The Swap - By Antony Moore Page 0,68

particular Sunday he rang various people including several of the old crowd, of whom he asked tentative and subtle questions about the reunion and was met with ribaldry regarding Maisie and hilarious reminiscences about the fight at Steve's house. After several of these he stopped shouting, had a shower and spent some time examining his stomach in the bathroom mirror. Because the mirror was at head height this involved standing on the toilet and leaning backwards. It was, he decided, after several moments' consideration, definitely larger than the last time he did this: about three Sundays ago. A resolution to lay off beer and to eat better in future was only slightly weakened by the memory that he had made exactly the same vow the last time.

Sunday was also the day he sometimes rang his mother and the thought that he had already done it on Saturday and therefore didn't need to do it again was a warming and harmonising one. The fact that he wouldn't see Josh today was equally satisfying. Josh had returned with a large bunch of unhealthy-looking bananas and had proceeded to make custard on the gas ring; this had boiled over because the gas was set too high and the custard had spilled onto the floor. Josh had collected it carefully with a spoon and a piece of paper, returned it to the pan, and allowed the same thing to happen again. Harvey had taken the spoon from him and attempted to knock him on the head with it. Scalding custard had sprayed off the spoon and he had got some in his eye. He could still feel a slight pain in his right eye – the same one that he had been punched in – as he wandered around his flat. So not seeing Josh was all to the good.

However, Sunday did always present the challenge of how to spend his time. It seemed to reinforce and exaggerate the sense of purposelessness in the rest of his existence. Surely a man of his age and lifestyle should have a variety of things to do between lunch and dinner on his only free day of the week, but he never seemed to. There always seemed this need to do his washing or go and buy a paper because if he didn't he would just have to sit and stare out of the window. And this week the uncertainty seemed more pressing than usual. Not that he wouldn't welcome a certain amount of boredom: ennui suddenly seemed a rather desirable commodity. It was just that there seemed so many things that he should be doing, like . . . well, something surely. If you are a suspect in a murder inquiry you should be doing something. But he couldn't really think of anything. Or at least there was one thing he could do: go to the shop, get the Superman One and destroy it. It might stop him dreaming about drawers and red fingerprints every night. Several times he almost made it to the door to set off, but each time he sat down again. What if it was important that the comic did exist? That was the question troubling him. It was the only proof he had that someone was trying to set him up. Someone who had perhaps waited a long time for this. Harvey thought back over the reunion; someone must have been waiting for Bleeder's return just as he had been. Who else was there? Who else knew Bleeder? And into his mind came the image of Bleeder talking to someone at the reunion; that old maths teacher, what was his name? Harvey thought about him for a while. Had he too been waiting for Bleeder? Waiting for one of his star pupils to return? Was there something else there? Was there something that didn't involve the comic? But then who sent the comic to him? How was he being set up? And why? He was sitting on the bed, looking out over London, when the telephone rang.

It was his mother, which caused Harvey a certain degree of outrage: he had rung her yesterday, done his duty for the week, maybe for the month. This was against all the rules. But it turned out she had a reason for ringing, which was that she had spoken to Jarvin. He lit a cigarette while she talked about what a nice man the chief inspector seemed and he waited for her to get to