Lockwood (36 page)

‘Come in nice and tight,’ she whispered. ‘That’s it . . . We don’t want them to notice nothing.’

‘Everything on schedule, Flo?’ Lockwood asked. He checked his watch. ‘It’s just gone half past eleven.’

Her white teeth glinted in the shadows. ‘Yeah, Winkman arrived fifteen minutes back. Came in a van, and unloaded the merchandise. He’s left two men outside the main doors – you’d have run into them if you’d walked a few more yards. Now he’s gone inside with three other men, and a kid. They’ll be securing the ground floor.’

‘A kid?’ I whispered. ‘You mean his son?’

Flo nodded. ‘Yeah, it was that toad. They’ll all bring psychic kids with them tonight. They’re adults, ain’t they? For this, they need young eyes and ears.’ She straightened. ‘If you’re going ahead with it, Locky, you’ll need to start climbing.’

‘Show us the place, then, Flo.’

We followed as she flitted away along the side of the warehouse. Soon we heard the soft wash and sloop of the Thames, and the cobbles of the alley sloped steeply down to sand and shingle. Here, where the corner of the building rose from the river mud, a thick black iron drainpipe had been bolted to the mossy bricks. Flo pointed upwards. ‘There’s the pipe,’ she said. ‘See where it runs past that window? I reckon you could get in there.’

‘That window looks too small,’ I said.

‘You’re looking at the wrong one. I mean the one much further up, almost out of sight.’

‘Oh . . . right.’

‘It’s the way to get in if you don’t want ’em seeing you. They won’t be thinking of upstairs.’

I looked at the teetering drainpipe, zigzagging madly up the wall like a line drawn by an angry toddler. To be honest, I was trying not to think of upstairs, either.

‘Fine,’ Lockwood said. ‘We’ll manage. What about you, Flo? You’ve got the boat?’

In response she pointed out onto the river, where a long, low black shape listed half in and half out of the water. Waves sloshed gently over the stern.

George leaned close. ‘That’s her rowing boat?’ he breathed. ‘I thought it was a bit of rotten driftwood.’

‘It’s almost certainly both.’

I’d kept my voice down too, but Flo had sharp ears. ‘What’s that? This here’s little
Matilda
; I’ve sculled her safely from Brentford Sewage Works to Dagenham Tannery, and I won’t hear a word said against her.’

Lockwood patted her shoulder, then surreptitiously wiped his hand on the back of his coat. ‘Quite right. It’ll be an honour to sail in her. George, you understand the plan? You create the diversion, then wait with Flo in
Matilda
. If all goes well, we’ll join you, or at least get you the mirror. If things don’t work out so smoothly, it’s Plan H: we make our ways separately back home.’

George nodded. ‘Good luck. You too, Luce. Lockwood, here’s your stuff. You’ll need the masks and bag.’

Setting his rucksack down on the sand, he brought out a hempen bag, similar to but smaller than the one Flo used. A powerful odour of lavender came from it. Two black balaclavas emerged next; we tucked them in our belts.

‘Right,’ Lockwood said. ‘Set your watches. The auction starts in fifteen minutes, at twelve sharp. We’ll want the diversion at twenty past, before they have a chance to do any kind of deal.’ He gestured to the pipe. ‘Lucy, you want to go first, or shall I?’

‘This time,’ I said, ‘I’m
definitely
going after you.’

It would be nice to say that climbing the drainpipe brought back happy memories from a country childhood, of spending warm summers swarming up trees in the company of other nimble friends. Unfortunately, since I never had a head for heights, the tallest thing I’d ever scaled was a climbing frame in the village playground, and I once barked my shin tumbling off
that
. So the next few minutes, as I inched my way tortuously after Lockwood, were not the happiest of my career. The iron pipe was broad enough for me to lock my arms right round it, and the circular clasps that fixed it to the wall made decent hand- and footholds. In many ways it was like scaling a ladder. But it was rusty too, and its flaking paint was prone to stabbing my palms, or coming away altogether in sudden shards. A strong wind was blowing up the Thames, whipping my hair into my face, and making the pipe shudder. And it was very high. I once made the mistake of looking down, where I saw Flo wading out to her little floating wreck, and George still standing by his rucksack, staring up at me. They were as small as ants, and it made my hands sweat and my stomach feel as if it was already dropping; so I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes tight shut as I climbed, and didn’t open them again until the top of my head collided with the heels of Lockwood’s boots.

