Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

said, ‘and if you want to know why , for starters I was probably too preoccupied with being in hospital, and after that too busy worrying about you . But actually, if you think about it, I didn’t have any reason to believe it was dangerous. Did I? Because we’d just sealed the Source.’
    ‘No!’ Lockwood jabbed a finger of his good hand on the tablecloth. ‘That’s just it! We thought we had, but we hadn’t! We hadn’t sealed the Source, Lucy, because obviously the Source is there .’
    He indicated the small silver-glass box, which sat quietly between the butter and the teapot. It glittered in the sunshine; inside, the golden necklace could just be seen.
    ‘But how can it be the Source?’ I cried. ‘It should’ve been her bones.’
    He shook his head pityingly. ‘It only seemed that way because her ghost vanished the moment you covered her body with the silver net. But obviously you’d covered the necklace too, in the self-same action, which was more than enough to seal it up. Then, when you pinched the necklace—’
    I glared at him. ‘I didn’t pinch it.’
    ‘– you put it straight into your coat pocket, which was stuffed full of iron filings and packets of salt, and other agency bits and pieces that were more than enough to keep the Visitor constrained for the remainder of the night. The following day, though, you slung your coat down on your chair and the necklace fell out. Then it lay hidden in the pile of clothes until darkness, when the ghost was able to return.’
    ‘The only puzzler is why it wasn’t as fast or powerful as the previous night,’ George said. ‘From what you say it was almost sluggish when you first escaped from the room.’
    ‘Most likely some of the iron and salt fell out of your coat with the necklace,’ Lockwood said. ‘They’d have been enough to keep the ghost weak, and stop it sustaining its presence very long. That’s probably why it couldn’t follow you downstairs, and wasn’t able to re-materialize swiftly when we came back up.’
    ‘Luckily for us,’ George said. He shivered, took a consoling bite of toasted bun.
    I held up my hands to silence them. ‘Yes, yes. I understand all that. But that’s not what I’m saying. What I mean is, the Source is whatever the Visitor is most attached to, isn’t it? It’s what it holds most dear. So surely it really ought to have been her bones.’ I reached out, picked up the glass case by its cord and turned it in my fingers, so that the pendantand spool of chain inside slid softly to and fro. ‘But instead it turns out to be this . This necklace is more significant to the spirit of Annabel Ward than her own bodily remains . . . Isn’t that a little odd?’
    ‘No different from that motorbike rider we had one time,’ George pointed out.
    ‘True, but—’
    ‘I hope you’re not trying to change the subject, Lucy,’ Lockwood said in a cold voice. ‘I’m in the middle of ticking you off here.’
    I set the case down. ‘I know.’
    ‘I’m not finished, either. Not by a long chalk. I’ve a whole heap more to say.’ There was a protracted pause. Lockwood gazed sternly at me, then out of the window. Finally he gave an exasperated cry. ‘Unfortunately I’ve lost my train of thought. The point is: don’t do it again . I’m disappointed in you. When you joined the company I told you I wasn’t fussed if you kept stuff hidden about your past. That’s still true. But keeping secrets about things that happen now is different. We’re a team and we’ve got to work that way.’
    I nodded. I stared at the tablecloth. My face felt cold and hot at the same time.
    ‘You can forget wondering about this necklace too,’ Lockwood said. ‘I’m taking it to the Fittes furnaces in Clerkenwell today to get it incinerated. Goodbye Source. Goodbye Annabel Ward. Good riddance to the whole affair.’He scowled petulantly into his mug. ‘And now my tea’s gone cold.’
    The events of the night certainly hadn’t helped matters, but Lockwood’s mood was poor for other reasons too. His ghost-touched hand was troubling him. Barnes’s bad tidings weighed heavily on his mind. Worst of all, the public fallout from our Sheen Road disaster had begun. To his horror, the fire had made The Times that morning. In the Problem Pages, where prominent hauntings were covered daily, an article entitled INDEPENDENT AGENCIES: MORE CONTROL NEEDED ? described how an investigation carried out by Lockwood & Co. (‘an independent