Chapter
18
The small living-room
was gloomy and stale smelling.
Like a tomb
. The thought popped unbidden
into Harlan’s head. It made him feel a little suffocated, and he resisted an
urge to fling open the window. Leaflets with Ethan’s face on them were piled on
every available surface – the carpet, the sofa, the hearth, the television. “Do
you mind if I sit down?” he asked, one hand pressed over his bandage. Susan
shook her head. Picking his way through the leaflets, he limped to the sofa,
cleared a space and carefully lowered himself onto it.
From somewhere Susan
dredged up a smile that only made her face seem more deathlike. “You look worse
than I feel.”
No I don’t
, thought Harlan, as she continued, “Shouldn’t
you be in hospital?”
“I wanted to see you.
Are you alone?”
“Kane’s asleep
upstairs. Poor thing, he’s tired out after what–” Susan broke off with a
sheepish glance at Harlan.
He finished her
sentence for her. “After what happened last night. I heard about that.”
“It was an accident. I
didn’t try to–” Susan started to say, but broke off again, her eyes dropping
guiltily away from Harlan’s. She shook her head. “I can’t lie to you. Not after
what you’ve done.”
“So you did try to kill
yourself.”
Susan glanced at the
ceiling. Her voice dropped low. “Maybe I did. I don’t know. All I know is I
wanted to sleep. Just sleep and sleep and not have to think about anything
anymore.” Her razor-thin shoulders shuddered as she heaved a breath.
“And what about now? Do
you still feel the same way?”
“Yes and no. One minute
I’m okay. Well, as okay as I can be. The next I’m having all these thoughts.”
“What kind of
thoughts?”
“Ugly thoughts. But I’m
not going to listen to them. I can’t. Kane needs me.”
“Ethan needs you too.”
Susan’s eyes filled
with a bright sheen of pain. She gave a vehement shake of her head. “Ethan’s
dead.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But I am saying it.”
Her voice had a shrill note in it, fast edging towards hysteria. “Ethan’s my
son, and I’m saying to you that I feel in my bones and my heart that he’s
dead.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Yes, yes. He’s dead,
dead, fucking dead!” Tears choked her voice. Her head drooped like a flower
beaten down by a storm.
“Look at me, Susan.
Look at me and believe me. There’s a chance Ethan’s still alive. It’s only a
small chance. But there’s hope.”
Susan lifted her eyes
uncertainly. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” Before Harlan could reply,
she answered her question. “No you wouldn’t. You’re the only one who’ll always
tell me the absolute truth. I see that now.”
Susan was right, Harlan
realised. No one had more reason to hate him than her, yet she was the only
person he could bare his soul to without fear. In some twisted way, he was
closer to her than he was to anyone, even Eve. “What have the police told you?”
“Only what it suits
them to. Just that you were injured rescuing Jamie Sutton from that man–” Susan
shook her head, a curl of hatred distorting her lips. “No, he’s not a man.
Richard Nash is a sick animal.”
“Have they shown you a
photo of him?”
“Yes, but I didn’t
recognise him. I keep asking them questions – questions like, what makes you so
sure he was the one who took Ethan? And I never get a straight answer. Christ,
it makes me feel like I’m a fucking suspect.”
“You are a suspect.”
Susan’s eyes swelled
with indignation. “I’d stab myself in the heart before I hurt my own children.”
“I know it’s hard to
take, but the fact is everyone’s a suspect until a case is solved. That’s just
the way it has to be.”
“I understand that, I
suppose,” Susan muttered begrudgingly. She clutched two handfuls of her hair.
“But it still makes me so frustrated I feel like tearing my fucking hair out.”
“Just sit down and
listen to me, Susan, and I’ll tell you why there’s hope Ethan might be alive.”
Susan perched on the
edge of an armchair, hardly breathing as she waited for Harlan to speak. He
told her everything that’d happened since he last saw her. Unlike with Eve, he
gave her the whole story, leaving out no detail. When he got to the part about
Jones, her eyes widened with surprise then narrowed in fury. “I knew that
animal was in on this,” she hissed. “I fuckin’ knew it.”
