“All right, all right, hold on. Yes to all of that, but you need to be more exact.”
“Suspected occult activities!”
“No. Go back to the last bunch. Where, historically, would you find all those nasty things taking place?”
“Prison,” Holly Munro said. She flicked an imaginary piece of fluff off the hem of her dress.
“Bingo.” George looked around at us. “Prison. The King’s Prison, to be exact, a notorious hellhole first constructed in 1213 by order of King John. It’s said they put it well outside the city, so that no one could overhear the awful sounds from inside.”
I pointed to the map, at the blank rectangle that marked Aickmere’s department store. “You’re saying it was right here?”
“No one knows the exact site. It was pulled down in Tudor times. But it was supposed to be at the western end of the King’s Road somewhere, and we do know the plague pit was dug outside it. So…”
“So now we’re definitely on to something!” There was a light in Lockwood’s eyes; he rubbed his hands. “Okay, now I am interested. If Aickmere’s is on roughly the same spot as an old medieval prison…”
“It wasn’t even a nice medieval prison,” George put in. “Other medieval prisons looked down on it, it was so foul. It was a place where anyone who’d displeased the sovereign was put away, and there weren’t too many rules about what happened to them after that. It had an unlucky history. It was burned down twice, and sacked during the Peasants’ Revolt, when a troop of soldiers was ambushed and put to the sword. In those days the whole region was marshy, an unhealthy tract of mud and tributaries of the Thames, and a fearsome breeding ground for disease. Lots of inmates died and their bodies were just chucked in the river. It was famous for its appalling overcrowding, too. By the end it was more of a hospital than a prison—most of the inmates were lepers and other outcasts with terrible diseases. The Tudor authorities drove them out and knocked the whole place down, and I don’t think anyone was too upset to see the last of the King’s Prison.”
We contemplated this. “So, not a good place to choose for a holiday break,” I said. “We get the message.”
“But a very good place,” Lockwood said, “to generate Visitors, though the question must remain why the store itself isn’t having any current trouble. That’s brilliant, George—well done. Well, we’ll have to go and check it out.” He smiled around at us. “And we’re going to need backup. If it’s even half the place George thinks it is, three of us certainly won’t be enough.”
I looked at him. “You’re saying you want Holly to come too, I suppose?”
“Be glad to,” Holly Munro said.
Lockwood hesitated. “Well, if you want to, Holly—why not? That’s a great idea, Luce. But actually I was thinking of a much bigger unit, so we can separate into smaller teams, cover ground more quickly. It’ll mean asking DEPRAC to loan us some agents—ten or twenty, maybe—but that won’t be a problem.” He pushed his chair back. “Holly, if you can stay and get our supplies ready, we’ll get cracking and see Barnes now.”
“You think he’ll play ball?” George asked.
“Barnes may be grumpy,” Lockwood said, “but when I show him your findings, he’ll act soon enough. He knows how good we are.” He winked at us. “Don’t worry. I know we have our differences, but there’s a lot of mutual respect there. If he hesitates, I’ll sweet-talk him. He won’t let us down.”
“That total and utter idiot,” Lockwood growled. “That mustachioed imbecile. That benighted, blinkered jobsworth. He’s a clown! A fraud! An oaf! I hate him.”
“How’s the mutual respect thing going?” George said.
We were in Sloane Square, outside the Chelsea Working Men’s Club, in the heart of DEPRAC operations. Lockwood had gone inside to talk to Barnes; George and I were settled at a plastic table near the catering vans, and we were just tucking in to our first round of tea and hot dogs when Lockwood returned. Jaw clenched, cheeks flushed, he threw himself into a chair.
“He’s not interested,” he said. “He doesn’t want to know.”
George stared at him. “So what’s his take on Aickmere Brothers? What’s he think of my presentation?”
“Nothing. He didn’t even look at it.”
“He didn’t look at my lovely dotted maps?” George set his hot dog down. “How can he have a valid counterargument, then?”
“He doesn’t. Didn’t even look me in the eye. Basically he cut me off as soon as I told him the address. He said there’s another big push going on in central Chelsea tonight, and he can’t spare anyone to ‘fool around’ in the outlying areas. That’s a direct quote.”
