Harry didn’t see this for already he was making for the bridge, returning to the spot where it had happened all those years ago. The place where his gentle mother had been murdered.
He found a place where the reeds grew tall, checked that he was completely alone, stripped down to his shorts and stepped to the river’s edge. A moment later he was in the water, diving deep, then making for the middle where the current ran swiftest. Even there the river’s pull was barely noticeable, and after twenty minutes of diving and delving amongst the pebbles of the bottom he found what he was looking for. It lay within a few inches of the spot where he’d first thought it might be, tarnished and a little slimy, but unmistakably a ring. The gold gleamed through on the instant he rubbed it, and the cat’s-eye stone held its cold, unwinking stare as of old. Harry had never actually seen the ring before that moment when his groping fingers found it – not consciously, anyway – but he knew it at once. It was that familiar. Nor did it seem odd to him that he’d known where to look. Stranger far if the ring had not been there.
On the bank of the river he finished cleaning it, slid it on to the index finger of his left hand which it fitted a little loosely but was not so slack that he might lose it, and turned it thoughtfully between his fingers, getting the feel of it. It felt cold even under the hot sun, cold as the day its owner had lost it.
Then Harry dressed and headed for Bonnyrigg. From there he’d catch a bus into Edinburgh and take the first train home to Hartlepool. His work here was done – for now.
Now that he had found his mother he would have no trouble reaching her again, no matter how far he wandered, and he would be able to calm her fears and give her a little of the peace she’d sought for so long. She would no longer need to worry about little Harry.
Before leaving the spot by the river, however, he paused to look again at the big house where it stood well back from the opposite bank; and he stared at its old gables and wild gardens for long, long moments. His step-father still lived and worked there, he knew. Yes, and it would not be too long before Harry paid him a visit.
But before that there was much he would have to do. Viktor Shukshin was a dangerous man, a murderer, and Harry must be careful how he approached him. He intended that his step-father should pay the price for his mother’s death – that he must be punished in full – but the punishment would have to fit the crime. And no use at all to simply accuse the man, for what proof was there after all these years? No, Harry must set a trap, and bait it, and Shukshin must find it irresistible. But no hurry, none at all, for Harry had time on his side. Time would allow him to become expert in many things, and indeed he had much to learn. For what good to be a necroscope if he could make no use of it? As to how he would use his talent after he had avenged his mother’s death: that remained to be seen. It would be as it would be.
But right now his instructors were waiting for him and they were the best in the world. Yes, and they knew far more now than ever they had known when they were alive.
Chapter Eight
The summer of 1975 . . .
Three years since Dragosani’s last trip home, and only a year short of that time when the old thing in the earth had promised to deliver up his secrets to Dragosani, the secrets of the Wamphyri. In return for which, Dragosani would give him back his life – or rather, he would return him to renewed undeath, to walk the earth again.
Three years, and the necromancer had gone from strength to strength until his position as Gregor Borowitz’s right-hand man now seemed virtually unassailable. When the old man went, Dragosani would be the one to replace him. After that, with the entire Soviet ESP organisation at his command, and with all the knowledge of the Wamphyri in his hands and mind – the possibilities were vast.