Lockwood & Co.: The Whispering Skull

Part 2 – The Unexpected Grave

Next morning, like every morning that fine, hot summer, the sky was blue and clear. The parked cars lining the street were glittering like jewels. I walked to Arif’s corner store in T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops, squinting at the light, listening to the city’s busy, breathless hum. The days were long, the nights short; ghosts were at their weakest. It was the time of year when most people tried to ignore the Problem. Not agents, though. We never stop. Look at us go. I bought milk and Swiss rolls for our breakfast, and flip-flopped my slow way home.

Thirty-five Portland Row, shimmering in the sunlight, was its usual unpainted self. As always, the sign on the railings that read

A. J. LOCKWOOD & CO., INVESTIGATORS

AFTER DARK, RING BELL AND WAIT BEYOND THE

IRON LINE

was wonky; as always, the bell on its post showed signs of rust; as always, three of the iron tiles halfway up the path were loose, thanks to the activity of garden ants, and one was missing completely. I ignored it all, went in, put the Swiss rolls on a plate, and made the tea. Then I headed for the basement.

As I descended the spiral stairs, I could hear the shuffling of plimsolls on a polished floor, and the whip, whip, whipping of a blade through air. Soft crisp impacts told me the sword was finding its target. Lockwood, as was his habit after an unsatisfactory job, was ridding himself of his frustrations.

The rapier room, where we go to practise swordplay, is mostly empty of furniture. There’s a rack of old rapiers, a chalk-dust stand, a long, low table, and three rickety wooden chairs against one wall. In the centre of the room two life-size straw dummies hang suspended from hooks in the ceiling. Both have crude faces drawn on with ink. One wears a grubby lace bonnet, the other an ancient, stained top hat, and their stuffed cotton torsos are pricked and torn with dozens of little holes. The names of these targets are Lady Esmeralda and Floating Joe.

Today, Esmeralda was receiving the full force of Lockwood’s attentions. She was spinning on her chain, and her bonnet was askew. Lockwood circled her at a distance, rapier held ready. He wore sharp fencing slacks and plimsolls; he’d removed his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves a little way. The dust danced up around his gliding feet as he moved back and forth, rapier swaying, left hand held out behind for balance. He cut patterns in the air, feinted, shimmied to the side and struck a sudden blow to the dummy’s ragged shoulder, sending the tip right through the straw and out the other side. His face was serene, his hair glistened; his eyes shone with dark intent. I watched him from the door.

‘Yes, I’ll have a slice of cake, thanks,’ George said. ‘If you can tear yourself away.’

I crossed over to the table. George was sitting there, reading a comic book. He wore distressingly loose tracksuit bottoms and an accurately named sweatshirt. His hands were white with chalk dust, and his face was flushed. Two bottles of water sat on the table; a rapier was propped beside him.

Lockwood looked up as I passed. ‘Swiss rolls and tea,’ I said.

‘Come and join me first!’ He indicated a long, torn-open cardboard box lying by the rapier rack. ‘Italian rapiers, just arrived from Mullet’s. New lighter steel and silver enamelling on the point. Feel really good. They’re worth a try.’

I hesitated. ‘That means leaving the cakes alone with George . . .’

Lockwood just grinned at me, flicking his blade to and fro so that the air sang.

It was hard to say no to him. It always is. Besides, I wanted to try the new rapier. I drew one from the box and held it loosely across my palms. It was lighter than I’d expected, and balanced differently from my usual French-style épée. I gripped the handle, looking at the complex coils of silvery metal surrounding my fingers in a protective mesh.

‘The guard has silver trace-work on it,’ Lockwood said. ‘Should keep you safe from spurts of ectoplasm. What do you think?’

‘Bit fancy,’ I said doubtfully. ‘It’s the kind of thing Kipps would wear.’

‘Oh, don’t say that. This has got class. Give it a try.’

