Jonathan Stroud - Lockwood & Co. Book Three - The Hollow Boy

We waited. The wind blew in dirty gusts between the houses. Iron spirit-wards swung on ropes high above us, clicking and clattering like witches’ teeth. The white shape flitted stealthily toward us down the street. I zipped up my parka, and edged closer to the wall.

“Yep, it’s a Phantasm approaching,” the voice from my backpack said, in whispers only I could hear. “It’s seen you, and it’s hungry. Personally, I reckon it’s got its eye on George.”

“Lockwood,” I began. “We really have to move.”

But Lockwood was already stepping back from the door. “No need,” he said. “What did I tell you? Here they are.”

Shadows rose behind the glass. Chains rattled, the door swung wide.

A man and a woman stood there.

They were probably murderers, but we didn’t want to startle them. We put on our best smiles.

The Lavender Lodge guesthouse had come to our attention two weeks earlier. The local police in Whitechapel had been investigating the cases of several people—some salesmen, but mostly laborers working on the nearby London docks—who’d gone missing in the area. It had been noticed that several of these men had been staying at an obscure boardinghouse—Lavender Lodge, on Cannon Lane, Whitechapel—shortly before they disappeared. The police had visited; they’d spoken to the proprietors, a Mr. and Mrs. Evans, and even searched the premises. They’d found nothing.

But they were adults. They couldn’t see into the past. They couldn’t detect the psychic residue of crimes that might have been committed there. For that, they needed an agency to help out. It so happened that Lockwood & Co. had been doing a lot of work in the East End, our success with the so-called Shrieking Ghost of Spitalfields having made us popular in the district. We agreed to pay Mr. and Mrs. Evans a little call.

And here we were.

Given the suspicions about them, I’d half expected the owners of Lavender Lodge to look pretty sinister, but that wasn’t the case at all. If they resembled anything, it was a pair of elderly owls roosting on a branch. They were short, roundish, and gray-haired, with soft, blank, sleepy faces blinking at us behind large spectacles. Their clothes were heavy and somehow old-fashioned. They pressed close to each other, filling the doorway. Beyond them I could see a grimy, tasseled ceiling light, and dingy wallpaper. The rest was hidden.

“Mr. and Mrs. Evans?” Lockwood gave a slight bow. “Hello. Anthony Lockwood, of Lockwood and Co. I rang you earlier. These are my associates, Lucy Carlyle and George Cubbins.”

They gazed at us. For a moment, as if we were conscious that the fate of five people had reached a tipping point, no one spoke.

“What’s it regarding, please?” I don’t know how old the man was—when I see someone older than thirty, time sort of concertinas for me—but he was definitely closer to coffin than crib. He had wisps of hair oiled back across his scalp, and nets of wrinkles stapled around his eyes. He blinked at us, all absentminded and benign.

“As I said on the phone, we wanted to talk with you about one of your past residents, a Mr. Benton,” Lockwood said. “Part of an official Missing Persons inquiry. Perhaps we could come in?”

“It’ll be dark soon,” the woman said.

“Oh, it won’t take long.” Lockwood used his best smile. I contributed a reassuring grin. George was too busy staring at the white shape drifting up the street to do anything other than look nervous.

Mr. Evans nodded; he stepped slowly back and to the side. “Yes, of course, but best to do it quickly,” he said. “It’s late. Not long before they’ll be coming out.”

He was far too old to see the Phantasm, now crossing the road toward us. We didn’t like to mention it either. We just smiled and nodded, and (as swiftly as we decently could without pushing) followed Mrs. Evans into the house. Mr. Evans let us go past, then shut the door softly, blocking out the night, the ghost, and the rain.

They took us down a long hallway into the public lounge, where a fire flickered in a tiled grate. The decor was the usual: cream woodchip wallpaper, worn brown carpet; ranks of decorated plates, and prints in ugly golden frames. A few armchairs were scattered about, angular and comfortless, and there was a radio, a liquor cabinet, and a small TV. A big wooden hutch on the back wall carried cups, glasses, sauce bottles, and other breakfast things; and two sets of folding chairs and plastic-topped tables confirmed that this single room was where guests ate as well as socialized.

Right now we were the only ones there.

We put our bags down. George wiped the rain off his glasses again; Lockwood ran a hand through damp hair. Mr. and Mrs. Evans stood facing us in the center of the room. Close up, their owl-like qualities had intensified. They were stoop-necked, round-shouldered, he in a shapeless cardigan, she in a dark woolen dress. They remained standing close together: elderly, but not, I thought, under all their heavy clothes, particularly frail.

They did not offer us seats; clearly they hoped for a short conversation.

“Benson, you said his name was?” Mr. Evans asked.

“Benton.”

“He stayed here recently,” I said. “Three weeks ago. You confirmed that on the phone. He’s one of several missing people who—”

“Yes, yes. We’ve talked to the police about him. But I can show you the guest book, if you like.” Humming gently, the old man went to the hutch. His wife remained motionless, watching us. He returned with the book, opened it, and handed it to Lockwood. “You can see his name there.”

“Thank you.” While Lockwood made a show of studying the pages, I did the real work. I listened to the house. It was quiet, psychically speaking. I detected nothing. Okay, there was a muffled voice coming from my backpack on the floor, but that didn’t count.

“Now’s your chance!” it whispered. “Kill them both, and it’s job done!”

I gave the pack a subtle kick with the heel of my boot, and the voice fell silent.

“Can you remember much about Mr. Benton?” In the firelight, George’s doughy face and sandy hair gleamed palely; the swell of his stomach pressed tight against his sweater. He hitched up his belt, subtly checking the gauge on his thermometer. “Or any of your missing residents, for that matter? Chat with them much at all?”

“Not really,” the old man said. “What about you, Nora?”

Mrs. Evans had nicotine-yellow hair—thin up top, and fixed in position like a helmet. Like her husband’s, her skin was wrinkled, though her lines radiated from the corners of her mouth, as if you might draw her lips tight like the top of a string bag. “No,” she said. “But it’s not surprising. Few of our guests stay long.”

“We cater to the trade,” Mr. Evans added. “Salesmen, you know. Always moving on.”

There was a silence. The room was heavy with the scent of lavender, which keeps unwanted Visitors away. Fresh bunches sat in silver tankards on the mantelpiece and windows. There were other defenses, too: ornamental house-guards, made of twisted iron and shaped like flowers, animals, and birds.

It was a safe room, almost ostentatiously so.

“Anyone staying here now?” I asked.

“Not at present.”

“How many guest rooms do you have?”

“Six. Four on the second floor, two at the top.”

“And which of them do you sleep in?”

“What a lot of questions,” Mr. Evans said, “from such a very young lady. I am of the generation that remembers when children were children. Not psychic investigation agents with swords and an over-inquisitive manner. We sleep on the ground floor, in a room behind the kitchen. Now—I think we have told the police all this. I am not entirely sure why you are here.”