Jonathan Stroud - Lockwood & Co - The Whispering Skull

‘Long dark shapes?’ I said. ‘What were they?’

‘They were rats,’ Mr Joplin said. He took a sip of tea. ‘And now they saw that it was the rats that were making the curtains move. There were lots of them, darting back and forth along the sill, and hanging off the curtains, and jumping down into the dark, and they reasoned that the pack of them must be in that room for some particular reason, which you can maybe guess. So they put together a group of the bravest men and gave them candles, and these men broke into the house and went upstairs. And while they were still on the stairs, they began to hear terrible wet rustling noises from up ahead, and ripping sounds, and also the click of teeth. Well, perhaps you can picture what they found.’ He pushed his glasses up his nose and shuddered. ‘I don’t want to give the details. Suffice it to say that what they saw would have stayed with them for the rest of their days. Dr Bickerstaff, or what was left of him, lay on the floor of his study. There were fragments of robe, but little else. The rats had eaten him.’

There was a silence. Mr Saunders gave a short sniff and wiped a finger under his nose. ‘So that’s how Dr Bickerstaff ended up,’ he said. ‘As a pile of bloody bones and sinew. Nasty. That last slice of Swiss roll, now – anyone want it?’

George and I spoke together. ‘No, no, please – be our guest.’

‘Oo, it’s a gooey one.’ Saunders took a bite.

‘As you can imagine,’ Joplin said, ‘the authorities were very anxious to speak to the doctor’s associates. But they could not be found. And that really was the end of Edmund Bickerstaff’s story. Despite the horrible circumstances of his death, despite the rumours that hung about him, he wasn’t long remembered. Green Gates Sanatorium burned down in the early twentieth century, and his name faded into obscurity. Even the fate of his bones was lost.’

‘Well,’ Lockwood said, ‘we know where they are now. And you want us to make them safe.’

Mr Saunders nodded; he finished eating, and wiped his fingers on his trouser-leg.

‘It’s all very strange,’ I said. ‘How come no one knew where he’d been buried? Why wasn’t it in the records?’

George nodded. ‘And what exactly killed him? Was it the rats, or something else? There are so many loose ends here. This article is clearly just the tip of the iceberg. It’s crying out for further research.’

Albert Joplin chuckled. ‘Couldn’t agree more. You’re a lad right after my own heart.’

‘ Research isn’t the point,’ Mr Saunders said. ‘Whatever is in that grave is getting restless and I want it out of that cemetery tonight. If you could oblige me by supervising the excavation, Mr Lockwood, I’d be grateful to you. What do you say?’

Lockwood glanced at me; he glanced at George. We returned his gaze with shining eyes. ‘Mr Saunders,’ he said, ‘we’d be delighted.’

6

When Lockwood, George and I arrived at the West Gate of Kensal Green Cemetery at dusk that evening, we had our new silver-tipped Italian rapiers hanging at our belts, and our largest duffel bags in our hands. Behind us the sun was setting against a few puffy, pink-flecked clouds – it was the end of a perfect summer’s day. Despite the beauty of the scene, our mood was sombre, our tension high. This was not a job we were undertaking lightly.

The great cemeteries of London, of which Kensal Green was the oldest and the finest, were relics of an age when people had a gentler relationship with the deceased. Back in Victorian times, their pleasant trees and landscaped paths made them places of respite from the metropolitan whirl. Stonemasons vied with one another to produce attractive headstones; roses grew in bowers, wildlife flourished. On Sundays families came to wander there, and muse upon mortality.

Well, not any more, they didn’t. The Problem had changed all that. Today the cemeteries were overgrown, the bowers wild and laced with thorns. Few adults ventured there by daylight; at night they were places of terror, to be avoided at all costs. While it was true that the vast majority of the dead still slept quietly in their graves, even agents were reluctant to spend much time among them. It was like entering enemy territory. We were not welcome there.

The West Gate had once been wide enough for two carriages at a time to pass out onto the Harrow Road. Now it was rudely blocked by a rough-hewn fence, laced with strips of iron, and thickly pasted with faded posters and handbills. The most common poster showed a wide-eyed smiling woman in a chaste knee-length skirt and T-shirt, standing with hands outstretched in greeting. Beneath her, radiant letters read, THE OPEN ARMS FELLOWSHIP: WE WELCOME OUR FRIENDS FROM THE OTHER SIDE.

‘Personally,’ I said, ‘I like to welcome them with a magnesium flare.’ I had that knot in my stomach I always get before a case. The woman’s smile offended me.

‘These ghost cults contain some idiots,’ agreed George.

In the centre of the fence a narrow entrance door hung open, and beside this stood a shabby hut made of corrugated iron. It contained a deckchair, a collection of empty soft-drink cans, and a small boy reading a newspaper.

The boy wore an enormous flat cap, coloured with rather sporty yellow checks and almost entirely shading his face. Otherwise he was decked out in the usual drab-brown uniform of the night watch. His iron-tipped watch-stick was propped in a corner of the hut. He regarded us from the depths of the deckchair as we approached.

‘Lockwood and Company, here to meet Mr Saunders,’ Lockwood said. ‘Don’t get up.’

‘I won’t,’ the boy said. ‘Who are you? Sensitives, I suppose?’

George tapped the pommel of his rapier. ‘See these swords? We’re agents.’

The boy seemed doubtful. ‘Could’ve fooled me. Why ain’t you got uniforms, then?’

‘We don’t need them,’ Lockwood replied. ‘A rapier’s the true mark of an agent.’

‘Codswallop,’ the boy said. ‘ Proper agents have fancy jackets, like that hoity-toity Fittes crowd. I reckon you’re another drippy bunch of Sensitives who’ll pass out cold at the first sign of a Lurker.’ He turned back to his paper and snapped it open. ‘Anyways, in you go.’

Lockwood blinked. George took a half-step forward. ‘Agents’ swords aren’t just good for ghosts,’ he said. ‘They can also be used for whipping cheeky night-watch kids. Want us to show you?’

‘Oh, how terrifying. See me tremble.’ The boy pushed his cap further over his eyes and made himself comfy in his chair. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Straight up the main avenue, make for the chapel in the centre of the site. You’ll find everyone camped there. Now move along, please. You’re standing in my light.’

For a moment it was touch and go whether another small ghost might soon be haunting the margins of the Harrow Road, but I resisted the temptation. Lockwood motioned us on. We passed through the gate and entered the burial grounds.

Instinctively, as soon as we were in, we stopped and used our hidden senses. The others looked, I listened. All was peaceful; there wasn’t any sudden upsurge in psychic pressure. I heard nothing except for blackbirds calling sweetly, a few crickets in the grass. Gravel paths, shining dimly in the half-light, radiated away between dark ranks of memorials and tombs. Trees overhung the walkways, casting them into deeper shadow. Overhead, the sky was a fathomless dark blue, punctured by the risen moon’s bright disc.