Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates: and Other Tales from the Lost Years (11 page)

The constable paused—at least until it looked like Harry was about to reply—then said: “And before you start searching your brain for more ‘dossiers,’ you should consider this:

“Forests have
always
attracted maniacs, murderers, and rapists. I defy you to find a single wooded tract of any considerable size in the entire British countryside that hasn’t at some time or other been the scene of this sort of heinous crime. And as far as I’m concerned Greg Miller is
just
such a madman, with Hazeldene just such a forest. . . .”

Pausing again, Forester drank a little beer to moisten his throat, and continued: “I think that’s me done. So then, have I shot you down or what?”

The Necroscope shook his head. “No,” he very quietly said. “And I still haven’t seen any actual proof that Greg Miller is a murderer. In fact it appears to me he was convicted solely on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Oh, strong circumstantial evidence, I’ll grant you that—based mainly on what they found on the girl’s underclothes—but on the other hand, well, Greg and Janet
were
lovers, after all . . .”

At which Forester’s involuntary groan was clearly audible; and despite that he had earlier acknowledged at least that much of the Necroscope’s obviously hurtful argument, still it seemed he might be about to reply—in anger or denial, whichever. But at that moment Jimmy Collins returned to the corner table, and his voice broke the momentarily charged lull:

“Harry, it’s your round. But hey, if you’re busy I’ll get them in again and you can catch up later.”

“No, it’s okay, Jimmy,” Harry replied, glancing up at him. “I’ll be right with you.” And as the other returned to the bar, so the Necroscope stood up, leaned on the table, and looked the constable straight in the eye.

“Well?” said Forester, his voice uneven and breaking. “Are we done? We’d better be, because I’m not prepared to accept any more low, dirty blows.”

“No more low blows.” Harry shook his head. “But one thing
you should know. However it plays out—and I will be around to see it play out—I know for a fact there’s something weird and evil as hell in Hazeldene. Miller knows it, too; he’s searching for it, as I think you’re well aware. I’ll help him to find it, if that’s at all possible, because I think it will either condemn him as the madman you believe him to be, or finally set him free . . . by which I mean
really
free, not just from some prison cell. And Jack, who knows but it might even set you free, too.”

Reaching for his glass and gradually slumping in his seat again, the constable remained silent, sullen, as Harry straightened up and made for the bar. Glancing back at him, seeing him withdraw into the corner’s shadows, the Necroscope had to feel more than a little sorry for him. . . .

Mercifully, the evening was cooler than of late, with a velvety dusk falling as the pair got back to Jimmy’s house, where Harry went directly into the garden while his friend made coffee. Out there in the garden, Harry felt the strangeness, the mysterious texture of the darkening summer air. It always felt this way to him of a summer evening, and even more so in the autumn. It was hard to explain: a feeling or emotion he’d always thought of as “an awareness of darkness as a presence,” even as a friend. But he had never been more aware of darkness than right now, if for an entirely different reason: because what he intended to throw light upon, or into, wasn’t at all friendly, welcoming, or anything in which the Necroscope might ever wish to cloak himself. No, for while the shadowy corners of this familiar garden might be harmless and empty, a certain greater darkness
out there
was something else, and it harboured something darker still.

Having twice sensed this thing in the near-distant forest, Harry knew where to “look”; the only difference this third time would be that he now knew it—whatever “it” was—could also sense him! Following his most recent effort, and aware now that the thing wasn’t about to offer itself up for any lengthy examination,
he reasoned that if he intended to fix its latitude in his metaphysical mind he would have to be quick about it. Find the thing, retreat from it, erect his mental shields: the Necroscope’s plan was that simple. And tomorrow morning, in full daylight but from a different base, a spot to be chosen from farmlands to the north of the forest, he would employ the same plan to finally triangulate and so discover the thing’s co-ordinates, the source of those deceased but yet desperate deadspeak whisperers.

