Necroscope: The Mobius Murders (5 page)

No, it wasn’t guilt but simple prudence. To indulge himself too frequently within the narrow perimeters of a single town or city: that would be foolhardy, despite the limitations of criminal investigations. Apart from which he enjoyed organizing his lecturing schedules, escaping from Edinburgh and taking himself off to various far-flung venues. None of the cretins who attended the lectures ever fully understood them—that was certain—but they did pay for the privilege, which afforded Hemmings a few small physical luxuries. In addition to which, and more importantly, during such trips he would often seize the opportunity to seek out prey, thus supplementing the grotesque requirements of vampiric nourishment…

Today’s lecture had been a midday occasion. Not the best of timings or venues, it had taken place in a disused cinema which now functioned as a bingo hall, normally only in use each evening. At the event’s conclusion Hemmings had answered the almost inevitable questions: on Pythagorian doctrines regarding mysticism and mathematics—particularly Pythagoras’ interpretation of the physical world through numbers, and his belief in transmigration—
and
the ex-Professor’s own thoughts on the connection between math, extrasensory perception, and PSI abilities in general.

Of the latter: his answers had never once served to explain in any detail his knowledge and use of such subjects; which was mainly, obviously, because he was not about to chance revealing to anyone—not even “cretins” who couldn’t possibly understand him—a single iota of everything he knew or had learned or was monstrously capable, but also because he could not have done so even if he’d wanted to. For despite an interminably frustrating series of mental trial-and-error mathematical experiments, Hemmings knew that he had
not
discovered and so was
not
capable of explaining
everything
, not even to himself. Not yet…

Now, a little over an hour since his lecture in the drafty Kirkaldy bingo hall, as he walked the promenade between the sea and the coastal road, Hemmings reflected on one of those questions concerning transmigration: the passing of the life-force—the immaterial so-called “soul”—from a person at the point of death to the physical form of some living other, possibly a newborn or even foetal child.

That the life-force (which was how Hemmings preferred to think of it) was no mere theory but a reality was hardly in any doubt; his own existence was proof positive of that. But he did wonder about its alleged continuation beyond the grave. Yes, it continued
in him
for a while, when extracted as provender from his prey; but as for those many millions of others who expired each year far beyond his reach: did they all find refuge, however unconscious and unenlightened, in the corporeal shapes of others? And were they then immortal?

But if so, without self-awareness, sentience, of what possible use were they? And in the case of the unfortunate few, the question of
their
continuation: immortal? Well not in Gordon J. Hemmings they weren’t! For just like their shrivelled cadavers, they too expired—and all too quickly!

That was disconcerting, worrying: the gradually increasing rapidity with which they melted away, leaving him hungry again—which in turn resulted in ever diminishing intervals between his need to once again partake of such psychic sustenance. For on the one hand, while he enjoyed to gorge himself in this way
as and when it suited him
, on the other—as a necessity over which he had no control but
must
avail himself—he sometimes found it irksome.

It all depended, he had discovered, upon the strength, the vitality of the individuals in question. For example, that most recent one in Edinburgh; there hadn’t been much to him! A crippled derelict, it was highly unlikely that
he
would be missed—which was one of the main reasons he’d been chosen—but at the same time, by reason of those same ailments and destitute circumstances, the life-force had been weak in him.

The ex-Professor knew that was so for a certainty; on exiting the old seafront hall on completion of his lecture and its subsequent question-and-answer session, he had paused to check out his appearance in a full-length mirror in the foyer. There in the glass had lain the proof of it: a face no longer ruddy, already turning pale and even somewhat jaundiced, despite that little more than twenty-four hours had passed since last he indulged himself; and in addition his “ample figure”—as he was inclined to consider his corpulence—which however improbably appeared less than “fully rounded,” so that his clothes seemed to hang on him far too loosely…though it was possible that he had imagined that last.

But in any case, and however that may be, best not to take chances…

Which was why he had chosen to walk the deserted promenade on a day when the sky was overcast and a damp, unseasonal wind came blustering in off the grey North Sea; so that he shivered and turned up the collar of his overcoat. There remained something less than an hour before he must board his train back to Edinburgh. He knew he could probably find some acceptable item of regular food in the train’s buffet car, until which time he could do without. But of course, that was
regular
food—

—And in fact the promenade was not
entirely
deserted…

Tiny stick figures at this distance, a couple walked hand in hand at the northern extreme of the esplanade, their raincoats blowing in the wind. Another couple sat in a parked car, unwilling to brave the weather. To the south, a young boy and his dog ignored the wind and played on the strand, dodging the waves where they foamed on a pebble beach.

But of humanity that appeared to be all, and the situation wasn’t at all to Hemmings’ liking. He had been in error to seek prey here; and now, perhaps exaggerated by frustration, an overactive imagination, his need was beginning to make itself felt, becoming ever more insistent.

Oh, he knew he could withstand it, for weeks and months at a time if absolutely necessary; but not for
too
long. He would not “starve,” as it were—could not, as far as he was aware, not that he had ever put it to the test—but like any addict he would suffer. Then as he felt his own life-force waning, he would lust yet more urgently after the essence of some other.

Hemmings’ thoughts went back to the first time:

That was about this time of year just two years ago, a few months before his “retirement” from a teaching position at the University. His father, Arthur Hamilton Hemmings—a mathematician before him—had been fighting abdominal cancer for some time. Toward the end, unwilling to submit to pointless intrusive surgery, he had left the hospital, hired a part-time nurse, and gone home to Dalkeith close to Edinburgh to die in a familiar, hopefully anodyne environment.