“I’m surprised,” I said. “We know he’s a twit, but he’s normally a conscientious one.”
Lockwood drove his hands into his trouser pockets and stared balefully at the DEPRAC agents hurrying all around. “I’d have thought he would at least have heard me out. It’s not like I even mentioned George’s name, or did anything else stupid to annoy him. I don’t get it. This whole outbreak’s a disaster. He should be dying for any new idea we could come up with. As it is, we’re stymied. I just don’t see that we can go to Aickmere’s on our—” He gave a start, and shrank down in his chair. “Oh no…Don’t look now. It’s Kipps. I saw him skulking nearby when I was speaking to Barnes. He must have heard the whole thing.”
Sure enough, here was Quill Kipps, jeweled rapier glinting, mincing across the square in our direction. George and I glared at him as he drew near. Lockwood looked away.
Kipps halted. He did disdainful things with his eyebrows. “Well, that’s charming,” he said. “I’ve had warmer welcomes in newly opened tombs. Now, Tony…I happened to overhear what went on in there between you and Barnes—”
A muscle moved in Lockwood’s cheek. “Did you?”
“I heard him giving you the brush-off yet again.”
Lockwood moved a paper cup from one part of the table to the other.
“If you’re wondering why,” Kipps went on, “it’s because right now Barnes isn’t his own man. He’s got high-up people from Fittes and Rotwell who are advising him, and they keep telling him the center of the cluster’s in the heart of Chelsea. He’s got to do what he’s told. There’s no mystery about it. That’s how DEPRAC works.”
I frowned at him. “DEPRAC monitors the agencies. Not the other way around.”
Kipps’s thin face quivered with amusement. “Do you think so? You’re so adorable, Carlyle.”
“And so you’ve come to crow about it,” Lockwood said.
“Well, yes—but also to see whether you wanted any extra personnel for your investigation.”
There was a pause in which the three of us sat frowningly, trying to decipher the insult hidden in this statement. We couldn’t find one, which made us frown all the more. Lockwood picked up the cup and moved it back to its original position. “You’re offering to help us?”
Kipps winced as if he’d just found something disagreeable stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “Not quite. I’m offering to take part. It would be me, Kate Godwin, and Bobby Vernon. You know my team.”
Lockwood stared. “I thought you were working for Barnes.”
“Not any longer. I’ve applied to transfer to other duties.”
“Because—”
“May I?” Kipps took a chair, folded himself in to it. He glanced back at the King’s Road barriers. “No matter what Barnes says, no one has a clue what’s going on in there. It’s a free-for-all, chaos every night, and it’s already cost me the life of one agent. It’s not going to cost me another. Nor do I want to sit quietly back, doing nothing. If you’ve got a worthwhile lead, I’ll work on it with you. That’s all.”
George, Lockwood, and I sat silent. It isn’t often we’re all lost for words, but it happened now. I kept alternating between staring at a pool of spilled coffee on the tabletop and glancing at Kipps. Ordinarily the coffee would have interested me more. Now I couldn’t help returning to our rival:
to his oiled-back hair, his too-tight trousers and flawless jacket, the look-at-me jeweled pommel of his sword. Clearly his proposal was absurd. Of course it was. And yet…
“Well, it’s good of you,” Lockwood said, “but I’m sorry. It wouldn’t work. Teams have to work seamlessly, with absolute trust between agents. You can’t have endless bickering, and—Yes, George?”
George had raised a hand. “Surely a bit of bickering’s all right, now and again.”
“Hardly.”
“We do it.”
“No, actually we don’t. At least not very often. Or not at the key moments…Look, will you just shut up? I’ve forgotten what I was saying.” Lockwood ruffled his hair distractedly. “The point really is that bad things happen to disjointed teams. It’s dangerous out there.”
“Bad things can happen to any team,” Kipps said, after a silence. “As for the dangers, I can assure you I’m well aware of them.”
Lockwood held his gaze a moment. “Yes, of course you are,” he said. “I’m sorry. Look, it’s a kind offer, and I appreciate it, but I don’t think it would work.”
“I somehow didn’t think you would,” Kipps said. He stood. “Good day to you.”
He began to stalk away.
“Lockwood—” George began.
