As I descended the spiral stairs, I could hear the shuffling of plimsolls on a polished floor, and the whip, whip, whipping of a blade through air. Soft crisp impacts told me the sword was finding its target. Lockwood, as was his habit after an unsatisfactory job, was ridding himself of his frustrations.
The rapier room, where we go to practise swordplay, is mostly empty of furniture. There’s a rack of old rapiers, a chalk-dust stand, a long, low table, and three rickety wooden chairs against one wall. In the centre of the room two life-size straw dummies hang suspended from hooks in the ceiling. Both have crude faces drawn on with ink. One wears a grubby lace bonnet, the other an ancient, stained top hat, and their stuffed cotton torsos are pricked and torn with dozens of little holes. The names of these targets are Lady Esmeralda and Floating Joe.
Today, Esmeralda was receiving the full force of Lockwood’s attentions. She was spinning on her chain, and her bonnet was askew. Lockwood circled her at a distance, rapier held ready. He wore sharp fencing slacks and plimsolls; he’d removed his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves a little way. The dust danced up around his gliding feet as he moved back and forth, rapier swaying, left hand held out behind for balance. He cut patterns in the air, feinted, shimmied to the side and struck a sudden blow to the dummy’s ragged shoulder, sending the tip right through the straw and out the other side. His face was serene, his hair glistened; his eyes shone with dark intent. I watched him from the door.
‘Yes, I’ll have a slice of cake, thanks,’ George said. ‘If you can tear yourself away.’
I crossed over to the table. George was sitting there, reading a comic book. He wore distressingly loose tracksuit bottoms and an accurately named sweatshirt. His hands were white with chalk dust, and his face was flushed. Two bottles of water sat on the table; a rapier was propped beside him.
Lockwood looked up as I passed. ‘Swiss rolls and tea,’ I said.
‘Come and join me first!’ He indicated a long, torn-open cardboard box lying by the rapier rack. ‘Italian rapiers, just arrived from Mullet’s. New lighter steel and silver enamelling on the point. Feel really good. They’re worth a try.’
I hesitated. ‘That means leaving the cakes alone with George . . .’
Lockwood just grinned at me, flicking his blade to and fro so that the air sang.
It was hard to say no to him. It always is. Besides, I wanted to try the new rapier. I drew one from the box and held it loosely across my palms. It was lighter than I’d expected, and balanced differently from my usual French-style épée. I gripped the handle, looking at the complex coils of silvery metal surrounding my fingers in a protective mesh.
‘The guard has silver trace-work on it,’ Lockwood said. ‘Should keep you safe from spurts of ectoplasm. What do you think?’
‘Bit fancy,’ I said doubtfully. ‘It’s the kind of thing Kipps would wear.’
‘Oh, don’t say that. This has got class. Give it a try.’
A sword in the hand makes you feel good. Even before breakfast, even when wearing flip-flops, it gives you a feeling of power. I turned towards Floating Joe and cut a standard ward-knot around him, the kind that keeps a Visitor penned in.
‘Don’t lean in so much,’ Lockwood advised. ‘You were a bit off-balance there. Try holding your arm forward a little more. Like this . . .’ He turned my wrist, and altered my stance by gently adjusting the position of my waist. ‘See? Is that better?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think these rapiers will suit you.’ He gave Floating Joe a nudge with his shoe so that he swung back and forth, and I had to skip aside to avoid him. ‘Imagine he’s a hungry Type Two,’ Lockwood said. ‘He wants human contact, and is coming at you in a rush . . . You need to keep the plasm in one place, so it doesn’t break free and threaten fellow agents. Try doing a double ward-knot, like this . . .’ His rapier darted round the dummy in a complex blur.
‘I’ll never learn that,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t follow it at all.’
Lockwood smiled. ‘Oh, it’s just a Kuriashi turn. I can take you through the positions sometime.’
‘OK.’
‘Tea’s getting cold,’ George remarked. ‘And I’m on the penultimate slice of cake.’
He was lying. The Swiss rolls were still there. But it was time to eat something. I had a fluttery feeling in my tummy, and my legs felt weak. It was probably the late night catching up with me. I ducked between Joe and Esmeralda and went over to the table. Lockwood did a few more exercises, swift, elegant and flawless. George and I watched him as we chewed.
‘So what do you think of the Swiss rolls?’ I said, with my mouth full.
‘They’re all right. It’s things like Kuriashi turns that I can’t stomach,’ George said. ‘Nothing but trendy claptrap, invented by the big agencies to make themselves look fancy. In my book, you thwack a Visitor, avoid being ghost-touched, and peg it home. That’s all you need to know.’
‘You’re still sore about last night,’ I said. ‘Well, I am too.’
‘I’ll get over it. It’s my fault for not researching properly. But we shouldn’t have missed that stone. We could have had that case done and dusted before that Fittes rabble showed up.’ He shook his head. ‘Bunch of stuck-up snobs, they are. I used to work there, so I know. They look down on anyone who hasn’t got a posh jacket or neatly ironed trousers. As if appearance is all that counts . . .’ He stuck a hand inside his tracksuit bottoms and had an indignant scratch.
‘Oh, most of the Fittes crowd are all right.’ Despite his exertions, Lockwood was scarcely out of breath. He dropped his rapier into the rack with a clatter and dusted the chalk off his hands. ‘They’re just kids like us, risking their lives. It’s the supervisors who cause the trouble. They’re the ones who think themselves untouchable, just because they’ve got cushy jobs at one of the oldest, biggest agencies.’
‘Tell me about it,’ George said heavily. ‘They used to drive me mad.’
I nodded. ‘Kipps is the worst, though. He really hates us, doesn’t he?’
‘Not us,’ Lockwood said. ‘Me. He really hates me.’
‘But why? What’s he got against you?’
Lockwood picked up one of the bottles of water and sighed reflectively. ‘Who knows? Maybe it’s my natural style he envies, maybe my boyish charm. Perhaps it’s my set-up here – having my own agency, no one to answer to, with fine companions at my side.’ He caught my eye and smiled.
George looked up from his comic. ‘Or could be the fact you once stabbed him in the bottom with a sword.’
‘Yes, well, there is that.’ Lockwood took a sip of water.
I looked back and forth between them. ‘What?’ I said. ‘When did this happen?’
Lockwood flung himself into a chair. ‘It was before your time, Luce,’ he said. ‘When I was a kid. DEPRAC holds an annual fencing competition for young agents here in London. Down at the Albert Hall. Fittes and Rotwell always dominate it, but my old master, Gravedigger Sykes, thought I was good enough, so I entered too. Drew Kipps in the quarter-final. Being a few years older, he was a lot taller than me then, and was the hot favourite going in. Made all sorts of silly boasts about it, as you can imagine. Anyway, I bamboozled him with a couple of Winchester half-lunges, and the long and short of it was, he ended up tripping over his own feet. I just gave him a quick prod while he was sprawling on all fours – nothing to get het up about. The crowd rather liked it, of course. Oddly, he’s been insanely vindictive towards me ever since.’
‘How strange,’ I said. ‘So . . . did you go on to win the competition?’