Necroscope: The Touch

  And finally there was the newspaper cutting, where again Kelly had been less exacting than usual. For while she had cut out the picture and its accompanying column, there was nothing to indicate which daily it had appeared in. It was very definitely her work, though, because it carried her byline.

  Scott recognized the picture—it had been printed from a photograph that Kelly had shown him probably on his last night home before flying to Germany, and it was the picture that had sparked this search.

  Now, narrowing his eyes, he studied it more closely.

  Despite that it was on newsprint, the picture was clearer than any of the others he’d seen. It showed seven people on the steps of the impressive, marble-columned frontage of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital: three male figures flanked by two couples, and the gangling central figure was that of Salcombe sandwiched between his minders. Kelly had caught him looking back over his shoulder, apparently hissing directly into her camera! And this time there could be no mistaking, no misunderstanding the look on his face—which was murderous!

  This wasn’t a close-up shot; Kelly had wanted to get the entire group and had snapped them from maybe twenty feet away, possibly from the curbside. But as Scott looked at Salcombe’s expression again—and for all that it made no difference now—still he felt glad that on this occasion at least his wife had been at a relatively safe distance . . .

  10

  With the light from the window beginning to fail, Scott seated himself in Kelly’s work chair and switched on her desk lamp to read the newspaper cutting. Maybe something in her words would focus his memories, give them clearer definition.

  The trouble with his and Kelly’s lifestyle had been their work, which was forever intruding; with Scott frequently away—“speaking in tongues somewhere,” as Kelly had used to describe it—while often as not when he was home she would be out and about chasing down some story or other. But on the other hand, maybe that had been of benefit. They never felt they were tripping over each other; indeed, they’d never seen enough of each other, and so their time together had always been special.

  On the downside, and as far as Scott’s current quest was concerned, he had never been fully au fait with what Kelly was working on; only that once she had made her mind up about something, her convictions—pro and con, right or wrong—were always of the very strongest. She had stuck to her guns. Which was more than ever apparent as Scott scanned the column’s heading, then carried on reading, nodding to himself and murmuring: “Yep, that’s my girl!”

  SIMON SALCOMBE: HEALER OR HEEL?

  by

  Kelly St. John

  The wonder workers. We’ve known them since time began, and by a great many names—so many that we may even say they’re legion. Fakirs climbing their Indian ropes, and vanishing into thin air before they can be investigated; stage magicians who will readily admit to their ingenuity without explaining their tricks; blindfolded mentalists with their fast-talking assistants—not to mention the occasional plant in the audience.

  Then we’ve had great escape artists such as Harry Houdini, who amazed the entire world with his fantastic feats, yet was himself a lifelong sceptic and debunker-in-chief of the spiritualists. And let’s not forget all the spoon-benders, the illusionists, the fire-walkers (and eaters), the telepaths and telekinetics, and all the tele-these, tele-those, and tele-the others.

  Et cetera, et cetera, und so weiter.

  Yes, they’ve been conning us forever, but we don’t mind because right from the start we knew it was just a scam. It’s entertainment—show business, of course—and we don’t believe everything we see, because as a certain song has it, it ain’t necessarily so. It’s smoke and mirrors, that’s all, and all done for fun—

  —Right?

  Ah, but then along comes Simon Salcombe—the so-called psychic healer—and bang goes all the fun.

  Simon Salcombe is something of a mystery man: rarely seen in public, his comings and goings are cloaked in such secrecy that no one can say where he’ll put in his next appearance or to which hideout he’ll then depart. But recently his activities in the highly lucrative “psychic healing” business (where he claims to heal by touch: the “laying-on-of-hands”) have been somewhat curtailed by various adverse reports . . . several of which, I’m delighted to admit, were mine.

  Frankly, it must be fairly obvious to anyone who gives it even a moment’s thought that this man is a complete quack who preys on rich and gullible hypochondriacs. Certainly his affluent clients “get well”—but of course they do, because they weren’t physically sick in the first place. And as for Salcombe’s healing touch: well, I don’t know if all the people he has touched feel healed, but most of them were well heeled for sure! What’s more, it seems to me they’ve been the very softest of touches!

