George plucked several of the papers from the desk. I didn’t wait for him to start, but launched right in.
‘You know what your problem is?’ I said. ‘You’re jealous.’
George stared. ‘Of what?’
‘Of me.’
He gave a harsh guffaw. Over in the corner, the head in the ghost-jar aped his outrage. It made a face of theatrical dismay. ‘Oh sure!’ George said. ‘You’re fantastic. You’ve just burned down our client’s house. You’re our best assistant yet.’
‘Too right I am. The last one’s dead.’
He hesitated. ‘That’s not the point.’
‘It’s exactly the point. Remind me how Robin died again.’
‘Met a Raw-bones. Panicked and ran off a roof.’
‘Right, whereas I’ve survived, and have done so out on the front line. Which is where you seldom go, George. And it’s starting to get to you, isn’t it? You’re feeling a bit left out. Well, tough. And don’t try to make me feel guilty for going out and doing things. This job’s not all about dusty books. It’s about efficient action.’
‘OK.’ He pushed his glasses up his pudgy nose. ‘OK. Maybe you’re right. I’ll have to think about what you said. While I’m doing that, perhaps you can take a little peek at this dusty old research I did yesterday, while you were back here efficiently forgetting to pack your iron chains. This first bit of paper’s from the Housing Registry. It’s for Sixty-two Sheen Road, where you’ve just been. Gives a run-down of all the owners of the house for the last hundred years. Look, there’s Mr and Mrs Hope at the end, but you knew about them. What you didn’t know about was this one: a Miss Annabel E. Ward, who bought it fifty years ago. Remember that name a minute. Now, the reason I was so long yesterday was that I was down at the National Archives, cross-referencing all these names against stories from the newspapers. Why? Because I don’t like surprises, and funnily enough, I did find a surprise. You see, I was just wondering if any of these owners had come to public attention for any reason. And – guess what? – one of them had.’
With ink-stained fingers he pushed another sheet of paper forward on the desk, a smudged photocopy of a small newspaper article. It was from the Richmond Examiner, dated forty-nine years before.
* * *
MISSING GIRL: POLICE APPEAL FOR HELP
Police investigating the disappearance of popular young socialite, Miss Annabel Ward, yesterday appealed for fresh information from the public.
Miss Ward, 20, of Sheen Road, Richmond, has not been seen since late on the night of Saturday 21st June, when she dined with a group of friends at the Gallops nightclub on Chelsea Bridge Road. She left shortly before midnight, and failed to keep an appointment the following day. Detectives have since questioned her circle of associates, but have yet to make a breakthrough with the case. Anyone with any information is urged to call the number below.
Searches for the missing girl, an aspiring actress a familiar figure on the society circuit, have been carried out in and around her home and surrounding areas over the last few days. Police frogmen are searching ponds and rivers. Meanwhile Miss Ward’s father, Mr Julian Ward, has issued a statement, offering a substantial reward for any
* * *
‘Having trouble reading it?’ George said. ‘Don’t blame you. Must’ve got, ooh, at least two paragraphs. Let me help you figure it out. They don’t mention her exact address, but I think it’s pretty obvious this Annabel Ward must be the same one from the Housing Registry. The dates fit too. So she lived at Sixty-two Sheen Road, the house where you and Lockwood were busy investigating an apparition. Coincidence? Maybe, but finding this made me sit up and take notice. So I hurried home to tell you – only when I got there, surprise, surprise, off you’d gone already. Even then, I wasn’t worried. I thought you were well equipped. It was only later that I saw you’d left the chains behind.’
Silence. The ghost in the jar had now devolved into a grainy, luminous mass of plasm, swirling slowly like green water at the bottom of a well.
‘So what about it?’ George said. ‘Any of this fit with your experiences last night?’
It was like a hole had opened in me somewhere, and all my anger had drained through it. I just felt very weary now. ‘Got a picture of her?’ I said.
Of course he had. He stretched out among the papers. ‘That’s all I’ve got so far.’
