Lockwood & Co.: The Whispering Skull

The Black Library of Fittes House proved to be a vast octagonal room, rising the height of two full floors towards a glass dome in the roof. It being night, the surface of the dome was dark, but lanterns beneath it shone warm light down into the centre of the library. The walls were bookshelves, tier upon tier, with a metal balcony running around them at first-floor height. In two places, spiral stairs descended from this to ground level, where we stood. The floor was made of wooden tiles, mostly of dark mahogany; but in the centre, a design in paler woods depicted a rearing silver unicorn. The middle of the room was sparsely furnished; here and there were reading tables, and glass cabinets displaying books and other objects. Directly opposite us was a set of double doors, closed and locked. From somewhere came the hum of a generator; otherwise a great hush lay on the library. The air was cool and the light dim.

Inset lamps above each bookshelf glowed like hovering fireflies around the half-dark of the perimeter. The books themselves had been expensively bound in leather – purples, dark browns and blacks. There must have been many hundreds on the ground floor alone.

‘Impressive . . .’ Lockwood breathed.

You might have expected George to be in his element here – along with crisps and weird experiments, libraries are his thing – but he was twitchy, biting his lip as he scoped the balconies for signs of movement. ‘First we need the index to the collection,’ he said. ‘It’ll probably be on one of the reading tables. Hurry up and help me. We mustn’t stay long.’

We followed him swiftly out into the bright centre of the room. All around was watchful silence. Somewhere beyond the double doors I heard a murmuring: echoes of the party elsewhere on this floor.

The table nearest the door had a large leather book lying on it; George hauled it open with an eager cry. ‘This is the index! Now we just need to see if “The Confessions of Mary Dulac” is here.’

While he turned the pages, I glanced at the nearest display cabinets. Lockwood was doing the same. ‘More relics,’ he said. ‘There’s no end to their collection. Good Lord, these are the knitting needles in the Chatham Puncture case.’

I peered at the inky label on the side of my cabinet. ‘By the looks of it, I’ve got someone’s pickled lungs.’

George gave an agitated hiss. ‘Will you two stop messing about? This is no place—’ He stopped short. ‘Yes! Yes – I don’t believe it! They do have “The Confessions”! It’s listed here as book C/452. It’s somewhere in this room.’

Lockwood drained his glass decisively. ‘Very good. What are we looking for?’

‘Check out the books. They should all have numbers written on the spines!’

I hurried to the shelves, inspected the volumes upon them. Sure enough, each had its number in gold leaf, stamped into the leather. ‘Got the As here,’ I said.

Lockwood ran to the nearest stairs, vaulted the steps two at a time. His shoes tapped softly on the metal balcony. ‘B/53, B/54 . . . Nothing but Bs . . . I’ll check further along.’

‘What was the number again?’ I said.

‘Shh!’ George had suddenly stiffened where he stood. ‘Listen!’

Voices beyond the double doors; the rattling of a key in the lock.

I moved. I didn’t see what the others were doing. I flung myself towards the nearest display cabinet, positioned between the shelves and the illuminated centre of the room. Just as the door opened, I ducked down low behind it, scrunching up in high heels and party dress, bare knees pressed close to my chin.

A brief burst of party murmur, cut off by the firm closing of the door.

Then a woman’s voice. Familiar; deeper than you’d have expected.

‘It will be quieter here.’

Penelope Fittes.

I squeezed my eyes tight shut, and pressed my teeth hard against the surface of my knee. That Lockwood! Yet another of his impulsive ideas had steered us towards disaster. This part of the evening was supposed to be relaxing – we were meant to save the dangerous part for Winkman.

Footsteps on wood. They were walking into the centre of the room, just where George had been a moment before. I waited for the inevitable outcry, the shock of disclosure.

‘What was it you wished to say, Gabriel?’ Penelope Fittes asked.

I opened my eyes; as I glanced to the side, my heart jumped. My rapier was sticking out beyond the edge of the cabinet. The tip of the silver blade gently sparkled in the light.

A man was speaking, polite and deferential. ‘The members are getting restless, Ms Fittes. They feel that you are not helping them sufficiently with their work.’

That same husky little laugh. ‘I’m providing every assistance. If they aren’t up to the challenge, it’s not my problem.’

Very slowly I began to inch the rapier blade back in.

‘You wish me to tell them this?’ the man said.

‘Certainly you must tell them. I’m not their nursemaid!’

‘No, madam, but you are their inspiration— What’s that?’

