‘What do you think this is?’ Lockwood asked.
I bent forward, scanning the apparatus. On closer inspection the plug had several safety flanges and double seals. There was a little symbol embossed on the side of the glass: a radiant sun that doubled as an eye.
‘It’s silver-glass,’ I said. ‘Made by the Sunrise Corporation.’
Lockwood nodded, gently smiling. I bent closer. With the nail of my middle finger I tapped the side of the glass; at once the smoke awoke, rippling outwards from the point of impact, becoming thicker, more granular, as it did so. As it separated, it revealed the object in the jar: a human skull, brown and stained, clamped to the bottom of the glass.
The ripples of smoke contorted, twisted; they took on the horrid semblance of a face, with blankly rolling eyes and gaping mouth. For a moment the features were superimposed upon the skull beneath. I jerked back from the glass. The face devolved into stream-like ribbons of smoke that swirled about the cylinder, and presently became still.
I cleared my throat. ‘Well, it’s a ghost-jar,’ I said. ‘The skull’s the Source, and that ghost is tied to it. Can’t tell what sort. A Phantasm or a Spectre, maybe.’
So saying, I sat back in a posture of nonchalant unconcern, as if Visitors in jars were something I dealt with every day of the week. In truth, I’d never seen one and the apparition had shocked me. But not unduly so: after the previous girl’s scream I’d expected something. Plus I’d heard of containers like this before.
Lockwood’s smile had momentarily frozen, as if uncertain whether to express surprise, pleasure or disappointment. In the end, pleasure won the day. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said. ‘Well done.’ He put the handkerchief back on the cylinder and, with some effort, stowed it out of sight under the table.
The plump boy sipped his tea loudly. ‘She was shaken,’ he said. ‘You could see it.’
I ignored the comment. ‘Where did you get the jar?’ I said. ‘I thought only Rotwell and Fittes had them.’
‘Time for questions later,’ Lockwood said. He opened a drawer in the coffee table and pulled out a small red box. ‘Now, I’d like to test your Talent, if I may. I’ve got some items ready. Please tell me, if you can’ – he opened the box and put an object on the table – ‘what supernatural resonance you detect here.’
It was an unassuming cup of old white porcelain, with a fluted base and a sharp chip in the handle. There was a strange white stain around the inside of the lip, which thickened at the bottom of the cup to become a crusty residue.
I took it in my hand and closed my eyes, turning it this way and that, running my fingers lightly over the surface.
I listened, waiting for echoes . . . Nothing came to me.
This was no good. I shook my head, cleared my mind of distractions, shut out as best I could the occasional noise of traffic passing on the road, and the less occasional slurps of tea sounding from George’s sofa. I tried again.
No. Still nothing.
After a few minutes I gave up. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said at last, ‘I can’t detect anything.’
Lockwood nodded. ‘I should hope not. This is the cup George keeps his toothbrush in. Good. On to the next.’ He picked up the cup and tossed it across to the plump boy, who caught it with a snort of mirth.
I felt myself go cold; I knew my cheeks were scarlet. I took hold of my rucksack, and stood abruptly. ‘I’m not here to be made fun of,’ I said. ‘I’ll find my own way out.’
‘Ooh,’ George said. ‘Feisty.’
I looked at him. His flop of hair, his glossy, shapeless face, his silly little glasses: everything about him made me livid. ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Step over here and I’ll show you exactly how feisty I am.’
The boy blinked at me. ‘I might just do that.’
‘I don’t see you moving.’
‘Well, it’s a deep sofa. It’s taking me a while to get out of it.’
‘Hold on, both of you,’ Anthony Lockwood said. ‘This is an interview, not a boxing match. George: shut up. Ms Carlyle: I apologize for upsetting you, but it was a serious test, which you passed with flying colours. You’d be amazed how many of our interviewees this morning have made up some cock-and-bull story about poison, suicide or murder. It’d be the most haunted cup in London if the mildest of their tales was true. Now then, please sit down. What can you tell me about these?’
From the drawer beneath the table: three new items, laid side by side in front of me. A gentleman’s wristwatch, gold-plated around the rim, with an old brown leather strap; a piece of lacy red ribbon; and a slim, long-bladed penknife with an ivory inlay handle.
