Lockwood (45 page)

All around me their faint cries sounded: ‘
Give us back our bones . . .
’

‘OK, OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

The first thing I did, when I got to the table, was pick my rapier up off the floor. Then I scanned the mess scattered across the table top, noting certain tools belonging to Joplin: crowbar, chisel, mallet. I didn’t like to think what he had used them for.

Joplin had come to a halt on the other side of the table. He had the same look of dull intensity in his eyes. ‘No!’ he croaked. ‘It’s mine! Don’t!’

I ignored him. I looked back towards the catacombs, to the passage I’d entered from. A faint green glow could just be seen there, a grumpy face peering from my backpack.

‘Skull!’ I said. ‘Now’s the time! I have the mirror here. Talk!’

The faint voice was uneasy. ‘
Talk about what?
’

‘You were there when it was made. Tell me how to destroy it. I want to free these poor trapped spirits here.’

‘
Who cares about them? They’re useless. Look at them – they could ghost-touch you in seconds, yet all they do is float about, groaning. They’re rubbish. They deserve to be trapped. Now, as for me—
’

‘Speak! Remember what I’ll do to you if you don’t!’

Across the table, Joplin suddenly lurched towards me. I raised my rapier and warded him off. But as I did so, my grip on the mirror loosened. It slipped in my other hand and twisted, so that I caught a flash of the jet-black glass . . .

Too late, I slammed it face-down on the table and squeezed my eyes tight shut. A sudden appalling pain speared through my gut; I felt as if I was slowly being turned inside out. And with that pain came a burning desire to look in the glass again. It was an overwhelming urge. Suddenly I knew that the mirror would solve everything. It would give me bliss. My body was parched, but the glass would quench my thirst. I was famished, but the glass would give me food. Everything outside the mirror was dull and worthless – nothing was of consequence but the shimmering, gleaming blackness. I could see it, I could join it, if only I turned the mirror over and gave myself up to it. It was laughably easy. I set my rapier down, began to move my hand . . .

‘
Poor stupid Lucy
 . . .’ It was the skull’s voice breaking harshly through my dream. ‘
A fool like all the rest. Can’t take her eyes away, when all she has to do is smash the glass
.’

Smash it . . .? And then the one tiny piece of me that remained wedded to life and light and living things recoiled in horror.

I snatched up the mallet and drove it down on the back of the mirror.

There was a terrific crack, a burst of released air; and the buzzing noise – which had remained constant in my ears all this time – suddenly cut out. From the seven spirits came a sighing – a sound almost of ecstasy. They blurred, shuddered, and vanished from sight. Beneath my hands, the mirror was a wonky mess of bones and twine; flakes of black glass lay across the table. I felt no more pain or desire.

For a moment, in that silent chamber, no one moved.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘That’s that.’

Joplin had been transfixed; now he gave a hollow groan. ‘How
dare
you?’ he cried. ‘That was invaluable! That was
mine
!’ Darting forwards, he rummaged on the table top and drew out an enormous flintlock pistol, rusted, cumbersome, with hammers raised.

He pointed the gun at me.

A polite cough sounded beside us. I looked up; Joplin turned.

Anthony Lockwood stood there. He was covered in grave-dust, and there were cobwebs on his collar and in his hair. His trousers were torn at the knees, his fingers bleeding. He’d looked smarter in his time, but I can’t say he’d ever looked better to me. He held his rapier casually in one hand.

‘Step back!’ Joplin cried. ‘I’m armed!’

‘Hi, Lucy,’ Lockwood said. ‘Hello, George. Sorry I’ve taken a while.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘Have I missed anything?’

‘Step back, I say!’

‘Not much. I rescued George – or, I should say, he rescued me. Kipps is here too. I’ve got the bone mirror – or what’s left of it. Mr Joplin was just threatening me with this antique gun thing.’

‘Looks like a mid-eighteenth-century British army pistol,’ Lockwood said. ‘Two bullets, flintlock action. Quite a rare model, I think. They phased it out after two years.’

I stared at him. ‘How do you
know
these things?’

‘Just sort of do. The point is, it’s not a very accurate weapon. Also, it needs to be kept somewhere dry, not in a damp old catacomb.’

‘Silence! If you don’t do what I ask—’

‘Shouldn’t think it’ll work. Let’s see, shall we?’ With that, Lockwood moved towards Joplin.

From the direction of the archivist came a hiss of fury and the forlorn clicking of an antique pistol. With a curse, he threw the gun at our feet, turned and stumbled away across the room. Directly towards the Bickerstaff body on the floor.

‘Mr Joplin,’ I shouted. ‘Stop! It’s not yet safe!’

Lockwood started after him, but Joplin paid no heed. Like a thin, bespectacled rat, he skidded and veered from side to side, panic-stricken, helpless, tripping on chains, skidding on debris, unsure where to go.

The answer was decided for him.

As he passed the mummified body, a hooded figure rose from the bricks. The ghost was very faint now, wispy even to my eyes, and Joplin walked right into it. White, translucent arms enfolded him. He slowed and stopped; his head fell back, his body jerked and twitched. He made a sighing sound. And then he toppled gently forwards, through the fading figure, onto the brickwork floor.

It was over in seconds. By the time we got there, the ghost had vanished. Joplin was already turning blue.

Lockwood kicked the chains closed around the Bickerstaff body to seal the Source. I ran over to George. He was still sitting sprawled in a corner. His eyes were closed, but he opened them as I drew near.

‘Joplin?’ he asked.

‘Dead. Bickerstaff got him.’

‘And the mirror?’

‘Afraid I broke it.’

