The Screaming Staircase Page 4

  If you came on foot, as I did, you passed through the pedestrian entrance on Farringdon Road, depositing your rapier on the way, then crossed a cobbled courtyard where runnels of freshwater provided extra defense against all undead things. After climbing some steps, you pushed aside a silver-glass door, and entered a wide reception chamber decked with lavender and iron. Seven attendants sat here in separate booths, processing each new object brought for destruction. This was the vetting room.

  As I walked through the empty waiting area, between the lines of frayed guide ropes, I heard someone calling my name.

  “Hey, Lucy! What have you got for me today?”

  The attendant in booth four was a thin young man with pale skin, hooded eyes, and large, rather knobbly hands. His name was Harold Mailer. At eighteen, he knew the furnaces as well as anybody, since he had worked there since the age of eight. He had a horse’s laugh and a skittish, nervous manner. He’d taken Sources off my hands several times over the winter. We got along well enough.

  I entered the booth and, with some relief, set the silver-glass box on the counter. It was surprising how heavy a mummified head could be. Harold watched me, scratching an ear.

  “Looks like you’ve had a busy night.” He turned the box from side to side. “Who’s this fellow?”

  “No idea. Eighteenth-century criminal, most likely. Haunted—would you believe—by a witch’s ghost. Think we could toast him fast? I’m bushed.”

  Harold Mailer pulled a wad of forms across the desk and selected a pen with an impressively chewed end. “Anything for you, Lucy, anything for you. I’ll need the usual details.”

  I gave the time, place, and circumstances of the capture, and handed over the authorization form, signed on behalf of the Rotwell Agency.

  Harold had cropped fair hair, freckles, and protruding ears. His eyebrows were remarkably faint; I could only just see him raising them sky-high. “Rotwell’s again? Not old Farnaby’s bunch?”

  “Yeah. This really is the last time. They’re useless.”

  “You should spread your net wider, Lucy.”

  “I will.”

  “Why don’t you partner with Anthony Lockwood again? I had him in here last week with that Holly girl. They’d just finished that epic job at Camden Lock. I expect you read about it in True Hauntings.”

  “No. No…didn’t catch that one.”

  “A Screaming Spirit, manifesting from a skeleton at the bottom of the lock gate. No one had thought to look there, it being water—but canals aren’t running water, are they? They’re stagnant. It was Lockwood who figured it out, of course.”

  I pushed hair out of my face. “Yeah, he generally does.”

  “He and that girl were still on a high when they came in. Quite exhilarated. Laughing, giggling together…” Harold scratched his nose. He took a rubber stamp, pressed it in red ink, and put the furnaces’ acceptance mark on the paper. “So, all I need now’s a rating for this Visitor, Lucy….Lucy? Are you concentrating? A rating. Number from one to ten.”

  “I remember your system. Eight.”

  “Where one is weakest, about the level of a Wisp; and ten is strongest, about the level of that Poltergeist you fell afoul of in November. The one that trashed the store.” He grinned at me and did his horse-laugh thing. “An eight? That’s pretty powerful.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Mm-hm. Oka-a-y. Want to leave it with me?”

  “Farnaby wants me to witness the burning.”

  “Or you won’t get paid. I know. All right, come around.”

  He took the box and flipped up a hatch in the counter. I passed through the back of the booth and went out a swinging door into the concrete and steel corridor that ran around the perimeter of the furnace house. The corridor was busy, as it always was near dawn. Orange-coated attendants pushed cartloads of empty ghost-jars and silver-glass boxes toward the storage depots. Others accompanied brightly jacketed agents to and from the viewing areas. Carts squeaked, people talked; the fabric of Harold Mailer’s jumpsuit crackled softly as he walked. The boom of the fire-gates echoed in my ears and reverberated under my feet. Even so, it was still possible to feel the underlying psychic terror of the place, the frisson that came from the destruction of dozens of Sources every hour.

  A giant board at the end of the corridor indicated, by way of green and amber lights, the furnaces that were presently in operation. Harold glanced up and, without breaking stride, halted at Door 13.

