were right. Something might well be going on. But what? Was it possible they’d found Ethan alive? No. If that were the case, they’d have told Susan. More likely they’d found a body and were waiting for positive identification. Or perhaps they had a new lead on Ethan’s kidnapper. Whatever it was, it obviously didn’t involve Neil, unless…It occurred to Harlan with a jolt that maybe he was the development. Maybe the police were surveilling them right now. His eyes scoured the street for potential unmarked police vehicles. There were none. He cut off his line of thinking, reminding himself that in all his days of tailing Neil he’d seen nothing to make him suspect the police were doing likewise. Stop speculating on what you don’t know, he told himself sharply. Focus on what you do know. The facts, only the facts.
“There. Now don’t you feel better?” said Neil.
“I suppose so. Thanks, babe. You know, I don’t know what I’d have done without you these past few weeks.”
“You’d have got through it. You’re stronger than you think.”
“No I’m not.”
Neil looked meaningfully at Harlan, who was astonished to find himself questioning whether he was doing the right thing. Neil was Susan’s main support. If he was pulled away from under her, there was no telling how far she might fall. Do you really have to do that to her, after everything else you’ve done? agonised Harlan. Almost the instant he asked the question, some other part of his brain shot back the answer: yes.
“Tell her you need to see her,” Harlan mouthed silently at Neil.
Neil’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His words came hesitatingly. “Listen, Susie, I…we need to talk.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing.”
“No, well, yes we are, but I need to see you.”
“What? Now?”
Wringing his hands, his voice nearly disappearing within the folds of its reluctance, Neil said, “Yes. I’ve… err…got something to say to you.”
“So say it.”
“I can’t. Not over the phone. It’s too important.”
“What’s so important you can’t say it over the phone?” Harlan heard the frown in Susan’s voice. He winced inwardly as, a note of panic creeping back in, she continued, “Is it about Ethan?”
“No,” Neil said quickly. “It’s about me. Look, just meet me outside A amp;E as soon as you can, will you.”
“Can’t you come here?”
“I can’t be off the wards for that long.”
“What about Kane? I can’t just leave him here on his own.”
“So drop him off at one of his friends’ houses.”
“I don’t know. It’s getting a bit late for that and I…Look, can’t you just tell me what you’ve got to tell me?”
Neil sighed. “Will you come or not?”
Susan was silent a moment, then, sighing too, she said, “Okay, but you’d better have something big to tell me.”
Harlan hung up and returned Neil’s phone to him. He turned the car and accelerated back the way they’d come. Neil sat slumped down in his seat, his expression swaying between misery and resignation. When the hospital came into view, he turned to Harlan suddenly. “There must be something I can say to convince you this is unnecessary.”
“Maybe there is,” said Harlan, although there wasn’t.
“I’m taking every extra shift I can to pay off Dawson. I’ve upped my repayments to two hundred a week. He says if I keep it up my debt will be cleared in a year-and-a-half. Then I’ll be able to apply for a mortgage, and me, Susan, Kane and-” Neil caught himself on the verge of saying ‘Ethan’. “We can live together in our own place. And maybe me and Susan can get married and have kids. We can have a real life together. Don’t take that away from us.”
A real life. At these words, an image came into Harlan’s mind of Tom playing with his toys on the hearth-rug while he and Susan chatted and read the Sunday newspapers. A real life. A life that’d been taken from him through no fault or action of his own. Anger suddenly surged up in him. “I’m not taking anything away from you,” he snapped. “You’ve done that to yourself.”
“I only did it to save Susan from-”
Harlan shot Neil a glance that silenced him. As they parked, Neil sagged back down into his seat, his eyes wet and glistening in the bright yellow light of A amp;E’s ambulance bay.
They sat in silence for twenty or so minutes, until a taxi pulled up and Susan got out. “Call her over,” said Harlan. When Neil didn’t make a move to do so, he added, “Call her over, or I will.”
Neil opened his window and shouted to Susan. When she saw Harlan’s car, the lines etched into her features by the weeks of worry deepened. “What’s he doing here?” she demanded to know, the openness that Harlan had heard on the phone replaced by her familiar guardedness.
“Get in and I’ll tell you.”
Susan hesitated to do so, uneasy suspicion rippling over her face, her eyes flicking back and forth between Neil and Harlan, as though she was trying to work out if they were in some way in league together. With a slight shake of her head, she seemed to dismiss whatever she was thinking. She ducked into the backseat, but didn’t shut the door. Arms crossed, she waited to hear what Neil had to say. He stared at his lap, pale as a condemned man. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. “Tell her or I-” Harlan started to say.
“Okay, okay,” broke in Neil. With a tight breath, he lifted his gaze to meet Susan’s. Her thin lips grew thinner still, as he said, “There’s something about me I’ve been hiding from you. The thing is, Susie, I…erm…You know I said I was saving to buy a place of my own. Well I’m not. Not yet anyway. I am going to, but first I’ve got to pay off a debt. You see, I took out a loan from this guy, Gary Dawson.”
“How much?” Susan’s voice was calm, but an undercurrent of growing anger was perceptible.
“Only four thousand, but now I owe him nearly ten.”
“And do the police know about this?”
“No.”
“So you’ve lied to me and the police.”
“Yes, but only because there’s no need for them to know. This has got nothing to do with-”
Susan’s hand lashed out and Neil felt the same sting of her nails that Harlan had on more than one occasion. “Don’t say it,” she hissed. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare say my boy’s name.”
Tears spilled over Neil’s eyes. “But it’s the truth. Please, Susie, you’ve got to believe me.”
“How can I? If you’d told me about this right away after this all started, I might’ve been able to. But now…” Shaking her head, Susan repeated, “How can I?”
“Because I love you and I love Ethan and Kane.”
“If you really loved us, you’d have told the truth.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“No!” Susan stabbed an accusatory finger at Neil. “You lied to protect your own pathetic hide. Remember what Detective Greenwood said — he said, somebody out there’s holding that vital piece of information that’s needed to solve the case, and they might not even realise it. So we need to know everything you know, no matter how insignificant you think it is. Do you remember that, Neil?”
Neil nodded desolately.
“How do you know it wasn’t this guy, this Gary Dawson, who took Ethan?”
“He wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Wouldn’t he? Maybe he’s using Ethan to force you to pay up.”
Neil shook his head. “He’s a loan-shark, not a child abductor. And anyway, he doesn’t need to force me to pay. I’m already handing over half my wage-packet to him.”
“Neil’s right,” put in Harlan. “I don’t know much about Dawson, but I do know it wouldn’t make any sense for him to kidnap Ethan — at least, not on account of a ten thousand pound debt.”
“So you don’t think this…this fucking nightmare has got anything to do with Neil’s debt.” Susan looked at Harlan with a conflicted gleam in her eyes that suggested she was caught between the desperate desire to find out
