The Screaming Staircase

by Jonathan Stroud

  “Thank you. I know. That’s why I came.”

  “You want tea?”

  “Yes, please. In a bit. But I can make it—”

  “Not a chance. Just sit tight.” He rose. “George wears earplugs these days, otherwise his own snores wake him up. Means I’ve got to venture into his room.”

  “If you don’t come back,” I said, “I’ll come looking for you.” I hesitated. “Actually…on second thought, maybe not.”

  He grinned, squeezed my shoulder. With a swish of his bathrobe he was gone. I sat there in the warm kitchen, and whether it was because I’d dropped off, or because Lockwood moved so fast, it seemed only a second later that the door burst open and in came George, pale-faced, pajamas flapping, bustling over with a first aid kit under his arm.

  An unknown while later, I had a mug of tea in front of me and a mound of biscuits close at hand. The first aid kit lay open on the table, along with scattered scraps of cotton and antiseptic pads. George and Lockwood had cleaned and dressed my wound together, and though I thought they’d gone slightly overboard with the bandages—my arm looked like something you might see rising from a mummy’s sarcophagus—I certainly felt a lot better. As they worked, as Lockwood boiled water and George poured cookies onto plates, I told them what had happened. They listened without interrupting. When I finished, we dunked biscuits in silence for a while.

  “That little Harold Mailer,” George said at last. “Incredible. Who’d have guessed?”

  “Bad form to speak ill of the dead, of course,” Lockwood said, “but I always thought he was a ratty little specimen. Laughed too much, too loudly. I never liked him.”

  “Doesn’t mean he deserved to die,” I said.

  “No, of course not….But why did he die? Why did they kill him? Two possibilities: either he was dumb enough to tell them about you, or they sussed out he was going to give you information. Whichever it was, they decided to eliminate the problem.” He looked sharply over at me; I was staring at the table. “I hope you’re not feeling guilty about this, Lucy. It’s in no way your fault. You realize that, don’t you? Mailer chose to get involved with those men. The fact that you challenged him doesn’t make you responsible for his murder.”

  All of which was no doubt true. Still, I couldn’t feel happy about it. “He could have ghost-touched me,” I said quietly. “He was right there beside me, in the churchyard. But he didn’t. He chose to hold back.”

  “Yes, that was good of him,” Lockwood said, after a silence. “Fair enough.”

  “What was that thing he said to you?” George asked. “About the ‘place of blood’? Any idea what that was about?”

  I sighed. “Not a clue. Maybe I misheard. He was babbling a lot of stuff, and it was all pretty messed up. As it would be…under the circumstances.” As it would be when you’ve just been killed, was what I meant. In my mind’s eye I could see that lolling form, sitting abandoned on the bench. No doubt Harold’s body was still there, alone in the dark and cold….

  I tried to concentrate on something else. “Lockwood,” I said, “do you think some of the other attendants at the furnaces are in on this?”

  He shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me if they’re all at it. It’s a big deal, this scam, which is why those guys were so keen to shut you up, too, Luce. Obviously you can’t go home now. They know where you live.”

  I stared at the table, cleared my throat. “I know. I was hoping, maybe, tonight I could crash here…? Just till morning. Then tomorrow—”

  “Oh, not just tonight.” Lockwood got up, went to the fridge. “You can’t go home, period. Not till we’ve found those men and put an end to this. She can stay here for a while, can’t she, George?”

  It was a testament to George that until that instant I’d completely forgotten about the recent difficulties between us. Tending to my injury, listening to my story, he’d displayed nothing but compassion and concern. Now, just for a second, as he looked at me and hesitated, I remembered his anger and the hurt I’d caused him. Then his face cleared. “Absolutely,” he said. “’Course she can.”

  A warm feeling filled me: it was made of tea and biscuits and sudden gratitude. “Thank you.”

  “It’ll make a nice change from Holly staying over,” George said. “I always feel like I have to clean the bathtub after me when she’s around, in case I’ve left hairs in it, or a ring of dirt or something. But it’s different with old Luce. Old Luce doesn’t mind.”

