The Swap (18 page)

'I'm not here to fight. If I wanted to hurt you I would have done so at the party. I would have given you a few more playful slaps . . . but I thought you might die of it. You should at least have put up some sort of fight. I mean, I don't mind losing Maisie to another man, but to you . . . it's amazing . . . women are unknown quantities, aren't they, Harvey? So what do you think of her?'

Harvey had been considering Jeff 's suggestion that he should have hit him back, which hadn't actually occurred to him before. It had about it something of the idea of punching a force of nature, smacking a landslide, kicking a flood. 'Er, well, like I said . . .'

'She's good in the sack, I will say that. Like a little animal she is, or rather was, with me. Is she like that with you, Harvey? I must say it's hard to imagine it. Perhaps she takes pity on you, does she? Pretends? Makes you feel good? Maisie would probably do that for a poor lost soul, eh?' Harvey frowned in thought for a moment; had Maisie been faking last night and again this morning? Hard to tell. He was slightly shocked that he didn't really mind if she was: sex had never seemed to him a suitable arena for competitive sport and if she was faking then frankly he appreciated the kindness. He gazed at the ceiling for a while thoughtfully, and then glancing back at Jeff realised that his cold grey eyes were watching him like a vulture watching a tortoise on its back.

'Er, I wouldn't know, Jeff. Like I said, we only really met in Cornwall. I haven't seen Maisie since then. I assumed you were still together, actually, but I suppose she's left you, yeah?' He tried not to give a little grin as he said this but failed and saw the eyes slint.

'So we are not enemies then, Harvey? That's a relief. I would hate to have a man of such substance for an enemy.' The bird-eyes circled round the shop and Harvey remembered vaguely the claims to grandeur that he had made at the reunion. Then the eyes returned to hold his. 'We can talk as friends, eh? Not enemies, but allies?' Jeff turned suddenly and began to pace down the central aisle, both hands held out at the sides, riffling his fingers over the soft plastic of the comic sleeves. 'We can talk about it all. What happened, the past, we can talk about it all, Harvey, get it out in the open, eh? Get everything out in the open?'

'Oh yeah. Absolutely.' Harvey moved back towards the door to his office. 'We can talk about everything.'

'Everything?' Jeff swung round and looked piercingly in his direction. 'We can talk about everything now? Yes, I suppose we can. Now she's gone we may as well. It's all over now anyway. I guess you sort of hold it together . . . But when it falls apart it all comes back . . . I knew when we went down to the reunion. I knew then that it had all fallen apart . . . it was like everything that had been holding it up just collapsed. We sat around in that bloody hotel room like two strangers, two people who had never known each other, but she was mine, Harvey, she's been mine for twelve years, you have to understand that. It's hard to give that up. To let it all slip. When it's meant so much . . .'

'Of course it is, of course it is.' Harvey was still inching backwards, his mind filled with a new thought: he shouldn't call the police, he should call the vet: Jeff was barking.

'We can talk about the past, about Bleeder, about the murder, about everything. I guess I didn't think you had it in you, Harvey: I guess I doubted that I did. But now it's done I don't know what to think, don't know what I think of you. I guess that's why I had to hit you, you took something away as well as giving something. You know what I mean?'

'Er, yeah. Sure thing, Jeff, but like I say I didn't shag . . . I mean, I haven't seen your wife since Cornwall, so, you know, this is a bit pointless . . .'

'I'm not talking about Maisie, Harvey.' Jeff had returned to the counter now and his face was changed. There was a wistfulness, an eerie gentleness that Harvey had not seen before. It made him even more nervous than the menace. 'I'm talking about Hilda Odd.'

'Right, yeah. What?'

'Hilda Odd, Harvey. I'm talking about Hilda Odd and I'm talking about the murder and I'm talking about you. We said we could talk about everything, didn't we? Well, I want to talk about that.'

He was going to confess to murder. Jeff was going to confess to him and then he was going to kill him. Harvey had backed as far as he could go and was standing now in the doorway, his fingers on the handle. 'Um, look, Jeff, we don't need to do this, yeah? Whatever you've done, whatever's happened, it's in the past, OK, I don't hold anything against you.'