It should have been no more difficult than that, but as he prepared himself for what was to have been a quite small effort of will, so Harry became aware of a faint but peculiar musk, an odour not unlike honeysuckle or certain night-blooming flowers, which he nevertheless found oddly . . . offensive? Or if not offensive, unsettling? It reminded him—but he didn’t know why—of rain, damp earth, and mould, and conjured to his unique mind vague but very disturbing half memories from earlier times that he couldn’t quite place, like those terrifying nightmares which go completely unremembered on waking. And such was the instantaneous effect of this depressing taint that suddenly Harry felt that what he was doing was of no consequence in comparison with the misery he was feeling. Why, was anything of consequence anymore? He very much doubted it. What an utter waste of time life really was, and—

“Harry?” Jimmy Collins touched his arm, then jerked back a pace as the Necroscope gave a massive start. And: “
Damn!
” Jimmy cried aloud, arching his body away from the coffee that slopped from one of the mugs he was carrying. And angrily, “Now what in the name of . . . ?” But in the next moment he was conciliatory. “I mean, did I startle you or something?”

“Yes,” said Harry. And: “No, my fault—sorry! I must have been daydreaming. And anyway, this has been a hell of a day for small, damp accidents! Did you get some on you? Hey, I’m sorry, Jimmy!”

But he wasn’t sorry that Jimmy had come from the house and disturbed him, interrupting whatever had been happening to him. And while as quickly as that he no longer remembered why he had felt so down, he remembered only too well something Jack
Forester had told him: how sometimes, when he was in the fields near Hazeldene keeping an eye on Greg Miller, he would start to feel so very low that he really didn’t know why he was alive, or why he would want to be!

And with that memory, almost as a reflex action—or maybe an instinctive, even a retaliatory one—Harry opened his mind to scan afar and to the west. The evening was cool but far from cold, so that the icy chill he felt as his probe touched momentarily upon . . . upon something
other,
something monstrous, which had even seemed to be waiting for him, was a chill of the soul rather than a physical thing.

Repulsed, the Necroscope’s automatic, defensive retreat was even more immediate than his previous planning had called for! Even so there was time enough between the moments of recognition and withdrawal for Harry to feel the utter
evil
of an alien presence in the psychic aether, time enough to sense the vile satisfaction that the presence was unable to conceal: as if the darkness itself had smiled and licked its lips—

—Perhaps in anticipation?

Jimmy had already gone back into the house and so failed to see Harry’s involuntary shudder, the way he drew his elbows into his sides, hugging himself and trembling however briefly. In another moment the chill passed—likewise the sickly-sweet musk, fading away to nothing—and Harry was pleased to follow his friend inside. But closing the door behind him and shutting the darkness out, he wondered what had caused his weird adversary to generate such a huge burst of satisfaction, and to such a degree that he too had felt it.

Some weakness in himself, perhaps? If so, and despite that the Necroscope’s resolve remained as unyielding as ever, it was scarcely reassuring. . . .

The next morning Harry was late rising. Some few minutes after eight thirty the sun was well up, the morning steadily growing
warmer. Jimmy Collins had already left, gone to continue and/or finish his rewiring job; but he had left the kettle full of hot water which would take but a moment to bring to the boil. This was good, because the Necroscope was eager to proceed with his own kind of work and had precious little time to waste.

Over coffee and cereal for breakfast, he contacted his dear mother where her remains lay in mud and weeds on the bed of a river in Scotland near a property where once she’d lived. He might have contacted her sooner but had wanted to avoid explaining the nature of his current investigations. Though many years dead, Mary Keogh was invariably, though not unnaturally, concerned for her son’s welfare in a frequently hostile world.

Now, however, asking his ma’s help seemed the next logical step. And coming straight to the point Harry requested that she enquire among the teeming dead in north-eastern burial grounds, to see if she could find someone who knew of one Janet Symonds, late of Harden Colliery, presumed murdered and illegally interred in an unmarked grave some fifteen years ago. After beseeching him to take care, Mary said she would see what she could do and get back to him as soon as possible.

With their conversation at an end, Harry went out into the garden. And with his eyes narrowed, his mind shielded, he gazed west; shielded because he knew that somewhere beyond the garden wall lay horror in the shape of a thing that should not be. For last night in his sleep, the Necroscope’s subconscious mind had recognised or remembered an occurrence which ordinarily, during waking hours under normal circumstances, should have been apparent as it happened—
if
it had occurred during waking hours—which he now desired to prove one way or the other: either as a dream or as reality.

