The Stone That Never Came Down Read Online Free PDF Page A

case made me see things in a different light. But why are you making such a meal of this? That’s always been Maurice’s special talent: shedding a different light on things.”
    “I’m not sure,” Kneller admitted. “It’s just that at the edge of my mind there’s something … No, I can’t pin it down.”
    “Well, if you really are worried about Maurice,” Randolph said, “there’s one thing you could do. You’re wrong to say we don’t know about any of his private friends. Surely his GP is a friend, too. Weren’t they at school together?”
    Kneller snapped his fingers. “Yes, of course! I should have thought of that before. Isn’t his name … Hamilton? No, Campbell, that’s it. And his address is bound to be on Maurice’s file. I’ll send for it.”
    Hand outstretched towards his desk intercom, he checked. “Arthur, this will probably sound ridiculous, but … Look, describe to me what, in your view, Maurice expects VC to do if and when we decide it’s safe to administer it to a human subject.”
    “What?” Randolph stared blankly at him. “Why, you know as well as I do.”
    “I think I do.” Kneller was suddenly very grave. “The stuff’s volatile, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, of course. Or rather, not the stuff itself, but. the supportive medium we keep it in. Why?”
    “Would it be possible to determine whether there’s been a stock loss?”
    “A stock loss?” Randolph echoed in perplexity. “Lord, on the molecular level? The quantities we’re working with are so damned small! Not a chance.”
    “Very well, then. Who issues test-samples to the lab technicians and the postgrads–you or Maurice?”
    “Maurice. Nine times out of ten at any rate.”
    “In other words, he’s the person who most often opens the sealed vats.” Kneller leaned forward earnestly. “And could not the hoped-for effect of VC be described as enabling one to cast fresh light on every single kind of subject?”
    There was dead silence for a moment. Randolph turned pale.
    “If you mean what I think you mean–”
    “You know damned well what I mean!”
    “Then you had better get hold of his doctor. Right away!”

    Down a half-deserted side-street in Kentish Town marched a pair of godheads, one a few years older than the other.
    “Come to Jesus! Come and be saved!”
    It was a good area to pick up converts, this, especially in winter. The original inhabitants had been cleared out to make room for a motorway which in fact had not been extended this far. Consequently many of the houses were intact except that their doors had been nailed up and their windows were blocked with corrugated iron and neglect had dug holes in every other roof.
    Down-and-outs congregated here now, some of them former residents driven to despair because they had not been rehoused, some simply unemployed, some outright social misfits like meths-drinkers and even a few of the remaining hard-drug addicts. Only four or five sources of illegal supply survived in London, and one of those was a little north of here, a mile or two.
    All of a sudden the younger of the godheads gave a stifled cry, and his companion hastened to see what he had found.
    Poking out from behind a stub of wall, partly covered by the snow, which was still sifting down although more lightly than an hour before, yet absolutely unmistakable: a pair of human legs.
    “What–what shall we do?” the younger godhead whimpered, having to lean on his plastic cross for support. “Should we tell the police?”
    The older considered for a moment, and pronounced, “No, I don’t think so. Aren’t we told to let the dead bury their dead? And the last thing we want is to get mixed up in a police investigation. It would seriously hamper our work.”
    “I–I suppose you’re right,” the younger admitted, and added in surprise: “But what are you doing?”
    The other had bent over the corpse and after scraping snow away with the end of his cross was fumbling with gloved fingers