Finding Johnny
In Edinburgh it would soon be dawn, but Harry Keogh knew that things - all sorts of things - were rapidly coming to a head and he wasn't nearly ready to ease off now. Now that he'd started this job his one thought was to get it finished. In darkness or, if needs be, in light.
Early-summer sunlight would be a problem from now on in, but it was more an inconvenience than a threat proper. The sun wouldn't kill him - not yet, anyway - but taken in large doses it would sicken and weaken him. His glasses helped keep its glare out of his eyes; his floppy hat protected his head and face but was a dead giveaway; he must keep his hands in his pockets for long periods, which gave him the slovenly look of a delinquent youth or a Labour politician but was absolutely necessary. Only the British weather, almost invariably mean, was on his side. Trevor Jordan, on the other hand, suffered no such restrictions and could come and go as he pleased; and with Harry's help, go as far as he pleased and instantly.
In the Necroscope's Bonnyrig house they drank coffee (Harry would prefer good red wine but needed a re-supply), and split the list of Frigis Express depots down the middle. They would work through them alphabetically until they found what they were looking for. Jordan would take the day shift with Harry supplying the transport; Harry would do nights with Jordan for lookout. The telepath had asked what was the big deal with this job and Harry had showed him a series of vivid mind-pictures taken from Penny Sanderson and Pamela Trotter, and now Jordan was as eager as he was. There was a monster loose in the world and he had to die.
'There'll be night watchmen on these places, I'm sure,' Jordan said, studying his half of the list, 'but at this hour of the morning they'll be kipping off: asleep in some secret corner. We could do a few depots right now, before the drivers or packers or whatever get in.'
The bloke we're after is a driver,' Harry said. 'He uses the Ml and possibly the Al or A7. Maybe we should start with depots close to those major routes.'
Jordan had been glancing through the files on the murdered girls. Penny's report seemed to interest him greatly. Ignoring what the Necroscope had just said, he asked, 'Harry, did you know Penny's body was found in the gardens under the Castle's walls?'
Harry frowned. 'Yes. Is that significant?'
'It could be,' the other answered. 'There are quite a few small, specialized units housed in the Castle. For all we know our man from Frigis delivered meat to the various messes and cookhouses that night, and when the coast was clear he bundled Penny over the wall.'
Harry nodded. 'I'll check out the exact spot where she was found. I remember looking over the wall. There are places where it rears over grassy ledges and steep banks, where the drop is only a few feet and if she fell - or was tossed - her body might slip and slither a bit without breaking anything or suffering any real damage. Because apart from the damage and suffering he had caused her, she wasn't in bad shape.' His gaunt face had turned angry as he remembered Penny as she had been the first time he saw her. Shaking his head to dismiss the memory, he growled. 'Anyway, I'll look at it. If it seems at all likely or even possible... well, it could be you've narrowed down the field a little. Thanks, Trevor.' And then, ruefully: 'As you can see, I'd never have made the grade as a detective, or even a common or garden policeman!'
'Listen,' Jordan told him. 'You drop me off in Edinburgh right now and let me follow it up. Let's face it, you've been seen up in the Castle. People may remember you. But they don't know me. I'll take this file with me. I still have an old E-Branch identity card I picked up fromthe flat. It's as good as a policeman's uniform for getting me into places to gather information. Then, while I concentrate on this end of the job, you can get on with checking out the list of depots.'
Harry saw the sense of it. 'All right,' he said. 'And we'll meet back here tonight. Meanwhile, we can easily contact each other if anything breaks. But you have to understand that the sun hampers me. It might stop me getting through to you or you to me. On the other hand, if the day is dull everything will be OK. The only thing is...' He paused uncertainly.
'Yes?' Jordan waited.
'You'll be on your own,' the Necroscope continued. 'If the Branch decides to move on me, they'll be picking my friends up, too.'
'But picking them up' Jordan repeated him. 'Not picking them off! And anyway, Darcy said he'd take care of that.'
Harry nodded. 'But he can't take care of the fact that I'm a vampire. And you know the Branch won't be taking any chances, Trevor. In fact I'd lay you odds that my warrant has already been issued, and that right now they're busy closing off any boltholes. For now... they'll probably lay off this place, because it's mine and I know it better than they do. But sooner or later even this house of mine won't be safe. Hell, it would be the perfect place to settle with me! Out of the way, alone and lonely.'