  “This is me,” he said. He patted the silver-glass box under his arm. “Say good-bye to your little friend, Lucy.”

  “Good-bye, head. How long will it take you to get ready?”

  “About ten minutes. Make yourself comfortable in the meantime. Toodle-oo.”

  He disappeared into the blast room, and I went up to the viewing area. It was basically a big metal box hanging from the roof of the furnace house, like the gondola of an airship. It had a faded green carpet and lots of chairs and sofas scattered around tables, as if it were the kind of place you’d stop to chat with friends. Sometimes it was opened to the public, so they could see how well the authorities were dealing with the Problem. Mostly it was used by agents; we didn’t socialize, but stood in silence at the long bank of windows, looking down into the infernos below.

  As always, I glanced along the rows of chairs to see who was there. A few agents, one or two adult supervisors…And, halfway along, who was that silhouetted at the window? Tall, thin…He turned, and I caught a flash of a yellow jacket. Some rangy Tamworth operative. No one I knew.

  My stomach cramped. It was probably hunger; it had been a long time since I’d eaten. I approached the window and stood there, arms folded, waiting for Harold to appear.

  The furnace house was a vast brick shell filled with blast ovens, each separated by a metal walkway that ran above a network of pipes and flues. There were twenty separate furnaces, in two rows of ten: great silver cylinders with big black numbers painted on the side. Their tops were clear, so you could look down from above and see the raging fires within. Each also had a supply chute, fitted with blast doors at the end, where the Sources were tipped into the chamber. Attendants stood close by, adjusting heat wheels on the furnace sides. As far as the eye could see, blast doors clanged, flames roared high; Sources were shoved in and vanished in a twinkling.

  They said that if you stood there on the viewing platform after dark, you could spot a dozen ghosts at once, writhing briefly, blue and green, as the flames engulfed their objects and their ties to this earth were finally snuffed out. Right now it was getting light outside and the ghosts were not visible, but even from a distance I could feel occasional psychic aftershocks. Each was like the moment of silence after a scream.

  “This place,” the skull’s voice said in my head, “is hell on earth.”

  I looked around me; no one was close by. I took off my backpack, placed it on a chair, and loosened the top. There was the faint face looking up at me in its swirling cloud of green. “I thought you were asleep,” I said.

  “Asleep? Me? I’m dead, remember.”

  “Or departed back to the Other Side, or whatever it is you do.”

  “Nope, still in my jar, through no fault of my own. I haven’t been sleeping. I never sleep. It’s one of many things I never do. Like pick my nose, or sigh when I’m dreaming, or break wind while doing my morning jumping jacks, Lucy. The list is long.”

  I frowned down at my backpack. “I don’t do any of those things, either.”

  “You say that. It’s a small room we live in.”

  “How many times do I have to remind you?” I growled. “We’re not living in some weird girl-skull roommate situation! I just don’t have enough space to store you anywhere better—like in a moldy tomb, which is all that you deserve.”

  “Ooh, cutting,” the skull said. “Something’s put you in a bad mood today. I wonder what. Anyway, we were talking about the furnaces. I don’t like them.”

  I didn’t either, but I didn’t
answer. I’d just seen Harold Mailer far below me, walking out onto the metal walkway beside furnace thirteen. He had on protective headgear and massive gloves, and he was carrying the silver-glass box. He looked up, raised a cheery thumb, and signaled to the attendant at the blast doors. Wheels swiveled; the doors opened. In the center of the furnace, the flames roared up in welcome. Harold placed the box on the blast tray and fiddled with its silver clasp. The lid opened; Harold tipped. Something dark and round rolled out, straight down the chute and into the center of the fire. At once it began to burn in a shower of green-blue sparks.

  The doors swung closed. Harold gave me another thumbs-up. I raised my hand and looked away.

  “Another spirit disposed of, then,” the skull said. “How terribly nice and tidy. Makes you feel better, I suppose?”

  I sat down heavily on the seat next to it. My limbs were suddenly leaden; I was very tired. “Not really. I don’t feel anything.”

