“Oh, I’m doing backflips of gratitude.” The hollow eyes narrowed as it looked at me. “And while we’re on that subject…Is there anything you’d like to say to me?”
I scratched my nose. “Should there be?”
“You’re here for a reason.”
“Actually, I’m here to get potatoes for lunch. George is cooking fries….But I suppose, while I’m with you…”
“Come on. Spit it out.”
I took a deep breath. “It was you, wasn’t it?” I said. “On the Other Side. When we were lost and couldn’t find the iron chain. You showed me where it was.”
The face grinned. “Saving your life? Now does that honestly sound like me?”
“Well, whoever it was, I am grateful. And I think I understand something else. ‘Death’s in Life and Life’s in Death,’ you keep telling me. And now I know why. Because ghosts have entered the living world, while…while living humans have entered…”
I broke off. I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it. Plus, the face in the jar was doing something off-putting with its tongue.
There was a short silence. “Finally!” the skull said. “Finally we’re getting somewhere! All these months, and you never figured it out. Yes, last night you were the walking proof of my words. And perhaps now you see why you and I get along so well. Because we both inhabit two worlds. You sense the other one all the time; you’ve always had glimpses of it all your days—and now you’ve actually been there, too. We’re caught between life and death, Lucy, you and I. And that’s what makes us the perfect team.” It gave me a companionable nod. “Hey, remember my suggestion? Carlyle and Skull? The offer of a partnership still stands. I’ll even let you put your name first.”
“You seem to be forgetting about Lockwood.” I felt the conversation had gone far enough. I located the sack of potatoes and carried it to the door.
“Oh, Lockwood, Shmockwood. He’s more drawn to death than either of us. You know that. He won’t be lasting long. A partnership with me is a much better bet….Wait, where are you going? Are you insane? We’re on the verge of something special here, and all you’re thinking about is fries?! Come back!”
But I was out the door. Sometimes fries are the only way to keep you sane.
The weather that day was unseasonably warm, so we ate our lunch under an awning in the pub garden. From time to time, DEPRAC vehicles sped by. Danny Skinner, roused to a crescendo of excitement by the events of the night, hovered near, asking questions that we couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Eventually he left us to swing like an ape from the gate and stare at the cloud of smoke beyond the trees.
A big black car drove out of the woods and came to a halt outside the Old Sun Inn. Out stepped Inspector Montagu Barnes, looking wearier and more rumpled than ever. He pushed open the gate, with Danny Skinner still attached to it, and walked over the grass toward us. Here he stood for a while, appraising our bruised and battered faces.
“Morning, Inspector,” Lockwood said.
George held out a bowl. “Want a fry?”
Barnes said nothing. He regarded us for a long time.
“Had a difficult night?” he said at last.
“They certainly have.” That was Mr. Skinner, bustling out from the taproom. He, at least, was in good spirits; it had been the busiest day at the inn for many a year. “Mr. Lockwood and his friends have been hard at work ridding Aldbury Castle of its ghosts, sir. Only been at it two nights, and there’s a noticeable improvement everywhere. Cleared my house, and many others. Helping us all sleep soundly in our beds. Young heroes they are, sir, every one.”
Barnes’s mustache curled doubtfully downward. “Really? First I’ve heard of it.” He said nothing further, but stood with his hands in his trench coat pockets until the innkeeper had returned inside.
“Glad to hear you’re keeping busy,” Barnes went on. “And out of trouble, too.”
“Yes, Inspector,” Lockwood said. I looked at him. He caught my eye.
We sat there quietly.
“Well, if there’s nothing further, I’ll be on my way.” Barnes turned to go.
“Actually, Inspector,” I said. “There is something.”
“We urgently need to talk with you, Mr. Barnes,” Lockwood said.
The inspector gazed at us. He lifted a hand as if something had just occurred to him. “That boy over there,” he said idly. “The one swinging like a maniac on that gate.”
“What about him?”
“Think he’d like to earn a little money?”
Almost before the last word had left his lips, Danny Skinner had crossed the garden and was standing to attention at Barnes’s side. He performed an outlandish salute. “Anything I can do for you, mister? Just say the word.”
“I need lunch for me and three of my officers. Think you could go in there and rustle up some sandwiches? There’s five pounds in it for you if they’re edible.”
“Yes, sir. Certainly, sir. They’ll be the best you ever tasted.” He trotted into the house.
“Your five is safe, Mr. Barnes,” George said. “The wrapper will be the only edible part, take it from me.”
Barnes nodded grimly. “That’s not the point. I thought he looked like a boy with excessively sharp hearing—leastways, his ears are big enough—and I was right. Tell you what, why don’t you walk with me a minute, Mr. Lockwood, Miss Carlyle? Come out on the green and take some air.”
Barnes left the garden, crossed the road. He led us across the green to a spot some distance from the inn. “Now,” he said, “it’s quieter here. No one around. What was it you wanted?”
“It’s about what happened last night,” I said. “About the institute.”
“The institute?” Barnes rubbed his mustache and stared into the middle distance. “Well, investigations are currently under way at the facility. All I can tell you is there was some kind of accident there last night.”
“Well, that’s just it,” Lockwood said. “It wasn’t exactly an accident—”
“Some experiment that went tragically wrong,” the inspector continued. “I hear there’ve even been casualties.”
“Yes! And Steve Rotwell—”
“I wish I could tell you more,” Barnes said, interrupting me, “I really wish I could. Thank you for your interest. Unfortunately, that’s all I know.”
We looked at him.
“And you two, of course, know nothing about it, either.”
Lockwood frowned. “Well—”
“You weren’t anywhere near that place,” Barnes said.
“Erm, well, in fact we—”
“You were coincidentally dealing with some local ghosts in Aldbury Castle—in a case that was quite separate to whatever was going on out on those fields. You have no interest in Rotwell or his institute, or what they were doing in that building at the heart of it, and if you have any sense, you’ll make that abundantly clear to anyone who asks you. And anyone who doesn’t, for that matter. I’d spread that information loud and quickly, if I were you. Do you understand me? Mr. Lockwood? Miss Carlyle?” Barnes surveyed us with his tired, pouchy eyes. “One of DEPRAC’s jobs, you see, is to prevent bad things from happening to agents, even irritating ones like you. I wouldn’t want to wake up one morning and discover that there’d been four more accidents at Portland Row. It would really put me off my breakfast egg.”
Lockwood looked at me. He took a deep breath. “Thank you, Inspector,” he said loudly. “You’ve been very clear. I’m sorry you can’t tell us more about what happened up at that institute. We’ll just have to accept that we’ll never know.”