The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(111)

‘I’m progressing well,’ he said, ‘though I could do with some breakfast. Oh, this is looking great in here. Very fresh, very modern, and not a single hellish portal to the land of the dead in sight. Now that’s what I call a guest bedroom.’

It was certainly a marked improvement on what had gone before. Jessica’s bedroom had been transformed. The day after the fateful events at Fittes House, Inspector Barnes had sent a DEPRAC clearance team to Portland Row. With some difficulty they had dismantled the spirit-gate and removed the Sources. They had also proposed to take out the ancient bed. After only a moment’s hesitation Lockwood had agreed. He had already noticed that the death-glow hanging over it had gone. The room was peaceful now, stripped bare of psychic tragedy. Jessica’s presence no longer hung quite so heavily over either the house or Lockwood’s heart. It was time to begin anew.

‘I still think we maybe ought to do something about this stain,’ George said, pointing to the massive circular ectoplasm-burn in the centre of the floor. ‘All the Eggshell White in the world won’t distract people from something that size. Look – you can even see the marks of the chains.’

‘Got a nice cream carpet coming tomorrow,’ I said. ‘It’ll all be gone. And a set of bedroom furniture on Friday. The room will be brand new, and ready to be used again.’

‘Think Holly will want to move in?’ George said. We could hear her calling us from the kitchen. ‘You asked her, Lockwood, I know.’

Lockwood left his brush balanced on the paint pot; we made for the door. ‘I don’t think she will, actually. She says she likes having her own place. Did you know she’s got a flatmate? A girl who works at DEPRAC. That was news to me.’

We went downstairs slowly, feet clattering on the wooden steps. The carpet was gone here too, and the walls were naked, stripped of ornament, marked with bullet holes and spear marks, blackened with magnesium burns. We would have to repaper them, start afresh. It was a big job, but that was OK. The windows were open, and there was a smell of toast and bacon floating upwards through the house. It would all be done in time.

In the kitchen the toaster had just pinged, and eggs were frying in the pan. Holly was gathering cereal boxes from one of the new cupboards. It currently lacked a door, and she was simply reaching in and passing them back to Quill Kipps, who sat waiting at the kitchen table. His movements were slow and awkward – the stitches in his side prevented him from using his left arm – and he looked as thin and pale as a reheated corpse, but that last bit was nothing new. Basically he was in good shape. He was the only one of us who didn’t have new white flecks in his hair, courtesy of the Other Side. Right now he was frowning at our crisp new thinking cloth, which winked out at us beneath the spread of breakfast things.

‘Holly says I have to christen the new cloth,’ he said. ‘Write or draw something on it. Seems a weird ritual.’

‘Got to do it if you want to join us for breakfast,’ I said. ‘That’s a rule.’

‘Just do a rude cartoon,’ George said. ‘That always works for me, I find.’

Lockwood nodded. ‘Yes, and it always puts me off my egg.’

‘Speaking of which …’ Holly went over to the toaster. ‘Lucy, could you please move that horrid, disgusting skull away from the centre of the table? I don’t want to touch it. We’re eating now.’

‘Sorry, Hol.’

‘I don’t know why you insist on having it with us for each meal. It’s a lovely sunny day, and it’s not going to re-materialize here.’

‘I suppose it isn’t. But you never know. Where are you going to perch, George?’

‘Here, next to Quill.’

Kipps eyed George’s dungarees cautiously. ‘Just try not to bend over too much when you sit down.’

I took the laden toast rack from Holly and went to my chair. Lockwood had already taken his position at the head of the table. He began pouring us all tea.

‘Let’s see …’ George said, settling himself with satisfaction. ‘Tea, toast, eggs, jam and chocolate spread, various sugary cereals … Looks like a proper traditional Lockwood and Co. breakfast. Wait! What’s that?’

Holly nodded grimly. ‘It’s that horrid charcoaled skull Lucy insists on carrying around with her. I wouldn’t object so much if it was actually in a jar or something.’

‘I don’t mean the skull. I’m talking about those bowls of sunflower seeds and funny healthy nut things. Eeesh, they’re not even salted. Where’d we get these?’

‘The storeroom,’ I said. ‘Holly’s got a stash down there.’

George gave Holly a reproving look. ‘You creep down to the basement to secretly eat nuts and seeds? It’s not the good you’re doing to your body that disappoints me; more the underhandedness of it all. Haven’t we got any cake?’

‘Not for breakfast, we haven’t,’ Lockwood said. ‘Tuck in.’

George did, and he was right: it was a proper Lockwood & Co. breakfast, and it felt good, even if our surroundings weren’t as normal. The kitchen had been one of the worst-affected portions of the house, with its doors and windows shattered, most of its furniture destroyed, and bloodstains and scorch marks on the linoleum floor. So we’d stripped the linoleum and removed the broken cupboards. The windows had been replaced. A new back door, unpainted, awaited our attention. Our first priorities had been a replacement table and a thinking cloth. With these in place it was possible to function again. The house would be all right. Like us, it was taking time to heal.