“I’ll ask him.”
Dropping her eyes back down to the photo, Susan reached to gently stroke her fingers over Jack’s face. “God, he’s so beautiful.” She looked away suddenly, tears spilling down her cheeks, her face contorting into quivering scowl. Spittle flecked her lips as she said, “It makes me want to kill, thinking about what might be happening to him.”
They sat unspeaking in the gathering gloom — Susan letting her tears fall silently; Neil pale, his lips drawn into a tight line; Harlan staring at A amp;E, trying not to think or feel for a while, but knowing that was impossible. A car pulled up in front of A amp;E. DI Sheridan got out of it, glancing around. Harlan flashed his headlights and she headed in his direction. “Get out,” he told Neil.
Neil shot Susan a final pleading glance. “I meant what I said, Susie. I’m gonna make this right. You’ll see.” When she refused to meet his eyes, heaving a breath, he got out of the car. DI Sheridan took hold of his arm, and with a brief nod at Harlan, guided him towards her car.
“Do you really think Neil’s got anything to do with this?” asked Susan.
Harlan knew what she wanted. She wanted what so many others had sought from him in the past — hope. But as much as he hated to see her pained, imploring eyes he couldn’t give it to her, not while there was even the slightest chance it might turn out to be false. “I don’t know.”
“Oh Christ, I hope he doesn’t. I let him into the kids’ lives. I’ll never be able to forgive myself if he’s part of this.”
Harlan started the engine. “I’ll give you a lift home.”
Susan looked at him uncertainly, as if she wasn’t sure whether to accept a lift. Then she let out a breath that seemed to come from her feet. “I’ve got to pick up Kane from his friend’s house.”
“What’s the address?”
“Just drive. I’ll tell you where to go on the way.”
Following Susan’s directions, Harlan drove to a terraced house several streets away from her own. She got out and rang the doorbell. A moment later, the door opened and Kane stepped out. Anger festered in his sullen, simmering hazel-brown eyes like an open wound. When he saw Harlan, his mouth twisted with bitterness. “What’s he doing here?”
“Giving us a lift home,” said Susan.
Kane glared at her incredulously. “No way am I getting in that car!”
“Please, Kane.”
“No. No fuckin’ way.”
Susan’s voice rose. “Don’t you use that language with me.”
“You said you were going out to talk to Neil. You lied.”
“No I didn’t. Look, Kane, something’s happened. Something to do with-” Susan broke off, glancing around as if afraid of being overheard. “This isn’t the place to talk about this. Just get in the car, will you?”
Kane shook his head furiously. “How can you have anything to do with him?”
“I don’t want to, but I have to.”
“Why?”
“You know why. Now come on, get in.” Susan caught Kane by the arm, dragged him towards the car and opened the rear door. He kicked it shut, then kicked it again, denting it. “Kane, stop that!”
Jerking away from Susan and darting Harlan a look of violent hostility, Kane ran across the street. “Get back here,” shouted Susan. He ignored her. She ducked her head into the car. “Sorry about your door.”
“No need,” said Harlan. He would’ve gladly let Kane work the car over with a baseball bat if it helped him work off some of his rage.
“I’ll have to go after him.” Susan started to turn away from Harlan, but hesitated. Not looking at him, her voice barely audible, she said, “Thanks.”
Thanks. The word reverberated in Harlan’s mind as he watched Susan chase after Kane. What did it mean? That she’d forgiven him? He dismissed the thought. She was grateful for what he’d done, but that didn’t mean she’d forgiven him. There was only one way she’d ever do that, and maybe not even then. Still, it briefly buoyed his spirits. But then his thoughts returned to Ethan and Jack, and everything inside him grew heavy again.
Chapter 14
Harlan drove to his flat, stopping on the way to pick up some fast-food — his fridge had stood empty for days. He ate mechanically, tasting nothing, lost in a fog of exhaustion. His meal half-finished, he shuffled to bed. All he wanted to do was sleep, but the moment he shut his eyes he saw Jack Holland’s face as if it’d been imprinted on the underside of his eyelids. Something else Susan had said came into his mind: it makes me want to kill. When Tom was alive, he’d said a similar thing to Eve once when investigating a particularly heinous crime. But when Tom died that part of him had been closed off. Now all he had the capacity to feel was a kind of soul-sick sadness. But it was enough to keep sleep away. After a couple of hours, he got up and switched on the television. There was nothing on any of the news channels about Jack Holland’s abduction. It wouldn’t be long before there was, though. Then the media would go into a frenzy, pumping out fear like an overactive adrenal gland, making every man a suspect. And maybe they’d be justified in doing so, reflected Harlan. If, as seemed likely, Ethan and Jack’s kidnapper was the same person, it was clear they wouldn’t stop until they were caught.
Harlan rubbed at his temples, trying to relieve the pressure lodged behind them, but it just built and built. He took out his phone and stared at Jack Holland’s delicate, chubby face as if internally debating something. Suddenly, his expression tired but set, he grabbed his shoes and coat, and hurried down to his car. Speeding along quiet night roads, he passed through the suburbs to the edge of the city and beyond. Following a sign marked ‘Manchester’, he turned down a slip-road to the M1. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he got there. All he knew was that he had to keep moving, keep searching.
Harlan was about twenty miles out from Sheffield, when his phone rang. It was Jim. His weariness had been replaced with uncharacteristic excitement. “You’re not gonna believe this, Harlan. The kid, Jack Holland, he got away.”
Harlan’s eyes popped wide. “Fucking hell. How?”
“We’re still getting the full story, but from what we know it went down something like this. Jack was grabbed from behind and thrown in the back of a white transit van. He was gagged and blindfolded and his hands and feet were tied. After what felt like hours to him, the van stopped and he was carried from it and put down on something soft. He heard his kidnapper moving away. He managed to work his hands free and remove his blindfold. He found that he was alone, lying on a mattress in a tunnel-”
“A tunnel,” broke in Harlan, frowning. “What kind of tunnel?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute. So anyway, the kid’s in this tunnel and it’s almost pitch black, but he can see daylight in the distance. He unties his legs and tries to make a run for it, but he can’t because his feet are numb from having the circulation cut off. So, get this, he crawls on his hands and knees until the feeling comes back. At the end of the tunnel there’s an overgrown drainage ditch. As Jack’s climbing out of the ditch, he hears a man’s voice shouting something. He doesn’t look to see who the voice belongs to. He runs into some nearby woods and hides. He hears somebody moving through the undergrowth, but he doesn’t dare lift his head to look at them. When he can’t hear anyone anymore, he starts running again. Beyond the woods, there’s a road. He flags down a passing car. The driver calls us. Turns out, Jack was taken to a disused storm-drain twenty or so miles to the east of where he was snatched.”
As Harlan listened to Jim, his frown deepened until a furrow like a knife wound was cut into his forehead. “Are you at the storm-drain now?”
“Yeah. It’s a scary fucking place, right out in the middle of nowhere. You could scream your head off and nobody would ever hear.”
“Can you send me a photo of it?”
“Sure. But why? What are you thinking?”
“I’m not exactly sure. I just need to see it.”
“Okay. Hold on a second. I’m sending it.”