I froze, bit my lip. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of my face and pooled beneath my chin.

‘The pickled lungs of Burrage the poisoner,’ Penelope Fittes said. ‘My grandmother had a great interest in crime. You would not believe the things she collected. Some of them have been of immense use over the years. Not these lungs, admittedly. They have no psychic charge at all.’

‘Odd choice of decoration for a library,’ the man said. ‘It would put me off my reading.’

The laugh again. ‘Ah, it doesn’t disturb those of us who come here. We have our minds on higher things.’

The quality of their voices changed, became suddenly more muffled. I guessed they’d turned away from me. I rapidly pulled the remaining length of blade out of view; then, with infinite care, I leaned to the side, and peered round the edge of the cabinet.

Not fifteen feet away, I saw the backs of two people: Penelope Fittes conversing with a dumpy, middle-aged man. He wore the black tie and dinner jacket of a party guest; from what I could see, he had a rather thickset neck, a pinkish jowly face.

‘Speaking of unusual artefacts,’ Penelope Fittes said, ‘I do have something to give you.’ She moved suddenly, and I ducked back into hiding. I could hear the points of her shoes clicking crisply on the dark wood floor. ‘Think of it as a token of my good will.’

I couldn’t tell where she was going, whether or not she was getting closer to me. I pressed myself tighter against the back of the cabinet.

Something made me look up. Lockwood was lying flat on his stomach on the surface of the balcony almost directly above. He was doing his best to merge in with the metal and the darkness. The black dinner jacket helped. His pale face didn’t. I signalled at him to turn his head away.

‘Lucy!’ he mouthed.

‘What?’

I couldn’t make it out at first. He mouthed it several times. His eyes swivelled from me towards the centre of the room. Then I realized what he was telling me: ‘My glass.’

I craned my head round the edge of the cabinet and, sure enough . . . my heart skipped another beat. There it was, his punch glass, sitting on top of the little display case in the centre of the room. It was almost as if the spotlight was deliberately trained on it. How it sparkled. You could even see the little residue of red liquid at the bottom.

Penelope Fittes had crossed to that very cabinet. She was standing right beside it; the glass was at her shoulder. She had opened a drawer below the case, and was bringing something out.

All she had to do was glance up and focus on it, and she would see the glass right there.

But she didn’t. Her mind was on other things. She closed the drawer and turned to her companion.

‘We’ve repaired it,’ Penelope Fittes said. ‘And tested it. It works again splendidly. I hope the Orpheus Society make better use of it than before.’

‘You are very kind, madam, and they will be grateful. I’ll be sure to pass on their thanks, and let you know how their experiments go.’

‘Very good. I don’t suggest you re-join the party. It’s rather an obvious box. But you can go out this way.’

The click-clack of her shoes sounded again – and to my horror I saw that the little door through which we’d entered the library was not far from me. They would pass right by my hiding place. After an instant’s frozen indecision, I acted: I eased off my shoes – first one foot, then the other – then pressed my fingers to the floor and pushed myself up slightly, so that I could shuffle both feet backwards. Now I no longer sat, but squatted on the balls of each foot, with my back still flat against the cabinet. With one hand I picked up my shoes; with the other, I held my rapier steady, so that it wouldn’t knock against anything and make a sound. I did all this faster than it takes to tell.

I waited. Up above, Lockwood had turned his head to face the wall; he had become a patch of shadow. The footsteps drew close, and now they passed by, a few feet beyond the cabinet, and I had a sudden waft of Penelope Fittes’ flowery perfume. The man carried a wooden box under his arm. It was not very big, perhaps twelve inches square, and five or six deep. They paused beside the door, and I glimpsed the box clearly for an instant. Stamped in the centre of its lid was an odd little symbol. It was a little like a harp, with three strings, bent sides, and a splayed base. Even in that extreme moment it made me frown; I had seen that symbol before.

Then the woman opened the door for him, and that was my chance to move. With two quick shuffles, I was round the corner of the cabinet and hunching down again, so that I was out of sight when our hostess chose to turn round.

The door closed; the man must have departed without words. Penelope Fittes walked past the cabinet and away across the room. Once she had gone by, I shuffled back to my original position.

I listened to her cross the library, going at a brisk pace. When she reached the centre, she stopped abruptly. I could imagine her looking around. I thought of George, of Lockwood’s glass . . . I squeezed my eyes tight closed. Then the footsteps resumed, there was the briefest swell and ebb of party noise, and the sound of keys turning in the door.