From another edition of the Examiner. A girl in a long fur coat, caught in flashlights as she stepped outdoors. Slim glimpse of leg, bright teeth, primped hair up in a beehive look. She was probably coming out of one of those society clubs or bars the papers loved so much. If she’d been alive now, she’d have been a glassy-eyed half-page feature in one of Lockwood’s magazines, and I’d have hated her.
As it was, I only saw that other face – eyeless, shrunken and cupped in cobwebs – propped behind the bricks. It made me very sad.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s her.’
‘Grand,’ George said. He didn’t say anything else.
‘It says they searched her house,’ I murmured. ‘They can’t have looked very hard.’
We stood by the table staring at the photo and forgotten newspaper, fifty years old.
‘Whoever hid her did the job well,’ George said at last. ‘And this was before the Problem was widely accepted, don’t forget. They wouldn’t have sent any psychics in.’
‘But why wouldn’t the ghost make trouble from the start? Why the long time-gap?’
‘Could be as simple as too much iron in the house. An iron bedstead in that room might have been enough. If the Hopes did a clearout, changed the furniture, that would have freed the Source again.’
‘They did make a change,’ I said. ‘He turned it into a study.’
‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.’ George took off his glasses and rubbed them on his untucked shirt.
‘I’m sorry, George. You were right. We should have waited.’
‘Well, I should have gone out to join you. It’s so hard to get a night cab . . .’
‘There was no call for me to get so mad. I’m just worried. I hope he’s all right.’
‘He’ll be OK. Look, I shouldn’t have lost my temper – or kicked that fertility gourd. I broke it, didn’t I?’
‘Oh, he’ll never notice. Just put it back on the shelf.’
‘Yeah.’ Back went the glasses. He looked at me. ‘I’m sorry about your arm.’
We’d probably have carried on being sorry about stuff indefinitely, but right then I was distracted by the face in the jar, which had stealthily re-emerged and was now pulling expressions of extravagant disgust. ‘That thing can’t hear us, can it?’
‘Not through silver-glass. Let’s go back up. I’ll make you something to eat.’
I headed for the spiral stairs. ‘You’ll have to wash up first. That’ll take some time.’
I was right. So much time, in fact, that I’d bathed and changed, and come stiffly downstairs again before George had got the eggs and bacon on the plate. I was just parking my sprained elbow on the table and reaching gingerly for the salt when the doorbell rang again.
George and I looked at each other. We both went to the door.
Lockwood stood there.
His coat was torn and burned, his shirt ripped at the collar. His face was scratched; he had the bright staring eyes and hollow cheekbones of an invalid risen from his bed. Far from being swollen, as I’d feared, he seemed thinner than ever. When he stepped slowly into the hall’s light, I saw that his left hand was bandaged in thin white gauze.
‘Hi, George,’ he said, and his voice shook. ‘Hi, Lucy . . .’ He wobbled, seemed about to fall. We rushed forward to support him between us, and Lockwood acknowledged us with a smile. ‘Glad to be home,’ he said, and then, ‘Hey, what happened to my gourd?’
10
Whether the chill of the ghost-touch still ran in his veins, or whether his other injuries – together with his long interrogations at Scotland Yard – had simply exhausted hi
m, Lockwood was in a ropy state all day. He slept (as I did) for much of the morning; at lunch he ate little, scarcely picking at George’s fresh-made cottage pie and peas. He moved slowly; he hardly spoke, which for Lockwood was unusual. After lunch he went into the living room and sat with his wounded arm swathed in hot-water bottles, staring dully out of the window.
George and I stayed near him in companionable silence throughout the afternoon. I read a cheap detective novel. George conducted experiments on the trapped ghost in the jar, using a small electrical circuit to apply shocks to the glass. Whether out of protest, or for some other reason, the ghost did not respond.
Towards four o’clock, when the light was already failing, Lockwood startled us both by suddenly asking for our casebook. It was the first time he’d said anything for hours.
‘What’ve we got coming up, George?’ he said, when the black ledger had been fetched. ‘What cases have we got outstanding?’