A sword in the hand makes you feel good. Even before breakfast, even when wearing flip-flops, it gives you a feeling of power. I turned towards Floating Joe and cut a standard ward-knot around him, the kind that keeps a Visitor penned in.

‘Don’t lean in so much,’ Lockwood advised. ‘You were a bit off-balance there. Try holding your arm forward a little more. Like this . . .’ He turned my wrist, and altered my stance by gently adjusting the position of my waist. ‘See? Is that better?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think these rapiers will suit you.’ He gave Floating Joe a nudge with his shoe so that he swung back and forth, and I had to skip aside to avoid him. ‘Imagine he’s a hungry Type Two,’ Lockwood said. ‘He wants human contact, and is coming at you in a rush . . . You need to keep the plasm in one place, so it doesn’t break free and threaten fellow agents. Try doing a double ward-knot, like this . . .’ His rapier darted round the dummy in a complex blur.

‘I’ll never learn that,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t follow it at all.’

Lockwood smiled. ‘Oh, it’s just a Kuriashi turn. I can take you through the positions sometime.’

‘OK.’

‘Tea’s getting cold,’ George remarked. ‘And I’m on the penultimate slice of cake.’

He was lying. The Swiss rolls were still there. But it was time to eat something. I had a fluttery feeling in my tummy, and my legs felt weak. It was probably the late night catching up with me. I ducked between Joe and Esmeralda and went over to the table. Lockwood did a few more exercises, swift, elegant and flawless. George and I watched him as we chewed.

‘So what do you think of the Swiss rolls?’ I said, with my mouth full.

‘They’re all right. It’s things like Kuriashi turns that I can’t stomach,’ George said. ‘Nothing but trendy claptrap, invented by the big agencies to make themselves look fancy. In my book, you thwack a Visitor, avoid being ghost-touched, and peg it home. That’s all you need to know.’

‘You’re still sore about last night,’ I said. ‘Well, I am too.’

‘I’ll get over it. It’s my fault for not researching properly. But we shouldn’t have missed that stone. We could have had that case done and dusted before that Fittes rabble showed up.’ He shook his head. ‘Bunch of stuck-up snobs, they are. I used to work there, so I know. They look down on anyone who hasn’t got a posh jacket or neatly ironed trousers. As if appearance is all that counts . . .’ He stuck a hand inside his tracksuit bottoms and had an indignant scratch.

‘Oh, most of the Fittes crowd are all right.’ Despite his exertions, Lockwood was scarcely out of breath. He dropped his rapier into the rack with a clatter and dusted the chalk off his hands. ‘They’re just kids like us, risking their lives. It’s the supervisors who cause the trouble. They’re the ones who think themselves untouchable, just because they’ve got cushy jobs at one of the oldest, biggest agencies.’

‘Tell me about it,’ George said heavily. ‘They used to drive me mad.’

I nodded. ‘Kipps is the worst, though. He really hates us, doesn’t he?’

‘Not us,’ Lockwood said. ‘Me. He really hates me.’

‘But why? What’s he got against you?’

Lockwood picked up one of the bottles of water and sighed reflectively. ‘Who knows? Maybe it’s my natural style he envies, maybe my boyish charm. Perhaps it’s my set-up here – having my own agency, no one to answer to, with fine companions at my side.’ He caught my eye and smiled.

George looked up from his comic. ‘Or could be the fact you once stabbed him in the bottom with a sword.’

‘Yes, well, there is that.’ Lockwood took a sip of water.

I looked back and forth between them. ‘What?’ I said. ‘When did this happen?’

Lockwood flung himself into a chair. ‘It was before your time, Luce,’ he said. ‘When I was a kid. DEPRAC holds an annual fencing competition for young agents here in London. Down at the Albert Hall. Fittes and Rotwell always dominate it, but my old master, Gravedigger Sykes, thought I was good enough, so I entered too. Drew Kipps in the quarter-final. Being a few years older, he was a lot taller than me then, and was the hot favourite going in. Made all sorts of silly boasts about it, as you can imagine. Anyway, I bamboozled him with a couple of Winchester half-lunges, and the long and short of it was, he ended up tripping over his own feet. I just gave him a quick prod while he was sprawling on all fours – nothing to get het up about. The crowd rather liked it, of course. Oddly, he’s been insanely vindictive towards me ever since.’

