‘And Corlis, of course, was taken to the Gate
Zek looked at Jazz where he lay awake and listening. But she saw that he was blear-eyed and close to the edge of sleep. ‘I’m tired, too,’ she said. ‘Let’s sleep now, and I’ll finish up on the next leg of our journey. We’ll be spending the long night in the caves, I should think. You can ask me any questions then. And by then, too, you’ll know just about as much as I do.’
Jazz nodded. ‘You’re doing a great job,’ he said, watching her lie back in her sleeping-bag. Then he stifled a yawn, said: ‘Zek?’
‘Yes?’ she turned her head and looked at him, her face a strange mixture of mystique and ingenue.
‘If and when this is ever finished, I think maybe you and I -‘
She shook her head, cutting him short. ‘We’re drawn to each other because we’re all we have,’ she said. ‘In the caves we can be together, if that’s what you want. But don’t think I’m being generous, for I want it too. Just don’t make me any promises about if and when, OK? We don’t know “if” – and we certainly don’t known “when”! Going home, should we ever be so fortunate, will be like stepping out of darkness into light. We might see each other very differently. Let’s leave it at that.’
He smiled, yawned again and nodded. A hell of a woman! ‘OK, but I’ve always been an optimist, Zek. Take my word for it: we’ll make it!’
She lay back, closed her eyes, said: ‘Well, here’s to optimism, and to the conclusion of a trouble-free trek -and to the Dweller, and, oh – ‘
The future?’
The future, yes,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll drink to that. God knows it has to be better than the past.
From Leipzig, Harry Keogh returned direct to E-Branch HQ in London. He materialized in the armoury, a room not much bigger than a cupboard, took a 9mm Browning automatic and three full magazines (and signed for them) and was out of the place almost before the alarms could start up.
Then back to Jazz Simmons’s flat where he donned a black shirt, pullover and slacks, and finally to Bonnyrigg near Edinburgh to visit his mother. This last wasn’t absolutely necesary, for once Harry had communicated with a dead person he could usually speak to that person again even over great distances, but whenever possible it seemed only polite and much more private and personal to go to them in their final resting places or the places where they had died.
‘Ma,’ he said, the moment after emerging onto the riverbank above the place where the water gurgled dark and deep. ‘Ma, it’s Harry.’
Harry! she answered at once. I’m so glad you’ve come. I was just about to start looking for you.
‘Oh? Is there something, Ma?’
You asked about people dying in the Upper Urals.
‘Jazz Simmons?’ For a moment Harry felt like the ground had been ripped out from under him. If Simmons was dead after all, here in this world, it rubbished all of Harry’s and Mobius’s theories. And it left Brenda and Harry Jnr stranded …. wherever.
But: Who? his mother seemed taken by surprise. But only for a moment. Oh! No, not him. We couldn’t find him. This is someone else. Someone who knew him.
‘Someone who knew Jazz Simmons? At Perchorsk?’ Relief flooded through Harry. ‘Who are you talking about, Ma?’
A different voice spoke in Harry’s head. A voice that was new to him. She means me, Harry. Kazimir Kirescu. I knew Jazz, yes, and now I’m paying for it. Oh, I don’t blame him, but someone is to blame. Several people. So . . . if you can help me, son, then I’ll be very glad indeed to help you.
‘Help you?’ Harry stood on a riverbank in Scotland and talked to a dead person two and a half thousand miles away, and it seemed perfectly natural to him. ‘But how can I help you, Kazimir? You’re dead, after all.’
Ah! But it’s how / died, and it’s where / am now.
‘You want revenge, through me?’