Lockwood & Co.: The Whispering Skull

Part 6 – Through the Looking Glass

‘Well,’ Lockwood said, ‘if you judge success by the number of enemies you make, that was a highly successful evening.’

At 2.45 in the morning, the little kitchen at 35 Portland Row really comes into its own. Tonight we had eggs boiling, bread toasting, the kettle gently steaming on the side. It was a brightly lit and cosy scene, marred only by the presence of the ghost-jar on the worktop. The skull was active, the horrid face grinning and winking at us from the centre of the plasm. In our mood, however, this was easy to ignore.

Lockwood and I were feeling like ourselves again. This was faintly miraculous, since scarcely two hours had passed since we’d hauled ourselves out of the water onto the dirty shingle south of Tower Bridge. Our soggy walk back to Charing Cross Station had seemed to take for ever, but once we’d changed back into dry clothes things started to look up. By great good luck, we’d managed to snag a passing night cab. Now – showered, clean and warm – we were agreed that we’d managed it very efficiently. We’d made it home quicker than George, anyway. He’d not yet returned.

‘It’s a success, however you look at it,’ I said, patting hot toast from hand to hand and spinning it onto the plate. ‘We’ve beaten Winkman! We’ve got the Bickerstaff mirror! We can give it in to Barnes in the morning, and close the case. And Kipps loses his bet, which is best of all.’

Lockwood was flicking through the pamphlet we’d stolen from the Fittes library just a few hours earlier – it seemed a lifetime ago. We’d left it in the Charing Cross lockers, so it had been spared a dunking in the Thames. ‘I notice Kipps and his team aren’t lurking outside any more,’ he said. ‘He must have given up when he realized we’d tricked him in the car. I only wish George would get back. He’s taking his time.’

‘Probably couldn’t find a taxi that would take him after being in that smelly old boat of Flo’s,’ I said. ‘He must be having to walk. His station locker was empty, so we know he got away safely.’

‘True.’ Lockwood put down the pamphlet and got up to deal with the eggs. ‘I was right about these “Confessions of Mary Dulac”, by the way. They’re mostly nonsense. Lots of babble about forbidden knowledge and seeking out the mysteries of creation. Anyway, they didn’t do poor old Mary much good, since she apparently spent ten years living in a hollow tree. Want your egg in a cup or on the plate?’

‘Cup, please. Lockwood, who do you think that man was – the one on the roof?’

‘I don’t know. But Winkman called him “my lord”, so we can probably find out.’ He handed me my boiled egg. ‘He’s some rich collector, or a modern version of Bickerstaff, prying into what doesn’t concern him. Bickerstaff himself sounds like a monster, judging by what Mary Dulac says. Check it out – it’s on the third or fourth page.’

He busied himself with his supper. I picked up ‘The Confessions’. Despite the Fittes library’s leather binding, it was very thin, scarcely more than a few pages long. It was more a collection of disjointed paragraphs than anything else. Someone had probably copied selections of the original, removing passages that were tedious or incoherent. As Lockwood had said, there was lots about the unhappy woman’s life in the wilderness, and many philosophical rantings about death and the afterlife that I didn’t understand. The bit on Bickerstaff was meatier, though. I read it between dabs at my egg.

Who was Bickerstaff, whose cursed shadow hangs over me these past ten years? Ah! He was a genius! And the wickedest man I ever knew! Yes, I killed him. Yes, we buried him deep and sealed him up with iron, yet still I see him in the darkness, whenever I close my eyes. Still I see him before me, swathed in his velvet cloak, performing his dark rituals. Still I see him, coming from his workroom, his butcher’s knives all bloody in his hand. Still I hear that terrible voice, that soothing, persuasive instrument that made us all puppets of his will. Ah! Fools that we were to follow him! He promised us the world, promised us enlightenment! Yet he led us to ruin and the brink of madness. Because of him I have lost everything!

There followed a short digression about the varieties of bark and fungi that Mary Dulac had been forced to eat during her years living wild in Chertsey Forest. Then she returned to the subject in hand.

