Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy (2 page)

“Mr. and Mrs. Evans?” Lockwood gave a slight bow. “Hello. Anthony Lockwood, of Lockwood and Co. I rang you earlier. These are my associates, Lucy Carlyle and George
Cubbins.”

They gazed at us. For a moment, as if we were conscious that the fate of five people had reached a tipping point, no one spoke.

“What’s it regarding, please?” I don’t know how old the man was—when I see someone older than thirty, time sort of concertinas for me—but he was definitely
closer to coffin than crib. He had wisps of hair oiled back across his scalp, and nets of wrinkles stapled around his eyes. He blinked at us, all absentminded and benign.

“As I said on the phone, we wanted to talk with you about one of your past residents, a Mr. Benton,” Lockwood said. “Part of an official Missing Persons inquiry. Perhaps we
could come in?”

“It’ll be dark soon,” the woman said.

“Oh, it won’t take long.” Lockwood used his best smile. I contributed a reassuring grin. George was too busy staring at the white shape drifting up the street to do anything
other than look nervous.

Mr. Evans nodded; he stepped slowly back and to the side. “Yes, of course, but best to do it quickly,” he said. “It’s late. Not long before
they’ll
be
coming out.”

He was far too old to see the Phantasm, now crossing the road toward us. We didn’t like to mention it either. We just smiled and nodded, and (as swiftly as we decently could without
pushing) followed Mrs. Evans into the house. Mr. Evans let us go past, then shut the door softly, blocking out the night, the ghost, and the rain.

They took us down a long hallway into the public lounge, where a fire flickered in a tiled grate. The decor was the usual: cream woodchip wallpaper, worn brown carpet; ranks of
decorated plates, and prints in ugly golden frames. A few armchairs were scattered about, angular and comfortless, and there was a radio, a liquor cabinet, and a small TV. A big wooden hutch on the
back wall carried cups, glasses, sauce bottles, and other breakfast things; and two sets of folding chairs and plastic-topped tables confirmed that this single room was where guests ate as well as
socialized.

Right now we were the only ones there.

We put our bags down. George wiped the rain off his glasses again; Lockwood ran a hand through damp hair. Mr. and Mrs. Evans stood facing us in the center of the room. Close up, their owl-like
qualities had intensified. They were stoop-necked, round-shouldered, he in a shapeless cardigan, she in a dark woolen dress. They remained standing close together: elderly, but not, I thought,
under all their heavy clothes, particularly frail.

They did not offer us seats; clearly they hoped for a short conversation.

“Benson, you said his name was?” Mr. Evans asked.

“Benton.”

“He stayed here recently,” I said. “Three weeks ago. You confirmed that on the phone. He’s one of several missing people who—”

“Yes, yes. We’ve talked to the police about him. But I can show you the guest book, if you like.” Humming gently, the old man went to the hutch. His wife remained motionless,
watching us. He returned with the book, opened it, and handed it to Lockwood. “You can see his name there.”

“Thank you.” While Lockwood made a show of studying the pages, I did the real work. I listened to the house. It was quiet, psychically speaking. I detected nothing. Okay, there was a
muffled voice coming from my backpack on the floor, but that didn’t count.

“Now’s your chance!”
it whispered.
“Kill them both, and it’s job done!”

I gave the pack a subtle kick with the heel of my boot, and the voice fell silent.

“Can you remember much about Mr. Benton?” In the firelight, George’s doughy face and sandy hair gleamed palely; the swell of his stomach pressed tight against his sweater. He
hitched up his belt, subtly checking the gauge on his thermometer. “Or any of your missing residents, for that matter? Chat with them much at all?”

“Not really,” the old man said. “What about you, Nora?”

Mrs. Evans had nicotine-yellow hair—thin up top, and fixed in position like a helmet. Like her husband’s, her skin was wrinkled, though
her
lines radiated from the corners
of her mouth, as if you might draw her lips tight like the top of a string bag. “No,” she said. “But it’s not surprising. Few of our guests stay long.”

“We cater to the trade,” Mr. Evans added. “Salesmen, you know. Always moving on.”

