Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy (9 page)

“Better blow on it for him, Kipps.” Lockwood’s expression had darkened as Barnes spoke; he turned away. “Well, have a good evening, Inspector. Give us a call when things
get difficult.”

We set off back toward the taxi.

“Lockwood! Wait!”

It was Kipps, stalking after us, the binder under his arm.

“Can I help you?” Lockwood spoke coolly, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

“I’m not coming to crow,” Kipps said, “though heaven knows I could. I’m coming with advice—for Lucy, mainly, since I know
you’re
unlikely to
listen to sense.”

“I don’t need advice from you,” I said.

Kipps grinned. “Oh, but you do. Listen, you’re missing out. There’re weird things going on in Chelsea. More Visitors than I’ve ever seen before. More
different
kinds, all close together—and dangerous, too, like they’ve been stirred up by something. Three nights running, my team’s covered the same lane behind the King’s Road. First
two nights: nothing. Third night, a Raw-bones came out of the dark; nearly got Kate Godwin and Ned Shaw. A Raw-bones! From nowhere! Barnes doesn’t have a clue why. No one does.”

Lockwood shrugged. “I’ve offered to help. My offer’s been rejected.”

Kipps ran fingers through his close-cropped hair. “Of course it has. Because you’re nobodies. What are you doing tonight? Some small, pathetic case, I’m sure.”

“It’s a ghost bringing terror to ordinary people,” Lockwood said. “Is that pathetic? I don’t think so.”

Kipps nodded. “Okay, sure, but if you want to work on the important stuff, you need to be part of a
real
agency. Either of you could easily find a proper job at Fittes. In fact,
Lucy’s got an open invitation to join my team. I’ve told her that before.”

I stared him down. “Yes, and you’ve heard my answer.”

“Well, that’s your choice,” Kipps said. “But I say, scrub up, swallow your pride, and get stuck in. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.” With a nod at me, he
stalked away.

“Bloody nerve,” Lockwood said. “He’s talking nonsense, as usual.” Even so, he said little in the taxi, and it was left to me to give renewed directions to 6, Nelson
Street, Whitechapel, and our appointment with the veiled ghost.

It was a terraced house in a narrow lane. Our client, Mrs. Peters, had been watching out for us: the door swung open before I could knock. She was a young, nervous-looking
woman, made prematurely gray by anxiety. She wore a thick shawl over her head and shoulders and clutched a large wooden crucifix in gloved hands.

“Is it there?” she whispered. “Is it up there?”

“How can we tell?” I said. “We haven’t gone in yet.”

“From the street!” she hissed. “They say you can see it there!”

Neither Lockwood nor I had thought to look at the window from outside. We stepped backward off the sidewalk and into the deserted street, craning our necks up at the two windows on the upper
floor. The one above the door was lit; tiles indicated that it was a bathroom. The other window had no light within it, nor (unlike the other windows) did its glass reflect the glare from the
streetlight two doors down. It was a dull, black space. And in it, very difficult to see, was the outline of a woman. It was as if she were standing right up against the window with her back to the
street. You could see a dark dress and strands of long black hair.

Lockwood and I returned to the door. I cleared my throat. “Yes, it’s up there.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Lockwood said, as we shuffled past Mrs. Peters into the narrow hall. He flashed her his fifty-percent smile, the reassuring one. “We’ll go up
and see.”

Our client gave a whimper. “You understand why I can’t sleep easy, Mr. Lockwood?” she said. “You understand now, don’t you?” Her eyes were frightened moons;
she hovered close behind him, keeping the crucifix raised like a mask before her face. Its top almost went up Lockwood’s nose when he turned around.

“Mrs. Peters,” he said, gently pushing it down, “there’s one thing you could do for us. Very important.”

“Yes?”

“Could you pop into the kitchen and put the kettle on? Think you could do that?”

“Certainly. Yes, yes, I think I can.”

“Great. Two teas would be marvelous, when you get a moment. Don’t bring them up. We’ll come down for them when we’re finished, and I bet they’ll still be
hot.”

