Jonathan Stroud - The Creeping Shadow

“You’re so brave,” she said. “To leave and strike out on your own. It’s very risky.”

“Well, it has its compensations. I’ve learned a lot about my Talents and gotten better at managing other people, even the irritating ones.”

She gave a laugh. Oh, joy—it was the special tinkling one that set my teeth on edge.

“Someone at Portland Row really missed you, you know,” she said.

I kept my voice light. “Well, I missed everyone, too, of course….Er, who was that?”

“Who missed you most particularly?” Her laugh again; her big dark eyes smiled at me sidelong. “Can’t you guess?”

It was hot in that café. I did something with the sleeves of my sweater. “No.”

“Me.”

“Oh. What—? Did you?”

“I know we had our issues, Lucy, but it’s been odd being the only girl. Lockwood and George are lovely, of course, but they’re both off in their own worlds. George with his experiments, and Lockwood…” Her brow formed shapely furrows. “He’s so restless and remote. He never sits still long enough for me to reach him. I was going to ask you about that, whether you found…Oh good, and here are the boys, too.”

In a few minutes we were all crammed in together, our bags wedged between us and the steamed-up window. I was bunched close to George, who acknowledged me with the barest nod. Lockwood radiated excitement. His face glowed in anticipation of the night to come. “The team’s all here,” he said. “Excellent! Right, I’ve arranged a taxi ride to Ealing in half an hour. The Fittes representative will meet us at the house. He’ll have the keys.”

George frowned. “I don’t like this representative coming along. We’re Lockwood and Co.! We don’t have supervisors.”

“It’s to be more an observer than anything,” Lockwood said. “Fittes is taking our measure. If she likes what she sees, we’ll get more commissions. I think it’s okay.”

“Okay for Lucy, maybe. She’s a sword for hire.” George’s face was blank behind his glasses. “But we should be independent, surely.”

“We are,” Lockwood said briskly. “Anyway, time’s marching on. George—you’ve been to the Archives. Did you get all the grisly details about number seven, The Leas?”

“Up to a point.” George was pulling a disordered manila file from his bag. “This being a modern case, there was plenty about it in the papers, but I don’t have all the details. Like Barnes said, it seems they had to suppress a fair amount; the facts were just too nasty. But don’t worry, I’ve found more than enough grimness for us to enjoy.” He peered around for a waiter. “Have we ordered yet? I’m famished here.”

“Got a pot of tea coming,” Holly said. “And cakes. Given the subject of our discussion, I thought savories should wait.”

“Mmm.” George adjusted his spectacles and opened the file in front of him. “You may be right, though personally I could murder a sausage roll. Okay, the trial of the Ealing Cannibal dates back thirty years. The accused, as we know, was a man named Solomon Guppy, who lived alone in a house in an ordinary street. He was fifty-two years old, and had once earned a living as an electronics engineer. Having lost his job some years before, he now repaired clocks and radios; it was a mail-order business. The items were sent to him by post; he worked at home and rarely, except for trips to the shops on Ealing High Street, left the house. When the police broke in, the place was full of pieces of machinery lying open, with their wires and cogs exposed.” George looked up and grinned at us. “Turned out these weren’t the only internal parts he was interested in.”

Holly made a slight noise in her throat. “George…”

“Sorry, sorry.” He leafed unconcernedly through the file. “This is the pitch-black story of a giant maniac cannibal. Somebody’s got to supply the jokes.”

Lockwood tapped his fingers on the table. “Hold it there. When you say ‘giant,’ what does that mean? Penelope Fittes said it took six policemen to subdue Guppy when they came to arrest him. So he was obviously big and strong.”

George nodded. “Yep. Very big, very strong, and very tall. Six-foot-six in his socks, and bulky. They reckon he weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, and though he had a huge belly, a lot of it was muscle, too. All the sources emphasize what an unnerving figure he was. He barely spoke during the trial, and spent his time glaring around the courtroom from under a mane of unkempt hair. He’d pick someone and fix his eyes on them like he was preparing them for supper. More than one lady felt obliged to leave the room. When they took him to be hung, they had double the usual number of guards escorting him, and the blokes doing it were so frightened, they all got double pay.”

“Doesn’t sound likely to me,” Lockwood said. “All the prison guards I’ve met have been pretty tough customers. Well, let’s see the pictures of this charmer.”

George drew out a single glossy piece of paper. “I actually only have one. Oddly, the police never released their line-up shots of Guppy; they kept them secret ‘for the public good,’ whatever that means. But this was snapped by a freelance photographer as Guppy was being led into the courthouse on the day of sentencing. It’s not great quality, but it gives you an idea.”

He swiveled the photo around on the table. Lockwood, Holly, and I bent close. It was a black-and-white shot, photocopied and enlarged from the original. As George had said, it wasn’t good at all—the image was both blurry and grainy. You could see a police officer in the foreground, and another at the back, half out of view. And in between them was a vast, bulky shape, slope-shouldered and indistinct of feature. One great arm extended awkwardly; you could tell it was handcuffed to the officer in front. The other, presumably also cuffed, was out of sight behind. The head was bowed, also awkwardly; maybe it had just ducked out of the police van, but the impression was of a swollen, shambling thing, horribly out of proportion with the men on either side. Most of the face was in shadow. A few dark smears suggested a heavy brow, a wide-lipped mouth. For some reason, I was glad the picture showed no better detail.

We all regarded it. “Yes…” Lockwood said at last. “That gives us an idea.”

“He was a big lad, wasn’t he?” I said.

“They had to build a special gallows,” George said. “One strong enough to take his weight. And here’s another thing. On the morning of the execution, a priest was present. He was officiating in case the condemned had a last confession. Well, when Guppy stood on the platform, just before the trapdoor opened, he beckoned the priest over and whispered something to him. Know what happened? Whatever he said was so terrifying, so horrible, the priest simply fainted clean away. And they say Guppy was smiling as the hangman pulled the lever.”

No one at our table spoke. “Could do with a stupid joke now,” I said. “Got any more, George?”

“Not at the moment. I’ll save them for when we’re creeping around Guppy’s house, trying to avoid his ghost.”

Lockwood snorted. “There’s a fair number of urban legends getting mixed up with your facts today, George. No one’s that scary, not even a giant cannibal. We all need to relax.”

And obviously he was right about this. We all sat back, giving each other broad, reassuring smiles. It was at that point that our tea and cakes arrived, delivered by a waitress with lavender garlands in her hair.

“Right, George,” Lockwood said, when we were fortified. “We don’t have long before the taxi. Tell us about what happened at the house. What do you know?”