The Swap - By Antony Moore Page 0,72

just get everything straight in my head. Because they will lock me up, Maisie, you must see that. If I go in there and tell Jarvin that I was at Mrs Odd's house, and that I broke the back window, and that I saw the body and that I wiped up all the fingerprints, and then add, "Oh, but by the way, I'm not the murderer," he is never in a million years going to just say, "Oh fine, well thanks for popping in." He is going to chuck me in a cell and give me a small bucket to piss in and a bar of soap to protect my honour in the showers. Shit. I need to talk to Bleeder.'

'All right.' She spoke with sudden authority and took him by surprise. 'We'll go down there tomorrow. I'd been thinking about it anyway, actually. You should speak to Charles, he obviously wanted to talk to you. And I'd like to set eyes on him myself. If this is the centre of our lives and he is the pivotal figure, I'd at least like to know what he looks like. We'll get this straightened out.' She said it with such certainty that Harvey was moved.

'That's really kind,' he said softly and she smiled at him. 'But I'm not seeing my mum and dad!' he added suddenly with real vehemence. 'And I'm not fucking staying at their house.'

'No, OK, we'll find a B. & B.' She smiled. Harvey grinned back and his genitals gave a little shimmy of delight.

After the pizza there was wine. There had been some during the pizza, of course, but not enough for Harvey to attempt romance. But once the eating was over and the decision was made, he was able to let his genitals really take over the planning of the rest of the evening. He ordered a bottle of red and drank it quickly and efficiently and ordered another, so that within a fairly short space of time he was able to worry about the garlic bread he'd eaten earlier and just hope that she had had her share, because he was kissing her over the table. She tasted as clean as a broad bean, how did women do that? He wasn't sure what he tasted like but when he went to the bathroom, he found that his teeth had turned a nasty sort of glistening purple colour. They were making good progress on the second bottle by that time and Harvey had been doing more than his fair share to keep up the pace. He wasn't really a wine drinker, except at parties where he would drink anything. But these days he went to fewer parties than in his youth and beer had rather taken over. It is, of course, possible for a man in his mid-thirties to go up to the bar in a straight pub and order a glass of red wine for himself but Harvey had never actually seen it done. When examining his teeth in the bathroom, he noticed that he was also rather red in the face. Kissing did make him red, he knew that of old. Kissing and tennis. When he returned she was still there, which while hardly unexpected was not necessarily a sure thing in his experience.

They kissed some more and then came his least favourite bit of any romantic evening, when they got their coats and paid the bill and didn't look at each other's faces in case they caught the wrong sort of expression there.

'Er, shall we get a cab, or are you heading straight off?' Harvey had used this question before. It wasn't perfect but it did allow some suggestiveness without crudity and some freedom without rejection. It prevented, in fact, the worst scenario, where he said 'please' and she said 'no' and then they had to make conversation for half an hour while they waited for two separate taxis to arrive.

'I'd like to see where you live.'

He wondered if she'd used that before too, because as far as he was concerned it was just about perfect.

'Cool. We'll do the taxi thing, yeah?' And they got one almost at once, which was in itself pretty miraculous, and the driver was only mildly sarcastic and bitter when Harvey mentioned their destination. And they kissed some more in the back with the driver talking about West Ham, and apart from one moment when Harvey had to pause to correct him about Bobby Zamora, the journey was