  Lockwood had produced a plastic jug and was taking out glasses. “You fret too much about Holly, George. She didn’t complain last night, did she? You want some orange juice, Lucy? It’s your favorite: the kind with pulp.”

  “Lucy doesn’t like orange juice with pulp,” George said. “Remember?”

  “Oh, yes, that’s right. It gets caught between your teeth, doesn’t it?”

  I was staring at him. My warm feeling had partially retreated. “I’ll take the juice. So Holly stayed over last night?”

  “Personally, I’ve always thought straining it through your teeth is part of the fun,” Lockwood said. “You can pretend you’re a blue whale.” He caught my look. “What?”

  “Holly. She’s staying over now?”

  “Oh, not always. Depends how the night turns out. Waffles, George?”

  “Please. I am hungry.”

  “Luce?”

  “Yes…okay, I’d like some waffles. How often is she staying over?”

  Lockwood flicked the toaster on. “I don’t know that it’s really something for a freelancer like you to worry about. She’s not using your old room, if that’s what’s bothering you.” He whistled tunelessly as he poured himself some juice.

  “She’s not? So where—?”

  “I keep most of my clothes up there now,” George said. “My room’s so full of books and experiments, it can’t even hold my tightest shorts. Your attic does nicely. Otherwise we’ve left it just how it was when you went. You can sleep in it tonight, if you like.”

  “Thanks…that’s kind of you.”

  “Sure. I’ll try not to wake you when I nip up there to get dressed in the morning.”

  For a few minutes after that, food occupied center stage. Waffles were made, and orange juice drunk (strained or unstrained). I stared around at the kitchen. It was very spic-and-span. That was Holly’s continuing influence; in my day, she’d run the house like a military operation. The only new thing I noticed was a bulletin board that had been hung on the cupboard next to the office stairs. On it was a map of southeast England, with London at the center, showing all the nearby counties. Colored pins radiated out in concentric ovals from a central point southeast of the city. I stared at it blankly. The precision and detail of the effort had the hallmarks of George.

  At last Lockwood pushed his plate away. “So let’s think about this,” he said. “The implications of what you’ve told us, Luce, are huge. DEPRAC is assuming that all the Sources taken to the furnaces are being destroyed. Some of them—maybe the whole lot, for all we know—are instead being saved and funneled into the black market. Incredibly dangerous items are being dispersed that way. Take the jar of teeth from Guppy’s house, for instance. We thought that it got safely burned that the other night—but did it? We just don’t know.”

  I shuddered. The thought of the cannibal’s spirit being unleashed again was frightful. “Who took it, at the furnaces?” I asked. “Was it Mailer?”

  “No,” Lockwood said. “Fellow named Christie. Seemed honest enough, but who can tell?”

  “It would be a blow if that case started up again,” George said. “You won’t have heard, Luce, but Penelope Fittes was quite pleased about our efforts in Ealing. She wants to meet us again. I reckon she’s got another job planned, but Lockwood thinks it might be a medal.”

  “Why not both?” Lockwood grinned at me. “Well, if she’s pleased with that, just think how delighted she’ll be when we crack this black market ring. It’s our old friends the Winkmans, of course. They’re at
the heart of it, for sure.”

  “Hold it. When you say we ‘crack’ it,” George said, “what exactly are you getting at? It’s not our concern. The obvious thing is to tell Inspector Barnes.”

  “We could, I suppose.” Lockwood spoke in an exaggeratedly bored voice. “If we want DEPRAC to mess it up. Or take credit. Or both.”

  That was my cue. I’d been hoping to say something for a while, but hadn’t been sure how to begin. Lockwood’s evident interest gave me my chance. “I met with Flo the other day,” I said. “She said there’s a new collector in town, someone who pays really well for the best Sources. The Winkmans are pulling out all the stops to fulfill this guy’s needs. Flo said there are big night-markets, where transactions take place with the relic-men. And I know Mailer’s stuff ended up at those markets, because that mummified head I told you about was there.”

  I paused, took in their reactions. Lockwood nodded, smiling just a little. I knew he was surfing the same thought. George, expressionless, watched me closely.

