Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy (11 page)

He was a difficult man. Not generous with his money….

I walked over to the chair.

“You haven’t a clue, have you?”
the ghost called
. “Tell you what: let me out of this jar, and I’ll happily spill the beans. Come on, Lucy. Can’t
argue with
that
for a deal.”

“Don’t try to flutter your eyes at me. It doesn’t work with empty sockets.”

I bent beside the chair, inspecting the nearest armrest. The patch at the end was made of some kind of imitation leather, more plasticky than anything. It had been roughly sewn onto the original
fabric, but in places the stitches had come undone, and one corner was curling up like the edge of a stale sandwich. I pushed at the edge experimentally, slipped my fingers underneath, and lifted
it. There was a layer of foam stuffing, which came away easily. Then you could see the tightly wound wads of banknotes compressed into the space beneath.

I grinned at the skull over my shoulder. “Sorry. Looks like no deal for you today.”

The face grimaced and vanished in a starburst of peeved plasm.
“That,”
its voice said, lingering,
“was just a lucky guess.”

I took my vacation and went back north, to the town where I was born. I saw my mother, I saw my sisters; I stayed with them for a few days. It wasn’t the easiest of
homecomings. None of them had ever traveled more than thirty miles away in their lives, let alone gone to live in London. They looked askance at my clothes and shining rapier, frowned at the
smallest changes to my accent. The scent and aura of the city hung around me. I spoke with an assurance they didn’t recognize about places and people that meant nothing to them. For my part,
I found them slow and hidebound by their fear. Even in good weather, they went out only reluctantly; evenings saw them cowering by the fire. I grew impatient, and crosser still when they scarcely
argued back. There was something in their sheeplike resignation that made me want to scream. What kind of life
was
it, to sit dumbly in the dark, in living fear of death? Better to go out
and face it, head-on.

I left them a day earlier than planned. I had an itch to get back to London.

It was an early-morning train. I sat in a window seat, watching the tapestry flash by: the fields and woods, the spires of hidden villages, the chimney stacks and ghost-lamps of the ports and
mining towns. Everywhere you looked, the Problem hung invisible over England. Brand-new cemeteries at crossroads and in wild, abandoned places; crematoria on the edges of cities; curfew bells in
market squares. Superimposed upon it all, my face blurred in and out of view. I glimpsed the child I’d been when I first came down to London, and the operative I’d now become, a girl
who spoke with ghosts. More than spoke: who understood their desires.

My encounter with the miser’s ghost had changed everything for me. It had been that strange sensation I felt afterward, walking back through Whitechapel, with all my tools still on my
back, and all those unused flares and canisters jangling in my belt. I hadn’t needed any of them. I’d dealt with the Visitor without resorting to weapons or even defenses. No salt, no
lavender; not an ounce of iron spilled. How many times, in any agent’s career, had a successful investigation ended in quite so neat a way?

The old man in the chair had been unpleasant, and his ghost still radiated that blackness of soul. Yet he had come back with a coherent purpose, a desire to make restitution—to reveal the
hidden money to his heirs. My calm interrogation had given him the chance to do precisely that. If I’d blasted him in the usual way, that outcome would not have been possible. But I’d
done it by giving my Talent free rein.

There were obvious dangers attached to my new approach, but great advantages, too; and as I gazed out through the window a new way of working began to open up in front of me.

The skull in the jar was still the exceptional case, the Type Three ghost with which full communication was possible. But I was coming to believe that there were other ways of bridging the gap
between ordinary Visitors and the living.

My hunch relied on two things: that many ghosts had some objective in returning; and that, if you calmly sought to discover this, they would leave you alive long enough to find it out. The first
part of the statement was uncontroversial—it had been accepted since the days of ghost-hunting pioneers Marissa Fittes and Tom Rotwell fifty years before. But the second part flew in the face
of orthodox opinion. Every modern agency sought to
constrain
the ghost as a matter of first principles; when this was done, the Source could be found and destroyed, thus removing the ghost
as well. It was universally assumed that the ghost would resent this process, and seek to prevent it. Since an angry ghost could quickly kill you, agents weren’t inclined to mess about.

In some cases, weapons were certainly necessary. Could the terrible thing in the attic at Lavender Lodge ever truly have been reasoned with? Almost certainly not. But others—I thought of
the sad Shades thronging in the boardinghouse, the veiled Specter in the bedroom window—were desperate for connection.

And I could provide that, however imperfectly.

What I needed was for Lockwood to let me experiment some more. He would be resistant—naturally so, because of what had happened to his sister—but I felt I would bring him around. At
this thought, my mood lifted. The bulb of sadness that I’d been nurturing since visiting my mother shrank deep inside and was forgotten. I would talk to Lockwood and George about my ideas
when I got home. I needed to share them with my friends.

Back in London, I asked the cab to stop by Arif’s store at the end of Portland Row and bought a selection of iced buns. It was past eleven; Lockwood and George would be
just about ready for a snack by now. I was back a day early. Since they wouldn’t be expecting me, I could make my arrival an extra-nice surprise.

But there was a surprise waiting for
me
when I entered the house. It made me stop in amazement, keys held frozen in my hand. The hall had been vacuumed, the coat-rack tidied; the
rapiers, umbrellas, and walking sticks arranged in size order in their pot. Even the crystal skull lantern on the key table had been dusted and polished so it shone.

