‘You wouldn’t do that,’ the ghost said, but for the first time I heard uncertainty in its voice. ‘You need me, don’t forget. I’m a Type Three. I’ll make you rich. I’ll make you famous.’
‘Stuff that. Our friend is more important. Last chance, skull. Spill the beans.’
‘And there was I thinking Cubbins was the cruel one.’ The face drew back into the shadows of the plasm, where it glared at me with an expression of blood-curdling malice. ‘All right,’ it said slowly. ‘Sure, I’ll tell you. Don’t think I’m giving in to your blackmail, mind. I just want to enjoy what’s coming to you all.’
‘Get on with it,’ Lockwood said. I’d been muttering the ghost’s words to him as best I could. He squeezed my arm. ‘Good work, Lucy.’
‘Well, you’re right, as it happens,’ the whispering voice said. ‘Cubbins was here. He beat you home by almost an hour. He had the master’s mirror in a dirty sack. And he hadn’t been back long before someone else showed up. A little mousy fellow with spectacles and tousled hair.’
I repeated this. Lockwood and I exchanged a glance. Joplin.
‘They didn’t stay – there was just a short discussion, then they both went off together. They took the sack. I thought Cubbins seemed uneasy. He was unsure of what he was doing. At the last moment he ran back in and left you that note. I’d say he was still fighting against my master, but the other fellow isn’t. He’s long gone.’
‘Still fighting against what?’ It was as if a cold spear had pierced my side.
The teeth of the skull glinted beneath the ghost’s smile. ‘My master has been talking to them. You can see it in their eyes. Especially the other one – he’s desperate to be enlightened. But Cubbins has the madness too. Did you not notice?’ A whispered chuckle. ‘Perhaps you never look at him.’
I couldn’t speak. Once again I saw the cowled phantom rising in the cemetery, towering over George. Once again I heard that soft and urgent voice: ‘Look . . . look . . . I give you your heart’s desire . . .’ I thought of George and Joplin standing as if spellbound by the iron coffin. I thought of all George’s little comments since, his malaise at Bickerstaff’s house, his distractedness, his wistful looks as he spoke about the mirror. The memories transfixed me in turn. I was frozen. It took Lockwood several tries before I could tell him what I’d heard.
‘We knew he’d been affected by the mirror and the ghost,’ I said hoarsely. ‘We noticed, but we didn’t pay attention. Poor George . . . Lockwood, we’ve been so blind! He’s desperate to investigate it. He’s been obsessed with it all this time. And you just kept criticizing him, slapping him down.’
‘Yes, of course I did!’ If my voice had risen, now Lockwood’s did so too. ‘Because George is always like that! He’s always obsessed with relics and old stuff! It’s just how he is! We couldn’t possibly have known.’ Lockwood’s face was ashen, his dark eyes hollow. His shoulders slumped. ‘You really think he’s affected by the ghost?’
‘By the ghost, by the mirror. He’d never normally do something like this, would he – go off, and leave us alone?’
‘No, of course not. But even so . . . Honestly, Luce, I’m going to kill him.’
‘That may not be necessary if either of those idiots looks in the mirror.’
Lockwood took a deep breath. ‘OK. Think. Where’ll they be? Where’s Joplin live?’
‘No idea, but he seems to spend most of his time at Kensal Green Cemetery.’
He snapped his fingers. ‘Right! And not just the above-ground parts either. That grey stuff in his hair? It’s not dandruff, put it that way.’ He bounded for the basement door, sprang through and down the stairs, feet clanging on the iron. ‘Come on!’ he shouted. ‘Collect whatever kit you can. Swords, flares, anything we’ve got! And ring for a night cab. We need to move!’
Ten minutes later, we were back in the kitchen waiting for the taxi. We had our swords (old ones, taken from the rack in the training room), and two spare work-belts, so ripped and burned with plasm they barely clipped together. Also a few bags of iron, two salt bombs and no magnesium flares. Everything else had been lost, used up or soaked in our raid on Winkman.
Both of us were agitated; we stood at the table, checking and rechecking our supplies. The face in the ghost-jar watched us. It seemed amused.
‘I wouldn’t bother, personally,’ it said. ‘I’d just go off to bed. You’ll be too late to save him.’
‘Shut up,’ I growled. ‘Lockwood – what were you saying about Joplin just now? About the grey stuff in his hair? You don’t mean—’
He tapped his fingers impatiently on the worktop. ‘It’s grave-dust, Luce. Grave-dust from the catacombs beneath the chapel. Joplin’s made it his business to go exploring down there, even though it’s closed off and forbidden. He’s been creeping about underground, poking and prying, looking for stuff, following his antiquarian obsessions. Anything odd he finds, he likes to keep. Like the stand from Bickerstaff’s coffin, for example.’ He cursed. ‘Where is that wretched taxi?’
He continued pacing about the room. But I didn’t. I’d gone quite still. Something he’d said had made a horrible connection in my mind.
Anything he finds, he likes to keep.
‘Lockwood.’ My heart was hammering in my chest.
‘Yes?’
‘When Barnes phoned the other day, he mentioned that some museum had a Mughal dagger that was similar to the one buried in Jack Carver’s back. So similar, they might almost have been a matching pair. You remember where that dagger was found?’
He nodded. ‘Maida Vale Cemetery, up in north London.’
‘Right. And when Saunders and Joplin first came here, they told us about another place they’d worked in. Remember what it was?’
He stared at me. ‘It was . . . it was Maida Vale Cemetery . . . Oh no.’
‘I think Joplin found two daggers,’ I said. ‘I think he handed one in, but kept the other. And, recently’ – I stared through the door to the rugless hallway, still scattered with salt – ‘under the influence of Bickerstaff and the mirror, I’m afraid he put that second dagger to good use.’
A cackle of laughter came from the jar. ‘This is the best evening I’ve had since I was alive! Look at you both! Your faces are priceless.’
‘I wouldn’t have believed it was possible,’ Lockwood whispered. ‘George is in even more trouble than we thought.’
The cab horn sounded in the street. I shouldered my bag.
‘Have fun, then,’ the ghost called. ‘Give my regards to Cubbins, or whatever’s left of him. He’ll be— Wait, what are you doing?’
Lockwood had snatched up a rucksack from the corner of the kitchen and was stuffing it over the top of the jar.
‘You needn’t look so smug,’ he said. ‘You’re coming too.’
26
At Kensal Green Cemetery, the West Gate was open, the little watch-hut empty, and no lights showed as we approached the Anglican chapel through the trees. We were entering the final hour of darkness. Already the stars were paler; soon the horizon would blaze into light somewhere over the eastern docks, and the night’s shadows be driven forth from London. But the birds were not yet singing.
Outside the chapel, the cabins of Sweet Dreams Excavations and Clearance were black and empty, the fire-buckets cold. The mechanical diggers stood motionless, arms bent and bowed like the necks of sleeping herons. It was true, then: Mr Saunders had suspended all activities and left the cemetery to its dead. But Lockwood and I strode swiftly across the abandoned camp, and pattered up the chapel stairs.