The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(19)

We looked at the carpet, and then at the cake knife, and then at the boy, who sat quietly in a world of his own.

‘He’d stab himself?’ I said.

‘Assuredly.’

Holly had perched herself on the arm of George’s chair. She said, ‘Surely, Mr Tufnell, if he’s … if he’s ill, he should be in hospital. He needs doctors who—’

‘Doctors can’t help him, miss.’ Lew Tufnell shook his grey head sadly. ‘Doctors? Medics? Pah! I’d like to see them try. They’d drug him and truss him up and what have you, and all the while his life would drain away regardless, till in a day or two he was just another corpse what’s spirit’s gone a-roving. Waste of time, doctors. No, miss. We need you. That’s why we’re here.’

There was a silence. In the kitchen we could hear the kettle boiling. ‘I’m sorry,’ Lockwood began. ‘I don’t understand, and I’m not sure what we can do to help this boy. Now, if you say there’s an evil spirit in your establishment—’

‘It was the ghost what done this to Charley,’ Mr Tufnell said.

We gazed at the lad again; at his stillness, his passivity, his unseeing eyes.

‘Ghost-touched, you mean?’ George asked.

‘Not touched physically,’ Mr Tufnell said, ‘though it was a close-run thing. But his heart’s snared. She’s pulling his spirit out of him, making him weaker. I give him another night, maybe two, then he’ll cross over after her.’ Just for a moment the man’s eyes stopped their furtive wandering; he gazed directly at Lockwood. ‘If you can destroy her, maybe it’ll break the link. Maybe he’ll come back. I dunno.’

Lockwood crossed his long legs in a resigned, businesslike way. He still wasn’t happy about the chain, but he’d come to a decision. ‘You’d better tell us about it,’ he said.

I got to my feet. ‘I think first we should all have some tea.’

‘And I think,’ George said, springing to my side, ‘I should bury this cake knife where it belongs.’

‘That’ll be splendid,’ Mr Tufnell said. ‘I love cake. Nothing for Charley Budd, though. He don’t eat no more.’

I went into the kitchen, did the honours with kettle and teapot. George took care of the seed cake, casting concerned looks at our visitor’s healthy midriff as he did so. While he waited, Mr Tufnell’s gaze flitted ceaselessly between us all. I noticed it lingered longest on me and Holly.

‘Well,’ he remarked as I handed him his cup, ‘you’re a bright little shower, and no mistake. Scrubbed and shiny and pleasing on the eye. I could find jobs for one or two of you in my shows, if this agency lark doesn’t work out.’ He smiled his washy, ingratiating smile, displaying an array of teeth like broken biscuits. ‘Couple of little dresses, a few sequins, twinkly tassels in appropriate places … You’d fit right in.’

‘That’s nice to know,’ Lockwood said. ‘George will bear it in mind. Now, how can we help you in our present capacity as professional psychical investigation agents?’

‘Tell us about this evil spirit.’ Holly spoke crisply; she turned a page of her notepad and held her biro ready. ‘What it is, how it appears – and how it’s affected this poor boy.’

Mr Tufnell balanced his plate of seed cake on one worn knee. ‘It’s not just Charley who’s been affected. There’s been a death too. The theatre and fairground ain’t a safe place for young lads no more, thanks to her.’ He took an enormous mouthful and chewed mournfully. ‘I’ll be brief. I’m a busy man; I can’t sit around all day munching cake, even if you can. Well, the background’s quickly told. You’ll have heard of Tufnell’s Travelling Fairground, no doubt. Been in the family a hundred years. My old dad now, Frank Tufnell, he used to take it up and down the country, but what with the Problem, travel’s not so easy now. So, the last twenty years we’ve taken root in Stratford, east London. There’s an old theatre on the site – the Palace Theatre, it’s called; been there a couple of hundred years itself, they say – and we use it for magic shows and circus entertainments, as well as housing Tufnell’s Marvels. The fair’s set up permanently around it. A tenner gets you entry for the whole shebang, and for that, my friends, you have a feast of wonderment that never ceases or runs dry. Plus a free hot dog for kids on Sundays. Now that’s what I call value.’

Lockwood had been gazing out of the window. ‘Indeed. You mentioned something about a ghost.’

‘I did. It walks the theatre corridors by night in the guise of a cloaked woman, fair of shape and radiant, yet with an evil heart.’ Mr Tufnell heaved a great shuddering sigh. ‘One of my lads she’s done away with,’ he said, ‘and Charley Budd won’t linger long. Whatever young man she meets never lives to speak of it. They call her …’ He leaned forward suddenly, his voice descending to unguessed-at depths. ‘They call her … La Belle Dame Sans Merci.’

The echoes of his whisper died away, and all at once the chained boy at his side, little white-faced Charley Budd, who had hitherto been as one carved from stone, uttered a long, low moan. There was something so quavering and frightful about the sound that I felt the hairs rise on my arms.

Mr Tufnell tightened his grip on the chain, but the boy did not stir again.