Lockwood & Co.: The Whispering Skull

Fifty years of the Problem have led to many changes in our society, and not all of them are what you’d expect. When the great Tom Rotwell and Marissa Fittes went public with their discoveries, all that time ago, the general reaction was shock and panic. Their first publication, What Binds the Departed to Us?, proposed that certain objects connected to violent deaths or other traumas might become ‘psychically charged’, and so act as a ‘source’ or ‘gateway’ for supernatural activity. Human remains, precious belongings, or indeed any potential object of desire might fall into this category, as might the exact location of a murder or accident. The idea caused a sensation. A public frenzy took over. For a while any object even dimly supposed to have some kind of psychic residue was treated with terror and disgust. Items of old furniture were burned, and random antiques smashed or thrown into the Thames. A priceless painting in the National Portrait Gallery was hurled to the floor and trampled on by a vicar, ‘because it looked at me in a funny way’. Anything with a strong connection to the past was considered suspect, and a cult of modern objects grew up, which remains with us even now. The notion that anyone might be interested in Sources for their own sake was laughable; they were perilous and needed to be destroyed. It was left to the agencies to deal with them.

Before long, however, it turned out that forbidden things were of interest after all, to several different kinds of customer. And where there are customers, people will be found to supply them. A black market in psychic artefacts soon began, with a new category of criminal operating at its heart: the so-called ‘relic-men’.

During my apprenticeship with Jacobs in the north of England I was taught that the wicked relic-man was in every respect the moral opposite of what an agent stood for. Both hunted out Sources: the relic-man driven by a desire for profit, the agent driven by a desire for public good. Both had psychic Talent; but while an agent used his to protect society from Visitors, the relic-man gave this no thought at all. An agent disposed of dangerous artefacts carefully – first encasing them in silver or iron, then taking them to the Fittes furnaces in Clerkenwell to be burned. A relic-man, by contrast, sold his prizes to the highest bidder. Rumours abounded of sinister collectors, of wild-eyed cultists and worse, who squirrelled away deadly Sources for purposes that ordinary citizens would fear to fathom. Relic-men were thieves, in short – society’s bottom-feeders, who skulked in graveyards and charnel houses, looking for unwholesome scraps to trade. Unsurprisingly, they often came to bad ends.

Few ends – at least, if his expression was anything to go by – were quite as bad as that which had befallen the unfortunate Duane Neddles, and our discovery of his body caused a great stir at Kensal Green. Before the hour was out, Inspector Barnes arrived; soon the place was crawling with DEPRAC forensic scientists, with Kipps and his associates hovering on the side lines. Kipps, inevitably, reacted to our find with agitation and, being desperate not to miss any clues we might have found, kept getting in the way of the forensic team until Barnes bluntly told him to get lost. In truth, though, there was little more to be learned. A search of the canal bank beyond the wall revealed no sign of Neddles’s associate or the missing mirror; and the exact cause of the relic-man’s death remained a mystery.

What with all the commotion, it was late afternoon before we could disperse on our different missions. Lockwood and I took a taxi south towards the city. George, crackling with suppressed excitement, set off for the dusty Archives. The night-watch kid (who now seemed to think of himself as an honorary agent, strutting around with an air of great importance, cap set at a rakish angle) was packed off to resume his duties, with strict instructions to call on us at Portland Row if he saw or heard anything further of interest. Whether it was Lockwood’s energy and charisma, his adventure in our company or (most likely) the money in his pocket, the kid readily agreed. We still didn’t know his name.

‘So,’ I said to Lockwood five minutes later, as the taxi moved steadily down the Edgware Road, ‘aren’t you going to tell me where we’re going?’

The shadows in the street were thin and bathed in gold. The shops had begun their last great flurry of activity before the long, slow, sensual onset of dusk. We agents call this the ‘borrowed time’: extra hours of sunlight you only get in midsummer. During these hours, many people seem filled with a strange and feverish energy, a kind of defiance against the looming dark. They do a lot of eating, drinking and spending; the shops were bright and cheery, the pavements thronged. The ghost-lamps were just coming on.

