Lockwood (40 page)

The face in the jar yawned, showing appalling teeth. ‘
Really? Fascinating. Bring me a hot cocoa, and wake me when you’re done.
’

‘Thing is,’ I went on implacably, ‘the same fear’s driving you now. You
still
can’t bear to be alone. That’s why you’re always yabbering on at me, why you’re always pulling faces. You’re
desperate
for connection.’

The ghost rolled its eyes so fast they looked like Catherine wheels. ‘
With you? Give me a break. I’ve got standards. If I wanted a proper conversation I’d find—
’

‘You’d find
what
?’ I sneered. ‘You’d find it
how
? You’re a head in a jar. You’re not going anywhere and we’re all you’ve got. So – we’re not going to put you in the furnaces,’ I said. ‘We’re not going to torture you. All we do, if you don’t start co-operating, is shut your lever up, put you in a bag, and bury you in the ground somewhere. Nice and deep so no one ever finds you. Just you, on your own, for ever. How does that sound?’

‘
You wouldn’t do that
,’ the ghost said, but for the first time I heard uncertainty in its voice. ‘
You need me, don’t forget. I’m a Type Three. I’ll make you rich. I’ll make you famous
.’

‘Stuff that. Our friend is more important. Last chance, skull. Spill the beans.’

‘
And there was I thinking Cubbins was the cruel one
.’ The face drew back into the shadows of the plasm, where it glared at me with an expression of blood-curdling malice. ‘
All right
,’ it said slowly. ‘
Sure, I’ll tell you. Don’t think I’m giving in to your blackmail, mind. I just want to enjoy what’s coming to you all.
’

‘Get on with it,’ Lockwood said. I’d been muttering the ghost’s words to him as best I could. He squeezed my arm. ‘Good work, Lucy.’

‘
Well, you’re right, as it happens
,’ the whispering voice said. ‘
Cubbins was here. He beat you home by almost an hour. He had the master’s mirror in a dirty sack. And he hadn’t been back long before someone else showed up. A little mousy fellow with spectacles and tousled hair
.’

I repeated this. Lockwood and I exchanged a glance. Joplin.

‘
They didn’t stay – there was just a short discussion, then they both went off together. They took the sack. I thought Cubbins seemed uneasy. He was unsure of what he was doing. At the last moment he ran back in and left you that note. I’d say he was still fighting against my master, but the other fellow isn’t. He’s long gone.
’

‘Still fighting against what?’ It was as if a cold spear had pierced my side.

The teeth of the skull glinted beneath the ghost’s smile. ‘
My master has been talking to them. You can see it in their eyes. Especially the other one – he’s desperate to be enlightened. But Cubbins has the madness too. Did you not notice?
’ A whispered chuckle. ‘
Perhaps you never look at him
.’

I couldn’t speak. Once again I saw the cowled phantom rising in the cemetery, towering over George. Once again I heard that soft and urgent voice: ‘
Look . . . look . . . I give you your heart’s desire . . .
’ I thought of George and Joplin standing as if spellbound by the iron coffin. I thought of all George’s little comments since, his malaise at Bickerstaff’s house, his distractedness, his wistful looks as he spoke about the mirror. The memories transfixed me in turn. I was frozen. It took Lockwood several tries before I could tell him what I’d heard.

‘We knew he’d been affected by the mirror and the ghost,’ I said hoarsely. ‘We noticed, but we didn’t pay attention. Poor George . . . Lockwood, we’ve been so blind! He’s desperate to investigate it. He’s been obsessed with it all this time. And you just kept criticizing him, slapping him down.’

‘Yes, of course I did!’ If my voice had risen, now Lockwood’s did so too. ‘Because George is
always
like that! He’s always obsessed with relics and old stuff! It’s just how he is! We couldn’t possibly have known.’ Lockwood’s face was ashen, his dark eyes hollow. His shoulders slumped. ‘You
really
think he’s affected by the ghost?’

‘By the ghost, by the mirror. He’d never normally do something like this, would he – go off, and leave us alone?’

‘No, of course not. But even so . . . Honestly, Luce, I’m going to kill him.’

‘That may not be necessary if either of those idiots looks in the mirror.’

Lockwood took a deep breath. ‘OK. Think. Where’ll they be? Where’s Joplin live?’

‘No idea, but he seems to spend most of his time at Kensal Green Cemetery.’

He snapped his fingers. ‘Right! And not just the above-ground parts either. That grey stuff in his hair? It’s not dandruff, put it that way.’ He bounded for the basement door, sprang through and down the stairs, feet clanging on the iron. ‘Come on!’ he shouted. ‘Collect whatever kit you can. Swords, flares, anything we’ve got! And ring for a night cab. We need to
move
!’

Ten minutes later, we were back in the kitchen waiting for the taxi. We had our swords (old ones, taken from the rack in the training room), and two spare work-belts, so ripped and burned with plasm they barely clipped together. Also a few bags of iron, two salt bombs and no magnesium flares. Everything else had been lost, used up or soaked in our raid on Winkman.

Both of us were agitated; we stood at the table, checking and rechecking our supplies. The face in the ghost-jar watched us. It seemed amused.

‘
I wouldn’t bother, personally
,’ it said. ‘
I’d just go off to bed. You’ll be too late to save him.
’

‘Shut up,’ I growled. ‘Lockwood – what were you saying about Joplin just now? About the grey stuff in his hair? You don’t mean—’

He tapped his fingers impatiently on the worktop. ‘It’s grave-dust, Luce. Grave-dust from the catacombs beneath the chapel. Joplin’s made it his business to go exploring down there, even though it’s closed off and forbidden. He’s been creeping about underground, poking and prying, looking for stuff, following his antiquarian obsessions. Anything odd he finds, he likes to keep. Like the stand from Bickerstaff’s coffin, for example.’ He cursed. ‘Where
is
that wretched taxi?’

