The Screaming Staircase

by Jonathan Stroud

  George was at my shoulder. “Looks like the living room,” I said.

  He nodded cheerily. “Yeah. It’s where they found the victim’s feet. In a fruit bowl on the coffee table, apparently.”

  “Lovely.” I put my fingers on the surface of the glass. Sometimes, even outside, even with the sun still in the sky, you get stuff. I listened. Anything? No. Only the blackbird singing. The house was just a house.

  Given that the place had been abandoned for so many years, the key turned with surprising, almost ominous ease. Lockwood was the first to enter, then the others filed in slowly. I stayed behind to tend to my backpack. Holly knew about the existence of the skull, but Kipps didn’t. I wanted a quiet word with it.

  I flicked the valve at the top of the jar. “Heads up, skull, we’re here. I’m bringing you inside.”

  “For what? Get your living friends to help you. I’m having none of it.”

  I rolled my eyes; the ghost had been sulking all day, ever since I’d come back from my meeting at Fittes House. His outrage at my agreement with Lockwood knew no bounds. I hefted the backpack in my arms. “Just tell me if you sense anything.”

  “No. Why am I always stuck in this bag? I’m sick of it. Let me out.”

  “I can’t right now. If I get a chance, I will.”

  “You’re embarrassed about me, that’s what it is.”

  “Embarrassed? About an evil, moldy skull?” I glared into the jar; sure enough, the face in the glass wore a hurt and haughty look. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. You’re a Type Three ghost,” I said, “and that makes you rare. If it got out that I could talk to you, neither of us would hear the end of it. I don’t want Kipps to know. Keep watch, and I’ll check in with you later. We’re going in, so stop moaning.”

  “What kind of way is that to talk to a valued partner? I ought to—” The voice broke off; I had stepped through into the quiet house. “Ooh…”

  I stared down at the ghost. The face had frozen the moment it crossed the threshold. A single translucent muscle in its cheek twitched. Its eyes were saucers of dismay.

  “Ooh, what?”

  The eyes blinked twice; the face was animated once again. It glared at me. “Nothing. For a moment, I thought I felt…But hey, I was wrong, as us evil, moldy skulls so often are. Forget about it.”

  The tone of the voice was unconvincing. I would have questioned the ghost further, but I saw Kipps coming back along the hall. I closed the backpack and swung it over my shoulder. Then I took a deep breath, and absorbed my first impressions of the house.

  I was in a narrow hallway, with a staircase running up its left-hand side. As in the living room, the carpet was a worn and faded yellow color, the walls decorated with an old-fashioned and revolting pattern of cream-and-brown squares. At the end of the hall, a door of plate-glass panels opened onto the kitchen, where Lockwood and Holly were laying out a second circle of iron chains. There were two other doors; one which (as I knew from George’s floor plans) led to the basement, and one to the living room. The place had a smell of dust and dampness, but nothing worse. Whatever the skull may have noticed, my inner senses detected nothing.

  “Grim old hall,” I said. George was going past with a heavy bag.

  “Yeah. They found the thigh bones here, propped in an umbrella stand. We’re getting everything set up. Feel like helping out, or is that not in your freelance contract?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, then snapped it shut. It was a fair point. I went to get my bags, and set to work.

  It had to be said, we did everything by the book. Within minutes of our arrival, all our defenses were in position. We had an iron circle in the kitchen, and another on the landing, both amply supplied with salt and iron. We had candles burning in every room, and snuff-lights on the stairs. We did it efficiently and well. Kipps didn’t gripe too much, and Holly Munro seemed more comfortable with fieldwork than when last I’d seen her. For my part, I discovered that working alongside the others was easier than talking with them, and I soon fell back into the old routines. Lockwood and I didn’t say a great deal. That was fine. He wanted me for my Talent, not my conversation.

  When all was ready, and with the daylight shrinking, we made our separate ways around the building, quietly taking readings and letting the atmosphere of the house sink in. The one exception was Kipps, who sat cross-legged in the kitchen, drinking hot chocolate and reading a newspaper. He didn’t have sufficient Talents to do any psychic exploration.