Lockwood’s face was lit by traces of the dying sun. He’d been unaccountably silent, deep in thought, but when he turned to me his eyes sparkled with the thrill of the chase. As always, that awoke a similar thrill in me.

‘We’re going to see a contact of mine,’ he said. ‘Someone who might help us find our missing man.’

‘Who is he? A policeman? Another agent?’

‘No. A relic-man. Well, a relic-woman, really. Her name’s Flo Bones.’

I stared at him; my thrill diminished. ‘A relic-woman?’

‘Yes. Just a girl I know. We’ll find her down by the river somewhere, once it’s dark.’

He looked blandly out of the window again, as if he’d suggested nipping to the shops or something equally mundane. And again I had that tipping sensation, the slosh of blood inside the head, like I’d had when the skull was whispering to me. It was the feeling of parameters shifting, old certainties becoming misaligned. Secretive, deceitful – that’s what the skull had said. Obviously I didn’t believe that for a moment. Still, I’d lived with Lockwood a full year and this was the first time I’d heard of Flo Bones.

‘This relic-girl . . .’ I said. ‘How did you meet? I’ve never heard you talk of her before.’

‘Flo? I met her a long time ago. When I was just starting out.’

‘But relic-men are . . . well, they operate outside the law, don’t they? It’s illegal for any agent to fraternize with them.’

‘Since when have you become a stickler for DEPRAC’s rules, Luce? Anyway, we need all the help we can get on this one. We’re in a race against time with Kipps. Plus this job is more dangerous and puzzling than I thought.’

‘You mean the mirror, of course.’ I could still picture the body in the graveyard: the popping eyes, the mouth drawn back into a slash of horror.

‘The mirror, yes; but there’s more to it than that. Barnes isn’t telling us everything. This isn’t any old Source, which is why George’s job is so crucial now.’ Lockwood stretched languidly. ‘Anyway, Flo’s all right. She’s not quite as antisocial as the other relic-men. She’ll talk to you, though she is cranky. You just need to know the right way— Which reminds me . . .’ Lockwood swivelled suddenly in his seat, lifted the swinging lavender crucifix, and spoke through the hatch. ‘If we could stop by Blackfriars Station, driver . . .You know that little newsagent there? . . . Yes.’ He turned to me and grinned. ‘We need to get some liquorice.’

Between Blackfriars and Southwark bridges, which connect the City of London with the ancient borough of Southwark, the river Thames turns gradually to the south-east. Here the current slows slightly, and at low tide a broad expanse of mud flats is exposed beneath the south side of Southwark Bridge, where sediment dropped by the river has built up around the curve. Lockwood pointed this out to me as we walked across the bridge in the glare of the dying sun.

‘She’ll be down there, most likely,’ he said. ‘Unless she’s changed her habits, which is about as probable as her changing her underwear. She starts the night at the Southwark Reaches, where stuff’s washed up by the tide. Later, she’ll move downstream, following the tideline.’

‘What’s she looking for?’ I asked, though I had guessed already.

‘You name it. Bones, relics, drowned things, things scoured up from the river mud.’

‘She sounds delightful,’ I said. ‘Can’t wait to meet her.’ I adjusted my rapier grimly.

‘Don’t try any heavy stuff on Flo,’ Lockwood warned. ‘In fact, the best thing is to leave the talking to me. We can go down here.’

We ducked through a gap in the parapet, and descended some stone steps that hugged the brickwork of the bridge. Its arch soared over us; there was a powerful smell of mud and decay. We alighted on a cobbled lane which ran along the embankment, and walked down it a little way. A rusted streetlight clung like a dead tree to the low wall overlooking the river. Behind us were warehouses, dark and cliff-like. A faint apricot-pink sphere of light gleamed about the lamp, illuminating nothing except a narrow flight of steps leading below the wall.

Above and all around were space and river mist, and the flowing onset of the night. Lockwood said, ‘We move carefully now. Don’t want to scare her off.’

