The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(16)

‘You don’t have fingers,’ I growled, ‘and I don’t believe time is of much relevance to you, being dead. And anyway, nothing’s going to come up to distract me in the next few minutes. So stop complaining!’ I looked up. ‘Hey, Holly.’

There had been sounds in the hall. Holly Munro appeared at the door, carrying her cotton shopping bag. She surveyed us briefly, running a hand through her long black hair.

George eyed the bag. ‘Get the doughnuts, Hol?’

‘I got them.’ Her voice sounded odd. She walked past us and began to set out the groceries on the sideboard. She moved swiftly, forcefully, clattering everything down. Her face was set, her lips pressed tight together.

‘You all right, Holly?’ I said.

‘Not really.’ She crumpled the bag on the counter and took a glass from the drainer. ‘I ran into Sir Rupert Gale by Arif’s.’

At once we all focused on her. Sir Rupert was an associate of Penelope Fittes, a master swordsman and a dangerous man. He was a fixer, someone who got his hands dirty on her behalf, and he was known to put pressure on her opponents. He had crossed paths with us before.

‘Here we go,’ the skull sighed. ‘Cue crisis.’

I shut the lever on top of the jar. ‘What was he doing there, Hol?’

‘He was waiting for me.’ Holly filled the glass from the tap and took a long drink, as if to wash away an unpleasant taste. ‘Ugh! He is so foul!’

Lockwood was very still in his chair. ‘Did he threaten you?’

‘Not in so many words, but the implication was there. You know what he’s like. Stands too close to you, all pink and smiling with his too-strong aftershave. He was just checking we weren’t “over-extending” ourselves – that’s what he called it. “Sticking to safe projects” and “simple hauntings”. Not investigating Penelope, in other words.’

‘Oh, we’re being very good, of course,’ Lockwood said. ‘What else did he say?’

‘It was all a coded warning. How if we took on anything too “difficult”, it would end badly for us. “We wouldn’t want anything unpleasant to happen to our favourite little agency.” Gah!’ She set the glass down by the sink. ‘Oh, and he wanted to know where we were last night.’

Lockwood and I exchanged glances. ‘What time last night?’

‘After midnight. He says he has information that we weren’t in.’

‘They’re spying on us again,’ I said. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said I didn’t know, that I’d already gone home by then,’ Holly said. ‘He caught me by surprise, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s all right,’ Lockwood said easily. ‘We’ve got our story ready, remember? We’ll say we were in Kentish Town, dealing with a couple of really boring Stone Knockers. George can forge the paperwork.’

‘Already done,’ George said. ‘Holly, you look upset. Crack those doughnuts open.’

‘Thanks, I’ll have an apple.’

He shook his head sadly. ‘You’ve got to learn that when you’re stressed, an apple doesn’t cut it … I feel quite shaken myself, come to think of it.’ His eyes flitted to the sideboard.

‘Yes, grab the plates, George,’ Lockwood said. ‘We’ll all have one.’

And we all did, even Holly. George was wise in such matters: a doughnut was a good corrective and made the world seem almost right again. Almost, but not entirely. Because the world wasn’t right. Marissa wasn’t in her tomb. Winkman had been freed from prison. And Holly’s little encounter wasn’t an unusual one at all.

Traditionally, the activities of all psychical detection agencies were overseen by the Department of Psychical Research and Control, or DEPRAC, which operated out of Scotland Yard in central London. DEPRAC had the power to punish misbehaviour and ensure high professional standards. Sometimes fines were levied and, in rare cases, companies shut down. But generally the department concentrated more on researching the Problem than bothering agents in the field.

Since Penelope Fittes had taken command of the Rotwell Agency, however, things had begun to change. Ms Fittes now controlled three quarters of all agency activity in London, and she had at once set about bringing the rest to heel. Fittes personnel began to occupy many senior posts at Scotland Yard. New rules came into force. Henceforth independent detection agencies, with their limited resources, had to confine their efforts to small-scale hauntings. Not only that, they had to submit to regular DEPRAC inspections to ensure they were acting professionally. Any firm in breach of these rules would be immediately closed down. Allegedly this was for public safety; in reality it was a means of monitoring our actions.

As the smallest agency of all, Lockwood & Co. found itself the focus of official attention. We were subjected to random house calls. We were stopped in the street and asked to show papers to prove what jobs we were on. And we were followed as we went about our work. I don’t mean there were spies standing outside our doorway all the time. Instead, we were forever looking over our shoulders and finding nothing – until, one day, with grim inevitability, there would be a smirking boy trailing us to Baker Street Station, or a man in a hat standing outside Arif’s Stores, brazenly watching as we trooped by. Sometimes several such incidents happened in a week; other times a fortnight would go by with nothing. The casualness was part of the intention. It reminded you that they thought you almost worth ignoring.