“Wait!” And that was me, pushing my chair back, standing up and glaring down at Lockwood. Why did I do it? On any other occasion I’d just have sat there, quietly going along with him. Not now. Not, somehow, after the previous night. A tension rose up inside me, needing to find expression, needing to get out. In part I just wanted to do something—to throw myself into a job that wasn’t merely the usual grind. I knew Holly had a host of new cases ready; I knew we’d be splitting up to deal with them. This was different: bigger, odder, perhaps more dangerous, and I didn’t want Lockwood’s pride preventing us from giving it a go.
And that was the other thing: his pride. It was a fundamental part of him, just like his ability to close off from me, from others, from common sense. I couldn’t challenge him about his sister or his past, but I could challenge him on this.
“I think we should take Kipps up on his offer,” I said. “There are people dying out there, Lockwood, and we can’t stand back from it. We need to act. We need to engage, even if that does mean making compromises. That department store is massive: even if we’re just doing a reconnaissance, we need a proper team. And Kipps’s team is good—we know that. If we have faith in George,” I said, “in all the work he’s done, we should do this. We owe it to him. More than that, we owe it to ourselves.”
Lockwood gazed at me. I suddenly felt very hot and red in the face. “I just don’t think we have any choice,” I said. I sat down hurriedly. George was doing the thing with the pool of coffee, alternating between staring at it and me. Kipps, displaying a sensitivity I wouldn’t have associated with him, stood a short way off, seemingly engrossed in the attempts of two tiny Bunce agents to carry a massive sack of iron filings out of a nearby tent store. All around us rushed the DEPRAC staff and agents on their busy, busy errands; the noise of the square cocooned us. Lockwood just gazed at me. I waited to hear what he would say.
Aickmere Brothers department store, reached by a lengthy taxi ride that looped around the edges of the Chelsea containment zone, was easily the most impressive building on the western reaches of the King’s Road. A hulking yet austere presence, occupying an entire block, it rose four clear stories to its parapeted roof. Grooved pilasters—decorative columns embedded into the stonework—ran like ribs along the walls. Windows glittered; high above us colored pennants snapped and ruffled in the wintry breeze. A brightly uniformed doorman stood sentinel outside the entrance. From a distance—when you were standing on the little knoll of green grass opposite, where the road kinked south—it looked every bit the equal of the mighty stores of Oxford Street. As you crossed the street, however, you began to notice the smog stains on the peeling stone facade, the tired paintwork on the door frames, even the flakes of dandruff scattered on the shoulders of the doorman’s patched coat. Not everything was quite as glamorous as it seemed.
Which included the pretty patch of grass opposite, surrounded by chichi fashion shops and coffee bars. George, nudging me as we crossed, pointed at it. “Plague pit.”
“And the prison?”
“Most likely under Aickmere’s.”
Fifty yards farther up the street, a line of DEPRAC barricades, identical to the ones in Sloane Square, prevented access to the heart of Chelsea. Aickmere Brothers was certainly fortunate not to have been caught up in the evacuation; then again, it had not reported any ghosts.
“Curfew at five. Closing’s at four.” The doorman, a boggle-eyed, red-faced man with a mustache like that of a bearded walrus, looked askance at us as we filed through the revolving doors: Lockwood, George, Holly Munro, and me. Each of us scarcely squeezed our workbags through, particularly me: my backpack bore a heavy, jar-shaped load. Our rapiers jangled against the panels of curving wood.
Once, the mighty entrance hall would have proclaimed the store’s glories with a fanfare. Spiraling plaster columns, decorated with gold leaf, held up a blue-painted ceiling, studded with stars, planets, and plumply capering cupids. On the walls, murals showcased fauns, nymphs, and a host of exotic wildlife. Straight ahead of us, twin escalators, on either side of a central stair, led up to the next level. You could imagine the live music, the jugglers and fire-eaters of long ago….Now the murals were faded, pasted-over with DEPRAC warnings and announcements of forthcoming sales; and the gold leaf on the columns had peeled away. Shoppers idled among cases of uninspiring lavender goods and a few shabby mannequins. Schmaltzy music piped distantly through a crackly speaker system.
