by Brian Lumley
“You told me this character you’re looking for has to be an academic of sorts—maybe a first class scientist or intellectual—but definitely a mathematician. That’s how I remember it, anyway.”
“Yes,” Harry answered. “Except there’s two words there that you shouldn’t confuse—academic and intellectual. Just because some individual becomes expert in a certain subject or subjects doesn’t make him an intellectual. This creature I’m looking for is way beyond the merely academic stage!”
“Maybe, but he probably came up that way, right? Before he got really good at it?”
Harry frowned again, and asked, “Who are we talking about, Darcy”
“Let me explain,” said the other. And he quickly continued: “Taking your advice, I passed your latest wants to last night’s Duty Officer, one Geoff Lambert, which turned out to be a fortunate coincidence. Geoff’s a recent E-Branch recruit, specializing in predictions, probabilities, and forecasts in general. In other words he’s—”
“A precog,” Harry cut in. “Okay, but what’s the connection? What does he have in store for me?”
“Ah, no! He doesn’t do personal stuff, never tries to read his own or anyone else’s future, concentrates mainly on trends, international fiscal fluctuations, old enemy countries rattling their sabres and making ready for war again, other large-scale, world-wide events…etcetera. A good man to have watching the money markets, close to the foreign embassies, and that sort of thing. He needs fairly close contact with his subjects.”
Harry sighed. “How does that fit in with what I’m doing?”
“It doesn’t. I’m just explaining that this is a very clued-up sort of fellow. But being a newcomer he starts at the bottom and gets his share of administrative and other duties, which is how it happens he was the D.O. last night and got to be working on your problem.”
“Okay, got it,” said Harry. “He’s bright and very clued-up. So what has he come up with?”
“Hold fire, Harry!” said Darcy. “Look, I can tell how frustrated you are and eager to get on, but there’s more for you to know. See, Geoff’s not merely bright—not only talented enough for E-Branch—but he’s also a member of Mensa International.”
Harry nodded to himself. “I see. Not just bright but brilliant, eh? With one hell-of-a-high IQ, right?”
“Oh, absolutely! Because a soaring intelligence quotient is a necessity, it’s the key to becoming a member of Mensa. Which is what I meant by this being a fortunate coincidence.”
Harry frowned. “Oh, how so?” Suddenly he was keenly attentive, animated by what the other was saying. “Just what are you trying to tell me, Darcy? That perhaps this Geoff is something of a mathematician, too? That maybe it’s even possible he’s—”
“No, no, no!” The other cut him short. “Geoff isn’t the man you’re searching for, Harry! No way! But it’s possible he knows who is!”
“I’m all ears,” said Harry, gripping the telephone tightly, not even trying to relax. “Do go on.”
“Well, I don’t want to be too optimistic, but Geoff can put two and two together far quicker than you or I, and the coincidence is this: that description you gave us rang bells with him…by which I mean he remembered having met someone who looked exactly like that, another member of Mensa and a veritable whiz with numbers, too! So, without searching for anyone else, Geoff went ahead and began to check him out. This was something of a reversal for him; for instead of looking at the future, he was searching through his memories of the past!
“Well, while there wasn’t much he could do last night, this morning when his shift ended he stayed on at the HQ and started to contact friends of his in the organization, in Mensa, to see if they knew anything useful about this fellow—whose name, by the way, is—”
“Stop!” Harry brought the other to an abrupt halt. “I don’t want a name, Darcy, not just yet, not even if the line’s scrambled. This killer: I don’t know how clever he is, or what other talents he may have. Like for instance, telepathy? I just don’t know! But however it works out, I would like it to come as something of a surprise if and when I do catch up with him. Except, having said that, there’s more than a small chance I’ve already compromised myself! He may have at least an idea of what I look like. I just have to be careful, that’s all.”
“Okay,” said Darcy. “I think I understand. But…how will we continue? I mean, this really does look promising, Harry. Do you want me to send you everything I’ve got, like last time?”