‘How strange,’ I said. ‘So . . . did you go on to win the competition?’

‘No.’ Lockwood inspected the bottle. ‘No . . . I made the final, as it happens, but I didn’t win. Is that the time? We’re sluggish today. I should go and wash.’

He sprang up, seized two slices of Swiss roll and, before I could say anything more, was out of the room and up the stairs.

George glanced at me. ‘You know he doesn’t like opening up too much,’ he said.

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s just the way he is. I’m surprised he told you as much as he did.’

I nodded. George was right. Small anecdotes, here and there, were all you got from Lockwood; if you questioned him further he shut tight, like a clam. It was infuriating – but intriguing too. It always gave me a pleasant tug of curiosity. One full year after my arrival at the agency, the unrevealed details of my employer’s early life remained an important part of his mystery and fascination.

All things considered that summer, and leaving the Wimbledon debacle aside, Lockwood & Co. was doing OK. Not super OK – we hadn’t got rich or anything. We weren’t building swanky mansions for ourselves with ghost-lamps in the grounds and electrically powered streams of water running along the drive (as Steve Rotwell, head of the giant Rotwell Agency, was said to have done). But we were managing a little better than before.

Seven months had passed since the Screaming Staircase affair had brought us so much publicity. Our widely reported success at Combe Carey Hall, one of the most haunted houses in England, had immediately resulted in a spate of prominent new cases. We exorcized a Dark Spectre that was laying waste to a remote portion of Epping Forest; we cleansed a rectory in Upminster that was being troubled by a Shining Boy. And of course, though it nearly cost us all our lives, our investigation of Mrs Barrett’s tomb led to the company being shortlisted for True Hauntings’ ‘Agency of the Month’ for the second time. As a result, our appointment book was almost full. Lockwood had even mentioned hiring a secretary.

For the moment, though, we were still a small outfit, the smallest in London. Anthony Lockwood, George Cubbins and Lucy Carlyle: just the three of us, rubbing along together at 35 Portland Row. Living and working side by side.

George? The last seven months hadn’t changed him much. With regards to his general scruffiness, sharp tongue and fondness for bottom-hugging puffa jackets, this was obviously a matter for regret. But he was still a tireless researcher, capable of unearthing vital facts about each and every haunted location. He was the most careful of us too, the least likely to jump headlong into danger; this quality had kept us all alive more than once. George also retained his habit of taking off his glasses and polishing them on his jumper whenever he was (a) utterly sure of himself, (b) irritated, or (c) bored rigid by my company, which, one way or another, seemed pretty much all the time. But he and I were getting along better now. In fact, we’d only had one full-on, foot-stamping, saucepan-hurling row that month, which was itself some kind of record.

George was very interested in the science and philosophy of Visitors: he wanted to understand their nature, and the reasons for their return. To this end he conducted a series of experiments on our collection of spectral Sources – old bones or other fragments that retained some ghostly charge. This hobby of his was sometimes a little annoying. I’d lost track of the times I’d tripped over electricity cables clamped to some relic, or been startled by a severed limb while rummaging in the deep freeze for fish fingers and frozen peas.

But at least George had hobbies (comic books and cooking were two of the others). Anthony Lockwood was quite another matter. He had few interests outside his work. On our rare days off, he would lie late in bed, riffling through the newspapers, or re-reading tattered novels from the shelves about the house. At last he’d fling them aside, do some moody rapier practice, then begin preparing for our next assignment. Little else seemed to interest him.

He never discussed old cases. Something propelled him ever onwards. At times an almost obsessive quality to his energy could be glimpsed beneath the urbane exterior. But he never gave a clue as to what drove him, and I was forced to develop my own speculations.

