Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

every scuff on that little strip of worn bent leather filled me with horror. ‘It’s a vile thing,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t hold it for very long. I don’t know what it is or where you got it, but no one should be touching this, not ever. Certainly not for a stupid interview.’
    I leaned forward, took the final two biscuits from the plate and sat back, crunching. It was one of those moments when a great Don’t Care wave hits you, and you float off on it, head back, looking at the sky. I was tired out. It was my seventh interview in as many days. Well, I’d done all I could, and if Lockwood and this stupid George didn’t choose to appreciate it – that really didn’t bother me any more.
    There was a long silence. Lockwood’s hands were clasped between his knees; he was sitting forward like a vicar on the toilet, gazing at nothing, a pained, contemplative expression on his face. George’s head was still buried in his comic. As far as he was concerned, I might not have been there at all.
    ‘Well,’ I said finally, ‘I guess I know where the door is.’
    ‘Tell her about the biscuit rule,’ George said.
    I looked at him. ‘What?’
    ‘Tell her, Lockwood. We’ll have to get this straight or there’ll be hell to pay.’
    Lockwood nodded. ‘The rule here is that each member of the agency only takes one biscuit at a time in strict rotation. Keeps it fair, keeps it orderly. Nicking two in times of stress just isn’t done.’
    ‘One biscuit at a time?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘You mean to say I’ve got the job?’
    ‘Of course you’ve got the job,’ he said.

7

    Thirty-five Portland Row, the building that would function as both home and headquarters for the operatives of Lockwood & Co., was an unexpected sort of place. Appearing squat and squarish from the street, it was actually positioned at the top of a slight slope, so that its rear elevation jutted out high over a jumble of brick-walled gardens. It had four floors, which ranged from tiny (the attic) to sprawling (the basement). Technically the upper three levels were our living space, while the basement contained the office; in fact, such divisions seemed rather blurred. The living areas, for instance, had all sorts of hidden doors that opened onto weapons racks, or swung out to become dart-boards, or spare beds, or giant maps of London festoonedwith coloured pins. Meanwhile the basement itself doubled as a scullery, which meant you’d be practising Wessex half-turns in the rapier room with a row of socks hanging from a clothes line beside your head, or filling canisters from the salt box with the washing machine rumbling loudly in your ear.
    I liked it all immediately, though it puzzled me as well. It was a large house, filled with expensive, grown-up things, and yet there were no adults present anywhere. Just Anthony Lockwood and his associate, George. And now me.
    On the first afternoon, Lockwood took me for a tour. He showed me the attic first, low-slung beneath steep eaves. It contained two rooms: a minuscule washroom, in which sink, shower and toilet practically overlapped; and a pretty attic bedroom, just big enough for a single bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers. Opposite the bed, an arched gable window looked out over Portland Row as far as the ghost-lamp on the corner.
    ‘This is where I slept when I was little,’ Lockwood said. ‘It hasn’t been occupied for years; the last assistant, God rest him, chose to live out. You can use it, if you like.’
    ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’d be pleased to.’
    ‘I know the bathroom’s small, but at least it’s your own. There’s a bigger one downstairs, but that’d mean sharing towels with George.’
    ‘Oh, I think I’ll be fine here.’
    We left the attic, trooped down the narrow stairs. Thelanding below was dark and sombre, with a circular golden rug in the centre of the floorboards. Bookshelves in a corner were crammed with a random mix of paperbacks: battered copies of the Fittes Yearbook and Mottram’s Psychical Theories , an assortment of cheap novels – mostly pulp thrillers and detective fiction – and serious works on religion and philosophy. As in the hall and living room below, various ethnic artefacts decorated the wall – including some kind of rattle seemingly made from human bones.
    Lockwood caught me staring at it. ‘That’s a Polynesian ghost-chaser,’ he said. ‘Nineteenth century. Supposed to drive away spirits with its raucous sound.’
    ‘Does it