Lockwood & Co.: The Creeping Shadow (9 page)

But did we have any of that today? No.

He was pretty upset about it,
Lockwood had said.

“Nice to see you,” I said. “It’s been a while.”

“Hasn’t it?” said George.

“Funnily enough, we were just saying how nice it would be to see
you
, Luce,” Lockwood said, clapping George on the shoulder. “Weren’t we, George?”

“Yes,” said George. “We were.”

“Yes, and Holly was looking forward to hearing all about your freelance work,” Lockwood went on. “Who you’ve been working with, how you got along with them. You even did something with the Rotwell group, didn’t you, Luce? I hope you’ll tell us about it later.”

With that he did a kind of wave of the arm that led my gaze to Holly.

And there she was. Charming Holly, as pretty and perfect as ever.
She
hadn’t changed much during these last few months; she hadn’t suddenly become saggy or bedraggled or noticeably flawed or anything. In fact, because of the importance of the meeting, she’d dolled herself up even more than usual. She wore the kind of dress you need to be poured into; the sort I would have ripped as soon as I tried wriggling it over my shoulders. It was a dress that would have gotten stuck halfway down my midriff, with my arms trapped and my head covered, and left me bouncing blindly off the walls for hours, half naked, trying to struggle free.
That
sort of dress. For completists, who want the details, it was blue.

Unlike with George and Lockwood, where the four months seemed to have lasted a lifetime, it didn’t feel as if I’d been away from Holly very long at all. Partly this was because I saw her photos in the papers so much. Also because throughout the winter there’d been a sort of Holly-shaped hole in my brain, into which I used to throw dark thoughts. I probably spent too much time there, like a moody Inuk fishing at an ice hole, sitting on the edge, staring in.

“Hello, Holly,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going
so
well, Lucy. It’s lovely to see you again.”

“Yeah. You, too. You look good.”

“So do you. Freelancing obviously suits you. I’d love to hear all about how you’ve been getting on. I’ve heard great things. I think you’re doing
so
well.”

Once upon a time it would have annoyed me, the record number of fibs crammed into that single scrap of dialogue. I was sure Holly had about the same amount of interest in my freelance work as she had in my choice of toothpaste (less, actually—given the way her perfect teeth gleamed so brightly every time she smiled). And everything else was a lie, too, since I clearly
didn’t
look good at all. As always happens when I’m running for a meeting, I only started properly sweating once I’d arrived and was with others. Right now I felt hot, flushed, and disordered, both inside and out.

But, to be honest, it wasn’t my place to get cross with Holly anymore, so I decided to take her niceties at face value.

“Great,” I said. “Thanks. I wish I’d gotten more dolled up, though. I didn’t think to wear a dress.”

“You could try wearing that one,” George said, tapping the pillar, where the gory nightgown worn by the Cumberland Place heiress on the night of her brutal murder dangled on its metal frame.

Lockwood laughed. Holly laughed. Taking my cue, I laughed, too. George didn’t utter so much as a titter. I searched his face for clues. Nothing.

Our laughter ended rather raggedly. We stood in silence. “You’d think someone would hurry up and see us,” Lockwood said.

“So there’s no word yet on what Ms. Fittes wants?” I asked after a pause.

“Not yet.”

“Have you done any work for her before?”

“Well, we’re not really working
for
her now,” Lockwood explained. “As I said, it’s more she’s looking out for us, sending occasional jobs our way.”

“Right.”

“How much are you charging?” George asked suddenly. “With this freelance lark?” He was staring blankly down the hall between the columns.

“Me?” I hesitated, remembering that I still hadn’t sent my invoice to Farnaby for the last job. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t get paid. “Does it matter?”

“No. Except I’m not sure I could survive on my own with what Lockwood gives me, so I guess you’ve had to raise your fees.”

“A bit, I guess. I do okay.”

“So what do you charge?”

I opened my mouth, and closed it. I could see Lockwood frowning; it was hard to know what to say. Fortunately, George’s line of questioning was interrupted that moment by an attendant who reported that Penelope Fittes was ready to receive us.