Harry thought about it, then said: “No, why don’t we save a little time, eh? Are you in your office?”
“Yes, I’m at my desk. Why do you ask?…Oh! I see! In fact I not only see, I’m beginning to feel!”
“What, more twinges, Darcy?” But this time, instead of grinning, the Necroscope had stood up, conjuring his numbers.
“Just a sudden queasy feeling, that’s all,” said Darcy.
“Well, try to ignore it,” Harry answered. “And secure your door. I don’t need to see or be seen by anyone else, just you. By the time you’ve put that ’phone down, I’ll be there…”
Nondescript, an average-looking person in every way, the Head of Branch beat Harry to it, actually managing to press the button that secured his door electronically, and to put the ’phone down, before a sudden draught from nowhere fluttered some loose papers on his desk and gave him another twinge. Then:
“Oh!” he said, jerking upright, stiff-backed in his swivel-chair, as first the right foot and leg, followed by the rest of the Necroscope’s person, stepped out of otherwise thin air into his office on the far side of the desk.
“Hello, Darcy,” said Harry, nodding a greeting as he tossed his For-Your-Eyes-Only envelope onto the desk within easy reach of the other. And glancing casually, perhaps a little sardonically around the office, he then said, “Don’t take it personally, but I can’t say I ever much liked this place—not so much your office but the building, E-Branch itself. E-Branch: gadgets and ghosts, right? In a way it’s too much like me, if you know what I mean…too close to me. It’s like I can feel your agents in my head, as if I’m sensing their proximity. And perhaps I am.”
“You mean like they sense yours?” Darcy answered. “Even as we speak there’ll be a small handful of them out there who know you’re here without ever being told!”
“Yes, I know,” said Harry. “And that’s what I mean: they’re too close to me, your espers. But I need to keep a low profile, Darcy, and if one of your agents should ever go sour on you, or on the Branch itself—”
“That’s never going to happen,” the other at once cut in.
“Oh really? What, are you something of a precog, too?”
“No, but you can be sure I’ll be keeping an eye on it! Oh, and by the way, a good day to you, too, Harry!” Darcy rose and extended a slightly shaking right hand across the desk, saying: “Excuse my nerves, but people usually come in through the door! Still and all, that aside, it’s always good to see you, however you choose to get here!”
Smiling and taking Darcy’s hand, Harry said, “Yes, you too. It’s good to see you. And let me say just one more time, thanks for all you’re doing for me. You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”
“My pleasure,” said the other, and flopped back down in his chair. “But…won’t you sit down, make yourself comfortable?”
“Thanks.” Harry pulled a chair out from under the desk, sat facing E-Branch’s top man, took up the envelope and spilled its contents, Darcy’s list, out onto the polished oak. “We can talk about this later,” he said, indicating the handful of loose leaves where they’d slid to a halt on the glassy surface. “Then I’ll tell you what I still need. And with any luck that will be the last thing I’ll be asking you for this time around…
“But first things first:
“You started to tell me about this Mensa person, this mathematician that your Night Duty Officer—your new precog, Geoff Lambert?—remembered seeing or maybe hearing about during his time am
ong the highbrows. We should begin with that.”
“Hold on a minute!” said Darcy. “Don’t you think we should get settled down first? I know for sure that I should! A cigarette and a drink, maybe?”
He took a bottle of Courvoisier from the cabinet beside his desk, two brandy glasses, a pack of cigarettes and a clean ashtray. A heavy desktop lighter was already in evidence, standing central on the desk. And as Darcy poured out liberal amounts of golden cognac, Harry said, “I don’t remember you smoking?”
“Only now and then,” Darcy told him. “When that damn thing of mine will let me! You could call this a ‘now’ moment. You?”
“A drink can’t hurt,” said the Necroscope, reaching for one of the glasses. “But no thanks for the nicotine. I do occasionally, but Bonnie Jean says it stinks—she gets enough of that in the wine bar.”
“Your lady friend? I was meaning to ask you about her.”