  “So I was sort of wondering,” I went on, casually, “whether I might drop in on the next meeting. See if I can find out how the operation works, who the collector is, you know.”

  Lockwood rubbed his chin; there was a faraway light in his eyes. “Flo’s the contact,” he said. “She might be able to wangle something for you, get you inside. Risky game, though, Luce.”

  “I’ll say it’s risky,” George agreed. “Those gangsters have already tried to kill you. You’d be handing yourself to them on a platter.”

  I shrugged. “I guess that’s true, yeah.”

  “Plus, relic-men hate outsiders. They’re notoriously violent to anyone who pokes his nose into their business.”

  “I’ve heard that, too.”

  “And don’t forget the Winkmans,” George went on. “Leopold and Adelaide have personally vowed to tear us limb from limb. It would be a complete hornet’s nest of danger.”

  “Yep, it’s a dumb plan, Luce,” Lockwood said. He stretched back in his chair. “Suicidal, even. If you did it on your own.”

  He smiled at me.

  The warm feeling was back; when I surfaced from it, I noticed George had taken off his glasses and was rubbing them with a corner of his pajama top. It may have been a fairly agitated kind of rub, but I didn’t look too closely, as in doing so he’d accidentally revealed a too-pink portion of his stomach. “There’s no way, Lockwood,” he was saying. “It can’t be done.”

  Lockwood was staring at the ceiling, his hands behind his head. “Oh, there’s bound to be a way….We just haven’t dreamed it up yet.”

  I spoke in a small voice. “We—I—don’t mean for us to do anything stupid,” I said. “It’s just—” I hesitated. “The thing is, what I really want is—”

  “I know exactly what you want,” George said. “You want the skull.”

  I gazed at him.

  “Go on, admit it. That’s what’s driving you. You want it back. You miss it. The Winkman thing is strictly secondary.”

  “Well, I don’t exactly miss it.” I gave a light laugh. “I mean, it’s not like I need it to talk to, or anything. But yeah, I want it back. It’s important to me.”

  “That foul old skull?”

  “Yes.”

  “With all its horrid habits?” George scratched his belly button wonderingly with the frames of his glasses, then set them back on his nose. “Extraordinary.”

  “You know how unique that ghost is,” I said. “Other spirits communicate, but only in fragments, snatches of words. The skull is different, and I—I don’t want to lose that connection. If possible, I’d like to find a way….I could try it on my own, of course, but if Lockwood and Company would be prepared to help me, I’d be very grateful….As to that, it’s up to you.”

  We sat there. For a minute or two, no one said anything.

  “George,” Lockwood said, “how many cases have we currently got?”

  “A few. Hol will know how many. And there’s a possible new client coming to see us this morning. You remember, the one from out of town. Which reminds me, we should really get some sleep.”

  Lockwood nodded slowly. “Well, Luce, we could look into this for you. Not just for the skull’s sake, though I see that it’s important. As far as I’m concerned, it would be because of what those men tried to do to you.” He took a bite of waffle. “But, technically speaking, that would make you our client rather than our colleague. Would you be okay with that?”

  He had that look that I knew so well: a kind of shining, as if the spark of adventure had been ignited within him. George was shaking his head and huffing mightily, but I saw the electricity in his eyes, too. It was strange: as a client, as someone firmly in their debt, things felt easier between us than they had since the day I’d left.

  “I’m okay with that,” I said, and I meant it. “Thank you, Lockwood. Thank you, George. And…and if we’re talking about payment…”

  Lockwood raised a hand. “We’re not. Good. That’s settled, then. Now, if you can remember your way upstairs, we all need to get to bed.”

  My sleep that morning was as deep as death; and, on waking, I experienced complete disorientation. Surfacing like a free diver who had stayed below too long, I found myself staring at the sunlit beams of my sweet old attic bedroom. I sat up and looked around me, and for those few short moments I was still working at Lockwood & Co. and the events of the last months were nothing more than a twisted, fading dream. Then I noticed some of George’s socks draped like weary snakes over the windowsill, and piles of his garments rising like sinister gravestones at the bottom of the bed, and the world tipped back again.

