Necroscope: The Mobius Murders (4 page)

And now there was another avenue of inquiry available to Harry: his dear drowned Ma and her contacts among the teeming dead. Of course, the Necroscope had his own contacts, dead friends among the Great Majority; but impatient as rarely before, he intended to busy himself with other matters while his mother looked into that side of things.

It was still mid-morning when he walked along the riverside path to the bight in the bank where the river swirled in a backwater, deep and murky. Harry’s Ma was down there—her remains, at least—and this was the best place to contact her. He might have used his unique talent to talk to her from a distance, but that was not the Necroscope’s way. Whenever it became necessary to converse with the deceased he preferred, if at all possible, to do it at their convenience. That way, in close proximity, he knew they would sense his corporeal presence and living warmth: a reminder that in their absence the world they had known continued, and that as well as a past there would be a future, when finally they could “move on” out of the darkness to a promised, better place. Harry’s mother should have moved on long ago, but she preferred to remain behind as counsel to her only son whenever he might need her.

Seated on the riverbank, his feet dangling over the slowly rotating water, the Necroscope had no need to announce himself; sensing him like a candle’s glow through the dank and the dark, his Ma immediately acknowledged his presence:

Harry? But it’s been a while, son, and I’ve missed you!

He at once felt guilty and neglectful; she sensed that too, relented and told him:
Still, I know how very busy you’ve been. The teeming dead are full tales of your adventures—related and passed on by those who have been touched by you—and I am so very proud of you!

His dear Ma—a revered figure among the Great Majority—and Harry thought:
If only I could feel your warmth as you feel mine.
Just for a moment he had forgotten that his thoughts were deadspeak, and that she would hear and doubtless answer them.

But that’s not how it is, son
, she comforted him, her disembodied voice low but composed, resigned in Harry’s mind.
We are the Great Majority, true, but great in numbers only—no longer quick, no longer…warm.

But then, on afterthought and more vigorously, as if having given herself a shake:
Now tell me, Harry: why are our conversations so frequently morbid? We’re lucky after all; for despite that I’m no longer
there
, still I
am
here! And we can always be together, if only like this.

“And we always will be, until you decide it’s time to move on.” Harry now spoke out loud, as was his custom when there was no one nearby to see him talking ‘to himself,’ as it were. “But some among the quick and the dead are less fortunate, undeservedly so. I’m thinking of one in particular who was incapable of defending himself. He was murdered, and recently!”

Ahhhh! And that’s why you’re here. You want answers—from the teeming dead!

Knowing that she would sense his nod, Harry answered: “Yes,
for as things stand right now the victims—the murdered man or men themselves—are probably the only ones who know the answers. If I knew how to find their poor dead bodies, I could perhaps ask them myself…or there again, perhaps not. For there are lots of places where even I can’t go, and the deep blue sea is only one of them. But I know that with the help of the Great Majority
you
will be able to discover their whereabouts so much faster and put me in touch with them no matter where they are!”

A terrible murder, or murders
…she mused. Then went on:

But there are many murders, Harry; there always have been. What makes this one so important that you’ve decided to investigate it personally?

“Ma, I have no choice!” he replied. “I
must
investigate it, because it’s entirely possible the murderer could jeopardize my own talents and bring them into disrepute, even among the teeming dead! Also because I experienced something of it, and found it strange and monstrous…”

And then Harry told her all about it, everything in detail; for unlike his conversation with Darcy Clarke, there was little need for security or scrambler devices here.

When he was done his Ma assured him:
You can leave it with me and the Great Majority, Harry. For if there’s anything to be learned you can be sure we’ll find the answers for you.

“I don’t for a moment doubt it,” said the Necroscope. “But right now, Ma, there are matters I can look into for myself. So if you’ll excuse me, I promise that from now on my visits shall be far more regular. And maybe next time our conversation won’t have to be so morbid…”

That afternoon, at around the same time as yesterday’s “incident”—more properly the unknown victim’s murder: his violent forced exit from his three-dimensional life and his subsequent death in the Möbius Continuum—Harry took a taxi into Princes Street to see if he could locate the actual scene-of-crime.

It was surprisingly simple; remembering how the Castle-on-the-Rock’s base had appeared from his time-stream viewpoint, he quickly positioned himself accordingly in a cobbled, dog-legged and generally unfrequented alley toward the northern extreme of the street.

There, in the shade of the wall with its Edinburgh Festival poster, Harry began to feel something of a psychic chill at the unpleasant fact that he was now standing on the very spot where a terrible, predetermined and completely unconventional killing had taken place.

Unaccustomedly dizzy and leaning against the brick wall to counter the sensation, the Necroscope shivered, hugging himself to stay warm—as if the chill on his soul was a physical thing rather than spiritual. And closing his eyes he waited for it to pass.

But unbidden behind his closed eyelids—entirely unsanctioned, yet nevertheless etched deep on the screen of his memory—he pictured once again the fat murderer’s face: that look of malignant satisfaction as those heavy features reddened, bloating into an unnatural, florid mask of evil!

For a single moment frozen, in the next Harry started massively when a hand fell on his arm!

Then as his eyes jerked open and the awful face was driven from his mind, a gruff but concerned voice inquired: “’Ere, are ye all right, ma friend? Leanin’ on the wall like that? Needin’ a wee fix, maybe? Or hae ye perhaps had too much a’ready?”

