Lockwood by Jonathan Stroud Read Free Book Online Page B

healthy, and you’re not getting anywhere with it.’
    George frowned. ‘I don’t agree. There’s nothing more important than this. With the correct research, this could be a breakthrough! Just think – if we could get the dead to speak to us
on demand
—’
    The buzzer on the wall rang, signalling that someone had rung the bell upstairs.
    Lockwood made a face. ‘Who can that be? No one’s made an appointment.’
    ‘Perhaps it’s the grocer’s boy?’ George suggested. ‘Our weekly fruit and veg?’
    I shook my head. ‘No. He delivers tomorrow. It’ll be new clients.’
    Lockwood picked up the invitation and tucked it safely in his pocket. ‘What are we waiting for? Let’s go and see.’

5

    The names on the visiting cards were Mr Paul Saunders and Mr Albert Joplin, and ten minutes later these two gentlemen were settling themselves in our living room, and accepting cups of tea.
    Mr Saunders, whose card described him as a ‘Municipal Excavator’, was clearly the dominant personality of the pair. A tall, thin man, all jutting knees and elbows, who had folded himself with difficulty onto the sofa, he wore an ancient grey-green worsted suit, very thin about the sleeves. His face was bony and weather-beaten, his cheekbones broad and high; he smiled round at us complacently with narrow, gleaming eyes half hidden by a fringe of lank grey hair. Before taking his tea, he placed his battered trilby hat carefully on his knees. A silver hatpin was fixed above its brim.
    ‘Very good of you to see us without notice,’ Mr Saunders said, nodding to each of us in turn. Lockwood reclined in his usual chair; George and I, pens and notebooks at the ready, sat on upright seats close by. ‘Very good, I’m sure. You’re the first agency we’ve tried this morning, and we hardly hoped you’d be available.’
    ‘I’m pleased to hear we were top of your list, Mr Saunders,’ Lockwood said easily.
    ‘Oh, it’s only on account of your gaff being closest to our warehouse, Mr Lockwood. I’m a busy man and all for efficiency. Now then, Saunders of Sweet Dreams Excavation and Clearance, that’s me, operating out of King’s Cross these fifteen years. This here’s my associate, Mr Joplin.’ He jerked his heavy head at the little man beside him, who’d not yet said a word. He carried an enormous and untidy bundle of documents, and was gazing around at Lockwood’s collection of Asian ghost-catchers with wide-eyed curiosity. ‘We’re hoping you might be able to give us some assistance this evening,’ Saunders went on. ‘Course, I’ve got a good day-team working under me already: spadesmen, backhoe drivers, corpse-wranglers, light technicians . . . plus the usual night squad. But tonight we need some
proper
agency firepower, as well.’
    He winked at us, as if that settled the matter, and took a loud slurp of tea. Lockwood’s polite smile remained fixed, as if nailed in position. ‘Indeed. And what exactly would you want us to do? And where?’
    ‘Ah, you’re a details man. Very good. I’m one myself.’ Saunders sat back, stretched a skinny arm along the back of the sofa. ‘We’re working up at Kensal Green, north-west London. Cemetery clearance. Part of the new government policy of eradicating ARs.’
    Lockwood blinked. ‘Eradicating what? Sorry, I must have misheard you there.’
    ‘ARs. Active Remains. Sources, in other words. Old burials that are becoming unsafe, and might cause danger to the neighbourhood.’
    ‘Oh, like the Stepney Creeper!’ I said. ‘You remember last year?’ The Creeper had been a Phantasm that had issued from a grave in a Stepney churchyard, drifted across the road, and killed five people in nearby houses on two consecutive nights. On the third night Rotwell agents had cornered it, forced it back into its tomb, and destroyed it with a controlled explosion. The incident had caused a lot of anxiety, because the churchyard had previously been declared safe.
    Mr Saunders rewarded me