Lockwood (39 page)

‘Well,’ Lockwood said, ‘if you judge success by the number of enemies you make, that was a highly successful evening.’

At 2.45 in the morning, the little kitchen at 35 Portland Row really comes into its own. Tonight we had eggs boiling, bread toasting, the kettle gently steaming on the side. It was a brightly lit and cosy scene, marred only by the presence of the ghost-jar on the worktop. The skull was active, the horrid face grinning and winking at us from the centre of the plasm. In our mood, however, this was easy to ignore.

Lockwood and I were feeling like ourselves again. This was faintly miraculous, since scarcely two hours had passed since we’d hauled ourselves out of the water onto the dirty shingle south of Tower Bridge. Our soggy walk back to Charing Cross Station had seemed to take for ever, but once we’d changed back into dry clothes things started to look up. By great good luck, we’d managed to snag a passing night cab. Now – showered, clean and warm – we were agreed that we’d managed it very efficiently. We’d made it home quicker than George, anyway. He’d not yet returned.

‘It’s a success, however you look at it,’ I said, patting hot toast from hand to hand and spinning it onto the plate. ‘We’ve beaten Winkman! We’ve got the Bickerstaff mirror! We can give it in to Barnes in the morning, and close the case. And Kipps loses his bet, which is best of all.’

Lockwood was flicking through the pamphlet we’d stolen from the Fittes library just a few hours earlier – it seemed a lifetime ago. We’d left it in the Charing Cross lockers, so it had been spared a dunking in the Thames. ‘I notice Kipps and his team aren’t lurking outside any more,’ he said. ‘He must have given up when he realized we’d tricked him in the car. I only wish George would get back. He’s taking his time.’

‘Probably couldn’t find a taxi that would take him after being in that smelly old boat of Flo’s,’ I said. ‘He must be having to walk. His station locker was empty, so we know he got away safely.’

‘True.’ Lockwood put down the pamphlet and got up to deal with the eggs. ‘I was right about these “Confessions of Mary Dulac”, by the way. They’re mostly nonsense. Lots of babble about forbidden knowledge and seeking out the mysteries of creation. Anyway, they didn’t do poor old Mary much good, since she apparently spent ten years living in a hollow tree. Want your egg in a cup or on the plate?’

‘Cup, please. Lockwood, who do you think that man was – the one on the roof?’

‘I don’t know. But Winkman called him “my lord”, so we can probably find out.’ He handed me my boiled egg. ‘He’s some rich collector, or a modern version of Bickerstaff, prying into what doesn’t concern him. Bickerstaff himself sounds like a monster, judging by what Mary Dulac says. Check it out – it’s on the third or fourth page.’

He busied himself with his supper. I picked up ‘The Confessions’. Despite the Fittes library’s leather binding, it was very thin, scarcely more than a few pages long. It was more a collection of disjointed paragraphs than anything else. Someone had probably copied selections of the original, removing passages that were tedious or incoherent. As Lockwood had said, there was lots about the unhappy woman’s life in the wilderness, and many philosophical rantings about death and the afterlife that I didn’t understand. The bit on Bickerstaff was meatier, though. I read it between dabs at my egg.

Who was Bickerstaff, whose cursed shadow hangs over me these past ten years? Ah! He was a genius! And the wickedest man I ever knew! Yes, I killed him. Yes, we buried him deep and sealed him up with iron, yet still I see him in the darkness, whenever I close my eyes. Still I see him before me, swathed in his velvet cloak, performing his dark rituals. Still I see him, coming from his workroom, his butcher’s knives all bloody in his hand. Still I hear that terrible voice, that soothing, persuasive instrument that made us all puppets of his will. Ah! Fools that we were to follow him! He promised us the world, promised us enlightenment! Yet he led us to ruin and the brink of madness. Because of him I have lost everything!

There followed a short digression about the varieties of bark and fungi that Mary Dulac had been forced to eat during her years living wild in Chertsey Forest. Then she returned to the subject in hand.

His darkness was in him always – in those staring wolf-like eyes, in that savage rage he unleashed at the merest slight. I cannot forget it – how he broke Lucan’s arm when he dropped the candles, how he threw Mortimer down the stairs! I cannot forget. Yes, we hated and feared him. Yet his voice was honey. He mesmerized us all with talk of his great Project, of the wondrous Device that might be made if we had the stomach for the work. With the help of his servant, a most cunning and malignant Boy, whose eyes saw phantoms clearly, we went on expeditions to the churchyards, gathering materials for the Device. The Boy protected us from the vengeful Spirits until we had trapped them in the glass. It is the presence of these Spirits together, Bickerstaff says, that gives the Device its power. And what power! The mirror makes weak the fabric of the world, and offers the lucky few – Oh horror! Oh blasphemy! – a glimpse of Heaven.