The only remotely impressive thing in the hall was a vast fake tree in front of one set of escalators, constructed of metal and slabs of bark, with tissue leaves of red, orange, and gold. It looked intricate and fragile. We set our bags down before it. Lockwood went over to reception.
“It’s gone downhill since I was last here,” Holly Munro said. “Or maybe I was too young to notice.”
She unbuttoned her coat and took off her gloves. As usual, she’d made herself up like we were heading out to a society garden party—instead of what we were doing: ghost-hunting on the grim side of London. Maybe it was wrong, but I so hoped she’d fall into an open coffin or catacomb or something before the night was out. It didn’t have to be a very bad fall. Just a dusty one. Involving bones.
George was surveying the room. “Yeah, don’t think much of the displays,” he said. “Some of these mannequins are hideous….Oh—it’s you, Quill. I thought you were an exhibit.”
Quill Kipps, Kate Godwin, and Bobby Vernon stepped forward out of the shadows of the tree. They too carried heavy bags; Bobby Vernon had an enormous salt-gun strapped to his shoulder.
“This,” Kate Godwin said, “is precisely why I was against coming here. We’ll have comments like this all night. He’s worse than the ghosts.”
George held up his hand. “Sorry, I’ll be good now. This is Holly, everyone.”
General introductions followed. Kipps was all smarm and oil; I swear Bobby Vernon let out a giggle as he shook Holly’s hand. Kate Godwin was just as stiff as I had been when first meeting Holly; our assistant seemed to affect girls that way.
Lockwood returned, coat swinging behind him. He grinned at us. “Hello, team.”
Kipps gave a sniff. “You’re late.”
“I’m team leader,” Lockwood said. “Meetings don’t start till I arrive. By definition, therefore, you were early. Right, I’ve asked to see the manager. Once we’ve got the go-ahead, we’ll start looking around, talk to the staff while they’re still here. We can do that singly or in groups, it doesn’t matter—but after dark, we’re not taking any chances. Then we’ll go around in pairs.”
Bobby Vernon was so small that when he stood beside us he looked like he was in the next room. He lifted a stick-like arm. “How’s that going to
work?”
Lockwood frowned. “Bobby?”
“I count seven of us. That’s three pairs and one poor sap left over.”
“Ah, well, yes….Didn’t I tell you? We’ve got someone else coming. Actually I’d hoped they’d be here by now.”
“Who?” I said. None of us had heard this before. It seemed to me Lockwood had a vaguely evasive air.
Kipps sensed it too. “I trust it’s a proper agent, and not some weirdo friend of yours, Tony, brought in to make up the numbers.”
“Well—”
“Here I am, Locky.” We turned and looked back across the hall: there, just emerging from the revolving doors, with the rips in her long blue puffer jacket catching on the handle and her Wellington boots leaving a delicate trail of greenish mud on the marble floor, was Flo Bones. Through the window glass behind her, the doorman’s face could just be seen—bog-eyes popping, jaw lolling—staring after her in horror and bafflement. To be honest, Kipps’s team looked much the same, and even Holly Munro’s smooth calm was momentarily ruffled. Flo had her damp, stained burlap bag over her shoulder; as she approached she slung it off onto a pile of lavender pillows, unzipped her jacket, and bent her arms up in a languorous stretch. We got the unwashed shirt, the holed sweater, the frayed rope belt holding up her jeans; oh, yes, and the tidal smell. It was the full works.
“Ooh, that’s better,” Flo said. “Me corns are killing me today. So, Locky, aren’t you going to introduce me to these nancies? Actually, don’t bother—I can guess ’em well enough from your descriptions. All right, then, are you Kipps? Heard a lot about you and those nice plastic jewels you’ve got pasted on your rapier hilt. I can get you more like that. They wash up sometimes on Woolwich beach, just below the crematorium.”
Kipps looked like he had been slapped between the eyes with a dead fish; as, in an olfactory sort of way, he had. “Er…no. No, thank you. And you are?”
“Florence Bonnard. Accent on the second syllable, if you don’t mind. You must be Kate Godwin—bit thinner than I expected, but there’s no escaping that chin. And you”—Flo grinned enigmatically at Bobby Vernon—“I’m very pleased to see you, Bobby. Ask me what my bag’s for.”