Free Necroscope: The Mobius Murders by Brian Lumley

much like telling you how old I am, and I’m fussy about my years. But I fancy there may be some sort of problem—nothing you need be concerned about—just something that I might have to sort out for John, that’s all.”
    “Oh,” said Harry, attempting to sound mildly disappointed; which in a way, and however paradoxical it might seem, he actually was! But then, shrugging it off, he said: “Well, okay. You know where I’ll be when you get back, and even if it’s only for a day or two you know I’ll be missing you.”
    And now the accent was back again as she answered, “Me too, Harry. But mind ye now, do stay away frae the bar, mah wee man. Because they girls o’ mine…well let’s put it this way: when the cat’s away the mice can play. Aye, and sometimes they get a wee bit frisky, they lassies.” And yet again she chuckled, however darkly.
    “B.J.,” he told her, “You know I’ve no use for the wine bar if you’re not there, so get back soon. And whatever Auld John’s problem is in Inverdruie, take care of yourself—promise?”
    “Oh, Ah’ll take care, ye may be sure o’ that, Harry. And Ah expect the same o’ ye.”
    “It’s a deal,” said the Necroscope…
     

     
    Wide awake now, and while outside the light was still good despite the unseasonable drizzle and blustery wind, Harry donned a raincoat, put up the hood and went out into his rank garden. He must see to that one day, he thought, treading the bramble- and weed-strewn path to the gate and out onto the equally overgrown riverside track, and down it to the bight where his Ma’s sunken remains lay still on their deep bed of mud and rotting vegetation.
    It hardly seemed right, Harry thought, keeping the thought to himself where he stood on the bank above her swirling grave, that his mother should be here when there were other places she could be; not merely better or more suitable burial-places, but a promised nirvana or Elysium. But no, his Ma had held back for him and he knew she would have it no other way. And so for now:
    “Hi, Ma,” he said. “How’s it going?”
    Frustratingly! she immediately replied. Harry, you told me that this poor man tumbled from a secret door high over the sea and disappeared in the water before you could follow him. Assuming the fall didn’t kill him, which it surely must have, still it would have stunned him and he would have drowned. Now I know all too well what that last must have been like, and …(As she paused, the Necroscope sensed a gentle shudder, an almost tangible trembling in his unique mind, before she was able to continue:) …and so I fully understand why he wasn’t able to speak to you following so closely on his death.
    But that was then and this is now—by which time he should surely be in contact with at least a handful of the Great Majority, others who died like him at sea. Well, he should be—
    “But he isn’t?” Harry finished it for her, then said:
    “Ma, perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in what I told you. You see, I believe this man was dead before he was ejected from the killer’s door. And yes, I know he would have been in shock from the transition, and that I couldn’t expect any sort of coherent deadspeak from him, but I didn’t hear anything …well, except maybe the farthest, faintest of whispers; more a silence than a sound really, like an echo through an otherwise empty hole in my mind. It’s—I don’t know—very difficult to explain.”
    Ahhh! she said. But that’s exactly what we’ve been getting! Of course, there could be several good reasons for such difficulties; the deep sea has a tendency to…well, to wash things away. Also, there are mercifully few drownings, while the death you described is probably of a kind—
    “But not necessarily so,” said Harry, frowning. “And that’s what I’m trying to find out: whether or not there were more.”
    —And the few who do meet their ends in the water, however it occurs, usually move on quite quickly.