Blood Guilt by Ben Cheetham

motioned for her to sit on the sofa, but
she shook her head. “Do you want a cup of tea or something?” he asked. Again,
she shook her head. She fidgeted with her hands, her eyes darting around the
room as if searching for something.
    At last, Susan began,
“I need–” But she broke off, struggling to bring herself to say what was on her
mind. Swallowing a breath, she forced herself to look Harlan in the eyes. “I
need your help.”
    “I’m willing to do
anything I can to help you.”
    “Do you mean that?
You’ll really do anything .”
    Susan’s voice carried
an edge that made Harlan hesitate a second before nodding. “I just don’t see
what I can do that the police aren’t already doing.”
    “You can talk to
William Jones.”
    “What would be the
point of that? The police obviously don’t think he’s involved.”
    “Yeah, well they’re wrong,”
Susan returned with a sneering scowl that mingled contempt with barely
suppressed rage. “That fucker’s hiding something.”
    “What makes you think
that?”
    “’Cos I saw him. I saw
that sick pervert watching my Ethan and the other kids come out of school. And
I saw him in the park with his paints and things, painting pictures of the kids
in the playground.”
    “That’s certainly
incriminating, but as I understand it Jones goes for girls, not boys.”
    “He goes for little
kids. Girls and boys. Ask anyone around where I live and they’ll tell you what
that filth, that fuckin’ vermin goes for.” 
    As Susan spoke, her
voice grew loud and splotches of angry red stood out on her pale cheeks. Harlan
held up his hands in a calming gesture. “Okay let’s assume you’re right. If the
police can’t get him to talk, what makes you think I can?”
    “Because you can do
things the police can’t.” Susan’s eyes glittered with the same brutal intent
that suffused her voice. “You can make Jones talk.”
    The deep lines that
marked Harlan’s face grew deeper. The idea of trying to beat a confession out
of a suspect went against both his natural instincts and everything he’d been
taught. As far as he was concerned, police who used violent tactics were
little, if any better, than criminals themselves. But even if he’d been willing
to do as Susan asked, he wasn’t sure that he could do it. Merely thinking about
it brought on a twinge of the same paralysis that’d gripped his limbs like a
vice when Carl Gallagher attacked him. He dragged his feet across the room to
the window and stared at the leaden grey sky.
    “You said you’d do
anything,” Susan reminded Harlan, her voice insistent and pleading at the same
time.
    “I know, but–”
    “But what?”
    Harlan turned to Susan.
“I can follow Jones night and day. He won’t be able to make a move without me
knowing it. I can even break into his house and search it while he’s out.”
    She shook her head.
“The police have already done all that and it got them nowhere. Why do you
think I’m here?” For a second, tears trembled on her eyelashes. She swiped them
away as if she hated them, and when she next spoke her voice was edged with
steel. “You want a chance, don’t you? A chance to wipe your conscience clean.
Well this is it, and you better fucking believe me, it’s the only one I’m ever
gonna give you. You do this one thing and then you can forget about me and my
kids forever.”
    Not forget about you ,
thought Harlan. Never that . Never completely . But maybe, just
maybe, move on from the memory enough to start rebuilding my life properly .
He heaved a sigh. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
    Susan matched his sigh
with a sharp breath of relief. “What will you do to him?” There was something
almost ghoulish in the trembling eagerness of her question.
    “I don’t know,” admitted
Harlan, his voice tight with strain. “Before I do anything, I need to ask you a
couple of questions.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Does anyone else know
you’re here?”
    “No.”
    “Good. Let’s keep