The Swap (12 page)

'I was noticing your eye.' Chief Inspector Jarvin put his hand to his own right eye. 'You seem to have been hurt.'

'Oh yes, yes indeed.'

'What happened?'

'Oh, I fell over.' Had they already heard about it? 'Bit of horsing around at a party.'

'I wondered if it was a punch that gave you that? It looks like a nasty bruise.'

'A punch? No, no. Just some messing about. No problem.'

'Fine.' The chief inspector took a long look at the bruise as he got up. 'All right, well I think that's about it. You won't mind if we get back in touch if we have any more questions, Mr Briscow?'

'No, no. Call in any time.' Harvey showed them out and then went and sat quietly in his room. Or as quietly as you can with a wide-eyed and hysterical shop assistant bombarding you with questions.

'So, what do we think of Mr Briscow?' Sigvard Jarvin turned to Inspector Allen as that man pulled their unmarked car out into the lunchtime traffic clustering like a swarm of dragonflies around the swamp of Old Street station.

'Dunno.' Allen had a slow lugubriousness that Jarvin always found relaxing. 'I thought he was routine till we went there. But now ...'

'Now ... ?'

'Dunno.'

'You think he's hiding something?'

'He needs to learn how to tell lies if he's going to make it as a villain.'

As usual, Jarvin found Allen's viewpoint reflecting his own unthought known.

'He's done something he doesn't feel happy about,' Allen went on. 'You can sense that. He's got something going on.'

'Murder?'

'Something.'

'I wonder what was in those premises. Perhaps he's doing something naughty that's nothing to do with this . . . I don't know. But I agree, there was something there. I wouldn't mind having a longer look around that shop.'

'Good place to hide a comic.'

'Yes, I thought that too.'

The prostitutes on the Commercial Road were plying their lunchtime trade in a dappled sunlight as the two men drove towards Whitechapel. Jarvin looked upon them with a satisfied expression playing on his gentle features. He had a face that was hard to imagine in displeasure. A slight upturn at the corners of his mouth gave him a dolphinesque appearance, enhanced by his neatly back-swept black hair and sea-green eyes. Added to that was a genuine pleasure at his current state of mind. He had been put in charge of a case that interested him and three days in Cornwall had reminded him of why he was a policeman. London sometimes had the effect of making the whole war on crime seem pointless: everyone seemed so much happier with the lawbreakers than with the enforcers. But St Ives had returned him to a world where serious crime was taken seriously and the outrage of a small community at this enormity in its midst, even if seasoned with a certain relish, was genuine. There were various people to visit in London. Many of the reunionists came from the city but none until now had seemed particularly relevant. But again and again as he went round methodically on the neat geographical pattern that Allen had plotted, he heard the name of Harvey Briscow. He was the one who always talked about Charles Odd and his comic. He was the one who had the fight with Mr Cooper at the party. He was the one that Charles Odd, Bleeder Odd, had spoken to. What a name to call a child, Bleeder Odd.

Jarvin thought of his own son: at school today. Was anyone giving him a name he could never lose, that would haunt him as a shadow of cruelty for the rest of his life? Was he perhaps giving it to some other, sicklier, less confident child? The latter seemed more likely. Jarvin shook his head and watched a drunk stagger into the road and then teeter back to the kerb and sit cursing the traffic and the world that contained it. He would have a chat with Jack tonight, just in general about daring to stand out from the crowd and being kind rather than cruel. He might need to have a word with himself also: to watch out for prejudice against Harvey Briscow, keep an open mind. Just because you bullied someone as a child doesn't mean you killed their mother twenty years later. It would make more sense if they killed you. But then there was this ridiculous comic. Could anyone kill for a comic? Surely only someone who loved comics, who cared about comics . . . back to Briscow again. He turned to Allen who was driving with the quiet, undramatic skill that he brought to all his work and letting his boss get on with his thinking.

'When do we go and see Mrs Cooper, Allen, can you remember?'

'Mrs Cooper in Croydon, sir? I believe we were leaving her until tomorrow.'

'I wonder if you'd mind mixing up our schedule a bit. I think perhaps we should have a talk to her today.'

Allen nodded ruminatively. 'She was the one the fight was over, wasn't she?'

'Yes. I think I'd like to meet the woman Mr Briscow was willing to fight for. He doesn't strike me as much of a fighter.'