  “It’s a pointless exercise. Cruel, too.”

  “Sending ghosts back where they belong? How can that be pointless? Or cruel?” I glanced down at the vile face, at the curving yellow bone of the skull beneath; at the swirling poison-green ectoplasm, all trapped beneath the dusty rind of silver-glass that protected me from its foul embrace. “Really I should chuck you in as well.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t do that,” the skull said. “Not me. I’m your best and only bud. It is pointless, though. Not that I expect you to ever listen to me. When I first spoke to you, I gave you a warning. Remember what I said?”

  I closed my eyes. It was warm in the viewing area. In a minute I could head off, but it was nice to rest for a moment. “Some drivel about death. Your usual threats.”

  The skull gave a hoot of derision. “See what I’m working with? Useless! The brain of a flea! No, ‘Death’s in Life,’ I said, ‘and Life’s in Death.’ And I’ve been waiting for a half-decent response from you ever since. Good thing I didn’t hold my breath.” It paused to consider a moment. “Not that I have any.”

  “I didn’t respond,” I murmured, “because it made no sense then, and it makes even less sense now.” I folded my arms, stretched back in the chair…

  “Lucy?”

  With a sudden start, I realized someone was at my side. I sat up, blinking. Harold Mailer stood there, slightly too close to me. His jumpsuit was peppered with black dust; a faint smell of burning hung about him. He grinned down, rubbing the bumpy knuckles of his hands.

  “Bit sleepy? That’s okay. It’s all finished. Time to get home.”

  “Sure. I was just resting.” But I hadn’t heard him come over—maybe I had nodded off, just for a moment. I got to my feet, all aches and awkwardness, moving slightly away. When I reached out for the backpack, I realized that its top was half open. Most of the jar was hidden; just one corner was showing. The ghost had gone quiet, but a faint greenish glow still emanated from within. I pulled the drawstrings tight, flipped shut the top. When I glanced at Harold Mailer, he was smiling hard at me.

  “Interesting gear you carry around with you,” he said. “Looks bulky.”

  I shrugged. “It is. Some kind of new lamp I was trying out. New Rotwell one. Wasn’t very good. Too bulky, as you say….So, everything’s done, then?”

  “Everything’s done. If you’re ready, I’ll escort you to the gate.”

  It was eight thirty when I finally got back to the little apartment where (whatever the skull might claim to the contrary) I most definitely lived alone. It was a studio on the third floor of a high-rise in Tooting, south London, not far from the Balham ironworks. My room was square, and not very large. There was space for a single rumpled bed beneath the window, a sink next to it, and, beyond that, a dresser for my clothes. On the opposite side of the room the carpet stopped abruptly and a yellowed strip of linoleum marked out a “kitchen” area—a battered stove, a fridge, a pull-down table, and a little wooden chair, all squeezed into a corner. And that was about it. For showers and stuff, I used a communal bathroom on the other side of the landing.

  The place wasn’t perfect. It hadn’t been painted in a long while, and there was a permanent smell of baked beans in the kitchen area, no matter what I cooked. The edge of the linoleum was curling up, and I was always tripping over it. The mattress on my bed had seen better days. But the room was warm and safe and dry, and most of my agency stuff (including the skull’s jar) could be stacked neatly between the door and the bed. To be honest, when I was home, I spent most of my time sleeping, so I didn’t care about the décor. I’d been there four months, all told. It was okay.

  That morning, as I usually did when I got back from a job, I made brief notes in my personal casebook, drafted my invoice for Rotwell’s, then went across the landing for a shower. After that I went out and got myself some take-out food. I should have cooked something, but I didn’t have the energy. I sat on the bed in my pajamas, dunking fries in ketchup, eating a burger, listening to the traffic pass on Tooting High Street.

  A voice spoke from the ghost-jar. “So, here we are again. Just you and me. Two jolly roommates. What shall we talk about?”

  I dipped my burger into the ketchup. “Nothing. I’m going to sleep in a minute.”