He was leaning out above the dreadful drop, prying and tapping with his penknife at a pane of glass in the window at our side. The lead was old and soft, and soon the pane fell inwards. Lockwood reached in; he fiddled with the metal clasp, cursing at its stiffness. With a final wrench, which made something in the pipe rattle alarmingly, the window swung open. A leap, a shimmy – and Lockwood was through; a moment later he was stretching out to help me inside.

We stood in the shadows for a moment, taking sips of water, and in my case waiting for my arms and legs to stop shaking. There was a dusty smell in the building; not derelict, like the Bickerstaff house, but mothbally and unused.

‘Time, Luce?’

‘Five minutes to twelve.’

‘I’d call that perfect, wouldn’t you? And George will be well on his way to his position now, so long as he hasn’t sunk.’

I switched on my pen-torch and trained it across the empty room. Once, perhaps, it had been a manager’s office. Old notice boards with charts and figures hung silent on the walls. ‘When this is over,’ I said, ‘I think you need to have a word with George.’

Lockwood was at the door, peering out into the passage. ‘What for? He’s fine.’

‘I think he’s feeling left out. It’s always us that does this kind of job, isn’t it, while he has to hang around outside.’

‘We’ve all got our talents,’ Lockwood said, ‘and George is simply less good at this stuff than you are. Can you imagine him climbing up here? That doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a vital role today. If he and Flo mess up their timing, if their boat capsizes, or they don’t find the right windows or something, you and I are quite possibly going to die.’ He paused. ‘You know, this conversation’s making me slightly nervous. Come on, we need to find our way downstairs.’

This floor of the warehouse was a maze of office rooms and connecting passages; it took us longer than expected to discover the brick stairwell in the corner of the building. Time was against us now, but still we went carefully, stopping and listening at every corner. I counted the floors as we went, so as to be able to retrace our steps back to our open window. We’d gone down six full flights before we saw a faint glow extending up the bricks, heard the murmur of voices, and knew we were drawing close to the site of Winkman’s auction.

‘First things first,’ Lockwood whispered. ‘Masks on.’

The balaclavas were essential to protect our identities from the future attentions of a vengeful Winkman. They were hot, itchy, and hard to see out of, plus the wool covered our mouths and made it difficult to speak. Aside from that, it was a joy to wear them.

Pushing open a glass door, we found ourselves on a fenced walkway overlooking an enormous space. It was the cavernous heart of the warehouse and probably stretched the entire length of the floor, though it was impossible to determine its dimensions. Only one small area was properly lit, and that was directly below us. Lockwood and I ducked low; we slunk forwards to the walkway edge to get a better view. From where we knelt, a steep row of metal steps led down to the warehouse floor. We were fairly safe for the moment, for no one within the light would easily be able to see out into the dark.

Winkman, it seemed, liked to keep things on schedule. We had arrived at precisely three minutes past midnight and the auction was already in progress.

Three tall lamps on metal stands had been set up at one end of the hall. They were positioned as if at the points of a triangle, and the area they lit functioned like a stage. Just on the edge was a row of six chairs facing the light. Three were occupied by adults, and three by children. Behind them, in the shadows, two largish, serious-looking men stood like ugly statues, staring out at nothing.

Two chairs had also been placed in the spot-lit space between the lamps, and one of these was occupied by the boy from the antiques shop. He wore a smart grey jacket, and his oiled hair shone softly in the lamplight. He swung his fat little legs back and forth beneath the chair in a bored sort of way as he listened to his father.

Julius Winkman stood in the centre of the stage.

Tonight, the black marketeer wore a wide-breasted grey suit and white shirt, open at the collar. Beside him was a long folding table, draped with a clean black cloth. With a hairy hand he made a delicate adjustment to the little golden pince-nez on his nose as he indicated the silver-glass display box beside him.

‘This first lot, friends,’ he said, ‘is a very pretty fancy. Gentleman’s cigarette case, platinum, early twentieth century. Carried by Brigadier Horace Snell in his breast pocket the night he was shot dead by his rival in matters of the heart, Sergeant Bill Carruthers. Date: October 1913. Blood traces still present. Still contains a psychic charge from the event, I believe. Leopold can tell us more.’