My annoyance at their trick receded. This was a good challenge. With a steely glance at George, I sat and spread the objects out a little, so their hidden textures (if any) didn’t overlap. Then I emptied my mind as best I could, and picked them up, one by one.
Time went by; I tested each three times.
I finished. When my eyes refocused, I saw George engrossed in a comic he had got from somewhere, and Lockwood sitting as before, hands clasped, watching me.
I took a long drink of cold tea. ‘Did any of your other applicants get this right?’ I said quietly.
Lockwood smiled. ‘Did you?’
‘The echoes were hard to disengage,’ I said, ‘which I suppose is why you threw them at me all together. They’re all strong, but distinct in quality. Which do you want first?’
‘The knife.’
‘OK. The knife has several conflicting echoes: a man’s laughter, gunshots, even – possibly – birdsong. If there’s a death attached to it – which I suppose there must be, since I can sense all this – it wasn’t violent or sad in any way. The feeling I got from it was gentle, almost happy.’ I looked at him.
Lockwood’s face gave nothing away. ‘How about the ribbon?’
‘The traces on the ribbon,’ I said, ‘are fainter than the knife’s, but much stronger in emotion. I thought I heard weeping, but it’s terribly indistinct. What I get so strongly with it is a sense of sadness; when I was holding it, I felt my heart would break.’
‘And the watch?’ His eyes were fixed on me. George still read his comic – Astounding Arabian Nights; he idly turned a page.
‘The watch . . .’ I took a deep breath. ‘The echoes here aren’t as strong as on the ribbon or the knife, which makes me think the owner hasn’t died – or not while wearing it, at any rate. But there’s death attached to it nonetheless. A lot of death. And . . . it isn’t pleasant. I heard voices raised and . . . and screaming, and—’ I shuddered as I looked at it glinting gently on the coffee table. Every notch on that gold plate casing, every scuff on that little strip of worn bent leather filled me with horror. ‘It’s a vile thing,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t hold it for very long. I don’t know what it is or where you got it, but no one should be touching this, not ever. Certainly not for a stupid interview.’
I leaned forward, took the final two biscuits from the plate and sat back, crunching. It was one of those moments when a great Don’t Care wave hits you, and you float off on it, head back, looking at the sky. I was tired out. It was my seventh interview in as many days. Well, I’d done all I could, and if Lockwood and this stupid George didn’t choose to appreciate it – that really didn’t bother me any more.
There was a long silence. Lockwood’s hands were clasped between his knees; he was sitting forward like a vicar on the toilet, gazing at nothing, a pained, contemplative expression on his face. George’s head was still buried in his comic. As far as he was concerned, I might not have been there at all.
‘Well,’ I said finally, ‘I guess I know where the door is.’
‘Tell her about the biscuit rule,’ George said.
I looked at him. ‘What?’
‘Tell her, Lockwood. We’ll have to get this straight or there’ll be hell to pay.’
Lockwood nodded. ‘The rule here is that each member of the agency only takes one biscuit at a time in strict rotation. Keeps it fa
ir, keeps it orderly. Nicking two in times of stress just isn’t done.’
‘One biscuit at a time?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You mean to say I’ve got the job?’
‘Of course you’ve got the job,’ he said.
7
Thirty-five Portland Row, the building that would function as both home and headquarters for the operatives of Lockwood & Co., was an unexpected sort of place. Appearing squat and squarish from the street, it was actually positioned at the top of a slight slope, so that its rear elevation jutted out high over a jumble of brick-walled gardens. It had four floors, which ranged from tiny (the attic) to sprawling (the basement). Technically the upper three levels were our living space, while the basement contained the office; in fact, such divisions seemed rather blurred. The living areas, for instance, had all sorts of hidden doors that opened onto weapons racks, or swung out to become dart-boards, or spare beds, or giant maps of London festooned with coloured pins. Meanwhile the basement itself doubled as a scullery, which meant you’d be practising Wessex half-turns in the rapier room with a row of socks hanging from a clothes line beside your head, or filling canisters from the salt box with the washing machine rumbling loudly in your ear.
