Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

miasma rose up too – a smell of faint decay. Towards midnight, there was a frisson in the air; I felt my neck hairs prickle. A faint apparition appeared in the furthest corner of the garage, close beside the crates. It was very quiet and still; a man-sized nimbus of pale cloud. We watched it quietly, hands ready at our belts, but there was no sense of imminent threat. After lingering for ten minutes, the figure vanished. The air cleared.
    ‘A young man,’ Lockwood said. ‘Wearing some kind of leather uniform. Anyone else get that?’
    I shook my head. ‘Sorry, no. My Sight’s not as good as yours. But—’
    ‘It’s clear enough what we’ve got here, Lockwood,’ George interrupted. ‘ I saw the uniform, and it confirms what I guessed before we came inside. This is quite a modern house. Most of the other buildings in the street are older, pre-war terraces. Once upon a time there would have been a terraced house here too, right where we’re standing. But it’s gone. Why? Because it was bombed in one of the air-raids in the war. The bomb that destroyed the house probably killed the man we just saw. He’s a Blitz ghost, maybe a soldier home on leave, and his remains are in the ground somewhere under our feet.’ He tucked his pen decisively in his trouser pocket, took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt.
    Lockwood frowned. ‘You think? Maybe . . . Though I don’t get any death-glows here.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘If so, our client won’t be happy. It’s going to cost him to knock the garage down.’
    George shrugged. ‘Tough. He needs to find the bones. What else can he do?’
    ‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘but I don’t agree with you.’
    They looked across at me. ‘What?’ George said.
    ‘I didn’t see the Visitor as well as you, of course,’ I said, ‘but I perhaps noticed something you missed. I caught a voice just before the apparition faded out. Did you hear it? No? Well, the words were very faint but quite distinctive. “ No time. Couldn’t check the brakes .” That was what it said. It repeated it twice over.’
    ‘Well, what does that mean?’ George demanded.
    ‘It means,’ I said, ‘that the Source may not be under the floor, and it may be nothing to do with the Blitz. I think it’s one of those crates. What are they filled with?’
    ‘Junk,’ George said.
    ‘Motor parts,’ Lockwood said.
    ‘Yes, parts of old motorbikes that our client’s picked up all over the place. Well, where do they come from? What’s their history? I just wonder whether one of them might come from a machine that was once involved in an accident – perhaps a fatal one.’
    George snorted. ‘A road accident? You think the Source is a broken motorbike ?’
    ‘Could the ghost’s outfit have been biker’s leathers?’ I said.
    There was a pause. Lockwood nodded slowly. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘they just might have been, at that . . . Well, we’ll have to check. Tomorrow we’ll ask the client if we can investigate the crates more closely. Meanwhile – thank you, Ms Carlyle, for that very interesting insight. Your Talent doesn’t disappoint!’
    Just for the record, I was right. One of the crates contained the smashed remains of a rally motorcycle that provided some very curious readings when we assessed it. We subsequently removed it from the garage and had it sent to the Fittes furnaces, and that was the end of that. But on the night in question, when we finally got back to Portland Row, Lockwood’s praise still rang loudly in my ears. I was too elated to go straight to sleep. Instead of heading to my attic I made a sandwich in the kitchen and then wandered into the library, a room I hadn’t properly explored before.
    It was a dark, oak-panelled room across the hall from the lounge. Heavy curtains shrouded the windows; black shelves, crammed with hardback volumes, lined the walls. Above the mantelpiece hung an oil painting of three ripe green pears. Angled standard lamps stood stooped and heron-like; light from one of these illuminated Anthony Lockwood, slumped sideways in a comfy chair. His long slim legs were drapedelegantly over the chair arm; his forelock hung no less decoratively over his brow. He was reading a magazine.
    I hesitated at the door.
    ‘Oh, Ms Carlyle.’ He jumped up, gave me a grin of welcome. ‘Please – come in. Sit wherever you like, except possibly in that brown chair in the corner. That’s George’s, and I’m afraid he’s been known to