Two great psychic detection agencies dominated the war against the Problem. If the Rotwell Agency was the brashest and most innovative, the Fittes Agency was the biggest, oldest, and most prestigious. Its chairperson, Penelope Fittes, wielded great influence; even so, she was seldom seen—following an attempt on her life the previous autumn, she had become reclusive and rarely left Fittes House. Industrialists and public figures sought audiences with her; to ordinary people she was less an actual living woman than a name, a symbol, a climate of opinion. To be summoned to her presence was an important accolade.

Her private apartment was on the top floor of the building, but to meet us she had descended to a reception room that was just a short flight of stairs up from the lobby. It was a room of brown and gold. At one end, a large desk overlooking the Strand gave it the feel of a study; the rest was filled with pleasant chairs and sofas, and ornate, rather old-fashioned furniture. There were photographs on the walls and tables, and displays of antique rapiers; the air smelled of sunlight, polish, and expensive furnishings. And of coffee—a pot sat on a central table, with cups arranged around it. Penelope Fittes herself was waiting there; and, with her, as crumpled and hangdog as ever, Inspector Montagu Barnes of DEPRAC, the Department of Psychic Research and Control.

Ms. Fittes greeted us gravely, shaking our hands and indicating our chairs. As always (I had met her on two previous occasions), she was plush and well upholstered, a perfect match for the studied elegance of the room. A strikingly attractive woman, with long dark hair as lushly textured as her dark-mauve velvet dress, she had the kind of beauty that was unsettling because it was so out of the ordinary. It paid no lip service to the commonplace: her skin was lovely, the curves of her cheekbones exquisitely well-defined; her big black eyes were both beguiling and formidable.

She and Lockwood exchanged the usual round of pleasantries. Then she bestowed a smile upon each of us. “Thank you for coming in today,” she said. “Mr. Barnes and I have another meeting shortly, so I will get straight to the matter. As I mentioned on the phone, Anthony, I have a juicy little case that Lockwood and Company may be able to attend to on my behalf. DEPRAC has alerted me to it, and I think it is perfect for you.”

Lockwood nodded. “Thank you, ma’am. We’d be honored.”

I glanced at him; he was all smiles and keen attention. Ordinarily, Lockwood let no one call him by his first name. His dead parents had done so; they, and no one else. But Penelope Fittes, stretched back all languorous and catlike in her chair, had used it, and Lockwood hadn’t blinked an eye.

“Solomon Guppy,” she said. “Have any of you heard of him?”

We looked at one another. The name rang a faint bell.

“He was a killer, wasn’t he?” Lockwood said slowly. “Thirty years back? Wasn’t he hanged?”

Ms. Fittes’s lips parted in delight. “A killer, yes, and, yes, he
was
hanged. One of the last in England to pay that penalty before the Ghost Prevention Laws put a stop to capital punishment. It’s said they held back the passing of the laws for a month just so they could see him twitch and dangle. Because he wasn’t only a killer, but a
cannibal
, too.”

“Ick,” I said.

Lockwood clicked his fingers. “Yes,
that’s
right….He ate a neighbor, didn’t he? Or was it two?”

“Can you enlighten us about that, Mr. Barnes?” The lady nodded at the inspector. With his weatherworn raincoat, battered face, and graying shoe-brush mustache, he looked even more out of place in the elegant surroundings than I did.

“Just one, as far as is known,” Barnes said. “It’s thought he invited the victim over for tea one afternoon. The fellow came around, bringing a fruitcake with him. They found the cake on the sideboard a week later, still in its wrapper. It was the only thing that hadn’t been eaten.”

George shook his head. “That’s just wrong. Wrong on so many different levels.”

Penelope Fittes laughed lightly. “Yes, little did the neighbor know he
was
the tea. Tea
and
dinner, as it happened, for several days afterward.”

“I remember the case well,” Barnes said, “though I was just an apprentice on the force at the time. Two of the arresting officers took early retirement after the trial, as a result of what they found when they broke in. Many of the worst details were never disclosed. Anyway, in his confession, Solomon Guppy explained that he’d used a number of recipes—roasted dishes, fricassees, curries, even salads. He was quite experimental.”

“Crackers,” I said.

“I’m not sure about those, but he might have tried them.”

“No, I mean he
was
crackers. He was clearly bonkers. Barking mad.”