I exhaled properly for the first time.

‘Nice moves, Luce,’ Lockwood said, pushing himself up from the balcony. ‘You were just like a sprightly crab. Where did George go?’

Yes, where was he? I surveyed the library’s emptiness.

‘Anyone care to help me?’ a small voice called from under the reading table. ‘I’m stuck down here, and I think my bottom’s wedged.’

Back in the conference halls, the party was in full swing. The band played boisterously, the waiters filled glasses at ever greater speed; the guests, dancing with more enthusiasm than talent, were louder and more red-faced than before. We found a quiet place beside a unicorn-shaped chocolate fountain and took in some badly needed drinks.

‘You should really join a circus, George,’ Lockwood said. ‘There are people who’d pay good money to see contortions like that.’

‘That’ll be my next career.’ George took a long swig of punch. ‘Certain parts of me still feel folded. You’ve got the book?’

Lockwood patted his jacket pocket; after less than a minute’s hasty searching, we’d discovered ‘The Confessions of Mary Dulac’, a thin pamphlet bound in black leather, on a high shelf on the upper level. ‘Safe and sound,’ he said.

George grinned. ‘Good. This has already been a successful night, and we haven’t even come to the main event yet. Can we nip somewhere and read it now?’

‘Afraid not,’ Lockwood said. ‘Better drink up. It’s twenty to eleven. Time to go.’

‘Not leaving so soon, Mr Lockwood . . .?’ Inspector Barnes materialized dourly at our elbows. It was hard to say what seemed more out of place: the pink cocktail in his hand, or the fountain spurting chocolate bubbles at his side. ‘I was hoping for a quiet word.’

To our annoyance, Quill Kipps was lurking behind him, like a slim and baleful shadow.

‘That would be delightful,’ Lockwood said. ‘Have you enjoyed the party?’

‘Kipps here tells me,’ Barnes said, ‘that you might have uncovered some interesting documents up in Hampstead. What are they, and why haven’t you shared them?’

‘I’d be delighted to do precisely that, Inspector,’ Lockwood said. ‘But it’s been a long day and we’re very weary. Could we visit you in the morning to explain?’

‘Not now? Surely you could tell me this evening.’

‘It’s not really a suitable location. Far too noisy. Tomorrow morning at Scotland Yard would be so much better. We could bring you the documents then too.’ Lockwood gave a warm, ingratiating smile; George took a half-glance at his watch.

‘You do seem in rather a hurry,’ Barnes said. His pouched blue eyes appraised us steadily. ‘Just off to bed now, are you?’

‘Yes, George here turns into a pumpkin if he’s out too late – as you can see, he’s well on the way already.’

‘So you’ll show me these documents tomorrow?’

‘We will.’

‘All right, but I’ll expect you bright and early. No excuses, no no-shows, or I’ll come to find you myself.’

‘Thank you, Mr Barnes. We very much hope to have good news for you then.’

‘That was bad timing,’ Lockwood said as we crossed the reception area towards the outer doors of Fittes House. ‘Kipps will know we’re up to something tonight.’

I glanced behind me, just in time to see a willowy figure dart behind a pillar. ‘Yeah. He’s following us right now.’

‘Subtle as ever,’ growled George.

‘OK, so we can’t just go and pick up the kit, as we discussed. We need to lose him. That means a night cab.’

Exiting the building, we hurried down the purple carpet, past the smoking lavender fires, to the queue of cars waiting at the pavement. All had the silver grilles and ostentatious iron ornaments of the official night-cab service. Behind us, at a discreet distance, came Kipps. When he saw us approach the taxi line, he abandoned attempts at subtlety, and joined us at the street.

‘Don’t mind me,’ he said as we glared at him. ‘I’m going home early too.’

The next taxi advanced. ‘Portland Row please, driver,’ Lockwood said loudly. We got in; the car pulled away. Looking back, we could see Kipps getting in the cab behind. At once Lockwood leaned forward, spoke to the driver. ‘I’m going to give you fifty pounds. I’d like you to drive to Portland Row, as I said. But when you leave Trafalgar Square, I want you to stop as soon as you’re round the next corner. Just for a second. We’re going to get out and I don’t want the cab behind to see us do it. OK?’

The driver blinked at us. ‘What – are you fugitives?’

‘We’re agents.’

‘Who’s tailing you? The police?’