“Well don’t!” said Harry, edgily. “Because I can’t tell you anything about B.J.” Which was, quite literally, the truth; and as Darcy lit his cigarette, Harry changed the subject and continued: “Now can we get on with this, please?”
Darcy nodded, opened a desk drawer, took out a brand-new as-yet-untitled file, and slid it across to his visitor. “Didn’t I tell you our new boy is something else? This is his work from last night and all of this morning, until he went home for the day less than an hour ago. But why should I bother telling you about it when you can read it for yourself?”
“Then I’ll do just that,” Harry replied. And he did—
—But not until he could take his eyes from the monochrome photograph paper-clipped to the inside of the stiff file cover. Colourless, yes, and the features were maybe ten, fifteen years younger than the ones he remembered; but the picture the Necroscope’s memory had framed had been viewed through a Möbius door and a time-stream shifted haze, as blurred as a scene reflected in a breeze-rippled pool. But still, this could be his man, his monster, his devil!
Finally, putting his glass down with the fine cognac barely touched, and while Darcy sipped, smoked and said nothing, Harry laid the photograph aside and began to read the typed text; and to scan the newspaper excerpts, the school and university progress reports, medical records, transcripts of Mensa evaluations and comments; and to literally consume every detail of his suspect subject’s life…except, of course, for any proof of his guilt.
Perhaps most interestng was the fact that the ex-Professor now regularly toured within a hundred mile radius of Edinburgh, lecturing to various UFO societies and groups with similar pursuits on all kinds of exotic subjects, including the mystical—and, according to him, the magical?—properties of numbers…
And after forty minutes or so of absorbing all of this:
“Gordon J. Hemmings,” Harry mused, almost to himself, “‘this is your life.’ But how many other lives? That’s assuming you’re it. A colour photo would have been better, but beggars can’t be choosers.” And then, to Darcy:
“Your man Geoff Lambert deserves a medal. And if this turns out to be my great leech I’ll pin one on him myself! You called it ‘a fortunate coincidence,’ his being on duty last night. Me, I call it a bloody miracle! Have you read this file, Darcy?”
Nodding, the other said: “Just finished when I called you. It took me about the same length of time, too. It was my intention to give it to one of the fellows here, someone who doesn’t have too much on his plate already: David Chung, maybe? Or—”
“What?” Harry was quick to cut in. “Chung, your top precog? David Chung, who unlike Lambert is the genuine article: a fully-fledged clairvoyant or futurist? No! Because that could rebound. We’ve seen before how some people get all itchy, nervous, aware that they’re being scanned. And I can’t take the chance that it might happen this time. I want this fellow—if it’s really him—and I want him cold, dead cold!”
“—Or maybe Anna Marie English?” Darcy finished what he had started to say.
“Your empath? That’s out, too, and for the same reason. Empathy, like telepathy, can sometimes work both ways. No, Darcy, this is down to me now; but there’s still something I need. And since Geoff Lambert has taken it this far, he’s the man I would like to see working on it…with your permission. Because for my money he’s already proved himself three or four times over!”
“Yes, if he really has found you your man,” Darcy answered. “But anyway, since he’s on Duty Officer again tonight, I’ll get him working on it. So what is it you’d like him to do?”
“Can I borrow your pen?” said Harry, scrabbling through the loose leaves from his For-Your-Eyes-Only envelope. And as Darcy passed him a ballpoint: “These four names and dates here—” he ringed them in, “—could be all important. It was my intention to ask you to search for something, anything that might connect them. That’s still what I want, except now we know exactly what you should be looking for, and what that connection might be.”
Darcy nodded. “Your man’s lectures, right? You want to know if maybe he was in the right place at the right time.”
Harry nodded grimly. “Or the wrong place and the wrong time, at least for his victims!”
“Okay, you can consider it done,” said Darcy, as the Necroscope stood up with the Hemmings file in his hand. “But for now…is that it? You’re done here?”
“For now, yes,” said Harry. “Hopefully for good.”