  The first thing to be said is that the Guppy house was small. The ground floor had four rooms—the hall and living room, the dining room and kitchen—while upstairs there was a long, thin landing, with two bedrooms at opposite ends and a bathroom in between. Under the stairs, a steep flight of brick steps led down to a concrete-floored basement. The attic, unfinished, contained nothing. The house was of relatively modern construction, with paper-thin walls and double-glazed windows. All of the furniture had been taken away, the walls stripped of decoration. It held no obvious secrets, and psychically was very quiet. George popped up in every room like a sinister real estate agent, giving macabre tidbits of information about what body parts had been found there, but even with such details, the place was curiously blank.

  Despite the history of the place, it was hard not to feel confident as we imposed ourselves upon it. There were five of us, fully armed, in a building of nine rooms. We kept bumping into each other as we went up and down the stairs. None of us was ever more than a few seconds’ scamper from anyone else, or from one of the two circles. It was all fairly reassuring.

  But the daylight had not yet left us.

  The kitchen interested me. It seemed a likely focus for supernatural energies, given what had happened there. I stood in it for a long while, listening, looking at the old-style décor, at the stained Formica countertops with their mustard-colored cabinets below. A metal sink, dark and stained, sat on narrow legs beneath the wide window. The walls were papered with brown-and-orange flowers, the floor laid with brown linoleum. You could see where it had been pried up, when investigators looked for evidence long ago. A pantry closet in one corner had been emptied, its shelves stained with rings from cans and jars.

  Three doors led out: to the hall, to the garden, and to the dining room, a small square space connected only to the kitchen.

  I concentrated. So many little sounds. Kipps rustling his newspaper; Holly going down into the basement; Lockwood moving around upstairs. And I also sensed other, furtive noises, not tied to anything physical, time-locked, out of place.

  “You hear that?” I asked.

  Kipps was in the iron circle, sitting back against a sack of salt. He shook his head.

  That was the thing about Listening. So often, even when in the company of others, you were on your own. I was used to that. I was a solo operator now. I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds that shouldn’t have been there.

  “See you’re back again,” Kipps said suddenly. “Couldn’t keep away.”

  I opened my eyes and glared at him. “I’m not ‘back,’ as you call it. I’m just helping Lockwood out today.”

  “And the difference is…?”

  “She’s getting paid more.” A shadow at the hall door. George looked in. “If you’ve finished your survey, Lockwood wants us to meet in the living room.”

  “Okay,” I said. George disappeared; I could hear him in the hall, calling for Holly. “Yes, I’m freelance now,” I went on. “Thing is, Kipps, I prefer the freedom it gives me—working wherever I want, with whomever I want. Not being tied down. It’s a better life somehow—nobler, simpler….” I gave him a noble, simple smile.

  “Is that what it is?” Kipps shrugged. “I thought you’d basically just hoofed it when Holly Munro showed up. Still, what do I know? Think this circle’s secure enough? Do we need an extra chain?”

  “Yes, it is, and no, we don’t. I’m going to the living room.” I made for the door. I’d given up on the survey: it was too early, and I suddenly w
asn’t in the mood.

  Outside the big front window the light was almost gone; the laurel hedge by the street was a jet-black bar, a formless mass rearing up to surround us. The brown stripes in the wallpaper had deepened, too. In the flickering light of our candles, they seemed solid, as if we were standing inside a cage. Lockwood and George were there, speaking in soft undertones. They nodded at Kipps and me as we came in.

  “Good,” Lockwood said. “Time to get everyone’s thoughts. Where’s Holly?”

  “Down in the basement, I think,” I said.

  “I called for her loud enough,” George said. He went out.

  “How are you doing, Kipps?” Lockwood asked. “Can’t be easy for you, being here.”

  Quill Kipps shrugged his bony shoulders. “I’ll just stick close to the chains. It’s not normally what a supervisor has to put up with, but I’m used to it. I don’t think Penelope Fittes likes me much; ever since we teamed up on that Aickmere’s job, I’ve been given low-quality assignments, like the Rotherhithe sewage works, the Dagenham slaughterhouse case, and now hanging out with you.”

