Necroscope - Deadspeak Part 10

The doctor said nothing, waited, felt the other's horror - and fascination - was.h.i.+ng out from him, welling into the study like a sick, almost tangible f lood tide. Until Harry shook his head and cut off the flow. Then, abruptly, he stood up and headed a little unsteadily for the door.

'Harry?' Bettley called after him.

At the door Harry turned. 'I'm wasting your time,' he said. 'As usual. L et's face it, you could be right and I'm frightened of my own shadow. Self-p ity, because I'm nothing special any more. And maybe scared because I know w hat could be out there waiting for me, but ' probably isn't. But what the he ll - what will be will be, we know that. And the time is long past when I co uld do anything about it or change any part of it.'

Bettley shook his head in denial. 'It wasn't a waste, Harry, not if we got s omething out of it. And it seems to me we got a lot out of it.'

The other nodded. 'Thanks anyway,' he said, and closed the door behind h im. The doctor got up and moved to his window. Shortly, down below, Harry le ft the building and stepped out into Princes Street in the heart of Edinburg h. He turned up his coat collar against the squalling rain, tucked his chin in and angled his back to the bl.u.s.ter, then stepped to the kerb and hailed a taxi. A moment later and the car had whirled him away.

Bettley returned to his desk, sat down and sighed. Now he was the one w ho felt weak; but Keogh's psychic essence - a near-tangible 'echo' of his p resence - was already fading. When it had faded into nothing, the empath re wound his interview tape and dialled a special number at INTESP HQ in Londo n. He waited until he got a signal, then placed the handset into a cradle o n the tape machine under his desk. At the press of a b.u.t.ton, Harry's interv iew began playing itself into storage at E-Branch.

Along with all of his other interviews . . .

In the back of the taxi on the way to Bonnyrig, Harry relaxed and close d his eyes, leaned his head against the seat and tried to recall something of that other dream which had bothered him on and off for the last three or four years, the one about Harry Jnr. He knew what the dream was in essence - what had been done to him, how and why - but its fine detail eluded him.

The what and how part was obvious: by use of the Wamphyri art of fascinati on, hypnotism, Harry Jnr had made his father an ex-Necroscope, at the same time removing or cancelling his ability to enter and manoeuvre in the Mobiu s Continuum. As to why he'd done it: You would destroy me if you could, he heard his son's voice again, like a record played a hundred times, until he knew every word and phrase, every mood and emotion or lack of it, by heart. Don't deny it, for I can see it in your eyes, smell it on your breath, read it in your mind. I know your mind well, father. Almost as well as you do. I've explored every part of it, reme mber?

And now, under his breath, Harry answered again as he'd answered then: 'But if you know that much, then you know I'd never harm you. I don't want to destroy you, only to cure you.'

As you "cured" the Lady Karen? And where is she now, father? It hadn't b een an accusation; there'd been no sarcasm in it, no sourness; it was just a statement of fact. For the Lady Karen had killed herself, which Harry Jnr k new well enough.

'The thing had taken too strong a hold on her,' Harry had insisted. 'Also , she'd been a peasant, a Traveller, without your understanding. She couldn't see what she'd gained, only what she thought she'd lost. She didn't have to kill herself. Maybe she was . . . unbalanced?'

You know she wasn't. She was simply Wamphyri. And you drove her vampire out and killed it. You thought it would be like killing a tapeworm, like l ancing a boil or curing out a cancer. But it wasn't. You say she couldn't s ee what she'd gained. Now tell me, father, what you think the Lady Karen ha d gained?

'Her freedom!' Harry had cried in desperation, and in sudden horror of h imself. 'For G.o.d's sake, don't prove me wrong in what I did! I'm no b.l.o.o.d.y murderer!'

No, you're not. But you are a man with an obsession. And I'm afraid of you. Or if not afraid of you, afraid of your goals, your ambitions. You w ant a world - your world-free of vampirism. An entirely admirable objectiv e. But when you've achieved that aim . . . what then? Will my world be nex t? An obsession, yes, which seems to be growing in you even as my vampire is growing in me. I'm Wamphyri now, father, and there's nothing so tenacio us as a vampire - unless it's Harry Keogh himself!

Can't you see how dangerous you are to me? You know many of the secret arts of the Wamphyri, and how to destroy them; you can talk to the dead, tr avel in the Mobius Continuum - even in time itself, however ephemerally. I ran away from you, from your world, once. But now, in this world, I've foug ht for my territories and earned them. They're mine now and I'll not desert them. I'll run no more. But I can't take the chance that you won't come af ter me, daren't accept the risk that you won't be satisfied. I'm Wamphyri!

