already it was gone ...
B.J. had seen him start; he could feel her watching him. He jerked up his head and looked at her, catching her off balance. There was a smile on her face - or the vestiges of one - that she hadn't quite managed to drop. And knowing she'd been caught out, as it were, she shook her head and said: 'So there we have it: no drinking man, you, Harry! Man, ye're rough!'
So, she'd been smiling at his discomfort - right? But a very secretive sort of smile. Or maybe a knowing smile? Again Harry jumped to the wrong conclusion:
B.J. must see a good many heavy drinkers in her bar. Alcoholics even. Let's face it, you could find alcoholics in just about any bar anywhere in the world. Couldn't you? The trouble was the Necroscope didn't know much about them.
Only what he'd heard. For instance: one drink is enough for some people, while others can drink all night and never show it for a moment. What kind of drinker had Alec Kyle been, really? A heavy one, maybe? Too heavy? A secret one? Secret enough to hold down his job at E-Branch? And here was Harry Keogh, lumbered with Kyle's body. And his addiction?
He looked at the tray where B.J. had set it on the pine table. The coffee looked good but he really didn't fancy anything to eat. His throat was sandpaper-dry and his brain felt like a wet sponge! But Bonnie Jean had asked him a question. God, he felt so stupid! What was it she'd asked?
'Won't I be seeing you again?' She obliged him.
'I... I have your number,' he told her. 'I'll know where to contact you.' (But why in hell would he want to contact her, apart from the obvious reason? What arrangements had been made last night? He was sure that nothing had happened here.)
Mulling it over, he drank his coffee ... '
Half an hour later he left, walking off along the street into a dreary morning. And not long after that one of B.J. 's girls reported back to her and said: 'I followed him, like you said. But... I lost him!'
'What?' B.J. was angry. She had obtained Harry's telephone number but that was all. It was a simple oversight, an error on her part. She'd wanted to know where he lived, how to get there and what it looked like - things that she could have asked him last night. It had seemed such a perfect coincidence: the fact that he had a place up here close to Edinburgh! But she'd known that Harry would 'stay in touch' with her, and so hadn't really considered the possibility that he might be hard to locate. She had only sent the girl after him on an afterthought. Now, however, taking time to give it a little more thought:
Harry was (or had been) some kind of agent. What if this place of his wasn't 'his' place at all but a safe house?
Perhaps it was a good thing her girl had lost him. Perhaps these 'people' of his had been waiting for him, to whistle him away, and the telephone number was merely a contact number. She knew it was listed, which meant she couldn't use it to discover his address. All very irritating! And because the girl hadn't answered her yet: 'How could you lose him?' she snapped.
'He went into a newsagent's,' the girl told her hurriedly. 'I thought he'd be buying a newspaper and waited in my car.
But he didn't come back out.'
'Maybe he'd spotted you!' BJ. snapped. 'I told you to be careful. He's no fool, that one.'
'I thought I was careful,' the girl looked bewildered.
B.J.'s attitude softened, and finally she said, 'Maybe he went out the back way.' And she left it at that. For after all, Harry was that kind of man. And in his line of work it must be second nature to take precautions against being tailed.
Indeed, he had said as much. He was just good at his job, that was all.
Again she remembered that damp, dangerous night in London: the action in the garage, and how ... something had happened to her, before she came to her senses in the alley; then how Harry had seemed to disappear into the mist.
Oh, yes, he'd been good at his job, all right! But in any case, what difference did it make? For BJ. knew he would be in touch again, and even when he would be in