The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(51)
Lockwood took a petite spring roll and munched it cheerfully. ‘Forget Tufnell’s place, Lucy,’ he murmured. ‘Look at this. This is a proper bit of theatre, right here.’
I couldn’t be quite as calm as Lockwood – the announcement we were here for was unlikely to be a nice one – but I knew exactly what he meant. The room was perfect for its purpose, which was to overawe and subdue its guests. The crowd of agents was a vast and colourful array – their jackets resplendent, their rapiers glinting under the light of the chandeliers – and yet compared to the solid, unchanging majesty of the great gold hall, which effortlessly swallowed them all, they seemed somehow tawdry and fleeting, of little consequence. High above our heads, ceiling paintings showed legendary early agents, great martyrs of the Fittes Agency. The pillars were like the treasure houses of a king.
‘Better take off your bag, Luce,’ Lockwood said. ‘Set it on the floor here, give it a decent view.’
Unlike other companies in London, Lockwood & Co. had never bothered with a uniform, and we stood out again tonight. As usual Lockwood was smartly dressed in his suit and coat, while I wore my normal working outfit. I’d have preferred to dress up a bit too, but I had to account for the large rucksack I carried on my back. If anyone asked, I was to say I was on my way to a case, which was in fact true. We had two quick jobs in Soho to attend to on our way home.
I shrugged the bag down. The top flap was left subtly loose, leaving a dark but inconspicuous gap beneath.
‘Coo,’ the skull’s voice said in my mind. ‘This is a bit posh, innit? They’ve done it up since I was last here. Used to be a couple of tatty display cases and an old settee. Where’s Marissa, then? That’s not her. It’s a spotty bloke scoffing a sausage roll. I’d have thought even you could see that.’
‘I know she’s not here yet,’ I muttered. ‘We’re still waiting. See that lectern? That’s where she’ll be.’ I nudged the bag forward with a boot and turned to Lockwood. ‘The skull’s talking nonsense even more than usual,’ I said. ‘It’s edgy. And so am I.’
‘No need to be,’ Lockwood said. ‘We’re among friends.’
He nodded his head in the direction of a nonchalant figure in a vile green suit, leaning against the wall near the lectern. Sir Rupert Gale was idly surveying the crowd of agents; as I watched, he caught my gaze and gave a little wave.
‘We ought to run him through and have done with it,’ I growled.
Lockwood smiled. ‘Yes, but it would only spoil this nice clean floor.’ He took a fresh glass of juice from a passing attendant. ‘Want another drink, Luce?’
‘No. I don’t know how you can be so relaxed.’
‘Oh, we have to go with the flow, make the most of being here.’ Lockwood’s body language was as chilled as Sir Rupert’s, but his eyes were never still, scanning the boundaries of the room. ‘Let’s move a bit closer to the pillar, shall we? We can lean against it and doze if Penelope’s talk goes on too long.’
It was the pillar furthest from the lectern, at the margins of the crowd. It glowed with a pale blue light. On a steel rack inside the glass hung a wicked-looking knife with odd serrations, the very knife with which the Clapham Butcher Boy had worked his horrors fifty years before. If you looked closely and at the correct angle, you could just see the ghost of the boy himself floating above and around the weapon. He wasn’t the most active of the nine trapped spirits in the hall, but he always caused particularly loud shrieks among parties of touring school children, his eyes having been put out by the lynch mob that had finally run him down.
From somewhere came the bang of a door. The noise of the crowd dropped, became a nervous rustling murmur, soft and dry as fallen leaves.
Sir Rupert was looking towards the side of the room. He gave a nod.
The sound of high-heeled shoes echoed through the hall.
‘Uh-oh,’ the skull’s voice said. ‘She’s coming.’
At once Lockwood was at my elbow. ‘Listen carefully to what she says, Luce. I don’t want to miss anything.’
‘Why, what will you be—?’
But now Penelope Fittes was walking into the hall.
She crossed from a far door, out under the lights, a slim, tall woman with long black hair lying loose around her shoulders. She wore a dark-green knee-length dress that moulded around her body in a businesslike sort of way. It was glamorous, yes, but functional; she moved with calm precision. I’d been building up the moment so much, to be reminded of her very ordinary human scale surprised me. Then she climbed onto the platform, stepped behind the lectern, gave her flashbulb smile – and spoke.
‘Hello, everybody.’
Yes, that voice: deep, authoritative, unmistakable. At the sound of it, I was transfixed. There she was: Penelope Fittes, chairperson of the Fittes Agency, associate director of the Rotwell Agency, and de facto head of all psychic investigation operatives in London. For months she had been the focus of our energies, our thoughts and fears, our dreams and plans. Everything extended from her – from her power and her mystery – and everything led back to her too.
Just by stepping through the door she had at once become the focal point of the room. She was reflected in a hundred wine glasses, in the curving sides of the nine silver-glass pillars, in a thousand teardrop crystals of the ceiling’s chandeliers. Did the ghosts within the pillars turn to watch her as she strode to the curved wood lectern? I wouldn’t have been surprised. Certainly the Fittes employees previously standing at the side of the hall were now rigid with attention; one or two even saluted. My fellow agents did not salute, but they were very still. The room had become silent. Only Sir Rupert Gale maintained his louche and tolerant posture, but even he had eyes only for Penelope; his gaze remained locked on her as she took a sip of water, adjusted her paper and smiled gleamingly at the silent crowd.