I'll not suffer your experiments. I'll not be a guinea pig for any more "cu res" you might come up with.

'And what of me?' Harry had spoken up then, even as he now whispered t he words to himself. 'How safe will I be? I'm a threat to you, you've admi tted as much. How long before your vampire is ascendant and you come looki ng for me?'

But that won't happen, father. I'm not a peasant; I do have knowledge; I s hall control myself as a clever addict controls his addiction.

'And if it gets out of control? You, too, are a Necroscope. And in the Mobius Continuum there's nothing you can't do, nowhere you can't go, and al ways carrying your contamination with you. What poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d will get your egg, son?'

At which Harry Jnr had sighed heavily and taken off his golden mask. Hi s scars from the battle in the Garden had healed now; there was nothing muc h to be seen of them; his vampire had been busy repairing him, moulding his flesh as his father feared it would one day mould his will. So you see we'

re at stalemate, he'd said. And his eyes had opened into huge crimson orbs.

'No!' Harry gasped out loud, now as he'd gasped it then. Except that the n it had been the last thing he'd said for quite some time, until he'd woken up at E-Branch HQ. Whereas now: 'Whazzat, Chief?' his dour-faced driver, puzzled and frowning, glanced b ack at him. 'But did ye no say Bonnyrig? Ah surely hope so, 'cos we're a'mos t there!'

The real world crashed down on Harry. He was sitting upright, stiff and pale, with his bottom jaw hanging slightly open. He licked his dry lips and looked out through the taxi's windows. Yes, they were almost there. And: 'Bonnyrig, yes, of course,' he mumbled. 'I was ... I was daydreaming, that's all.' And he directed the other through the village and to his house.

North London in late April 1989; a fairly rundown bottom-floor flat in t he otherwise 'upwardly mobile' district of Highgate just off Hornsey Lane; t wo men, apparently relaxed, talking quietly over drinks in a large sitting-r oom lined with bookshelves full of books and many small items of foreign, ma inly European bric-a-brac . . .

Very untypical of his race, Nikolai Zharov was slender as a wand, pale as milk, almost effeminate in his affectations. He used a cigarette holder to s moke Marlboros with their filters torn off, spoke excellent English albeit wi th a slight lisp, and had in general a rather limp-wristed air. His eyes were dark, deep-set and heavy-lidded, giving him an almost-drugged appearance whi ch belied the alert and ever calculating nature of his brain.

His hair was thin and black, swept back, lacquered down with some antis eptic-smelling Russian preparation; under a thin, straight nose his lips we re also thin in a too-wide mouth. A pointed chin completed his lean look; h e appeared the sort who might easily bend but never break; 'real men' might be tempted to look at him askance but they wouldn't push their luck with h im. Out in the city's streets Zharov would certainly warrant a second glanc e, following which the observer would very likely look away. The Russian te nded to make people feel uneasy.

He made Wellesley uneasy, for a fact, though the latter tried hard to c onceal it. As owner of the flat, Wellesley was worried someone might have s een his visitor coming here, or even followed him. Which would be one h.e.l.l of a difficult thing to explain away. For Wellesley was a player in the Int elligence Game, and so was Zharov, though ostensibly they worked for differ ent bosses.

At five feet eight inches tall Norman Harold Wellesley was some five or six inches shorter than the spindly Russian; he had more meat on him, too, a nd more colour in his face. Too much colour. But it wasn't his stature or mi ldly choleric mottling that put him at a disadvantage. His current mental ag itation hailed not so much from physical or even cultural disparities of rac e and type as from fear pure and simple. Fear of what Zharov was asking him to do. In answer to which he had just this moment replied: 'But you must know that's plainly out of the question, not feasible, inde ed little short of impossible!' Explosive-seeming words, yet uttered quietly, coldly, even with a measure of calculation. A calculated attempt to dissuade Zharov from his course, or perhaps re-route it a little, even knowing that h e wasn't the author of the 'request' he'd made but merely the delivery boy.

