Even so, I went with him.
For an occupation that was officially classified as criminal, the relic-men had a pretty well trodden set of haunts: certain pubs and cafés along the riverbank where they met and bartered their nightly hauls. George and I did the rounds and, a couple of hours later, discovered Flo.
She was outside an eatery in Battersea, picking at her evening breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon in a grubby Styrofoam tray. As usual she wore the odious blue puffer jacket that thoroughly masked any human shape, as well as carrying the knives and rods and mud picks of her trade. Her straw hat was pushed back, exposing her blond hair, her pale face, and the shrewd lines at the corners of her eyes. I wondered, as I often did, what she would have looked like if she’d had a bath and all-around fumigation. She wasn’t that much older than me.
She glanced at us, nodded, and continued making fast work with the plastic fork. We drew as close as was comfortable, watching her shovel the yellow globules into her mouth. “Cubbins,” she said, “Carlyle.”
“Flo.”
“Where’s Locky?” The fork paused. “Off with his new girl, is he?”
I blinked. “No…” I said. “She doesn’t come out on cases. She’s not even an agent, really. More of a secretary and housecleaner than anything.” I scowled at Flo. “How d’you even know about her?”
She scraped unconcernedly at the corner of the tray. “Didn’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s been eighteen months since he hired you. That’s about standard. I figured he’d have prob’ly moved on to the next one.”
“Actually,” George said, stepping between us and nudging my hand away from my rapier hilt, “Lockwood’s busy working on the outbreak. He’s sent us to ask you something.”
“A question or a favor? Either way, what’s in it for me?” Bright teeth gleamed.
“Aha.” George ferreted in a dark corner of his coat. “I have licorice! Lovely tasty licorice…Or maybe I don’t…’S’funny, I must’ve eaten it.” He gave a shrug. “I’ll have to owe you.”
Flo rolled her eyes. “Classy. Lockwood does this sort of thing so much better than you. So what do you want? News from the underworld?” She chewed ruminatively. “It’s the usual round of backstabbings and unexplained disappearances. The Winkman family’s in business again, they say. With old Julius in jail, it’s been left to his wife, Adelaide, to get the black market side up and running. Though it’s young Leopold who everyone really fears. Worse than his old man, they say.”
I was still scowling at Flo. I remembered Winkman Junior as a smaller, squatter version of his father, gazing at us when we gave evidence in the dock. “Come off it,” I said. “He’s only about twelve.”
“Doesn’t stop you from gadding about like you own London, does it? Better keep your wits about you, Carlyle. The Winkmans are lying low, but it was you who put Julius away. They’ll want hideous, grisly revenge….So”—she tossed the tray aside and clapped her hands together briskly—“I make that one bag of licorice you owe me, Cubbins.”
“No problem,” George said. “I’ve made a note. Only that’s not strictly what we’re after this time, Flo. It’s the Chelsea outbreak. You work the shores along there. A couple of blocks inland, all hell’s breaking loose. But what’s it like by the river? Are you seeing more activity?”
Flo got up off the post where she was perched, stretched carelessly, lifted up the mud-crusted base of her coat, and set about scratching something in the recesses within. “Oh, yeah—there’s been a definite upsurge. ’Ticularly on the southwest side. The streets are thick with them there. I’ve stood at Chelsea Wharf, seen three Shades and a Gray Haze with one sweep of the eyes. ’Course, you never get ’em within fifty yards of Old Mother Thames. Just too much running water, ain’t it?”
George nodded automatically, then with more enthusiasm. He was staring at his map. “Yes…yes, that’s true. Thanks, Flo, you’ve been enormously helpful already. Listen, can you keep an eye on the river edge for me? Particularly that southwest side. I’d like to know if it continues to have the most Visitors. Any patterns you see, let me know. There’ll be licorice by the ton in return, obviously.”
“Okay.” Flo finished scratching, adjusted herself, and picked up her burlap sack. With one quick motion, she slung it over her shoulder. “Well, got to fly. Tide’s low tonight. There’s a rotted hulk off Wandle Keys that needs pilfering. I’ll see you.” In a few steps she’d vanished in the river mist. “Hey, Carlyle,” her voice drifted back. “Don’t worry about Locky. He must like you really. It’s been eighteen months, and you’re still alive.”
I stared after her. “What does that even mean?”
But Flo had gone. George and I were alone.
“I wouldn’t pay any attention,” he said. “She just likes to annoy you.”
“I guess.”
“Likes to play with your emotions, like a cat batting at a helpless mouse.”
“Oh, thanks. That makes me feel just dandy.” I looked across at him. “How come she doesn’t ever give you a hard time?”
George scratched the tip of his nose. “Doesn’t she? I’ve never thought about it.”
Lockwood returned from his Chelsea excursion early the following morning, having spent the hours of darkness walking its streets silently and alone. He seemed both energized and baffled by the experience, which had served to back up what we’d seen from the viewing platform and heard from Inspector Barnes.
“The whole area’s awash with psychic activity,” he said. “Not just Visitors, though there are plenty of those. It’s the whole atmosphere of the place, like everything’s been disturbed. All the usual sensations we look for are there, drifting like invisible clouds along the streets. Chill, miasma, malaise, and creeping fear—you can feel them rolling at you down the alleys, or stealing out of the houses as you pass. They engulf you—it’s all you can do to draw your rapier. You stand in the road, heart pounding, wheeling around, waiting for the attack—and then they’re gone. I’m not surprised there have been so many casualties among the agents trying to make sense of this. It’s enough to drive anyone mad.”
He had seen a number of spirits at a distance—in upstairs windows, in gardens, and the backyards of shops. The streets were mostly clear, peppered instead with jumpy groups of agents, who seemed randomly dispersed. Halfway down the King’s Road he had helped steer an Atkins and Armstrong team out of a Gibbering Mist; later, a conversation with a Tendy supervisor leading four shivering operatives across a little park had led him to Sydney Street, the supposed center of the disturbance. It had seemed neither better nor worse than anywhere else.
“They’re digging up all the graveyards,” he said, “and sowing salt on the ground. Rotwell teams are bringing out equipment I’ve never seen before: guns firing salt-and-lavender sprays. It’s not doing a bit of good. Frankly, I don’t see us making a difference unless we come up with something new.”
“That’s up to me,” George said. “And I’ve got a theory. But I’m going to need some time.”
He was given it. From then on George undertook no new cases, but instead slipped seamlessly into research mode. Over the next few days we scarcely saw him. I glimpsed him once or twice slipping away from Portland Row at dawn, backpack bulging with papers, the documents he’d gotten from Kipps clamped under his arm. He haunted the Archives and the libraries of southwest London, returning only as night fell. He went back to speak to Flo Bones. In the evenings he sat alone in the kitchen, scribbling obscure notes on the margins of the Thinking Cloth. He said little about what he was doing, but he had that old spark back in his eye, glittering behind his glasses like a firefly buzzing in a jar. That showed me he was on to something.