His darkness was in him always – in those staring wolf-like eyes, in that savage rage he unleashed at the merest slight. I cannot forget it – how he broke Lucan’s arm when he dropped the candles, how he threw Mortimer down the stairs! I cannot forget. Yes, we hated and feared him. Yet his voice was honey. He mesmerized us all with talk of his great Project, of the wondrous Device that might be made if we had the stomach for the work. With the help of his servant, a most cunning and malignant Boy, whose eyes saw phantoms clearly, we went on expeditions to the churchyards, gathering materials for the Device. The Boy protected us from the vengeful Spirits until we had trapped them in the glass. It is the presence of these Spirits together, Bickerstaff says, that gives the Device its power. And what power! The mirror makes weak the fabric of the world, and offers the lucky few – Oh horror! Oh blasphemy! – a glimpse of Heaven.

I looked up at Lockwood. ‘Whatever it is you see through Bickerstaff’s mirror,’ I said quietly, ‘I don’t think it’s Heaven.’

He shook his head. ‘Nor do I. We were right, you know, Lucy. We were right about that bone glass. Bickerstaff’s group was trying to see something that’s forbidden to us all. They were trying to look beyond death, glimpse what happens next. Bickerstaff was crazy – they all were. Including our friend over there.’ He jerked his head towards the face in the jar. Pinpoints of light glittered in its sockets as it gazed at us. The smile was broad and knowing.

‘It seems in a very good mood tonight,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t stopped grinning since we came in. Hey, I just thought of something . . . this evil servant boy Dulac goes on about . . . You don’t suppose that . . .?’

‘Who can tell?’ Lockwood scowled over at the skull. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘Well, thank goodness we’ve got the mirror, so no one else can take a chance with it. Bickerstaff didn’t try looking himself, I bet – he just used others. It’s no wonder his ghost was so horrid. I’m glad you tossed a sword through his head.’

‘When I heard his voice back in the cemetery,’ I said, ‘it was mesmeric, like Dulac says. It had a kind of hypnotic effect. It sort of made you want to do things, even though you knew you shouldn’t. I think George and Joplin were affected by it, though they may not have consciously heard the voice. Remember how they stood frozen by the coffin?’

‘Yes. Those idiots.’ Lockwood looked at his watch. ‘Luce, if George doesn’t turn up soon, I’m going to start worrying. We might have to go and find Flo and see where she left him.’

‘He’ll be here. You know how slowly he walks. Oh – look at this.’ I’d flipped to the end of the pamphlet. ‘It’s what we wanted. Dulac’s final confession.’

Yes [I read], I killed a man. But murder? No! Should I one day stand in Judgement I shall claim it an act of self-defence – yea, a desperate act to save my very soul. Edmund Bickerstaff was mad! He sought my life as openly as if he had put a knife to my throat. His blood is on my hands, but I have no guilt.

Wilberforce died. We all saw it; he looked in the Device and perished. Then came a great panicking. We fled in our carriages from that cursed place, vowing to reject Bickerstaff for ever. Yet this the doctor would not allow. Within the hour, he and that silent Boy were at my house and he carried the Device with him. I feared them, yet I let them in. The doctor was agitated. Would I be quiet on the subject of poor Wilberforce? Could he trust me to keep my own counsel? Despite my assurances, he grew enraged. At last he denounced me: to prove my faith, I must look into the glass! In a moment the Boy had sprung behind me; he pinioned my arms. Out came the Device from the doctor’s pocket. He held it before me. I had half a glimpse, half a glimpse only, and I felt my sanity shake loose, my limbs go cold.

So it would have ended, but for my father’s service revolver on my table. I tore myself free and took up the gun. Covering my face as Bickerstaff clawed at me and screamed, I shot – the bullet passed directly through his forehead. I fired also at the Boy, but like an eel he evaded my grasp, dived through the casement and escaped. In some moments, God forgive me, this is my supreme regret. I wish that I had killed him too.

I will not tell how we disposed of the doctor and his creation. Suffice it to say that we feared others might mimic our folly, and seek out knowledge that isn’t meant for Man. I only trust that we have constrained the Device as best we can, and that it may now lie for ever undisturbed.

