Constable & Toop (14 page)

More incantations followed in the mysterious tongue. Then slowly, grey smoke drifted down from the cracks in the ceiling and formed a human shape. The shape gained definition and colour. Still transparent but now clearly that of a woman. She had untidy hair, a green dress and a blood-stained apron.

‘You have no right to do this,' she said, addressing Reverend Fallowfield.

‘I have every right,' he replied. ‘This is our realm. You are the trespasser here.'

‘I did'nae want to get stuck in this wretched school,' she replied.

‘Silence!' cried Reverend Fallowfield. ‘You shall be silent forever more. For now your kingdom will come, let His will be done. You shall be vanquished, no more to roam. Forces of the afterworld, open now and draw unto you this spirit.'

‘You're a barrel of laughs, you are,' the woman began to say but suddenly something unseen gripped her throat and she began to struggle, writhe and scream. She staggered backwards. Clara moved closer to watch. The woman turned to her in horror. She dropped to her knees. The grey smoke that formed her was ebbing away, removing her form, her shape.

‘Help me,' she uttered in a strangulated whisper.

‘Stop it,' yelled Clara. ‘You're hurting her.'

‘Demons feel no pain,' replied Reverend Fallowfield.

Clara stepped forward to help the poor woman and was surprised to feel a pair of ice-cold hands grab her own and thrust something into them. The woman's scream grew and grew until it was indistinguishable from the sound of wind rushing through the old school, rattling the window frames, shaking the very foundations.

Then she was gone.

Silence followed.

‘Clara, are you all right?' asked Aunt Hetty, dropping to her side.

‘Yes, I'm fine,' she stammered, unable to put into words her true feelings at having witnessed such horror up close.

‘Like I said, demons,' said Reverend Fallowfield triumphantly.

Clara lifted her book and pen to write and found a piece of paper in her hands that had not been there before. She glanced at the list of names and addresses, but did not want to draw Reverend Fallowfield's attention to it, so she folded it up and slipped it between the pages of her book.

Sam did not relish returning to the church in Shadwell. He felt a cold shiver whenever he thought of the strange black substance that had enveloped him in the bell tower, but life had to go on. And so did the business of death. Sam frequently acted as mute for funerals, his naturally sombre appearance making him ideal for the role of walking ahead of the hearse, carrying a mourning wand, with a black cloth draped over it.

There being such distance to cover for Mr Gliddon's funeral, Mr Constable suggested to Richard and Edward Gliddon that it would make more sense for Sam to ride up front in the hearse until the final leg of the journey. The Gliddon boys agreed to the point. They would be in a second carriage along with the rest of the family attending the burial.

Mr Constable sat beside Sam, holding the reins, having ordered the designated driver to bed when he'd arrived that morning with a stinking cold. Behind them was the late Mr Gliddon himself, sitting on his own coffin.

‘The death of a patriarch is a difficult time, but I feel it has brought the Gliddon boys closer together,' said Mr Constable. ‘While their father lived, they could only see their differences. In death, they have been reminded of the familial bond that holds them together.'

‘They're good boys,' agreed Mr Gliddon, as though the remark had been directed towards him.

‘Talking of family matters,' said Mr Constable. ‘How are you finding Uncle Jack?'

‘I'll be glad when he's gone,' said Sam. ‘I do not like him.'

‘I don't think Jack means to be liked. Or at least if he does, he goes about it an extremely peculiar way.'

‘Why is Father protecting him?'

‘Because Jack is his brother. You and I, we have no brothers. Indeed, I have precious few blood relations, except for a cousin in Rochester who only appears when in need of financial assistance. But, one cannot underestimate the strength of blood. Even when there are such differences in every other respect.'

‘Yes, but murder,' protested Sam.

‘He will be gone soon enough. And your father's conscience will be eased. He will have helped his brother in his time of need. And my guess is that, given Jack's nature, the sanctuary he finds above the shop will only delay his ultimate destination.'