It had to do with his mastery of the Möbius Continuum; the fact being that whenever Harry established co-ordinates for new locations, their points of reference then remained as permanent fixtures in his metaphysical mind along with myriad locations he had used previously. And, since all a Möbius co-ordinate was was
a location at an established distance in a known direction, once “fixed” it became immutable except perhaps for the negligible effect of magnetic shift, the minute creep of the planet’s tectonic plates, or gravitic anomalies caused by the inexorable but ages-long carouselling of stars on the galactic rim.

Last night, however, the rules had been—or had seemed to be—broken; and now, as the Necroscope thought back on it, not for the first time. Indeed, yestereve’s confrontation with whatever it was in the forest had been Harry’s third; and since the unknown woodlands evil seemed to have intimate connections with the final resting places of any number of exanimate persons who continued to protest however feebly against some kind of forced confinement . . . then how was it that the Necroscope had detected the source of that evil in three
separate
locations? Co-ordinates don’t move.

Harry was reminded, however paradoxically, of the title of a chapter in a macabre novel he’d read as a schoolboy: “For the Dead Travel Fast,” or something similar—which was paradoxical insofar as the dead he was concerned with appeared to be moving slowly! Nevertheless and despite that the changes in the angles of the Necroscope’s lines of contact had been very small, still the deceased whisperers did seem to be travelling! Or, assuming that in their inanimate state they were
in themselves
incapable of motion, was it possible they were being . . . what, conveyed?

It was a question which served to remind Harry of another story he’d read in his teens: “The Travelling Grave.” All very fascinating, not to mention disturbing, for it now appeared he had discovered a very slowly travelling grave of his own!

And a mass grave at that. . . .

Back inside the house, Harry obtained a number from the directory, called the village police post and at once recognised the voice that answered. “Constable Forester?” he said. “Jack? Good morning. It’s Harry Keogh. . . .” And after a moment’s silence:

“Oh?” Forester replied. “And what is it now? Are you still determined to waste my time, Mr. Keogh?”

“A couple of questions, that’s all,” said Harry. “And they only require brief answers.”

“Is that so?” said the other. “Well I’ll be holding you to that. And anyway you’ll have to be quick because I’m due out on patrol. You caught me on my way out the door.”

“Okay,” Harry replied. “Briefly then. What is it you hope to catch Greg Miller doing up there, in Hazeldene? I mean, it’s fairly obvious to me that you spend a lot of time watching him. And—”

“—And you haven’t figured it out yet?” Forester’s voice was sour. “I’m working on the principle that one day I’ll catch him returning to the scene of the crime.”

“Ah!” said Harry.

“Also,” Forester continued, “I’d like to find out exactly what it is that this crazy bastard is
hiding
up there in those fields around the forest, and why!”

“What he’s hiding?”

“He buys these cheap holdalls, sausage bags from the charity shops. I don’t know what he puts in them but I’ve sometimes seen him with one up there on the edge of Hazeldene. Of a morning he’ll have a sausage bag with him . . . come the evening when he goes back home to his run-down place just outside the village towards Hartlepool, the bag will have disappeared. It’s happened three or four times that I know of, but I’ve never been able to discover how he disposes of them. It’s possible he buries them, but . . .” The constable paused—

“—But that’s enough. And now I have to go.”

“Wait!” said the Necroscope. “One more question. You told me you sometimes feel very low up in the fields near Hazeldene. But have you ever noticed a strange smell? I mean, like a—I don’t know—like a sad sort of odour? More a feeling or sensation than a true smell? Something that somehow reminds you of things you’d rather forget? A sickly-sweet—”

“—Like honeysuckle and shit?” Forester cut him off. “Two
smells in one? Yes—and I don’t much like it. It has to be the forest, tree pollen and the like. Blackberry blossoms and crabapple, too. And the shitty stink is animal dung . . . well, probably.”