Lockwood (21 page)

Lockwood nodded. ‘You’ve been very clear. Come on, Suse.’

‘No,’ Julius Winkman said. ‘Not like that. You don’t get to walk out of here.’ Bear-like hands shot out and seized us, me by the forearm, Lockwood by the collar; without effort he pulled us both inwards, close to him, then lifted us off the floor. The grip was tight; I cried out in pain. Lockwood struggled, but could do nothing. ‘Look at you,’ Winkman said. ‘Without your silly uniforms and poncy swords, you’re nothing but kids. Kids! This is the first time, so you get off lightly. Next time, I won’t be so restrained. Leopold – the door!’

The boy hopped over, swung the door aside. Light spilled in, the doorbell tinkled sweetly. Julius Winkman lifted me up and back, then flung me bodily out into the sunlight. The muscles in my arm wrenched; I landed heavily and fell forward onto my knees. A moment later Lockwood landed beside me, bounced once upon his backside, and skidded to a dusty halt. Behind us, we heard the door to the Bloomsbury Antiques Emporium being softly, but firmly, closed.

An hour later, two bruised tourist kids arrived home. We trudged through the gate and up the path, past the hanging bell and the broken line of iron tiles that I still hadn’t got round to mending. I leaned against the wall while Lockwood felt for the keys.

‘How’s your hand?’ I said.

‘Sore.’

‘Bottom?’

‘Sorer.’

‘That didn’t go so well, did it?’

Lockwood opened the door. ‘I had to see what was in his private room. There was just a chance the mirror might have been back there. But it was all racing forms and account books – and a half-finished jigsaw that his revolting son must’ve been doing. Winkman keeps the hot stuff somewhere else, of course.’ He sighed, and hitched up his enormous Bermudas as we proceeded down the hall. ‘Still, I suppose the afternoon wasn’t entirely wasted. We’ve seen what sort of fellow Mr Winkman is first hand, and we won’t underestimate him again. I wonder if George has had better luck.’

‘I certainly have!’ The kitchen door swung open. George was sitting at the table, aglow with vitality, a pencil and a breadstick protruding from his mouth. His eyes widened as he saw our outfits. ‘Blimey. Are those shorts you’re wearing, Lockwood, or are you trying to take flight?’

Lockwood didn’t answer, but stood in the doorway, casting morose eyes over the crisp packets, teacups, photocopied sheets and open notebooks littering the table. I went to put the kettle on. ‘They’re shorts,’ I said. ‘We’ve been undercover, but we’ve not had a very good day. I see
you’ve
been busy, though. Any progress?’

‘Yeah, I’ve been getting somewhere at last,’ George said. ‘Heat. Proper heat might just be the answer. Not solar heat, mind; that just makes the plasm shrink. I’m talking thermal. I popped that skull in the oven last night, and I tell you, it soon got that ghost nicely worked up. The plasm started twirling and coiling at 150 degrees. Turns out
that’s
the magic number. Soon the face appeared, and then I honestly think it started talking! Couldn’t actually hear it, of course – I needed
you
there for that, Luce – but if my lip-reading’s anything to go by, it knows some pretty ripe language. Anyway, it’s a giant leap, and I’m rather chuffed with myself.’ He leaned triumphantly back in his chair.

I felt a flash of irritation. The skull had recently spoken with me – and at room temperature, no less. These endless experiments seemed suddenly tiresome.

Lockwood only looked at him. I could sense the pressure building in the room. I said: ‘Yeah, we found the skull-jar in the oven this morning. We were a
little
surprised . . . What I was really talking about was the whole Bickerstaff thing.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got news for you on that score too.’ George took a complacent crunch on his breadstick. ‘Tell you what about ovens. They don’t make them big enough. I could barely get the jar in – and now it’s stuck! I mean, it’s a poor show. What if it had been a whopping Christmas roast?’

‘Yes,’ I said coolly. ‘How strange would
that
be?’ I found some mugs, plonked tea bags in.

‘Ah, but this could be such a breakthrough,’ George was saying. ‘Just think, if we could get the dead to speak to us
on demand
. Joplin was saying it’s been the dream of scholars throughout history, and if all it actually took was getting a couple of big ovens and—’

Lockwood gave a sudden cry; he strode forward into the room. ‘Will you
stop
going on about that stupid skull! That’s
not
our priority, George. Are we getting paid for it? No! Is it an imminent danger to people in London? No! Are we racing against Quill Kipps and his team to solve its mystery, and so prevent our public humiliation? No, we aren’t! But all those very things are happening while you bumble about with jars and ovens! Lucy and I have risked our lives today, if it’s of any interest to you.’ He took a deep breath; George was staring at him as if mesmerized. ‘All I ask,’ Lockwood said, ‘is that you
please
try to focus on the job in hand . . . Well? What do you say?’

George pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘Sorry, can you repeat that? It’s those shorts. I couldn’t concentrate on what you were saying.’

The kettle boiled loudly, drowning Lockwood’s brief response. I made three hasty cups of tea, banging the spoon about, rattling the fridge door, trying to fill the ensuing silence. Didn’t really work. The atmosphere wasn’t fast improving. So I doled out the tea like a sullen waitress and went upstairs to get changed.

I took my time about it too. It had been a difficult afternoon, and our encounter with the Winkmans had left me more shaken than I’d admitted to Lockwood. The soft touch of the man’s hand, the implicit violence in his movements . . . I suddenly viewed my silly tourist outfit with extreme dislike. Up in my attic bedroom I dressed swiftly in my usual dark top, skirt and leggings; the heavy-duty boots too. An agent’s clothes. Clothes you didn’t mess with. It was a small thing, but it made me feel a little better. I stood at the window looking out at the dusk, and the silence of Portland Row.

