Necroscope 9: The Lost Years (65 page)

Darcy shook his head. ‘But we’re keeping our eyes and our ears wide open.’

He watched Harry open the door and step out into the corridor. He wanted to cal him back, but didn’t. He wanted to ask after his health again: were there any other problems - inside his head, maybe? But he didn’t. It was always the Branch first. And if the Necroscope had looked back, seen Darcy’s face right then, he would have known something was wrong. And maybe Darcy wanted him to. But Harry didn’t look back.

Instead, over his shoulder, he said, Thanks, Darcy. It’s as much as I can ask.’

And then he closed the door behind him …

That night, Harry caled Bonnie Jean. Why, he could never have said. Maybe it was the three-quarters ful moon hanging in the sky over the budding trees beyond his garden wal. (Though why that should be a motive was just as big a mystery.) Or maybe it was simply that he’d run out of B.J. ‘s wine, which was probably why he’d left Seatle and headed for home in the first place.

But these were arguments the Necroscope had had before, if only with himself. And Bonnie Jean … was just another of the mysteries of his life. Or was she more than that? An innocent? Harry was sure she was. But how innocent can someone who goes out intent on murder be? Except Harry wasn’t alowed to think that way, and so he setled for innocent. Also, she was a damn good-looking woman and someone to talk to. Company, yes. Wel, if she wanted to be.

And
it looked like it could be a long night, spent tossing and turning. Especialy if Harry didn’t have anything to drink. And damn it, he intended
not
to have anything to drink! So why cal Bonnie Jean?

But he called her anyway.

First he got one of her girls, then Bonnie Jean. She was in the bar, said she’d take it upstairs. (For privacy, he imagined. She wanted privacy, to talk to him.) And she must realy have flown up those stairs, for after a few seconds:

‘Harry? Is it really mah wee man himself?’ Her voice - or words -were like warm fingers driven home through his butter brain, pressing buttons, switching channels, conjuring a different him. Then B.J. dropped the accent but retained her husky breathlessness: ‘Funny, but I’ve realy missed you, Harry … ”

And whatever misgivings he’d had - if he had had any at al - were at once forgotten. ‘Wel, I’m back,’ he found his voice. ‘For the time being, anyway. And you told me to stay in touch …’ It seemed a weak, ineffectual way to broach what was on his mind. But the words just

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slipped off his tongue as if they were someone else’s.

‘And if anything, your call is early,’ B.J. said, without really thinking what she was saying. But it was a fact that the ful moon was stil a week away. Immediately realizing her mistake (why did this bloody man have this
effect
on her?), she went to add something, anything, but Harry beat her to it:

‘I know what you mean,’ he said, without really knowing. ‘I seem a bit eager, right? Well, maybe it’s the moon.’

That shocked her rigid, so that she found difficulty in answering: The moon?’

‘Over my garden wall,’ he explained. ‘I seem to have this tune in my head: “Give me the moonlight, give me the girl, and leave the rest to me.” Well, I have the moonlight, but…’

She sighed her relief, inaudible to Harry, and said, ‘But no girl, eh?’ And before he could answer: ‘Where are you?’

‘Pretty close. I’m home. Five or six miles.’

‘Did you find them? Your wife and child?’

‘No,’ the Necroscope answered, his voice showing no emotion one way or the other. B.J. wouldn’t be able to tell if he was glad or sad. And the fact was that right now, Harry didn’t know either.

‘It’s a quiet night,’ B.J. said. ‘We’ll be closing around twelve … ”

It wasn’t much, Harry thought, but she seemed to be saying so much more. And: That’s more than three hours,’ he answered.

Too long?’

‘Yes … no … I don’t have much to do. I mean I’m alone and … lonely, I suppose.’

‘Do you want to come here?’

‘I can if you—’

‘—No, don’t. Look, why don’t you tell me where you are, and I’ll come to you? I’ll take a taxi. The girls can take care of things here for one night.’

‘You’l come now?’

He sensed her shrug. ‘I could use a break. Have you eaten?’

‘Not in a while.’ (It was true, he was starving!)

‘Do you have any food in?’

‘No food,’ he shook his head, despite that she couldn’t see him. ‘No drink either …’

She answered pause for pause and finally said, Tm sure we can fix that. I mean, I’ll pick something up on the way.

