No . . . yes.
‘Face!’ Harry fired at her.
Face?
‘His face?’ He tried again.
And a face, red, leering, bloated with lust, with an open, salivating mouth and eyes insensate as frozen diamonds, went skittering across the Necroscope’s mind’s eye. But not so fast that he didn’t catch it. And this time she wasn’t sobbing. She wanted this to work. Wanted him brought to justice.
‘Where?’
A picture of … a car park? A motorway restaurant? Darkness pierced with points of light. A string of cars and lorries, speeding down three lanes, with oncoming lights whose glare momentarily blinded. And windscreen wipers swinging left – right – left – right – left . . .
But there was no pain in the last and Harry guessed that wasn’t where it had happened. No, it had been where it started to happen, probably where she met him.
‘He picked you up in a car?’
A rain-blurred picture of an ice-blue screen with white letters superimposed or printed there: FRID or FRIG? The screen had many wheels and puffed exhaust smoke. It was the way she remembered it. A large vehicle? A lorry? Articulated?
‘Penny,’ Harry said, ‘I have to do this – only this time I don’t mean where you met him: ‘Where!?’
Ice! Bitter cold! Dark! The whole place softly vibrating or throbbing! And dead things everywhere, hanging from hooks! Harry tried to fix it all in his mind but nothing was clear, only her shock and disbelief that this was happening to her.
She was sobbing again, terrified, and Harry knew that he’d soon have to stop; he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her any more. But at the same time he knew he mustn’t weaken now.
‘Death!’ he snapped, hating himself.
And it was the knife scene all over again, and Harry knew he was losing her, could feel her withdrawing. Before that could happen: ‘And . . . afterwards?’ (God! -he didn’t want to know! He didn’t want to know!)
Penny Sanderson screamed, and screamed, and screamed!
But the Necroscope got his picture.
And wished he hadn’t bothered . . .
2
Upon Their Backs, to Bite ’em . . .
Harry stayed with her for a further half-hour: calming, soothing, doing what he could, and in so doing managing to get a few more personal details out of her, enough to give the police something to go on, anyway. But when it was time to go she wouldn’t let him without his promise that he’d see her again. She hadn’t been there long, but already Penny had discovered that death was a lonely place.
The Necroscope was jaded – or thought he was – by life, death, everything. He believed he needed motivation. Before leaving her he asked if she’d mind if he looked at her. She told him that if it were anyone else she couldn’t care less, because she wouldn’t even know they were looking, not any longer. But with Harry she would know, because he was the Necroscope. She was just a shy kid.
‘Hey!’ he protested, but gently, ‘I’m no voyeur!’
It wasn’t. . . if he hadn’t. . . if I was unmarked, then I don’t think I’d mind, she said.
‘Penny, you’re lovely,’ Harry told her. ‘And me? After all’s said and done, I’m only human. But believe me I’m not putting you down when I tell you that right now I’m not interested in that side of things. It’s because you’re marked that I want to see you. I need to feel angry. And now that I know you, I know that to see what he did would make me feel angry.’
Then I’ll just have to pretend you’re my doctor, she said.
Harry very gently took the rubber sheet off her pale, young body, looked at her, and tremblingly put the sheet back again.
Is it bad? She fought down a sob. It’s such a shame. Mum always said I could be a model.
‘So you could,’ he told her. ‘You were very beautiful.’
But not now? And though she kept from actually sobbing, he could feel her despair brimming over. But in a little while she said: Harry? Did it make you angry?