he did not react so she took it down herself. 'But, I do think you are rather good at what you do.'
Chapter Twenty-one
'I'm fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking fucked.'
'I don't think so, Harvey . . . Look, they're not fools.'
'I'm fucked and I might as well face it and just cut my own fucking throat the way they think I cut hers.' Harvey dragged deeply on his third cigarette in ten minutes and grappled with his home telephone, which was large and made of bright pink plastic.
'No, I don't think they think that, Harvey. They just have to make enquiries. It's routine . . . Jesus, I sound like a policeman myself. But it is. They are interviewing everyone.'
'Yes, but everyone didn't spend the weekend clogging up their mum's washing machine with blood, did they? Everyone didn't come home in their dad's car covered in old Mrs Odd's blood. Everyone has a clear conscience. Or almost everyone. I could feel that bastard, that utter bastard, looking into my soul. It was as if he could read my guilt written across my intestines. You know what I mean?'
Is your soul in your intestines? Maisie didn't ask. Instead she said: 'No. He was clever, I admit that. But he can't read your thoughts. I found him rather nice.' She thought again of the mirror effect of those deep green eyes. 'Very fair. And of course if you told him the truth he would know that you were innocent of anything other than breaking a window and being a bloody fool, wouldn't he?'
'Oh balls.' Self-pity had always been one of the more ready options in Harvey's repertoire. He had returned to it now like a migrating bird to the gathering tree. 'He'll just see deceit and lies and he'll guess the rest. I should have gone to them straight away, straight to Truro, straight to the police station, and this would be over now. Jesus fucking wept.' He gave a sort of fake sob and Maisie sighed.
'You could still go to them now.'
'Oh yeah, right.' For Harvey sarcasm was also a familiar recourse in times of trouble. He often used it on himself and found himself walking home from failed romantic evenings saying: Yeah right, of course you didn't really fancy her, Harvey, sure thing, inside his head.
'Why not? Nothing has changed. You could tell them everything. I think Chief Inspector Jarvin would appreciate honesty, however belated.'
'Don't say that name! I never want to hear that name again. Cunt. Constable Cunt, coming to my shop and fucking asking me questions. I've a good mind to tell him to fuck right off if he comes again. Go and get a fucking warrant, you fucking, fucking, fucking . . .'
'Yeah, well, if that's all you have to say, Harvey . . .'
'Sorry.'
'You need to stop panicking. Chief Inspector Jarvin will do the investigation, and they will find out who did this awful thing and you will get on with your life. And so will I . . .' It suddenly came to Maisie just how little she knew of what that meant. It also occurred to her that the man at the end of the phone might think that his life and her life were going to get on together. That didn't seem as alien a concept as she had expected.
'Well, I hope you're right. But I could be about to be arrested. I could spend the rest of my life in a prison cell.' Harvey wanted to add 'and I hope you'll be satisfied' but couldn't really think of any reason to justify it.
'OK, so what are you going to do?'
'What is there to do?' Harvey stubbed out his cigarette on a plastic ashtray in the shape of a woman's breast. It had been a thirtieth birthday present from a very poor friend. He looked at it now with new eyes. 'Jesus Christ.'
'What?' she asked with what sounded like real tenderness in her voice and he shook his head foolishly.
'Nothing. Sorry. I just realised I need to sort my life out.' He looked round the room: the little flat in Deptford that he had bought when housing prices were low – a good investment, a starter flat, before he moved onward and upward. That was fifteen years ago and Deptford remained defiantly cheap and cheerful and the flat remained his. However, the sense that it was just a temporary dwelling before he moved into the house he was meant to live in – a flat-fronted