need that particular one. I want to put a screw in the bedroom, for the picture. I've been meaning to fix that picture for ages . . .' And his mother had been calling in reply and then there had been the banging and slamming of a drill being found and then, of course, there had been the drilling, protracted and extended. And then there had been more calling and his mother had come along to admire the picture . . . Harvey, lying now on his back, lit a cigarette, opening his eyes to tiny slits and then closing them again very quickly.
'You won't want to miss it, dear, it's your last day.'
He tried to remember his dreams. They had been filled not with pretty, attentive women in wine bars finding him fascinating, but with dark passageways and shadows. He had been running, he remembered, running into . . . that was it, into his own shop. But the lights were off and he could hardly see. There was a sense of unease. Something was wrong. There were people there who shouldn't be there. Something terrible had happened. And then it all came back in a rush. 'Shit.' The air was cold on his bare arms and he tucked himself tightly under the quilt, doing his best not to burn more holes in the cover, which already showed its history as a drunken smoker's blanket. For a few minutes all he wanted to do was crawl deeper into the dark, warm, somewhat smelly cave he had made for himself, just stay there until it went away. But then a rush of adrenalin forced him to sit up, cry out as the point at the front of his head collided with the day and then scramble upright. He needed to know what was going on. Never before in his life had he prayed so hard for so little. All he wanted in life right now was for absolutely nothing to happen.
The human brain collects and stores information in extraordinary abundance just on the off chance that it might be useful. Harvey would not have said that he knew when the St Ives Chronicle was delivered to his parents' house each morning. Indeed, he would have said he had always actively avoided knowing anything at all about St Ives's shambolically amateurish local paper. Yet at 10a.m. prompt he was waiting on the mat and he was not disappointed. Horrified but not disappointed. The murder was splashed across all three columns of the front page and showed all the grammatical errors and inaccurate speculation of the late, replacement front-page lead. Harvey wondered vaguely what they would have led with if they hadn't got this in time. His mind played wistfully with coffee mornings and new church roofs. The story was supported by a rather fuzzy photograph of Bleeder's house looking eerily like every crime scene Harvey had ever seen on TV. The police had been called to the house at 6.30p.m. by the deceased's son, Charles Odd. His mother had been killed with a kitchen knife. There were signs of breaking and entering and police were seeking an intruder. They had not yet established any motive for the crime. The killer had made elaborate efforts to cover his tracks but the police were able to say that some evidence had been found at the crime scene . . . Jesus. Harvey clutched the paper to him and felt a wave of nausea sweep across his hangover and carry it up to a higher level. He doubled over and clutched onto the wall, then straightened up, eyes squeezed shut, breathing hard.
'Here, don't scrunch up my paper.' Donald Briscow strode out into the hall and took the Chronicle from him, pulled a face, and straightened it out carefully. 'Some of us want to know what's going on in the world.' Harvey willed his breathing under control.
'Ann! Ann! Look at this.' Briscow senior was appalled. 'England slump in Pakistan . . . outrageous.' He ambled off muttering and Harvey leaned against the wall, letting the wave pass, letting it flow back in lesser form, letting it slacken and ebb away.
'I've cooked you a fry-up, Harvey. Sausage, bacon, kidneys and some black pudding we had left over from last week. Come along in and eat up, it'll do you good and get you ready for the party.'
Harvey made his way into the kitchen and sat very carefully at the table. His mother placed this butcher's shop