The Last Aerie by Brian Lumley Page A

cold wasn’t physical but metaphysical, psychological … supernatural? Whichever, Trask shivered anyway.
    Mrs. Wills had finished with her dusting. “There we are,” she said, drawing Trask back into himself. “All spick-’n-span again. As my Jim’s always saying, ‘Meg me love, whatever yer do, just be sure yer keeps ‘arry’s room spick-’n-span.’ That’s what my Jim always says.”
    As she turned away Trask’s jaw fell open and he glanced at Chung. Then she’d gone back out into the corridor, and the two espers were after her in a moment. “Er, Mrs. Wills.” Trask caught her by the elbow. “Did you and, er, Jim—I mean, did you know Harry, then?”
    Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes went wide. “Oh, my! Was I talking about Jim again? Oh, dear, I am sorry, sir! I mean, after all these years, yer’d think I’d let it be, now wouldn’t yer?”
    Trask raised his eyebrows, looked mystified, waited.
    “See,” she said, “my Jim was a talker. Lord, Jim could talk! Of a night before we’d go ter sleep, he’d just talk and talk and talk ! About all and everything, and nothing very much. I used ter tell him, ‘Jim Wills, yer’ll likely talk yerself ter death one day!’ And bless him, he did. A heart attack, anyway. But … well … yer see, I was so used ter Jim’s voice, that sometimes I ‘ears it even now! And even if I never did know Mr. ‘arry, whoever he is, it seems my Jim must ‘ave known him, or ‘eard of him, anyway. Truth is, my Jim says an ‘ell of a lot of ‘em knows—or knew—‘arry Keogh.”
    That did it. There may be plenty of Harrys in the world, but by Trask’s reckoning there could only be one Harry Keogh. The Necroscope’s second name had never been mentioned—or it shouldn’t have been— in front of Mrs. Wills. Her knowledge of his Christian name was easy to explain: she’d been reading it five days a week, plainly visible on the plaque on the door. But his surname? Trask glanced at Chung.
    David Chung was thinking much the same thing as his boss. Through Harry, the espers of E-Branch had learned that death is not the end but a transition to incorporeality, immobility. The flesh may be weak and corruptible, but mind and will go beyond that. People, when they die, do not accompany their bodies into dissolution but become one with the Great Majority; and merging into a sort of limbo—a darkness where Thought is the all—the minds of the teeming dead occupy themselves naturally with whatever was their passion in life. Great artists continue to visualize magnificent canvases, pictures they can never paint; architects plan faultless, world-spanning cities they can never build; scientists follow through the research they weren’t able to complete in life, whose benefits can never be passed on to the living.
    And Jim Wills, the cleaning lady’s husband? In life he’d just overflowed with words; and the one he’d loved to talk to most of all … had been his wife. Was it so strange? And how many other lonely people “hear” their absent loved ones talking to them, Trask wondered? But out loud he only said, “What else has Jim told you, Mrs. Wills?”
    Perhaps there was a tear in the corner of her eye as she looked at him, but she hid it and smiled anyway. “Only how I should be a good girl,” she said. “And treat others the way I’d expect to be treated. And remember that Jim loved me, and only me, all his days.”
    Trask nodded. “That’s all good advice,” he said, softly. “But I meant about Harry. What did Jim tell you about Harry?”
    She shrugged and sighed. “Not much. Just ter look after his room and keep it spick-’n-span, that’s all. “Meg, me love, whatever else goes ter the wall, you look after ‘arry’s room,” he says. And when I asks him why, he shrugs and says, “Well, yer never knows when he’ll be needin’ ter use it again, now does yer?”
    She looked at the two espers and smiled, and the tears were gone now. “Anyway,