Watson, Ian - Novel 10 Read Online Free Page B

set, Mayor Barnes disappeared into a point of light which vanished,
just as Mayor Barnes and everyone else would when they died . . .
                 Jim
put the phone down.
                 “That
was Resnick.”
                 “So
I gathered.”
                 “I’m
to see him in half an hour. Apparently he wants me to guide the killer —
because I’m uninvolved. I’m not of Egremont. So I won’t feel any personal
bitterness. I guess that answers your question, Marta. They transferred me
here from Gracchus so that I could guide Norman Harper’s murderer.”
                 He
consulted his watch. If Marta still nursed the desires that he suspected, they
were not to be fulfilled this afternoon . . .
                 “How
very ironic you can be,” she said.
                 The
greater irony, he thought, was that his own brief earlier fantasy of guiding
Norman Harper had come true so suddenly, yet at one hideous remove.
                 Jim
walked to the door as though to open it for Marta. Once there, he merely stood
and patted its frame. He felt possessed by an imp of the perverse.
                 “I
wonder if Death’s doorway will let me pass when my time comes?” he asked her,
darkly. “Or might I get stuck in it? Halfway in and half-way
out? Perhaps the old legends of Zombies are really based on people who
get stuck in that doorway. Their conscious mind has gone through, but the
automatic mind is left on our side, still running the body — how about that?”
                 Surprisingly,
she joined in his humour.
                 “So
the freezer freaks are zombies on ice — now there’s an idea!”
                 “I
sometimes wonder if we guides are not the new immortals? Deep down in our minds, I mean. We see everyone else on their way. But we stay
here: the privileged door-keepers.”
                 She
shook her head firmly. “We have our time and season too. Without that , we’d be . . . well, we’d be . . .”
                 “We’d
be executioners, if. we didn’t retire when that
sixtieth year comes round.’’
                 “And
even sooner sometimes ...”
                 “Oh
yes, if a guide gets saturated with the seductive beauty of dying.”
                 “I
don’t quite understand you, Jim — but I hope we’re going to be good colleagues,
and friends.”
                 Jim
chuckled. “To every guide, his own personal touch. Or hers. Mine may be humour, for those who need humour. It
may even be farce! It’s an approach that can work wonders with some people.
There are some clients who hate to be contemplative about their demise.”
                 “They
can be shown.”
                 “They
still think it’s sanctimonious. And other people are actually scared. For them,
a joke can be a fine nerve tonic. What did William Blake say? ‘Mirth braces;
bliss relaxes’? Well, if he didn’t, he ought to have. He died laughing, didn’t
he? Or was it singing? Norman Harper never quite ...”
                 “Quite what?”
                 “Quite
wrote poetry like Blake.”
                 “ Norman wrote for an audience of real people, not
for his own fevered, mystical brain.” Marta placed her hands on her hips
defiantly. “I wish you joy of cracking jokes with his killer!” Yet she stood
thus only for a moment. To Jim it was clear that she couldn’t tolerate harsh
words — least of all her own.
                 “You’re
a strange person,” she said quietly, almost caressingly. “Maybe it takes a
strange person to guide someone who did . . . what that creature did today.”
                 “It’s
nice to know I have my uses.”
                 “We
all do. Everyone’s death has its own
precious usefulness.”