yes, I got my licks for being friends with someone who would sing like that. My analyst made a lot of it. I wanted so much to be saved but instead I saved you. You see?'
'Er, yeah, yeah. Nice one. Clever. I mean cheers, thanks for that, saving me and so on. I didn't know you got whacked.'
'Oh yes. I got "whacked" when I saved you, but I couldn't save Jeff. Or at least I didn't. I let him be beaten, with the plastic tube. I let him see just what could happen. And I think he saw what life might be like. I mean, after that he pretty much left me alone. But I saved you and took the beating on my own. And I stole the strip of plastic, to bring to you. Do you remember, H? That day we did the swap? The length of plastic that I brought to school. I wanted you to see it. It still had my blood on it, you know? I was waiting for you and you didn't even notice the blood, you wanted it to play at snapping off the nettleheads with. So you swapped it with me, for a comic, a Superman One. The Superman One that I kept for so long. That was in the box at my house. You do remember, H, I know you do because you were the one who reminded me.'
Bleeder's voice had been rising and he had begun twisting his head from side to side as if shaking away the memory, as if keeping it at bay as a horse does with a swarm of flies. But now he was slowing and speaking with more precision. 'And I had forgotten that. Blanked it out. Forgotten that day so deeply that even in analysis I didn't speak it. Even when I thought I was cured it was out there in history, in this place, this cruel and vicious place.' He turned right around, spreading out his arms to encompass the great sweep of Porthminster Point, with St Ives bay away behind it and the sea on either side. Two passing hikers gave him a funny look and stepped round his arms. 'Afternoon,' one said and Harvey, who had been watching their approach over Bleeder's shoulder, nodded politely. Bleeder paused until they had passed away down the path and disappeared where it snaked around the rocks. 'I had forgotten.' He spoke more quietly and with a limpness in his shoulders, as if the spell holding him together had been broken. 'I had forgotten until you spoke to me in the car at the reunion, asked me if I still had that comic. And it all came flooding back. I remembered that I didn't even tell you what you'd done. That was what I think was buried deepest. That I let you have the strip of plastic as if I was giving away a toy. I remember looking at your fingers as you took it to see if the blood made them red. It's funny how vividly I can remember what was so recently buried away. And I did it for a comic. Is there a more ridiculous story than that? I gave away everything for a comic . . .' He had turned and was looking away, back towards the hotel, the roofs of which could still be seen above the rise of the land. But as he spoke again he swung back, as if unable to be still. 'And that's why I killed her, I suppose. Because that memory was just one too many, and too suddenly recalled. I still needed to make some kind of reparation, you see. To put right what had been done so wrong. So that morning, on the Sunday, when I woke up I knew what I had to do. It was as if my dreams had told me, and they can, my therapist explained that to me. My dreams had brought it to a point, the necessary point where I could finally end it and stop it all. It was easy really. Killing is really very easy.'
'Er, what?' Aware of the gorse bush, Harvey didn't step backwards again. But he wanted to. Bleeder's eyes were riveted on his own. This would have been so much better in the pub garden, he felt. He glanced round, looking for the hikers, but they were long gone into the rocks. Were they having it off? he wondered vaguely, and the picture