I liked it all immediately, though it puzzled me as well. It was a large house, filled with expensive, grown-up things, and yet there were no adults present anywhere. Just Anthony Lockwood and his associate, George. And now me.
On the first afternoon, Lockwood took me for a tour. He showed me the attic first, low-slung beneath steep eaves. It contained two rooms: a minuscule washroom, in which sink, shower and toilet practically overlapped; and a pretty attic bedroom, just big enough for a single bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers. Opposite the bed, an arched gable window looked out over Portland Row as far as the ghost-lamp on the corner.
‘This is where I slept when I was little,’ Lockwood said. ‘It hasn’t been occupied for years; the last assistant, God rest him, chose to live out. You can use it, if you like.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’d be pleased to.’
‘I know the bathroom’s small, but at least it’s your own. There’s a bigger one downstairs, but that’d mean sharing towels with George.’
‘Oh, I think I’ll be fine here.’
We left the attic, trooped down the narrow stairs. The landing below was dark and sombre, with a circular golden rug in the centre of the floorboards. Bookshelves in a corner were crammed with a random mix of paperbacks: battered copies of the Fittes Yearbook and Mottram’s Psychical Theories, an assortment of cheap novels – mostly pulp thrillers and detective fiction – and serious works on religion and philosophy. As in the hall and living room below, various ethnic artefacts decorated the wall – including some kind of rattle seemingly made from human bones.
Lockwood caught me staring at it. ‘That’s a Polynesian ghost-chaser,’ he said. ‘Nineteenth century. Supposed to drive away spirits with its raucous sound.’
‘Does it work?’
‘No idea. I’ve not tried it yet. Might be worth a go.’ He pointed to a door alongside. ‘That’s the bathroom, if you need it. This one’s my room, and that’s George’s. I’d tread with caution there. I once walked in on him doing yoga in the nude.’
With difficulty, I drove the image from my mind. ‘So this was your house, as a kid?’
‘Well, it belonged to my parents then. It’s mine now. And yours, of course, for as long as you work here.’
‘Thanks. Tell me, did your parents—’
‘I’ll show you the kitchen now,’ Lockwood said. ‘I think George is making dinner.’ He started down the stairs.
‘What’s through there?’ I asked suddenly. There was one door he hadn’t mentioned: no different from the others, set close beside his own.
He smiled. ‘That’s private, if you don’t mind. Don’t worry, it’s not very interesting. Come on! There’s still lots to see down here.’
The ground floor – comprising sitting room, library and kitchen – was clearly the heart of the house, and the kitchen was where we would spend most time. It would be the place we’d assemble for pre-expedition tea and sandwiches; also where we’d gather for a fry-up late the morning after. Its appearance reflected this fusion of work and leisure. The surfaces had all the usual domestic clutter – biscuit tins, fruit bowls, packets of crisps – but also bags of salt and iron, carefully weighed and ready to go. There were rapiers propped behind the bins and plasm-stained workboots soaking in a bucket. Oddest of all was the kitchen table and its great white tablecloth. This cloth was half covered with a spreading net of scribbled notes, diagrams, and also drawings of several Visitor sub-types – Wraiths, Solitaries and Shades.
‘We call this our thinking cloth,’ Lockwood said. ‘It’s not widely known, but I located the bones of the Fenchurch Street Ghoul by sketching out the street-plan here, over tea and cheese on toast at four o’clock in the morning. The cloth lets us jot down memos, theories, follow interesting trains of thought . . . It’s a very useful tool.’
‘It’s also good for exchanging rude messages when a case hasn’t gone well and we’re not talking to each other,’ George said. He stood by the cooker, tending the evening stew.
‘Er, does that happen often?’ I asked.
‘No, no, no,’ Lockwood said. ‘Almost never.’
George stirred the stew implacably. ‘You wait and see.’
Lockwood clapped his hands together. ‘Good. Have I shown you the office yet? You’ll never guess where the entrance is. Look – it’s over here.’