  And now we hit a new low. Sinister Simon—and the accompanying picture will perhaps explain why I call him that . . . he really hates having his picture taken—is attempting to recruit new donors to his private personal pension fund by offering his “services,” free of charge, to the distraught parents of very sick children. He can get away with advertising his rotten business in this heartless fashion simply by virtue of the fact that no one will ever dare to mention the possibility of him failing, which would be to predetermine the outcome for these kids. And if or when—no, God help me, but I must say it—when Salcombe’s psychic “treatments” are seen to be utterly worthless, why then this unscrupulous faker will explain that his patients (in fact the victims of his scam) were simply too far gone.

  But what a cruel, cruel game this vile creature is playing, and . . .

  . . . And so on.

  But halfway through, Scott stopped reading. He knew the column would continue in more or less the same vein to the end, for Kelly always stuck to her guns. And what he had read so far had already helped to determine a better chronology of events:

  Kelly had somehow received advance notice of Salcombe’s visit to St. Jude’s. She had been on hand to get a shot of him, his minders, and two sets of parents as they entered the hospital. Then, scrambling to Kelly’s grapevine alert, other reporters—including her friends from the BBC—had gathered outside hoping to catch Salcombe when he came out. And meanwhile inside St. Jude’s, someone had taken a picture of the sick kids.

  Eventually Salcombe had emerged; Kelly had confronted him and taken her second close-up picture as he turned toward her. End of story. She’d written up her story in the next day or so, at which time Scott had been in Berlin. And by the time he got home . . . but no, he must try to avoid going there yet again.

  So then, was all of this connected to her death? And if so how? And if Salcombe was so secretive, how had Kelly known that he’d be visiting St. Jude’s to “lay hands” on those sick kids? And why the hell was he, Scott St. John, doing all this probably meaningless research in the first place? Because he had been advised to, that was why . . . by a woman he didn’t know who he’d met in a newsagent’s shop, for Christ’s sake!

  At which he almost stopped, but not quite. Because despite feeling utterly confused Scott knew he was on to something, that there had to be something here! And shaking his head sharply to clear it, he thought: Right, so then . . . what was I doing?

  Ah yes! Working on a chronology of events.

  Chronology: another word that got the wheels turning. And right there, in a corner of Kelly’s desk, her diary that she’d always kept up-to-date. “It’s far better than relying on memory alone,” she used to say. “If something is written in detail it can’t be forgotten. Events can’t get confused.”

  Scott’s hands weren’t quite steady as he took up the journal—a six-by-eight ring binder with a full page for each day of the year—because he knew it had to contain Kelly’s final thoughts, or at least the last words she had considered worthy of recording. And still uncertain of what he was searching for, but nevertheless hopeful that he would recognize it if or when he saw it, he turned the leaves to the last few days in Januar
y, found the very last pages she’d written on, and quickly turned back a week or two in time until he found mention of himself:

  Scott all signed up and preparing for Berlin. I suppose I could go with him, make a holiday of it, but money’s too hard to come by, and the mortgage won’t pay itself off—more’s the pity! Scott: no sooner back from Berlin, he’ll be getting in shape for that OPEC thing in Venezuela end of Feb. But I really shouldn’t complain. We have our lovely home and it will be great having him all to myself here for the next few days . . . (but more especially for the nights).

  From which point on the entry got even more personal (and saw Scott getting more choked up), causing him to move forward a page or two.

  Tues. 23rd Jan. 1990:

  Fantastic news! The USSR has agreed to pull its troops out of Hungary. Gorbachev looks all set on peace . . . it seems he’d like to kill off the last remnants of the Cold War for good. Scott’s Berlin conference just three days off . . . they’re perhaps jumping the gun a bit, but it could be that German reunification isn’t too far away now. Anyway, they certainly intend to be ready for it. So hoorah for perestroika! (If that’s the right spelling.)

