Lockwood & Co.: The Whispering Skull

Early afternoon, and the sun was high above the cemetery. Bees buzzed among the crosses, butterflies winked above the mourning angels and ivy-covered urns. It was hot; everything was slow and drowsy. Except for Lockwood – he led us along the gravel path at breakneck speed, talking rapidly all the while.

‘The Kipps group will already be there,’ he said. ‘We have to ignore them, come what may. Don’t rise to any provocation – or give any: especially you, George.’

‘Why especially me?’

‘You only have to look at people sometimes to arouse their savage rage. Now listen – we need to work fast. Going back to Portland Row has put us seriously behind.’

This, while true, had been unavoidable. We’d all needed to collect our belts and bags, restock our equipment and eat a proper meal. George had needed to take a shower. These were important considerations.

‘Kipps will be doing the obvious thing,’ Lockwood went on as the roof of the chapel came in sight between the trees. ‘He’ll be splitting forces to follow two separate lines of enquiry. The first: what is the mirror, and what did the mysterious Edmund Bickerstaff use it for? Who was Bickerstaff, come to that, beyond all that baloney about sorcery and rats? George, that’s your department from now on.’

George’s glasses sparkled. ‘I should get over to the Archives straight away.’

‘Not yet. I want you to take a look at the scene of the crime with me, and particularly at that coffin. After that you can head off, while Lucy and I pursue the second problem – namely: who stole the object and where is it now? We’ll take a look around, talk to people at the scene—’ He broke off as something occurred to him. ‘Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you. That photo Barnes had . . . Either of you see anything odd in it?’

We looked at him, shook our heads.

‘No? It’s just I thought I saw something inside the coffin,’ he said, ‘half hidden by the legs of the body. It was very hazy, hard to be sure, but . . .’

I frowned. ‘Well, what did you think it was?’

‘I don’t know. I was probably wrong. Ah, didn’t I tell you? Here’s Kipps’s gang.’

We had rounded the chapel and come in sight of the Excavations camp, which was alive with grey-jacketed forms. A host of Fittes agents were at work beside one of the Portakabins. Some talked to the tattooed workmen who, sitting on folding chairs with plates in their laps, were attempting to finish lunch. Others wandered about taking photographs and staring at footprints in the dirt. A sizeable group had rounded up several small night-watch kids and appeared to be questioning them. One of the agents, a bulky youth with a mop of shaggy hair, was gesticulating fiercely. The children, whom I recognized from the previous evening, looked pale and scared.

‘That’s Ned Shaw,’ George murmured. ‘Recognize him?’

Lockwood nodded. ‘One of Kipps’s enforcers. He’s a nasty piece of work. There were accusations that he once beat up a Grimble agent, but nothing was ever proved. Hello, Mr Saunders, Mr Joplin! Here we are, then, back again!’

Neither the excavating agent nor the little scholar seemed in very good shape after the events of the night. Saunders was grey-faced and anxious, his chin lined with stubble. He wore the same crumpled clothes as the day before. Joplin was in an even worse state, his eyes red with anger and distress. He scratched worriedly at his hair, blinking at us through his little glasses. His dandruff was more noticeable than ever; it lay on his shoulders like grey snow.

‘This is a terrible event!’ he wailed. ‘Unheard of! Who knows the value of what’s been stolen! It’s terrible! Atrocious! Awful!’

‘And of course there was that poor night-watch kid getting hurt,’ I said.

The men ignored me. Saunders was scowling at Joplin. ‘Hardly unheard of, Albert. We’ve had thefts before. Security on our digs is like a sieve sometimes. What’s different now is all the fuss being made. DEPRAC getting shirty. Agents crawling around like flies.’

Joplin sniffed. ‘I told you to place it under proper guard, Paul! Just one child on the door? That was never going to be enough. But no, you wouldn’t have it! You always overrule me. I wanted to go back to check on him, but you said—’

‘Would you mind if we just visit the chapel, gentlemen?’ Lockwood was all smiles. ‘Please don’t feel you have to escort us. We know the way.’

‘Not sure what you’ll find that the other lot didn’t,’ Saunders said sourly. ‘You do realize it was an inside job? Someone from the night watch tipped the thieves the wink. Ungrateful little beggars! The amount I pay them!’

Lockwood looked towards the group of night-watch kids, and their interrogation. Even from a distance Ned Shaw’s hectoring tones could be heard. ‘I see they’re getting a hard time,’ he said. ‘May I ask why?’