‘No, they’re agents too. Look, it’s difficult to explain. Are you going to do what I asked, or do you want us to get out now without the fifty pounds?’

The driver rubbed his nose. ‘If you want, I could wait till he gets really close, then stop so he crashes onto the pavement. Or I could double back, and ram him. For fifty pounds I could do those things.’

‘No, no. Dropping us off quietly will be fine.’

All went well; the car purred round the deserted expanse of Trafalgar Square. Kipps’s taxi had been held up outside Fittes House by a departing limousine. It was fifteen, maybe twenty seconds behind us. We turned up Cockspur Street towards Haymarket and Piccadilly, past flashing ghost-lamps and smouldering lavender fires. As we rounded the corner of Pall Mall, the taxi slowed; George, Lockwood and I bundled out and darted under the portico of the nearest building. The taxi roared away; an instant later, the second cab flashed by, with Kipps hunched forwards in the back seat, no doubt giving instructions to the driver. We watched the cabs speed away into the night. Silence fell in the centre of London.

We adjusted our rapiers and walked back the way we had come.

During the hours of darkness Charing Cross Station is deserted, but its concourse remains open. We retrieved our work-kit from the lockers where Lockwood and George had left them that afternoon, and changed clothes in the public toilets. It felt good to get rid of the stupid dress, and particularly the shoes. I couldn’t part with the little necklace Lockwood had given me, though; I kept it on, under my T-shirt and light black jacket. All our clothes were black, and as lightweight as possible; tonight we needed to move fast, and not be seen.

We walked swiftly east along the Embankment, following the Thames. Moonlight lay scattered on the surface like silver scales; the river was a serpent coiling beside us through the city. It was deep at that hour, as Flo had said. The water lapped high on the tide-wall, flicking against the stones.

With our change of clothes had come a change of mood, and we went in silence for the most part. This was the sharp end of the evening, its dangers very real. I could still sense the repulsive touch of Julius Winkman’s hand on mine, from when we’d faced him in his little shop; his casual expressions of brutality still rang loudly in my head. He was not a man to cross, and what we were doing now was as risky in its way as any investigation of a haunting. Riskier, perhaps, since we relied on the co-operation of another if our intervention was to succeed.

‘We’re putting a lot of trust in Flo Bones,’ I said.

Lockwood nodded. ‘Don’t worry. She’ll be there.’

We passed the Inns of Temple, where the lawyers work by day, and under Blackfriars Bridge. Now the riverside path ended abruptly at the side of an enormous brick building, its highest level protruding over the water. This was the start of the old merchant district. Vast abandoned warehouses stretched away like cliffs along the curl of the river, dark and empty, with pulley arms and gantries jutting out like the broken limbs of trees.

We climbed some steps to a cobbled lane beyond the warehouse, and continued through the darkness. There were no ghost-lamps here, and the air was cold. I sensed Visitors in that alley, but the night remained still and I saw nothing.

‘Maybe I should come inside too,’ George said suddenly. ‘Maybe I need to be in there with you.’

‘We’ve gone over this,’ Lockwood said. ‘We all have our roles. You need to stay outside with Flo. You’ve got the equipment, George, and I’m relying on you.’

George grunted. His rucksack was very large, even more bulbous than when he’d had the ghost-jar. Lockwood and I carried no bags at all, and our belts were stocked differently. ‘I just think this is too serious for you to do it alone,’ he persisted. ‘What if you need help containing the mirror? What if Winkman’s got more defences than just a few heavies? He might—’

‘Shut up about it, George,’ Lockwood said. ‘It’s too late to make a change.’

We walked on in silence. The lane was a dark cleft between buildings, with a narrow stream of moonlight running down its centre. At last, Lockwood slowed; he pointed. Ahead of us, an alley cut across to the left and right. On the right-hand side we smelled the river. Further on, the lane continued beside the silent walls of another warehouse. Its nearest windows were boarded; far above, steep roofs and chimneys spiked the silvered sky.

Painted on the brick exterior of the building, in peeling and fading letters, were the words: ROSTOCK FISHERIES. Lockwood, George and I hung back, watching, listening. If this was the place of Winkman’s auction, there was precious little sign of it. No lights, no movement; like so many areas of the city by night, this was a dead zone.

We started forwards; at once the smell of mud and tidal water became strong. A thin white arm reached out from the shadows of the alley, grasped Lockwood by the coat, and pulled him sideways into the darkness.

‘Not a step more,’ a voice hissed. ‘They’re here.’