Jonathan Stroud - Lockwood & Co - The Screaming Staircase

‘Well,’ Lockwood said, ‘that’s a little better. She sensed a purpose . Which suggests a Type Two. But whatever the late Mr Hope’s up to, he’s not the only one at work in this house tonight. There’s us as well. So . . . what do you say? Shall we take a look around?’

I drained my cup, set it carefully on the table. ‘I think that’s a very good idea.’

For almost an hour we made a tour downstairs, briefly flashing on our torches to check the contents of each room, but otherwise moving in near-darkness. The oil lantern we left burning in the kitchen, together with candles, matches, and an extra torch. It’s a good rule to keep a well-lit place to retreat to if the need arises, and having different forms of light is always advisable, in case the Visitor has the ability to disrupt them.

All was clear in the scullery and dining room at the rear of the house. They had a sad, musty, rather sombre air, a sense of lives suspended. Neat piles of newspapers lay curling on the dining-room table; in the scullery, a tray of shrivelled onions sprouted quietly in the darkness. But Lockwood found no visual traces anywhere, and I heard no noise. The delicate knocking sound I’d detected when first we’d entered seemed to have died away.

As we walked back up the hall, Lockwood gave a little shudder and I felt the hairs rise on my arms. The air was noticeably colder now. I checked the reading: nine degrees this time.

At the front of the building were two squarish rooms on either side of the hall. One had a television set, a sofa, two comfy armchairs; here the temperature was warmer, back to the levels of the kitchen. We looked and listened anyway, and found nothing. On the opposite side, a formal sitting room contained the usual chairs and cabinets, arranged before large net-swathed windows, and three enormous ferns in terracotta pots.

It seemed a little chilly. Twelve degrees showed on the luminous dial. Colder than the kitchen. Might mean nothing; might mean a lot. I closed my eyes, composed myself and prepared to listen.

‘Lucy, look!’ Lockwood’s voice hissed. ‘There’s Mr Hope!’

My heart jolted. I spun round, rapier half drawn . . . only to find Lockwood stooped and casual, peering at a photo on a side-table. He had his torch trained on it: the image hung in a little circle of floating gold. ‘Mrs Hope’s here as well,’ he added.

‘You idiot!’ I hissed. ‘I might have run you through.’

He chuckled. ‘Oh, don’t be so grumpy. Take a look. What do you think?’

It was a grey-haired couple standing in a garden. The woman, Mrs Hope, was an older, happier version of the daughter we’d met outside: round-faced, neat-clothed, wearing a radiant smile. Her head was level with the chest of the man beside her. He was tall and balding, with sloped, rounding shoulders and big, rather cumbersome forearms. He too smiled broadly. They were holding hands.

‘Seem cheerful enough there, don’t they?’ Lockwood said.

I nodded dubiously. ‘Got to be a reason for a Type Two, though. George says Type Two always means someone’s done something to somebody.’

‘Yes, but George has a nasty, gruesome little mind. Which reminds me: we should find the phone and ring him. I left a message on the table, but he’ll probably be worrying about us, even so. Let’s finish off the survey first.’

He didn’t find any death-glows in the little sitting room, and I couldn’t hear anything, and that was the ground floor done. Which told us what we’d already guessed. What we were looking for was upstairs.

Sure enough, the moment I set foot on the lowest step, the knocking began again. At first it was no louder than it had been before, a tiny hollow tap-tap-tapping, like a fingernail on plaster, or a nail being hammered into wood. But with every step I climbed, the echo increased a little, became a little more insistent in my inner ear. I mentioned this to Lockwood, who was treading like a formless shadow at my back.

‘Getting nippier too,’ he said.

He was right. With every step the temperature was dropping, from nine degrees, to seven, to six here, midway up the flight. I paused, zipping up my coat with fumbling fingers, while staring upwards into the dark. The stairwell was narrow, and there was no light above me at all. The upper regions of the house were a clot of shadows. I had a strong desire to switch on my torch, but resisted the impulse, which would only have made me blinder still. With one hand on my rapier hilt, I continued slowly up the stairs, the knocking growing ever louder and the cold biting at my skin.

Up I went. Louder and louder grew the knocking. Now it was a frantic scratching, tapping sound. Lower and lower dropped the number on the dial. From six degrees to five, and finally to four.

The blackness of the landing was a formless space. On my left, white banisters hung at head height like a row of giant teeth.

I reached the final stair, stepped out onto the landing—

And the knocking noise stopped dead.

I checked the luminous dial again: four degrees. Eleven degrees lower than the kitchen. I could sense my breath pluming in the air.

We were very close.

Lockwood brushed past me, flicked his torch in a brief reconnaissance. Papered walls, closed doors, dead silence. A piece of embroidery in a heavy frame: faded colours, childish letters, Home Sweet Home . Done years ago, when homes were sweet and safe, and no one hung iron charms above their children’s beds. Before the Problem came.

The landing was L-shaped, comprising a small square space in which we stood, and a long spur running behind us parallel to the stairs. It had a polished wooden floor. There were five doors leading off: one on our right, one straight ahead and three at intervals along the spur. All the doors were closed. Lockwood and I stood silently, using our eyes and ears.

‘Nothing,’ I said at last. ‘As soon as I got to the top, the knocking noises stopped.’

Lockwood took a while to speak. ‘No death-glows,’ he said. From the heaviness in his voice I knew that he too felt malaise – that strange sluggishness, that dead weight in the muscles that comes when a Visitor is near. He sighed faintly. ‘Well, ladies first, Lucy. Pick a door.’

‘Not me. I picked a door in that orphanage case and you know what happened then.’

‘That all turned out fine, didn’t it?’

‘Only because I ducked. All right, let’s take this one, but you’re going in first.’

I’d chosen the nearest, the one on the right. It turned out to lead to a recently fitted bathroom. Modern tiling gleamed eagerly as the torch swept by. There was a big white bath, a sink and toilet, and also a distant smell of jasmine soap. Neither of us found anything noticeable here, though the temperature was the same as the landing.

Lockwood tried the next door. It opened into a large back bedroom, which had been converted into possibly the messiest study in London. Torchlight showed a heavy wooden desk set beneath a curtained window. The desk was almost invisible under stacks of papers, and further teetering piles were placed, higgledy-piggledy, all across the room. A row of dark bookshelves, chaotically filled, ran down three-quarters of the far side-wall. There were cupboards, an old leather chair beside the desk, and a faintly masculine smell about the room. I tasted aftershave, whisky, even tobacco.

It was bitterly cold now. The dial at my belt showed two degrees.

I stepped carefully round the paper stacks and pulled apart the curtains, disturbing enough dust to set me coughing. Dim white light from the houses across the garden drifted into the room.

Lockwood was looking at an ancient frayed rug upon the wooden floor, nudging it to and fro with the toe of his shoe. ‘Old pressure marks,’ he said. ‘Used to be a bed here before Mr Hope took over . . .’ He shrugged, surveyed the room. ‘Maybe he’s come back to sort out his paperwork.’