Lockwood sniffed. ‘To be frank, I thought that was Flo.’
‘No. It’s Visitors . . .’
As one, we drew our swords, stood watchful and alert. Away among the posts, Flo’s bobbing light became still; we heard her fretful crooning. Mists swirled, the new night darkened round us. Ghosts came.
12
Lockwood saw the apparition first; he’s got better Sight than me.
‘Over there,’ he breathed. ‘See that post on the other side, the second one along?’
I squinted through the darkness and the swirling river mist. If I stared directly at the spot he indicated, I saw nothing. If I looked slightly away from it, out towards the middle of the river, I could just make out something whitish hanging high in the air beside the post. It was extremely frail; it hung there bothersomely, like a smudge on a lens, a trick of the eyes.
‘I see it,’ I said. ‘Looks like a Shade to me.’
‘Agreed.’ He made a noise of faint perplexity. ‘It’s weird, though. We’re right by the Thames . . . How much running water do you need?’
The Problem, the great mystery, is itself composed of numberless small mysteries, and one of the oddest is the undeniable fact that Visitors, of all types and temperaments, hate fresh running water. They can’t abide it, even in small amounts, and won’t cross its flow. This is a precious fact, which every agent has relied on at one time or another. George claims he once escaped a Spectre by turning on a garden hose and standing safe behind its little spurting stream. It’s also why so many shops in central London have runnels by them, and why so much trade is done by boat, up and down the Thames.
Yet here was the river, only twenty yards away, and here was the glowing haze.
‘Low tide,’ I said. ‘The water’s drawn back. The Source must be dry.’
‘Must be.’ He whistled. ‘Well, I didn’t expect this.’
‘Flo did,’ I said. ‘She’s tricked us. This is some kind of trap.’
‘’S not.’ The voice spoke loudly in my ear. I gave a jump, collided with Lockwood; swung my rapier round to find Flo Bones leering at my side. She’d lowered the covers on her lantern; her face seemed to float in darkness, a grubby disembodied head. ‘Trap?’ she hissed. ‘This is your side of the bargain. This is the three of us scrabbling happily in the dirt. What’s the matter? You’re an agent. You’re not afraid.’
‘Of this? One Shade?’
‘Oh, you see just one up there, do you?’ She pursed up her mouth, all tight and crinkly, then snorted in disapproval. ‘Very good. Well done. Have a cigar and join a proper agency. There are two, you daft dollop. There’s a little one beside her.’
I scowled into the darkness. ‘Don’t see it. You’re making it up.’
‘No, she’s right . . .’ Lockwood had his hand cupped over his eyes; he was clearly concentrating hard. ‘Faint and formless, like a cloud. The tall one’s a woman, wearing a hat or shawl . . . a hooped skirt . . . Victorian or Edwardian, maybe.’
‘That’s it: old, old,’ Flo Bones said. ‘I expect a mother and child what jumped in the Thames together. Suicide and murder, an ancient tragedy. Their bones must be under that wharf, I reckon. And you don’t see it?’ she said to me. ‘Well, well.’
‘Sight’s not really my area,’ I said stiffly.
‘Ain’t it? Shame.’ Her head jerked close. ‘So, enough of this nattering. I want your ’elp now. Here’s how it goes. We all of us creep near the post, slowly, quietly, no sudden moves that might make ’em suspect nothing. Then it’s easy. You keep an eye on ’em, making sure they don’t get agitated, while I go a-ferreting with my trusty marsh-knife here.’ She pushed back the noxious coat, and I saw the blade at her belt for the first time – a short, wickedly curved weapon with an odd double prong at the point, like a giant can-opener or those little wooden forks you get with jellied eels. ‘Just watch my back,’ she said. ‘That’s all you have to do. It won’t be deep. I won’t take long.’
I made an exclamation of disgust. ‘So the idea is, we’re to stand guard while you go digging for a dead kid’s bones? Which you then hope to sell on the black market?’
Flo nodded. ‘That’s about the size of it, yeah.’
‘Absolutely no way. Lockwood—’
He grasped my arm, squeezed it. ‘Come on, Luce. Flo’s wise. Flo’s clever. She’s got information. If we want it, we have to help her. Simple as that.’ Another sharp squeeze.
A fond, rather fatuous grin had spread over Flo’s face. ‘Ah, Lockwood, you always was sweet-talking. One of your best qualities. Not like this sour mare. So come on, then. Up and at ’em! Let’s go for glory and get this done!’
Without further words Lockwood and I checked our belts. We readied the rapiers in our hands. Shades are usually very passive and unresponsive; they’re too caught up in the replay or remembrance of the past to pay attention to the living. But it’s not something to rely on; and clearly Flo had reason to be cautious here. Slowly, setting our boots down with utmost deliberation on the shingle, we approached the tall black post.
High above us, the white thing hung in the night sky; it might have been a puff of smoke, framed against the stars.
‘Why’s it up there?’ I whispered. Flo was just ahead, humming jauntily to herself.
‘It’s the old level of the wharf. Where she stood before jumping in. Hear anything?’
‘Hard to tell. Could be a woman sighing. Could be the wind. What about you?’
‘No death-glows. We wouldn’t expect to see them, if they died in fresh water. But I do feel’ – Lockwood breathed deep to steady himself – ‘a strong weight pressing down on me. You get it? Such grief . . .’
‘Yeah, I’ve got it. Powerful malaise for a Shade.’
He stopped short. ‘Hold on. Did you see it move, Lucy? I thought I saw it quiver there.’
‘No. No, I missed that. Ugh, look at Flo! Where’s her self-respect?’
The relic-girl had reached the base of the post; setting the lantern down, she squatted on her haunches, and began scooping up gouts of mud and pebbles with her long curved knife.
Lockwood motioned me back a little way. Keeping his eyes fixed on the shape hanging directly above, he stationed himself behind Flo’s crouching form.
Now that we were close, the malaise had intensified. A fearsome melancholy stole over me. I felt my shoulders droop, my knees begin to buckle. Tears pricked at my eyes, a vile hopelessness swirled in my gut. I shook it off – it was a false emotion. I opened a belt pouch and took out some gum, chewing furiously to distract myself. One time, long ago, this had been real, one person’s sorrow turned to insanity or despair. Now it was just an echo – a blank and mindless force, expending itself on anyone who came near.
Not that Flo Bones seemed particularly affected. She was digging at a furious rate, casting aside great lumps of slime; periodically she stopped to peer at some fragment she’d unearthed, before tossing it away.
A ripple of sound against my eardrums, a quiver in the air. The sighing I could hear grew louder. Up by the post-top, the patch of whiteness deepened, as if substance had been drawn into it.
Lockwood had noticed this too. ‘We’ve got movement above us, Flo.’
The relic-girl’s bottom was high; her head practically in the hole. She didn’t look up. ‘Good. Means I’m getting warm.’
The pressure in the air grew stronger. All trace of the river breeze was gone. The weight in my heart was painful, wedged there like a stone. Gum snapped in my mouth; I listened to the knife scratching in the foul wet ground, watched the hanging whiteness. Even out of the corner of my eye it stayed stubbornly unformed, though for the first time I thought I saw a smaller discolouration beside it: the faint shape of a child.