Another smile, a squeeze of the arm. Then he was following me up the narrow staircase, our bags bumping against the wall.

There was no landing to speak of, more of an extended top step. Three doors: one for the bathroom, one for the back bedroom—and one for the bedroom at the front of the house. About fifty
heavy iron nails had been hammered into this door; they were hung with chains and hanks of lavender. The wood itself was scarcely visible.

“Hmm, I wonder which one it is,” I murmured.

“She’s certainly not taking any chances,” Lockwood agreed. “Oh, lovely—she’s a hymn singer, too. Might’ve guessed.”

Downstairs we’d heard the door close and footsteps in the kitchen, followed by a sudden snatch of shakily warbled song.

“Not sure
that
does any good,” I said. I was checking my belt, loosening my rapier. “Or the crucifix. It’s pointless if it’s not iron or silver.”

Lockwood had taken a thin chain out of his pack and was looping it at the ready across one arm. He stood so close that he brushed against me. “Gives comfort, though. Half the things my
parents brought back are the same. You know the bone-and-peacock-feather tambourine in the library? Balinese spirit-ward. Not an ounce of iron or silver on it….Right, are we ready?”

I smiled at him. There was a horror behind that door. I would see it in seconds. Yet my heart sang in my breast, to be standing beside Lockwood in that house. All was as it should be in the
world.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m looking forward to that nice hot tea.”

I closed my eyes and counted to six, to get my eyes ready for the transition from light to dark. Then I opened the door and stepped through.

Beyond the barrier of nails the air was cold, skin-bitingly so. It was as if someone had left a freezer door wide open. As Lockwood closed the door behind us, darkness swallowed us like
we’d been immersed in ink. It wasn’t just that the ceiling light was off—it was a more profound blackness. No light came in from the street outside.

But there had been no curtains at the window; it had been a bare piece of glass.

Something was blocking it, preventing light from coming through.

Away in that cold, cold inky dark, a person was weeping—a horrible sound, desolate yet wheedling, as of one spiritually bereft. The noise echoed oddly, as if we were in a vast and empty
space.

“Lockwood,” I whispered, “are you still there?”

I felt a friendly prod. “Right beside you. Chilly! Should have put my gloves on.”

“I hear crying.”

“She’s at the window. In the pane. You see her?”

“No.”

“You don’t see her clawing hands?”

“No! Well, don’t
describe
them to me….”

“It’s a good thing I don’t have any imagination, or I’d be having nightmares tonight. She’s wearing a lacy gray gown, and a sort of ragged veil over her face. Some
kind of letter in one hand, spotted with something dark. Don’t know what
that’s
about—might be blood or tears. She’s clutching it to her chest with her long,
shriveled fingers….Listen, I’m laying out the chains. Best thing we can do is smash the window. Smash it and burn it in the furnaces….” His voice was calm; I heard the hasty clink
of iron.

“Lockwood, wait.” Standing blind, with air blistering my face, I composed myself—opened my ears and mind to deeper things. The crying sound receded just a little; in among it I
heard a whisper, a tiny out-breath….

“Safe…”

“What is?” I asked. “What’s safe?”

“Lucy,” Lockwood said, “you’re not seeing what I’m seeing. You shouldn’t be talking to this thing. It’s bad.” More chinking at my elbow; I could
sense him moving forward. The whispers cut out, resumed, cut out again.

“Put the chains away,” I snapped. “I can’t hear.”

“Safe, sa-afe…”

“Lucy—

“Quiet.”

“I kept it safe.”

“Where did you do that?” I said. “Where?”

“There.”
As I turned to look, my Sight cleared. I caught the outline of the window in the corner of my eyes—and within it, darkness superimposed on darkness, a
long-haired shape, hunch-shouldered, bent arms raised above the head as if caught in the midst of some frenzied dance or rite. The fingers were grotesquely long; they seemed to spear toward me
across the room. I cried out. At my side I could feel Lockwood jumping forward, swinging his sword out and upward. The fingers broke, became separate beams of black light, scattered as if by a
prism. Screaming filled my ears. Then the noise splintered like shattered glass. It fell away into silence.