The steps led steeply down towards the river. From the wall we could see the northern bank – a broken snake of lights, with London’s great grey mess of spires behind. The tide was fully out; the river’s sullen glister hung low and far away.

It was very quiet everywhere.

Lockwood nudged me, pointed. A lantern was moving out on the mud flats, an orange light, held close to the ground. Its reflection, flitting just beneath it, faint as a Shade, swooped wet and pale across the shingle, lighting the stones and weed and all the river’s washed-up flotsam – the wood and plastics, fragments of metal, bottles, drowned and rotting things. A stooped, slow-moving figure walked above the lantern-light, cocooning it, as if to shroud it jealously from all sight. It moved with methodical purpose, stopping now and then to pick at something in the debris. A heavy sack, which it dragged behind, carved an intermittent furrow in the slime. Whether it was the trail it left, or its hunched and rounded shape, this creature seemed more like a giant snail from the bottom of the Thames than a fellow human being.

‘You want to talk to that?’ I whispered.

Lockwood made no answer, but pattered down the river stairs. I followed. Halfway down, the steps became soft and wet with moss. Lockwood reached the last step, but went no further. He raised a hand and called out over the dark expanse. ‘Hey, Flo!’

Away across the mud the figure froze. I sensed, rather than saw, the pale face staring at us from afar.

Lockwood raised his voice again. ‘Flo!’

‘What if it is? I haven’t done nothing.’

The reply, rather high and cracked, didn’t carry well; it would have been natural to move closer, but Lockwood was cautious. He remained standing on the bottom step.

‘Hey, Flo! It’s Lockwood!’

Silence. The figure straightened abruptly; I thought for a moment it was going to turn and run. But then the voice came again, faint, hostile and guarded. ‘You? What the bloody hell do you want?’

‘Oh, that’s fine,’ Lockwood murmured. ‘She’s in a good mood.’ He cleared his throat, called out again. ‘Can you talk?’

The distant person considered; for a few seconds we heard nothing except the sloop and slosh of the river along the shore. ‘No. I’m busy! Go away.’

‘I’ve brought liquorice!’

‘What, you’re trying to bribe me now? Bring money!’ More silence; just the sucking of the water. Away in the haze a head was cocked to one side. ‘What kind of liquorice?’

‘Come and see!’

I watched as the figure began to plough its way rapidly towards us through the mire. It was a limping witch, a night-hag from a child’s fever-dreams. My heart beat fast. ‘Um . . . what would have happened,’ I said, ‘if she wasn’t in a good mood?’

‘Best not to ask,’ Lockwood said. ‘I saw her chuck an agent into the river once,’ he went on reflectively. ‘Just lifted her up by the leg and tossed her in. Flo was in a good mood that day too, as it happens. But she’ll like you, I’m almost sure. Just don’t say much, and stay out of stabbing distance. I’ll handle it from here.’

The shambling creature drew close, dragging the sack, bearing the light before it. I glimpsed a pale and filthy hand, the crown of a tattered straw hat. Great boots sucked and slurped in the mud and shingle. Lockwood and I instinctively moved up a step. A sudden groan, a curse; the sack was swung up and over to land on the stone below. At last the figure straightened; she stood in the mud beneath the steps and stared up at us. In the light of the lantern I got a proper look at her for the first time.

The first shock, now that she’d rid herself of her burden, was that she was tall – half a head taller than me. It was hard to tell more about her shape (this was fine by me: no sane person would have wanted to look beneath her clothes). She wore an unutterably foul blue puffa jacket that went down almost to her knees; the lower reaches were dark with moisture, caked with river mud. The zip was open, providing glimpses of a pale expanse of dirty neck, a grimy shirt collar, a patched and shapeless jersey hanging down over ancient and faded jeans. She either had the biggest feet of any female I’d ever met, or was wearing a man’s wellington boots, or both. The boots, which reached her knees, were splayed outwards like a duck’s, and were ripple-stained by muck and water.

A length of rope, tied twice around her waist, served as a makeshift belt. Something hung there in the recesses of the coat. I thought it might have been a sword, which is illegal for a non-agent to wear.