Harlan described
torturing Jones. He spoke quickly, feeling lighter as the words poured out of
him and into Susan. She took them from him gladly, her tongue flicking over her
lips as if tasting something to be relished. “I don’t know how you resisted
killing the bastard,” she said.
“Neither do I,”
admitted Harlan.
Susan sat silent and rigid
as Harlan told her about the caravan, the woods and the caves. She trembled
with the effort of holding back her tears, but an agonised sob escaped her lips
when he vividly recounted finding Jamie Sutton. “Oh Christ, it’s too much! I
can’t bear it!” she groaned, rocking back and forth, her thin arms hugged
around herself.
“I know it’s horrifying
to think of Ethan possibly being kept like that, but that’s where our hope
comes from,” Harlan said gently. “Do you understand?”
Susan nodded. “I don’t
want to, but I do.”
Harlan’s wound twinged
as he described the fight with Nash. Susan looked at him with what might’ve
been concern, maybe even compassion. “They never told me your injury was so
serious.”
“It’s nothing compared
to what you’ve suffered.”
“No, it’s not nothing.
It’s something.” There was gratitude in Susan’s voice.
Harlan suddenly found
himself unable to look at her. Her hatred he knew how to handle, but not her
gratitude. Lowering his eyes, he continued his story right up to leaving
hospital. He didn’t mention Eve – that would’ve somehow felt like an admission
of betrayal. A hiss of breath came from Susan as she mulled over what she’d
heard. “So let me get this straight, Jones hasn’t been charged with anything
yet.”
Harlan shook his head.
“They need hard evidence.”
“Evidence.” The word
grated through Susan’s teeth. “Give me five minutes alone with him and I’d give
them all the fuckin’ evidence they need.”
Susan looked as if a
breath of wind could blow her over, but there was such cold fury in her eyes
that Harlan didn’t for a second doubt her ability to carry the threat through.
“They’ll find a way to get at him and Nash. The old woman, Mary Webster, might
be the key to–” Harlan fell silent as a feeling of faintness welled up inside
him. His head and eyes rolled slowly back.
Susan rushed to his
side and caught hold of his arm, stopping him from falling sideways. “This is
crazy. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’ll be fine,” Harlan
mumbled, his voice blurring. “I just need a moment.”
Susan propped him up between
the sofa’s arm and a couple of cushions. “Can I get you anything?”
“Some water to take my
tablets.”
Susan hurried through
to the kitchen. Harlan focused on the room, fighting to keep unconsciousness at
bay. The mantelpiece was cluttered with cheap ornaments, a silver carriage
clock and photos. There were recent photos of Kane and Ethan in their school
uniforms. Kane with his usual sullen, angry at the world face. Ethan smiling
timidly, his shy eyes slightly averted from the camera. In the middle of the
mantelpiece stood a photo that made Harlan’s heart squeeze. It showed Robert
Reed and his sons on a beach with the sea shimmering in the background. Ethan
was wearing a sunhat and t-shirt that came down almost to the knees of his
chubby baby legs. Kane was wearing wet, sand-caked swimming trunks and a smile
so broad his eyes were barely visible. Robert was squatted down behind them,
one arm around each of their shoulders. He was smiling too. The scene exuded
happiness – a happiness soon to be fractured into bloody pieces.
Harlan wanted to look
away from the photo, but he was gripped in a vice of guilt. He suddenly had the
feeling that he was trespassing on forbidden ground. “She’s right, you
shouldn’t be here,” he said to himself. But he knew he couldn’t leave, either.
Not with Susan as she was.
“What the fuck’s that
wanker doing here?”
Harlan jerked around to
face the voice’s owner, grimacing at the sudden movement. From the doorway,
Kane glared at him, fists balled. “Don’t talk to him like that,” said Susan,
pushing past her son and proffering a glass to Harlan, which he accepted with a
smile of thanks.
“I’ll talk to him
however I want.”
Susan shot Kane a
reproachful look. “You’ll do as I say whilst you’re in my house.”