I wasn’t the only one who seemed unsettled. Lockwood’s irritability was unusual. The urgent need to beat Kipps to the mirror was clearly preying on his mind.

Or was it? Maybe it was something else that bothered him. Maybe it was the skull. The skull and its whispered insinuations . . .

On my way downstairs I paused on the first-floor landing. Polynesian spirit-chasers and ghost-wards hung shadowed on the walls. I was alone; I could hear Lockwood and George’s voices below me in the kitchen.

Yes, there it was: the door that must never be opened.

There are other things in the house to fear, besides me.

An impulse overtook me. I tiptoed over and pressed my hands and ear to the wood of the door. I let my inner senses take control,
listening
,
listening
 . . .

No. There was nothing. Really I should just open the door and take a look inside. It was unlocked. What could possibly happen?

Or I could just mind my own business and forget the lying, wheedling words of the foul thing in the jar! I tore myself away, set off down the stairs. Yes, I
did
want to delve a little deeper into Lockwood’s past, but there were other ways to do it than by snooping. Flo had mentioned an old master of Lockwood’s, who had seemingly come to some nasty end. Perhaps I could follow George’s example, and visit the Archives one day . . .

They were still in the kitchen, still at the table, nursing cups of tea. Something must have happened while I was gone, however, because ham and mustard sandwiches were now piled high in the centre of the table, together with bowls of cherry tomatoes, gherkins and crinkly lettuce. And crisps. It looked pretty good. I sat. We ate.

‘All better now?’ I said, after a while.

Lockwood grunted. ‘I’ve apologized.’

George said, ‘Lockwood’s been drawing that missing object from the Bickerstaff coffin. You know, the thing he saw in the photo. What do you think?’

I took a look at the thinking cloth. It wasn’t a very good sketch, since Lockwood can’t really draw: three or four parallel lines, with sharp ends. ‘Looks like a bundle of pencils,’ I said.

‘Bigger than pencils,’ Lockwood said. ‘More like sticks. Reminded me of those fold-up tripods the
Times
photographers used when they took pictures in Mrs Barrett’s tomb.’ He had a bite of sandwich. ‘Doesn’t explain where they disappeared to, though. Anyway, let’s talk business. I’ve filled George in, more or less, on what we’ve been doing the last twenty-four hours. And he’s not happy.’

George nodded. ‘Too right. I can’t
believe
you went blundering into Winkman’s shop like that. If he’s the man you say he is, that was a terribly rash thing to do.’

‘We had to make a snap decision,’ Lockwood said with his mouth full. ‘OK, it didn’t come off, but it might have done. Sometimes, George, we have to act on the spur of the moment. Life’s not all pootling about with ghost-jars and paperwork. Oh, don’t get mad at me again. I’m just saying.’

‘Listen, I’m in the front line too,’ George growled. ‘Who was it got a face-full of that haunted mirror the other night? I can still feel the effects now. It’s like something’s tugging on my mind, calling to me. I reckon I wasn’t far off meeting the same end as that relic-man we found, and that’s not a nice sensation.’ There were two small red points on his cheeks; he looked away. ‘Anyway, my “pootling” has rounded up plenty of good stuff, so I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. We’ve made more progress than Kipps and Bobby Vernon now, I’m sure.’

Night had fallen. Lockwood got up and closed the kitchen blinds, blocking out the darkness in the garden. He switched on a second light and sank back in his chair. ‘George is right,’ he said. ‘I phoned Barnes while you were upstairs, Luce, and Kipps isn’t doing well. He hasn’t got a lead on either Jack Carver or the mirror. DEPRAC’s holding cells are filled to bursting with half the relic-men of London, but Carver isn’t among them. There’s no clue as to his whereabouts. Barnes is a little frustrated. I told him we were following a hopeful lead.’

‘Did you tell him about Winkman?’ I said.

‘No. I don’t want Kipps muscling in on that. It’s our best hope of success, the secret auction, so long as Flo can get us news of it in time.’

‘Where’ve you been hiding this Flo Bones?’ George asked. ‘She sounds a useful contact. What’s she like?’

‘Soft-spoken, mild-mannered and gentle,’ I said. ‘Classy. You know the type. I think you’d get on well with her.’

George pushed his spectacles up his nose. ‘Really? Good.’

‘So then, George,’ Lockwood said. ‘It’s over to you. What did you find out about Bickerstaff and the mirror?’

George tidied his papers and stacked them neatly beside the remaining sandwiches. His annoyance had subsided; he now had a keen and business-like air.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘As expected, the National Archives didn’t let me down. My first port of call was the
Hampstead Gazette
article Albert Joplin showed us – the one about the rats. I found that and made a copy; I’ve got it here. Well, you’ll remember the basics. Our Edmund Bickerstaff works at a sanatorium – that’s a kind of hospital for people with chronic illnesses – on Hampstead Heath. He has something of a bad reputation, though the details are hazy. One night he has a private party with friends; when his body’s discovered, it’s been almost entirely devoured by rats. Yeech – even thinking about it makes me reluctant to chomp on one of these cherry tomatoes. But I will anyway.’

‘So it doesn’t mention him being shot, then?’ I said, remembering the corpse in the iron coffin, and the round hole in its forehead. ‘Not shot and
then
eaten?’

‘Nothing about that at all. But it’s quite possible the newspaper didn’t get the story entirely right. Some of the specifics may have been missed or left out.’

Lockwood nodded. ‘That whole rats story sounds daft to me. Find other newspaper accounts?’

‘Not as many as you might expect. You’d think the rats would have made all the front pages, but there’s very little. It’s almost as if the story was being deliberately suppressed. But I did find a few references, some extra details. One theme that keeps coming up is that Bickerstaff had a nasty habit of hanging around graveyards after dark.’