I couldn’t believe it. They’d actually done it. They’d tidied! They’d tidied up for me.

I put my bag down softly and tiptoed into the kitchen.

They were in the basement by the sounds of it, and they were in a
very
good mood. I could hear their bubbling laughter even from the kitchen. It made me smile to hear them. Perfect. The
buns would go down well.

I didn’t hurry. I made some tea, put the buns on our second-best plate (I couldn’t find the best one), arranged them so Lockwood’s favorites—the ones with almond icing
that he rarely allowed himself—were on top, and set everything neatly on the tray.

I opened the door with a foot, nudged it wider with my hip, and pattered lightly down the iron stairs.

Happiness bloomed inside me.
This
was what it was all about. Portland Row was home. My real family was here.

I ducked through the arch into the office and stopped, still smiling. There they were, Lockwood and George, bent forward attentively on either side of my desk. They were laughing heartily.

Between them, sitting in my chair, was a shapely, dark-skinned girl.

She had black hair worn long at the shoulder, a pretty, roundish face, and a kind of dark blue pinafore dress with a nice white top underneath it. She looked very new and fresh and shiny, like
someone had popped her out of a plastic case that morning. She sat straight-backed and elegant, and didn’t seem particularly discomposed by having George and Lockwood draped so close. On the
contrary, she was smiling too, and laughing a little bit. Mainly, though, she was listening to the boys laugh.

On the table were three mugs of tea and also our best plate, scattered with the remains of several almond buns.

I stood there, looking at the three of them, holding the tray.

The girl saw me first. “Hello.” She said this in a mildly inquiring sort of way.

George’s head jerked up; the fatuous grin on his face at once shrank into noncommittal blankness. Lockwood’s smile tightened; he gave an odd little skip, a sort of sidling sidestep
backward, then moved hastily toward me. “Lucy,
hello
. What a lovely surprise. You’re back early! How was your trip? Nice weather, I hope?”

I stared at him.

“So…” he said. “Good journey? Oh—more buns? How lovely.”

“There’s a girl,” I said. “A girl sitting in my chair.”

“Oh, don’t worry! That’s only till the new desk arrives.” He gave a light laugh. “Should be tomorrow, Wednesday at the very latest. Nothing to worry about….We
didn’t expect you back so soon, you see.”

“A new desk?”

“Yes, for Holly.” He cleared his throat, smoothed back his hair. “Well now, where are my manners? This is a time for introductions! Holly, this is Lucy Carlyle, the
perfect
agent, whom you’ve heard
so
much about. And Lucy”—Lockwood gave me his biggest smile—“let me introduce you to Holly Munro. Our new
assistant.”

I
t didn’t help that Lockwood was entirely unapologetic when I cornered him in the office. Ms. Munro had left to catch the afternoon bus home.
George, more than usually eager to stretch his legs, had accompanied her in case she got lost on the way to the stop, which was all of six doors down the street.

“What the hell happened?” I demanded. “I was only away three days!”

Lockwood was sorting through the papers on his desk. I noticed they had all been neatly paper-clipped, and organized with brightly colored labels. He didn’t look up at me. “I thought
you’d be happy. You’re the one who suggested we get in a supporting member of staff, rather than a full-blown agent.”

I stared at him, amazed. “So it was
my
idea to hire this girl? Please!”

“I told you we needed help. I told you we were going to find someone.”

“Sure, and you waited until I was out of town to do it.”

“Not at all! That’s just a coincidence. Of course I didn’t plan to get someone while you were away. The most I thought was that we could maybe arrange a few interviews, and I
only had time to think of
that
because it’s been so quiet these last few days.” His eyes darted briefly up; he tried an appealing smile. “Obviously that’s on
account of you, Luce—we couldn’t investigate new cases with you gone. Your contributions are just too vital.”

“Oh, spare me. And she just jumped out of nowhere, did she?”

“Well, there’s a funny story about that. I didn’t even need to advertise. I bumped into a couple of Rotwell agents, and they gave me Holly’s name. She’d been let go
by their agency only last week. I got her in, and she seemed just the ticket, so…”

“So it’s ‘Holly’ already,” I said, interrupting him. “I seem to remember I was ‘Ms. Carlyle’ for months after I joined.”

Lockwood had been more or less addressing his own neck so far. Now he finally looked me in the eye. “Well, that’s because of you. I’ve become a bit less formal this past year.
I’m just trying to help her settle in.”

I nodded. “I saw that. If you and George had been settling her in any closer, you’d have snagged your noses on her earrings.” A thought occurred to me. “Did you test her
with the skull?”

“What?”

“Did you show her the skull? You know, like you did in
my
first interview? And all those other objects you made me assess? You gave me a really hard time.”

Lockwood took a careful breath. He tapped long nervous fingers on the desktop. “Actually, we didn’t. But the point is, she’s not going to be a front-line operative, is she?
She’s an administrative assistant. Her job is simply to man the fort here. I asked her a few questions, of course I did, but she showed me her résumé, and that was
enough.”

“Really? It must have been a nice one.”

“It was very presentable.”

“So what can she do, then?”