“And if Hemmings is your man, what then? You’ll try to kill him?”
“Or he’ll try to kill me.” Harry nodded.
“He can do that?” Darcy was more than mildly concerned.
“He can do some strange and deadly things, certainly,” said Harry.
Shaking his head as he came round from behind his desk, the other looked troubled. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, Harry, but I don’t much care for the way you say that sort of thing. I mean, the way you openly admit to planning something like that: which amounts to an execution, an unauthorised, illegal killing…in fact a murder!”
“I’m not too keen on it myself,” said Harry. “But you certainly wouldn’t want to do it, and how the hell can you ask MI5? The only proof we have is me, and how would I go about explaining what I’ve seen, or how I know what I know? So—”
“So it’s your way or not at all?”
“Well, what do you reckon?”
“Good luck, Harry.” Darcy offered his hand.
Harry took it, shook it, and said. “You get that connection for me, okay? And then when this is over I’ll let you know what happened. But if I don’t get back to you—or if I can’t—well then you’ll know what you must do. Because that’s when it’ll be down to you.”
With which he stepped backwards away from Darcy, and disappeared, and there was a sudden, brief draught as the air rushed in to fill the vacuum where he had been…
On his way home, the Necroscope broke his fantastic journey at a favourite fish-and-chip shop he remembered from his formative years in Hartlepool on the north-east coast. Tightly wrapped in greaseproof paper and pages from yesterday’s Northern Echo, and smelling of salt and vinegar, the food had no time at all to go cold; it was still steaming deliciously when Harry returned instantaneously to his living-room study and ate from the opened-up wrapping papers.
Then, ignoring his slightly greasy fingers, he opened Hemmings’ file and read through it again, and again—and yet again—each time more slowly and carefully than the time before.
He pictured Geoff Lambert, a man he had never met, working furiously hard through the night and morning to put all of this material together, and thought, Not just one medal but ten, and a raise and a commendation to boot; the man’s investigation had been that thorough, was that complete! Then again, he’d had the benefit of every E-Branch resource to work with, not to mention his own contacts in Mensa; but still he’d made a remarkable job of it.
As Harry had pored over the file’s contents, he’d ringed in red ballpoint the details he found most intriguing; that
way he could more readily relocate and re-examine all such information among the crammed text, of which there was more than enough to make doing it worthwhile. Information such as:
A medical detail from Hemmings’ childhood.
Aged nine he had been diagnosed with a mild encephalic disorder, when X-ray scans had detected a small mass of apparently anomalous or extraneous nerve fibres in an area of his cerebrum believed to regulate language, logic, numeracy, rational thought and intelligence in general; and in particular spatial and temporal relativity. And Harry had pondered over that one for many long, thoughtful moments…
Another interesting detail:
Hemmings’ high opinion of himself perhaps amounting to megalomania, especially noticeable in a comment Geoff Lambert had obtained from one of the ex-Professor’s former students at the university:
“He didn’t like questions from the class, and wouldn’t even listen to arguments! Hemmings was almost—no, strike almost—he was a doctrinaire. We complained about him, the way he would introduce his own crazy theories into his so-called lessons. As a result, the fat arrogant pig (no one liked him) was called before the vice-chancellor for a huge dressing-down, which didn’t sit at all well with him. He left the university and his job on the same day, following which we actually went back to studying maths again—thank God…!”
As a footnote to this, Lambert had written:
“In re the above, the vice-chancellor was Professor (soon to be ‘emeritus’) Latimer Calloway; he retired shortly thereafter, but his retirement had nothing to do with Hemmings. Calloway was simply an old man; in fact he died just five weeks later during an evening country walk near his family home in Devon. The post mortem said it was a massive heart attack, and he was buried at…” Etcetera.
Buried, thought the Necroscope, disappointedly. Not simply vanished, having been flung out across the sea and dropped from a great height. Which appeared to cancel out at least one possible area of investigation, or, numerically speaking, one factor of the equation. But it still might be worth looking into.