From her hobbling approach and shapeless outline, she might have been very elderly, so the second shock came when she pushed back the broad-brimmed hat. From under it a spray of hair, the colour and stiffness of old straw, radiated outwards from a wide and grubby forehead. Dirt had collected in the creases running across it, and in the lines beside the eyes; in this she was no different from any vagrant queuing for safe quarters overnight. But she was young – still in her teens. She had a small, up-tilted nose, a wide face, pinkish cheeks, smeared with grey, and bright blue eyes that sparkled in the lantern-light. Her mouth was broad and contemptuous, her head jutting forward aggressively. She took me in with a single glance, then focused her attention on Lockwood. ‘Well, you haven’t changed,’ she said. ‘Still as lah-di-dah as ever, I see.’

Lockwood grinned. ‘Hello, Flo. Well, you know me.’

‘Yeah. See you still can’t afford a suit that fits. Don’t bend over quick wearing those trousers, that’s my advice. I thought I said I never wanted to see you again.’

‘Did you? I don’t remember. Did I say I’d brought liquorice whirls?’

‘Like that changes anything. Give them here.’ A paper bag was produced and delivered to a claw-like hand, which stowed it in some unmentionable recess beneath the coat. The girl sniffed. ‘So who’s this trollop?’

‘This is Lucy Carlyle, my associate,’ Lockwood said. ‘I should say at once that she has no connection with DEPRAC or the police, or the Rotwell Agency. She’s an independent operative, working with me, and I trust her with my life. Lucy, this is Flo.’

‘Hello, Flo,’ I said.

‘Florence Bonnard to you, I’m sure,’ the girl said in a hoity-toity voice. ‘See you’ve got another posh ’un here, Lockwood.’

I blinked indignantly. ‘Excuse me, I’m working-class northern. And when you say “another”—’

‘Listen, Flo, I know you’re busy . . .’ It was Lockwood’s emollient voice, the one he used in tough corners – with irritable clients and with angry creditors who came knocking on our door. The full gigawatt smile would be coming next, sure as day. ‘I don’t want to bother you,’ he said, ‘but I need your assistance. Just a little bit of information, then I’ll be gone. A crime’s been committed, a kid’s been hurt. We’ve got a lead on the relic-man who did it, but we don’t know where to find him. And we were wondering if you could help.’

The blue gaze narrowed; the creases around the eyes disappeared into the dirt. ‘Don’t flash that smile at me. This relic-man. He got a name?’

‘Jack Carver.’

A cold breeze blew across the river, rippling the matted stalks of Flo Bones’s hair. ‘Sorry. There’s a code of silence among our kind. We can’t peach on each other. That’s just the way it is.’

‘First I’ve heard of it,’ Lockwood said. ‘I thought you were famous for your cut-throat rivalry, and happy to sell each other’s grandmothers for sixpence.’

The girl shrugged. ‘The two things ain’t mutually exclusive, if you want to stay healthy.’ She grabbed at the neck of the hempen bag. ‘And I don’t want to be washed up by the dawn tide, so that’s the end of it. Goodbye.’

‘Flo, I gave you liquorice whirls.’

‘It’s not enough.’

‘No good, Lockwood,’ I said. ‘She’s scared. Come on.’

I touched his arm, made as if to climb the steps. The girl’s face was a sudden white oval staring up at me. ‘What did you say?’

‘Lucy, it’s probably not wise—’

But I’d had enough of keeping quiet. Flo Bones annoyed me, and I was going to let her know it. Sometimes politeness only gets you so far. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘She can go back to scrabbling gently in the mud, while we get on with hunting the guy who coshed a kid and robbed a grave, and now has a vicious artefact that probably threatens London. Each to their own. Come on.’

A hop, a skip; a stench that made my toenails curl. A puffa jacket crackling against my coat, a jutting face pressed into mine. I was thrust back against the stonework of the steps. ‘I don’t like what you’re saying,’ Flo Bones said.

