Necroscope 9: The Lost Years by Brian Lumley Page B

Oh, we get requests from them … fine! Like today, when they know we have someone who can help. I’m talking about Jordan, whom they’ve used frequently enough in the past. But even to the top brass in Brian Lumley
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    the police he’s just someone with a weird knack, a lucky guesser. That’s how they view us: as a pack of fortune-tellers, literally “psychics” in the popular or worst possible meaning of the word. As if they see us sitting around a table holding seances or something - which isn’t too far from the truth, I suppose! Anyway, we’re always their last resort.’
    ‘But not this time,’ Harry nodded. ‘Because this time … is it something that involves the police directly?’
     
    Darcy looked him straight in the eye. ‘Right. It’s because they’re getting murdered, Harry. By a madman. And I mean literally, a genuine dyed-in-the-wool lunatic! A serial killer with a grudge against policemen.’
    The Necroscope thought about it, and finally said: There must be a lot of people holding grudges against the police.’
    ‘Just about every criminal in the book,’ Darcy answered. That’s what makes it so hard to catch the bastard! The files are crammed with people this could be. Suspects? Everyone who ever committed a violent crime! And thirteen thousand reported in the last twelve months! So you see, this could be the break we’ve been looking for with the police. We already have a good record of co-operation with Special Branch and the other secret services, but we were never on a surefooting with the common-or-garden “Bobby” on the beat. If we can show them that we’ve really got something here, not just an old lady called Madame Zaza with a crystal ball in a Gypsy caravan … I mean, there could be all sorts of weird stuff the police bump into and we never get to hear about it. This could be a breakthrough.’
    ‘Weird stuff? I thought you said this was mundane.’
    ‘No, you did. If you want to call grotesque, bloody murder mundane, then yes, it is. Except… it just could be something else. If I sound hesitant, it’s because we’re not quite ready to believe that this is … what it’s made out to be.’
    Harry frowned. Then you’d better tell me what it’s made out to be. Why are you holding back?’
    Darcy answered frown for frown, finally glanced away. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he answered at last, but his voice was much quieter now, darker, even a little shaky. ‘But maybe - just maybe, you understand -this really is your sort of thing, after all…’

III
    DEAD RECKONING
    ‘It always happens at the full moon,’ Darcy said.
    ‘What does?’ And now Harry was quiet, too.
    The murders,’ said Darcy. They happen at the full moon. And after each murder a bout of howling, and the bodies of the victims are found … torn.’
    Torn?’
    Darcy nodded. ‘As by an animal. A big dog, or maybe a—’
    ‘—A wolf?’ The Necroscope finished it for him, yet could never have said what had prompted him to cut in. Just that Darcy’s mention of howling, and a big dog, had seemed to set something in motion. It could be something he’d dreamed. But if so it was gone now, and only its echo left to trouble him. Taking a deep breath, he tut-tutted; perhaps significantly, he didn’t grin. ‘What are we talking about here, Darcy? A werewolf?’
    ‘Someone who thinks he’s a werewolf,’ Darcy shrugged. ‘Or wants us to think it.’ He relaxed a little, feeling pleasantly surprised that the Necroscope had got straight to the heart of the matter. Harry Keogh had always been precocious, of course, but there was a lot more than that to him. There was his history, too, his knowledge of the darker side of life.
    ‘And we don’t believe in werewolves, right?’ (Was there a touch of sarcasm in the Necroscope’s voice?)
    ‘We’re E-Branch,’ Darcy went on the defensive anyway. ‘We can’t afford to simply disregard or disbelieve anything -not after what we’ve seen and what we know.