Saunders grunted. ‘No mystery, Mr Lockwood,’ he said. ‘Just look at the layout. Here’s the chapel, here’s the only entrance up these steps. Right outside we’ve got the camp. Towards dawn – when the theft took place – most of the night watch were coming back to their cabin. There were always several of them milling about around the fires. It would have been hard for the criminals to slip past without being seen. That’s why Kipps believes some or all of the night watch were in on it.’

‘But why should the thieves go past the cabins?’ I said.

‘That’s the way to the West Gate, girlie, which is the only exit left open at night. All the others are locked, and the boundary wall is far too high to climb.’

Mr Joplin had seemed distracted until now, biting his lip and staring with hot eyes out across the cemetery, but he suddenly spoke up. ‘Yes, and if we’d kept the gate closed – as I advised, Paul – perhaps we wouldn’t have had a theft at all!’

‘Will you stop going on about it?’ Saunders snapped. ‘It’s just a stupid relic!’

George was frowning at the far end of the church, where it brushed up against thick bushes. ‘Kipps’s theory makes no sense,’ he said. ‘The thieves could have crept round the back of the chapel just as easily as going past the camp, and got to the gate that way.’

‘Not really,’ Joplin said, ‘because that was where Saunders and I were working. We were with the night team on that side of the chapel until dawn, assessing another sector. There were dozens of us. It would have been difficult to get by.’

‘Interesting,’ Lockwood said. ‘Well, we’ll take a look and see if anything occurs to us. Thank you, gentlemen! Nice to see you!’ We walked away. ‘I hope those two idiots don’t follow us,’ he breathed. ‘We need some peace and quiet here.’

Two strands of black-and-yellow DEPRAC police tape had been stretched across the chapel doors. As we approached, Quill Kipps and his little researcher, Bobby Vernon, emerged from beneath the tape, blinking in the light. Vernon was almost hidden behind a giant clipboard; he wore latex gloves and carried an enormous camera around his neck. As he passed us, he was jotting something carefully onto a notepad strapped to the board.

Kipps nodded to us lazily. ‘Tony. Cubbins. Julie.’ They pattered down the stairs.

‘Er . . . it’s Lucy!’ I called after him.

‘Why did none of us trip him?’ George muttered. ‘It would have been so sweet.’

Lockwood shook his head. ‘Be strong, George. Remember – no provocations!’

We stood a while at the chapel entrance, analysing the spot where the unfortunate night-watch guard had been attacked. It faced slightly away from the camp, and would have been in darkness. An intruder might certainly have approached sidelong from the bushes, climbed up onto the steps, and stood there without being seen by anyone below. The lock of the door itself had been stoved in by something sharp, probably a chisel.

That was all we could make out. We ducked under the tape and out of the day’s heat, into the cool of the chapel.

Things hadn’t changed much since Barnes’s photo had been taken. Chains, coffin, and the crumpled corpse of Dr Bickerstaff: all were as before – except that, rather to my relief, the body had been covered with a piece of dirty sacking.

In the daylight, the iron coffin seemed bigger than I remembered it: hefty, thick-walled and crusted with corrosion. Off to one side, a discarded watch-stick lay amid the scattered salt and iron.

Lockwood bounded over to the chains; he bent low and inspected the flagstones. ‘The thieves crouched just outside the circle,’ he said. ‘You can see the toe-prints of their boots here, scuffed into the salt. It was dawn. They were almost safe from Visitors. But they didn’t want to bank on it. They’d knocked out the kid and taken his stick. They used that to pry open the lid and pull off the silver net. Then they hung back, waiting to see if anything happened. Nothing did. All was quiet. Now they stepped into the circle and tipped the coffin, so the body tumbled out onto the floor.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Why do that? Why not just grab the mirror?’

‘Maybe they wanted to see if anything else was in there,’ George said.

‘And they didn’t want to manhandle Bickerstaff,’ I added. ‘That part I understand.’

‘Fair enough,’ Lockwood said. ‘So they tipped it over. But was there anything else inside . . .? And is there now?’

He hopped over the body and peered inside the coffin. Taking his rapier from his belt, he poked it into the furthest recesses. Then he straightened.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Odd. In the photograph, I thought . . .’

‘So what did you see in the photo?’ I asked.

‘A bundle of sticks.’ He brushed his hair irritably back from his face. ‘I know; doesn’t seem likely. Maybe it was a trick of the eyes. Anyway, it’s not there now.’