‘You mean, you think he will hang,' said Sam before adding, ‘Good.'

‘No man's death should be the cause of delight, no matter who they are.'

Sam hated disappointing Mr Constable. He sought his approval and respect above anyone else's, even above his own father's. He would have changed the subject, but Jack still weighed heavily on his thoughts. ‘Jack says they both thieved as children,' said Sam.

Mr Constable didn't respond immediately. They were on the part of the journey between Peckham and the Old Kent Road, where there were far fewer houses and so fewer people to stop and stare. Sam had often felt that riding on a funeral carriage was not so different to riding in a royal carriage, the number of people who gawped or stood on tiptoes to get a better look.

‘Your father didn't have the same privileges as you or I, growing up.'

‘So he was a thief?'

‘In the district of London where your father grew up, thievery is often the only option available. But Charles Toop was like a rare flower growing in a swamp. He lifted himself out of his situation and made himself a better man. Many have achieved great things with opportunities, but your father had none. No education, no father to provide for him and guide him, no mother to teach him right from wrong. And yet, against all the odds, he learnt a skill, and a noble one, that of our saviour himself. These are no mean achievements.'

The rest of the journey went smoothly enough, except for a brief drama just before London Bridge when they got stuck behind a cart carrying a pile of apples, which had spilled across the road after the wheel had come loose and fallen off. The owner of the cart had been shouting and swearing loudly about his predicament and Mr Constable had been forced to intervene, sternly reminding the applecart owner that he was not the only one inconvenienced.

Once the cart had been lifted to the side of the road, they continued over the river.

‘You'd met Jack before,' said Sam.

‘I had,' agreed Mr Constable.

‘And when he first saw me, he said I looked like my mother,' said Sam.

‘He was right about that,' said Mr Constable.

‘So he visited Honor Oak once before.'

Mr Constable looked down at the murky waters of the Thames. ‘Learning that one's parent has a past all of his own is hard, but your father has been the best of men for as long as I've known him. Now, I'm afraid to say that as soon as we arrive on the north bank I must ask that you step down and take up your role on foot.'

General Colt was no fool. He understood that being the head of the Housing Department sounded far more impressive than it actually was. The department basically ran itself. Occasionally an Outreach Worker would need replacing, but it was hardly enough to occupy the hours he was expected to spend in the office. Which was just as well as far as he was concerned as it meant that he could spend all the more time working on his golf swing. General Colt was not one of life's hard workers, and he saw no reason to alter this in death.

Mrs Pringle, however, had other ideas and was forever trying to make him do things.

‘General Colt, I'd like a word,' she said, entering his office before he had time to pretend to be asleep.

‘I have a meeting,' he blurted out.

‘Since it is I who schedules your meetings, I'd be surprised if that were true,' said the woman.

‘Sharp as ever, Mrs Pringle,' conceded General Colt through gritted teeth. ‘Sharp like a razor.'

‘It's about Mr Lapsewood,' she continued.

‘Who?'

‘The clerk you had carted off to the Vault.'

‘Oh, him. Yes, what of him?'

‘I rather think there may have been something in what he said.'

‘The man was trying to undermine me,' snapped General Colt. ‘He was trying to bring my name into disrepute by consorting with Rogue ghosts.'

‘I took it upon myself to look up the Black Rot he mentioned. It turns out it does exist.'

‘So?'

‘Have you ever heard of the Parisian Problem?'

‘Garlic breath?' ventured General Colt.

‘No,' replied Mrs Pringle, distinctly unamused. ‘Perhaps you should read this.'

She dropped a heavy file onto his empty desk.

‘Ah, well,' said the general, flicking through the pages. ‘Perhaps I should save this for the morning. It looks pretty hard going.'

‘It is the morning,' replied Mrs Pringle.

General Colt found his secretary to be a singularly formidable woman, especially when she was in a mood like this. He opened the report and reluctantly began to read.

