The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(26)

‘OK. I buy that.’ The skull looked placidly at me. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

I hesitated, then cleared my throat. ‘Um, OK … Well—’

‘If you’re looking for a clean teaspoon, there’s one by the sink.’

‘Thanks.’

I opened the fridge to get some milk. As I closed the door, the face in the jar gave a sudden theatrical start that almost made me drop the bottle. The rubbery eyes looked wildly in all directions; the nostrils flared, the mouth contorted in alarm. ‘Ooh, I smell something burning … Wait, wait – it’s your pants! Your pants are on fire, you massive liar! You so weren’t on a case!’

‘We were too! We went to a graveyard and—’

‘A graveyard?’ The ghost chuckled low and long. ‘Say no more! In my experience, graveyards can be used for lots of activities, not just ghost-hunting.’ It gave me a slow, atrocious wink.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ But I could feel my cheeks flushing.

The evil face grinned knowingly. ‘There, I knew I was right. And don’t try to tell me you were scrapping with ghosts. You didn’t take any equipment.’

‘We had our rapiers!’

‘I can tell when there’s ectoplasm on a blade and when there isn’t. No, you and Lockwood went for a cosy chat, didn’t you? And came back with brambles in your hair.’

I spoke as lightly as I could. ‘Well, it was very overgrown.’

‘I bet it was.’

My snort of disdain was fierce enough to keep the skull quiet while I finished making my mug of tea. I threw the spoon in the sink and sat in the half-dark on the far side of the table, keeping clear of the jar’s halo of green other-light. I glared intently at it, pondering my next move. How much to give, how much to seek … It was always a subtle and infuriating business, bargaining with a skull.

This main Talent of mine – psychic Listening – had long been considered the most imperfect of an agent’s arts. Usually it was just about ominous sound effects: picking up the thud and drag of a body being hauled along a landing, for example, or hearing the scratches of broken fingernails along a cellar wall. Sometimes you got actual words spoken by a spirit too, but these were always repetitive fragments, echoes of memory without any true intelligence behind them. Or almost always. In her Memoirs Marissa Fittes, the most famous Listener of all, had stated that other, more communicative Visitors did exist. She classed them as Type Three spirits, capable of full conversations. But they were very rare. So rare, in fact, that since her death (real or faked), no one else had come across them.

No one except for me. I had the skull in the jar.

Though the skull’s mortal career was steeped in mystery, and though it refused to even divulge its name to me, one or two facts were known about this ghost. In the late nineteenth century, as a youth, he’d helped the occult doctor Edmund Bickerstaff create a ‘bone-glass’, the first recorded window onto the Other Side. Bickerstaff himself had been killed soon after the creation of the artefact, but the youth had escaped. His later activities were unknown. However, he had clearly come to a bad end, since his next recorded appearance, half a century later, was as a skull dredged up in the Lambeth sewers. The Fittes Agency, recognizing its potency as a Source, had trapped it in the jar, and the ghost had languished there ever since. Marissa Fittes had spoken with it, albeit briefly. After that no one had done so – until I came along.

I stared at the jar across the kitchen table. The spectral face stared back at me.

‘We were going to talk about Marissa,’ I began.

‘We were going to talk about my freedom.’

I watched the steam rise from my mug, twisting, coiling like liberated ectoplasm. ‘Oh, you don’t want that,’ I said. ‘What does freedom even mean? You’d still be tied to your mouldy old skull, wouldn’t you, even if you did escape the jar? Say I let you out. What would you do?’

‘I’d flit about. I’d stretch my plasm. Might strangle Cubbins. Carry out a spot of casual ghost-touch now and again. Just simple hobbies. It would be a darn sight more enjoyable than sitting here.’

I grinned at it. ‘You make your case so well,’ I said. ‘See how I’m itching to break the jar. Even if I could trust you, which I clearly can’t, you wouldn’t want it anyway. Who would you talk to if you hadn’t got me?’

‘I’d talk to you. I’d stick around, help you out from time to time.’

‘Oh, sure you would. While strangling my friends.’

‘I’d strangle your enemies too. I’m not fussy. How’s that for a tip-top deal?’

‘Absolute rubbish,’ I said. ‘Tell you what: you want a deal? I’ll make you a proper one. You give me more information on Marissa Fittes, information that helps us get to the bottom of this whole mystery – and perhaps sheds light on the causes of the Problem – and I’ll figure out some way to set you free. It’ll be a way that doesn’t involve George’s untimely death, or anyone else’s, but I’ll see what I can do.’ I took a sip of tea.

The face looked unconvinced. ‘No deaths? Doesn’t sound like much fun. Anyway, we’ve gone over this ground before. What more can I possibly tell you?’