George turned the pages to the latest entries. ‘Not a great deal,’ he said. ‘Got a report of a “terrifying black shape” seen in an off-licence car park, early evening. Could be anything from a Dark Spectre to a Grey Haze. We were going to visit it tonight, but I’ve rung them to postpone . . . We’ve also got a “sinister rapping sound” heard in a house in Neasden . . . Possibly a Stone Knocker, even a weak Poltergeist, but again there’s not enough info yet to be sure. Then there’s a “dark, still shadow” seen at the bottom of a Finchley garden – probably a Lurker or a Shade . . . Oh, and an urgent request from Mrs Eileen Smithers of Chorley. Every night, when alone in the small hours, she hears—’
‘Hold it,’ Lockwood said. ‘Eileen Smithers? Didn’t we work for her before?’
‘We did. That time it was a “ghastly disembodied howling” resounding about her lounge and kitchen. We thought it might be a Screaming Spirit. In fact it was her neighbour’s cat, Bumbles, trapped inside the cavity wall.’
Lockwood made a face. ‘Oh Lord, I remember. And this time?’
‘An “eerie, child-like wailing” heard in her attic. Starts around midnight, when—’
‘It’ll be the bloody cat again.’ Lockwood removed his left hand from beneath the water bottles and flexed the fingers carefully. The skin was slightly blue. ‘All in all, it’s not the most thrilling programme in the history of psychical detection, is it? Lurkers, Shades, and Bumbles the ginger tom . . . What happened to the good cases, like the Mortlake Horror and the Dulwich Wraith?’
‘If by “good” you mean a powerful, challenging ghost,’ I said, ‘last night’s was pretty fine. Trouble was – we weren’t expecting it.’
‘As the police at Scotland Yard repeatedly pointed out to me,’ Lockwood growled. ‘No, by “good”, I mean cases that might make us some money. None of this stuff’s exactly big time.’ He subsided back into his chair.
It was rare for Lockwood to mention money; it wasn’t his usual motivation. There was an uncomfortable silence. ‘Funnily enough, George has found out a bit about our ghost-girl,’ I said brightly. ‘Tell him about it, George.’
George had been dying to get it off his chest all day. He whipped the article out of his pocket and read it through. Lockwood – who seldom had much interest in the identity of Visitors, even when they hadn’t injured him – listened indifferently.
‘Annabel Ward?’ he said at last. ‘So that was her name? I wonder how she died . . .’
‘And who it was who killed her,’ I added.
Lockwood shrugged. ‘Fifty years is a long time. We’ll never know. I’m more concerned about now. Her ghost has created a real mess for us. The police aren’t at all happy about the fire.’
‘So what did happen with them last night?’ George said.
‘Not much. They took my statement. I argued our case pretty well – dangerous Visitor, our lives at risk, had to act on the spur of the moment, all the obvious stuff. But they didn’t seem convinced.’ He broke off, stared out of the window again.
‘And now?’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘We’ll have to see what happens.’
As to that, we found out sooner than expected. Not twenty minutes later a brusque hammering sounded on the front door. George went to answer it. He returned with a blue-fringed visiting card and an expression of grim dismay.
‘Mr Montagu Barnes of DEPRAC,’ he said bleakly. ‘Are you at home?’
Lockwood groaned. ‘I’ll have to be. He knows I’m in no state to go out today. All right. Show him in.’
The Department of Psychical Research and Control, or DEPRAC, is one of the most powerful organizations in the country. It’s sort of part of the government, and sort of part of the police, but is actually run by lots of old operatives who’ve grown too slow and decrepit even to be supervisors any more. One of their main jobs is to keep tabs on the agencies and make sure we all follow the rules.
Inspector Barnes liked the rules more than most. He was famously officious and had a deep dislike of anything that didn’t follow DEPRAC guidelines to the letter. Lockwood and George had crossed paths with him on several occasions, mostly before I’d joined the company. This was the first time I’d seen him at close quarters, so I studied him with interest as he entered the living room.
He was a small man, wearing a dark, rather crumpled suit. His shoes were brown and scuffed, his trousers just too long for him. He was dressed in a long brown raincoat that extended to his knees, and had a brown-suede bowler on his head. His hair was lank and thin, except under his nose, where sat a resplendent moustache, as coarse and tufty as a brand-new scrubbing brush. His age was uncertain; perhaps he was a lived-in fifty. To me he seemed inexpressibly old, one short step from becoming a Visitor himself. He had a melancholy, drawn expression, as if all light and joy had been surgically removed from his person under anaesthetic, leaving his skin loose and saggy beneath the eyes. These eyes, however, were shrewd and keen.