The Vault was a vast cavern of a prison, dimly lit by meagre torches that hung from the pillars stretching up to the impossibly high ceiling. The far corners were shrouded in shadow and yet the Marquis never strayed more than a few feet from the door.

‘Should we not look for another way out?' asked Lapsewood.

‘Wander into the darkness and you will become like one of those poor souls.' The Marquis pointed out into the darkness. From the gloom came distant screams, animalistic groans and pained moans, echoing off the walls.

‘Who are they?' asked Lapsewood, peering into the darkness.

‘Dissipated souls,' the Marquis whispered. ‘Hundreds, thousands of them. Unable to escape this terrible hell hole and driven mad by their determination to find a crack through which to slip, they have been Ether Dust for so long they have forgotten their forms.' He chuckled darkly. ‘Screaming dust. The stuff of nightmares even for us ghosts, wouldn't you say?'

‘But you've stayed whole?'

‘Exactly,' cried the Marquis. ‘One must never lose hope in the prevailing human spirit. What are we ghosts if not prevailing human spirits?' He looked at Lapsewood, searching for some kind of acknowledgement of what he clearly considered an excellent speech.

‘I must get out,' said Lapsewood. ‘The Black Rot is eating away at London. I must do something to prevent it.'

‘There is Black Rot in London?' said the Marquis.

‘You know of it?'

‘Indeed,' replied the Marquis. ‘Some years ago, when I was in Paris, they had a similar problem. There they called it
la Pourriture Noire
.'

‘Paris?'

‘Yes, I was staying there. The French Bureau has a much more liberal attitude towards Rogue ghosts.'

‘And buildings were getting infected in the same way?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you know how the buildings came to lose their ghosts?'

‘There is only one way to remove a Resident from its building,' replied the Marquis. ‘Exorcism.'

‘Is it really possible?' asked Lapsewood.

‘It is. Of course, the vast majority of exorcists can no more exorcise a house than they can urinate marmalade, but there are exceptions. There was one such exception in Paris at this time and it became briefly fashionable amongst the living to have their houses exorcised,' replied the Marquis.

‘The living dispatching the dead?' said Lapsewood.

The Marquis' look darkened. ‘This was not dispatching,' he said. ‘A true exorcist is not opening a door. He is calling the other side to drag the spirit through the crack in the veil between this world and the Void.'

‘But with no door—'

The Marquis interrupted him. ‘With no door the spirit's soul is torn apart. It is split and splintered.'

‘What happened to the exorcist?'

‘Ah, now there lies the beauty of that city. So susceptible are the Parisians to fashion and so fickle and short of attention that it didn't take long for the city's gentry to grow tired of this man's show. Exorcisms went the way of every other fashion.'

‘But he must have left many infected houses.'

‘Indeed he did. Most were filled by roaming spirits who stepped inside and found themselves trapped, but I remember one chateau in the south of the city which became so bad that the rot was visible from the outside. None would venture near it. Neither living nor dead. If a house gets that bad it looks elsewhere for an ­inhabitant.'

‘You mean it looks amongst the living?'

‘The living? No. The inanimate material of a house has no power of the living, no matter how badly infected it gets. They say this chateau drew something from the Void.'

Lapsewood looked with disbelief at the Marquis. ‘But . . . surely nothing can come back from the other side.'

‘You speak with such certainty for one who has only just learnt of these things.'

‘If what you say is true we must do something.'

‘Certainly something must be done,' agreed the Marquis, ‘but we can do nothing on this side of that door. We must make our escape. Come, see . . .' The Marquis beckoned him over to one of the walls.

‘I can't see anything,' replied Lapsewood.

‘Place your hand here.' He pointed out a low part of the wall.

Lapsewood ran his hand along it and felt a tiny indentation. ‘What?' he asked.

The Marquis laughed. ‘I have for some years now been chipping away at this wall using the nail of the large toe on my right foot.'

‘But these walls are thick. It would take thousands of years to actually make a hole to get through, if such a thing was even possible at all.'