Recovering quickly from the shock, Harry shook the speaker off, straightened himself up and said, “What did you say? Do I need a fix?” But then, as understanding dawned he snapped: “No, I don’t need any kind of fix!”

The man stepped back at once and said, “Ah see the noo that ye dinnae. But them that normally gets taegether here, they usually do. So what are ye? The polis maybe?” And then, hurriedly: “Mind ye, ah’m no dealer ye ken! Just a concerned citizen.”

Now Harry inspected the other more closely. The man was in his middle years; weathered and unshaven, he wore badly scuffed shoes, faded jeans, and a patched jacket at least two sizes too small for his burly chest. But he appeared amicable enough, and his face was or had been open and friendly until the Necroscope had taken offence.

That could have been a mistake, and now Harry took a different tack. “I’m sorry but you startled me. And no—I’m not a policeman. I was simply resting, that’s all…a dizzy spell. Maybe I got too warm out on the street. But it’s cooler in the shade of this wall, and I was just taking it easy. I’m sorry if I snapped at you. You surprised me…”
Well
, Harry excused himself,
at least the first and last parts of that statement were the truth.

Relieved, the other nodded. “So that’s all right, then. But this isnae a verra good place for a decent citizen tae rest, if ye take ma meanin’.” He nodded again, then made to turn away.

“Wait!” said Harry. And as the down-and-out paused he continued: “I was resting, that’s true—but I was also looking for an acquaintance of mine. I…well I promised to help him out. Perhaps you know him? I believe there’s a problem with his leg, and I can’t help feeling sorry for him. I met him on the street close to here just a day or two ago.”

“Oh, aye?” said the other, frowning thoughtfully. “And this yin ye’re on about, does he perhaps limp a wee bit, or maybe a lot? If so there’s more than a chance ah ken him.” And without pause he accurately described the murdered man.

“That’s him!” Harry nodded. “I didn’t enquire his name, but I was supposed to meet up with him yesterday at about this time. As it happened, I got tied up with something and wasn’t able to make it. Is it possible you know his name and whereabouts?”

“His name’s Angus,” the other replied. “Wee Angus, we call him. He limps by reason o’ the TB in the bones o’ his legs. He reckons he’s past helpin’, relies on drugs purely tae ease the pain. But that’s not the, er,
prescribed
medicines, ye ken. Wee Angus, he reckons doctor’s drugs are no good whatsayever.”

Harry did indeed ken; that this must be a meeting place for various categories of addicts. “TB?” he repeated the other. “He has Tuberculosis?”

“Aye, TB, the poor wee sod!” But then the informant’s eyes narrowed as once again he inquired: “The truth now: ye tell me ye’re no some kind o’ snoopin’ bobby in civilian clothin’, but can a man be sure o’ that?”

Fishing in his pocket for change, Harry replied, “I thought we were clear on that? No, I’m not a plainclothes bobby! I just like helping people out when they’re in trouble.” And he handed over a fistful of loose coins.

“Ah thank ye kindly,” said the other. “And ah wish ah could help ye find Wee Angus’ whereabouts, but ah dinnae ken the spot where he gets his head down.”

Which information, or its lack, made little or no difference to the Necroscope. The name “Wee Angus” might help in his Ma’s enquiries among the Great Majority; but knowing the dead man’s once address, or “the spot where he got his head down,” wasn’t important. There was, however, one more question that might be. And:

“One last thing,” said Harry. “I somehow got the impression that Wee Angus was frightened of something, apart from dying, I mean. It seems a shame to me that a man in his condition should have enemies.”

“Now that’s verra odd,” said the other, scratching his stubble, “and ah’m sure ye’re mistaken. Ye see, from the little ah do ken o’ Angus, the wee man hasnae a single enemy in the whole wide world. And certainly no in Edinburgh. Aye, and wi’ all his problems, well he surely doesnae need any! D’ye no agree…?”

About the same time, in Kirkaldy on the Scottish coast east of Dunfermline, ex-Professor Gordon J. Hemmings—once of Glasgow University, which he continued to claim as a cornerstone of his authority despite his expulsion from that worthy seat of learning—had delivered almost parrot-fashion his standard lecture on metaphysics, esoteric or paragnostic mathematics, and several allied topics to some two-dozen members of the Paranormal Society of Fife, Perthshire and Kinross. Whether they had understood him or not was academic; each of them had paid a grudging ten pounds sterling to listen to his rhetoric, and the occasion had served to take him out of Edinburgh, distancing him however temporarily from the scene of his latest kill.

Not that he saw what he did as homicide; no, he was simply revitalizing, reinvigorating himself. Common or garden food as such was never enough, for he’d long since discovered that the proverbial staff-of-life, at least in his case, was the actual
stuff
of life: the lives of others. Oh, he enjoyed filling his belly as well as any man and far more than most; but there was only one real way to feast, to satisfy and energize his other, more darkly transcendent self.

As for his need to distance himself from such gluttony: it wasn’t guilt, though he was fully aware how the police and judicial authorities would react to his activities in the unlikely event that an enlightened individual might one day discover and accept the reality of his
modus operandi
and the esoteric means he used to be rid of the denuded remains of his deadly repasts; but even so there would be no one who could duplicate his methods or in any way offer proof of his involvement. Not unless he was actually observed feeding.