'No!' Jeff had straightened up and was back in the vulture position. 'And I don't hold anything against you, Harvey. What she did, what she did . . . it's funny the past, isn't it? You think it will fade but it never really leaves you, you still carry it, you just shore things up, use other things, marriage, sex, houses, cars, all that stuff, all that stuff . . . and then one day it all falls away and there you are. Back there in that room, that basement in that fucking house, that terrible, terrible house, with that woman standing over you . . .'

Harvey glanced quickly behind him; where were his keys?

'Standing over you with that length of plastic wire in her hand. And you are being held down and she's laughing, she's laughing . . .'

'Eh?' The keys were on the desk and Harvey had measured the leap and planned the run back to slam the door, ram the key home, turn it . . . but he paused. 'You what?'

'You know, Harvey. You know as much as I know. You've been there too. We've always carried that knowledge with us. We carry it but we can't leave it and in the end we face it . . . we face it.'

'What do you mean, I know? What do I know? I don't know anything.' He was still considering the leap, he could still make it. It was simply a matter of timing.

'Jeff?' He had been so startled by what Jeff was saying that Harvey hadn't registered the sound of the shop door opening, and now Maisie was standing directly behind Jeff, gazing at the scene as if she had entered the stage set of a Russian play. Harvey could see her hair, lit by the weak sunlight from the open doorway like a messy halo, as if she had floated in from some safer, better, holier place, rather than from Croydon. 'Jeff,' she said again, 'what are you doing here? What is this, Harvey?' Why did everyone ask him?

Jeff turned round slowly, his eyes half closed as if he had taken a blow to the face. He turned and faced his wife and she caught for a moment a look she had never seen in his eyes before. But the eyes closed and then reopened and there was Jeff, just as she had left him.

'Ah. So you haven't seen her since Cornwall, Harvey? Interesting.' Jeff 's back was to the counter and he did not appear to be about to spring but Harvey jumped and grabbed the keys anyway, then shot backwards and slammed the door, dropped the keys, swore, fumbled, tried the wrong key in the lock, swore again, found the right one, forced it in, turned it and then stood panting with his back against the door. It was only after he had stood there for several moments that he became aware of two things: one was that he was not pursued, indeed he could hear the mumbled trace of what sounded like a rather civilised conversation proceeding in the shop; the second was that this was perhaps the most cowardly thing he had done in his life. This did not prevent him feeling deeply relieved to have done it. Jeff wouldn't kill Maisie, they would talk through their differences and then Jeff would go and he and Maisie could go to Cornwall and solve the murder, although really there seemed very little to solve, Jeff was clearly raving bonkers. It occurred to Harvey how very close this was coming to his fantasy: Jeff in prison, and Maisie in his bed. Cool. Maybe all the pain and suffering he had been through was in a good cause. For a moment he was almost religious in his thinking: maybe it was all for a purpose, to finally bring him some semblance of meaning and reward in his otherwise inexplicable existence. He was very happy now that he hadn't thrown out the
Superman One
. Who knows, maybe he could sell it and they'd live happily ever after on the proceeds, sharing some of it with Bleeder, of course. Perhaps they could open a superhero-themed coffee shop together in New York . . . He shook himself physically to pull back into reality. Then he moved to the phone but couldn't think of anyone to ring. So he sat down beside it at his desk and tried to hear what was going on in the shop.

They seemed to be speaking with great solemnity. That was the word that came to his mind. A feeling of solemnity and even of serenity, almost as if they were conducting some sort of religious ritual, a rite. The voices rose and fell, without seeming to falter, as if a script was being followed. This sense was added to by the fact that they rarely seemed to overlap each other, as if politely waiting for each other to finish before speaking. It was rather restful and Harvey, though more than usually happy about it, had had an abbreviated sleep. He settled back in his chair and was just beginning to eye the couch, when the telephone rang. It was Jarvin.

'Mr Briscow? After much work, our forensic team in St Ives believes that it has found some DNA evidence that might be relevant to the case. And I wondered if you might come down to the station for a chat this afternoon? We would also need to take a blood sample from you, as from everyone involved.'

'This afternoon?' Harvey felt his stomach tighten – something it rarely did. 'I'm not sure this afternoon is possible, I . . . I have a lot to do this afternoon.'

