I’d seen them on the bottom shelf: the knife, the ribbon, the unspeakable watch.
‘Yeah . . .’ I said. ‘You never told me what they were.’
Lockwood nodded. ‘I’m sorry the impressions you got were so gruelling, but I didn’t expect you to experience them so strongly. Well, the knife belonged to my uncle, who lived out in the country. He took it with him on walks and hunting expeditions. Had it with him when he dropped dead from a heart attack during a shoot. He was a kind man; from what you said the knife still had something of his personality.’
I thought back to the peaceful sensations I’d picked up from the knife. ‘It did.’
‘The ribbon came from a grave they opened in Kensal Green Cemetery, when they were building one of the iron barriers around the perimeter last year. Coffin had a woman in it – and a little child. The ribbon was in the woman’s hair.’
The memory of my feelings as I’d held the slip of silk returned; my eyes filled with tears. I cleared my throat and made a big business of studying the nearest boxes. It wouldn’t do to show weakness to Lockwood. Frailty was what Visitors fed on; frailty and loose emotions. Good agents needed the opposite: firm control and strength of nerve. My old leader Jacobs had lost his nerve. And what had happened? I had nearly died.
I spoke in a cool, matter-of-fact voice. ‘And the watch?’
Lockwood had been observing me closely. ‘Yes . . . the watch. You were right to sense its sinister residue. It’s actually a memento of my first successful case.’ He paused significantly. ‘No doubt you’ve heard of the murderer Harry Crisp?’
My eyes grew round. ‘Not the coin-in-the-slot killer?’
‘Er, no. That was Clive Dilson.’
‘Oh! You mean the one who kept heads in the fridge?’
‘No . . . that was Colin Buchanan-Prescott.’
I scratched my chin. ‘In that case, I’ve never heard of him.’
‘Oh.’ Lockwood seemed slightly deflated. ‘I’m a little surprised. Do they have papers in the north of England? Well, it was thanks to me that Harry Crisp got put away. I was doing a sweep of the neighbourhood in Tooting, out hunting Type Twos, you see, and I noticed all the death-glows in his garden. They’d been missed because he’d cunningly scattered iron filings everywhere after the killings, to suppress the ghosts. And it turned out later that, while wearing that watch, it had been his beastly habit to lure—’
‘Dinner!’ George was leaning over the top of the spiral stairs, a ladle in his hand.
‘I’ll tell you about it another time,’ Lockwood said. ‘We’d better go. George gets tetchy if we let the food get cold.’
If I knew straight away that I liked the oddities of my new home, I soon formed opinions about my fellow agents too. And right from the outset these opinions diverged markedly. Lockwood, I already liked. He seemed a world away from the remote and treacherous Agent Jacobs; his zest and personal commitment were clear. Here was someone I felt I could follow; someone perhaps to trust.
But George Cubbins? No. He bothered me. I made heroic efforts not to get annoyed with him that first day, but it wasn’t humanly possible.
Take his appearance. There was something about it that acted as a trigger to one’s worst instincts. His face was uniquely slappable – a nun would have ached to punch him – while his backside cried out to heaven for a well-placed kick. He slouched, he slumped, he scuffed his way about the house like something soft about to melt. His shirt was always untucked, his trainers extra-big, the laces trailing. I’ve seen reanimated corpses with better deportment than George.
And that flop of hair! And those silly glasses! Everything about him irritated me.
He also had a particular trick of staring at me in a blank, expressionless sort of way that was somehow also rudely contemplative. It was like he was analysing all my faults, and simply wondering which I was going to display next. For my part I did my best to be polite during the first evening meal, and restrained my basic instincts, which were to hit him over the head with a spade.
Later that night, coming down from my bedroom, I lingered for a moment on the first-floor landing. I glanced through the bookshelves, inspected the Polynesian ghost-chaser . . . and suddenly found myself standing outside the other bedroom door, the one Lockwood had said was private. It was a very ordinary-looking door. There was a faint pale rectangle marked on the wood grain, just below head height, where a sign or sticker had been removed. Otherwise it was entirely blank. It didn’t seem to have a lock.