He continued pacing about the room. But I didn’t. I’d gone quite still. Something he’d said had made a horrible connection in my mind.

Anything he finds, he likes to keep.

‘Lockwood.’ My heart was hammering in my chest.

‘Yes?’

‘When Barnes phoned the other day, he mentioned that some museum had a Mughal dagger that was similar to the one buried in Jack Carver’s back. So similar, they might almost have been a matching pair. You remember where that dagger was found?’

He nodded. ‘Maida Vale Cemetery, up in north London.’

‘Right. And when Saunders and Joplin first came here, they told us about another place they’d worked in. Remember what it was?’

He stared at me. ‘It was . . . it was Maida Vale Cemetery . . .
Oh no
.’

‘I think Joplin found two daggers,’ I said. ‘I think he handed one in, but kept the other. And, recently’ – I stared through the door to the rugless hallway, still scattered with salt – ‘under the influence of Bickerstaff and the mirror, I’m afraid he put that second dagger to good use.’

A cackle of laughter came from the jar. ‘
This is the best evening I’ve had since I was alive! Look at you both! Your faces are priceless
.’

‘I wouldn’t have believed it was possible,’ Lockwood whispered. ‘George is in even more trouble than we thought.’

The cab horn sounded in the street. I shouldered my bag.

‘
Have fun, then
,’ the ghost called. ‘
Give my regards to Cubbins, or whatever’s left of him. He’ll be— Wait, what are you doing?
’

Lockwood had snatched up a rucksack from the corner of the kitchen and was stuffing it over the top of the jar.

‘You needn’t look so smug,’ he said. ‘You’re coming too.’

At Kensal Green Cemetery, the West Gate was open, the little watch-hut empty, and no lights showed as we approached the Anglican chapel through the trees. We were entering the final hour of darkness. Already the stars were paler; soon the horizon would blaze into light somewhere over the eastern docks, and the night’s shadows be driven forth from London. But the birds were not yet singing.

Outside the chapel, the cabins of Sweet Dreams Excavations and Clearance were black and empty, the fire-buckets cold. The mechanical diggers stood motionless, arms bent and bowed like the necks of sleeping herons. It was true, then: Mr Saunders had suspended all activities and left the cemetery to its dead. But Lockwood and I strode swiftly across the abandoned camp, and pattered up the chapel stairs.

The lines of police tape had been torn away. Light gleamed in a razor-thin line beneath the door.

Lockwood held a finger to his lips. He’d been silent and grim-faced throughout the journey, scarcely uttering a word.

Which is more than I could say for my
other
companion.

‘
You’ll be too late
,’ a voice hissed in my ear. ‘
Cubbins won’t have been able to resist taking a look. Peeped, choked, dead already: that’s my prediction
.’

‘You’d better hope not,’ I breathed. ‘Or you know what we’ll do to you.’

Somewhere in the rucksack I carried, I felt the indignant hum of churning plasm.

Since leaving the house, the ghost in the jar had kept up a whispered commentary, alternating wildly between threats, pleas and expressions of false condolence. It was agitated, in other words; my threat to abandon it had left it deeply unsettled. Which didn’t make it any less irritating. I’d have gladly hurled it into a bush, but we didn’t have that option. The ghost knew Bickerstaff. The ghost knew the secrets of the mirror. We might have need of its help right now.

Lockwood glared at me for quiet; he reached for the great metal door handle. I readied myself, squinted in preparation for the transition from dark to light. With a sudden fluid movement, he turned it, pushed. The door squealed; brightness flooded our eyes. We both stepped in.

The interior of the chapel was much as when we’d last seen it on the morning after the theft: the desks of Mr Saunders and Mr Joplin strewn with papers; the gas heaters; the great black catafalque on its metal plate; the pulpit, the altar and its long, shiny rail. All was silent, all was still. There was no one to be found.

I listened for the telltale buzzing of the bone glass, heard nothing.

Lockwood touched the nearest heater. ‘Warm,’ he said. ‘Not hot. He’s been here tonight, but not for a while.’

I was looking at a familiar twisted shape in the near corner, swept aside amid piles of dirty salt and filings. ‘The iron coffin’s still here – look. But Bickerstaff’s body is gone.’

‘
My master is near
,’ the ghost whispered suddenly. ‘
I feel his presence
.’

‘Where?’ I demanded. ‘How do we get to him?’

‘
How can I tell? It’s so hard in this jar. If you let me out, I’ll sense far more
.’

‘Not a chance.’

Lockwood strode across to the wooden door behind the altar rail; he pushed and pulled, but the door remained firm. ‘The padlock’s off,’ he said, ‘and the bolts are open. Someone’s locked it from the inside.’

‘Are we
sure
he’ll be in the catacombs?’ I said. ‘It’s not the sort of place
I’d
go.’

‘But that’s just it!’ Lockwood jumped back; he was staring wildly around the room. ‘Remember those illustrations in the Bickerstaff papers? The catacombs are exactly the sort of place where idiots like Joplin
do
hang out. It’s a place to find stuff – it gives the right grisly ambience. And, crucially, it’s private. You’re not going to be disturbed down there.’ He cursed. ‘Ah, this is a nightmare! How can we get in?’

‘
Blind as bats
,’ the ghost said. ‘
Always looking, never seeing. Even if it’s standing straight ahead of you
.’

I gave a snarl, thumping my fist into the side of the rucksack. ‘Quiet, you, or I swear I’ll—’ Then I stopped dead, staring at the big black marble plinth in the middle of the room. The catafalque. The Victorian device for lowering coffins into the catacombs below. I gasped. ‘The catafalque! Didn’t Saunders say it was still working?’