Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase

6

LOCKWOOD & CO.

Lockwood and Co., the well-known psychic investigations agency, requires a new Junior Field Operative. Duties will include on-site analysis of reported hauntings and the containment of same. The successful applicant will be SENSITIVE to supernatural phenomena, well-dressed, preferably female, and not above fifteen years in age. Unsuccessful applicants will include time-wasters, fraudsters and persons with criminal records. Apply in writing, together with a photograph, to 35 Portland Row, London W1.

I stood in the road and watched as the taxi drove away. The sound of the engine faded. It was very quiet. Pale sunlight gleamed on the tarmac and on the lines of cars parked nose to tail on either side. Some way off a little boy was playing in a dusty patch of sun, moving plastic ghosts and agents across the concrete. The agents had tiny swords; the ghosts looked like little floating sheets. Other than the kid, there was no one around.

It was clearly a residential district, this part of London. Its houses were big-boned Victorian semis, their pillared porches hung with baskets of lavender, their basement flats reached by stairs directly from the road. Everything exuded a feeling of shabby gentility – of buildings and people looking back on better days. There was a little grocer’s shop at the corner, the cluttered kind that sold everything from oranges to shoe polish, milk to magnesium flares. Outside it rose a battered metal ghost-lamp, standing eight feet tall on its scallop-sided stem. The great hinged shutters were closed and blank, the flash-bulbs dark, the lenses hidden. Rust bloomed like lichen across the surface of the iron.

First things first. I checked my reflection in the side-window of the nearest car, taking off my cap and scuffling my fingers through my hair. Did I look like a good operative? Did I look like someone with the right history and qualifications? Or did I look like a tousled nobody who’d been rejected by six agencies in seven days? It was hard to tell.

I set off up the road.

Number 35 Portland Row was a white-fronted residence of four floors, with faded green shutters and pink flowers in the window boxes. Even more than its neighbours it had a faint air of dilapidation. Every surface looked as if it needed a lick of paint, or possibly just a clean. A small wooden sign clamped to the outside of the railing read:

A. J. LOCKWOOD & CO., INVESTIGATORS.

AFTER DARK, RING BELL AND WAIT BEYOND THE IRON LINE.

I paused for a moment, thinking wistfully of the smart townhouse of Tendy & Sons, of the spacious offices of Atkins and Armstrong; above all, of the glittering glass Rotwell building on Regent Street . . . But none of those interviews had worked out for me. I didn’t have any choice in the matter. Like my appearance, this would simply have to do.

Pushing open a wonky metal gate, I stepped onto a narrow path of broken tiles. On my right a steep flight of steps led down to a basement yard, a shady space half overhung with ivy and filled with unkempt plants and potted trees. There was a narrow line of iron tiles embedded across the path, and from a post beside this hung a large bell with a dangling wooden clapper. Ahead was a black-painted door.

Ignoring the bell, I stepped over the line and knocked sharply on the door. After an interval a short, fat, tallow-haired youth wearing large round spectacles looked out.

‘Oh, another one,’ he said. ‘I thought we’d finished. Or are you Arif’s new girl?’

I gazed at him. ‘Who’s Arif?’

‘Runs the corner store. He normally sends someone over with doughnuts about this time. You don’t seem to have any doughnuts.’ He looked disappointed.

‘No. I have a rapier.’

The youth sighed. ‘So I guess you’re another candidate. Name?’

‘Lucy Carlyle. Are you Mr Lockwood?’

‘Me? No.’

‘Well, can I come in?’

‘Yeah. The last girl’s just gone down. From the look of her, she won’t be very long.’

Even as he spoke, a scream of the utmost terror rang out from inside the house, and echoed off the ivy-clad walls of the yard below. Birds rose from trees up and down the street. I jerked back in shock, hands moving automatically to the hilt of my sword. The scream collapsed into a whimpering gargle and presently died away. I stared wide-eyed at the youth in the doorway, who hadn’t stirred.

‘Ah, there we are,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I say? Well, you’re next up. Come in.’

Neither the boy nor the scream instilled me with much confidence, and I was half inclined to leave. But after two weeks in London, I was almost out of options; mess up here and I’d soon be signing for the night watch with all the other no-hope kids. Besides, there was something in the manner of the youth, a subtle impudence in the way he stood, that told me he half expected me to run. I wasn’t having that. So I stepped swiftly past him, and entered a cool, wide hallway.