At once the son spoke up. ‘Strong psychic residue: gunshot echoes and screams upon Touching. No Visitor contained. Risk level: low.’ He slumped back in the chair; his legs resumed their swinging.

‘There you are, then,’ Winkman said. ‘Little sweetener before the main event. Do I hear any interest? Starting bids, three hundred pounds.’

From our position high above, it was impossible to see the contents of the little box, but there were two other cases on the table. The first, a tall rectangular glass cabinet, contained a rusted sword – and a ghost: even under the spotlights, I could see the eerie bluish glow, the soft tug and pull of moving plasm. The second, a much smaller case, held what looked like a pottery statue or icon, shaped like some four-legged beast. This too had a glimmer of other-light about it, faintly visible beneath the constraining glass.

Neither of these were what I was interested in, because to Winkman’s
other
side was a small table, standing separate and alone, where the light from the three lanterns intersected. It was very bright, the focus of the entire room. A heavy black cloth covered the glass case on the table. Piled on the floor below it were heaps of iron chains, and rings of salt and iron filings in ostentatious protective display.

To my ears came a familiar hateful sound: the whirring buzz of flies.

I nudged Lockwood and pointed. He gave the briefest of nods.

There had been progress in the auction. One of the customers, a neat, prim-looking man in a pinstriped suit, had consulted with the small girl sitting next to him, and put in a bid. A second member of the audience, a bearded man in a rather shapeless raincoat, had topped that instantly, and the bids were now seesawing between them. The third of Winkman’s three clients had remained entirely unmoved. He sat half turned away, negligently toying with the polished black walking cane he held. He was a young, slim man with a blond moustache and curly yellow hair. Sometimes he glanced at the glowing cases, and bent to ask questions of the boy at his side; but most often he stared at the black cloth on the table in the centre of the room.

Something about the young man was familiar. Lockwood had been gazing at him too. He leaned close and mumbled something.

I bent closer. ‘What?’ I breathed. ‘I can’t make out what you’re saying.’

He rolled up the bottom of his mask. ‘Where did George get these things? Surely he could afford one with a mouth hole . . . I said: that man nearest us – he was at the Fittes party. We saw him talking to Penelope Fittes, remember?’

Yes, I remembered him, glimpsed across the crowded room. The black tie at his neck could just be seen beneath his elegant brown coat.

‘Winkman’s clients must come from high society,’ Lockwood whispered. ‘Wonder who he is . . .’

The first lot of the auction had been completed. The cigarette case had gone to the pinstriped man. Beaming and nodding, Winkman moved to the cabinet with the rusted sword, but before he could speak, the young blond man had raised a hand. He wore light brown gloves, clearly made of lambskin, or the hide of something else small and cute and dead. ‘The main event, please, Mr Winkman. You know why we’ve come.’

‘So soon?’ Winkman seemed dismayed. ‘This is a genuine Crusader blade, a French
estoc
, which we believe contains an actual ancient Spectre or a Wraith, perhaps of one of the very Saracens it slew. Its rareness –’

‘– does not interest me this evening,’ the young man said. ‘I have several similar pieces. Show us the mirror we’ve heard so much about, and let us move things along – unless the other gentlemen disagree?’

He glanced across. The bearded man nodded; the man in the pinstripes gave a curt wave of approval.

‘You see, Winkman?’ the young man said. ‘Come! Show us the prize.’

The smile on Julius Winkman’s face did not alter, but it seemed to me that his eyes had narrowed behind the flashing pince-nez. ‘Certainly, certainly! Always you speak your mind openly and honestly, my lord, which is why we so value your custom. Here, then!’ He swung his bulk across to the separate table, took hold of the black cloth. ‘May I present that unparalleled item, that extreme rarity that has so exercised the men at DEPRAC these past few days – friends, the bone glass of Edmund Bickerstaff!’

He pulled the cloth away.

We had been so long in the pursuit of this object that it had acquired in my mind an almost mythic weight and dread. This was the thing that had slain poor Wilberforce, that had struck a relic-thief dead before he even left the cemetery, and killed one of Winkman’s men. This was the glass that everyone wanted – Barnes, Kipps, Joplin, Lockwood, George and I. People had murdered for it; people had died for it. It promised something strange and terrible. I had only caught a flash of it in Bickerstaff’s coffin, but that shiny, crawling blackness remained imprinted on my mind. And now, finally, here it was: and it seemed so very small.