So … what’s the address? Oh, and Harry, give me your ‘phone number, too, in case I’m delayed. The number I have doesn’t work.’

And he told her both his address and telephone number. Why not? It seemed the most natural thing in the world to do …

Harry’s address was scarcely the easiest place in the world to find. It

was one of four Victorian houses standing in an uneven cluster on a riverbank a mile or two out of Bonnyrig, with undulating patchwork-quilt fields on three sides, dotted with dark copses here and there, and, during daylight, the rare hazy view of a distant steeple or square church tower.

Just why any specific area falls derelict is hard to say, but this district definitely had. Three of the once-proud, even grand old houses were terraced and stood in high-walled gardens extending almost to the river. The two outer houses had been empty for years and were beyond redemption; their windows were gaping holes and their roofs were buckling inwards. They had been up for sale for a long time; every so often someone would come to look at them, and go away shaking his head. They were not ‘desirable’ residences. The central house was Harry’s place. It was lonely, but he could talk to his Ma in private here and never fear that anyone would see him sitting on the riverbank mouthing nonsense to himself.

Glimpsed through the trees lining the riverbank, Bonnie Jean’s first view of the house was from a road on the far side of the river. She had asked the driver of her taxi to halt, and sat there a while just looking across the river. It was obvious which house was occupied: the ground floor lights were on; they flooded out and lit the sprawling garden, lending the place an eerie illumination. The house was alive, barely. But by comparison the others were stone dead.

Yet oddly enough, B.J. didn’t consider the place as a whole at all out of keeping with Harry Keogh’s character. Indeed, she thought it suited him.

The reason she had caused the driver to stop was simple: she’d wanted to observe the house from a safe distance.

But it was what it was, an old house on its last legs: hardly a ‘safe’ house as she would imagine such a place to be.

And in any case, since Harry’s people, his ex-employers, already knew about her - or something about her - it made little difference. But he had told her they were finished with him and that they’d have no further interest in her.

Following which she’d made doubly sure by giving him certain post-hypnotic commands. But he was no ordinary man, this mysterious Harry Keogh, and it was something she’d have to check up on anyway.

After a while she’d told the driver to carry on, and a minute later the taxi had crossed the river by an old stone bridge onto a rutted service road. The row of houses lay at the end of the road, and B.J. dismounted and paid her fare outside Harry’s address: Number 3, The Riverside, the one with the lights.

As the taxi pulled away, B.J. walked the moonlit ribbon of paving stones to Harry’s door, which opened as she reached it. And Harry was there.

Taking the brown-paper, Chinese-motif takeaway bags out of her hands as he ushered her inside, he looked harassed and was instantly

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apologetic about the state of the place. He had obviously been busy; his brow was damp with perspiration.

‘But… you seem in a bit of a state!’ she said, looking al around his spacious if sparsely furnished study, the only room that he’d spent any time on, and that nearly a month ago. ‘What on earth have you been doing, Harry?’

He grimaced. ‘Er, tidying up?’

‘Really?’ She couldn’t help but smile. Then I’d hate to have seen it when it looked rough!’ He nodded glumly. ‘A mess, right?’ She shook her head in bewilderment. ‘And you live here?’ ‘Is it
that
bad?’ He looked around, licked his lips nervously, nodded again. ‘Yes, it is that bad.

Well, actually, the house isn’t
too
bad at all. It’s been a decent old place in its time and was built to last. Which is as well, because it’s seen some neglect. But the site … is a mess, yes. The main thing is, this place is mine, and I can do it up. I’ve only been here a while, after all. And I’ve been busy. But the place has had a survey and doesn’t seem to have any problems. I mean, structurally,’ Harry opened his arms expansively, setting the Chinese takeaway bags swinging, ‘it’s just fine! I’ll replace the carpets .

. . well, eventually. And a few floorboards kind of creak. Er, the
decor
could be improved, I suppose. And I really don’t know where all the dust comes from.’ He sighed, and his poorly-feigned optimistic air disappeared in a moment. ‘Then there’s the paintwork, and a handful of roof tiles, and …’ Shrugging, he fell silent. ‘But why this place?’ There had to be a reason. ‘It was my Ma’s,’ Harry said. ‘Then my stepfather’s. They … are dead now. It’s just a place to be, I suppose, now that I’m on my own.’

