The Swap - By Antony Moore Page 0,80

were still together, actually, but I suppose she's left you, yeah?' He tried not to give a little grin as he said this but failed and saw the eyes slint.

'So we are not enemies then, Harvey? That's a relief. I would hate to have a man of such substance for an enemy.' The bird-eyes circled round the shop and Harvey remembered vaguely the claims to grandeur that he had made at the reunion. Then the eyes returned to hold his. 'We can talk as friends, eh? Not enemies, but allies?' Jeff turned suddenly and began to pace down the central aisle, both hands held out at the sides, riffling his fingers over the soft plastic of the comic sleeves. 'We can talk about it all. What happened, the past, we can talk about it all, Harvey, get it out in the open, eh? Get everything out in the open?'

'Oh yeah. Absolutely.' Harvey moved back towards the door to his office. 'We can talk about everything.'

'Everything?' Jeff swung round and looked piercingly in his direction. 'We can talk about everything now? Yes, I suppose we can. Now she's gone we may as well. It's all over now anyway. I guess you sort of hold it together . . . But when it falls apart it all comes back . . . I knew when we went down to the reunion. I knew then that it had all fallen apart . . . it was like everything that had been holding it up just collapsed. We sat around in that bloody hotel room like two strangers, two people who had never known each other, but she was mine, Harvey, she's been mine for twelve years, you have to understand that. It's hard to give that up. To let it all slip. When it's meant so much . . .'

'Of course it is, of course it is.' Harvey was still inching backwards, his mind filled with a new thought: he shouldn't call the police, he should call the vet: Jeff was barking.

'We can talk about the past, about Bleeder, about the murder, about everything. I guess I didn't think you had it in you, Harvey: I guess I doubted that I did. But now it's done I don't know what to think, don't know what I think of you. I guess that's why I had to hit you, you took something away as well as giving something. You know what I mean?'

'Er, yeah. Sure thing, Jeff, but like I say I didn't shag . . . I mean, I haven't seen your wife since Cornwall, so, you know, this is a bit pointless . . .'

'I'm not talking about Maisie, Harvey.' Jeff had returned to the counter now and his face was changed. There was a wistfulness, an eerie gentleness that Harvey had not seen before. It made him even more nervous than the menace. 'I'm talking about Hilda Odd.'

'Right, yeah. What?'

'Hilda Odd, Harvey. I'm talking about Hilda Odd and I'm talking about the murder and I'm talking about you. We said we could talk about everything, didn't we? Well, I want to talk about that.'

He was going to confess to murder. Jeff was going to confess to him and then he was going to kill him. Harvey had backed as far as he could go and was standing now in the doorway, his fingers on the handle. 'Um, look, Jeff, we don't need to do this, yeah? Whatever you've done, whatever's happened, it's in the past, OK, I don't hold anything against you.'

'No!' Jeff had straightened up and was back in the vulture position. 'And I don't hold anything against you, Harvey. What she did, what she did . . . it's funny the past, isn't it? You think it will fade but it never really leaves you, you still carry it, you just shore things up, use other things, marriage, sex, houses, cars, all that stuff, all that stuff . . . and then one day it all falls away and there you are. Back there in that room, that basement in that fucking house, that terrible, terrible house, with that woman standing over you . . .'

Harvey glanced quickly behind him; where were his keys?

'Standing over you with that length of plastic wire in her hand. And you are being held down and she's laughing, she's laughing . . .'

'Eh?' The keys were on the desk and Harvey had measured the leap and planned the run back to slam the