Eve reached out to touch Harlan’s hand. It was only the lightest of touches, but it reignited his desire like a fire in a haystack. “Please, Harlan.”
“Okay. I tell you what I’d really like. I’d like some spaghetti, if that’s not too much trouble.” Harlan had always loved Eve’s pasta. He hadn’t eaten a meal that was worth tasting in years, and just the thought of it made him salivate.
Eve smiled again. “Of course it’s not.” She headed into the kitchen. “Look, why don’t you get a bath while I’m cooking?” She pointed to a door. “The bathroom’s in there.”
Harlan hesitated, but Eve wafted him towards the door. Like the rest of the flat, the bathroom was clean and comfortable and smelt of Eve’s perfume. He set the water running and poured bubble-bath into it. As he undressed, he noticed a razor and shaving-foam on the side of the bath. He lathered his cheeks and shaved at the sink, before getting into the bath. He stretched out, releasing a long breath, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt the knot of tension in his belly start to uncoil.
After soaking in the bath, Harlan towelled himself down, dressed and returned to the living-room. He inhaled the scent of cooking, and his stomach growled. Like a moth to a flame, his gaze was drawn to the photos of Tom. After a moment, he was amazed to realise he was smiling. “Beautiful, isn’t he?” said Eve. Harlan turned and saw that she was watching him intently from the kitchen doorway, as if trying to gauge his reaction to the photos.
“He’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw.” There was still sadness in Harlan’s voice, but no trace of the old bitterness.
Eve’s features relaxed. She approached Harlan and stood close enough that he could smell her wine-sweet breath, studying his face as if she’d never seen it before. “I used your razor,” Harlan said, dry-mouthed, restraining an urge to grab her and crush her to him. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Eve shook her head. Hesitantly, she reached to stroke his cheek. “The food won’t be ready for a little while,” she said, as he shuddered at her touch.
He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could do so she kissed him. He kissed her back, hard. The sensation was familiar, yet new at the same time. Blood pounding in his head and groin, he ran his hands up and down her back. Urgently fumbling at buttons and buckles, they undressed each other. Then they were on the floor, limbs entwined, hips grinding, rushing towards a simultaneous orgasm. Afterwards, they held each other close for a long while. When they finally drew apart, Harlan saw that there were tears in Eve’s eyes.
“What’s the matter?” he asked softly.
“Nothing,” she said, turning her head away as if embarrassed.
“Tell me.”
“It’s just I haven’t felt anything like that since, well, since we were first together.” Eve stood up and pulled on her underwear. “I’d better check on the spaghetti.”
Harlan stretched out naked on the rug, his body suffused with an almost floating sense of relaxation. It was as though, for a brief time at least, Eve had drawn all the guilt out of him and absorbed it somewhere deep inside her. She returned with a tray loaded with two bowls of pasta and crusty bread. They ate on the rug, Harlan pounding his food back as if there was no tomorrow. Eve laughed when he asked if there was anymore, and fetched him a second helping. When he was finished, he rested back against the sofa and sighed contentedly. He would’ve liked nothing better at that moment than to curl up in bed with Eve and drift off to sleep. “God, I’ve missed this,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too, Harlan. More than I ever thought I could.” The tears were back in Eve’s eyes. She swiped them away and cast him a glance, half hopeful, half fearful. “So what happens now?”
What happens now? It was a question that tore away Harlan’s thin layer of contentment, gripped him by either hand and pulled in opposite directions. On the one hand, he desperately wanted to be with Eve. On the other, he didn’t know whether he could allow himself to be with her. It wasn’t simply that he was an infertile ex-con with zero career prospects — although that was a big part of it. It was the guilt. Already he could feel it creeping back over him like a vine. Soon the weight of it would be enough to drag him, and maybe Eve too if she was with him, back down into a pit of self-loathing and despair. He would’ve rather swallowed the tumbler of sleeping-pills than do that to her again. He had to climb out from under the guilt. But he couldn’t do it by himself. He needed help. And the only person who could help him was the person who hated him most in the world — Susan Reed. He didn’t expect forgiveness, but he hoped that if he helped get her son back, she would ease his burden enough to let him have a life.
Harlan was reluctant to explain the way he felt to Eve, knowing his words would cut deep. Bitter experience had taught him that concealing his feelings wasn’t an option either, though. He sat trying to work up the nerve to put his thoughts into words, but when he eventually opened his mouth all that came out was a lame, “I don’t know.” He dropped his gaze. Suddenly conscious of his nakedness, he started pulling on his clothes.
“Why don’t we go to bed?”
Harlan looked at Eve uncertainly. A few minutes earlier, he wouldn’t have hesitated to go along with her suggestion, but with so many conflicting thoughts and feelings battling for space inside him he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. “We don’t have to talk,” she continued. “We can just hold each other and forget the world for a while.”
“Forget.” Harlan said the word with a sigh of longing. “Okay.”
Eve took Harlan’s hand and led him to bed. He nestled into the soft, clean-smelling sheets with her head on his shoulder and her leg crooked over his, feeling the heat of her breath against his skin. At first, her breathing was a little shallow and her body occasionally spasmed — she’d always suffered from hypnic jerks when tense. After a while, though, he felt the heaviness of sleep overtake her. He watched her and tried to exist only in that moment, but it wasn’t possible. In the end, he gently disentangled himself from her, gathered up his clothes, went into the living-room and switched on the television to check for any breaking news. There was none. The promised press conference hadn’t yet occurred.
Harlan’s phone rang. It was Jim. Heart thumping, wondering if this was going to be the call that changed everything, he answered his phone. “What’s happened?” he asked, his voice eager but apprehensive.
“Our man came out of his coma last night,” Jim said. “His name’s Carl Gallagher. He’s thirty-two years old and a real piece of work. He’s got a record for breaking and entering, GBH, and, get this, the statutory rape of a fifteen-year old girl. He also has warrants out on him for a string of armed robberies in the city.”
“So it was him. He took Ethan.”
“He’s denying any involvement.”
“Of course he is. They always do. But he did it, right? I mean, what other reason could a scumbag like him have for cruising Ethan’s street in the middle of the night?”
“He says he was visiting a girlfriend, a married woman. He cruised the street several times to make sure her husband wasn’t home.”
“Does his story check out?”
“Yes.”
“What about forensics?”
“We’ve searched Gallagher’s car, and we’re still searching his last known address, but so far we haven’t turned up one scrap of physical evidence to connect him to Ethan.”
Harlan rested his head against his clenched fist, disappointment coursing through him. “Where’s Gallagher been hiding out these past few weeks?”
“He’s been sleeping in his car, moving from place to place to avoid detection.”
“What was he doing at the church?”
“He was going to rob the donation box.”
It was the answer Harlan had expected. As far as he could see, there were no holes in Gallagher’s story, no unanswered questions. The lead was a dead end, which meant his life remained a dead end. He ground his knuckles into his forehead in frustration. “Thanks for letting me know, Jim.”
“No problem. I don’t give a toss what Garrett says, you deserve it after what you did.”
“Have you got any other leads?”
“You know I can’t tell you that, Harlan.”
There was a weariness in Jim’s voice that answered Harlan’s question well enough. “You haven’t, have you?”
Jim was silent a moment, then he admitted, “We’ve got shit-all. Unless we get a lucky break, I can see this
