“And now we’re alone,” Lockwood said. “Good! The investigation can properly begin!”
None of us took issue with him as we gathered silently beneath the tree. It would have been easy enough to do so, but there wasn’t any point. We all knew the score.
Yes, all the living inhabitants of the store had left. But that didn’t mean we were alone.
Of course not. After dark, we never are.
There’s nothing like the onset of night to bring out the best in an agent, and for some of us the darker it is, the better. I’m talking visually here. Suddenly every embarrassing pimple is cloaked in shadow; jaws become firmer, waistlines sleeker. Unwashed faces become pale and interesting; the lankest hair acquires a glamorous sheen. The rougher points of personalities recede too; thoughts turn to survival and to the job at hand. So it was with the ragtag band that Lockwood had assembled that evening. For once, as we stood beneath Aickmere’s tissue tree, our similarities outweighed our differences. Kipps and Lockwood, Kate Godwin and I—we were all made of the same stuff. We had our rapiers and other weapons; we shared a cool seriousness of purpose. Even Flo looked businesslike, her straw hat casting a ring of shadow across her face, her coat pulled back to reveal her great curved gutting knife and the sinister array of implements she normally used to winkle objects from the river mire.
George handed around some chocolate; we compared notes on what we’d learned.
“Mostly just seems to be worries about the air quality,” Lockwood said. “Something unpleasant but hard to fathom.” He leaned casually against a counter, face lit by a flickering gas lantern. “Then there’s that story of the girl who saw a crawling figure. That stands out a mile, because it’s so definite and strange.”
“What kind of ghost might it be?” Holly Munro asked.
No one knew.
“A couple of people say they heard a voice calling out their name,” Bobby Vernon said. “It was always at dusk; always when they were leaving. It sounded like someone they knew was far off in the building, calling them back inside.”
“Did they ever follow the sound?” I asked.
“Er, no, Carlyle, they didn’t,” Kate Godwin said. “Because they weren’t completely stupid. Who would ever obey a disembodied voice?”
“Oh, you never know. Some people might be tempted.” Holly Munro used her sweetest, most eyelash-batting tones—as she always did when she was referring to me.
Flo Bones shuffled her feet impatiently. “I don’t know about all this, Locky….There’s not much to go on here. Are you sure this place is the focus?”
“It’s pretty thin pickings so far,” Lockwood admitted. “Aickmere could tell as much from my manner when I spoke to him just now. Exactly what he expected, he said. We’re going to have a very dull evening. He still maintains there’s nothing here.”
“No, he’s wrong,” I said slowly. “There is something. I can sense it.”
I still detected that oddly prickling feeling, so familiar, yet so hard to read. The skull appeared to be having similar problems analyzing it; it hadn’t yet reported in.
“I don’t hear anything,” Kate Godwin said. She was a Listener too, and that made her suspicious of my insights. “What do you think it is?”
“I don’t really know,” I said. “It’s like background buzz, a kind of radiation. It’s strong, but also muffled—like it’s mostly blocked but managing to seep in anyway.”
“You need to get your ears syringed,” Godwin said.
Lockwood shook his head. “If Lucy says there’s something, we need to take notice. Where’s it strongest, Luce? The basement?”
“No. I get it everywhere.”
“Even so,” George said, “I’d like us to play close attention to the basement. It surely overlaps where the old prison was, so you’d think any phenomena might start there….What else did Aickmere say to you, Lockwood? Any hints or friendly warnings?”
“Nothing. Oh, apart from telling us again to keep the place tidy and—above all—not to touch that tree.”
“Like we’d mess it up,” Kipps growled. “What does he think we’re going to get up to tonight? Have a wild party in Men’s Wear? We’ve got a job to do.”
Lockwood grinned. “True, and we’d better get on with it. Right, I’m going to put us into pairs for the first stage of the night.”
And he did. He divided us into teams of two. He himself would go with Kipps. Kate Godwin and Bobby Vernon formed a second natural pair. Next, George (who remained remarkably calm at the news) was lumbered with Flo Bones.
Guess who was left for me?
I felt like the kid in the playground who’s always chosen last. I began checking through my equipment with ostentatious care.
Holly didn’t seem overjoyed either. “So…Lucy. We’re doing the second floor?”
“That’s right….” I was synchronizing watches with Lockwood and the others. The initial stint was two hours only; then we’d rendezvous by the first-floor stairs to make sure all was well. I snapped my notebook onto its belt-clip, ran my fingers across the familiar pouches. The weight was right; everything in position. I gave my partner a token smile. “So, Holly—shall we go?”
Two by two we stole away: George and Flo were covering the basement and ground floor, Godwin and Vernon the highest levels. Lockwood and Kipps climbed the central stairs with Holly and me, flashlights flowing over the gleaming marble. On the first floor they vanished into Ladies’ Fashions, while we continued up the stairs.
The Men’s Wear department filled three interconnecting halls. It was pretty dark, because we were a fair way above the level of the street lamps. Silver-faced mannequins, gleaming dimly in the half-light, sat or stood on pale white pedestals between the dangling racks of clothes. Suits, trousers, row upon row of neatly pressed shirts….There was a smell of mothballs, fabric-conditioner, and wool. I felt it was colder than when we’d passed through earlier.
Holly carried bags to the far end, where we would start. I hung back a moment.
“Well?” I said.
“I’ve done my thinking,” the voice from my bag announced. “And I’ve had an idea.”
“Great.” What was that odd sensation, so deep down and far away? It had really been bugging me. I wanted the skull’s insight. “Let’s hear it, then.”
“Here’s my tip: lure her down to Kitchenware and brain her with a skillet.”
“What?”
“Holly. It’s a golden opportunity. There are lots of pointy things there too, if you prefer. But basically a simple smack with a rolling pin would do fine.”
I gave a snort of fury. “I’m not interested in killing Holly! I’m concerned about the weird vibes I’m getting in this place! Is mindless violence your solution to everything?”
The ghost considered. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“You disgust me. The consequences—”
“Oh, you wouldn’t get caught. That’s the whole point. Just do it quietly like, and blame it on the supernatural forces that are infesting the place. Who’s to know?”
I contemplated getting into a heated debate with the skull about the moral implications of murder but decided it was pointless. Also I had no time: my partner was pattering back toward me down the aisle.
“Okay,” I said loudly as she drew near, “we’d better get on with it, Holly. You do know how to record psychic data, don’t you?”
She was nervous—breathing fast. I saw her jacket moving rapidly up and down. “Yes,” she said, “I do know that.”
“Using the Fittes-Rotwell grid method?”