"Lumley, Brian - Necroscope - The Lost Years Volume 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

After dropping McGowan off at his place in a sagging, decaying district east of the city, the Inspector called in at Police HQ and made a request to Records: for a list of attacks, savagings by animals, of people and livestock, occurring in the last five years. Then a quick call to New Scotland Yard for more information, and by the time he was through Records had run off some stuff for him. Too much stuff: the incidence of animal attacks, usually by 'pet' dogs, was surprisingly high.
He spoke to the clerk in charge and asked him about older cases: 'Some thirty years ago? I was new on the force, but seem to remember a case somewhere up north that made a big splash at die time. A sighting? A savaging, at one of the wildlife parks, followed by the resignation of a local policeman. He quit after his report was rubbished and he was ridiculed. Do you think you could dig it out for me?'
The clerk, a man thin and tall as lanson himself, wearing spectacles, squinted at him and said, Thirty years ago? That's a heU of a memory you've got Inspector! But Fm afraid those old files aren't on microfiche. It could take a while. However, 111 make a search if that's what you'd like.'
lanson nodded. "Yes, go ahead. If you find the file, you can contact me at home.'
34
Brian Lumley
He took the sheaf of papers home with him to his spacious garret flat in Dalkeith, made himself a light lunch, then took his food and work both into his study and sat with them at his desk under a huge sloping skylight. lanson liked natural light best, even when it was the dim grey light of winter. His chess board stood on a small table to one side of the room, with the pieces in position just as he and old Angus had left them some nights earlier. They would get to finish the game eventually, but now there was bigger 'game afoot"
Munching on chicken salad sandwiches, the Inspector began scanning the pages of information printed out for him from Police HQ's microfiche files. But after a minute or two, realizing that it would take a while to separate out the stuff that interested him, and because tonight he intended to visit BJ.'s Wine Bar in the city, he paused to make a telephone call and reserve a little time with the boss of the bar now.
Margaret Macdowell had given him the number; using it, he found his call answered by a female voice with a soft Scottish burr. He asked for the proprietor, and was told: That!! be mahsel' -- Bonnie Jean Mirlu.'
'Miss Mirlu -- or is it it Missus? -- perhaps you're already aware of the attack on one of your girls last night?' And following that up quickly, in case she hadn't heard: 'I'm talking about Margaret Macdowell -- but I'd like to reassure you that she came to no harm. I'm the Inspector on the case.'
'It's Miss,' the voice told him. 'Just call me BJ. And Ah've heard, yes -- Margaret called and told me. Is there somethin' Ah can do for ye. Inspector, er...?'
'lanson. George lanson. I've a question or two you could perhaps help me with, routine stuff. Perhaps tonight, opening hours? fll make it brief as possible and try not to keep you from your business.'
'But what could Ah possibly know? It was miles frae here, and he wasnae even a regular customer. Just a pest to the lassies, that's all.'
'You knew him, then? I really must come to see you, BJ.' She sighed and answered, "Well if ye must ye must, but Ah cannae see what ye're hopin' tae learn frae me.' 'How many of you are there...in the bar, I mean?' 'Four, all girls, and mahsel'. But ye'll surely no be wanting to question us all, now will ye?' 'Probably. But only a few minutes each, I promise.' 'Verra well, then,' she agreed, grudgingly. 'Say, eight-ish?' That'll do nicely," he told her. 'Until tonight, then.' But after putting the phone down, the Inspector sat frowning to himself before returning to his papers. Something about her accent,
Necroscope: The Lost Years -- Vol. II 35
he thought Oh, it was a very good imitation, but it wasn't the real thing, wasn't the genuine article. Or maybe it was too genuine.
He pondered it a while longer, then snapped his fingers. That was it! B. J. Mirlu's accent wasn't phony at all; it was simply out of date, not quite the modern vernacular he was used to hearing in the city. She sounded more like something out of the last century -- out of the Highlands, maybe -- like Granny lanson, God bless her, when George was a lad. Maybe this B. J. Mirlu was from up north, then, and the high-falutin accents of Edinburgh still alien to her tongue. It was something he would have to ask her, if only to satisfy his own curiosity...