I looked up at Lockwood. ‘Whatever it is you see through Bickerstaff’s mirror,’ I said quietly, ‘I don’t think it’s Heaven.’

He shook his head. ‘Nor do I. We were right, you know, Lucy. We were right about that bone glass. Bickerstaff’s group was trying to see something that’s forbidden to us all. They were trying to look beyond death, glimpse what happens next. Bickerstaff was crazy – they all were. Including our friend over there.’ He jerked his head towards the face in the jar. Pinpoints of light glittered in its sockets as it gazed at us. The smile was broad and knowing.

‘It seems in a very good mood tonight,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t stopped grinning since we came in. Hey, I just thought of something . . . this evil servant boy Dulac goes on about . . . You don’t suppose that . . .?’

‘Who can tell?’ Lockwood scowled over at the skull. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘Well, thank goodness we’ve got the mirror, so no one else can take a chance with it. Bickerstaff didn’t try looking himself, I bet – he just used others. It’s no wonder his ghost was so horrid. I’m glad you tossed a sword through his head.’

‘When I heard his voice back in the cemetery,’ I said, ‘it
was
mesmeric, like Dulac says. It had a kind of hypnotic effect. It sort of made you want to do things, even though you knew you shouldn’t. I think George and Joplin were affected by it, though they may not have consciously heard the voice. Remember how they stood frozen by the coffin?’

‘Yes. Those idiots.’ Lockwood looked at his watch. ‘Luce, if George doesn’t turn up soon, I’m going to start worrying. We might have to go and find Flo and see where she left him.’

‘He’ll be here. You know how slowly he walks. Oh – look at this.’ I’d flipped to the end of the pamphlet. ‘It’s what we wanted. Dulac’s final confession.’

Yes
[I read]
, I killed a man. But murder? No! Should I one day stand in Judgement I shall claim it an act of self-defence – yea, a desperate act to save my very soul. Edmund Bickerstaff was mad! He sought my life as openly as if he had put a knife to my throat. His blood is on my hands, but I have no guilt.

Wilberforce died. We all saw it; he looked in the Device and perished. Then came a great panicking. We fled in our carriages from that cursed place, vowing to reject Bickerstaff for ever. Yet this the doctor would not allow. Within the hour, he and that silent Boy were at my house and he carried the Device with him. I feared them, yet I let them in. The doctor was agitated. Would I be quiet on the subject of poor Wilberforce? Could he trust me to keep my own counsel? Despite my assurances, he grew enraged. At last he denounced me: to prove my faith, I must look into the glass! In a moment the Boy had sprung behind me; he pinioned my arms. Out came the Device from the doctor’s pocket. He held it before me. I had half a glimpse, half a glimpse only, and I felt my sanity shake loose, my limbs go cold.

So it would have ended, but for my father’s service revolver on my table. I tore myself free and took up the gun. Covering my face as Bickerstaff clawed at me and screamed, I shot – the bullet passed directly through his forehead. I fired also at the Boy, but like an eel he evaded my grasp, dived through the casement and escaped. In some moments, God forgive me, this is my supreme regret. I wish that I had killed him too.

I will not tell how we disposed of the doctor and his creation. Suffice it to say that we feared others might mimic our folly, and seek out knowledge that isn’t meant for Man. I only trust that we have constrained the Device as best we can, and that it may now lie for ever undisturbed.

I closed the pamphlet and tossed it aside. ‘So that’s it,’ I said. ‘That’s how Bickerstaff died. Mary Dulac shot him, then she and her friends buried him secretly in Kensal Green. We’ve solved it. The case is closed.’ I picked up my plate, ready to carry it to the sink – and stopped suddenly, staring at the table.