‘It’s OK,’ I said sweetly. ‘I’m not blaming you. People have to know their limitations. Most avoid danger, no matter what. It’s just the way things are. Now, I don’t want you to scuff your coat—’

‘You think I avoid danger? You think there’s no danger in what I do?’ A series of emotions probably passed across the girl’s face at this point – anger, outrage, followed by a long slow dawn of cunning realization – but what with all the darkness and the dirt, and her sheer stomach-turning proximity, it was impossible to be sure. ‘Tell you what,’ she said, and suddenly she was away from me and dancing down the steps again, light-footed and nimble beneath her cumbersome boots and coat. ‘Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. You do something for me, I’ll do something for you.’ With a crunch, she landed back on the shingle and took up the lantern. ‘Come out onto the reaches with me, unless you’re ’fraid of getting your feet wet. Afterwards I’ll tell you all about him.’

‘You know Jack Carver, then?’ Lockwood said. ‘You’ll tell us what you know?’

‘Yes.’ Her eyes glittered; her mouth grinned broadly. ‘First just a little gentle scrabbling in the mud. Something you can help me with, what I ain’t been able to do.’

Lockwood and I glanced at each other. Speaking personally, the girl’s insane grin didn’t inspire enormous confidence. But we didn’t have much choice, if this line of enquiry was to proceed. We jumped down onto the sand.

Twenty minutes later my boots were sopping, my leggings soaked as high as my calves. Three times I’d stumbled, and the side of one arm was caked in mud and sand. Lockwood was in a similar state, but he bore it without complaint. We followed Flo Bones’s lantern as it leaped and swung ahead of us like a will-o’-the-wisp, darting from side to side as she picked her way across the mire. Under the sodden blackness beneath the bridge we went, and out onto the Southwark Reaches, with the tide-wall of the embankment curling steadily away from us to the right. River mists had risen. On the opposite bank, the wharfs rose from the water like rotting black cliffs, soft and formless. Faint red and orange lights pulsed on the tips of the crane masts and the jib ends.

‘Here we are,’ Flo Bones said.

She raised the lantern. Two rows of great black wooden posts emerged from the muck, twelve feet tall or more, tracing the line of a long-lost wharf or pier. Their sides were thick with weed, mostly black, in places faintly luminous; barnacles and shells clung to them too, rising above our heads to the high-tideline. In places, rotten spars still spanned between the posts. To our left the furthest posts rose from the water, but where we stood the muck was soft and granular with millions of tiny stones.

Flo Bones seemed energized; she tossed her sack aside and bounded up to us. ‘Here,’ she said again. ‘There’s something here I want, only I’ve never been able to get it.’

Lockwood took his torch out and shone it around. ‘Show us where. If it’s heavy, I’ve got rope in my pack.’

Flo chuckled. ‘Oh, it’s not heavy. I’m sure it’s very small. No, right now you got to wait. Stand tight. We won’t be long.’

With this, she skipped away towards the nearest post, rounded it, and zigzagged to another, chuckling throatily the while.

I leaned in close to Lockwood. ‘You realize,’ I whispered, ‘that she’s completely mad.’

‘She’s certainly a bit odd.’

‘And so disgusting. Gaaah! Have you got close to her? That smell . . .’

‘I know,’ Lockwood said mildly. ‘It’s a little intense.’

‘Intense? I can feel my nose hairs shrivelling. And if—’ I stopped, suddenly alert.

‘What is it, Lucy?’

‘Do you feel that?’ I said. ‘Something’s starting.’ I pulled up my sleeve: the skin was peppered with goose pimples. My heart had given a double beat; the back of my neck was tingling. As an agent, you learn to listen to these signs: early warnings of a manifestation. ‘Creeping fear,’ I said, ‘and chill. Also’ – I wrinkled my nose – ‘you smell that? There’s a miasma building.’

Lockwood sniffed. ‘To be frank, I thought that was Flo.’

‘No. It’s Visitors . . .’

As one, we drew our swords, stood watchful and alert. Away among the posts, Flo’s bobbing light became still; we heard her fretful crooning. Mists swirled, the new night darkened round us. Ghosts came.