Necroscope 9: The Lost Years by Brian Lumley Page A

always?’
    Which gave them al something to think about on their way home …
    Back in Darcy’s office, after he and Harry had cleaned up and things were quieter, the Head of E-Branch took up the conversation with Harry where it had been interrupted by the Minister Responsible’s cal for help:
    ‘Harry, we know that we can’t overload you. By that I mean we know you could give us the solution to every unsolved murder there’s ever been, certainly to the ones where the victims knew their murderer. Except—’
    ‘—Where they know their murderers, you mean,’ Harry cut in, correcting him.
    And Darcy knew he was right. For Harry was the Necroscope and talked to dead men. To him, when a man died, he didn’t just stop. His body stopped, yes, but his mind went on. And Harry’s talent gave him access to such incorporeal minds. Any ordinary policeman must find clues, discover evidence to bring a kiler to justice. But Harry could have it ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’, as it were. To him the dead weren’t, wel, departed - not al the way - but moved aside. As if they were in another room, where he could speak to them across the
    threshold of his amazing talent. He could simply ask a victim who had done it!
    … Or perhaps not so simply. No, definitely not simply. This thing he had was almost unique; it would still be unique, if Harry Jr hadn’t come along. Which was the problem in a nutshell: how do you use a unique talent to best effect? For example, you surely wouldn’t employ Albert Einstein as an accountant! And what of the Necroscope, Harry Keogh? In a world where brutal murders and terrorist atrocities were now ‘commonplace’ crimes (God help us), Harry might easily find them his life’s work! Was that why he had been born into this world and time? His only reason for being? Was that all? Darcy thought not.
    ‘What I’m saying,’ he continued, ‘is that you - we, the Branch - can’t be expected to do the work of the police. Well, not all of their work. We do some: a lot of big-time crime, or the occasional case that’s so abhorrent someone has to be made to pay for it. Or sometimes an “urgent” job, like today’s thing in Oxford Street. But in the main we’re spies … mindspies. It isn’t so much individuals we protect as the country, our way of life - “western civilization,” if you like - from forces that oppose it. But I know you’ve heard all of this before, and from someone far more eloquent… ”
    Harry nodded, knowing that Darcy meant Sir Keenan Gormley, first Head of E-Branch, who had recruited him into the service.
    By coincidence, that had been just such a case. Abhorrent, yes, to say the least… for Boris Dragosani had butchered him! But without Sir Keenan, without having spoken to his remains, Harry might never have gone on to his discovery of the Mobius Continuum, and to his re-discovery of life, in the brain-dead body of Alec Kyle. Except he must stop thinking of it in that way, because Kyle was no more while he, Harry Keogh … was.
    ‘So currently you’re worried I might think that this job of yours, whatever it is, is beneath me, too mundane,’ he said. ‘You think I might reckon it’s just a red herring to divert my mind from other, more personal problems - and that’s probably exactly what it is!
    But you and I are on the same side in more ways than you think, Darcy. The fact is, I need this job, whatever it turns out to be.
    That’s why I got myself involved down in Oxford Street today - yes, I know, against your best advice - because it was a diversion .
    . . Well, and maybe for a couple of other reasons, too. Okay, so this other job you’re talking about is no big deal. At least it will keep me busy. That’s my reasoning, anyway. And it’s yours, too, I fancy. So why don’t we just get on with it?’
    Darcy nodded, seemed relieved. ‘Okay. But it isn’t just a coincidence that I mentioned the police. This time they’ve actually asked us for our help.