Lockwood (47 page)

‘Of course we can,’ Lockwood said. ‘No problem.’

‘As for destroying it,’ I went on, ‘I’m not sure that we should. When I was in the catacombs, I heard the voices of the spirits trapped inside the mirror.
They
weren’t wicked – just very sad. They weren’t talking to me like the skull does, but they communicated with me, even so. That’s why I broke the thing: it’s what they wanted. What I’m saying is, I’m getting better at understanding my Talent; I think it may be getting stronger. And I’ve definitely never had as strong a connection with any other spirit as I have with this skull. So for better or for worse, even though it’s a nasty, conniving, deceitful thing that mixes truth and lies in everything it says, I think we have to keep it here. For the moment. Maybe it’ll be properly useful to us all one day.’

After my little speech we were quiet for a time. George took up his pen. I did some paperwork. Lockwood sat staring at the window, deep in thought.

‘There’s a picture here of that warehouse where Julius Winkman held his auction,’ George said, holding up a clipping. ‘You didn’t tell me the roof was that high.’

‘Yep,’ I said. ‘Our jump was even scarier than Flo Bones’s boat. What time’s Flo coming over this evening, Lockwood?’

‘Six. I still think it’s a bit dangerous inviting her to dinner, but we owe her lots of favours. We’d better get in a ton of liquorice too. By the way, did I tell you I found out how Winkman’s men traced us? Winkman had an informer working at DEPRAC. When Lucy and I got caught at his shop, that first time, he made enquiries and learned which agents had been put on the case. So, after the auction, he already had a good idea who we were. He sent men after us, and they tailed us to the cemetery.’

‘It’s not very nice to think that Winkman knows our names,’ George said.

‘Hopefully he’ll be a bit too busy to worry about that for a while.’

‘There is one other thing,’ I said. It had been at the back of my mind for days, but only now, in the calm and dappled sunlight, did it find space to come forward. ‘When we were in the Fittes library, and we saw Penelope Fittes talking with that man . . . She gave him something – a box; I don’t know if either of you saw.’

‘Not me,’ Lockwood said. ‘My head was turned away.’

‘I was contorted into an impossibly small space under the table,’ George said. ‘You don’t want to know what I was looking at.’

‘Well, I’ve no idea what was in that box,’ I went on, ‘but it had a symbol printed on the outside. George – you remember those goggles you pinched from Fairfax at Combe Carey Hall?’

‘I not only remember . . .’ George ferreted in a particularly messy corner of his desk. ‘I have them here.’ He held up the goggles: thick and rubbery, with crystal eyepieces. We’d studied them a bit over recent months, but we’d been unable to make much of them.

‘Look at your desk!’ I chided. ‘You are
so
like Joplin . . . Yes, there – see the little harp design on the lens? That symbol was stamped on Ms Fittes’ box too.’

Lockwood and George regarded it. ‘Curious. It’s not a logo of any company I know,’ Lockwood said. ‘Think it’s some internal department of the Fittes Agency, George?’

‘No. Not an official one, anyway. Come to think of it, the whole meeting was a bit odd. What was it that Ms Fittes and that bloke were discussing? Some group or other? Couldn’t hear too well; my knees were against my ears.’ He took off his new spectacles and lowered them to his jumper, then thought better of it and self-consciously raised them to his nose again.

‘It’s all right,’ I remarked. ‘You’re allowed to rub your glasses. You’re not at all like Joplin, really.’

Lockwood, busy selecting another flapjack, nodded. ‘Nothing like him. He was a weird, friendless sociopath with a morbid death-obsession, while you . . .’ He picked up the plate. ‘Biscuit, Luce?’

‘Thanks.’

‘While I . . .’ George prompted.

Lockwood grinned. ‘Well . . . you have at least two friends, haven’t you?’ He passed the plate across. ‘And that brings me to something I’ve been wanting to say.’

George looked at me. ‘He’s going to tick me off some more.’

‘I think he’s going to boast about the Winkman fight again. The fight we didn’t see.’

‘Yeah, he’ll have fought off
four
blokes single-handedly now.’

Lockwood held up his hand. ‘No, it’s still three, though one of them
was
quite big and hairy. The thing is,’ he said, ‘I’ve been thinking about this case. All through it, everyone’s been obsessed with the secrets of the mirror. Joplin, Kipps, us; we all got snared by it. Barnes too. Winkman’s actually the only one with any sense. He didn’t care about the glass, did he? He just tried to sell it. He understood that it was the mystery about it that made it valuable.’ He looked down at the table, as if marshalling his thoughts. ‘Anyway, to keep things brief—’

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ I said. I winked at George, and crunched on the flapjack.

‘To keep things brief, I’ve decided secrets cause nothing but trouble. There’s a darn sight too many of them and they make things worse, not better. So. I’ve come to a decision. I want to show you both something.’

I stopped crunching.

‘Oh God, you haven’t got some dodgy tattoos, have you?’ George said. ‘I’ve only just got over Carver’s ones.’

‘No, it’s not tattoos,’ Lockwood said. He gave a smile, but there was sadness in it. ‘If you’re not doing anything, I could show you now.’

He got up, and crossed the room towards the arched doorway. George and I, suddenly quiet, rose and followed him. George’s eyes scanned mine. I realized that my hands were shaking.