Listening to him, B.J. had felt his loneliness. She’d been lonely, too -albeit in a different way - for a very long time now. ‘Outside, from across the river, I thought it looked like you. The house, I mean. From a distance, it’s still -1 don’t know - rich?’ ‘I’m not rich,’ Harry shook his head.

‘I mean its character,’ she said. ‘In the night, it looks like it has style.’ ‘Do I have style?’

B.J. nodded and cocked her head on one side. ‘Wel, you’ve certainly got something, Harry Keogh. Else I wouldn’t be here.’ Which was the truth, however she meant it. And, before he could answer: ‘Where’s the kitchen?’ she asked, as she took the takeaway bags back from him. ‘Or don’t I want to know?’ But thank God, the kitchen had been modernized …

They ate. Discovering that he really was hungry, Harry set to with a wil. B.J. watched him mainly, and toyed with the smaler portions of Chinese food that she had served herself. She had also been watching

him as she’d unpacked and reheated the food in his microwave: his keen interest in what there was to drink, and his obviously disappointed frown on sighting a botle of Liebfraumilch.

He didn’t want any (for which she was glad), settling for a can of Coke instead. But as she poured herself a glass, she said, ‘The red wine is gone. What was left, anyway … ” And the pause was pregnant as she stared at him.

Harry was ready for it, but stil he glanced at her before looking away. That was bad of me,’ he said. ‘Would you believe me if I said I came to see you? I mean, you’d asked me to stay in touch, and here I was about to go away. And I couldn’t contact you.’ ‘But why break in?’

‘Break in? As in burglary?’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t have to break anything. I told you: this is what I do best. It was my job, remember? And your place is a walk-in, believe me! From the back, anyway.’

‘Oh?’ She’d thought she was so secure, but the fact was that she had been advised to employ more security at the rear of the premises. ‘It was that easy?’

Til show you some time,’ he said, hoping he would never have to. And he carried on eating.

‘And you got past one of my girls,’ B.J. wasn’t finished. ‘I move very quickly, and very quietly,’ Harry said, knowing that she couldn’t argue with that.

‘But it was very wrong of you, anyway! What would I have thought or done, if I had been in and you had suddenly entered my bedroom? And as for stealing a botle of my wine …!’

Harry grinned in what he hoped was a disarming manner. ‘I left a caling card, that’s al. You must have seen that ad on TV. You know the one: “and al because—” ‘

‘ “—Harry Keogh loves red wine?” ‘

‘Something like that, yes. But you know that stuff realy did have an adverse effect on me? And didn’t I read something recently - about a mass-poisoning or some such - where certain European vintners were accused of topping up their wines with antifreeze? And now you tell me it’s gone? What, did you actualy
sel
that stuff?’

What? Bonnie Jean could hardly believe it! Now
he
seemed to be accusing
her
of something! Also, this was beginning to sound a lot like one of Radu’s word-games … and if so, then Harry Keogh was good at them! But she kept her temper, answering: ‘You know, you could be right? I tried it myself and the next morning felt like you looked that time. But no, I didn’t sel it. I gave it to my customers to try - and they didn’t like it either.’ ‘And so it’s gone?’ ‘Finished, yes.’

Against his wil, Harry felt himself griting his teeth. He didn’t quite

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know whether to be glad or mad. He should have taken all the bottles when he had the chance. But no, of course he shouldn’t! It had to be for the best that the vile stuff was finished. And with it the ‘after-image,’ or whatever, of Kyle’s alcoholism, obviously. For Harry was damned if he could fancy B.J. ‘s Liebfraumilch! Exactly how it all tied up he couldn’t say, but now, at last, it was over. It had to be over, because there was no more of B.J. ‘s wine.

And as if someone had pulled a plug in his brain, most of Harry’s frustrations, anxieties and self-doubts went flooding away down the drain of his mind, leaving him relieved and cool where a moment ago he’d been burning up.

For perhaps, after all, he was that one smoker in ten million who could only smoke one brand … and at last they’d stopped making it! Yet even now, in the depths of his subconscious mind, a small voice was asking him: ‘Oh, really?