“Certainly. Mad
and
bad,” Ms. Fittes said. “It took six policemen to subdue him when he was finally arrested, owing to his size and ferocity. But arrested he was, and hanged and cremated, and salt was strewn over the prison yard where the ashes were interred. In other words, all precautions were taken. But now it seems that his spirit—or that of his victim—has somehow returned to the scene of the crime.” She sat back and engineered one elegant leg over the other. “Mr. Barnes?”

The inspector nodded. “It is a small suburban house in Ealing, west London. The street is called ‘The Leas.’ Guppy’s place was number seven. It’s been left empty since the crime, of course, but people live nearby. It’s been quiet up till now, but recently we’ve had reports of certain disturbances in the vicinity, a terror spreading through the street. Sensitives have traced it back to number seven.”

“The phenomena are very subtle,” Ms. Fittes added, “No apparitions. Mostly—by all accounts—just
sounds
.”

She glanced across at me with her dark and serious eyes. From the tone of her voice, you’d have thought Listening was a trivial psychic Talent. But the flash of her gaze implied it was the most important thing in the world.

Her grandmother had been supreme at it. You only had to read Marissa Fittes’s
Memoirs
to know that. Long ago she had spoken with ghosts, and they’d answered her. Clearly Penelope Fittes knew I had a reputation, too.

“What kinds of sounds?” Lockwood asked.

“Sounds to do with the previous occupant of the house,” Barnes said.

“Mr. Barnes asked me to investigate,” Penelope Fittes said, “and I agreed. However, my agency has many challenges left over from the winter, and most of my best teams are still busy. It struck me that I knew another organization with the necessary skills to take this on.” She smiled. “What do you think? If you manage it—well, I’m sure I’ll have other cases to pass your way.”

“We’ll be glad to do it,” Lockwood said.

“I’m pleased to hear that, Anthony. Yours is a company that I much admire, and I believe we can do great things together in future. I think of this as a joint venture between us, and I will send a representative of the Fittes Agency to accompany you.”

“It’s the Source that we’re after,” Barnes said. “That goes without saying. The place was cleaned out very thoroughly back when it all happened, but they must have missed something. We want to know what.”

“If that’s all,” Ms. Fittes said, “I’ll introduce you to my secretary, to make arrangements. The house is empty; you can visit tonight, if you’d like.”

She stood, a languid flowing movement. That was our cue; we also stood, as one.

While farewells were being said, I waited by a side table. Photographs of past agents studded its surface like gravestones. There were famous operatives, and famous teams posing below a unicorn banner in some swanky hall. The agents themselves were young, smiling confidently in pressed gray jackets. Adult supervisors stood alongside, hemming them in. In some an old, sharp-faced woman in black, hair scraped sternly up, was also present: Marissa Fittes, the founder of the agency.

But one of the photos was different, and it caught my eye. Black and white and faded, it showed a slight, dark-haired woman sitting in a high-backed chair. The room was filled with shadows. She was looking away from the camera, off toward the light. An air of melancholy hung about her; she seemed both thin and ill.

“That was my mother, who died young.”

I turned with a start. The others were filing out, but Penelope Fittes was at my shoulder, smiling. Strong perfume garlanded her like flowers.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Oh, please don’t be. I barely remember her. It was Grandmama Marissa who ran the household, who built the business, who taught me everything.” She nodded at the woman in the black dress. “Dear Grandmama made me what I am. Everything you see around you is hers.” She touched my arm. “You know I asked for you specifically, Lucy.”

I blinked. “No, I didn’t know that, Ms. Fittes.”

“Yes. When I first mentioned this case to Anthony, he told me you were no longer working with him. That disappointed me, for—between you and me, Lucy—it was because of you and Anthony that I became interested in Lockwood and Company.” Ms. Fittes laughed prettily, her black eyes sparkling. “He is a fine agent, but I have long been an admirer of yours, too. I told him that if he wanted the commission, he would have to get you back.”

“Oh. Did you? It was your idea? That’s…very kind of you.”

“He said he would try. I’m so glad he did, Lucy. I’m so pleased you agreed to rejoin the agency.”

“Well, as it happens I haven’t actually—”

“See how you get on with this case,” Penelope Fittes said. “I have every confidence in your abilities, but I believe that success will depend mainly on you. A skillful Listener will be essential at the Guppy house. Anthony knows that if it goes well, Lockwood and Company will greatly benefit. Now, you had better catch up with your friends.” She waved me on; as I left the room, her scent spiraled around me like twisting arms.