We left the office, with its desks and streams of sunlight. We spiralled up the iron steps, above the washing baskets and strings of drying laundry; came out into the kitchen, where last night’s dishes lay undone. We went out into the hall, where a brand-new Arabian rug stretched towards the door. We walked below the hanging masks and ghost-catchers, turned at the foot of the stairs, and began to climb again. The messy coat-rack, the living room, the open library door . . . My senses were alive to it all. We passed through all the clutter of the house we shared – ordinary things, familiar things, that might in moments have their meanings changed, subtly and for ever, by whatever it was we were about to see.

The landing, which only has one narrow window, was as dim and shady as ever. The bedroom doors were closed. As usual, one of George’s damp bath-towels was draped unpleasantly over a radiator. From an open window somewhere came birdsong, very beautiful, very loud.

Lockwood stopped outside the forbidden door. He put his hands in his pockets. ‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while since I gave you both your tours, and . . . well, we never exactly completed them, did we? I thought you might like to see in here.’

We stared at the ordinary door, its faded label mark no different from before. ‘Well, yeah . . .’ I began. ‘But only if you . . .’

He nodded. ‘Just turn the handle, walk right in.’

‘Hasn’t it got some kind of secret lock?’ George said. ‘I always assumed there might be some clever man-trap built into it – maybe a guillotine thing that shoots down as you step through? No? Was I over-thinking it?’

‘I’m afraid you were. There’s nothing. I trusted you both, of course.’

We stared at the door.

‘Yes, but Lockwood,’ I said suddenly, ‘all that stuff about secrets works both ways. So what if we’re curious? If you’re not comfortable with it, there’s no reason why we have to know.’

It was the old Lockwood smile again; the landing grew much brighter. ‘It’s fine. I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while now. Somehow, I never got round to it. But when the skull started whispering to you about it, I knew the time had come. Anyway, let me do the honours for you.’

The skull, in so many things, was a liar and a cheat, but it could speak the truth too. It had told us the location of the Bickerstaff papers, casually forgetting to mention the ghost that waited there. At Kensal Green it had helped me access the catacombs, then crowed with delight when I almost died. Its truths, in other words, carried dangers. And it had told the truth about this room.

As Lockwood pulled open the door, we saw that its inner side was thickly lined with strips of iron, carefully nailed into the wood. They were there to block the psychic radiance that now burst out from inside.

A heavy curtain spanned the window opposite, muffling the daylight, keeping the bedroom dark. The air was close and strong, and smelled heavily of lavender.

At first it was difficult to make out anything at all. But as George and I stood there in the doorway, we began to see the glint of silver charms hanging on the walls.

Our eyes adjusted; we gazed at what was in the room. And then I felt the floor pitch under me, as if we were suddenly at sea. George cleared his throat. I put out my hand to clench his arm.

Lockwood stood slightly behind us, waiting.

‘Your parents?’ I was the first to find my voice.

‘Close,’ Anthony Lockwood said. ‘My sister.’

fn1
indicates a
Type One
ghost

fn2
indicates a
Type Two
ghost

Agency, Psychical Investigation

A business specializing in the containment and destruction of
ghosts
. There are more than a dozen agencies in London alone. The largest two (the Fittes Agency and the Rotwell Agency) have hundreds of employees; the smallest (Lockwood & Co.) has three. Most agencies are run by adult supervisors, but all rely heavily on children with strong psychic
Talent
.

Apparition

The shape formed by a
ghost
during a
manifestation
. Apparitions usually mimic the shape of the dead person, but animals and objects are also seen. Some can be quite unusual. The
Spectre
in the recent Limehouse Docks case manifested as a greenly glowing king cobra, while the infamous Bell Street Horror took the guise of a patchwork doll. Powerful or weak, most ghosts do not (or cannot) alter their appearance.

Aura

The radiance surrounding many
apparitions
. Most auras are fairly faint, and are best seen out of the corner of the eye. Strong, bright auras are known as
other-light
. A few ghosts, such as
Dark Spectres
, radiate black auras that are darker than the night around them.

Catacomb

An underground chamber used for burials. Never common in London, the few existing catacombs have fallen entirely into disuse since the outbreak of the
Problem
.

Catafalque

A hydraulic mechanism used to lower coffins into a
catacomb
.

Chain net

A net made of finely spun
silver
chains; a versatile variety of
seal
.

Chill

The sharp drop in temperature that occurs when a ghost is near. One of the four usual indicators of an imminent
manifestation
, the others being
malaise
,
miasma
and
creeping fear
. Chill may extend over a wide area, or be concentrated in specific ‘cold spots’.

Cluster

A group of
ghosts
occupying a small area.

Cold Maiden
^fn1

A grey, misty female form, often wearing old-fashioned dress, seen indistinctly at a distance. Cold Maidens radiate powerful feelings of melancholy and
malaise
. As a rule, they rarely draw close to the living, but exceptions
have
been known. See also
Floating Bride
.

Creeping fear

A sense of inexplicable dread often experienced in the build-up to a
manifestation
. Often accompanied by
chill
,
miasma
and
malaise
.

Curfew

In response to the
Problem
, the British government enforces nightly curfews in many inhabited areas. During curfew, which begins shortly after dusk and finishes at dawn, ordinary people are encouraged to remain indoors, safe behind their home
defences
.

Dark Spectre
^fn2

A frightening variety of
Type Two ghost
that manifests as a moving patch of darkness. Sometimes the
apparition
at the centre of the darkness is dimly visible; at other times the black cloud is fluid and formless, perhaps shrinking to the size of a pulsing heart, or expanding at speed to engulf a room.