It took the Inspector some two hours to sort through the photocopy files. Closed cases (prosecutions mainly, brought by individual complainants on their own behalf, or by the parents of children savaged by 'pet' or domesticated dogs, and a number of cases where enraged farmers had shot dead strays found worrying their flocks) went into one sheaf, and open cases into another. Then this second sheaf was sub-divided into attacks on animals, on people, and sightings; the latter because there was no lack of reports of large, generally unspecified creatures wandering in the wild. Just such cases as interested Angus McGowan.
But the Inspector would have nothing to do with the likes of Bodmin Moor wildcats, great hounds of Dartmoor or Nessie o' the Loch. His monsters -- the monsters of his calling -- were invariably human. Or in this case, maybe a bit of both. A man and his dog, aye. Or maybe a woman and her dog...
Before lanson could look at the relevant parts of the subdivided paperwork, his phone rang: a call from a friend at New Scotland Yard, in Criminal Records. 'George, we got your request,' Peter Yanner told him. Yanner was an ex-Inspector seeing out his time to retirement behind a desk. 'And I saw the morning's sitreps. You'll be working on that case at, er, Auchterbecky?'
'Sma' Auchterbecky,' lanson corrected him. 'Nasty stuff, Peter. One case closed, and another opened.'
'Indeed,' said the other. 'And I suppose you'll be torn two ways: glad to see the one go down, but unhappy that a new one's come up. Like the gang wars down here. We're never too unhappy about it when a bad lad gets hit but there's always the question of who did it A pity they can't all kill themselves oft eh?'
'Murder is murder,' lanson replied. 'John Moffat's paid his dues, but who to?' He shrugged, if only to himself, then asked: 'So what have you got for me?'
'I'm just trying to clarify things,' the other answered. 'Big dog attacks, you said: animals. But what about lycanthropy?'
Brian Lumley
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Necroscope: The Lost Yean -- Vol. II
37

ХEh?'
'We had this bloke who thought he was a werewolf. A cop-killer, too! That was three, maybe three and a half years ago. We got him...but the whole case was weird. There were a lot of threads left dangling, you know? But when the Home Office puts the cap on something, that's it, case closed.'
'So?' The Inspector's mind had begun to switch elsewhere as soon as lycanthropy was mentioned. He couldn't see any connection with the current case; he had taken in very little of what he'd been told. 'No big savage dog, then? No genuine big dog, anyway.'
Well that's why I phoned you,' the other explained. 'I mean, you can't get much bigger than a werewolf, now can you?'
Finally lanson's mind focused. He knew that this wasn't for him, yet his instincts told him to follow it up. "You say the case is closed? You got him? So what makes you think that I'd be interested? I mean, lycanthropy, Peter? What's on your mind?'
'It's just funny, that's all..."
'Funny?'
'Not ha-ha, just funny. OK, you're probably not in the picture, so let me explain. This thing with the werewolf, the guy was killed with a crossbow, with silvered arrowheads.'
'What? The police used a crossbow?' lanson was lost again.
'No, whoever killed him did.'
'We had outside help, then. The SAS?'
'No.'
'Secret service?'
'Not that I know of. Just someone out to get him, as far as I know.' And before lanson could question further. Then, a couple of months ago, we had this other case up in your neck of the woods.'
'What case was that?' (His neck of the woods? The Inspector's attention was suddenly riveted).
'Murder, up on the Spey not far from Kincraig? You surely remember those Tibetans who got killed, George? Sectarian warfare or some such? Two dead up there in a wrecked car, and a whole bunch of them got tossed out of the country.'
lanson frowned. 'I remember the headlines but I wasn't on the case. It was outside my jurisdiction. Anyway, what does it have to do with attacks by big dogs -- or lycanthropy, for that matter?'
'A possible connection, that's all,' Yanner told him. 'It was the same kind of murder weapon: a crossbow. The same silvered arrowheads, too...'
'Boltheads,' lanson growled, more to himself than to the other.
ХWhat's that?'
'A crossbow doesn't shoot arrows but bolts.'