The Swap - By Antony Moore Page 0,58

just discovering Penny Trayland who wore skin-tight jeans with a flower stencilled on the left buttock. Flowers played a big part in Harvey's dreams at that time. So he discovered comics from that first encounter. And those early purchases formed the beginnings of the collection that would one day be the basis for this shop and in many ways for the whole life that he had constructed on those rather flimsy foundations. The only one of that first historic haul that didn't interest him was the Superman One. It was for kids, you could see that. 'The daring exploits of the one and only Superman': it sounded ridiculous. The artwork was tired. The story was petty: nothing like the complex, angst-ridden, existential explorations of the Silver Surfer, or even the homey but tragic sufferings of the Fantastic Four. So he'd given it away, swapped it for a bit of nothing, as an act of kindness to a bullied child. St Briscow, St Harvey of fucking St Ives.

He flicked through the pages disconsolately, although he did so with instinctive care not to damage the paper. This was worthless now, completely valueless. He knew that. He could never sell it without being accused of murder and even if the murder was solved it wasn't his to sell. It belonged to Bleeder. He should destroy it, chuck it in a skip or something on the way home. All this promise, all this power that he held in his hands and all it could possibly represent was trouble, tragedy and ruin.

Just like Spider-Man, in fact.

'And back again and back, ever decreasing circles of likelihood.' Sigvard Jarvin was in poetic frame of mind and Allen allowed his own mental inclinations to follow his leader.

'We are getting rather stuck with Mr Briscow, aren't we, sir?'

'Yes we are and I don't like it. I can't see him as a murderer somehow and nor could Ms Cooper.'

'Yes, sir. And are we attaching a lot of significance to Ms Cooper's opinion?'

Jarvin gave him a look. 'No more than to anyone else's, Allen. But I always find intuitions like that interesting.'

'Yes, sir. A very attractive woman Ms Cooper.' Allen took a swig of tea and waited to be put in his place.

'You can drop that tone of voice right now, Allen,' Jarvin duly obliged. 'I take every view as it comes. Ms Cooper's is just as valid as anyone else's.' He nodded emphatically once with a sharp jolt of the head, a characteristic and bullish motion. Allen nodded too, but more slowly and gently.

'So back to Briscow,' he said.

'I suppose . . .' Jarvin looked round the caf茅 in which they were taking lunch. It was a favourite of Allen's, which Jarvin had long given up complaining about. Red Formica tables along each wall with half-hearted booth-effects around them; black-and-white pictures of boxers, one per booth; and, unaccountably, red flock wallpaper. The day's specials were written in flamboyant if inaccurate hand on a large sandwich board placed in the middle of the aisle. Jarvin did not need to look to know what his order would be. Or his colleague's. Lamb chops and mash for Allen, spaghetti carbonara for him. Some people said a partnership was like a marriage, but he disagreed. He would long since have tired of any romantic relationship as predictable as theirs. He was, he felt, in many ways an adventurous man, he had even been called brave at times over the course of an eventful career in the army and now in the force. But he did not require surprises from Allen. Nor did he find it sad to provide so few himself.

'Fancy a chop?' he said and his colleague nodded ruminatively without comment. 'Yes, back to Briscow. Literally I think. We'll go and pay him another visit. I want to know how he fitted together with Charles Odd. I wish we could interview him again too.'

'Mr Odd is planning to stay in Cornwall?'

'Well yes, apparently, for the time being. Now the inquest is over there'll be the funeral on Wednesday. Inspector Roberts down there seems happy enough with him. What he told us the other day still holds: he was at church first thing Sunday, plenty of witnesses to that, and then he walked down into the town to get the Sunday papers and read them in a coffee shop. Nobody remembers that bit so far, but why should they really? Then he took the long way home, having a look round the town. He