Blood Guilt

Copyright © Ben
Cheetham 2011

All Rights Reserved

http://bencheetham.blogspot.com/

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Prologue

With cold, sweaty
hands, Harlan Miller unconsciously reached into his pocket and pulled out his
Marlboros. Shooting nervous glances all around the room, he withdrew one and
moved it towards his mouth. It was a sterile-smelling room, furnished with a
desk, a phone, three chairs, and a doctor’s examining-couch. On the walls hung
some framed medical certificates, and a picture of a sperm wriggling its way
into an egg with the words ‘It takes more than this to be a parent’ underneath.
It wasn’t until Eve gave him a frowning look and hissed his name that Harlan
noticed the cigarette. “Sorry,” he said, returning it to the packet. Managing a
strained little smile, Eve reached to give his hand a squeeze.

Harlan jerked around at
the sound of someone entering the room. As soon as he saw the doctor’s face, he
knew it was bad news. He’d always had a talent for reading people. It was part
of what made him so good at his job. He had a sudden urge to jump up and run
from the room. As if sensing this, Eve tightened her grip.

The doctor sat down,
looking first at Eve. “I’m afraid it’s good news, bad news time. The good news
is, you have no fertility problems.” His gaze shifted to Harlan. “The bad news
is, you have a very low sperm count and a high percentage of your viable sperm
are abnormal.”

A tightness rose in
Harlan’s throat, giving his voice a husky edge. “What do you mean, abnormal?”

“They have misshapen
heads or tails, which severely reduces their chances of reaching the egg.”

“So basically what
you’re saying is I’m infertile.”

“You’re not completely
infertile, but as things stand you’re going to find it very difficult to conceive.”

Harlan shook his head
in stunned bewilderment. “But I never had a problem before.”

“You’re thirty-five
now. Fertility goes into decline after thirty.”

“Is there anything he
can do to improve his fertility?” asked Eve.

The doctor started talking
about diet, vitamins and exercise, but Harlan wasn’t listening. He was thinking
about Thomas, about the way he’d looked the last time he saw him. He’d looked
perfect, except his cheeks were very pale and the edge of a bruise was visible
on his forehead by his hairline. It was a freak accident, a doctor had
explained. Kids fall like that all the time. They usually walk away unharmed,
or at least they walk away. Not Tom, though. Eve had told Harlan that Tom never
even cried out when his head hit the ground. He’d just lain with closed eyes,
motionless as a doll.

The urge to leave came
over Harlan again, stronger than before, irresistible. It pulled him to his
feet, wrenching his hand out of Eve’s. “Harlan,” she called after him as he
hurried from the room. He didn’t stop, didn’t look back, didn’t reply. Eve
caught up with him on the steps of the clinic. “Wait. For Christ’s sake, wait!
Where are you going?”

Harlan avoided Eve’s
eyes as if he had something to be ashamed of. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t stay
in there any longer.” He took a shuddering breath. “Jesus, I can’t have
children anymore.”

“That’s not what the
doctor said,” Eve gently pointed out. “He said it’d be difficult, not
impossible. There’s still a chance.”

“What chance? My sperm
are crippled. How are you going to get pregnant if the little fuckers can’t
even swim to the egg?”

Eve tried to put her
arms around Harlan. “Come back inside and talk to the doctor.”

He shook his head,
pulling away. “I just need some time alone.”

For hours Harlan wandered
the city’s streets. He bought a litre of Scotch and drank it like water.
Somehow or other, he found his way to the playground where the accident had
happened. He sat on a bench, zombie-eyed, just staring. He watched parents
watching their children.
That will never be me
, he thought, and a sense
of crushing loss almost as painful as when Thomas died hit him, wrenching a sob
from his throat. Noticing that he was drawing glances from the people around
him, he stood to leave. His mobile phone rang. Jim Monahan’s name flashed up on
its screen. Harlan stared at his phone, trying to decide if he was up to taking
the call. Probably not, he decided, but the pain was so intense he knew he’d
better do something to distract himself from it.

Taking a steadying breath,
Harlan put the phone to his ear. “What’s up, Jim?”

A voice roughened by
years of smoking replied, “We’ve got a body. Man about thirty or thirty-five
years old.”

“Homicide?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where?”

Jim told Harlan the address,
and Harlan told Jim he’d be there as soon as possible. He left the park and
hailed a taxi. It was a bright, cold afternoon, but during the drive dirty
white clouds moved in, obscuring the sun. When the taxi arrived at the address,
a uniform waved it to a stop. Harlan flashed his ID and the uniform stepped
aside. The street was clogged with police vehicles. Another uniform stood at
the end of a large detached house’s driveway. Forensic bods in white suits were
visible through the house’s windows. Jim was waiting at the front door, wearing
his usual alert but world-weary veteran’s expression. On seeing Harlan, he said
matter-of-factly, “You look like shit.”

“I’m fine. So, what’s
the story?”

“Married couple. Name
Lee and Susan Burke. Mrs Burke says they were in bed having sex when–”

“A married couple
shagging on a weekday afternoon,” Harlan broke in doubtfully, following Jim
into the house. Somewhere overhead a woman was sobbing hysterically.