Opposite me, Lockwood was nodding. ‘Dulac may have been crackers,’ he said, ‘but she got it spot on.
Everyone
wants the glass. Everyone’s obsessed by what it might show, despite the fact that it seems to kill whoever looks in it. Those collectors last night would have paid thousands. Barnes is desperate too. Joplin’s been hounding us to have a peek, and George is scarcely any better.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘George and Joplin are so similar, aren’t they? They even clean their glasses in the same way. Incidentally, did I tell you that I think Joplin was the one who pinched Bickerstaff’s original stand from the coffin? He and Saunders are the only ones with access to the chapel where it was kept, you see. It’s just the kind of thing that he . . .’ He paused. ‘Lucy? What is it? What on earth’s wrong?’

I was still staring at the table, at the thinking cloth with all its notes and scribbles. It’s right in front of us all the time. Mostly, I never focus on what’s written there. Now, quite by chance, I had – and if my blood hadn’t drained from my face, it certainly
felt
like it. ‘Lockwood . . .’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Was this here earlier?’

‘Yes. That doodle’s been there for months. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it. I keep telling George not to do that kind of stuff; it puts me off my breakfast. What, do you think we should replace the cloth?’

‘Not the doodle. Shut up. This writing here. It says:
Gone to see a friend about the mirror. Back soon. G.
’

We stared at each other. ‘That
must’ve
been written days ago . . .’ Lockwood said.

‘When?’

Lockwood hesitated. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Look, here’s the pen he wrote it with. Right next to it.’

‘But that would mean . . .’ Lockwood blinked at me. ‘Surely not. He wouldn’t.’

‘A “friend”,’ I said. ‘You know who that would be, don’t you?’

‘He wouldn’t.’

‘He came back here with the bone glass, and instead of waiting for us, he went straight out again. To see Joplin.’

‘He
wouldn’t
!’ Lockwood had half risen; he seemed uncertain what to do. ‘I can’t believe it. I expressly told him not to.’

A vibration in the room. It was faint and very muffled. I looked over at the ghost-jar. Poisonous green light gleamed within it; the face was laughing.

‘The ghost knows!’ I cried. ‘Of
course
it does – it was right here!’ I shoved my chair back, sprang over to the glass. I turned the lever – and at once the foul cackles of the skull burst on my ear.

‘
Missing someone?
’ it jeered. ‘
Has the penny just dropped?
’

‘Tell us!’ I shouted. ‘What have you seen?’

‘
I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to figure it out
,’ the voice said. ‘
I guessed twenty minutes. Must’ve taken twice that. Two dim dormice would have sussed it faster than you
.’

‘What happened? Where did George go?’

‘
You know, I think your little George is in a spot of trouble
,’ the skull said gleefully. ‘
I think he’s off doing something stupid. Well, I won’t lose any sleep over it, after all the things he’s done to me
.’

I could feel panic rising in my chest, my muscles freezing. I stammered out the ghost’s words to Lockwood. All at once he was past me and grabbing the ghost-jar from the worktop. He swung it over and crashed it down upon the table, sending the plates flying.

The face rolled against the inside of the jar, the nose pressed flat against the glass. ‘
Hey, careful. Watch with the plasm
.’

Lockwood scraped his fingers back through his hair. ‘Tell it to talk. Say that if it doesn’t tell us what it saw George do, we’ll—’

‘
You’ll what?
’ the ghost said. ‘
What can you do to me? I’m dead already
.’

I repeated the words, then flicked the glass with a finger. ‘We know you don’t like heat,’ I snapped. ‘We can make things very uncomfortable for you.’

‘Yes,’ Lockwood added. ‘And we’re not talking ovens now. We’ll take you to the furnaces in Clerkenwell.’

‘
So?
’ the ghost sneered. ‘
So you destroy me. How will that help you? And how do you know that’s not exactly what I desire?
’

Lockwood, when I told him this, opened his mouth and then shut it again. The desires and dreams of a ghost are hard to fathom, and he didn’t know what to say. But I did. All at once, I knew
precisely
what that ghost had always wanted – what had driven it in life, and what kept driving it in death. I felt it; I knew it as if the longing was my own. There
are
some advantages to sharing headspace with a phantom. Not many, but a few.

I bent my head close to the glass. ‘You like keeping little secrets from us, don’t you?’ I said. ‘Your name, for instance, and who you once were. Well, we don’t really care about that. See, I think we know enough already to understand what makes you tick. You were one of Bickerstaff’s friends – maybe his servant, maybe not – and that means you shared his dreams. You helped him build that stupid bone mirror. You wanted to see it used. And why would you do that? Why did you have that mad desire to look past death and see what lies beyond? Because you were afraid. You wanted to be sure that something happened after it, that you wouldn’t be alone.’