Paxton had been cleaning his fingernails, apparently unconcerned, but now his ears reddened up a little. He stood up and turned round, glared at the others where they all stared at him in silent accusation. 'My talent is... unruly!' he snapped. 'Also it's eager, full of all the enthusiasm which you jealous bastards have lost! I'm still finding out about it, still experimenting. It isn't some bloody bonsai tree you can just force into any old shape!'
Almost as one person they shook their heads; they were the last people he should ever try to convince; his pallid, lame excuses wouldn't work on them. Each and every one of them, they had it in for Paxton. Finally Ben Trask spoke up, giving their single unified thought shape and substance. 'You're a liar, Paxton,' he said, quite simply. And because Trask was what he was, he didn't have to enlarge upon his accusation.
The Minister felt as if he'd bumped into a hornets' nest and for his pains (or by them) was being driven off course, which he really couldn't afford to let happen. He held up his hands, took on a harder, more authoritative tone of voice. 'For God's sake, put your feuding and personal feelings aside!' he cried. 'At least for the moment, or for as long as it takes. Whatever else any one of you is or isn't, there's one thing we can at least be sure of: you're all human!'
Which hit them like a truck.
Seeing that he now had their attention, and while he retained the upper hand, the Minister turned pleadingly to Ben Trask. 'Mr Trask - but level-headed, if you please - will you repeat what you told me downstairs?'
Trask looked at him grudgingly but nodded. 'Only first let me finish telling them what you started. They already know most of it and have probably guessed the rest, so I'll get straight to it. And it just might come easier if they hear it from me.'
'Very well,' the Minister replied, sighing his relief.
And Trask began:
'Zek Föener gave us a helping hand in the Greek islands,' he said. 'You'll know who she is from the Keogh files, what happened at Perchorsk and on Starside, etc. She's a powerful telepath, one of the world's best. But like the Necroscope himself she's opted out of cloak and daggery.
'Anyway, it was dodgy out there in the Med. We were killing vampires, and there were plenty of times when they nearly killed us. But Harry took the brunt of it and went up against the Big One, Janos Ferenczy himself -and I know I don't have to tell you about the Ferenczys. When Harry was in Romania that last time, just before the end, Zek tried to get in touch with him to see how things were going. But telepathy over great distances isn't easy and she didn't get too much. At least that's what she told us, but we could see that what she did get shocked her rigid.
'I know Darcy Clarke has been worried stiff about it, for the fact is Darcy thinks the Necroscope's the best thing since sliced bread. I know several of you also think so, and, hell, so do I! Or I used to ...
'So ... we did the job and came back, and as far as we know Harry was successful, too. It seems he made a great job of it. Except he's been a bit cagey about what actually happened up in the Carpathians. Now me, I haven't read too much into that. Nor has Darcy Clarke. For after all, Harry did lose Sandra Markham out there. So Darcy was going to let him get it off his chest in his own good time.
'For which - or so it would seem - Darcy's been sort of "reduced to the ranks", de-commissioned, bust, etc. But for what, that's what I'd like to know? For inefficiency, in that he maybe didn't want to prejudge an old friend? For holding back awhile and not going off half-cocked? For having - shit - just a little faith!?'
Both the Minister and Paxton opened their mouths as if to butt in, but Trask cut them out with: The thing you have to remember about Darcy Clarke is this: that his talent doesn't go sneaking into other people's minds, eavesdropping or spying from a distance. All it does is look after Darcy. But he's kept in touch with the Necroscope and so far there's nothing to report. Darcy's talent didn't warn him of any immediate danger. If it had... you can bet your life he'd have been the first to yell! The last thing he'd want is for another Yulian Bodescu to be out and about!' 'But - ' Paxton started.
'Shut your face!' Trask told him. 'These people are still listening to someone telling the truth! Only the truth...' And he eventually continued: 'Anyway, that was all yesterday and today is today. And now things seem to have changed...' He paused and looked at the Minister. 'Did you want to take it from there, sir?'
The Minister gave him a grim look and raised an eyebrow. 'But you haven't told it all, Mr Trask.'
Trask gritted his teeth but nodded. And after a moment: 'I'm just back from a job,' he said. 'It's this serial killer thing we've been working on, these brutal, horrific murders of young women. The thing is, Darcy had approached Harry for his help on this one, because... you know... that's what the Necroscope is: the one man in the world who can talk to a victim after she's dead. And Darcy told me how Harry had been especially upset by the death of the latest one, a girl called Penny Sanderson.
'Well, two days ago Penny turned up - like a bad Penny, eh?' But he wasn't grinning. 'Now this girl was dead and gone for ever, and yet suddenly here she is, right as rain, back home with her old folks. And the point is she couldn't even convince them that she hadn't been murdered! They had seen her body; they'd known it was their daughter; they regarded her return as nothing short of a miracle.
The police weren't happy with any of this. Oh, she had a story to tell, but it rang like a cracked bell. And if she really was Penny Sanderson, then who had been cremated? So the Minister sent me up there to sit on a "standard police procedure interview". Of course, I was their lie-detector.
'Well, she was - is - Penny Sanderson; she wasn't lying about that. But she was lying about her loss of memory and what all. So knowing the Keogh connection, I just sort of thought to ask her if she knew him: had she ever heard of him or met him? And she said no, never, and just looked blank. A bare-faced lie! Which led to my next question, except I didn't frame it like a question. I simply shrugged and said: "You're a lucky girl. It might easily have been you who was dead and not your double."
'And she looked me straight in the eye and said: "I'm sorry for her, whoever she was, but she had nothing to do with me. I didn't die." And again she was lying through her teeth. Well, I trust my talent. It never has let me down. She wasn't sorry for the other girl because there wasn't another girl. And her statement that she didn't die? A funny way of putting it at best, right? So the only conclusion I can come to is that Penny Sanderson did die, and that she's now... back from the dead!'
The gathered espers let their air out in a concerted sigh. All of them. And Trask finished off with: 'Of course, I couldn't tell the police she'd been - what the hell - brought back, resurrected? So I simply said she was OK. Just how "OK" she is ... well, that's a different matter.'
At which point the Minister Responsible took his best yet opportunity to introduce a further item of damning information. 'Clarke sent Keogh the files on all those murdered girls. And up in the Castle on the Mount in Edinburgh, he actually let the Necroscope talk to Penny Sanderson - er, in his own way, you understand.'
Ben Trask, despite what he himself had just related, still wasn't one hundred per cent convinced. 'But at the time, wasn't that the idea? So that Harry could find out who killed her?'