  There was a moment’s pause. “Mmm, maybe that’s for the best,” the voice said. “Look at you. Damp-haired, puffy face, eating fast food alone in bed…If I had tear ducts, I’d weep for you. You haven’t even straightened your bedspread.”

  “Yeah, well. It’s my dinnertime and I’m hungry.”

  “Yes—hungry, isolated, and friendless. Aside from me, of course.”

  “Thanks. I’ve loads of friends.”

  “’Course you have. I’ve seen bag ladies with more active social lives.”

  Suddenly I realized how very weary I was. I got up to put the tea kettle on.

  “Ooh, careful when you cross the room you don’t collide with any of your pals,” the skull called. “I can barely see the far wall, there are so many close chums lining up to chat with you….” When I didn’t answer, it gave a chuckle. “Lucy, I’m a malevolent skull, without an ounce of compassion. You’ve got to be worried if I’m feeling sorry for you.”

  I’d picked up the french fry packet and paper bag to put into the trash, but when I got there I found it was full, so I set them carefully on the floor. Then I took a detour back to the jar and twisted the lever on its lid closed, shutting off the continuing jibes from the ghost within. Even with the traffic blaring below my window, a sudden sense of peace enfolded me. I decided not to make tea after all, but go to sleep. I drew the curtains, lay back on the bed, and closed my eyes.

  I was still in the same position five hours later. Afternoon sunlight streamed past the ironworks and through a gap in the curtains and lay like a shining counterpane across the wasteland of my bed. I had a crick in my neck and an ache in my jaw, and my muscles were stiff with weariness. Consciousness was a struggle; moving was harder. I wouldn’t have woken in the first place except someone was knocking on my door.

  I shuffled the few necessary paces across the room. It was a puzzled sort of shuffling, since no one ever called on me. Clients didn’t come here; I spoke to them on the phone. So who could it be? There was the girl from the floor below who took my clothes on the weekends and delivered them back, washed and pressed, on Monday mornings. She was due today. But she always just left them outside the door, a neat little package of ironed skirts and underwear. She never knocked. It wouldn’t be her.

  There was my neighbor across the landing, a nervous gentleman of late middle age who wore iron ghost-wards in his hat and whose apartment stank of lavender. He seldom spoke to me, and jumped whenever I went by. I think he was unnerved by my profession.

  It wasn’t going to be him, either.

  There was my landlady, a ferocious matriarch who resided like a spider in the basement flat, sensitive to every creak of door and stair, particularly if you hadn’t paid your rent. But I’d shelled out three months in advance, and she never
bothered me. So it was unlikely to be her.

  I didn’t know who it was. I went to the door, yawning, blinking, my hand busy scratching at an itchy spot down the back of my pajamas. I undid the lock and swung it open.

  Mid-yawn, mid-scratch, I opened that door.

  And it was Lockwood.

  Lockwood.

  It was Lockwood standing there.

  Lockwood.

  After four months, his proximity was shocking; it was shocking, too, how familiar and unfamiliar he was all at the same time. He was standing on the dowdy little landing in his long dark coat, his right hand still hovering by the bell. His hair, as ever, flopped to one side over his brow; his eyes sparkled at me between the fronds. As I met his gaze, he smiled—and that smile was a world away from the hundred-gigawatt version you saw in the papers. It was warm but somehow hesitant, as if it hadn’t been used recently. It was the smile I’d hazily imagined a hundred times; only now it was real, solid, meant just for me. He wore the same old coat with the same old claw marks, from the night we opened Mrs. Barrett’s tomb. The suit was new, though, charcoal-gray with the thinnest purple stripe; as always, it was elegant, stylish, and slightly too tight for him. I even recognized the tie—it was one I’d given him a year ago, after the case of the Christmas Corpse. So he still had that, still liked to wear it….

  I blinked, and stopped thinking about his clothes.

  Lockwood was standing at my door.

  All this ran through my mind in the first split second. “Hello, Lucy,” he said.

  I just managed to avoid the worst-case scenario, in which my mouth would simply have stayed wide open while emitting a gassy whining sound. But I didn’t get close to the cool, calm reaction I’d dreamed about during those four long months apart.