a temporary one. But everything and everyone you've said goodbye to, you'll be saying hello to in some distant future. Except by then, why, you may not want to!'
Not want to? (Astonishment!) / won't want to be reunited with -
' - You'll get old, Derek, and so will they. You'll be old in the ways of death, and them old in the physical sense. Which is something you won't have to suffer. They'll have new friends and be ... different. And so will you. But who knows, who can say? Maybe they'll be like you, as rebellious as you have been, and need you to show them the way when finally
... finally they get here. Just as the dead will show you the way, if you'll let them.'
/ can have new friends?
'Even old ones! Jim Banks isn't that far away. You should be able to talk to him, if you'll just reach out.'
Have I been ... selfish?
'No, just scared. And you scared the dead, too, because now and then they lose someone like you. Now and then, someone will retreat so far into his misery that he's permanently lost. They thought you were going that way, too, Derek.'
And so they called you in ...
Harry shook his head. 'I didn't come to help you, but to ask for your help! Just as Jim Banks has helped me, and George Jakes too, I hope.'
Jim, George, and me ... Now the dead man knew what it was all about, what it had to be about, and Harry felt his excitement. Now that really would be a way to finish a fight, right? To hit back from the grave! So what do you want to know?
Harry told him, and what little there was he got: from a seat in the front row, as usual...
Afterwards, when the Necroscope had said goodbye to Derek Stevens and was leaving the cemetery:
Harry, said the preacher, that was just... marvellous! And you really do know how to argue, don't you?
Told you so,' said Harry. 'But in fact I had an advantage over you. I knew something you couldn't know.'
Oh?
'It was something I saw written on his gravestone, something that had been put there by people who knew Derek better than either one of us. It said he was "a fighter to the last." Except, as we've seen, the fight isn't over yet... "
The Necroscope had to make one more visit. And this time it was a venue and a meeting that he wasn't looking forward to at all: the police mortuary in Fulham, where George Jakes lay gutted on a slab waiting for him. For it's one thing to talk to the dead, but something else to converse with a mangled mess that simply isn't recognizable any more and smells of the blood, guts, and shit that used to lie under the skin!
Harry steeled himself to it, however, and on the way told his esper friends what Derek Stevens had told him:
'Less than Banks, I'm afraid. When Banks was hit, Stevens didn't automatically tie it in to what Banks had been investigating. Banks had been onto a gang of car-thieves, yes, but he had been killed by some maniac who was perhaps responsible for a whole string of previous murders. Maybe Banks had been doing some work on those, too?
The only thing Stevens was certain of was that Banks had a lead on this East End garage. And he knew it was a job he had been keen to finish. So Stevens waited and watched, and got together and made plans with George Jakes. And because Stevens and Jakes had had close friendships with Banks, the investigation of Banks's murder was passed to another, more 'impartial' team. Not that there was any real impartiality; a policeman had been murdered, and the police are clannish about that kind of thing. Anyway, Stevens and Jakes were out of it.
'But if there was some connection between Banks's murder and his theory about the garage and his auto-theft case, Stevens reckoned business would fal off a bit now; the gang would keep a low profile until they saw which way the wind blew. In which case it would be pointless to raid the garage right now, for the place would be "clean."
'And in fact, over the next three weeks to a month, there was a noticeable fall-off in reported car-theft. But that could be coincidental, and Stevens still couldn't tie Banks's murder to the suspect garage. In a month, however, the moon