It turned out that the basement offices of Lockwood & Co. were reached directly from the kitchen. It wasn’t exactly a secret door – the handle was in plain view – but from the outside it looked like nothing more than an ordinary closet. It had precisely the same size, colour and handle shape as all the other kitchen units set around the walls. When you opened it, however, a little light came on, revealing a set of spiral stairs curling steeply down.
At the bottom of the iron stairs lay a string of open, bare-brick rooms, separated by arches and pillars and stretches of plastered wall. They were lit by a large window looking onto the overgrown yard at the front of the house, and by angled skylights set into the ground along the side. The largest area contained three desks, a filing cabinet, two tatty green armchairs and a rather wonky bookshelf that Lockwood had assembled to hold his paperwork. A big black ledger sat resplendent on the central desk.
‘Our casebook,’ Lockwood said. ‘It’s got a history of everything we investigate. George compiles it and cross-references everything with the files up there.’ He gave a little sigh. ‘He likes that sort of thing. Personally I take each assignment as it comes.’
I glanced at the box-files on the shelf. Each one had been neatly labelled by type and sub-type: Type One: Shades; Type One: Lurkers; Type Two: Poltergeists; Type Two: Phantasms – and all the rest. At the end of the row was a thin file marked Type Threes. I stared at this.
‘Have you actually encountered a Type Three?’ I asked.
Lockwood shrugged. ‘Hardly. I’m not even sure they exist.’
Through an arch off the main office was a side-room, completely empty except for a rack of rapiers, a bowl of chalk dust, and two straw-filled Visitor dummies hanging from a ceiling beam on iron chains. One of the dummies wore a bonnet, and the other a top hat. Both were full of holes.
‘Meet Joe and Esmeralda,’ Lockwood said. ‘They’re named after Lady Esmeralda and Floating Joe, two of the famous ghosts from Marissa Fittes’ Memoirs. Obviously this is the rapier room. We practise here every afternoon. Of course, you’ll be proficient with a sword already, if you’ve passed your Fourth Grade . . .’ He glanced at me.
I nodded. ‘Of course. Yes. Absolutely.’
‘. . . but it doesn’t hurt to keep in shape, does it? I look forward to seeing you in action. And over here’ – Lockwood led me to a padlocked metal door set into the wall – ‘is our high-security storero
om. Take a look inside.’
This store was the only separate portion of the basement – a small, windowless room filled with shelves and boxes. It was here that all the most essential equipment was kept – the range of silver seals, the iron chains, the flares and canisters ordered direct from the Sunrise Corporation. Right now, it was also where the ghost-jar, with its clamped brown skull and ectoplasmic host, was stored, concealed beneath its spotted cloth.
‘George gets it out to do experiments sometimes,’ Lockwood said. ‘He wants to observe how ghosts respond to different stimuli. Personally I’d rather he destroyed the thing, but he’s got attached to it, somehow.’
I eyed the cloth doubtfully. Just as during the interview, I thought I could almost hear a psychic noise, a delicate hum on the fringes of perception. ‘So . . . where did he get it from?’ I asked.
‘Oh, he stole it. I expect he’ll tell you about it sometime. But actually it’s not the only trophy we’ve got down here. Come and see.’
In the back wall of the basement a modern glass door, fortified with iron ghost-bars, led out into the garden. Alongside it, four shelves had been riveted to the brickwork: they housed a collection of silver-glass cases, with objects inside each one. Some of these were old, others very modern. I noticed, among them, a set of playing cards; a lock of long blonde hair; a lady’s bloodstained glove; three human teeth; a gentleman’s folded necktie. The most splendid case of all contained a mummified hand, black and shrivelled as a rotten banana, sitting on a red silk cushion.
‘That’s a pirate’s,’ Lockwood said. ‘Seventeen-hundreds, probably. Belonged to a fellow who was strung up and sun-dried on Execution Dock, where the Mouse and Musket Inn stands now. His spirit was a Lurker; he’d given the barmaids a lot of trouble by the time I dug that up. Well, this is all stuff George and I have collected over our careers so far. Some are actual Sources, and very dangerous: they’ve got to be kept locked up, particularly at night. Others just need to be treated with caution – if you’re a Sensitive – like the three I gave you in the interview.’
Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase Page 7