'Morbid's not the way to go, Harry,' the other told him. 'Let's for now just try to find this Johnny, right? Plenty of time then to sort the rest of it.' And the Necroscope knew he was right. All except the plenty of time part...
The following morning, the Minister Responsible called Darcy Clarke in to E-Branch HQ. When Clarke walked into what had once been his office, the Minister was seated at his old desk... and Geoffrey Paxton was standing in one corner of the room, arms folded across his chest and with his back to the reinforced glass windows. Clarke could do without Paxton picking at his mind, but he was no longer in a position to complain about it.
After apparently casual nods of greeting or acknowledgement, the Minister remarked how ragged Clarke looked; to which he replied, 'I was up late. In fact I'd just managed to snatch an hour or two when your office called to arrange this meeting. Well, that was good, for I was coming in anyway. You see, last night I had a couple of visitors. Except I'm afraid you're not much likely to believe me when I tell you who one of them was.'
Paxton spoke up at once. 'We know who they were, Clarke,' he said, sourly. 'Harry Keogh and Trevor Jordan -vampires!'
Clarke had been ready for that. He sighed and turned to the Minister. 'Do we have to have this meathead in on this? I mean, if he must forever be wriggling about like a fucking great maggot in people's heads, can't it be from a distance? Say, right outside the door here?'
Unruffled, the Minister stared right back at him. 'Are you saying that Paxton is wrong, Clarke?'
Clarke sighed again. 'I saw Harry and Trevor last night, yes. He's right that far.'
'So you're saying that Harry Keogh and Jordan aren't vampires?' The Minister's voice was very quiet.
Clarke looked at him, looked away, chewed his bottom lip. And the Minister prompted him: 'They are vampires?'
Clarke faced him again and said, 'Jordan... isn't.'
'But Keogh is?'
Clarke snapped, 'But you were already pretty sure of that, right? All thanks to -' he glanced fire at Paxton '- to this slimy shit! Yes, Harry's been contaminated. He picked up this bloody thing protecting us - every single one of us - doing a job out in the Greek islands which I had asked him to help us with. So that in my book at least he's not about to turn killer now! What more can I tell you?'
'We think quite a lot,' Paxton answered, but softly now, his pasty face reddening from the sting of Clarke's insult.
Clarke looked at him, looked at the Minister, and felt no rapport. He wasn't getting through to them at all. 'Why don't you let me tell it my way?' he pleaded. 'And why don't you try listening to me? Who knows, you may even learn something?'
But Paxton said, 'Yes, and we might get thrown right off the track, too.'
Clarke glared at him, looked at the Minister across his desk and said, 'Look, your pet parrot here isn't making much sense. Shit, I don't understand a word! Do you know what he's raving about?'
The Minister came to a decision, gave an abrupt nod and said, 'Clarke, I'm going to give it to you straight. E-Branch was monitoring your place last night. Yours and Jordan's both. You see, we knew even before you did that Jordan was back from the dead, which is to say undead. What? A man dead and gone, yet up and about among the living? Undead! That's how we see it, the only way we can see it. And not only Jordan but one of those murdered girls, too. Vampires, for there's nothing else they can be.'
Clarke cut in desperately, 'But if you'll only listen to me -'
But the Minister wasn't listening. 'We know what time Keogh got to Jordan's flat, the time they left it together and where they went, and the fact that however much we don't know - and even if you hadn't admitted as much -still we'd be absolutely sure that Harry Keogh is a vampire! How can we be so sure? Because he carries all the stigmata. You could say he even smells of vampire: which is to say he covers himself in mind-smog. Do you follow me so far?'
'Of course I do,' Clarke answered, feeling his desperation increasing by leaps and bounds, knowing that the Minister was building a case, but what sort of case? Against whom? He had to take one last stab at getting through to him. 'But can't you see that even in this you're wrong? With all due respect, you don't know anything about vampires. You've had no experience of them. You're not even talented. You only know what you've read or heard from others. And hearsay can't make up for experience. See, this mind-smog you're talking about is something Harry can't control. He doesn't "cover himself" with it, it just is. It's a result of what he is. Like a dog has a tail, Harry has mind-smog. It isn't deliberate. In fact if he could get rid of it he would, for it's a dead giveaway!'