Lockwood rose stiffly, gave him a cordial enough greeting and ushered him to a seat. George removed the ghost-jar to the sideboard and concealed it under the spotted veil. I went to make some tea.
When I got back, Barnes was sitting in the middle of the sofa, still wearing his coat and hat, his hands flat on wide-spaced knees. It was a posture that managed to be both domineering and awkward at the same time. He was staring at the collection of artefacts on the wall.
‘Most people,’ he was saying in a somewhat nasal voice, ‘make do with landscapes or rows of ducks. This stuff can’t be hygienic. What’s that moth-eaten thing?’
‘Tibetan spirit-pole,’ Lockwood said. ‘At least a hundred years old. My guess is that the lamas somehow directed roaming ghosts into those hollow metal globes hanging between the flags. Clever of you to pick it out, Mr Barnes; it’s one of the best pieces in my collection.’
The inspector snorted into his moustache. ‘Looks more like foreign mumbo-jumbo, if you ask me . . .’ He pulled his gaze round to meet with ours. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m pleased to see you’re both in such good shape. Surprised too. When I saw you in the garden last night, I thought you’d be in hospital for a week.’ There was just enough ambiguity in his tone to make me wonder if he’d perhaps hoped for this outcome as well.
Lockwood made a regretful gesture. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stay and help out,’ he said. ‘I wanted to, but the doctors were insistent.’
‘Oh, you couldn’t have done anything,’ Barnes said. ‘You’d just have got in the way. It was a heroic effort by the fire-fighters and agents who fought the blaze. They managed to save the bulk of the house. But the upper floor is a complete write-off, thanks to you.’
Lockwood nodded stiffly. ‘I’ve made my statement to your colleagues at the Yard.’
‘I know. And I’ve spoken with Mrs Hope, whose house you destroyed.’
‘Ah. And how’s she doing?’
‘She’s distraught, Mr Lockwood, as you might imagine. I couldn’t get much sense out of her. But she and her daughter are also very angry, and they’re dema
nding compensation. This my tea? Lovely.’ He took a cup.
Lockwood’s face, already pale, grew paler. ‘I quite understand that they’re upset,’ he said, ‘but, speaking as professionals, accidents like this happen in our work. Lucy and I dealt with a dangerous Type Two which had killed before and was threatening our lives. Yes, the collateral damage was unfortunate, but I trust DEPRAC will support us in meeting any costs that—’
‘DEPRAC won’t help you with a penny of it,’ Barnes said, sipping his tea. ‘That’s why I’m here. I’ve already checked with my superiors, and they take the view that you disregarded several basic safety procedures in your investigations at Sheen Road. Most crucially, you chose to engage with the Visitor without your iron chains: the fire was a direct result of that decision.’ The inspector wiped his moustache dry with the side of a finger. ‘As far as compensation goes, you’re on your own.’
‘But this is ridiculous,’ Lockwood said. ‘Surely we can—’
‘There’s no “we” about it!’ Barnes seemed suddenly irate. He got to his feet, brandishing the cup. ‘If you and Ms Carlyle had done the sensible thing – if you’d left the house when you’d first encountered the Visitor, if you’d returned with better equipment or’ – he glared round at us – ‘with better agents, that house would still be standing! It’s your fault, and I’m afraid I can’t help you. Which brings me to the real point.’ He took a packet from his coat pocket. ‘I’ve an envelope here from the Hope family solicitors. They’re demanding immediate settlement for the damage caused by the fire. The sum is sixty thousand pounds. You’ve four weeks to pay up, or they’ll launch court proceedings against you.’ He pursed his lips. ‘I hope you’re as well off as you seem to be, Mr Lockwood, because I can assure you that if you fail to meet this obligation, DEPRAC will have to wind your agency up, shut Lockwood and Co. down.’
Nobody moved. Lockwood and I sat as if we’d both been ghost-locked. Slowly, George took off his glasses and wiped them on his jumper.
Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase Page 10