Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (11 page)

‘You,’ one of the police inspectors said to Harry, with a hand on his shoulder, ‘are a hell of a lucky man. You were the closest to it when that bomb went off.’ But suddenly his voice was very quiet. ‘What did you … see? I mean exactly what was it that
happened
there?’ Carefully, he dabbed specks of blood and other matter from his forehead.

Darcy Clarke was fully recovered. Breaking into the conversation with what he hoped would be a useful lie, he said, ‘I saw everything. When Sean was shot he fell on top of his holdall. Then there came the explosion. His body muffled the sound but took the full force of the blast. He just… flew apart.’

Harry nodded. ‘Something like that,’ he said. ‘Actually, I was looking away from it.’

As luck would have it, most of them had been looking away from it. But behind the parapet wall of a tall building, white-faced and wondering, a police marksman examined his weapon and thought,
what the hell…?
For it was one thing to shoot at a man, but quite another to hit him and see him fall - and then watch him disappear right out of this world!

Not fifty feet away from the group on the traffic island, Harry’s

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Krishna types huddled in a shop doorway. For once immobilized, they stared at the scene of what could have been an enormous disaster. Harry saw them looking.

Their sandals might have been stilled for once, but their slanted eyes were still ful of the action that had been, and that they’d seen. One of them - their leader? - was lowering a camera. Harry couldn’t help wondering what he’d been photographing, and why …

Amazingly, Darcy’s car looked like it might still drive, however dangerously. The senior lawmen seemed uncertain about it, but before they could advise Darcy against it he’d bundled the Necroscope and Trevor Jordan inside and driven off. On the way to E-Branch HQ, he said, ‘It seems we should never underestimate you, Harry. I don’t know what you did, or how you did it, but I do know it was you.’

And Jordan said, ‘My telepathy seems like a toy by comparison!’

‘We al played our parts,’ Harry shrugged. ‘We’ve worked together before, and it’s starting to look like we make a good team.’ But before they could misinterpret that, and perhaps his future intentions, he added: ‘Wel,
this
time it worked out, at least.’

Darcy made a derisory noise in his nose. ‘But sometimes I feel like such a … such a bloody
coward,
that’s all!’

‘I shouldn’t if I were you,’ Jordan told him. ‘Oh, it was Harry who saved the day, right enough, but was it
al
him? How do you know he wasn’t prompted by that guardian angel of yours, Darcy, taking care of you as always?’

Which gave them al something to think about on their way home …

Back in Darcy’s office, after he and Harry had cleaned up and things were quieter, the Head of E-Branch took up the conversation with Harry where it had been interrupted by the Minister Responsible’s cal for help:

‘Harry, we know that we can’t overload you. By that I mean we know you could give us the solution to every unsolved murder there’s ever been, certainly to the ones where the victims knew their murderer. Except—’

‘—Where they
know
their murderers, you mean,’ Harry cut in, correcting him.

And Darcy knew he was right. For Harry was the Necroscope and talked to dead men. To him, when a man died, he didn’t just stop. His
body
stopped, yes, but his mind went on. And Harry’s talent gave him access to such incorporeal minds. Any ordinary policeman must find clues, discover evidence to bring a kiler to justice. But Harry could have it ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’, as it were. To him the dead weren’t, wel, departed - not al the way - but moved aside. As if they were in another room, where he could speak to them across the

threshold of his amazing talent. He could simply
ask
a victim who had done it!

… Or perhaps not so simply. No, definitely not simply. This thing he had was almost unique; it would still
be
unique, if Harry Jr hadn’t come along. Which was the problem in a nutshell: how do you use a unique talent to best effect? For example, you surely wouldn’t employ Albert Einstein as an accountant! And what of the Necroscope, Harry Keogh? In a world where brutal murders and terrorist atrocities were now ‘commonplace’ crimes (God help us), Harry might easily find them his life’s work! Was that why he had been born into this world and time? His only reason for being? Was that
all?
Darcy thought not.

