
aged four and eight. At the time, he’d become so filled with self-hatred that
he contemplated suicide. Even now, thinking about it made him unconsciously
clench his hand and pummel it into his thigh.