Eve raised an eyebrow. “Work something out? That doesn’t sound like you, Harlan.”
“Well, maybe this is the new me. And the new me isn’t going to waste a second worrying about money. Hell, when it runs out we could start our own business. Nothing big, just enough to get us by. But for now…” Harlan took Eve’s hands. “For now, let’s get out of the city and go somewhere quiet, somewhere we can lie in the sun and…and pretend the last few years never happened.”
“Okay,” Eve said, with an excited little laugh. “Okay, you’re on. I’ll ring work and hand in my notice.” She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed it, murmuring, “I think I’m going to enjoy spending all my time with the new you.”
Harlan gave her a wry look. “If I were you, I’d reserve judgement on that until we’ve been living in each other’s pockets for a few months.”
Harlan slowly dressed. Even with all the pills, there were pains in almost every nerve of his body. But he didn’t care. Nothing was going to stop him from being with Eve and his unborn child. Nothing.
An hour or so later, all the forms signed and medication doled out, they headed for the car park. Harlan blinked as they stepped outside. The morning seemed so bright, so fresh. He filled his lungs as if starved for air. Eve pointed out her car. He limped towards it, heavy on his feet, but light in his heart, and got into the passenger seat. As Eve negotiated the congested streets, he stared at the city, seeing the dirt and hustle, but not seeing it. He felt in a kind of daze. Suddenly, in the space of two moments, the life that’d been taken away from him had been returned. It was almost too much to take in. He kept replaying the moments. I want you to be happy… I’m pregnant… I want you to be happy… I’m pregnant…Susan and Eve’s voices went round and round in his head until they blended and became indistinguishable, forming a perfect circle of proof — proof that life was worth it, that there was light in the darkness, that a new day really had begun. He almost didn’t want to think about any of it, in case in thinking he found some flaw in the circle.
Harlan started at the sound of his phone. He took it out and a little squeeze of anxiety pressed against his chest when he saw who was calling.
“Who is it?” asked Eve.
“Jim.”
As if infected by his unease, Eve said quickly, “Don’t answer it.”
“It might be important.”
Eve shot Harlan a glance, her eyes intense, almost pleading. Her hand dropped to her belly. “ This is important. This is the most important thing in the world.”
She was right, he knew. And in a way he felt instinctively, but didn’t quite comprehend at that moment, that was why he had to answer the phone. Eve’s blue eyes winced as he put it to his ear and asked, “What is it, Jim?”
His ex-partner’s voice came back down the line, low and apologetic. “It’s Jones.”
The squeezing became a painful weight. Hang up, his mind screamed. But the phone remained pressed to his ear as if glued there. “What about him?”
“He got out today.”
“What do you mean, got out?”
“They discharged him from hospital. We’ve got nothing to hold him on. No forensics. Nash is still saying nothing. I’m so sorry, Harlan. I tried, I really tried, but…” Jim trailed off into a sigh of utter dejection.
As he listened, Harlan closed his eyes. With every word, the circle was crumbling, the future receding, the gap growing between his dreams of a bright new beginning and the bitter realities of his past. He suddenly felt a fool for allowing himself to hope that he could escape the darkness. There was no escape. Not now. Not ever. There was only wilful blindness. Better to face it full on, embrace it, use it. “No need to apologise, it’s not your fault.” His voice was flat, toneless, making it difficult to tell whether he meant what he said. He meant it. It wasn’t Jim’s fault, it was the system’s. The system had failed him. It had failed Jamie Sutton. But worst of all, it had failed his unborn child. The thought of it being born into a world where William Jones walked free made his stomach churn with rage.
“I just thought you’d want know.” Jim’s voice was edged with unspoken meaning.
The bastard knows I’ll go after Jones, thought Harlan. He’s using me to do what he hasn’t got the balls to do himself. For an instant, he felt like shouting, fuck you! How could you do this to me? Why couldn’t you just leave me alone? But his anger towards Jim died as quickly as it’d flared, and when he opened his mouth all that came out was a monotone, “I understand.”
Harlan hung up. He didn’t blame Jim for calling him. How could he? After all, both of them had seen the same things, and both of them wanted the same thing — Jones off the street, one way or another. But Jim was too invested in the system to go against it. So he’d turned to the only person he knew who stood outside it, maybe realising, maybe not, how dangerous the consequences might be. Harlan opened his eyes and his vision was filled by Bankwood House tower-block, its colourful exterior jarring with his grim mood. He noticed that his car had been returned.
Harlan looked at Eve, sadness, guilt and fear all mingling in his expression. But most of all fear. Fear that she and his unborn child would come to some harm — harm he might’ve prevented — while he was away from them. “We’re not going away, are we?” she said, reading his eyes.
Harlan shook his head. “There’s something I have to do. And I have to do it alone.”
With fatalistic resignation, Eve accepted his words. “How long will this something take?”
“I don’t know. Maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe…I don’t know.”
“And when this thing is done, when it’s over, what then?”
Harlan hesitated, only for a second, but long enough for Eve to catch it. “We can do what we planned.”
Eve pulled over. She gazed out the window, eyes unfocused, seeming to stare off into some other place, as if she was putting mental distance between herself and Harlan. He started to reach for her, but stopped when the knuckles of her hands gripping the wheel tautened. She deserved more of an explanation, he knew. She deserved more than him. But he couldn’t give her either of those things. Heaving a sigh, he got out of the car. As he did so, she murmured, “It’ll never be over.” She drove away without giving him a glance.
Chapter 24
Shoulders stooped as if he was carrying heavy bags, Harlan made his way up to his flat. As quickly as his battered body would allow, he changed into clean clothes. Then he headed for his car. Its interior had been cleaned, but there were still faint brown tide-marks where Jones’s blood had soaked into the front passenger-seat. He drove to the garage he’d bought it from and part-exchanged it for an Audi with tinted windows. Then he bought some black electrical-tape and scissors. After cutting the tape to the right width and length to alter the Audi’s registration number, he headed for Jones’s house. He parked a few doors along from it. Nothing had changed, except the bowed, water-logged window boards had been replaced with metal grilles — no doubt, by the police. They had a duty to protect all citizens, even scumbags like Jones. There was no way he was breaking into the house again. Not that he intended to. As far as he could see, there was only one way to connect Jones to Jamie Sutton — the painting. He had to find the painting. He doubted whether Jones would reveal its hiding place, even under torture. If he did, his life would be as good as over anyway. Besides, Harlan was convinced that sooner or later Jones would unwittingly lead him to the painting. Jones’s paintings were his trophies. He needed them to keep his fantasies alive. Right now, that need, that desire, might only be an itch in his groin, but it was an itch his ruined hands were unable to scratch, an itch that in a week, or maybe a month would develop into a craving that demanded to be satisfied.
Harlan settled down to wait for Jones to appear. He didn’t have to wait long. The front door opened, and as cautiously as a rabbit emerging from its burrow, Jones poked his bleary-eyed, unshaven face out. After making sure no one was lurking around, he left the house, wheeling a little tartan shopping trolley behind him. Moving with quick, shuffling steps, gripping the trolley’s handle clumsily in his plaster-of-Paris-encased hands, he made a pathetic sight. When he reached the end of the street, Harlan got out and followed him. He guessed Jones wouldn’t be going far, and he was right. Jones crossed a road and went into a Co-Op. Through the storefront window, Harlan watched him load the trolley up with White Lightening. After paying, Jones hauled his liquid diet homeward. Harlan