It would have been easy to peep inside, but clearly that would have been wrong. I was just regarding the door speculatively when George Cubbins emerged from his room, a folded newspaper under his arm. He glanced across. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but that’s the forbidden room.’
‘Oh – the door?’ I stepped away from it casually. ‘Yes . . . Why does he keep it shut?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you ever looked in?’
‘No.’ The spectacles regarded me. ‘Course not. He asked me not to.’
‘Of course, of course. Quite right. So . . .’ I smiled as amiably as I could. ‘How long have you lived here?’
‘About a year.’
‘So you obviously know Anthony well?’
The plump boy pushed his glasses briskly up his nose. ‘What is this? Another interview? It had better be a quickie. I’m on my way to the bathroom here.’
‘Sorry, yes. I was just wondering about the house and how he came to have it. I mean, it’s got all this stuff in it, and yet Lockwood’s here on his own. I mean, I don’t see how—’
‘What you mean,’ George interrupted, ‘is: where are the parents? Correct?’
I nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘He doesn’t like to talk about them – as you’ll find out, if you last long enough to ask him. I think they were psychical researchers of some kind: you can tell that from all the objects on the walls. They were rich too: you can tell that from the house. Anyway, they’re long gone. I believe Lockwood was in care for years with a relative of some kind. Then he trained as an agent with “Gravedigger” Sykes, and got the house back somehow.’ He adjusted his newspaper and marched across the landing. ‘No doubt you can use your psychic sensitivity to find out more.’
But I was frowning after him. ‘Into care? So does that mean his parents—’
‘One way or another, I should think it means they’re dead.’ And with that he closed the bathroom door.
Well, it isn’t hard to guess which colleague I favoured, as I lay awake that night under the attic eaves. On the one hand: Anthony Lockwood – vigorous and energetic, eager to throw himself into each new mystery; a boy who was clearly never happier than when walking into a haunted room, his hand resting lightly on his sword hilt. On the other: George Cubbins, handsome as a freshly opened tub of margarine, as charismatic as a wet tea towel lying scrumpled on the floor. I guessed he was never happier than when surrounded by dusty files and piled plates of food, and – since he was prickly with it, and seemed to find me irksome – I resolved to keep away from him as far as I could. But it already pleased me to think of walking into darkness with Lockwood at my side.
8
Late morning was Lockwood’s favourite time for meeting new clients. It gave him a chance to recover from any expeditions of the night before. He always received his guests in the same living room where I’d had my interview, probably because its friendly sofas and displays of oriental ghost-catchers provided an appropriate atmosphere for discussions that bridged the banal and the strange.
On my first full day at Portland Row a single new client came by appointment at eleven o’clock: a gentleman in his early sixties, puffy-faced and plaintive, a few thin strands of hair slicked despondently across his skull. Lockwood sat with him at the coffee table. George was positioned some way off at a slope-sided writing desk, taking notes from the meeting in the big black casebook. I had no part in the conversation. I sat in a chair at the back of the room, list
ening to what went on.
The gentleman had a problem with his garage. His grand-daughter refused to go in, he said. She claimed she’d seen things, but she was a hysterical girl and he hardly knew whether to believe her. Still, against his better judgement (here he blew out his cheeks to emphasize his extreme reluctance), he’d come to us for a consultation.
Lockwood was politeness itself. ‘How old is your grand-daughter, Mr Potter?’
‘Six. She’s a silly little minx at the best of times.’
‘And what does she say she’s seen?’
‘I can’t get any sense out of her. A young man, standing at the far end of the garage, beside the tea crates. Says he’s very thin.’
‘I see. And is he always in the same place, or does he move at all?’
‘Just stands there, she says. First time out, she reckons she spoke to him, but he never answered her, only stared. I don’t know as she’s making it up. She hears enough about Visitors in the playground.’
‘Possibly, Mr Potter, possibly. And you’ve never noticed anything odd in the garage yourself? It’s not unreasonably cold, for example?’
