sheet it contained. Obviously he was still hard at his novel: the A4 sheet was numbered P.213 and in the left-hand upper corner bore the legend Diary of…
Brenda wound the sheet up a little and read what written — or at least started to. Then, blushing, she averted her eyes, stared out the window. It was hot stuff: very polished, very stylish, extremely randy! Out of the corner of her eye she glanced at the sheet again. She loved seventeenth-century romances and Harry's style was perfect — but this wasn't a romance and his material was frankly pornographic.
Only then did she notice what she was looking at through the window: the old cemetery across the road. The graveyard, four hundred years old, with its great horse-chestnuts, glossy shrubbery and flower borders, its leaning, weathered headstones and generally well-tended pebble plots. And as she gazed, so she wondered at Harry's choice of a dwelling-place. There were better flats around, all over town, but he had told her that he liked the view'. And it was only now that she'd realised what the view was. Oh, pretty enough in the summer, certainly, but a graveyard for all that!
Behind her Harry once again mouthed something and turned on his side. She crossed to where he lay and smiled gently down on him, then drew a sheet over his lower half. In the shade now, he was starting to shiver a little. In any case, she would soon have to wake him; it was time she got on her way. Her parents liked her to be in while it was still daylight, on those occasions when they didn't know where she was. But first she would make some coffee. As she began to turn away Harry spoke yet again, and this time his words were very clear:
'Don't worry, Ma. I'm a big boy now. I can take care of myself. You can rest easy…' He paused and even sleeping seemed to adopt an attitude of listening. Then:
'No, I've told you before, Ma — he didn't hurt me. Why should he? Anyway, I went to Auntie and Uncle. They looked after me. Now I'm grown up. And very soon now, maybe when you know I'm okay, then you'll be able to rest easy…'
Another pause, a brief period of listening, and: 'But why can't you, Ma?'
Then more incoherent mumbling before '… I can't! Too far away. I know you're trying to tell me something but… just a whisper, Ma. I hear some of it but… don't know what… make out what you're saying. Maybe if I come to see you, come to where you are…' Harry was restless now and sweating profusely for all that he shivered. Looking at him, Brenda became a little worried. Was it some kind of fever? Sweat gathered in the hollow above the middle of his upper lip; it formed droplets on his forehead and made his hair damp; his hands jerked and twitched beneath the sheet. She reached out a hand and touched him. 'Harry?' 'What! he burst awake, his eyes snapping open and staring fixedly, his entire body going rigid as an iron bar. 'Who…?'
'Harry, Harry! It's only me. You were nightmaring.' Brenda cradled him in her arms and he let her, curling up and throwing his arms about her. 'It was about your Mam, Harry. Listen, you're all right now. Let me go and make some coffee.'
She hugged him tighter for a moment, then gently released herself and stood up. His eyes, still wide open, followed her as she moved to the alcove where he had his rudimentary kitchen. 'About my mother?' he said.
Spooning instant coffee into mugs, she nodded. She filled the electric kettle and switched it on. 'You called her 'Ma', and you were talking to her.'
He uncurled himself and sat up, brushing his fingers dazedly through his hair. 'What did I say?'
She shook her head. 'Nothing much. Mainly mumbo-jumbo. You told her you were grown up now, and that she should rest easy. It was just a nightmare, Harry.'
By the time the coffee was ready he had dressed himself. They said no more about his nightmare but drank their coffees; then he walked her down to the bus-stop for Harden, where they waited in silence until the bus came. At the last, before she boarded, he kissed her lightly on the cheek. 'See you soon' he said.
Tomorrow?' Tomorrow was Sunday.
'No, during the week. I'll come up for you. 'Bye, love.'
She got a seat at the back of the bus and watched Harry through the rear window where he stood alone at the stop. As the bus began to round a bend he turned on his heel and walked along the pavement away from his flat. Wondering where he was headed, Brenda kept watching him as long as she could. The last she saw of him was when he turned in through the gates of the cemetery, with the sun's last rays burning in his hair.
Then the bus was round the bend and Harry was out of sight.
Harry did not come to see her during the week, and Brenda's work began to suffer at the ladies' hairdressing salon in Harden. By Thursday she was thoroughly worried about him; on Friday night she cried and her father said she was a fool for him. 'That lad's bloody weird!' he declared. 'Our Brenda, you must be soft!' And he wouldn't hear of her going down to Hartlepool that night. 'Not on a Friday night, my girl, when all the lads have their beer money. You can go and see your daft Harry tomorrow!'
Tomorrow seemed ages coming and Brenda hardly slept at all, but Saturday morning bright and early she took a bus in to town and went up to Harry's flat. She had her own key and let herself in but he wasn't to be found. In the typewriter was a sheet of paper with yesterday's date and a simple message:
Brenda -
I've gone up to Edinburgh for the weekend. I've people to see up there. I'll be back Monday at the latest and I'll see you then — promise. Sorry I didn't see you during the week — I had a lot on my mind and wouldn't have been much fun.
Love, Harry
The last two words meant a lot to her and so she forgave him the rest. Anyway, Monday wasn't so very far away — but who could he possibly have to see in Edinburgh? He had a step-father up there, who hadn't once seen him since he was a child, but who else? No one that Brenda knew of. Other relatives that she didn't know of? Maybe. And then there had been his mother, except she had been drowned when he was little more than a baby.
Drowned, yes, but Harry had been talking to her in his sleep…
Brenda shook herself. Why, some of her ideas were almost as morbid as Harry's! All graveyards and death and maggots. No, of course he wouldn't be going to see his mother, for they'd never found her body. There would be no grave for him to visit.
The thought didn't improve Brenda's state of mind. Instead it drove her to do something she would never normally consider. She carefully went through Harry's file of manuscripts, checking every story whether it was complete or barely started. She didn't really know what she was looking for, but by the
time she was through she knew what she had failed to find.
Nowhere in all his work had she come across a story about a necroscope.
So, either Harry hadn't started the story yet -
Or he was a liar -
Or -
Or what was bothering her was something entirely different.
As Brenda Cowell stood in a shaft of morning sunlight in Harry's flat, pondering the strangeness of the man she was involved with, one hundred and twenty miles away Harry Keogh himself stood in the same sunlight on the banks of a drowsy river in Scotland and looked across it at the big house where it stood at the head of a large, overgrown garden. There had been a time when the place was well maintained, but that was a long time ago and Harry couldn't remember it. He had been too young, an infant, and there were many things he couldn't remember. But he remembered his mother. Somewhere, deep in his subconscious mind, he had never forgotten about her — and she had never forgotten about him. And she still worried about him.
Harry stared at the house for a long time, then at the river. Its waters moved slowly, swirling, cool and inviting. Or inviting to most. A grassy bank with a few reeds; deep green water, and just here, a pebbly bottom; and somewhere down there, lodged in the slime-slick pebbles where it had lain for most of Harry's years -
A ring. A man's ring. A cat's-eye stone set in thick gold. Harry staggered at the river's edge. He deliberately flopped down to save himself from falling. The sun shone on him but he was cold. The blue sky reeled, became the grey, liquid flurry of slushy water.
He was under the water, trying to fight his way up through a hole in the ice.
Then the face seen through the ice, its trembling jelly lips turning up at their corners in a grimace — or a smile! The hands coming down into the water, holding him under and on one of them that ring. The cat's-eye ring, on the second finger of the right hand! And Harry tearing at those hands, clawing at them, ripping the strong flesh in his frenzy. The gold ring coming loose, spiralling down past him into the murk and the icy deeps. Blood from the