Outwardly he was just as energetic and mercurial as ever, passionate and restless, a continual inspiration. He still wore his hair dashingly swept back, still had a fondness for too-tight suits; was just as courteous to me as he’d been the day we met. But he also remained – and I had become increasingly aware of this fact the longer I observed him – ever so slightly detached: from the ghosts we discovered, from the clients we took on, perhaps even (though I didn’t find this easy to admit) from his colleagues, George and me.

The clearest evidence of this lay in the personal details we each revealed. It had taken me months to summon up the courage, but in the end I’d told them both a good deal about my childhood, my unhappy experiences in my first apprenticeship, and the reasons I’d had for leaving home. George too was full of stories – which I seldom listened to – mostly about his upbringing in north London. It had been unexcitingly normal; his family was well-balanced and no one seemed to have died or disappeared. He’d even once introduced us to his mother, a small, plump, smiley woman who had called Lockwood ‘ducks’, me ‘darling’, and given us all a homemade cake. But Lockwood? No. He rarely spoke about himself, and certainly never about his past or his family. After a year of living with him in his childhood home I still knew nothing about his parents at all.

This was particularly frustrating because the whole of 35 Portland Row was filled to overflowing with their artefacts and heirlooms, their books and furniture. The walls of the living room and stairwell were covered with strange objects: masks, weapons, and what seemed to be ghost-hunting equipment from far-off cultures. It seemed obvious that Lockwood’s parents had been researchers or collectors of some kind, with a special interest in lands beyond Europe. But where they were (or, more likely, what had happened to them), Lockwood never said. And there seemed to be no photographs or personal mementoes of them anywhere.

At least, not in any of the rooms I visited.

Because I thought I knew where the answers to Lockwood’s past might be.

There was a certain door on the first-floor landing of the house. Unlike every other door in 35 Portland Row, this one was never opened. When I’d arrived, Lockwood had requested that it remain closed, and George and I had always obeyed him. The door had no lock that I could see, and as I passed it every day, its plain exterior (blank, except for a rough rectangle where some label or sticker had been removed) presented an almost insolent challenge. It dared me to guess what was behind it, defied me to peek inside. So far, I’d resisted the temptation – more out of prudence than simple nicety. The one or two occasions when I’d even mentioned the room to Lockwood had not gone down too well.

And what about me, Lucy Carlyle, still the newest member of the company? How had I altered that first year?

Outwardly, not so much. My hair remained in a multi-purpose, ectoplasm-avoiding bob; I wasn’t any sleeker or better-looking than before. Height-wise, I hadn’t grown any. I was still more eager than skilful when it came to fighting, and too impatient to be an excellent researcher like George.

But things had changed for me. My time with Lockwood & Co. had given me an assurance I’d previously been lacking. When I walked down the street with my rapier swinging at my side, and the little kids gawping, and the adults giving me deferential nods, I not only knew I had a special status in society, I honestly believed I’d begun to earn it too.

My Talents were fast developing. My skill at inner Listening, which had always been good, was growing ever sharper. I heard the whispers of Type Ones, the fragments of speech emitted by Type Twos: few apparitions were entirely silent to me now. My sense of psychic Touch had also deepened. Holding certain objects gave me strong echoes of the past. More and more, I found I had an intuitive feel for the intentions of each ghost; sometimes I could even predict their actions.

All these were rare enough abilities, but they were overshadowed by something deeper – a mystery that hung over all of us at 35 Portland Row, but particularly over me. Seven months before, something had happened that set me apart from Lockwood and George, and all the other agents we competed with. Ever since, my Talent had been the focus of George’s experiments, and our major topic of conversation. Lockwood even believed it might be the foundation of our fortunes, and make us the most celebrated agency in London.

First, though, we had to solve one particular problem.

That problem was sitting on George’s desk, inside a thick glass jar, beneath a jet-black cloth.

It was dangerous and evil, and had the potential to change my life for ever.

It was a skull.