Allen, who was six foot three and had the build of a boxer, shook his head. 'No, sir, more of a thinker than a doer, I'd say.'

'Precisely. And I'd like to know why he lied about fighting too. Bit of horseplay indeed.'

'Yes, sir, shall we head straight there now? I'm sure we could put off Rob Calderwood. I only mentioned that we might call in to his shop – sporting goods apparently rather than comics – I'm sure we could just as easily go tomorrow.'

'Good, then let's go and find her, shall we? It's a long drive on the off chance but I think perhaps I'd like to meet her without warning her in advance.'

'Yes, sir.' Without rancour Allen performed a neat three-point turn against the traffic and they sped away for at least forty yards before once more becoming embroiled in the unending traffic jam that is the London road system.

Croydon is not a pretty place. It has some advantages in terms of connections and rail links to the City and at night it looks a bit like Manhattan, if Manhattan was rather smaller and full of shaven-headed men with tattoos driving customised Ford Pumas. Its one real advantage is that it has a tram network, which is decorative even though it only connects the town to places no one would ever want to visit. Like Wimbledon. But as a place of escape and safety it has a number of advantages. First among these for Maisie Cooper was anonymity. Nowhere could anyone be quite as anonymous as they could in Croydon. It was a place that seemed almost built to provide faceless, characterless security. And she found it soothing. She liked to walk in the broad, pedestrianised streets filled with the garish familiarity of everytown high street. She had fallen in love with the supreme ugliness of the shopping centre. She was enchanted by the closed other-ness of the faces that passed her own but never met her eye. She saw the ease with which she and anyone could slip into this place, become part of it, and therefore become nothing: an absence of a person, a non-being. And while she had nothing to hide from exactly – she was in touch with her husband and indeed had told him where she was going – still this seemed right somehow, to have come to a place where whatever identity she was going to have in the future could wait. She could pause and sit in limbo and for now be without character, blank. She would not stay here, had never intended to. But it was a place to wait and linger, to prepare.

This morning in particular there seemed something right about being there. Waking late, she had breakfast, showered and then wandered out for a while in all that glorious impersonality. She had visited the local shop and failed once again to be greeted by the polite but unattainable Asian gentleman behind the counter; she had bought bread baked on the other side of the city, milk delivered from another county, muffins from another country. And she had wandered through the indiscriminate shallowness of the mini-city with a feeling of real contentment, taking her time, using immediate observation to allay any desire to analyse her wider situation.

As she walked back along Cherry Orchard Road there was a fresh wind but also a hint of the possibility of spring in the way the clouds were carried on it. There were flashes of blue and that yellow-green around the wings of the clouds that spoke of potential and newness. Even the weather was leading her into the uncertainty she needed: opening, clearing her way. Maisie shook her head in the breeze, enjoying the feeling of her hair being whipped against her face. As she fumbled for her keys she might have missed the two men leaning against the dark, unshowy car parked outside Lisa's building. She did notice them when they moved towards her. Though recently fond of Croydon she was not unaware of its dangers. She stepped back and looked quickly around. Were there any of those faceless non-people whom she could call into being for a moment if these men tried to harm her?

'Mrs Maisie Cooper?' She literally gasped with relief and then felt immediately angry. Rather than speak she pulled a face at the man who spoke, a rather handsome dark-haired man. Her expression said, Don't scare me like that.

'I'm sorry,' he responded to it at once, 'I didn't mean to startle you. I wasn't sure it was you.' He smiled and she found herself smiling back, all fear suddenly gone.

In the kitchen she sorted through her purchases and found fresh coffee and cream. Each day she tried to find something for Lisa, something to welcome her back from her day in the City and to say thank you for letting me stay like this, rent-free and in an open-ended timeframe. Yesterday it was a video of
The Pillow Book
, today finest Mocha for the dusty cafetière she had found under the sink. She opened the packet without remorse. Lisa would understand.

'You are here about the murder?' She found a tray, pink plastic, but useful in preventing too many trips, avoiding their visit turning into a sort of party, her into a hostess.

'Yes, that's right,' the dark-haired one – Jarvin – said. Maisie wondered what his first name was. 'You were in St Ives at the time, I believe?'

She answered honestly and clearly the questions that Jarvin put, his silent companion recording her words, but she added nothing extra. It was not until he asked the purpose of her visit that she reacted.