'Well, it is fairly important, but perhaps we could come to you ...'

'Of course, of course . . . Let me think. What if I came to you this afternoon? That would probably be the best, yes, give me the address where you want me to come. I could come at about four, would that be all right?' Harvey carefully wrote down the address of a police surgeon in Kensington on the back of an envelope and hung up the phone. Then he carefully tore the envelope into twenty-six pieces and threw them up in the air. For a long time he sat in silence. It was only after the long time had become almost unbearable that it struck him the silence was significant. Why had they stopped talking? Perhaps Jeff had murdered her while he was on the phone. With the air of a mouse in a cattery, Harvey gently re-turned the key in the lock and pulled the door an inch towards him. The silence continued and he dared a fraction more. Maisie was sitting on the counter facing him, with her legs swinging in front of her and a look of thoughtful sorrow on her face. She had been crying. Stepping carefully in case of hidden rugby players, Harvey ventured out.

'Hello, Harvey.'

'Um, hello. You OK?'

'Mmm. Jeff 's gone.'

'Oh, right.'

'Yes. Thanks for leaving us alone like that just now, it was very discreet.'

'Er ...'

'In fact, it was the fastest bit of discretion I think I've ever seen.' She smiled a bit crookedly and brought the tissue in her hand to her face.

'Yeah, sorry, but I thought, well, you know, you'd maybe be better just sort of thrashing it out, yeah?'

'Yeah. And we did sort of thrash it out. We are going to get divorced. Jeff 's going back to Cornwall. I think he might even move back there to live. I think he should. We both grew up in small towns, but where I stayed and dreamed of escaping, Jeff moved away without ever really leaving. It was one of our many incompatibilities.' She shook her head, no longer framed in light, but still, to Harvey's eye, angelic.

'Cool. I mean, difficult, but cool, you know? It may be hard but when it's over you'll be yourself again, yeah? I mean, you'll be sad and stuff but it'll be you being sad and that's got to be worth it, because you are really worth it.' It didn't sound very much to Harvey, indeed it had the deathly ring of a shampoo advertisement, but it had the effect he'd intended. She beckoned him towards her and then climbed off the counter into his arms. And when she wept now it was into the thick roll-neck of his red fisherman's sweater with the holes in the sleeves.

She stayed like that for some time and Harvey let her, wanting to smell the groove of her neck, wanting for a little while to see the world through the tangled sanctuary of her hair. Unfortunately, as he tried this latter pleasure what he saw was Josh, standing pop-eyed about three feet away. Harvey did the sigh. He wouldn't have thought he could do it in her arms, but he did. She tried to give him a squeeze, but he politely disengaged himself.

'Er, Mais, this is Josh.'

'Oh, hang on.' Maisie did some dabbing with her tissue and turned round. 'How do you do?'

'Er, yeah cool. All right, Harvey?'

Harvey was inwardly thrilled. Surely no woman could look at him and Josh and come to any conclusion but that she had made a sound choice in selecting him from the gene pool.

The English countryside somehow looks better when you see it from opposite your new girlfriend. The rolling fields full of factories and pretty industrial estates that separate London from the feral south are given added appeal when there is a genuinely beautiful bit of English nature resting her head against the window and sighing. Harvey, who didn't like to face backwards on trains, could see what lay before them down the line. And not just literally either. He had already planned a whole future for them, perhaps a cottage in the country, to supplement the flat in Chelsea. Was she rich? He didn't know or care really. But even if the
Superman One
angle didn't work out they were going to have a future with money in it. He felt sure of that. He couldn't imagine starving with Maisie beside him. She would inspire him to expansion, to invest in a whole new way of living in the world. He was just concluding his vision with a pony for their first child, and seeing himself suddenly cast rather un expectedly as Rhett Butler in
Gone with the Wind
, when she turned her eyes to him. She had been lost in reverie for a while, letting the view carry her along like a nanny holding her hand. Apart from the offer of a tin of Watneys, Harvey had respected her need for peace. Now she shook herself like an animal recovering from a shock and smiled. Should he tell her about the phone call from Jarvin? There hadn't really been time at the shop and she had been keen to get away, due no doubt to the emotionally tumultuous experience she had just passed through, but also to the presence of Josh. Josh had responded to her with a mixture of brooding jealousy and unbridled curiosity. After being thwarted in his attempt to persuade Harvey to join him in the back room alone for a 'conflab', he had made some muttered remark about married women, which, when asked to explain, he had denied making. After several less audible mutterings, he had then begun the questioning that had finally driven them out, the words 'Well, I'm only asking, I mean she is your bird now, Harvey' still ringing unhappily in their ears. Perhaps Josh didn't reflect so well on him, when Harvey had time to think about it; after all, he had chosen him as his assistant.