  Scott out buying smokes—I must try to get him to stop smoking! Anonymous telephone call . . . someone with a German accent and an alleged “tip.” Probably a hoax but I can’t ignore it. What, Simon Salcombe visiting St. Jude’s to work his quackery on sick kids? I’ll be there for sure . . .

  There was more, but Scott had picked out something of what he wanted to know. An anonymous tip-off? So that was how Kelly had known about Salcombe’s “benefit” at St. Jude’s. As for the reason she hadn’t mentioned it to Scott—or if she had why he hadn’t remembered—it was because he’d been busy with his own stuff preparatory to flying to Berlin.

  Skipping the next page he moved on to:

  Thurs. 25th Jan. 1990:

  Must let the boys from the Beeb know about this creep’s alleged visit. But I’ll call them after I know it’s for real and when I’ve got a good shot or two of his arrival, if he arrives. I owe them a few favours after all, and it will help keep me in their good books . . .

  This was followed by half a page of day-by-day stuff, and then a sad note on Ava Gardner—

  Oh, dear me! “The world’s most beautiful animal” was what they once called her. Sixty-eight years old, and died today in the city . . . pneumonia, of all things, and I can’t even picture her having a cold! It just goes to show that we’re all mortal, even the “goddesses.”

  Followed by:

  Well, he showed! Got one shot as he was going in with his gorillas—then my camera had some kind of weird flare-up. Damn! But this fellow has certainly read my stuff. If looks could kill his would have definitely done for me when we, er, “met” on his way out! And not only his looks but his touch, as cold and slithery as ice! A loathsome character, and I wouldn’t want to get that close to him again.

  Scott off to Germany tomorrow. I’m not feeling too well, but I won’t say anything—I know he’ll only get all concerned. So if something is coming on I’ll just stay home, work on my articles. Bill Comber says he might have some damaged footage of my clash with Salcombe that he can give me . . .

  There was other stuff at the bottom of the page: about an Avianca Boeing 707 crashing on its approach to Kennedy airport, killing seventy-three people; and Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani premier, giving birth while “in office.” But Scott wasn’t much interested in those things. Instead his eyes returned again to those ominous, those all-important words, the first indicators of what had been about to happen to Kelly:

  “I’m not feeling too well . . .”

  And with numb, unfeeling fingers he turned the page.

  Friday the twenty-sixth of January, the morning Scott had flown to Germany. He remembered it well: a Black Friday for some, but he had been lucky; his plane was airborne before a ferocious storm caused a good many cancellations. And as the winds picked up to gale force some forty-six people had died across the south and southwest of England.

  While Kelly had noted this briefly in her journal—showing her usual, natural concern for Scott—by then she’d also been displaying not a little concern for herself:

  Fri. 26th Jan. 1990:

  Scott caught early morning plane. Glad he got off before the winds hit. Something has hit me, too! I feel really, really down. Don’t even feel like working; feel I could just sleep for a month. But no, I shan’t let it beat me . . . I’ll work on my Salcombe article, maybe finish it and send it off.

  Bill C. called: says he’s arranging for some pics of the St. Jude’s kids to be taken inside the hospital. I find it a bit ghoulish, but that’s why I’m “Kelly, Kid Reporter” while Bill and the other guys are pros. What me, Paparazzo? Forget it!

  Reading these paragraphs again, Scott felt a genuine pain, a wrenching in his guts, as he scanned Kelly’s words, the evidence of her continuing decline. God, he should have been here! But why blame himself? He hadn’t had the slightest inkling . . . she hadn’t mentioned it; why would she when she herself hadn’t known how sick she was? For all she knew it could have been a dose of the flu, for Christ’s sake!

  But it hadn’t been flu . . .

  Turning the page to the twenty-seventh of January, Scott saw just a few lines of Kelly’s minuscules looking not quite so neat now, which read:

  Worked at home. Gave my Salcombe article to the postie when he delivered the afternoon mail . . .