  “I thought you got a promotion after Aickmere’s,” Lockwood said.

  “They had to give me that, because it was such a public success, but they don’t trust me now. I showed a little too much independence. Anyway, what do you care?”

  The door opened; Holly and George came in. “Sorry,” Holly said. “Have you been calling?”

  “It’s not a problem.” Lockwood produced a packet of biscuits; he handed them around. “Well, we’ve done our first tour. What are your thoughts?”

  To my surprise, Holly had taken a biscuit. “A horrible place.”

  I nodded. “It’s as we expected. No room is entirely free of psychic repercussions. Very faint so far, but everything makes me feel queasy.”

  “That could be the decor as much as anything,” Lockwood said. “It’s like all the brown paint in London’s been used up here. Any sounds yet, Lucy? That’s what it’s famous for.”

  “Stirrings, but nothing clear. Wait till it gets dark, then I’ll tell you.”

  “Meantime, I took temp readings throughout,” George said. “The coldest places are the basement—particularly one spot near the bottom of the stairs—and the kitchen. Again, that’s what you’d expect—those rooms are where forensics found most of the bloodstains, plus a few tasty scraps our friend Guppy didn’t get around to sampling.”

  “Don’t,” Holly said.

  “Otherwise,” George went on, “no spectral stuff yet. I thought I saw a skeleton in the kitchen, but it turned out to be Kipps.”

  Kipps rolled his eyes. “Oh, stop it, George. Has anyone got any bandages? I’ve just split my sides laughing.”

  “Sorry, are observers allowed to talk?” George said. “Don’t you have to save it for when you go scurrying back to Fittes?”

  “Okay, okay,” Lockwood said. “That’s enough of that. Kipps?”

  “It’s a bad place. But we knew that already.”

  “What about you, Holly? Anything?”

  She looked uncomfortable. “I keep thinking I’m being watched. Like there’s something behind me.”

  “I get that feeling, too,” I said. “When’s it worst for you?”

  “I don’t like having my back to the center of the room. Any room.”

  “Well, the death-glow’s in the basement,” Lockwood said. “That’s where the killing happened. Guppy must have lured the guy downstairs. Some of us should probably concentrate our efforts there. I’m thinking that we need to station ourselves in several rooms, and rotate the watch occasionally. Lucy, what would work for you?”

  “I’ll need to keep moving, follow anything I hear.”

  “Okay, that’s fine. First, though, I’ve something to show you all. Come with me.”

  He led us out into the hall. Now that dusk was here, the lantern on the porch was properly visible through the glass panels in the door. The snuff-lights glimmered on the stairs.

  Lockwood stepped to the middle of the hallway. He pointed to the wallpaper, at waist height, on the right-hand side. “What do you think this is?”

  There was a black scuff on the design, where the sheen of the paper had been worn away in a narrow line. It ran along the corridor, stopping and starting; a faint, thin furrow.

  “Belly mark,” Lockwood said. “He was so wide, his sides rubbed against the wall as he went along. You’ve got it on the other side, too, here. The carpet shows the same worn pattern. His flat-footed weight wore a pale track down the middle.”

  We looked at the lines on the walls. It was a narrow hall, but not that narrow. I imagined the size of the stomach that reached from side to side.

  “And there’s something else.” Lockwood took his flashlight from his belt, switched it on, and moved soundlessly down to the kitchen door. The soft, pale light shone on the panes of dirty glass that made up most of the door. The marks on the panes were hard to decipher at first, being so old, and so large. But then your brain made sense of the pattern, and you realized what they were.

  “Handprints,” Lockwood said. “Greasy handprints, where he used to push the door open. And look at the size of them.” We did so, in silence. He held up his own hand, narrow and long-fingered; the ghostly mark below was twice the width, and longer still.