There was a silence. The room was heavy with the scent of lavender, which keeps unwanted Visitors away. Fresh bunches sat in silver tankards on the mantelpiece and windows. There were other
defenses, too: ornamental house-guards, made of twisted iron and shaped like flowers, animals, and birds.

It was a safe room, almost ostentatiously so.

“Anyone staying here now?” I asked.

“Not at present.”

“How many guest rooms do you have?”

“Six. Four on the second floor, two at the top.”

“And which of them do
you
sleep in?”

“What a lot of questions,” Mr. Evans said, “from such a very young lady. I am of the generation that remembers when children
were
children. Not psychic investigation
agents with swords and an over-inquisitive manner. We sleep on the ground floor, in a room behind the kitchen. Now—I think we have told the police all this. I am not entirely sure why you are
here.”

“We’ll be going soon,” Lockwood said. “If we could just have a look at the room Mr. Benton stayed in, we’ll be on our way.”

How still they were suddenly, like gravestones rising in the center of the lounge. Over by the hutch, George ran his finger down the side of the ketchup bottle. It had a thin layer of dust upon
it.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Mr. Evans said. “The room is made up for new guests. We don’t want it disturbed. All trace of Mr. Benton—and the other
residents—will be long gone. Now…I must ask you to leave.”

He moved toward Lockwood. Despite the carpet slippers, the cardigan on the rounded shoulders, there was decisiveness in the action, an impression of suddenly flexing strength.

Lockwood had many pockets in his coat. Some contained weapons and lock-picking wires; one, to my certain knowledge, had an emergency store of tea bags. From another he took a small plastic card.
“This is a warrant,” he said. “It empowers Lockwood and Co., as DEPRAC-appointed investigation agents, to search any premises that may be implicated in a serious crime or
haunting. If you wish to check, call Scotland Yard. Inspector Montagu Barnes would be happy to talk to you.”

“Crime?” The old man shrank back, biting his lip. “Haunting?”

Lockwood’s smile was wolf-like. “As I said, we just wish to take a look upstairs.”

“There’s nothing supernatural here,” Mrs. Evans said, scowling. “Look around. See the defenses.”

Her husband patted her arm. “It’s all right, Nora. They’re agents. It’s our duty to help them. Mr. Benton, if I recall, stayed in Room Two, on the top floor. Straight up
the stairs, two flights and you’re there. You won’t miss it.”

“Thanks.” Lockwood picked up his duffel bag.

“Why not leave your things?” Mr. Evans suggested. “The stairs are narrow, and it’s a long way up.”

We just looked at him. George and I shrugged our bags onto our backs.

“Well, take your time up there,” Mr. Evans said.

There was no light on upstairs. From the semidarkness of the stairwell, filing after the others, I looked back through the door at the little couple. Mr. and Mrs. Evans stood in the middle of
the lounge, pressed side by side, ruby-red and flickering in the firelight. They were watching us as we climbed, their heads tilted at identical angles, their spectacles four circles of reflected
flame.

“What do you think?” George whispered from above.

Lockwood had paused and was inspecting a heavy fire door halfway up the flight. It was bolted open, flush against the wall. “I don’t know
how
, but they’re guilty.
Guilty as sin.”

George nodded. “Did you see the ketchup? No one’s had breakfast here in a
long
time.”

“They must know it’s all over for them,” I said as we went on. “If something bad happened to their guests up here, we’re going to sense it. They know what Talents
we have. What do they expect us to do when we find out?”

Lockwood’s reply was interrupted by a stealthy tread on the stair behind. Looking back, we caught a glimpse of Mr. Evans’s gleaming face, his hair disarranged, eyes wild and staring.
He reached for the fire door, began swinging it shut…

In a flash Lockwood’s rapier was in his hand. He sprang back down, coat flying—

The fire door slammed, slicing off the light from downstairs. The rapier cracked against wood.

As we stood in the dark, we heard bolts being forced into place. Then we heard our captor laughing through the door.

“Mr. Evans,” Lockwood said, “open this now.”

