Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

amusement. Two were teenagers, a boy and a girl; the other was a very young man. All three wore the soft grey jackets and crisp black trousers of the oldest, most prestigious company of ghost-hunters in London, the Old Grey Lady of the Strand – the celebrated Fittes Agency. Their rapiers hadcomplex, Italian-style hilts, much more old-fashioned and expensive than ours. They carried neat grey briefcases emblazoned (like their jackets) with the Fittes symbol, the rearing silver unicorn.
    Lockwood and George got to their feet. The young man smiled at them.
    ‘Hello, Tony,’ he said. ‘This is novel. Haven’t seen you here before.’
    Tony . No one, in the six long months I’d known him, had so much as dared to call him Anthony. For a split second I assumed there was great friendship between this Fittes supervisor and Lockwood; then I realized it was the other thing.
    Lockwood was smiling too, but not in a way I’d ever seen before. It was somehow wolf-like. Deep creases hid his eyes. ‘Quill Kipps,’ he said. ‘How’s life treating you?’
    ‘Busy. Very busy. What about you, Tony? You look rough, if you don’t mind me saying.’
    ‘Oh, it’s nothing serious. Just a few knocks. Can’t complain.’
    ‘Yes, I imagine you haven’t got time for that,’ the young man said, ‘what with all the other people complaining about you . . .’ He was very slightly built, almost bird-like in his delicacy of form. He probably weighed less than I did. He had a small, rather upturned nose, a narrow freckled face, and auburn hair cropped severely short. He had four or fivemedals pinned to the breast of his jacket, and in the pommel of his rapier was a glittering green stone. Not that he could use the sword much these days. I guessed he was about twenty, so his days of active service were behind him. His Talent had mostly shrivelled up and gone. Like my old leader, Jacobs, and all the other useless supervisors choking the industry, all he could do now was boss the kids around.
    Lockwood didn’t seem overly perturbed by the jibe. ‘Well, you know,’ he said, ‘these things happen. So . . . what are you researching?’
    ‘Cluster of ghosts in a road tunnel near Moorgate. Trying to figure out what they are.’ He eyed our open files. ‘I see you’re looking into something too.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘ Richmond Examiner . . . Oh, I see. The notorious Sheen Road case. Of course, here at Fittes, we tend to do our research before we take on a Visitor. We’re not completely stupid, you know.’
    The boy at his side, a tall and gangling youth with a large, big-boned head and a thatch of mousy hair, laughed dutifully. The girl didn’t respond. Humour – even the snide and easy sort that she was meant to side with – didn’t seem her thing. Her chin was small and slightly pointy. Her blonde hair had been cut short at the back, but she had a sharp flick angled across her forehead; its tip almost reached her eye. I thought her striking, in a hard and plastic sort of way.
    She gazed at me. ‘Who’s this?’
    ‘New assistant,’ Lockwood said. ‘Well, newish.’
    I held out a hand to the girl. ‘Lucy Carlyle. And you are . . .?’
    The girl gave a little laugh and looked away up the aisle as if there were a crisp packet or something lying there that she found more interesting than me.
    ‘You ought to watch out being with Tony, sweetheart,’ Quill Kipps said. ‘His last assistant came to a nasty end.’
    I smiled blandly. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.’
    ‘Yeah, but bad things happen to people he’s close to. It’s always been that way. Since he was ever so young.’
    He tried to make it sound casual, but his tone betrayed him. There was a catch in his voice that I didn’t understand. I glanced across at Lockwood. The way he stood was different. His studious unconcern had stiffened, become something harder and less pliable. I knew he was about to say something, but before he could speak, George stirred.
    ‘I’ve been hearing things about you too, Quill,’ he said. ‘That young lad you sent into the Southwark catacombs alone, while you “waited for reinforcements” at the door. What became of that kid, Quill? Or haven’t they found him yet?’
    Kipps frowned. ‘Who told you that? That wasn’t the way it happened—’
    ‘And that client who got ghost-touched because your agents left an arm-bone in his bin.’
    The man flushed. ‘That was a mistake! They threw away the wrong bag—’
    ‘Plus you