The Minister looked questioningly at Paxton, who nodded however grudgingly. Or perhaps it wasn't so much a grudging nod as a grim one. A nod of affirmation? And even as his apprehension went up another notch, so Clarke said, 'So you see how easy it is to make mistakes?'
Unblinking, unwavering, the Minister said, 'All vampires have this mind-smog, right?'
Clarke did blink, however, as his nerves started to jump. There was nothing to fear here, for his talent would warn him of it, but still his nerves were jumping. 'As far as we know, yes,' he answered. 'All of them that we've dealt with, anyway. When a telepath tries to scan a vampire, he gets mind-smog.'
'Darcy Clarke.' The Minister's face was white now. 'It must have taken a lot of nerve to come here. Either that or you're a madman, or you really don't know what's happened to you.'
'Happened to me?' Clarke could feel the tension building and didn't know what it was about. 'What the hell are you talking - ?'
'You have mind-smog!' Paxton spat the words out.
Clarke's jaw dropped. "What? I have...?'
The Minister raised his voice. 'You out there, Miss Cleary, and Ben. You can come in now.'
The door opened and Millicent Cleary stepped inside, with Ben Trask right behind her. The girl looked at Clarke and her voice was breathless as she said, 'It's true, sir. You... you have it.' She had always called Clarke sir. He looked at her, backed away a step and shook his head.
But Ben Trask said, 'Darcy, she's telling the truth. Even Paxton is telling the truth.'
Clarke took two hesitant steps towards him... and Trask narrowed his eyes, backed off and held up his arms to ward him off! Clarke saw the look in his old friend's eyes and couldn't believe it. 'Ben, it's me!' he said. 'I mean, with your talent you have to know that I'm telling the truth, too!'
'Darcy,' Trask answered, still backing away, 'you've been got at. It's the only answer.'
'Got at?'
'Without your knowing it. You believe you're telling the truth, and on your own that would be enough to throw me. But it's two to one, Darcy. And you have been pretty close to Harry Keogh.'
Clarke spun on his heel, looked at the faces surrounding him. The Minister, white as chalk behind his desk. Paxton, grim-faced, his right hand nervously playing with the lapel of his jacket. Trask, whose talent had never once let him down - until now. And Millicent Cleary, still respectful for all that she'd just accused him of being a monster!
'Crazy, every damned one of you!' Clarke shakily husked. He thrust his left hand into his pocket, brought out his Branch ID and tossed it on to the desk. That's it; I'm through with all of this; finished with the Branch for good. I'm walking.' He reached with his right hand inside his jacket and dragged his issue 9mm pistol into view -
- And Paxton yelled, 'Freeze!' and aimed the gun which he had produced a moment earlier.
Astonished, Clarke turned towards him - turned his empty gun towards him, too - and Paxton squeezed off two shots.
Simultaneous with the deafening reports, Millicent Cleary and Ben Trask yelled, 'No!'
Too late, for Clarke had been hurled halfway across the room by the first bullet, then swatted from his feet and tossed against the wall by the second. His gun went flying as he crumpled to his knees against the bloodied wall, and his hand crept tremblingly to an area over his heart. There were two holes in his jacket, both turning red and dripping through his twitching fingers. 'Shit!' he whispered. And: 'What - ?'
He fell forward on to his face, rolled over on to his side, and Trask and the Cleary girl went to their knees beside him. The Minister was on his feet, aghast, holding on to the edge of the desk to keep from falling; and Paxton had come forward, his gun still at the ready, face pale as a sheet of paper with holes punched out for eyes and mouth. 'He had a gun.' He gasped the words out. 'He was going to use his gun!'
The Minister said, 'I ... I thought he was trying to hand it in. That's what it looked like to me.'
Ben Trask cradled Clarke's head, moaning, 'Jesus, Darcy! Jesus!' The girl had unbuttoned Clarke's jacket, torn open his crimson shirt. But the blood had almost stopped pumping.
Clarke looked down disbelievingly at his chest and the red life leaking out of him. 'Not... not possible!' he said. And the fact was that yesterday it wouldn't have been.
'Darcy, Darcy!' Trask said again.
'Not possible!' Clarke murmured for the last time, before his eyes filmed over and his head lolled into Trask's lap. And as yet, no one had even called for a doctor or an ambulance.
For long seconds the tableau held... until Paxton broke the silence with, 'Get away from him! Are you crazy? Get away from him!'