“No I won’t. Not when
it comes to him. Why should I?”
“Because he risked his
life to try and help your brother.”
Kane stabbed a finger
at Harlan, the same curl on his lips that’d twisted Susan’s mouth out of shape
as she spoke about Nash. “He fuckin’ killed my dad!” He turned on Susan, eyes
bulging. “How could you do this, Mum? How could you let him in here?”
She blinked, but her
own mounting anger kept her from wavering under the force of her son’s glare.
“He’s trying to make up for what he did.”
“He can’t make up for
it. Nothing he can do will bring dad back.”
“I know that, but–”
“I don’t care what you
say!” broke in Kane. “And I don’t care what he does. Even if he finds Ethan,
I’ll still hate him and want to kill him.”
“Kane!” For the first
time since Harlan had been there, some colour came into Susan’s face. “I won’t
have you talk like that. Do you hear me? I won’t have it!”
“Fuck you.” Kane
whirled to head back upstairs. Susan caught hold of his arm, but he elbowed her
away.
“Get back down here,
you little shit,” she yelled, as he hammered up the stairs.
“I won’t. Not until
he’s gone.” The walls quivered as Kane slammed his bedroom door.
Susan started after
him, but thought better of it. Heaving a sigh, she dropped into the armchair.
“I shouldn’t have sworn at him. I hate myself when I lose it like that.”
“Maybe I should go,”
suggested Harlan.
Susan shook her head.
“I want you here.” She glanced at the ceiling, through which loud rap music had
begun to vibrate. “And boyo’s just going to have to get used to the idea. When
he’s calmed down, I’ll go speak to him.”
“It won’t make any
difference. He hates me, and he’s got every right to.”
“So have I.” Susan
frowned as if struggling to make sense of something, some sudden realisation.
“But I don’t hate you anymore.” She added quickly, “That’s not to say I’ve
forgiven you. I just don’t hate you.” She let out a long breath, shaking her
head. “I never thought I’d hear myself say that.”
Harlan had never
thought he’d hear it either. He replayed her words in his mind several times,
trying to get a handle on how they made him feel. They counted for something,
he knew that. More than something, they counted for a lot, but not enough to
stop him from hating himself. Nowhere near.
“If I can stop hating you,
so can Kane,” continued Susan. “He’s carried too much anger for too long. It
scares me. I’m scared that if he doesn’t start letting go of it he’s gonna hurt
somebody. I mean, really hurt somebody.”
Harlan’s gaze strayed
to the photo and Kane’s face, its smile as untarnished as the beach and the
sea. An image rose into his mind of Kane wielding the baseball bat, eyes
burning with hate. A monster of his making. The vice turned a twist tighter.
“By somebody, you mean me.”
“You or anybody else he
takes against.” Susan’s voice grew hesitant. “I’ve never told anyone this
before. About a year ago I bought Kane a puppy, a little mongrel terrier. I
thought it would, y’know, do him good to have some responsibility. And at first
it seemed to, but he soon lost interest. Started kicking up a stink every time
I told him to take it for a walk. One day we had this big blow up after I
caught him hitting it. When things calmed down, he apologised and promised to
start looking after Sandy – that was the dog’s name – properly. And for a few
weeks, he kept his promise. But then this…this thing happened. One morning he
came running home soaking wet, carrying Sandy. Sandy was dead. He said the dog
had jumped in the river. He’d tried to save it, but it drowned. That’s what he said,
and that’s what I wanted to believe, but…” Susan’s voice trailed off into
uneasy silence. She sucked her upper lip a moment, before continuing, “But
something in the back of my mind kept telling me he was lying. I wanted to
confront him, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Truth is, I didn’t want to know
if he’d killed Sandy.”
Harlan wondered if he’d
have pushed for the truth if he suspected Tom of something so despicable. Or would
he have preferred the comfort of ignorance too. He wasn’t sure. “That’s
understandable.”
“Yeah, but now I’m
thinking I shouldn’t have let it slide. I mean, if Kane really did kill Sandy,
he needs help, right? Therapy or counselling, or something.”