Jonathan Stroud - The Creeping Shadow

It was a testament to George that until that instant I’d completely forgotten about the recent difficulties between us. Tending to my injury, listening to my story, he’d displayed nothing but compassion and concern. Now, just for a second, as he looked at me and hesitated, I remembered his anger and the hurt I’d caused him. Then his face cleared. “Absolutely,” he said. “’Course she can.”

A warm feeling filled me: it was made of tea and biscuits and sudden gratitude. “Thank you.”

“It’ll make a nice change from Holly staying over,” George said. “I always feel like I have to clean the bathtub after me when she’s around, in case I’ve left hairs in it, or a ring of dirt or something. But it’s different with old Luce. Old Luce doesn’t mind.”

Lockwood had produced a plastic jug and was taking out glasses. “You fret too much about Holly, George. She didn’t complain last night, did she? You want some orange juice, Lucy? It’s your favorite: the kind with pulp.”

“Lucy doesn’t like orange juice with pulp,” George said. “Remember?”

“Oh, yes, that’s right. It gets caught between your teeth, doesn’t it?”

I was staring at him. My warm feeling had partially retreated. “I’ll take the juice. So Holly stayed over last night?”

“Personally, I’ve always thought straining it through your teeth is part of the fun,” Lockwood said. “You can pretend you’re a blue whale.” He caught my look. “What?”

“Holly. She’s staying over now?”

“Oh, not always. Depends how the night turns out. Waffles, George?”

“Please. I am hungry.”

“Luce?”

“Yes…okay, I’d like some waffles. How often is she staying over?”

Lockwood flicked the toaster on. “I don’t know that it’s really something for a freelancer like you to worry about. She’s not using your old room, if that’s what’s bothering you.” He whistled tunelessly as he poured himself some juice.

“She’s not? So where—?”

“I keep most of my clothes up there now,” George said. “My room’s so full of books and experiments, it can’t even hold my tightest shorts. Your attic does nicely. Otherwise we’ve left it just how it was when you went. You can sleep in it tonight, if you like.”

“Thanks…that’s kind of you.”

“Sure. I’ll try not to wake you when I nip up there to get dressed in the morning.”

For a few minutes after that, food occupied center stage. Waffles were made, and orange juice drunk (strained or unstrained). I stared around at the kitchen. It was very spic-and-span. That was Holly’s continuing influence; in my day, she’d run the house like a military operation. The only new thing I noticed was a bulletin board that had been hung on the cupboard next to the office stairs. On it was a map of southeast England, with London at the center, showing all the nearby counties. Colored pins radiated out in concentric ovals from a central point southeast of the city. I stared at it blankly. The precision and detail of the effort had the hallmarks of George.

At last Lockwood pushed his plate away. “So let’s think about this,” he said. “The implications of what you’ve told us, Luce, are huge. DEPRAC is assuming that all the Sources taken to the furnaces are being destroyed. Some of them—maybe the whole lot, for all we know—are instead being saved and funneled into the black market. Incredibly dangerous items are being dispersed that way. Take the jar of teeth from Guppy’s house, for instance. We thought that it got safely burned that the other night—but did it? We just don’t know.”

I shuddered. The thought of the cannibal’s spirit being unleashed again was frightful. “Who took it, at the furnaces?” I asked. “Was it Mailer?”

“No,” Lockwood said. “Fellow named Christie. Seemed honest enough, but who can tell?”

“It would be a blow if that case started up again,” George said. “You won’t have heard, Luce, but Penelope Fittes was quite pleased about our efforts in Ealing. She wants to meet us again. I reckon she’s got another job planned, but Lockwood thinks it might be a medal.”

“Why not both?” Lockwood grinned at me. “Well, if she’s pleased with that, just think how delighted she’ll be when we crack this black market ring. It’s our old friends the Winkmans, of course. They’re at the heart of it, for sure.”

“Hold it. When you say we ‘crack’ it,” George said, “what exactly are you getting at? It’s not our concern. The obvious thing is to tell Inspector Barnes.”

“We could, I suppose.” Lockwood spoke in an exaggeratedly bored voice. “ If we want DEPRAC to mess it up. Or take credit. Or both.”

That was my cue. I’d been hoping to say something for a while, but hadn’t been sure how to begin. Lockwood’s evident interest gave me my chance. “I met with Flo the other day,” I said. “She said there’s a new collector in town, someone who pays really well for the best Sources. The Winkmans are pulling out all the stops to fulfill this guy’s needs. Flo said there are big night-markets, where transactions take place with the relic-men. And I know Mailer’s stuff ended up at those markets, because that mummified head I told you about was there.”

I paused, took in their reactions. Lockwood nodded, smiling just a little. I knew he was surfing the same thought. George, expressionless, watched me closely.

“So I was sort of wondering,” I went on, casually, “whether I might drop in on the next meeting. See if I can find out how the operation works, who the collector is, you know.”

Lockwood rubbed his chin; there was a faraway light in his eyes. “Flo’s the contact,” he said. “She might be able to wangle something for you, get you inside. Risky game, though, Luce.”

“ I’ll say it’s risky,” George agreed. “Those gangsters have already tried to kill you. You’d be handing yourself to them on a platter.”

I shrugged. “I guess that’s true, yeah.”

“Plus, relic-men hate outsiders. They’re notoriously violent to anyone who pokes his nose into their business.”

“I’ve heard that, too.”

“And don’t forget the Winkmans,” George went on. “Leopold and Adelaide have personally vowed to tear us limb from limb. It would be a complete hornet’s nest of danger.”

“Yep, it’s a dumb plan, Luce,” Lockwood said. He stretched back in his chair. “Suicidal, even. If you did it on your own.”

He smiled at me.

The warm feeling was back; when I surfaced from it, I noticed George had taken off his glasses and was rubbing them with a corner of his pajama top. It may have been a fairly agitated kind of rub, but I didn’t look too closely, as in doing so he’d accidentally revealed a too-pink portion of his stomach. “There’s no way, Lockwood,” he was saying. “It can’t be done.”

Lockwood was staring at the ceiling, his hands behind his head. “Oh, there’s bound to be a way….We just haven’t dreamed it up yet.”

I spoke in a small voice. “We—I—don’t mean for us to do anything stupid,” I said. “It’s just—” I hesitated. “The thing is, what I really want is—”

“I know exactly what you want,” George said. “You want the skull.”

I gazed at him.

“Go on, admit it. That’s what’s driving you. You want it back. You miss it. The Winkman thing is strictly secondary.”

“Well, I don’t exactly miss it.” I gave a light laugh. “I mean, it’s not like I need it to talk to, or anything. But yeah, I want it back. It’s important to me.”

“That foul old skull?”

“Yes.”

“With all its horrid habits?” George scratched his belly button wonderingly with the frames of his glasses, then set them back on his nose. “Extraordinary.”