And the Russian had obviously expected as much. 'Wrong,' he answered, ju st as quietly, but with something of a cold smile to counter the other's flu sh. 'Not only is it entirely possible but imperative. If as you have reported Harry Keogh is on the verge of developing new and hitherto unsuspected tal ents, then he must be stopped. It is as simple as that. He has been a verita ble plague on Soviet ESPionage, Norman. A disaster, a mental hurricane ... a psiclone? Oh, our E-Branch survives, lives on despite all his efforts, but barely.' Zharov shrugged. 'On the other hand, perhaps we should be grateful to him: his, er, successes have made us more than ever aware of the power of parapsychology - its importance - in the field of spying. The problem is th at as a weapon he gives your side far too much of an edge. Which is why he h as to go.'

If Wellesley had been paying any real attention to Zharov's argument it hardly showed. 'You will recall,' he now started to reply, ' -1 mean, you ha ve probably been informed - that my initial liability was a small one? Very well, I owe your masters a small favour - I'm in their debt, let's say - but not such a large debt even now. And their interest rates are way too high, my friend. Beyond my limited ability to pay. I'm afraid that's my answer, Ni kolai, which you must take back with you to Moscow.'

Zharov sighed, put down his drink and leaned back in his chair. He stret ched his long legs, folded his arms across his chest and pursed his lips; he allowed his heavy eyelids to droop more yet. The pupils of his dark eyes gl inted from their cores, and for several long moments he studied Wellesley wh ere he was seated on the opposite side of a small occasional table.

Wellesley's red hair was receding fast. At forty-five he was perhaps si x or seven years the Russian's senior, and looked every day of it. A genera lly unattractive man, his one redeeming feature was his mouth: it was firm, well-shaped and housed an immaculate set of teeth. Other than that his nos e was bulbous and fleshy, his watery blue eyes too round and staring, and h is excess of colouring brought the large freckles of his forehead into glar ing yellow prominence. Zharov concentrated on Wellesley's freckles a moment more before straightening up again.

'Ah, detente!' he tut-tutted. 'Glasnost! What have they brought us to w hen we must bargain with debtors? Why, in the good old days we would simply send in the debt-collectors! Or perhaps the bully-boys? But now ... the ge ntleman's way out: bankruptcy, receivers.h.i.+p! Norman, I'm very much afraid y ou're about to go bankrupt. Your cover is about to be - ' he formed his mou th into a tube and puffed cigarette smoke through it in a series of perfect rings,' - blown!'

'Cover?' Wellesley's eyes narrowed suspiciously and his colour deepened more yet. 'I have no cover. I am what I appear to be. Look, I made a mistake and I understand I must pay for it. Fine - but I'm not about to kill for yo u! Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you - for me to turn a small debt into a ma ssive great overdraft! But it's not on, Nikolai. So go ahead, Comrade, drop me in it. "Bankrupt" me, if that's the threat. I'll lose my job and maybe my liberty for a while, but not forever. But if I play your game I'm a goner.

I'd be in even deeper. And what will it be next time, eh? More treachery? An other murder? What you're doing is blackmail and you know it, but I'm not ha ving any. So do your worst and kiss any "favours" I owe you goodbye forever!'

'Bluff,' Zharov smiled. 'And nicely played, too. But bluff all the same.' Hi s smile fell from his face and he stood up. 'Very well, I call: you are a mole, a sleeper!'

'A sleeper?' Wellesley's fists shook where he held them clenched at his s ides. 'Well, and maybe I was - but never activated. I've done nothing wrong.'

Zharov smiled again but it was more a grimace. He gave a small shrug of h is thin shoulders and headed for the door. 'That will be your side of it, of course.'

Wellesley jumped to his feet and got to the door first. 'And where the he ll do you think you're going?' he rasped. 'We've resolved nothing!'

'I have said all I had to say,' said the other, coming to a halt and stan ding perfectly still. After a moment's pause he carefully reached out and too k his overcoat from a peg. 'And now - ' his voice had deepened a little and h is thin mouth twitched in one corner,' - now I am leaving.' He took thin, bla ck leather gloves from a pocket of the overcoat and swiftly pulled them on. '

And will you try to stop me, Norman? Believe me, that would be something of a n error.'

Wellesley had never been much for the physical side of things; he believe d the other well enough. He backed off a little, said: 'So what will happen n ow?'

'I shall report your reticence,' Zharov was forthright. 'I shall say you n o longer consider your debt outstanding, that you wish it written off. And the y shall reply: no, we wish him written off! Your file will be "leaked" to some one of responsibility in one of your own intelligence branches, and -'

'My file?' Wellesley's watery eyes began a rapid, nervous blinking. 'A f ew dirty pictures of me and a wh.o.r.e snapped through one-way gla.s.s in a grubb y Moscow hotel all of twelve years ago? Why, in those days that sort of stuf f was ten-a-penny! It was dealt with on a day-to-day basis. Tomorrow I shall go and make a clean breast of that old ... affair! And what will your side do then, eh? Moreover, I'll name names - yours specifically - and there'll b e no more courier jobs for you, Nikolai!'