For a while we assessed the rest of the chapel. I paid particular attention to the little wooden door behind the altar rail. It had been padlocked and triple-bolted. I pulled at the padlock speculatively.

‘Internal door, leading down to the catacombs,’ I said. ‘Firmly locked on this side. I did wonder if that was the way the thieves came and went, though I suppose it doesn’t square with the night-watch kid’s account.’

‘Looks secure,’ Lockwood agreed. ‘OK, let’s go outside.’

‘So what do you think about Kipps’s theory?’ George asked as we set off down the steps. ‘You think the thieves went past the night-watchers’ camp? Think the kids are in on it somehow?’

Lockwood pulled at his long straight nose. ‘I very much doubt it. It’s far more likely that—’ He stopped; we’d heard a cry of pain.

The camp had quietened down since we’d been inside. Saunders, Joplin and the workmen had gone about their business, and Kipps was nowhere to be seen. Only one final night-watch kid was left, four burly Fittes agents standing over him like a wall. He was just picking up his checked yellow cap from the ground; as he stood up I recognized the surly urchin who’d been stationed at the gate the previous day. The kid put his cap back on. At once the biggest agent, Ned Shaw, leaned over and casually slapped the side of his head. The cap fell off again; the boy stumbled and almost fell.

Six quick strides – and Lockwood was at the scene. He tapped Shaw on his shoulder. ‘Stop doing that, please. You’re twice his size.’

Shaw turned round. He was about fifteen, as tall as Lockwood, and hefty with it. He had a bland, strong-jawed face, not unhandsome, except for eyes slightly too narrowly set. Like all the Fittes crowd, his outfit was pristine, but the effect was undermined by his brown shock of hair. It looked like a baby yak had fallen on him from on high.

Shaw blinked; there was uncertainty in his face. ‘Shove off, Lockwood. This has nothing to do with you.’

‘I understand your eagerness to clout this kid,’ Lockwood said. ‘I’ve itched to do the same myself. But it’s not on. You want to push people around, pick someone taller.’

Shaw’s lip curled like someone was winding it round a pencil. ‘I’ll push anyone I like.’

‘Little kids? That makes you a coward.’

Shaw smiled briefly; he looked out into the haze of the cemetery. He seemed to be thinking of something peaceful and far away. Then he turned and punched Lockwood hard on the side of the face – or tried to, because Lockwood swayed back and dodged the blow. Shaw’s momentum carried him forward; Lockwood took hold of his flailing arm and twisted it sharply to the side and back. At the same time he stuck his boot behind one of Shaw’s ankles. Shaw cried out; lost his balance, tripped over his own feet and fell, knocking into one of the other agents and sending them both flailing to the ground.

Shaw’s face flushed purple; he instantly sought to rise, but found the point of my rapier gently resting against his chest.

‘Our no-provocation rule is surprisingly flexible,’ George remarked. ‘Can I give him a kick too?’

Shaw silently regained his feet. Lockwood watched impassively. I lowered my sword-arm, but held it ready. None of the other Fittes agents did anything at all.

‘We can continue this whenever you like,’ Lockwood said. ‘Just name a time.’

‘Oh, we’ll continue it’ – Ned Shaw nodded – ‘don’t you worry about that.’ He glared at Lockwood and then at me, his fingers twitching.

‘Come on, Ned,’ one of his companions said. ‘This little runt doesn’t know anything anyway.’

Ned Shaw hesitated; he gave the night-watch boy a narrow, appraising stare. At last he nodded and gave a signal to the others. Without further words they loped away among the gravestones. The kid watched them go, his eyes wet and shining.

‘Pay no attention to him,’ Lockwood said. ‘They can’t really touch you.’

The boy drew himself up to his full, not very considerable height. He adjusted his cap with an angry gesture. ‘I know that. Course they can’t.’

‘They’re just bullies throwing their weight around. Some agents do that, I’m afraid.’

The boy spat into the cemetery grass. ‘Yeah. Agents. Stuck-up snobs, the lot of them. Who gives a damn about agents? Not me.’

There was a silence. ‘Yes, actually we’re agents too,’ I said, ‘but we’re different from Ned Shaw. We don’t use his methods. We respect the night watch. So if we ask you a few questions, it’ll be done differently. No slapping about, for one thing.’

I smiled winningly at the boy. The boy stared back at me.

‘We’re not going to thump you, is what I mean.’

The boy sniffed. ‘That’s a laugh. I’d like to see you try.’