It was floored with wooden tiles and lined with bookshelves of dark mahogany. The shelves held a mass of ethnic masks and other artefacts – pots and icons, brightly decorated shells and gourds. A narrow key table stood just inside the door with a lantern on it, its base shaped like a crystal skull. Beyond that sat a vast, chipped plant pot stuffed with umbrellas, walking sticks and rapiers. I halted beside a rack of coats.

‘Hold on a tick,’ the boy said. He remained waiting by the open door.

He was a little older than me, and not quite my height, though a good deal stockier. He had podgy, rather bland features, nondescript except for a prominently squared jaw. Behind his glasses, his eyes were very blue. His sandy hair, which in texture reminded me of a horse’s tail, flopped heavily across his brow. He wore white trainers, a pair of faded jeans, and a loosely tucked shirt, bulging around the midriff.

‘Any minute now,’ he said.

From deeper inside the house a murmur of voices rose to a crescendo. A side-door burst open: a well-dressed girl emerged at speed, eyes blazing, face chalk-white, scrunched coat dragging in her hand. She flashed me an expression of fury and contempt, swore roundly at the fat boy, kicked the front door as she passed it, and was gone into the day.

‘Hmm. Definite second interview material, that one,’ the boy remarked. He closed the door and scratched his pudgy nose. ‘Okey-doke, if you’d like to follow me . . .’

He led the way into a sunny living room, white-walled and cheery, decorated with further artefacts and totems. Two easy chairs and a sofa surrounded a low-lying coffee table. Also beside it, smiling broadly, was a tall, slim boy dressed in a dark suit. ‘I win, George,’ he said. ‘I knew there was one more.’

As I crossed to greet him, I used my senses, as I always do. The full range of senses, I mean – outer and inner. Just so I didn’t miss anything.

The most obvious thing to spot was a rounded, bulky object lying on the table, concealed by a green-and-white spotted handkerchief. Did it have anything to do with the previous girl’s discomfort? I thought it highly likely. There was the subtlest of noises too – something I could almost hear, but it kept its distance from my mind. I suppose if I’d concentrated I might have pinned it down . . . but that would have meant standing like a plank with my eyes shut and my mouth open, which is never a great way to start an interview. So I just shook the boy’s hand.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m Anthony Lockwood.’

‘Lucy Carlyle.’

He had very bright, dark eyes and a nice lopsided grin. ‘Very good to meet you. Tea? Or has George already offered you some?’

The plump boy made a disparaging gesture. ‘I thought I’d wait until the first test was done,’ he said. ‘See if she was still here. I’ve wasted that many tea bags this morning.’

‘Why not give her the benefit of the doubt,’ Anthony Lockwood said, ‘and go and put the kettle on?’

The boy seemed unconvinced. ‘All right – but I reckon she’s a bolter.’ He spun slowly on his heels and trudged out into the hall.

Anthony Lockwood waved me to a chair. ‘You’ll have to excuse George. We’ve been interviewing since eight, and he’s getting hungry. He was so convinced the last girl was the final one.’

‘Sorry about that,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t brought you any doughnuts either.’

He looked sharply at me. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘George told me about your daily deliveries.’

‘Oh. For a moment there I thought you were psychic.’

‘I am.’

‘I mean, in an unusual way. Never mind.’ He settled himself on the couch opposite and smoothed out some papers before him. He had a very slender face, with a long nose and a dark mop of unruly hair. I realized almost with shock that he was scarcely older than me. His manner had been so assured, I hadn’t noticed his age. I wondered for the first time why there were no supervisors present in the room.

‘I see from your letter,’ the boy said, ‘that you’re from the north of England. From the Cheviot Hills. Wasn’t there a famous outbreak in that district a few years back?’

‘The Murton Colliery Horror,’ I said. ‘Yes. I was five then.’

‘Fittes agents had to come from London to deal with the Visitors, didn’t they?’ Lockwood said. ‘It was in my Gazetteer of British Hauntings.’

I nodded. ‘We weren’t meant to look in case they took our soul, and everyone had boarded up their ground-floor windows, but I peeped out anyway. I saw them drifting in the moonlight down the middle of the road. Wee slips of things like little girls.’

He gave me a quizzical look. ‘Girls? I thought they were the ghosts of miners who’d died in an accident underground.’

‘To start with, yes. But they were Changers. Took on many shapes before the end.’