Zharov gave a small, sad shake of his head. 'Your file is somewhat thicker than that, Norman. Why, it's quite full of little tidbits of intelligence infor mation you've pa.s.sed on to us over the years. Make a clean breast of it? Oh, I should think you'll be doing that - or at least trying to - for quite a few yea rs to come.'

'Tidbits of - ?' Wellesley was now almost purple. 'I've given you nothing - not a thing! What tidbits of - ?' Zharov watched him shaking like a leaf, shaking from a combination of ra ge and frustration; and slowly the Russian's smile returned. 7 know you've g iven us nothing,' he said, quietly. 'Until now we haven't asked for anything . / also know you're innocent, more or less - but the people who count don't . And now, finally, we are asking for something. So you can either pay up, o r ..." And again his shrug. 'It's your life, my friend.'

As Zharov reached to open the door Wellesley caught at his arm. 'I need to think about it,' he gasped.

'Fair enough, only don't take too long.'

Wellesley nodded, gulped: 'Don't go out that way. Go out the back.' He l ed the way through the flat. 'How did you come here anyway? Christ, if anyon e saw you, I - '

'No one saw me, Norman. And anyway, I'm not much known over here. I w as at a casino in the Cromwell Road. I came by taxi and let him drop me o ff a few blocks away. I walked. Now I shall walk again, and eventually ge t another cab.'

Wellesley let him out the back door and went with him down the dark gard en path to the gate. Before pulling the gate to behind him, Zharov took out a manila envelope from his overcoat pocket and handed it over. 'Some photogr aphs you haven't seen before,' he said. 'Just a reminder that you shouldn't take too long making up your mind, Norman. We're in a bit of a hurry, as you see. And don't try to contact me; I shall be in touch with you. Meanwhile .

. . I'll have a night or two to kill. I might even find myself a nice clean wh.o.r.e.' He chuckled dryly. 'And if your lot take any pictures of me with he r . . . why, I'll just keep them as souvenirs!'

When he'd gone Wellesley went shakily back indoors. He freshened up his drink and sat down, then took out the photographs from their envelope. To anyone who didn't know better they'd seem to be blowups of simple snapshots . But Wellesley knew better, and so would just about any agent or officer o f British Intelligence - or of any of the world's intelligence agencies, fo r that matter. The pictures were of Wellesley and a much older man. They wo re overcoats and Russian fur hats, walked together, chatted in a scene wher e the spiral cupolas of Red Square were prominent over red-tiled rooftops, drank vodka seated on the steps of a dacha. Half-a-dozen shots in all, and it would seem they were bosom pals.

Wellesley's older 'friend' would be in his mid-sixties: he was grey at t he temples with a central stripe of jet-black hair swept back from a high, m uch-wrinkled brow. He had small eyes under bushy black eyebrows, lots of lau ghter lines in the corners of his eyes and lips, and a hard mouth in a face which was otherwise quite jolly. Well, and he had been a jolly sort of chap in his way -and jolly murderous in other ways! Wellesley's lips silently for med his name: Borowitz, then spoke it out loud: 'Comrade General Gregor Borowitz - you old b.a.s.t.a.r.d! G.o.d, what a fool I was!'

One picture was especially interesting, if only for its scenery: Wellesl ey and Borowitz standing in the courtyard of an old mansion or chateau, a pl ace of debased heritage and mixed architectural antecedents. It had twin min arets jutting upwards like rotting phallus mushrooms from steeply-gabled end walls; their flaking spiral decorations and sagging parapets added to a gen eral sense of decay and dereliction. But in fact the chateau had been anythi ng but derelict.

Wellesley had never been inside the place, hadn't even known what it hou sed, not then. But he knew well enough now. It was the Chateau Bronnitsy, So viet mindspy HQ, an infamous place - until Harry Keogh had blown it to h.e.l.l.

It was a pity he hadn't done it just a couple of years earlier, that's all.

The next morning, Darcy Clarke was late for work. A bad traffic accident on the North Circular, traffic-light failure in the centre of town, and final ly some dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d's rust-bucket parked in Darcy's s.p.a.ce. He'd been about t o let the air out of the offender's tyres when he turned up, said, 'f.u.c.k you!