'I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't come to the shop when I did.' Her head now was tilted down a little as she considered him, and he admired the small freckled-ness of her nose.

'Dunno. Probably have kicked my head in.' Harvey sipped delicately from the one can he had allowed himself.

'Yes perhaps. But I wonder . . . what were you talking about before I came in? I looked through the window, through a tiny gap between all your posters, and I couldn't believe my eyes. I was going to run in and save you, but then I realised he wasn't attacking you, you weren't even shouting. What were you doing, Harvey?'

That was another thing there hadn't been time to tell her about.

'Um, well, we were talking. About you. At least I thought we were. In fact, I'm sure we were at first. But then I think I went on talking about you, but Jeff started to talk about something else.'

'What did you say about me?'

'I can't remember.'

'Yes you can. What did you say? What did Jeff say?'

'He said he missed you.' Harvey drank more deeply. He might need another, he reflected.

'Did he indeed? What else did he say? The truth, Harvey, please.'

He met her eye. Shit.

'He said you were good in bed.'

'What?'

'And that you were probably faking any orgasms you might have with me. Which I must admit I don't mind at all. If you are, I mean. Or actually, I'd rather you weren't, if you get me. But if you are, or rather if you did, last night, I mean, and in fact this morning, then, well, thanks very much.' He paused, feeling that really that had come out better than he might have expected.

Maisie was shaking her head and Harvey knew what was coming. He did the sigh internally. She might be the most extraordinary woman he could remember meeting, but she was a woman for all that.

'You really mean that after all those years together all Jeff can think of to talk about is sex?'

Harvey sipped his beer and let his mind wander a little, he had enough experience of women to know exactly what was coming.

'And you, when confronted with the ex-husband of the woman you say you like, a man you have known since you were a small boy, a friend you have lost, all you are worried about is whether I fake my orgasms?'

Harvey was aware that while the carriage was fairly empty – the trains usually were quiet after lunch, in his experience – still they had passed one or two people as they made their way to their seats. He didn't worry too much about the noise Maisie was making: this would liven up what was, frankly, a fairly dull journey until they reached the Tamar. He sipped again and then realised she had paused.

'Oh, er, yeah. Well, no. I'm not saying that's all I was concerned about. I'm just giving you the gist of bits of it. He said you would have to fake it with me because I am a wimp or something like that, and I just wondered whether you did or not. It was no big deal. We just talked about lots of things really.'

'I see.' There was a dangerous note in her voice and he kept his eyes on the landscape. 'Well, for the record I have been faking it, as you so elegantly put it, for months. The first time I haven't for a long time was last night. Does that make you feel better?'

Harvey sipped his beer again to disguise the fact that yes it did. Once again, Rhett Butler came into his mind, 'Frankly, my dear . . .' No, perhaps that wasn't the line, but even so, Clark Gable, Clark bloody Gable, no problem.

'I can't believe how shallow he could be. I must admit it only makes me feel better about being out of there. We'd never talked properly about divorce until this morning and it had a horrible sound to it when he said it. But now . . . I guess he's just a waste of time really . . . a complete waste of time ...'

'Well, I don't know . . .' Harvey had said the words before considering them, and was now struck by the strangeness of standing up for the man who beat him up and from whom he was stealing this woman. 'I mean, he might not be perfect but . . . I doubt he was just a waste of time.'

'Are you defending him, Harvey? Is this some manifestation of male solidarity that even I never imagined? Do you think I should give him another chance?'