His only son, Professor Gordon J. Hemmings, had taken leave of absence from the University on compassionate grounds and had gone to Dalkeith to take over the nurse’s duties when she could not be there to look after the old man’s needs.

Now as an
ex
-Professor, the fat man remembered it well…

He had never enjoyed an easy relationship with his father; which was probably because his mother had died giving birth to him, an event from which the old man had never quite recovered. Hemmings recalled how, even as a child, he had sensed aversion if not actual animosity in his father.

Later, as he grew into a fat young boy, he had sensed that he was suffering some kind of silent, covert punishment in the way he was forever being tested; though not so much physically as mentally. By the time he was eight years of age the old man had taken to routinely setting him increasingly difficult mathematical problems to solve; indeed, these would have been hard enough even for a majority of numerically accomplished adults, let alone a child! But Hemmings was always up to the challenge and rarely failed to supply the correct answers.

Whether or not his ability pleased his father was difficult to assess; the elder Hemmings was never less than acerbic, even at the best of times; but one such time had always stood out in Gordon’s memory. It had been a warm weekend in the autumn, when he had spent many hours in his room on a particularly obstinate problem. On finally solving the complicated simultaneous equations, and having taken the answer to his father’s study, he believed he’d seen what could only be a look of surprise, perhaps even astonishment on the other’s face if only for a moment. And Arthur H. Hemmings’ words on that occasion were as fresh now in his grown son’s mind as if spoken only yesterday:

“Aye, and you’re the clever one for sure,” he had said, his eyes gazing deep into Gordon’s. “You’re my son without a doubt, with my head for numbers and your poor mother’s warm, fey eyes. But you’re a cold one, too. I can feel it in you—or rather, I feel very little in you—and intelligence alone isn’t enough, not in the company of strangeness.”

And without explaining the latter, he had gone on: “Perhaps as you grow your capacity for compassion will evolve along with your intellect.” (This from his chill and ever distant father!) “To your mother…well, numbers were a mystery, enigmatic. But she radiated warmth like a glowing hearth on a winter’s eve! As one with nature, she gave of herself, and all who knew her knew it! There was no weird magnetism in her, just the opposite.”

And on that obscure subject he would say no more…

Two years later, as a prodigy not yet ten years old, Hemmings had been enrolled into Mensa International as one of that intellectual organization’s youngest members. His IQ was much higher than most, even his father’s, but his interests in what he termed “common-or-garden sciences” had soon waned while his passion for numbers had grown exponentially. All the while, by contrast, his father had been growing ever more distant.

From then on the years had passed with seeming rapidity; a fat boy became a fat youth, a teacher, a university professor. Into his early middle years he maintained something of contact with his father, though not without good reason: while the old man—now in truth an “old” man—had money and a not inconsiderate estate, his son had very little. For all his skill with numbers, fat Professor Hemmings had been less than financially prudent. Ever hungry but for some reason rarely entirely satisfied, he would usually take his meals—expensive but otherwise “ordinary” fare—in the best restaurants he could find in the vicinity of the University.

During his leave of alleged compassionate absence, however, at the estate on the outskirts of Dalkeith where his father lay on his deathbed, Hemmings had found himself hungrier than ever; more
especially
so, though at the time he had not known what it was or why. Perhaps he had some kind of worm…in any case he had been about to find out the truth.

And now as he walked the dreary promenade in Kirkaldy, memories of that time—the first time—came flooding back yet more vividly into his mind…

His father had not wanted him there. The nurse, an experienced woman in her mid-forties, previously employed as a Matron in a local hospital, had taken Hemmings aside to tell him that in his father’s less painful and therefore more lucid moments, he had asked on two or three occasions that she keep his son away from him. Trying to explain, he had rambled on a little, telling her there was an unnatural something about “that boy” that didn’t agree with him. Having found nothing peculiar or unnatural about Hemmings herself, she could only put it down to the regular doses of powerful pain-killers which she was administering to the dying man. Since the younger Hemmings would need to attend to that himself on the few occasions when she would be absent, she had thought an early warning was in order. Her patient was on his deathbed; if in his deteriorating condition, perhaps in a moment of drug-induced delirium, he should mutter anything seemingly hurtful, his son should not take it too seriously.

Hemmings had replied that he understood—while to himself he had thought:
Well, and so the old man no longer considers it necessary to hide his aversion—in fact it appears that in the end his loathing may even have turned to fear!
As for “unnatural”: if anything it had been his father’s attitude, the unwarranted blame he had placed on his only son’s shoulders, that had been strange and unnatural; and for an entire lifetime at that!

A few days into his visit, the Matron, as she preferred to be called, had other duties and would be away overnight and all the next day. Hemmings would be required to see to his father’s drugs once during the night and twice the next day. The old man could eat nothing but weak soup, which Hemmings would also prepare…little difficulty in that. But since his father’s resentment was now made manifest, if only to some other or others, so Hemmings no longer felt constrained regarding his own indifferent emotions. Why should he pretend otherwise when even as a boy in his formative years his father had had no scruples about referring to him as “strange” and “cold?” Why, it could even be that from his early childhood he’d developed that way by reason of the other’s bitter, distant attitude!

Well it
could
be, but in truth he hardly thought so. He was what he was…