I closed the pamphlet and tossed it aside. ‘So that’s it,’ I said. ‘That’s how Bickerstaff died. Mary Dulac shot him, then she and her friends buried him secretly in Kensal Green. We’ve solved it. The case is closed.’ I picked up my plate, ready to carry it to the sink – and stopped suddenly, staring at the table.

Opposite me, Lockwood was nodding. ‘Dulac may have been crackers,’ he said, ‘but she got it spot on. Everyone wants the glass. Everyone’s obsessed by what it might show, despite the fact that it seems to kill whoever looks in it. Those collectors last night would have paid thousands. Barnes is desperate too. Joplin’s been hounding us to have a peek, and George is scarcely any better.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘George and Joplin are so similar, aren’t they? They even clean their glasses in the same way. Incidentally, did I tell you that I think Joplin was the one who pinched Bickerstaff’s original stand from the coffin? He and Saunders are the only ones with access to the chapel where it was kept, you see. It’s just the kind of thing that he . . .’ He paused. ‘Lucy? What is it? What on earth’s wrong?’

I was still staring at the table, at the thinking cloth with all its notes and scribbles. It’s right in front of us all the time. Mostly, I never focus on what’s written there. Now, quite by chance, I had – and if my blood hadn’t drained from my face, it certainly felt like it. ‘Lockwood . . .’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Was this here earlier?’

‘Yes. That doodle’s been there for months. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it. I keep telling George not to do that kind of stuff; it puts me off my breakfast. What, do you think we should replace the cloth?’

‘Not the doodle. Shut up. This writing here. It says: Gone to see a friend about the mirror. Back soon. G.’

We stared at each other. ‘That must’ve been written days ago . . .’ Lockwood said.

‘When?’

Lockwood hesitated. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Look, here’s the pen he wrote it with. Right next to it.’

‘But that would mean . . .’ Lockwood blinked at me. ‘Surely not. He wouldn’t.’

‘A “friend”,’ I said. ‘You know who that would be, don’t you?’

‘He wouldn’t.’

‘He came back here with the bone glass, and instead of waiting for us, he went straight out again. To see Joplin.’

‘He wouldn’t!’ Lockwood had half risen; he seemed uncertain what to do. ‘I can’t believe it. I expressly told him not to.’

A vibration in the room. It was faint and very muffled. I looked over at the ghost-jar. Poisonous green light gleamed within it; the face was laughing.

‘The ghost knows!’ I cried. ‘Of course it does – it was right here!’ I shoved my chair back, sprang over to the glass. I turned the lever – and at once the foul cackles of the skull burst on my ear.

‘Missing someone?’ it jeered. ‘Has the penny just dropped?’

‘Tell us!’ I shouted. ‘What have you seen?’

‘I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to figure it out,’ the voice said. ‘I guessed twenty minutes. Must’ve taken twice that. Two dim dormice would have sussed it faster than you.’

‘What happened? Where did George go?’

‘You know, I think your little George is in a spot of trouble,’ the skull said gleefully. ‘I think he’s off doing something stupid. Well, I won’t lose any sleep over it, after all the things he’s done to me.’

I could feel panic rising in my chest, my muscles freezing. I stammered out the ghost’s words to Lockwood. All at once he was past me and grabbing the ghost-jar from the worktop. He swung it over and crashed it down upon the table, sending the plates flying.

The face rolled against the inside of the jar, the nose pressed flat against the glass. ‘Hey, careful. Watch with the plasm.’

Lockwood scraped his fingers back through his hair. ‘Tell it to talk. Say that if it doesn’t tell us what it saw George do, we’ll—’

‘You’ll what?’ the ghost said. ‘What can you do to me? I’m dead already.’

I repeated the words, then flicked the glass with a finger. ‘We know you don’t like heat,’ I snapped. ‘We can make things very uncomfortable for you.’

‘Yes,’ Lockwood added. ‘And we’re not talking ovens now. We’ll take you to the furnaces in Clerkenwell.’

‘So?’ the ghost sneered. ‘So you destroy me. How will that help you? And how do you know that’s not exactly what I desire?’