  I took an awkward shower in the tiny bathroom wedged beneath the eaves, keeping my bandaged arm outside the curtain. Then I got dressed. The bright spot here was that I had fresh clothes. Upon opening my door, I’d found a neat arrangement of folded items waiting on the landing step. They were all mine, things I must have left behind in my rush to leave four months before. Someone—Holly, I supposed—had washed and ironed them in the meantime. I took them in and sorted through. In the end I had to wear the same skirt, but the rest was clean, which made me feel much more presentable.

  My body seemed light, strange and bloodless, as if I were recovering from a fever. Moving slowly, I went down to the second floor landing. The walls were still decorated with odd items of bone, shell, and feather: the ghost-catchers and other Eastern curios brought back to England by Lockwood’s vanished parents many years before. And there, closed as ever, was the door to Lockwood’s sister’s room, the place where she’d died. In short, everything was as it always had been—but it was as if I were seeing it for the first time. Forbidden rooms, unhappy memories…How close the past was in this house, how tightly it ringed poor Lockwood.

  Voices were coming from the living room below. It was mid-morning; the client meeting they’d mentioned must be in progress. I would not disturb them. I slipped downstairs and sneaked toward the kitchen.

  There’s a particular creaky floorboard near the foot of the stairs. A man had once died on that spot, and George claimed the noise (which he swore had only started after the death) was an example of an ultra-low-level haunting. Me, I thought it was just a creaky floorboard. Either way, I stepped on it as I went by.

  The living room door was slightly ajar. At the sound, the voices stopped.

  “Is that you, Lucy?” Lockwood called. “Come on in and join us! We’ve got cake.”

  Slightly reluctantly, I poked my head into the room. There they were, lit by diagonal shafts of sunlight—Lockwood and George, sitting by the coffee table, plus Holly, plus a kid I didn’t know. There was a splendid checkerboard cake on the table, frosted with sugar, as pink and yellow as a cubist dawn. They were doing the client-welcome thing. Holly was in the process of pouring tea.

  George glanced up. “Look, another of our clients! Got them coming out of our ears today. Check under the sofa! There’s probably more hiding behind the curtains.�
��

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you all. Hi, Holly.”

  Holly had quit pouring and was gazing at me with evident concern. In the old days I’d have bristled at her attention, suspecting it of being patronizing and insincere. Now it didn’t really bother me; I was even glad of it, in a way. “Lucy,” she said, “I’m so pleased you’re all right.” She frowned. “What have they done to your poor arm?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s just a graze.”

  “I’m talking about the bandages. That’s simply the most incompetent bit of first aid I’ve ever seen. Lockwood, George—how much dressing did you use? I’m surprised Lucy could fit it through the door.”

  Lockwood looked hurt. “It was a pretty decent effort for two a.m. We thought it was better to be safe than sorry—we didn’t want to find random bits of her lying about the house when we got up this morning. Maybe you can fix it later. Lucy, you’re just in time. Come and sit down. This is Danny Skinner. He’s come for our advice.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But listen, I’m good. I don’t want to butt in. I’ll see you when you’re done.”

  “No, we could do with your wisdom.” He grinned. “As long as you don’t charge us for your time. Holly, more tea. George, another slice of cake. Then we can get started.”

  Well, what was I going to do otherwise? Sit in the kitchen by my lonesome, staring at George’s map for an hour? And that cake did look good—better than a burger or Thai noodles, which is what I usually had for breakfast. So it was only with a minor hesitation that I drifted in, took up position in my old, familiar seat, and had my first real look at Lockwood & Co.’s second client that morning.

  From the first there was one particular thing that made him stand out. It wasn’t his disheveled appearance, his muddied, tattered clothes, or even the rat-a-tat trail of ectoplasm burns that ran across his coat like a frozen burst of gunfire. It wasn’t the way he sat bolt upright, either, his eyes blank orbs filled with remembered horror, agitatedly rubbing the swollen knuckles of his left hand. We got stuff like that every day of the week. It wasn’t even the lucid manner in which he spoke, spelling out the horrors inflicted on his community. No, it was none of those things that made us sit up and take notice.