‘Oh. OK.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Probably just as well.’

‘I think so.’

My legs were feeling wobbly. I sat down next to him. Over on the other side, Lockwood was leaning, grey-faced, against the wall. None of us said anything. No one had the energy.

‘Hey . . .’ Kipps’s voice echoed across the room. ‘When you’ve had your little rest, could someone please untie me?’

The sun was up over Kensal Green; it wasn’t yet six a.m., but already it was pleasant to be out. Trees glistened, the grass shone; there were probably plenty of bees and butterflies drifting around, if I’d had the energy to notice. As it was, the only samples of wildlife I could see were the dozen or so DEPRAC officers who’d taken up residence in the excavators’ camp. I sat on the chapel steps above them, letting the fresh warmth play on my skin.

They’d brought vans in, and were using the site as a temporary incident room. Beside one vehicle, Inspector Barnes stood in animated conference with Lockwood. I could almost see his moustache bristling from afar. Outside another van, a group of medics treated George – and also Kat Godwin, Bobby Vernon and Ned Shaw, who stood together in a ragged line. As for Quill Kipps, he’d already been patched up. He sat a few steps below me; together we watched a procession of officers entering the chapel. They carried iron, silver and all manner of protective boxes, to make safe the contents of the catacombs.

Here and there on the ground below the chapel, white-coated officers picked over scraps of clothing, blood, and fallen weapons – relics of the great fight that had taken place an hour or two before.

As Lockwood told it (and as reported by many of the newspapers afterwards), the battle with Winkman’s thugs had been a desperate affair. No fewer than six assailants – each armed with club or bludgeon – had taken part in the attack. Lockwood and the three Fittes agents had been fighting for their lives. It had been cudgel against sword, weight of numbers against superior fighting skill. The battle raged up and down the chapel steps, and to begin with, the sheer ferocity of the attackers had threatened to win through. Gradually, however, the operatives’ swordplay told. The tide turned. As dawn broke over the cemetery, the thugs were driven back across the camp, and out among the graves. According to Lockwood, he himself had seriously wounded three of the men; Shaw and Godwin had accounted for two others. The sixth had thrown away his baton and fled. In the end five captives had lain helpless on the ground beside the cabins, with Kat Godwin standing guard.

Victory, however, had come at a cost. Everyone had been hurt – Lockwood and Godwin with little more than scratches, while Ned Shaw had suffered a broken arm. Bobby Vernon had been badly struck about the head, and could not stand. It was left to Lockwood to force entry into the nearest work cabin; then, leaving Shaw to find its phone and ring Barnes, he had sprinted into the chapel, where he found the open shaft of the catafalque. As I’d expected, he lost no time dropping into darkness, before hastening in search of George and me.

Getting out was easier than getting in. We’d eventually located the keys to the catacomb doors (and to Kipps’s chains) in Joplin’s pocket, and so were able to leave by way of the stairs. We reached the surface, going slowly, just as DEPRAC’s team arrived.

Inspector Barnes had come bounding up the steps to meet us. Before listening to either Lockwood or Kipps, both of whom vied to get his attention, he had demanded the mirror; it was the only thing on his mind. Lockwood presented its pieces with a flourish. Judging by the droop of Barnes’s moustache, its condition disappointed him. Nevertheless, he at once summoned medics to help us, before organizing a wider search of the catacombs. He wanted to see what else Joplin might have hidden there.

There was one artefact, however, that his officers didn’t find. I had my rucksack – and, in it, the silent ghost-jar. Arguably, the skull had saved me. I would decide its fate when I got back home.

After an early conversation with Barnes, Kipps had been largely ignored. For some time he had been sitting on the chapel steps, grey-faced, a dusty, haggard shadow of his usual strutting self.

On impulse, I cleared my throat. ‘I wanted to thank you,’ I said. ‘For what you did – in supporting me back there. And for going after George. I’m surprised, actually. After seeing you leg it from the rats in Bickerstaff’s house, I wouldn’t have guessed you’d have the bottle for any of that.’

Kipps gave a mirthless laugh; I waited for the inevitable acid retort. Instead, after a pause, he said quietly, ‘It’s easy to judge me now. But you don’t yet know what it’s like, the day your Talent starts to fade. You’ll still sense ghosts – you’ll know they’re present. But you won’t see or hear them properly any more. You’ll get all the terror, without being able to do anything about it. Sometimes nerves will simply overwhelm you.’

He broke off then, and stood, his face hardening. Lockwood was walking towards us over the sunlit grass.

‘So, are we all arrested?’ I asked as he drew near. I could think of several reasons why Barnes might be mad with us just now, me smashing the bone glass being only one of them.

Lockwood grinned. ‘Not at all. Why shouldn’t Mr Barnes be pleased? Yes, we broke the mirror. Yes, we killed the main suspect. But the danger to London’s over, which is how he sold the case to us in the first place. He can’t deny we’ve succeeded, can he? At least, that’s what I told him. Anyway, he’s got the mirror, even if it is broken; and he’s got whatever else Joplin stashed in here. Also the crooks we caught might testify against Julius Winkman. All in all, he’s happy, in a grudging sort of way. And so am I. How about you, Quill?’

‘You gave the thing to Barnes, then,’ Kipps said shortly.

‘I did.’

‘And he’s awarded you the case?’

‘He has.’

‘Full commission?’

‘Actually, no. Since we did all the legwork, but you and your team were there to help us in the final act,’ Lockwood said, ‘I suggested we split it seventy/thirty. I hope that’s satisfactory.’

Kipps didn’t answer at first. He breathed hard through his nose. ‘It’s . . . acceptable,’ he said at last.