Lockwood, when I told him this, opened his mouth and then shut it again. The desires and dreams of a ghost are hard to fathom, and he didn’t know what to say. But I did. All at once, I knew precisely what that ghost had always wanted – what had driven it in life, and what kept driving it in death. I felt it; I knew it as if the longing was my own. There are some advantages to sharing headspace with a phantom. Not many, but a few.

I bent my head close to the glass. ‘You like keeping little secrets from us, don’t you?’ I said. ‘Your name, for instance, and who you once were. Well, we don’t really care about that. See, I think we know enough already to understand what makes you tick. You were one of Bickerstaff’s friends – maybe his servant, maybe not – and that means you shared his dreams. You helped him build that stupid bone mirror. You wanted to see it used. And why would you do that? Why did you have that mad desire to look past death and see what lies beyond? Because you were afraid. You wanted to be sure that something happened after it, that you wouldn’t be alone.’

The face in the jar yawned, showing appalling teeth. ‘Really? Fascinating. Bring me a hot cocoa, and wake me when you’re done.’

‘Thing is,’ I went on implacably, ‘the same fear’s driving you now. You still can’t bear to be alone. That’s why you’re always yabbering on at me, why you’re always pulling faces. You’re desperate for connection.’

The ghost rolled its eyes so fast they looked like Catherine wheels. ‘With you? Give me a break. I’ve got standards. If I wanted a proper conversation I’d find—’

‘You’d find what?’ I sneered. ‘You’d find it how? You’re a head in a jar. You’re not going anywhere and we’re all you’ve got. So – we’re not going to put you in the furnaces,’ I said. ‘We’re not going to torture you. All we do, if you don’t start co-operating, is shut your lever up, put you in a bag, and bury you in the ground somewhere. Nice and deep so no one ever finds you. Just you, on your own, for ever. How does that sound?’

‘You wouldn’t do that,’ the ghost said, but for the first time I heard uncertainty in its voice. ‘You need me, don’t forget. I’m a Type Three. I’ll make you rich. I’ll make you famous.’

‘Stuff that. Our friend is more important. Last chance, skull. Spill the beans.’

‘And there was I thinking Cubbins was the cruel one.’ The face drew back into the shadows of the plasm, where it glared at me with an expression of blood-curdling malice. ‘All right,’ it said slowly. ‘Sure, I’ll tell you. Don’t think I’m giving in to your blackmail, mind. I just want to enjoy what’s coming to you all.’

‘Get on with it,’ Lockwood said. I’d been muttering the ghost’s words to him as best I could. He squeezed my arm. ‘Good work, Lucy.’

‘Well, you’re right, as it happens,’ the whispering voice said. ‘Cubbins was here. He beat you home by almost an hour. He had the master’s mirror in a dirty sack. And he hadn’t been back long before someone else showed up. A little mousy fellow with spectacles and tousled hair.’

I repeated this. Lockwood and I exchanged a glance. Joplin.

‘They didn’t stay – there was just a short discussion, then they both went off together. They took the sack. I thought Cubbins seemed uneasy. He was unsure of what he was doing. At the last moment he ran back in and left you that note. I’d say he was still fighting against my master, but the other fellow isn’t. He’s long gone.’

‘Still fighting against what?’ It was as if a cold spear had pierced my side.

The teeth of the skull glinted beneath the ghost’s smile. ‘My master has been talking to them. You can see it in their eyes. Especially the other one – he’s desperate to be enlightened. But Cubbins has the madness too. Did you not notice?’ A whispered chuckle. ‘Perhaps you never look at him.’

I couldn’t speak. Once again I saw the cowled phantom rising in the cemetery, towering over George. Once again I heard that soft and urgent voice: ‘Look . . . look . . . I give you your heart’s desire . . .’ I thought of George and Joplin standing as if spellbound by the iron coffin. I thought of all George’s little comments since, his malaise at Bickerstaff’s house, his distractedness, his wistful looks as he spoke about the mirror. The memories transfixed me in turn. I was frozen. It took Lockwood several tries before I could tell him what I’d heard.