A crooked smile tugged
at the corners of Jim’s mouth. “Yeah, I know. That’s what I thought too.
Anyway, she says they were doing the business when they were disturbed by the
sound of breaking glass downstairs. Mr Burke went to investigate while Mrs
Burke phoned us.”

Mr Burke was lying
naked face down in the kitchen, limbs splayed like a dried starfish, his back a
bloody latticework of cuts and stab wounds. Glass from a broken window was
scattered over the lino and the corpse. The half-brick that’d been used to
smash it lay against the foot of the opposite wall. “Twenty-eight, twenty-nine,
thirty…” a forensics guy was saying, as he counted the stab wounds. A raw
breath of air that smelled of snow blew into the room and everybody shivered,
except the dead man and Harlan. The whisky sloshing around inside his otherwise
empty stomach insulated him from its touch.

“She’s lying,” said
Harlan, blearily studying the corpse.

“What makes you think
that?”

With his foot, Harlan
rolled the body onto its side. “Hey!” said the forensics guy. “What do you
think you’re doing?”

Harlan ignored him.
“There’s glass on and around the body, but not under it. Which means the window
was smashed after he died. And which also means Mrs Burke is a lying, murdering
bitch.”

Harlan spoke loudly –
loud enough for anyone within fifty feet to hear – with a harsh slur in his
voice. When he finished, the house was silent. Everyone in the room – uniforms,
forensic bods, photographer – stared at him. He lifted his eyes and called at
the ceiling, “That’s right, lady, don’t waste your time blubbering. Call a
lawyer because you’ll need one.”

“Detective, can I speak
to you outside,” said Jim.

“Sure.”

Somewhat unsteadily
Harlan stepped over the body, leaving a partial footprint in the blood pooled
on the lino as he headed for the backdoor. Frowning, Jim followed him. “What
the hell were you trying to do in there?” he demanded.

“My job.”

“Yeah, well you won’t
have a job much longer if you keep this up. When word of this gets back to the
DCI, you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t bring you up on disciplinary charges.”

Harlan’s lips curled
into a sneer. “Aw, fuck Garrett.”

A few flakes of snow
hung in the air. Several of them turned to droplets of water on Harlan’s bottle
as he took a hit from it. “Jesus, Harlan,” said Jim, “put that away before
someone sees it.”

Harlan returned the
bottle to his pocket, then started back towards the house.

Jim placed his hand on
his partner’s chest. “I can’t let you go back in there.”

“Are you saying I’m not
fit for duty?”

“I don’t want to get
into an argument. We’ll talk about this later.”

“The fuck we will.
We’re gonna talk about this right now.”

“Look, Harlan,” sighed
Jim, “I don’t know what’s going on with you today, but this isn’t the time or
place to get into this. So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go
home and sleep this off and when you wake up you’re going to phone this
number.” He scribbled down a number on a notepad, tore out the sheet and handed
it to Harlan.

“What’s this?”

“The number of a
therapist.”

“A
therapist
.”
Harlan said the word as if he had a nasty taste in his mouth. “What do I need a
therapist for?”

“Because Garrett might
go easy on you if he knows you’re trying to get your head straightened out. Her
name’s Linda Harris. She helped me get through my divorce.”

Harlan stared at the
number, forehead rutted into lines as deep as the sadness in his eyes. “There’s
no getting through this, Jim.” Crumpling the sheet of paper into a ball and
tossing it aside, he stepped around Jim.

“Where are you going?”
Jim asked, as Harlan headed down the side of the house.

“Where do you think?
Home.”

“One of the uniforms
will give you a lift.”

“I’d rather walk.”

Shoulders hunched,
breath steaming the air, Harlan made his way along the street. Tears misted his
eyes. He swiped them away savagely before they could fall. He finished his
whisky in one long swallow, and the pain retreated to lurk like a stalker in
the shadows at the back of his mind. He thought about the dead man. What was
his name? Lee Burke. Yes, that was it. He’d got it in the back. No defensive
wounds. Probably died instantly without pain. “You’re one of the lucky ones,”
he murmured, as the snow came down in larger powdery flakes. By the time he got
home, the pavement was white.

Harlan stared at the
house – a semi, nothing spectacular, a family home. He’d used to love its
solid, suburban comfort, its large child-friendly gardens. Now he hated it for
the same reasons.

Heaving a breath,
Harlan entered the house. He made his way upstairs, pulled down the loft ladder
and climbed it. The box was in a far recess of the attic. His thoughts flashed
back to the day he’d put it there. That day, like so many other days during the
first year after Tom’s death, he’d spent hours in his son’s shrine of a
bedroom, crying. Eventually, Eve had come into the room and said, “Enough is
enough, Harlan, Tom’s gone and it was no one’s fault and there’s nothing we can
do about it except get on with our lives.”

Her words had felt like
a betrayal. Harlan remembered how he’d bitten his lip to keep from speaking,
afraid that if he opened his mouth all the things he’d wanted to say so many
times before might come spilling out. Things that he knew were unfair, yet
which he couldn’t help but think. Things like: you were his mother, you were
supposed to be watching him, making sure he came to no harm. Things that, if
voiced, would destroy what little was left of their relationship.

“I love you, but you’re
killing me,” Eve had continued. “If you carry on like this, it’ll be the end of
us.”