And finally: ‘All right.’ The Necroscope threw off his hat and sprawled gratefully in an easy chair. ‘Now it’s your turn. Just what did you discover up there at the Castle? I can tell that something’s excited you.’
‘You’re right.’ Jordan grinned. ‘It was my chance to pay you back, Harry, for what you’ve done for me. For my life, my resurrection. My God, I’m alive, and I know how wonderful it is! So I wanted things to work out. You could say I almost willed it to happen, and it did.’
‘You think you’ve found our man, or monster?’ Harry leaned forward eagerly in his chair.
‘I’m pretty sure I have,’ the telepath answered. ‘Yes, I’m pretty damn sure!’
3
Johnny . . . Found
‘I showed my E-Branch ID at the guardroom.’ Jordan commenced his story. ‘And told them I was investigating the death of the girl who was found under the walls. I said we’d had our wires crossed the first time, because she wasn’t who we’d thought she was, which was why we were looking into it again from square one.
The squaddies on duty had read all about it in the newspapers, and anyway I wasn’t the first investigator they’d seen. Not even the first today. They told me that in fact there were already two plain-clothes men in the castle, down in the sergeants’ mess. That piece of information stopped me dead for a second or two while I considered it, but then I thought what the hell? For after all, I was E-Branch . . . wasn’t I? Well, I had been until very recently. Anyway, I never had any problem dealing with the law. In fact the police had always shown me, and E-Branch in general, a lot of respect. And vice versa.
‘So I asked directions to the Warrant Officers’ and Sergeants’ mess and made my way there.
‘Edinburgh Castle is a massive place, the greater part of which is never even glimpsed by the tourists and general public. Your average tourist knows that the Castle Esplanade is where they hold the Edinburgh Tattoo – with room to build a stadium of eight thousand seats, royal boxes and all, and a hard-standing that takes the military’s massed bands, motorcycle and other vehicular displays, shows from all around the world, you name it – but the vast stone complex beyond Mons Meg, the One O’Clock Gun, and Ye Olde Tea Shoppe (or whatever it is they’ve named that cafe in the crag) remains a mystery to most people. And where the way is roped off, that’s where the real Castle begins. But you’ve been there, Harry, and know what it’s like: a maze of alleys and gantlets and courtyards … a fantastic place! And one that’s easy to lose your way in.
‘Eventually I found the Sergeants’ mess and the two Jock plain-clothes officers, who were talking to a Sergeant Cook and his civilian assistants and jotting down a few notes. I showed my ID and asked if I could sit in on their questioning, and they didn’t bat an eyelid between them. They knew how the Branch – in the shape of Darcy Clarke and yourself, Harry – had been helping out with the job.
‘Anyway, I’d arrived right on cue, because they were asking about the night of the murder, especially about the deliveries of refrigerated meat which had been made to the cookhouse that night. Apparently forensic had alerted them to beast blood on Penny’s clothes, do you see?
‘Well, you can imagine how it felt, Harry, to be right there when the Cook Sergeant got out his register of deliveries to check details of the beast carcases that had come in … yes, from Frigis Express! Naturally, I said nothing, just kept my ears wide open and my mouth tight shut, and took in as much as I could get. Which was quite a bit; because this overweight, red-faced, hot-and-bothered sergeants’ mess cook was efficient to a fault. He not only kept a record of dates and times of all deliveries of foodstuffs – and copies of his own countersigned receipts, which bore the signatures of his suppliers – but he even had the registration numbers of delivery vehicles, too! And naturally I made a mental note of the number of the truck which had made the deliveries that night.