Lockwood’s nostrils twitched slightly. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Listen, a dangerous artefact was stolen last night. In the wrong hands, it could do terrible things around London.’

The kid looked bored; he stared impassively at a patch of ground.

‘The theft happened while your team was on watch. One of your friends was badly injured, wasn’t he?’

‘Terry Morgan?’ The kid rolled his eyes. ‘That chinwipe? He ain’t my friend.’

We all stared at him. ‘Yeah,’ George breathed. ‘That statement I can believe.’

‘You were on the West Gate last night,’ Lockwood went on in a steely voice. ‘If you saw anything, if you know anything that can help, it would be well worth you telling us. Anything that might give us the clue we need.’

The boy shrugged. ‘Are we finished? Good, ’cos I’m missing chow time.’ He jerked a thumb towards the prefab cabin. ‘There’ll still be sandwiches in there. See you.’ He began to swagger away.

Lockwood stood back. He looked up and down the cemetery. No one was coming. He grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck, hoicked him squealing above the grass. ‘As I say,’ he said, ‘we’re not like that Fittes crowd. We don’t go in for slapping people about. We do have other methods, however, that are equally effective. See that chapel? There’s an iron coffin in there. It was occupied, but now it’s empty. Well, it’ll be occupied again in a minute if you don’t start answering my civil questions.’

The kid flicked a tongue over dry lips. ‘Get lost. You’re bluffing.’

‘You think so? You know little Bill Jones of the Putney night watch?’

‘No! I’ve never seen him!’

‘Exactly. He crossed us too. Lucy, George, grab a leg – we’re taking him inside.’

The boy kicked and squeaked, to no avail. We advanced towards the chapel.

‘What do you think?’ Lockwood said. ‘Five minutes in the coffin, see if he talks?’

I considered. ‘Make it ten.’

‘All right, all right!’ The kid was suddenly frantic. ‘I’ll co-operate! Put me down!’

We lowered him to the ground. ‘That’s better,’ Lockwood said. ‘Well then?’

The kid paused to adjust his cap, which now half covered his face. ‘I still reckon you’re bluffing,’ he panted, ‘but I’m missing my sandwiches, so . . .’ He rolled his shoulders as if to gear up his tongue. ‘Yeah, I was on the West Gate all last night. I saw nothing. After you left, no one came through at any time.’

‘You were there until after dawn?’

‘Until after the alarm was raised.’

‘Excellent.’ From nowhere, Lockwood brought forth a coin and tossed it to the boy. ‘There’s more of that if you can help me. Think you can?’

The kid looked hard at the coin. ‘Maybe.’

‘Then keep talking to me now. Come on! We haven’t got time to waste!’ With a sudden spring, Lockwood darted aside into the shadow of the chapel steps; he plunged into the bushes. ‘Come on!’ he called again. ‘This way!’

After a moment’s hesitation the kid’s greed got the better of him. He followed, despite himself. George and I did too.

Lockwood moved speedily, ducking under branches, dodging gravestones choked with thorns, following a trail that only he could see. He left the chapel behind, broke out onto a path, crossed it and plunged into another overgrown section of the cemetery. ‘You’ve confirmed exactly what I thought!’ he called over his shoulder. ‘The thieves found another way in. They got to and from the chapel by keeping to the unfrequented areas – like this bit, for instance, which leads right towards the boundary wall.’

He gave a flying leap, landed on a box-tomb, and clung to the angel atop it as he surveyed the ground beyond. ‘The undergrowth’s too thick that way,’ he mused. ‘But what about over there . . .? Aha! Yes . . . I see a route. We’ll try it!’ Jumping down, he grinned back at the night-watch kid. ‘Nothing went past you last night,’ he said. ‘But what about other nights? You keep your eyes open. Seen any strangers? Relic-men?’

The kid had been scampering to keep up, holding his cap to his head, seemingly mesmerized by the speed and decisiveness of Lockwood’s movements. His hostility had entirely vanished; he held the coin tightly in his grubby hand. ‘I seen some,’ he panted as we set off again. ‘There’s always a few hanging round the cemeteries.’

‘Any in particular?’

‘Couple. They’re well known, always go round together. Saw them a week or two back. Came in during public hours. Workmen had to chase them from the camp.’

‘Excellent!’ Lockwood cried. He was rushing down a grassy aisle between high stones. ‘Two together? Good. Can you describe them?’

