‘I know what’s on his mind,’ Harry whispered.
‘Shhh!’ his mother repeated her warning. ‘He can sense things, Viktor Shukshin. He always could . . .’
The inkblot now returned, pausing every now and then, sniffing in that strange way. Close to the pair, the Shukshin-thing seemed to stare right through them with its silver eyes. Then the eyes blinked and it moved on, back towards the house, wringings its hands as before. As it merged with the house a door slammed echoingly.
The sound repeated in Harry’s head, reverberating, metamorphosing from a slam to a knock, to a series of knocks, repeating:
Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!
‘You have to go,’ said his mother. ‘Be careful, Harry. Poor little Harry
He jerked awake in his flat. From the slant of the sunlight through the window, he knew that time turned towards evening. He’d slept for three hours at least; more than he’d intended. He started as the knock came again at the door:
Rat-tat-tat!
Who could this be? Brenda? No, for he wasn’t expecting her. Although it was a Saturday she was putting in some overtime, dolling up the hair of some of Harden’s more ‘fashionable’ ladies. Who, then?
Rat-tat-tot Insistently.
Stiffly, Harry swung his legs off the bed, stood up and went to the door. His hair was tousled, his eyes full of sleep. Visitors were rare and he liked it that way. This was an intrusion, something to be dealt with swiftly and decisively. He zipped up his trousers, shrugged into a shirt – and the knock came yet again.
Outside the door, Sir Keenan Gormley waited, knowing that Harry Keogh was in there. He had known it coming down the street, had felt it climbing the stairs. Keogh’s ESP signature was written in the very air of the place as unmistakably as a fingerprint on clear glass. For like Viktor Shukshin and Gregor Borowitz, this was Gormley’s one great talent: he too was a ‘spotter’, he instinctively ‘knew’ when he stood in the presence of an ESPer. and Keogh’s ESP-aura was more powerful than any he had ever sensed before, so that he felt he was close to some great generator as he stood there at the door on the landing at the head of the stairs.
And now Harry Keogh himself opened that door . . .
Gormley had seen Keogh before, but never so close. Over the last three weeks, while he had been staying with Jack Harmon, he’d seen him often. Gormley and
Harmon, following Keogh on occasion, had kept the youth under close but discreet observation; likewise on the two occasions when George Hannant had accompanied them. And Gormley had not taken long to agree with both Harmon and Hannant that indeed Keogh was something special. Quite obviously they were correct about him; he was a necroscope; he did have the power of intelligent intercourse with the dead. Gormley had given Keogh’s weird talent a lot of thought over the last three weeks. It was one which he would dearly love to have under his control. Now he must somehow find a way to put that idea to Keogh.
Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Harry Keogh looked his visitor up and down. He had intended to be brusque no matter who it was, to deal with the problem and be done with it, but one look at Gormley had told him this was something which wasn’t going to go away. There was a quiet air of unassuming but awesome intellect about this man, and coupled with his charming smile and demanding, outstretched hand, it formed a combination which was totally disarming.
‘Harry Keogh?’ said Gormley, knowing of course that it was Keogh and insisting that the other take his hand by shoving it even farther forward. ‘I’m Sir Keenan Gormley. You won’t have heard of me but I know quite a bit about you. In fact – why, I know just about everything about you!’
The landing was ill-lit and Harry couldn’t quite make out the other’s features, just indistinct impressions. Finally, briefly, he took Gormley’s hand, then stepped aside and let him in. The contact, however brief, had told him a lot. Gormley’s hand had been firm and yet resilient, cool but honest; it had promised nothing, but neither had it threatened. It was the hand of someone who could be a friend. Except –