  I was sick this morning. I’m tempted to call Scott, but he’ll be home again in just a few days. If I’m still down, maybe we’ll do something about it then . . .

  On the twenty-eighth a blank page, and then on the 29th:

  Scott home day after tomorrow. So glad. Now I’ll crawl back to bed. But I do feel a little better, probably because I know he’ll soon be here . . .

  Got a call from the Hatfield Evening Standard. They’ll use my Salcombe thing tonight and I’ll get a copy (and my check) by courier tomorrow.

  Still tempted to call Scott. But no, he’ll be busy. And anyway he’ll be home noon on the 1st Feb.

  Jesus, God! And he’d spent the evening of the thirtieth with a German friend, Herr Karl Meister, Dolmetscher, in a pub on the Kurfurstendamm, when he could have been on a late flight home! If he’d known, if only he’d known!

  And there were no more entries in Kelly’s journal . . .

  Scott squeezed his eyes shut, clasped his forehead, and slumped down in the chair. He had arrived home at noon on Thursday, the first of February; and wouldn’t you know it, Kelly had met him at the door! She’d got out of bed so as to be up and about when he got in. And as tottery as she was, still she’d refused to see a doctor that afternoon or evening. It was as if she’d known that this was the last time they’d be together in their own home.

  Friday morning after a sleepless night worrying about her, Scott had been up early. When Kelly collapsed as she’d tried to get out of bed, then he’d carried her to the car and driven her into the city. He had been very glad then that they had private health insurance, and by 8:30 A.M. Kelly had been in a hospital bed . . . from which time on she never got out of it.

  Since when, for close on four months, she had rarely been out of Scott’s mind; never for more than three or four minutes at a time. And all that time, even knowing he wasn’t to blame, wasn’t responsible, still deep inside he had felt that Kelly’s not being here was somehow down to him. Until now—

  —Until now it appeared he was looking for a way to blame someone else. It could be coincidence, of course, but whatever the explanation and whichever way Scott turned he kept bumping into a certain name. And that name was Salcombe.

  Simon Salcombe: the man with the healing touch. But Kelly hadn’t thought so. To her Salcombe’s touch had seemed slippery, cold as ice. Not at all like the touch Scott had received from his mystery woman.

  A touch, or touches . . .

  One strange and warm, and even a little uplifting . . .

  An
d one cold, slimy . . . and debilitating? One giving, and one taking.

  Just suppose, suppose that Salcombe really did possess an incredible skill: hands with healing powers, the gift of life. Might not they also contain the seeds of death? Might not this “healer” have the power to extract life as well as to save and prolong it? Scott knew there were poisons that could be administered with a touch or a blow. In what had been known as “the silent assassin” case, not too long ago, Russia’s KGB had been suspected of using Bulgarian poisons—tiny capsules of lethal chemicals in the syringe-like tips of umbrellas—as an almost undetectable means of murdering enemy agents.

  And what about Kelly’s anonymous tip-off? Someone with a German accent? But wasn’t Simon Salcombe Swiss or Swiss-based, and didn’t the Swiss speak German? Of course they did. So was it possible that someone acting for Salcombe had deliberately leaked the timing of his imminent St. Jude’s visit in order to lure Kelly into his presence?

  But why? Revenge, for what Kelly had written about him in earlier hard-hitting articles? If so the man must be mad, or a monster, or both. And it might be a good idea to look into the health statistics—the current well-being, or otherwise—of Simon Salcombe’s several other detractors among the media pack, to see if any of them had also been the victims of unknown illnesses!

  Or was all this sheer fantasy—Scott’s own wild fantasy—as he searched for reasons for his great loss? But damn it all, he had been as good as told to investigate! And if he was going to be suspicious of his own reasoning and introspective in respect to possible fantasies or obsessions, then what about those Secret Service types who had kidnapped and questioned him about his suspected parapsychological powers? Now surely that entire episode would have to be classified as fantasy—

  —Surely?

  But no, nothing was sure, over the top, too unbelievable, not anymore. Certainly not in Scott St. John’s life . . .