‘We knew he’d been affected by the mirror and the ghost,’ I said hoarsely. ‘We noticed, but we didn’t pay attention. Poor George . . . Lockwood, we’ve been so blind! He’s desperate to investigate it. He’s been obsessed with it all this time. And you just kept criticizing him, slapping him down.’

‘Yes, of course I did!’ If my voice had risen, now Lockwood’s did so too. ‘Because George is always like that! He’s always obsessed with relics and old stuff! It’s just how he is! We couldn’t possibly have known.’ Lockwood’s face was ashen, his dark eyes hollow. His shoulders slumped. ‘You really think he’s affected by the ghost?’

‘By the ghost, by the mirror. He’d never normally do something like this, would he – go off, and leave us alone?’

‘No, of course not. But even so . . . Honestly, Luce, I’m going to kill him.’

‘That may not be necessary if either of those idiots looks in the mirror.’

Lockwood took a deep breath. ‘OK. Think. Where’ll they be? Where’s Joplin live?’

‘No idea, but he seems to spend most of his time at Kensal Green Cemetery.’

He snapped his fingers. ‘Right! And not just the above-ground parts either. That grey stuff in his hair? It’s not dandruff, put it that way.’ He bounded for the basement door, sprang through and down the stairs, feet clanging on the iron. ‘Come on!’ he shouted. ‘Collect whatever kit you can. Swords, flares, anything we’ve got! And ring for a night cab. We need to move!’

Ten minutes later, we were back in the kitchen waiting for the taxi. We had our swords (old ones, taken from the rack in the training room), and two spare work-belts, so ripped and burned with plasm they barely clipped together. Also a few bags of iron, two salt bombs and no magnesium flares. Everything else had been lost, used up or soaked in our raid on Winkman.

Both of us were agitated; we stood at the table, checking and rechecking our supplies. The face in the ghost-jar watched us. It seemed amused.

‘I wouldn’t bother, personally,’ it said. ‘I’d just go off to bed. You’ll be too late to save him.’

‘Shut up,’ I growled. ‘Lockwood – what were you saying about Joplin just now? About the grey stuff in his hair? You don’t mean—’

He tapped his fingers impatiently on the worktop. ‘It’s grave-dust, Luce. Grave-dust from the catacombs beneath the chapel. Joplin’s made it his business to go exploring down there, even though it’s closed off and forbidden. He’s been creeping about underground, poking and prying, looking for stuff, following his antiquarian obsessions. Anything odd he finds, he likes to keep. Like the stand from Bickerstaff’s coffin, for example.’ He cursed. ‘Where is that wretched taxi?’

He continued pacing about the room. But I didn’t. I’d gone quite still. Something he’d said had made a horrible connection in my mind.

Anything he finds, he likes to keep.

‘Lockwood.’ My heart was hammering in my chest.

‘Yes?’

‘When Barnes phoned the other day, he mentioned that some museum had a Mughal dagger that was similar to the one buried in Jack Carver’s back. So similar, they might almost have been a matching pair. You remember where that dagger was found?’

He nodded. ‘Maida Vale Cemetery, up in north London.’

‘Right. And when Saunders and Joplin first came here, they told us about another place they’d worked in. Remember what it was?’

He stared at me. ‘It was . . . it was Maida Vale Cemetery . . . Oh no.’

‘I think Joplin found two daggers,’ I said. ‘I think he handed one in, but kept the other. And, recently’ – I stared through the door to the rugless hallway, still scattered with salt – ‘under the influence of Bickerstaff and the mirror, I’m afraid he put that second dagger to good use.’

A cackle of laughter came from the jar. ‘This is the best evening I’ve had since I was alive! Look at you both! Your faces are priceless.’

‘I wouldn’t have believed it was possible,’ Lockwood whispered. ‘George is in even more trouble than we thought.’

The cab horn sounded in the street. I shouldered my bag.

‘Have fun, then,’ the ghost called. ‘Give my regards to Cubbins, or whatever’s left of him. He’ll be— Wait, what are you doing?’

Lockwood had snatched up a rucksack from the corner of the kitchen and was stuffing it over the top of the jar.

‘You needn’t look so smug,’ he said. ‘You’re coming too.’