Anthony Lockwood nodded. ‘I see. That rings a bell . . . OK, so you obviously knew from early on,’ he continued, ‘that you had a Talent. You had the Sight, of course, more than most of the other kids, and the bravery to use it. But according to your letter, that wasn’t your real strength. You could listen too. And you had the power of Touch.’

‘Well, Listening’s my thing, really,’ I said. ‘As a kid in my cot I used to hear voices whispering in the street – after curfew, when all the living were inside. But I’ve got good Touch too, though that often merges with what I hear. It’s hard to separate them. For me, Touch sometimes triggers echoes of what’s happened.’

‘George can do a bit of that,’ the boy said. ‘Not me. I’m tone-deaf when it comes to Visitors. Sight’s my thing. Death-glows and trails, and all the ghoulish residues of death . . .’ He grinned. ‘Cheerful subject, isn’t it? Now then, it says here you started out with a local operative up north . . .’ He checked the paper. ‘Name of Jacobs. Correct?’

I smiled blandly; my stomach clenched with tension. ‘That’s right.’

‘You worked for him for several years.’

‘Yes.’

‘So he trained you up, did he? You got your Fourth Grade qualifications with him?’

I shifted slightly in my chair. ‘That’s right. Grade One through Four.’

‘OK . . .’ Lockwood considered me. ‘I notice you haven’t actually brought your final certificates. Or indeed any letter of referral from Mr Jacobs. That’s a little unusual, isn’t it? Official references are normally provided in these situations.’

I took a deep breath. ‘He didn’t give me any,’ I said. ‘Our arrangement ended . . . abruptly.’

Lockwood said nothing. I could see he was waiting for details.

‘If you want the full story, I can give it,’ I said heavily. ‘It’s just . . . it’s not something I like dwelling on, that’s all.’

I waited, heart juddering. This was the moment. All the other interviews had terminated just about here.

‘Some other time, then,’ Anthony Lockwood said. When he smiled at me, a warm light seemed to suffuse the room. ‘You know, I can’t think what’s keeping George. A trained baboon could have made the tea by now. It’s really time for the tests.’

‘Yes, what tests are these?’ I said hastily. ‘If you don’t mind my asking.’

‘Not at all. It’s what we use to assess the candidates. Frankly I don’t set much store by people’s letters or referrals, Ms Carlyle. I prefer to see their Talent with my own eyes . . .’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’ll give George another minute. In the meantime, I suppose you want the rundown on us. We’re a new agency, been registered three months. I got my full licence last year. We’re accredited with DEPRAC, but – just to be clear – we’re not on their payroll, like Fittes or Rotwell or any of that mob. We’re independent, and we like it that way. We take the jobs we want and turn down the rest. All our clients are private customers who have a problem with Visitors, and want it sorted quickly and quietly. We solve their problems. They pay us handsomely. That’s about the size of it. Any questions?’

With the issue of my recent past out of the way, I had a clear run now. I wasn’t going to mess it up. I sat forward on the sofa, making sure my back was straight, my hands neat in my lap. ‘Who are your supervisors?’ I asked. ‘Do I get to meet them too?’

A frown flickered across the boy’s forehead. ‘No supervisors here. No adults. It’s my company. I’m in charge. George Cubbins is deputy.’ He looked at me. ‘Some applicants had a problem with this set-up, so they didn’t get very far. Does it bother you?’

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘No, I like the sound of it fine.’ There was a brief silence. ‘So . . . there’ve always been just two of you? Just you and George?’

‘Well, we generally have an assistant. Two’s enough to deal with most Visitors, but for tough cases all three of us go along. Three’s the magic number, you know.’

I nodded slowly. ‘I see. What happened to your last assistant?’

‘Poor Robin? Oh, he . . . moved on.’

‘To another job?’

‘Perhaps “passed on” would be more accurate. Or, indeed, “passed over”. Ah – good! Tea!’

The hall door opened and the plump boy’s posterior backed through it, closely followed by the rest of him. He turned in a stately manner and advanced, carrying a tray with three steaming mugs and a plate of biscuits. Whatever he had been doing in the kitchen all this while, he looked more dishevelled than before: his shirt was untucked, and his mop of hair now covered his eyes. He placed the tray on the table beside the shrouded object, and glanced at me dubiously. ‘Still here?’ he said. ‘Thought you’d have scarpered by now.’

