be sure how or even if it will work out, but eventually, if it's feasible, we'd like you to take over as Head of Branch. Except, as you know, we've already lost two heads in the last two years! So - '
' - So you intend to keep your beady eyes on me ... yes, I know.'
As they puled away from the curb, Layard jerked awake in the back, said: 'Huh - ?' And, 'Oh, Alec!'
Harry felt Darcy cringe down in his seat beside him, and turned his pale face to glower at Layard where the locator was already biting his lip. But whatever the Necroscope might have said, Darcy beat him to it. 'Ken, were you just born stupid or does it take a lot of practice?'
'I...' Layard said, glancing at Darcy, then looking into Harry's face. Finaly he shrugged and sighed, 'I guess I was asleep. What can I say? I'm sorry ... Harry.'
Folowing which he tried to change the subject. 'Anyway, how did things go? I mean, did you get to ... weU, speak to him?'
The Necroscope hadn't been in a good mood to start with; now he wasn't in any sort of mood at al. 'Yes, I ... "wel, got to speak to him," ' he mimicked the other's hesitancy. 'I'd never met Jim Banks in life, but we got on prety wel. Funny thing, but for a total stranger he knew my name right from the word go! And he'd only had a few minutes - which is a lot less than eighteen fucking months!' It was perhaps unfair of him, but that was the way he felt.
In any case, nothing more was said until they reached their second destination. Nothing that Darcy or Layard were privy to anyway ...
KEENAN GORMLEY, AND OTHER VICTIMS.
IV
KEENAN GORMLEY, AND OTHER VICTIMS.
Banks had been the first man to die; or rather, he'd been the first policeman to die. But on the way to the second graveyard, this time in the Muswell Hil district, as the Necroscope tried to relax in the front passenger seat, closed his tired eyes and settled down into the worn leather upholstery:
Harry? The dead voice was one he would know anywhere, any time: it was that of Sir Keenan Gormley, first Head of E-Branch. Harry? Harry, my boy! I can't tell you how good it is to know you're alive and well. . . again. Word has reached me about what you're working on. You're the Necroscope and your thoughts are very strong; sometimes we can't help but overhear them. And of course we've been, you know, 'holding our breath,' as it were, since discovering that you were back in the land of the living. In fact I've held back - oh, for a long time - from contacting you, for I knew you'd be busy. But as of now I want you to know that if there's anything we can do ...?
'Sir Keenan?' The Necroscope spoke under his breath, the merest whisper of sound, drowned out by the car's motor. 'It's good to know you're still around, too.' (What does one say to someone who was cremated more than two years ago?) 'I suppose you know that I'm ... what? Not the man I used to be?' Conversing with the dead could be complicated.
We know about it, yes, Sir Keenan's incorporeal voice was sorrowful, for Alec Kyle. And also something of your problems, Harry. Your discomfort? But you know, Alec's case was one in a million.. He was totally lost, to the living and the dead alike. But without him we wouldn't have you. So you see, your problem is our blessing. Where would we ever have been, what could we ever have done, without the Necroscope?
'And for that mater, what can you do now?' The way Harry said it, it wasn't a thoughtless question. The Great Majority were his friends and very important to him; he simply referred to their incorporeal condition.
Or rather, their usual condition, without that they were engaged in any ... activity on his behalf. But as wel as having certain conversational difficulties, communication with the teeming dead (much like telepathy) frequently conveys more than is actually said, and Sir Keenan understood that the Necroscope was only showing his customary concern and humility.
Well, for one thing, we can tell you that the deaths you're currently investigating weren't the first of this maniac's murders!
There have been a dozen here in London, all occurring near the time of the full moon;