Lockwood by Jonathan Stroud Read Free Book Online

What does it want? Why talk to you? I’ve had it for years, and it never even
tried
to talk to me.’
    ‘Well, there wouldn’t have been much point, would there? You don’t have that Talent.’ I tapped the bottle-glass with a fingernail. ‘How long have you actually had this jar, George? You stole it, didn’t you? I forget how.’
    George sat heavily in his chair, making the wood creak. ‘It was back when I was at the Fittes Agency, before I got kicked out for insubordination. I was working at Fittes House on the Strand. You ever been in there?’
    ‘Only for an interview. It didn’t last long.’
    ‘Well, it’s a vast place,’ George said. ‘You’ve got the famous public rooms, where people come for help – all those glass booths with receptionists taking down their details. Then there’s the conference halls, where they display all their famous relics, and the mahogany boardroom overlooking the Thames. But there’s a lot of secret stuff too, which most of the agents can’t access. The Black Library, for instance, where Marissa’s original collection of books is kept under lock and key. I always wanted to browse in there. But the bit that
really
interested me was underground. There are basements that go deep down, and some of them stretch back out under the Thames, they say. I used to see supervisors going down in special service lifts, and sometimes I’d see jars like this being wheeled into the lifts on trolleys. I often asked what all this was about. Safe storage, they said; there were vaults where they kept dangerous Visitors safe until they could be incinerated in furnaces on the lowest level.’
    ‘Furnaces?’ I said. ‘The Fittes furnaces are over in Clerkenwell, aren’t they? Everyone uses them. Why’d they need more down underground?’
    ‘I wondered that,’ George said. ‘I wondered about a lot of things. It used to annoy me that I got no answers. Anyway, in the end I asked so many questions that they fired me. My supervisor – a woman named Sweeny, face like an old sock soaked in vinegar – gave me an hour to clear my desk. And as I was standing there, gathering a few things up in a cardboard box, I saw a trolley with two or three jars being pushed towards the lift. The porter got called away. So what did I do? Only slipped over and nicked the nearest jar. I put it in my box, hid it under an old jumper, and carried it away right under Sweeny’s nose.’ He grinned in triumph at the memory. ‘And that’s why we’ve got our very own haunted skull. Who’d have thought it would turn out to be a genuine Type Three?’
    ‘If it actually
is
one,’ I said doubtfully. ‘It hasn’t done anything much for ages.’
    ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find a way to get it to speak again.’ George was polishing his glasses on his T-shirt. ‘We’ve got to. The stakes are so high, Luce. Fifty years since the Problem began, and we’ve hardly scratched the surface understanding ghosts. There are mysteries all around us, everywhere we look.’
    I nodded absently. Riveting as George was, my mind had flitted elsewhere. I was staring at Lockwood’s empty desk. One of his jackets hung over the back of his old cracked chair.
    ‘Speaking of a mystery slightly closer to home,’ I said slowly, ‘don’t you ever wonder about Lockwood’s door upstairs? That one on the landing.’
    George shrugged. ‘No.’
    ‘You must do.’
    He blew out his cheeks. ‘Of course I wonder. But it’s his business. Not ours.’
    ‘I mean, what can be in there? He’s just so touchy about it. I asked him about it last week, and he nearly snapped my head off again.’
    ‘Which probably tells you that it’s best to forget all about it,’ George said. ‘This isn’t our house, and if Lockwood wants to keep something private, then that’s entirely up to him. I’d drop it, if I were you.’
    ‘I just think it’s a pity that he’s so secretive,’ I said simply. ‘It’s a shame.’
    George gave a sceptical snort.