A shake of the head. ‘It’s chilly . . . but it’s a garage, so what do you expect? And before you ask me: nothing’s happened there. No one’s . . . you know – died or anything. It’s a new-build, only five years old, and I always keep it safely locked.’
‘I see . . .’ Lockwood clasped his hands together. ‘Do you keep pets, Mr Potter?’
The man blinked; with a stubby finger he encouraged a long droop of hair back onto his forehead. ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.’
‘I just wondered if you had a dog, perhaps, or cats.’
‘The wife’s got two cats. Milk-white Siamese. Stuck-up, bony little things.’
‘And do they often go into the garage?’
The man considered. ‘No. They don’t like it there. Give it a wide berth. I’ve always thought it’s because they don’t like getting their precious little coats dirty, what with all the dust and cobwebs everywhere.’
Lockwood looked up. ‘Ah, you have a problem with garage spiders, Mr Potter?’
‘Well, there’s a colony there, or something. They seem to spin new webs fast as I can brush them away. But it’s that time of year, isn’t it?’
‘I couldn’t say. Well, I’m happy to look into this. If it’s convenient we’ll be along tonight, shortly after curfew. Meanwhile, I’d keep your grand-daughter out of that garage, if I were you.’
‘What’s your opinion of the case, Ms Carlyle?’ Lockwood asked, as we sat on the eastbound bus that evening. It was the final service on that route before curfew, the seats empty of adults, but crowded with children heading off for night-watch duties in the factories. Some were still half asleep; others stared dully through the windows. Their watch-sticks – six feet long, tipped with iron – bounced and rattled in the racks beside the door.
‘Sounds like a weak Type One,’ I said, ‘since it’s staying put and making no obvious moves towards the girl. But I wouldn’t want to take it for granted.’ My lips tightened as I spoke; I thought of the little shape glowing in the darkness of the haunted mill.
‘Quite right,’ Lockwood said. ‘Best prepare for the worst. Besides, he says the place is thick with spiders.’
‘You know about spiders, right, Miss Carlyle?’ George was sitting on the seat in front; he glanced casually back towards me.
It’s a commonly known fact that while cats can’t stand ghosts, spiders love them. Or, at least, they love the psychic emanation that some ghosts give off. Strong Sources, remaining active and undisturbed over many years, are often choked by layer upon layer of dusty webs laid there by generations of eager spiders. It’s one of the first things agents look out for. Those trails of webbing can lead you directly to the spot. Everyone knew that. Mr Potter’s six-year-old grand-daughter probably knew that.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know about spiders.’
‘Good,’ George said. ‘Just checking.’
We alighted in an eastern district of the great grey city, not far north of the river. Narrow terraced streets clustered in the shadow of the dockland cranes. With dusk, the local shops were shutting up: psychic healing booths, cheapjack iron dealers, self-proclaimed specialists offering ghost-wards from Korea and Japan. As always in my first few weeks in London, the sheer scale of it all made my head spin. People hurried homeward on every side. At the crossroads, the local ghost-lamp was powering up, the shutters slowly rising.
Lockwood led the way down a side-street, rapier glinting beneath a long, heavy greatcoat that swung stylishly behind him. George and I trotted alongside.
‘As usual, Lockwood,’ George said, ‘we’re doing this all too fast. You didn’t give me enough time to properly research the house and street. I could have found out lots of background if you’d given me an extra day.’
‘Yes, but research only goes so far,’ Lockwood said. ‘There’s no substitute for actually exploring. Besides, I thought Ms Carlyle would enjoy the expedition. She might hear something.’
‘Can be a risky business being a Listener,’ George remarked. ‘There was that girl working for Epstein and Hawkes last year. Good ears, incredibly sensitive insight. But she got so freaked out by all the voices she heard, she ended up jumping in the Thames.’
I smiled thinly. ‘Marissa Fittes had my kind of Talent too,’ I said. ‘She didn’t jump anywhere.’
Anthony Lockwood laughed. ‘Well said, Ms Carlyle! Right, shut up now, George. We’re here.’