  Dusk turned to darkness; out in The Leas, a solitary streetlight came on. Inside number 7, each room had its candle or lantern burning. We ate sandwiches, drank tea, and divided up the watch. For the first quarter of the night, Lockwood would take the basement, George the ground floor, and Kipps upstairs. Holly would move between them periodically, checking that each was okay. I would stay mobile, too, following any sounds that might occur. It seemed a good strategy. It was a small house, and we would keep talking to each other. No one would ever get too far away.

  I began in the basement, a cold and hateful place, little more than a square of uneven concrete surrounded by bare brick walls. You could see where investigators had excavated sections of the floor, thirty years ago. Lockwood had taken up position here, wrapped in his long coat and encircled by candles, leaning against the wall. He grinned at me as I left him, and I grinned back. We were both caught up in the thrill of the investigation. It felt easier between us now than at any time that day.

  George was in the dining room, fiddling with some small device that looked like a silver bell suspended from a wire frame. He nodded at me as I joined him but didn’t speak. Both of us just got on with the tasks in hand.

  Curiously enough, Holly Munro had been the most animated of all of us, the least affected by the strained dynamics of the team. She passed me in the hallway later, as I stood there listening. She smiled, offered me a piece of chewing gum, and went on.

  Upstairs, the long landing echoed the hall below. Near the top of the stairs, Kipps stood in the circle of chains, gaunt as a vulture, picked out by a ring of candles. The bedroom behind him was hollowed out pinkly by the gleam of streetlights.

  I listened…from somewhere there came a faint clicking noise that I could not identify.

  Click, click, click…It faded.

  On the way along the landing, I pointed my flashlight into the bathroom. The sink, the bathtub, and the toilet were soft with dust. You could see scuff marks on the floor where agents, including us, had walked in recent days. The toilet bowl was dry and empty, crusted with lime rings. I moved to the bedroom at the end, looked down into the matte-black garden.

  From elsewhere in the house came a thudding noise that made the floorboards jump. It was not repeated. It might have been one of the others; equally it might not. I checked my watch. It was just approaching nine.

  I finished my tour of the bedrooms and came back onto the landing. Kipps was still there, his hand held ready on his rapier, and it occurred to me again how hard it must be for him, waiting there unsighted, deaf, and helpless, his Talent having long ago abandoned him.

  “Nothing yet,” I said.

  “Good. Le
t’s keep it that way.”

  I started down the stairs. Light came from the lantern left burning on the porch; it shone through the glass of the front door and smudged along the hall. I could see the glow of the living room candles showing under the closed door. Snuff-lights flickered on the stairs, but they projected no strong radiance. Halfway down, standing in blackness, I listened, fingers trailing on the paper. I heard the creak of the wooden step as my weight paused on it; I heard Kipps coughing on the landing, a door slamming up the street, George whistling softly in the kitchen.

  All innocuous enough. So why had the hairs on the back of my arms prickled?

  An uneasy thought occurred to me. “Kipps,” I called, “where are you?”

  “Just above you, where you left me.”

  “Lockwood?”

  “On the cellar steps. Is everything okay?”

  “Where’s Holly? Is she there, too?”

  “She’s here, behind me.”

  I looked toward the kitchen, where the gentle whistling still sounded. “George,” I called, “tell me where you are.”

  The living room door opened just below me; a shape poked its head out. “Right here. Taking readings. Why?”

  I didn’t answer, but craned my head over the banister and stared at the kitchen door. It occurred to me that I should have been able to see the lights of the kitchen candles showing through the glass. But the panes were completely black. The whistling noise continued, soft and husky. And now there came a rhythmic chopping, a knife impacting a wooden surface, which told me someone was working in the kitchen.

  None of the others heard anything, neither the tuneless whistling nor the sound of the industrious knife. The skull in my backpack must have sensed the presence, too, of course, but it was still huffy with me. I tried rousing it, but it refused to answer my whispered questions.

  We gathered silently in the hall. Lockwood stood at the door with his ear to a glass pane and his rapier held ready. Even up close, the glass was jet-black: whatever was in there sucked all light into itself and let nothing out again.