‘What I’m saying,’ he continued, ‘is that you - we, the Branch - can’t be expected to do the work of the police. Well, not all of their work. We do some: a lot of big-time crime, or the occasional case that’s so abhorrent someone
has
to be made to pay for it. Or sometimes an “urgent” job, like today’s thing in Oxford Street. But in the main we’re spies … mindspies. It isn’t so much individuals we protect as the country, our way of life - “western civilization,” if you like - from forces that oppose it. But I know you’ve heard all of this before, and from someone far more eloquent… ”

Harry nodded, knowing that Darcy meant Sir Keenan Gormley, first Head of E-Branch, who had recruited him into the service.

By coincidence, that had been just such a case. Abhorrent, yes, to say the least… for Boris Dragosani had butchered him! But without Sir Keenan, without having spoken to his remains, Harry might never have gone on to his discovery of the Mobius Continuum, and to his re-discovery of life, in the brain-dead body of Alec Kyle. Except he
must
stop thinking of it in that way, because Kyle was no more while he, Harry Keogh … was.

‘So currently you’re worried I might think that this job of yours, whatever it is, is beneath me, too mundane,’ he said. ‘You think I might reckon it’s just a red herring to divert my mind from other, more personal problems - and that’s probably exactly what it is!

But you and I are on the same side in more ways than you think, Darcy. The fact is, I
need
this job, whatever it turns out to be.

That’s why I got myself involved down in Oxford Street today - yes, I know, against your best advice - because it was a diversion .

. . Well, and maybe for a couple of other reasons, too. Okay, so this other job you’re talking about is no big deal. At least it will keep me busy. That’s my reasoning, anyway. And it’s yours, too, I fancy. So why don’t we just get on with it?’

Darcy nodded, seemed relieved. ‘Okay. But it isn’t just a coincidence that I mentioned the police. This time they’ve actually asked us for our help. Oh, we get requests from them … fine! Like today, when they know we have someone who can help. I’m talking about Jordan, whom they’ve used frequently enough in the past. But even to the top brass in Brian Lumley

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the police he’s just someone with a weird knack, a lucky guesser. That’s how they view us: as a pack of fortune-tellers, literally “psychics” in the popular or worst possible meaning of the word. As if they see us sitting around a table holding seances or something - which isn’t too far from the truth, I suppose! Anyway, we’re always their last resort.’

‘But not this time,’ Harry nodded. ‘Because this time … is it something that involves the police directly?’

Darcy looked him straight in the eye. ‘Right. It’s because they’re getting murdered, Harry. By a madman. And I mean
literally,
a genuine dyed-in-the-wool lunatic! A serial killer with a grudge against policemen.’

The Necroscope thought about it, and finally said: There must be a lot of people holding grudges against the police.’

‘Just about every criminal in the book,’ Darcy answered. That’s what makes it so hard to catch the bastard! The files are crammed with people this could be. Suspects? Everyone who ever committed a violent crime! And thirteen thousand reported in the last twelve months! So you see, this could be the break we’ve been looking for with the police. We already have a good record of co-operation with Special Branch and the other secret services, but we were never on a surefooting with the common-or-garden “Bobby” on the beat. If we can show them that we’ve really got something here, not just an old lady called Madame Zaza with a crystal ball in a Gypsy caravan … I mean, there could be all sorts of weird stuff the police bump into and we never get to hear about it. This could be a breakthrough.’

‘Weird stuff? I thought you said this was mundane.’

‘No,
you
did. If you want to call grotesque, bloody murder mundane, then yes, it is. Except… it just
could
be something else. If I sound hesitant, it’s because we’re not quite ready to believe that this is … what it’s made out to be.’

Harry frowned. Then you’d better tell me what it’s made out to be. Why are you holding back?’

Darcy answered frown for frown, finally glanced away. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he answered at last, but his voice was much quieter now, darker, even a little shaky. ‘But maybe - just
maybe,
you understand -this really is your sort of thing, after all…’

III

DEAD RECKONING

‘It always happens at the full moon,’ Darcy said.

‘What does?’ And now Harry was quiet, too.

The murders,’ said Darcy. They happen at the full moon. And after each murder a bout of howling, and the bodies of the victims are found … torn.’

Torn?’