Our client’s house was one of four unremarkable semi-detached properties set in the middle of an otherwise terraced street. It was of fairly modern construction. The garage was a solid brick affair, with an up-and-over metal door at the front, and a side-door that joined up with the kitchen. The garage interior contained three old motorbikes in various stages of repair, this being Mr Potter’s hobby. There was also a long workbench and a wall of tool racks, and, towards the rear, a great stack of tea crates, mostly filled with second-hand parts and wheels and dismantled engines.
The first thing we noticed was that though the workbench and tool racks were relatively clean, the storage area was thinly laid with fresh grey webbing. Shimmering threads hung between the crates and slanted down towards the floor; in the light of our torches, large-bodied spiders could be seen moving stealthily on unknown errands.
We spent the first few hours carefully taking measurements and making observations. George in particular zealously recorded the minutest drops in temperature, but we all noticed a supernatural chill developing as the hour grew late. A sour miasma rose up too – a smell of faint decay. Towards midnight, there was a frisson in the air; I felt my neck hairs prickle. A faint apparition appeared in the furthest corner of the garage, close beside the crates. It was very quiet and still; a man-sized nimbus of pale cloud. We watched it quietly, hands ready at our belts, but there was no sense of imminent threat. After lingering for ten minutes, the figure vanished. The air cleared.
‘A young man,’ Lockwood said. ‘Wearing some kind of leather uniform. Anyone else get that?’
I shook my head. ‘Sorry, no. My Sight’s not as good as yours. But—’
‘It’s clear enough what we’ve got here, Lockwood,’ George interrupted. ‘I saw the uniform, and it confirms what I guessed before we came inside. This is quite a modern house. Most of the other buildings in the street are older, pre-war terraces. Once upon a time there would have been a terraced house here too, right where we’re standing. But it’s gone. Why? Because it was bombed in one of the air-raids in the war. The bomb that destroyed the house probably killed the man we just saw. He’s a Blitz ghost, maybe a soldier home on leave, and his remains are in the ground somewhere under our feet.’ He tucked his pen decisively in his trouser pocket, took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt.
Lockwood frowned. ‘You think? Maybe . . . Though I don’t get any death-glows here.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtf
ully. ‘If so, our client won’t be happy. It’s going to cost him to knock the garage down.’
George shrugged. ‘Tough. He needs to find the bones. What else can he do?’
‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘but I don’t agree with you.’
They looked across at me. ‘What?’ George said.
‘I didn’t see the Visitor as well as you, of course,’ I said, ‘but I perhaps noticed something you missed. I caught a voice just before the apparition faded out. Did you hear it? No? Well, the words were very faint but quite distinctive. “No time. Couldn’t check the brakes.” That was what it said. It repeated it twice over.’
‘Well, what does that mean?’ George demanded.
‘It means,’ I said, ‘that the Source may not be under the floor, and it may be nothing to do with the Blitz. I think it’s one of those crates. What are they filled with?’
‘Junk,’ George said.
‘Motor parts,’ Lockwood said.
‘Yes, parts of old motorbikes that our client’s picked up all over the place. Well, where do they come from? What’s their history? I just wonder whether one of them might come from a machine that was once involved in an accident – perhaps a fatal one.’
George snorted. ‘A road accident? You think the Source is a broken motorbike?’
‘Could the ghost’s outfit have been biker’s leathers?’ I said.
There was a pause. Lockwood nodded slowly. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘they just might have been, at that . . . Well, we’ll have to check. Tomorrow we’ll ask the client if we can investigate the crates more closely. Meanwhile – thank you, Ms Carlyle, for that very interesting insight. Your Talent doesn’t disappoint!’
Just for the record, I was right. One of the crates contained the smashed remains of a rally motorcycle that provided some very curious readings when we assessed it. We subsequently removed it from the garage and had it sent to the Fittes furnaces, and that was the end of that. But on the night in question, when we finally got back to Portland Row, Lockwood’s praise still rang loudly in my ears. I was too elated to go straight to sleep. Instead of heading to my attic I made a sandwich in the kitchen and then wandered into the library, a room I hadn’t properly explored before.
Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase Page 8