'No, no,' Harvey said hurriedly and then paused. What was it he was trying to say? 'I don't know, it's just I think there was something going on that you didn't see, in the shop I mean. Jeff was . . . there was something about you that kept him like he was, if you see what I mean. And now you've gone . . . I dunno, it's as if he's gone back to where he was. And he's a bit lost and maybe he did something because of that . . . Oh shit, I don't know what I'm talking about.'

'Hang on, what
are
you talking about? What else did Jeff say?'

'Well, I don't know really.' Harvey tried to remember. 'I just got the impression . . .' – it sounded silly now to put it into words – 'well, the murder and all that. Jeff seemed to be thinking about Mrs Odd, something like that. I don't know ...'

'The murder? Jeff didn't know anything about the murder. He can't be involved with that. Why would he be?'

'Well, I don't know, but then why would I be? Except that I went to the house and cleaned up the blood and that . . . well, OK maybe I am, but that doesn't mean Jeff isn't. Jarvin seems to think this is all about the past, and remember Jeff was one of the ones who bullied Bleeder the worst. What if there was some memory that he'd forgotten about because he was with you and because it was a long time ago, and then you left him and everything fell down . . . that was what he said: it all fell down, something like that. So he remembered, yeah? And he went back to St Ives and killed Mrs Odd.'

'Jeff killed Mrs Odd? Harvey, that's ridiculous.' She was looking at him with open-mouthed disbelief. 'Why Jeff?'

'Because he's a violent bastard, that's why. And he was upset about you 'cause he knew it was over when you went down there, and he was one of the ones who bullied Bleeder. That's why.' It did sound a bit thin now that Harvey put it into words. 'Well, I don't know. I don't claim to know, but he was certainly a bit psycho in the shop. I thought he was going to batter me and then he went all sort of mellow and far-away and then he looked like a vulture, although not in that order.'

'What are you talking about?'

'I don't know. But there was something weird about him and then you came in and he went back to being how he always is. Or at least I think he did, but I was in the back room for most of the time, of course.'

'Yes you were, and he certainly seemed just like he always is to me, sadly. I always thought he might change, you know, open up to me. I tried so hard to get inside Jeff, but he never let me in. After twelve years together it still feels like I've been with a stranger. And now this whole break-up has happened and still he just stands there and grins like it's all kind of a joke and as if it all just meant nothing. Maybe it did just all mean nothing, Harvey, maybe it was all just a waste . . .' She buried her head in her hands and wept.

Harvey had to admit that the fellow travellers who had chosen the 2.27from Paddington this afternoon were getting their money's worth. From sexual jealousy to murder to marital breakdown. They could have stayed at home watching daytime TV and got no more. He reached across the table and awkwardly rubbed her arm, which was the only bit he could really reach. He considered getting up and going round but that would have meant a struggle past his duffel bag, which was on the seat next to him, and it would have meant sitting down with his back to the engine, which always made him feel sick. So he rubbed her arm and used his free hand to pick up his can and pour some of the Watneys into his mouth and some down his jumper.

When he had cleaned up a bit she had stopped crying and was looking better.

'I'm wondering about his maths teacher,' Harvey said brightly when he was sure she was ready.

'Pardon?'

'Bleeder Odd's maths teacher. He met him at the reunion, I saw them together and I was wondering what they talked about.'

'Mmm. OK, so it wasn't Jeff it was the maths teacher?'

'No, I'm not saying that.' Harvey wiped his mouth delicately with his sleeve. 'I just wonder what they talked about. I bet Jarvin doesn't know about him and I think we should interview him. What if Bleeder told him something important?'

'Like what?'

'I don't know.'

'But I thought we were going down to see Blee . . . I'm not calling him that . . . to see Charles. We can ask him directly, can't we?'

'Well, yes we can.' To Harvey this seemed somehow rather too easy, like watching
Star Wars
the week after it opened rather than queuing overnight. Surely they should creep up on Bleeder, surprise him with his maths teacher's new evidence, shock him into a full confession . . . that it was Jeff. He said something along these lines to Maisie and she laughed at him and then she got up and came round to remove his duffel bag and settle down cosily in the seat beside him and slid her hand up his leg. Harvey rather lost interest in the countryside for a while and his only thought was that their fellow passengers were perhaps going to get a finale that even daytime TV rarely delivered.