'I was there with my husband. Keeping him company.'

'But you are not with your husband any longer?' Jarvin's soft green eyes did not leave hers and she realised that they must match her own. The dark eyes of Inspector Allen flicked between them and she wondered if he had noticed this rare symmetry too.

'No. We split up, just the other day. We are living apart now.' Again it was a simple answer, so she was astonished to find her eyes filled with tears as she said it. 'Shit. Where did these come from?' She said it out loud and actually smiled as she spoke, laughing as she felt her cheeks suddenly sensitive to the morning air from the open window, and getting up she ran for some kitchen roll. 'Sorry.'

'It's perfectly all right.' Jarvin was clearly a man at ease with tears.

Wreathed in floral-patterned towelette, she returned. 'I didn't expect that,' she said. 'I guess I've been saying "I'm married" for so long, it feels odd to say something else.' She dabbed efficiently at her eyes.

'Yes, that must be very hard.' She heard in his voice the sound of understanding and smiled at him. He smiled too. Even Allen was smiling. Suddenly she wanted to laugh out loud. The human species seemed suddenly ridiculous somehow.

'You mentioned parting from your husband. Did that happen after the party at Steven Weston's house, on Monday of this week?' Jarvin was consulting the notepad that had magically appeared in his hand.

'Yes . . . Well, sort of. I mean, we had a huge row after the party. He attacked another man there . . . But of course we had been on the verge of splitting up for months. I had left him before: last October. I went to my mother's for three weeks, but then we got back together again, mostly because of my mother's plotting. She doesn't believe in divorce.' She smiled again, but the tears were still making her eyes shine. 'She arranged for Jeff to drop round when she happened to be out and we had another try at things. I think he hoped Cornwall might be some sort of answer. But it was the opposite. A hotel room is a terribly intimate place to be with someone who you know you are going to leave. It is like taking poison, you can feel your insides boiling and your strength just sapping away . . .'

She stopped and looked at the two men in front of her as if they were dressed as rabbits. 'Jesus what am I on about? Sorry. Do all the people you interview start telling you everything like this? You must be very successful if they do.'

Jarvin's smile thickened. 'It can help to talk things through, I think. And I did ask about your husband. I wonder if you remember the party very well . . . and the break-up.'

'You mean "the incident"?'

'I'm not sure . . .'

'Me and Harvey Briscow out under the willow tree.'

'Yes, we have heard something . . .'

'Well, it's not nearly as romantic as I'm sure your other correspondents have made it sound. Harvey was being sweet. He has been sweet every time we've met. I just needed to get out of that dreadful room at that dreadful party so I took him outside for a breath of air. And he, like most men, interpreted this as meaning I wanted to snog him.'

'Didn't you?' Jarvin was smiling at her again with what looked suspiciously like a twinkle. Maisie wasn't sure she could handle being twinkled at just yet. She frowned and watched his smile withdraw back into its natural dolphin state.

'No . . . I don't think so. But Harvey was kind and just wrapped me up in his arms. And then Jeff came out and went berserk . . .'

'Is he often violent like that?'

'Oh, he can be. He can be very violent . . .' She caught their looks and shook her head. 'Not to me, not really. But when he's drinking . . . He stopped for a while, a couple of years ago. I think he thought that might sort out the "marital difficulties".' She put the inverted commas around the words in the air with her fingers. 'But when he found that didn't work he went back to the beer.'

'And would you describe Mr Briscow as a violent man, Mrs Cooper?'

'Harvey?' She almost laughed but controlled herself. 'I can't imagine Harvey doing anything to anybody. I mean, I don't know him very well. He might have all sorts of hidden depths, but my impression is that he's as soft as a lamb.'

Jarvin tried and failed to picture Harvey as a lamb.

'And have you seen Mr Briscow since?'

'Yes, we had a drink last night. Just to talk about things, nothing more . . .'

'About the murder?'

'Yes . . .' She looked away for a moment, at the kitchen door, and Jarvin wondered if there was something more. 'Yes, about the murder. I mean, we are both in shock about it. Do you have any leads . . . any ideas who might have done it?'

Jarvin looked at her closely and found himself wishing her eyes were not shining so brightly or her look so eager. She didn't know the victim. She never met the victim, yet her eyes were a little too fixed for a moment on his own.