‘Haven’t done the test yet, George,’ Lockwood said easily. ‘You’re just in time.’

‘Good.’ He took the largest mug and retreated to the sofa.

There was a polite interlude during which mugs were distributed, and sugar offered and declined. ‘Come on, take a biscuit,’ Lockwood said. He pushed the plate my way. ‘Please. George’ll only eat them all, else.’

‘OK.’

I took a biscuit. Lockwood had a large bite of his and brushed his hands clean.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Just a few tests, Ms Carlyle. Nothing to worry about at all. Are you ready?’

‘Sure.’ I could feel George’s little eyes fixed upon me, and even Lockwood’s casual tones could not disguise a certain eagerness. But they were dealing with someone who’d survived the Wythburn Mill alone. I wasn’t going to fret about this.

Lockwood nodded. ‘We might as well start here, then.’ He stretched out a languid hand to the spotted handkerchief and, after a ceremonial pause, flicked it away.

Sitting on the table was a stocky cylinder of clear, thick glass, sealed at the top with a red plastic plug. There were small handles near the top to grip it with: it reminded me of the big glass demijohns in which my father used to brew his beer. Instead of stale and brownish liquid, however, it contained a greasy yellow smoke – not quite stationary, very slowly shifting. Sitting in its heart was something large and dark.

‘What do you think this is?’ Lockwood asked.

I bent forward, scanning the apparatus. On closer inspection the plug had several safety flanges and double seals. There was a little symbol embossed on the side of the glass: a radiant sun that doubled as an eye.

‘It’s silver-glass,’ I said. ‘Made by the Sunrise Corporation.’

Lockwood nodded, gently smiling. I bent closer. With the nail of my middle finger I tapped the side of the glass; at once the smoke awoke, rippling outwards from the point of impact, becoming thicker, more granular, as it did so. As it separated, it revealed the object in the jar: a human skull, brown and stained, clamped to the bottom of the glass.

The ripples of smoke contorted, twisted; they took on the horrid semblance of a face, with blankly rolling eyes and gaping mouth. For a moment the features were superimposed upon the skull beneath. I jerked back from the glass. The face devolved into stream-like ribbons of smoke that swirled about the cylinder, and presently became still.

I cleared my throat. ‘Well, it’s a ghost-jar,’ I said. ‘The skull’s the Source, and that ghost is tied to it. Can’t tell what sort. A Phantasm or a Spectre, maybe.’

So saying, I sat back in a posture of nonchalant unconcern, as if Visitors in jars were something I dealt with every day of the week. In truth, I’d never seen one and the apparition had shocked me. But not unduly so: after the previous girl’s scream I’d expected something. Plus I’d heard of containers like this before.

Lockwood’s smile had momentarily frozen, as if uncertain whether to express surprise, pleasure or disappointment. In the end, pleasure won the day. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said. ‘Well done.’ He put the handkerchief back on the cylinder and, with some effort, stowed it out of sight under the table.

The plump boy sipped his tea loudly. ‘She was shaken,’ he said. ‘You could see it.’

I ignored the comment. ‘Where did you get the jar?’ I said. ‘I thought only Rotwell and Fittes had them.’

‘Time for questions later,’ Lockwood said. He opened a drawer in the coffee table and pulled out a small red box. ‘Now, I’d like to test your Talent, if I may. I’ve got some items ready. Please tell me, if you can’ – he opened the box and put an object on the table – ‘what supernatural resonance you detect here.’

It was an unassuming cup of old white porcelain, with a fluted base and a sharp chip in the handle. There was a strange white stain around the inside of the lip, which thickened at the bottom of the cup to become a crusty residue.

I took it in my hand and closed my eyes, turning it this way and that, running my fingers lightly over the surface.

I listened, waiting for echoes . . . Nothing came to me.

This was no good. I shook my head, cleared my mind of distractions, shut out as best I could the occasional noise of traffic passing on the road, and the less occasional slurps of tea sounding from George’s sofa. I tried again.

No. Still nothing.

After a few minutes I gave up. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said at last, ‘I can’t detect anything.’

Lockwood nodded. ‘I should hope not. This is the cup George keeps his toothbrush in. Good. On to the next.’ He picked up the cup and tossed it across to the plump boy, who caught it with a snort of mirth.