My eardrums flexed; pressure left the room. Light filled it. It was only the pale pink streetlight from out on Nelson Road, but it cast everything into three soft, grainy dimensions. How small
it was; not a vast echoing chamber at all. Just an ordinary room with a kids’ bunk bed and chairs, and a dark armoire at my back. Warm air sucked in from the landing, caressing my ankles as
it came under the door. Lockwood stood in front of me, rapier out, iron chain trailing through the broken window. Lights shone in the houses opposite. Broken glass jutted from the frame like
teeth.

He spun around, staring, breathing hard. His disheveled hair hung dark and loose over one eye. “Are you all right?”

“Of course.” I was looking at the armoire. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“She was attacking you, Lucy. You didn’t see her face when her veil blew back.”

“No, no,” I said, “it was okay. She was just showing me where.”

“Where what?”

“I don’t know. I can’t think. Shut up.”

I waved him to one side, walked to the armoire. It was a big one, and old, too—the wood so dark it was almost black. It had decorative tracing on it, scuffed with ancient use. The door was
stiff when I pulled it open. Inside hung children’s clothes, overlaid with white moth-strips. I stared at them, scowling, then flicked them aside. The base of the interior was a single piece
of wood. Its level seemed a full foot higher than the bottom of the armoire when viewed from outside. I took my penknife from my belt.

Lockwood was hovering uncertainly at my shoulder. “Luce…”

“It was showing me where it hid something,” I muttered, “and I think—yes!”

Jamming the knife in a crack at the back did the trick. When I twisted, the panel came up. It took quite a bit of fiddling with angles, and chucking half the clothes out onto the floor, but I
got the piece clear. I put away my knife and got my penlight out.

“There you are,” I said. “See?”

Inside the cavity, bundled up: a dusty, folded piece of paper, fixed with a wax seal. Dark spots stained it. Tears or blood.

“She was showing me,” I said again. “You didn’t need to worry.”

Lockwood nodded, his face still doubtful. He was studying me closely. “Maybe…” All at once he broke into a smile. “And better still, that tea will still be warm. I wonder if
she’s got biscuits, too.”

Happiness filled me. My instinct had been right. Those few seconds had been all I needed to connect with the ghost and understand its purpose. Yes, Lockwood saw appearances, but I could see
beyond that. I could uncover hidden things. He held the door open for me; I grinned at him, squeezed his arm. When we went out onto the staircase, we could hear the frail voice of Mrs. Peters,
still singing in the kitchen.

I
t turned out that the paper I’d found was the ghost’s confession—or at least, it was the confession of someone named Arabella
Crowley, written in 1837, a date that roughly matched the Specter’s clothes. It seemed she’d smothered her husband in his sleep and gotten away with it. Her guilty conscience had kept
her spirit from its rest; now that the document had been found and her crime revealed, the ghost was unlikely to return.

That was
my
interpretation, anyway. Lockwood took no chances. The following morning he had the fragments of windowpane incinerated in Clerkenwell Furnaces, and he encouraged Mrs. Peters
to have the armoire broken up as well. Slightly to my annoyance, he repeated his orders to me not to try communicating with Visitors that weren’t safely constrained. Of course I understood
why
he was cautious—his sister’s fate loomed heavily over him—but to my mind, he overstated the risks. I was increasingly confident that my Talent could bypass such
anxieties.

Over the next few days, new cases continued to come in thick and fast for Lockwood & Co. Lockwood, George, and I continued tackling them separately.

This led to problems. For a start, our hectic schedule meant that we had little time to research any job in advance, an omission that was always dangerous. One night Lockwood was nearly
ghost-touched at a church near Old Street. He had cornered a Phantasm beside the altar and almost missed a second one creeping up from behind. If he had read up on the history of the church
beforehand, he would have known it was haunted by murdered twins.