by Antony Moore
'Let it out, Harvey. Let it go.' Jeff was speaking.
'Um, OK'. Harvey nodded hard and peered over Jeff 's shoulder, looking for assistance.
'It's over. Don't hold it in any more. Just be free of it, free for ever.' Jeff pulled back and looked Harvey full in the face. 'Just let it be, Harvey.'
'Er, right you are, Jeff.' Jesus, what the fuck was going on? He was being handled by a maniac and the police were just standing around watching – in Jarvin's case with the hint of an indulgent smile on his face. Jeff stood for a moment and Harvey saw to his horror that tears were beginning to streak down his face until with a wrench of his head he turned away and was folded in what looked like a deeply erotic embrace by Maisie. Had the world gone mad? Jeff Cooper, THE Jeff Cooper had just burst into tears and was now being caressed by Harvey's girlfriend. His shop was a ruin and he was being patronised by a policeman who looked like a dolphin. He shook his head again and looked at Jarvin with desperation in his eyes.
'Look, I don't know what the fuck is going on,' he said, 'but I can tell you everything, and everything is going to be fine. I didn't kill anyone, honest. I just broke a window, that's it. And the comic is mine. It really is. I can tell you who did it: it was Bleeder, I mean Charles Odd, sorry. It was him. He killed his mum and then he sent the comic to me as a present. So it belongs to me, for real. After all these years it is finally mine and we can go off to New York and open a coffee shop.' He looked uncertainly at the continued embrace of the Coopers and frowned. 'Well, I can anyway. You can ask Charles, oh sod it, Bleeder, that's what he's called. You can ask Bleeder Odd, he'll tell you everything.'
Harvey had hoped to have the attention of the room at this point: it was, after all, rather momentous information that he was imparting, and while he had never been terribly good at storytelling or anecodotage, preferring the sardonic rejoinder to holding the floor, he did rather expect everyone to pay attention on this occasion. However, Allen had come to the door of the office and was signalling to Jarvin and that man, while not actually stopping Harvey, was moving away and leaning over the counter to listen to what Allen had to say. Harvey paused and waited and tried to prevent his heart from pounding in a way that felt dangerous to his health. He was fine, he told his heart. He was A-OK. He had taken the risk and he had saved the heroine from certain death and he was back in Metropolis, back in civilian clothes. The cape was off. Taking deep breaths he felt himself slowly relax. He even shut his eyes again for a moment but the Watneys was still swirling, making him feel sick, and he had to open them again. Jarvin was returning to stand in the middle of the shop – Harvey's shop as it happened – as if he owned the place. But Harvey didn't complain. He just listened.
'I have very sad news,' said Jarvin, and Harvey wondered vaguely about other people being sad. It seemed hard to believe really, surely all the sadness in the world was pretty much saved for him. 'My colleague in Cornwall has just contacted us to say that Mr Charles Odd was found dead at the bottom of the cliffs in St Ives just moments ago. It is believed that he took his own life by throwing himself from the rocks at the end of Porthminster Point.' He looked round at the assembled company: at the shocked faces of the Coopers who had both come up for air.
'Dead?' It was Jeff who spoke. 'Charles is dead?' He shook his head and began to pant very hard, as if he couldn't breathe. 'She did that. It's still happening . . . Jesus, we did that. Oh shit, this has gone further . . . I can't stand this, I just can't . . . it needs to stop!' And then he was back with Maisie.
'Bad one.' Josh, forgotten until now, had been surreptitiously flicking through the Wonder Woman, but now felt moved to speech. But Jarvin did not turn to him, for his eyes were fixed on Harvey. That man's eyes had moved up to the ceiling and his lips were moving as if he was reading from the peeling, nicotine-coloured paintwork.
'He's dead.' Harvey's eyes came down with a bump and collided with Jarvin's. The chief inspector nodded.
'Yes, I'm afraid he is.'
'No. But hang on . . .' Harvey put his hand up as if about to make a rhetorical point but then it fell by his side. 'If he's dead . . .' He stopped again, gazing round wildly. Maisie surfaced over Jeff 's shoulder and looked at him.
'It's all right, Harvey,' she said, 'just tell the truth, whatever that is. It's time to tell the truth.'
'Oh fuck!' Harvey stepped forward with both hands up. 'But look, I didn't, honestly I didn't, it was Bleeder, he told me, he told me! It was Bleeder fucking Odd!' And then he spun and dived for the door but was enfolded in the arms of the waiting policemen.
Acknowledgements
This book would have been impossible without the hard work and generous input of Sophie Hicks and James Gurbutt. My thanks to both of them.
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