' to Clarke's raving and drove off.

Still fuming, Clarke used the elevator discreetly placed at the rear of an otherwise perfectly normal-looking upmarket hotel to climb up to the to p floor, which in its soundproof, burglar-proof, mundane-, mechanical-, and metaphysics-proofed entirety housed E-Branch, also known as INTESP. As he let himself in and shrugged out of his coat, last night's Duty Officer was just leaving for home.

Abel Angstrom gave Clarke the once-over and said, 'Morning, Darcy. All hot and bothered, are you? You will be!'

Clarke grimaced and hung up his coat. 'Nothing can go wrong that hasn't a lready,' he grunted. 'What's up?'

'The Boss,' Angstrom told him. That's what's up. He's been up since 6:30 , locked in his office with the Keogh file. Drinking coffee by the gallon! H e's watching the clock, too - been gripping each and every guy who's come in after 8:00 a.m. He wants you, so if I were you I'd wear my flak-jacket!'

Clarke groaned, said, 'Thanks for the warning,' went to the gents and tidied himself up a little.

Straightening his tie in a mirror, suddenly everything boiled over. To h imself he rasped: 'What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l - ? Why do I bother? Dog's-b.l.o.o.d.y-bo dy Clarke! And Himself wants to see me, does he? s.h.i.+t and d.a.m.nation - it's l ike being in the b.l.o.o.d.y Army!' He deliberately unstraightened his tie, musse d his hair, looked at himself again.

There, that was better. And come to think of it, what did he have to fe ar anyway? Answer, nothing; for Clarke had a psi-talent no one had positive ly tagged yet; it kept him out of trouble, protecting him as a mother protects her child. He wasn't quite a deflector: fire a gun at him and your bull ets wouldn't swerve, you'd simply miss him. Or the firing-pin would come do wn on duds. Or he'd somehow stumble at just the right moment. He was the op posite of accident-p.r.o.ne. He could walk through a minefield and come out un scathed . . . and yet he still switched off the current to change a light-b ulb! Except this morning he wasn't in the mood for switching off anything.

Let it all hang out, he thought, heading for the Sanctum Sanctorum.

When he knocked on the door a surly voice said: 'Who?'

Arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d! he thought. 'Darcy Clarke.'

'Come in, Clarke,' and as he pa.s.sed inside: 'Where the h.e.l.l have you been ? I mean, do you work here or not?' And before he could answer: 'Sit down . .

But Clarke remained standing. He didn't need this. He'd had it, taken a ll he could take of his new boss in the six months the man had been the hea d of E-Branch. h.e.l.l, there were other jobs; he didn't have to work for this overbearing b.a.s.t.a.r.d. And where was the continuity? Sir Keenan Gormley had been a gentleman; Alec Kyle a friend; under Clarke himself the Branch had b een efficient and friendly - to its friends, anyway. But this bloke was . .

. h.e.l.l, a boor! Gauche! A primitive! Certainly as far as internal relation s.h.i.+ps - man management - were concerned. As for talents: so what was the gu y? A scryer, telepath, deflector, locator? No, his talent was simply that h is mind was impenetrable: telepaths couldn't touch him. Some would say that made him the ideal man for the job. Maybe it did. But it would be nice if he was human, too. After serving under such men as Gormley and Kyle, workin g for someone like Norman Harold Wellesley was Wellesley was seated at his desk. Without looking up he sighed, took a deep breath, and said: 'I said -'

'That's right, I heard you,' Clarke cut him short. 'Good morning to you, too .'.

Now Wellesley looked up, and Clarke saw that he was his usual, florid s elf. He also saw the file on Harry Keogh spread every which way across the surface of Wellesley's desk. And for the first time he wondered what was go ing on.

Wellesley saw Clarke's att.i.tude at once, knew it wouldn't be wise to tr y riding roughshod over him this morning. Also, he knew there was a power-s truggle coming up, that it had been in the wind ever since he took over her e. But that was something he didn't need, not right now, anyway.

'All right, Darcy,' he said, tempering his tone a little, 'so we've both been having a bad time. You're the second in command, I know that, and you believe you're due some respect. Fine, but when things go wrong - and while we're all running round being nice and respectful - I'm the one who carries the can. However you feel about it, I still have to run this place. And with this kind of job . . . who needs an excuse to be ill-mannered? That's my st ory. So how come you got out of the wrong side of bed this morning?'

Clarice thought: What? When did he last call me Darcy? Is he actually try ing to be reasonable, for Christ's sake?