The old man’s voice was muffled, but distinct. “You should’ve left when you had the chance! Look around all you like. Make yourselves at home! The ghost will have found you by
midnight. I’ll sweep up what’s left in the morning.”

After that it was just the
clump, clump, clump
of carpet slippers fading downstairs.

“Brilliant,”
said the voice from my backpack.
“Outwitted by a senior citizen. Outstanding. What a team.”

I didn’t tell it to shut up this time. It kind of had a point.

H
old it. I suppose I should stop before things start getting messy, and tell you exactly who I am. My name is Lucy Carlyle. I make my living
destroying the risen spirits of the restless dead. I can throw a salt-bomb fifty yards from a standing start, and hold off three Specters with a broken rapier (as I did one time in Berkeley
Square). I’m good with crowbars, magnesium flares, and candles. I walk alone into haunted rooms. I see ghosts, when I choose to look for them, and hear their voices, too. I’m just under
five feet six inches tall, have hair the color of a walnut coffin, and wear size seven ectoplasm-proof boots.

There. Now we’re properly introduced.

So I stood with Lockwood and George on the second-floor landing of the boardinghouse. All of a sudden it was very cold. All of a sudden I could
hear
things.

“Don’t suppose there’s any point trying to break down the door,” George said.

“No point at all….” Lockwood’s voice had that far-off, absent quality it gets when he’s using his Sight. Sight, Listening, and Touch: they’re the main kinds of
psychic Talent. Lockwood has the sharpest eyes of us, and I’m the best at Listening and Touch. George is an all-arounder. He’s mediocre at all three.

I had my finger on the light switch on the wall beside me, but I didn’t flick it on. Darkness stokes the psychic senses. Fear keeps your Talent keen.

We listened. We looked.

“I don’t see anything yet,” Lockwood said finally. “Lucy?”

“I’m getting voices. Whispered voices.” It sounded like a crowd of people, all speaking over one another with the utmost urgency, yet so faint it was impossible to understand a
thing.

“What does your friend in the jar say?”

“It’s not my friend.” I prodded the backpack. “Skull?”

“There’s ghosts up here. Lots of them. So…
now
do you accept that you should’ve stabbed the old codger when you had the chance? If you’d listened to me,
you wouldn’t
be
in this mess, would you?”

“We’re
not
in a mess!” I snapped. “And, by the way, we can’t just stab a suspect! I keep telling you this! We didn’t even know they were guilty
then!”

Lockwood cleared his throat meaningfully. Sometimes I forget that the others can’t hear the ghost’s half of the conversation.

“Sorry,” I said. “He’s just being annoying, as usual. Says there’s lots of ghosts.”

The luminous display on George’s thermometer flashed briefly in the dark. “Temp update,” he said. “It’s dropped eight degrees since the foot of the
stairs.”

“Yes. That fire door acts as a barrier.” The pencil beam of Lockwood’s flashlight speared downward and picked out the ridged gray surface of the door. “Look, it’s
got iron bands on it. That keeps our nice little old couple safe in their living quarters on the ground floor. But anyone who rents a room up here falls victim to something lurking in the
dark….”

He turned the flashlight beam wide and circled it slowly around us. We were standing just below a shabby landing—neat enough, but cheaply furnished with purple curtains and an old cream
carpet. Several numbered plywood doors gleamed dully in the shadows. A few dog-eared magazines lay in a pile on an ugly bureau, near where a further flight of stairs led to the top floor. It was
supernaturally cold, and there was ghost-fog stirring. Faint wreaths of pale green mist were rising from the carpet and winding slowly around our ankles. The flashlight began to flicker, as if its
(fresh) battery were failing and would soon wink out altogether. A feeling of unquantifiable dread deepened in us. I shivered. Something wicked was very close.

Lockwood adjusted his gloves. His face glowed in the flashlight beam, his dark eyes shone. As always, peril suited him. “All right,” he said softly. “Listen to me. We keep
calm, we take care of whatever’s up here, then we find a way to tackle Evans. George, rig up an iron circle here. Lucy, see what else the skull has to say. I’ll check out the nearest
room.”