Necroscope

of the brandy-glass-shaped trees, shaking loose the occasional leaf. The sun's rays came slanting down from across the low hills to the west, where that great brazen ball seemed permanently suspended, as if it never would relinquish the day to night. The day had been beautiful; the evening, despite the heat, was incredibly beautiful; and both of them (Hannant weighed the heavy briefcase in his hand) would have been quite wasted. Or if not wasted, spent fruitlessly — if there was a difference. He snorted mirthlessly, picturing young Johnnie Miller in a couple of years' time, 'down the pits', hewing coal, relieving his boredom and passing his shift by calculating surface areas of circles. What the hell was the point of it?

And as for kids like Harry Keogh — poor little sod — why, he had neither muscles for the mine nor much of a mind for anything else. Well, perhaps a mind, but if so a mind like an iceberg, only its tip showing. As for how much of it lay under the surface — who could say? Hannant only wished he could find a way to capsize the little bugger, while there was still time… He had this feeling about Keogh: that whatever he was going to do or going to be should begin to show in him now. Like watching a strange seed throw up a shoot, and waiting to see what the flower would be.

But talk of the devil… wasn't that Keogh there now, sitting on an old slab in the shade of a tree, his back to the mossy headstone? Yes, it was Keogh; the sun, glinting off his specs where it struck through the hanging foliage, had given him away. He sat there, a book open in his lap, sucking on the chewed stem of a pencil, his head back, lost in thought. And Jimmy Collins nowhere in sight; he'd be at football practice with the rest of the team, up in the recreation ground. But Keogh — he wasn't a member of any sort of team.

Suddenly Hannant felt sorry for him. Sorry, or… guilty? Hell, no! Keogh had got away with it for far too long. One of these days he'd go off like that — out of himself — and never make it back again! And yet Hannant sighed, let his feet wend him around the plots and between the rows of headstones, along ill-defined paths to where the boy sat. And as he got closer he could see that Harry was once again lost in his own thoughts, daydreaming away in the cool shade of the tree. For some probably irrational reason this made Hannant feel angry — until he saw that the book in Keogh's lap was his maths homework book, which made it seem that he was at least attempting to work out his punishment.

'Keogh? How's it going?' Hannant said, seating himself on the same slab. This corner of the cemetery wasn't unknown to the maths teacher; he'd walked here and sat here himself on many, many occasions. In fact it wasn't that he was the intruder, rather that Keogh was the odd-man-out here. But he doubted if the boy knew or would even understand that.

Harry took the pencil out of his mouth, looked at Hannant, unexpectedly smiled. 'Hello, sir… Er, sorry?' Er, sorry! Hannant had been right, the kid just hadn't been there. King of the daydreamers. The Secret Life of Harry Keogh! 'I asked you,' Hannant tried not to growl, 'how it was going?' 'Oh, it's all right, sir.'

'Drop the 'sir', Harry. Save that for the classroom. Out here it makes conversation difficult. What about the problems I gave you? They're what I meant by how's it

going.'

'The homework questions? I've done them.'

'What, here?' Hannant was surprised; and yet thinking about it, it seemed entirely fitting.

'It's quiet here,' Harry answered.

'Would you like to show me?'

Harry shrugged. 'If you like.' He passed over the work book.

Hannant checked it, was doubly surprised. The work was very neat, almost immaculate. There were two answers, both correct if his memory served him right. Of course the working would be equally important, but he didn't check that just yet.' Where's the third question?'

Harry frowned. 'Is that the one with the grease-gun, where — ?' he began.

But Hannant impatiently cut him off: 'Let's not piss about, Harry Keogh. There are only three questions.out of the ten which could possibly qualify. The rest concern themselves with boxes, not circles, not cylinders. Or am I being unjust? The book's a new one to me, too. Give it here.'

Harry lowered his head a little, bit his lip, passed the book over. Hannant flipped pages. 'The grease-gun,' he said. 'Yes, this one,' and he stabbed at the page with a forefinger. It showed this diagram:

the measurements were internal; barrel and nozzle were cylindrical, full of grease; squeezed dry, how long would th e line of grease be?

' Harry looked at it. 'Didn't think it qualified,' he said. ' Hannant felt angry. Two out of three wasn't good Enough. Three wrong answers would almost be better than this crap. 'Why don't you just say it was too difficult?' he tried not to bark. 'I've had all I can take of bluff for one day. Why not simply admit you can't do it?'; Suddenly the boy looked sick. His face shone with sweat and his eyes seemed a little glazed through the lenses of his spectacles. 'I can do it,' he slowly answered; then, more quickly, with acid precision: 'An idiot could do it! I didn't think it qualified, that's all.'

Hannant believed his ears must be deceiving him, that he'd misunderstood the boy's answer. 'What about the formula?' he rasped.

'Not required,' said the other.

'Shit, Harry! It's pi times the radius squared times length equals contents. That's all you need to know. Look — ' and he quickly scribbled in the workbook:

Contents of Barrel:

3.14159 x.75 x.75 x 4.5

3.14159 x.25 x.25

Contents of Nozzle: 3.14159 x.25 x.25 x 1.5

3.14159 x.25 x.25

He gave Harry the pencil back, said: 'There. After that most of it just cancels itself out. The divisor is of course the surface area of a cross-section of the line of grease.'

'A waste of time,' said Harry in such a way that Hannant knew it wasn't just rank insubordination, indeed in a voice which hardly seemed like Harry Keogh's voice at all. There was authority in it. For a moment… Hannant almost felt intimidated! What was going on behind the kid's glasses, inside his skull? What was the meaning in his not-altogether-there eyes?

'Explain yourself,' Hannant demanded. 'And make it good!'

Harry glanced at the diagram, not at the teacher's suggested solution. 'The answer is three and a half feet,' he said. And again there was the same authority in his voice.

As Hannant had said, the text-book was new to him; he hadn't properly worked through it himself yet. But just looking at Keogh he'd be willing to bet the kid was right. Which could only mean -

'You went back to the classroom with Collins after the beach,' he accused. Td told him to lock up, but before he did you opened my desk, looked up the answers in the answer book there. I wouldn't have believed it of you, Keogh, but — '

'You're wrong,' Harry cut him short in that same flat, emotionless, precise voice. Now he stabbed at the diagram with his finger. 'Look at it for yourself. The first two questions required formulas, yes, but not this one. Given a diameter to four decimals, what's the surface area? That requires a formula. Given a surface area to four decimals, what's the radius? That requires almost the same formula in reverse. But this? Listen:

The barrel's diameter is three times greater than the nozzle's. The circle's area is therefore nine times greater. The barrel's length is three times greater. Three times nine is twenty-seven. The barrel contains twenty-seven times as much grease as the nozzle. Barrel and nozzle together therefore contain twenty-eight nozzles' worth. The nozzle is one and a half inches long. Twenty-eight times one and a half equals forty-two. And forty-two inches equals three and a half feet, sir…'

Hannant stared at the boy's expressionless, almost vacant face. He stared at the diagram in the book. His mind whirled and it seemed that a cold wind blew on his spine, causing him to shiver. What the hell — ? For Christ's sake, he was the maths teacher, wasn't he? But there was no fighting Keogh's logic. The question hadn't needed formulae, hadn't needed maths at all! It was mental arithmetic — to someone who understood circles. To someone who could see past the trees to the wood. And of course his answer was, must be, right! If Hannant threw his formulae away, he would have been able to do it too — with a little thought. But Keogh's