only the teeming dead -and the one man privileged to talk to them - knew how truly precious was life, and how terrible the act of stealing it away.
Harry's thoughts, except when he shielded them, were just as audible to the dead as his spoken words. Banks had overheard him, and was quick to point out: This mad bastard didn't simply 'steal it away,' Harry! If you mean he was stealthy, well, yes, there was that in it. But there was a lot more than that. Something strong and fast and furious.
Something that slid into my chest like the tines of a pitchfork, to puncture my heart and stop it, and me, dead!
'Do you want to show it to me?' The Necroscope knew that it could be easier that way. 'If you don't want to talk about it you can just... let it happen. That way I get more of the flavour of it.'
Flavour? Bank's incorporeal voice was suddenly sour. It wasn't ice-cream, Harry.
'Bad choice of words,' Harry said, by way of an apology, and he cursed himself roundly. But it was okay; Banks would do anything he could to help bring his killer to justice.
You want to feel something of it, right? You want to get the mood of it?
'Just the night in question, the start of it,' Harry told him.
He had forgotten for the moment that he was talking to an ex-policeman, but Banks was quick to straighten him out: You'd better have what led to it, too, he said. And Harry gave a nod, which he knew the dead man, long gone into corruption, six feet deep in his grave,
would sense. Because I have this feeling it all sprang from that night in the pub where my lead gave out on me. My lead ended there, yes, but I think that's where he must have picked me up! Looking back on it, I reckon my mistake was a simple one. The thing is, I wasn't looking for violence, you know? I was hunting car-thieves, not some crazy, vicious, murdering bastard! So ... maybe I was a little loose with my enquiries.
'You gave yourself away?'
The Necroscope sensed a sigh from the immaterial mind of the man in the grave. Yes, probably . . . No, better than that, I know I gave myself away.
'How? I mean, I'm not a policeman, Jim. If I know what it was you did to atract atention to yourself, maybe I can duplicate it and swing a little action my way.'
The other was at once alarmed. What? You'd use yourself as bait? No way, Harry! Jesus! I had the training, I knew what to expect. But I never expected this sod!
Al right, so you're the Necroscope. But you've just admited you're no James Bond. And you're certainly not Muhammad AH!
'No, but I do have a lot of ... friends? You know what I mean? I'm never alone, Jim, and I'm not above accepting a few tips from those who went before. Believe me, I can look after myself.'
Really? Well, so could I, or so I thought. Banks had settled down again, but he was bitter and angry . . . with himself, not with Harry. Harry was only the trigger, a reminder of what had been lost, the fact that there was still a decent world up there with some
decent people in it at least. Up there beyond the final darkness, yes. And so:
Okay, this is how it started ...
A nightclub owner's Porsche had been stolen. Banks hadn't felt too bad about the theft because he'd known that the owner, one Geordie King, had a lot of previous himself; he'd been a right old Jack-the-Lad in his time, a gangland hoodlum from the good old days. That was a long time ago, however; now he was a 'businessman' and 'going straight.'
But, still having contacts in the underworld, Geordie King had done a bit of investigating of his own. What he'd managed to turn up wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. An informant who owed Geordie a favour had told him he should watch out for a man called Skippy, who could be identified from the spider 'or something' tattooed on the back of his right hand. A spider with five legs and a sting. What's more, this Skippy was from 'up north': Geordie's old patch in Newcastle, where the 'used car' business was all the rage. His thick northern accent would give him away at once - especially to a fellow