‘One, not so much,’ the kid said. ‘Plump bloke, blond hair, scritty moustache. Young, wears black. Name of Duane Neddles.’

George made a sceptical noise that sounded like gas escaping from a rhino. ‘Duane Neddles? Oh, he sounds scary. Sure you’re not making this up?’

‘And the other?’ Lockwood called.

The kid hesitated. ‘He’s got a reputation. A killer. They say he bumped off a rival during a job last year. Maybe I shouldn’t—’

Lockwood stopped suddenly. ‘It was a team of two last night that bashed your colleague,’ he said. ‘Let’s say one was Neddles. Who was the other?’

The kid leaned close, spoke softly. ‘They call him Jack Carver.’

A group of crows rose squalling from the gravestones. Wings cracking, they circled against the sky and flew off over the trees.

Lockwood nodded. He reached inside his coat, brought out a banknote and handed it to the disbelieving kid. ‘I’ll make it worth your while every time you give me decent information. If we find Neddles and Carver, I’ll give you twice that. Understand me? Now, I want Carver’s description.’

‘Carver?’ The boy scratched his chin. ‘Young man in his twenties, as tall as you, a little broader in the shoulders, heavier round the belly. He’s got light red hair, long and straggly. Pale skin, long nose. Narrow eyes, can’t recall the colour. Wears black: black jeans, black biker’s jacket. Carries a work-belt, bit like yours, and an orange rucksack. Oh yeah, and black lace-up boots, like the ones the skinheads wear.’

‘Thanks,’ Lockwood said. ‘I think we’re going to get on well.’ He set off up the path again. Ahead of us loomed the boundary wall, hidden behind a row of spreading limes.

The kid trotted along beside us, busily stuffing the money into some sweatily remote portion of his clothes. George shook his head. ‘Duane Neddles . . . Jack Carver . . . If you’re keen on giving money away so easily, Lockwood, don’t give it to random kids. I can make up silly names too.’

But Lockwood had halted so abruptly we almost bumped into him. ‘Look!’ he cried. ‘I knew it! We’re on the right track!’ He pointed ahead of us. There, lying in shadow beside a tree, was something I had only previously seen for a split second, held in a corpse’s fist. A ragged white cloth, lying crumpled in the grass.

We clustered close, but of course the mirror it had contained was gone.

‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘Why ditch it here?’

‘It’s a stinking bit of corpse-rag,’ Lockwood said. ‘I wouldn’t hold onto it for long. And it was dawn by that time. Psychic objects lose their power when the sun is up. They knew it’d be safe to touch the mirror then. Maybe they transferred it to a backpack, in preparation for their climb . . .’

He pointed to the dappled canopy above. Looking up, we saw the spreading branches of the lime, saw the silhouette of the longest branch jutting out against the brightness of the sky. Our eyes ran along it until it reached the boundary wall and disappeared beyond. The rope tied to it could just be seen dangling on the other side.

‘That’s the Regent’s Canal over there,’ Lockwood said. ‘They shinned down, landed on the towpath. Then they were away.’

George had been staring off amongst the gravestones. ‘Nice one, Lockwood. That’s great detective work. But you haven’t got everything right.’

Lockwood looked slightly put out. ‘Oh, really? In what way?’

‘They didn’t both climb the tree.’

‘How d’you know that?’

‘One of them’s still here.’

We looked at him. George stepped aside. Beyond, wedged between two gravestones, was a body, lying on its back. It was a young man, dressed in black: black jeans, boots, a hooded top. A plump young man with an atrocious bumfluff moustache and pale, acned skin. He was very dead. The early stages of rigor mortis had set in, and his hands were raised up in front of his throat, fingers frozen in an awful defensive clawing pose. That wasn’t the worst of it. His eyes were wide open, his face twisted into a paroxysm of such horror that even Lockwood went white and I had to look away.

The night-watch kid made a choking noise.

‘Maybe I owe you an apology, kid,’ George said. ‘From your description, this might be Duane Neddles.’

‘Was it ghost-touch?’ I said. ‘Can’t be! It was after dawn!’

‘It’s not ghost-touch because he’s not swollen or discoloured. But something’s killed him, very fast and very horribly.’

I thought of the so-called mirror, of its little circle of dark glass. I thought of the way George had looked into it and felt as if his insides were being pulled out. ‘How, then?’ I whispered.

George’s voice was surprisingly level, matter-of-fact. ‘From the way he looks, Luce, I’d have to say he’s died of fright.’