I felt myself go cold; I knew my cheeks were scarlet. I took hold of my rucksack, and stood abruptly. ‘I’m not here to be made fun of,’ I said. ‘I’ll find my own way out.’

‘Ooh,’ George said. ‘Feisty.’

I looked at him. His flop of hair, his glossy, shapeless face, his silly little glasses: everything about him made me livid. ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Step over here and I’ll show you exactly how feisty I am.’

The boy blinked at me. ‘I might just do that.’

‘I don’t see you moving.’

‘Well, it’s a deep sofa. It’s taking me a while to get out of it.’

‘Hold on, both of you,’ Anthony Lockwood said. ‘This is an interview, not a boxing match. George: shut up. Ms Carlyle: I apologize for upsetting you, but it was a serious test, which you passed with flying colours. You’d be amazed how many of our interviewees this morning have made up some cock-and-bull story about poison, suicide or murder. It’d be the most haunted cup in London if the mildest of their tales was true. Now then, please sit down. What can you tell me about these?’

From the drawer beneath the table: three new items, laid side by side in front of me. A gentleman’s wristwatch, gold-plated around the rim, with an old brown leather strap; a piece of lacy red ribbon; and a slim, long-bladed penknife with an ivory inlay handle.

My annoyance at their trick receded. This was a good challenge. With a steely glance at George, I sat and spread the objects out a little, so their hidden textures (if any) didn’t overlap. Then I emptied my mind as best I could, and picked them up, one by one.

Time went by; I tested each three times.

I finished. When my eyes refocused, I saw George engrossed in a comic he had got from somewhere, and Lockwood sitting as before, hands clasped, watching me.

I took a long drink of cold tea. ‘Did any of your other applicants get this right?’ I said quietly.

Lockwood smiled. ‘Did you?’

‘The echoes were hard to disengage,’ I said, ‘which I suppose is why you threw them at me all together. They’re all strong, but distinct in quality. Which do you want first?’

‘The knife.’

‘OK. The knife has several conflicting echoes: a man’s laughter, gunshots, even – possibly – birdsong. If there’s a death attached to it – which I suppose there must be, since I can sense all this – it wasn’t violent or sad in any way. The feeling I got from it was gentle, almost happy.’ I looked at him.

Lockwood’s face gave nothing away. ‘How about the ribbon?’

‘The traces on the ribbon,’ I said, ‘are fainter than the knife’s, but much stronger in emotion. I thought I heard weeping, but it’s terribly indistinct. What I get so strongly with it is a sense of sadness; when I was holding it, I felt my heart would break.’

‘And the watch?’ His eyes were fixed on me. George still read his comic – Astounding Arabian Nights; he idly turned a page.

‘The watch . . .’ I took a deep breath. ‘The echoes here aren’t as strong as on the ribbon or the knife, which makes me think the owner hasn’t died – or not while wearing it, at any rate. But there’s death attached to it nonetheless. A lot of death. And . . . it isn’t pleasant. I heard voices raised and . . . and screaming, and—’ I shuddered as I looked at it glinting gently on the coffee table. Every notch on that gold plate casing, every scuff on that little strip of worn bent leather filled me with horror. ‘It’s a vile thing,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t hold it for very long. I don’t know what it is or where you got it, but no one should be touching this, not ever. Certainly not for a stupid interview.’

I leaned forward, took the final two biscuits from the plate and sat back, crunching. It was one of those moments when a great Don’t Care wave hits you, and you float off on it, head back, looking at the sky. I was tired out. It was my seventh interview in as many days. Well, I’d done all I could, and if Lockwood and this stupid George didn’t choose to appreciate it – that really didn’t bother me any more.

There was a long silence. Lockwood’s hands were clasped between his knees; he was sitting forward like a vicar on the toilet, gazing at nothing, a pained, contemplative expression on his face. George’s head was still buried in his comic. As far as he was concerned, I might not have been there at all.

‘Well,’ I said finally, ‘I guess I know where the door is.’

‘Tell her about the biscuit rule,’ George said.

I looked at him. ‘What?’

‘Tell her, Lockwood. We’ll have to get this straight or there’ll be hell to pay.’

Lockwood nodded. ‘The rule here is that each member of the agency only takes one biscuit at a time in strict rotation. Keeps it fair, keeps it orderly. Nicking two in times of stress just isn’t done.’

‘One biscuit at a time?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You mean to say I’ve got the job?’

‘Of course you’ve got the job,’ he said.