Darcy nodded. ‘As by an animal. A big dog, or maybe a—’

‘—A wolf?’ The Necroscope finished it for him, yet could never have said what had prompted him to cut in. Just that Darcy’s mention of howling, and a big dog, had seemed to set something in motion. It could be something he’d dreamed. But if so it was gone now, and only its echo left to trouble him. Taking a deep breath, he tut-tutted; perhaps significantly, he didn’t grin. ‘What are we talking about here, Darcy? A werewolf?’

‘Someone who
thinks
he’s a werewolf,’ Darcy shrugged. ‘Or wants us to think it.’ He relaxed a little, feeling pleasantly surprised that the Necroscope had got straight to the heart of the matter. Harry Keogh had always been precocious, of course, but there was a lot more than that to him. There was his history, too, his knowledge of the darker side of life.

‘And we don’t believe in werewolves, right?’ (Was there a touch of sarcasm in the Necroscope’s voice?)

‘We’re E-Branch,’ Darcy went on the defensive anyway. ‘We can’t afford to simply disregard or disbelieve anything -not after what we’ve seen and what we know. But in this case, it’s more that we’d like—’

‘—That you’d like some proof? That you’ve simply
got
to know one way or the other? Because if this
is
the unthinkable, you can’t let it go on?’

Again Darcy’s shrug, a little nervous but in no way careless. Two years ago we wouldn’t have turned a hair. But since then …’ He let it

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tail off, and of course Harry knew why. For since then there’d been the Necroscope and everything that went with him. Namely vampires! Upon a time, people hadn’t believed in them either.

‘But a werewolf is … something else,’ Harry was thoughtful now, his gaze sharper, less soulful. And staring at Darcy: ‘You said you think these murders are the work of “someone who
thinks
he’s a werewolf.” But as you also pointed out, this is E-Branch. So what
do you
think?’

Now Darcy’s face was grim, even gaunt-looking. His eyes, suddenly vacant, seemed to scan the past. ‘It feels like only yesterday,’ he answered. ‘I can hardly believe it was - what, eighteen months ago?’ Again Harry knew what Darcy was talking about: the Bodescu affair.

‘I was in on most of it, down there in Devon,’ Darcy went on. ‘I saw … saw what
became
of poor Peter Keen. Hel, I was the one who found him, or what was left of him! But you know, we never did make up our minds just what did that to him? Yulian Bodescu? Wel, maybe. Or was it that godawful dog of his, that
Thing
that was more than just a dog? I don’t mind admiting, I still have nightmares about it, Harry, and I suppose I always wil. We thought we had Harkley House contained.
Huh!
How wrong can you be? Yulian escaped, and his bloody dog very nearly got out too! But that was only at the end,
the finale.
And what I’ve been asking myself ever since, is—’

‘—I know,’ the Necroscope cut him off again. ‘You know how hard it is to kill such things. You’re wondering if something - something like that dog, maybe? -might have escaped
before
you moved in for the kill, before you razed Harkley to the ground.’

The other nodded, then changed his mind and said, ‘Wel, not realy. We were fairly wel satisfied that we nailed down everything that could be nailed down. But the Dragosani thing, then the Bodescu affair and al - the whole chain of events - seemed designed to make us aware that we espers aren’t the only different things in creation. We’re one side of the coin, yes, but for white there’s black, and for good there has to be evil. We knew that, of course, but we weren’t aware of the different
bands
of evil. I mean, we didn’t know just how dark they could get.’

‘So now that you know, what
do
you think? About this so-caled werewolf, I mean.’

‘Personaly? It’s like I said. I think, I hope, that he’s a man - but
only
a man! A lunatic, affected by the moon at its ful, trying to murder as many policemen as he can before they get him.’

‘But why policemen? Why should a “werewolf discriminate in that way? When his blood and the moon are up, surely a victim is a victim? That is, if our understanding of the “legend” of the beast is correct.’

‘But that’s
why
I think it’s a man!’ Darcy nodded. ‘It’s one of my reasons, at least; I mean quite apart from logic and commonsense telling me it’s a man! This is someone who
reasons
and
discriminates,
someone who knows the police wil hunt him down. So if he must kill, who beter to take out than the ones who are looking for him, threatening him?’