He allowed himself to be mollified, partly, and sat down. 'The traffic was h.e.l.l and some clown stole my parking s.p.a.ce,' he finally answered. 'That 's just for starters. I'm also expecting a call from Rhodes - from Trevor J ordan and Ken Layard - on that drugs job; Customs and Excise, and New Scotl and Yard, will want to know how things are progressing. Add to that about a dozen unanswered requests from our Minister Responsible for esper support on unsolved major crimes, routine office admin, the Russian Emba.s.sy job I'm supposed to be supervising, and -'

'Well, you can skip the emba.s.sy job for one,' Wellesley was quick to bre ak in. 'It's routine, unimportant. A few extra Ivans in the country? A Russi an delegation? So what? Christ, we've more on our plate than mundane snoopin g! But even without all that . . . yes, I can see you're up to your neck.'

'd.a.m.n right,' said Clarke. 'And sinking fast! So you see I wouldn't think you rude - in fact I'd probably thank you - if you simply told me to p.i.s.s of f and get on with my job. Except I don't suppose you'd have called me in here if there wasn't something on your mind.'

'Well, no one could ever accuse you of not getting straight to the point , could they?' said Wellesley. And for once his round eyes were unblinking a nd less than hostile where they searched the other out. What he saw was this: For all his weird talent, Clarke wasn't much to look at. No one would s uppose that he'd ever been the boss of anything, let alone head of the most secret branch of the British Secret Services. He was Mr Nondescript, the w orld's most average man. Well, maybe not that indistinct, but getting on th at way, certainly. Middle-height, mousey-haired, with something of a slight stoop and a small paunch - and middle-aged to boot - Clarke was just about middle of the range in every way. He had hazel eyes in a face not much giv en to laughter, an intense mouth and generally downcast air. And the rest o f him, including his wardrobe was . . . medium.

But he had run E-Branch; he'd been around through some pretty hairy st uff; he'd known Harry Keogh.

'Keogh,' said Wellesley, the name coming off his lips like it tasted sour.

'That's what's on my mind.'

'That': as if Keogh were some kind of contraption or thing and not a pe rson at all. Clarke raised an eyebrow. 'Something new on Harry?' Wellesley had been monitoring Bettley's reports himself - and keeping whatever they c ontained to himself.

'Maybe, and maybe not,' Wellesley answered. And rapidly, so as not to a llow Clarke time to think: 'Do you know what would happen if he got his talents back?'

'Sure,' and even though Clarke did have time to think, he said it anyway: '

you'd be out of a job!'

Unexpectedly, Wellesley smiled. But it quickly faded from his face. 'It's always good to know where one stands,' he said. 'So you think he'd take over E-Branch, right?'

'With his talents he could be E-Branch!' Clarke answered. And suddenly h is face lit up. 'Are you saying he's got them back?'

For a moment Wellesley didn't answer. Then: 'You were his friend, weren'

t you?'

'His friend?' Clarke frowned, chewed his bottom lip, began to look a littl e worried. No, he couldn't honestly say he'd ever been a friend of Harry's, or even that he'd wanted to be. There'd been a time, though, when he'd seen some of Harry's friends in action - and he still had nightmares about it! But at l ast he answered: 'We were . . . acquainted, that's all. See, most of Harry's r eal friends were sort of, well, dead.' He gave a shrug. 'That's what qualified them, sort of.'

Wellesley stared harder at him. 'And he actually did what these doc.u.ments credit him with doing? Talked to the dead? Called corpses out of their grave s? I mean, I'll grant you telepathy: I've seen it working in our test cubicle s, and in all the criminal cases the branch has dealt with in the last six mo nths. Even your own peculiar talent, Darcy, which is well doc.u.mented even if I haven't yet seen it in action. But this?' He wrinkled his bulbous nose. 'A d.a.m.ned . . . necromancer?'

Clarke shook his head. 'A Necroscope. Harry wouldn't like you to call h im a necromancer. If you've been through his file you'll know about Dragosa ni. He was a necromancer. The dead were frightened of him; they loathed him . But they loved Harry. Yes, he talked to them, and called them up out of t heir graves when that was the only way to do what he had to do. But there w as no pressure involved; just for them to know he was in dire straits was o ften sufficient.'

Wellesley was aware that Clarke's voice had gone very quiet, and that th e man himself was now quite pale. But still he pressed on. 'You were there i n Hartlepool at the end of the Bodescu affair. You actually saw this thing?'