The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(68)

I peeped into his bedroom. George had dropped off to sleep again. He hadn’t yet read the book. I opened the window to fumigate the place, and brought in fresh lavender. Even so, Flo’s presence lingered. I went away and left him.

For much of the morning 35 Portland Row was quiet. Towards lunch time the house shook with the approach of a large delivery van inching its way along the street. Quill Kipps sat beside the driver. They had come from a builder’s supply yard; under Kipps’s direction, men began unloading sections of chipboard, tools, ropes and other materials, and dumped them in the hall. Before they could pull away a Mullet’s van showed up, with Holly in the cab. It brought fresh quantities of iron, salt and magnesium flares, and there was a great kerfuffle in the street as the vehicles struggled to pass each other.

I took possession of the deliveries and shut the door on the shouting men and honking horns. Holly and I organized the agency supplies, Kipps the wood and tools. By early afternoon, when Lockwood returned home from his mysterious expedition, we had it all laid out in piles. He inspected everything like a military leader, and nodded at us, well-pleased.

‘This is perfect,’ he said. ‘Nice work, everyone. Now we just need to get the defences in position. We’ll have some sandwiches first, though.’

We gathered round the kitchen table. ‘It’s so strange,’ I said. ‘I was sure we’d have been arrested by now.’

Lockwood shook his head. ‘No. They won’t arrest us. They know we’d kick up a fuss and raise a lot of awkward questions. I’m afraid their reaction is likely to be a lot more final.’

‘Kill us, you mean,’ Kipps said. He had been unwrapping a shiny new hacksaw. Now he placed it on the table and took his plate of sandwiches.

‘That’ll be their preferred option,’ Lockwood said. ‘From their point of view we already know too much. But they can’t easily bump us off, either. It’s one thing to beat up George in the street. It’s quite another to dispose of all of us. That will take a major effort – and would be very risky, because they know we’ll be expecting it. Also, it won’t happen in public, for obvious reasons. Even Fittes can’t blatantly authorize murder. That means it’ll be done quietly, when no one’s around. And that’s why I’m expecting an attack here at Portland Row, probably after dark.’

There was a silence while everyone digested this. ‘Tonight?’ I said.

‘We can only hope not. We won’t be ready. Give us another day and I’ll be a lot more confident that we can protect ourselves. Tonight we’ll just have to keep watch and trust to luck. Still, we can get a lot done before then. Let’s eat up and get back to work.’

Defending 35 Portland Row wasn’t impossible, but there were definite points of weakness to overcome. On the ground floor, the front gave little cause for worry. The old black door was thick and sturdy, and adorned with so many locks and chains you would have needed a bazooka to blow it down. The library and living-room windows were fairly safe too, as both overlooked the basement yard, and so weren’t easily accessible. It was the kitchen at the back, with its steps leading down to the garden, that worried us. This was where the chipboard came in. That afternoon Kipps and Lockwood hammered homemade barricades to the inside of the windows and across the glass pane of the door. Lockwood also went out and spent quite a bit of time constructing something on the garden steps. ‘I’ve been inspired by our visit to Marissa’s tomb,’ he said. ‘Might be best to avoid using this entrance for a few days.’ He didn’t explain further.

The basement had long been our main point of concern. Again, the front of the house was theoretically less vulnerable. It was true that our office windows opened directly onto the sunken yard below our front door. Steep steps led down here from the gate and, though lots of dead plants in big pots filled the space, intruders could easily reach the windows. However, after a burglary years before, we had added iron bars to these, and it was hard to see how they could be bypassed. This meant we focused all our attention on the back.

At the rear of the office, past the rapier practice room, the storeroom and the laundry room, you came to the back door. It was made of glass, and opened straight onto the grass of the garden. Of all parts of the house, this door was the weakest point. Kipps put a series of wooden boards across the opening, but we doubted they’d survive a sustained attack. Towards evening, extra defences were added by Lockwood and Kipps, who spent a lot of time messing with the floorboards just inside the door.

Nightfall came. Holly and I stockpiled weapons and watched the street. Neighbours moved around inside their houses. Arif closed up his shop. Portland Row was silent. Our enemies made no move. Towards midnight George woke up and asked for sandwiches and a bedside light. He began reading the book. The rest of us took turns on sentry duty, two hours at a time, while the others slept.

My turn came. At two a.m. I sat by the living-room windowsill, watching the street. I had the ghost-jar by my side. It was late and I was tired. I needed the company.

‘There’s a spirit standing on the garden path opposite,’ I said. ‘I just caught the moonbeams going through it. So very faint. Man in a bowler hat. Very still and peaceful, like he’s thinking about something.’

Tonight the face in the jar shone pale and silvery, mirroring the moon above the rooftops. ‘Oh, him,’ it said. ‘Yes, he’s thinking about something, all right. In about twenty minutes he’ll move towards the house and disappear. At about 3.40 a.m. he’ll reappear, just briefly, with a dirty big bundle over his shoulder. I reckon it’s his dead wife wrapped in a rug, but you only get a flash of a pair of fluffy slippers as he sets off up the road, so I’ve never satisfied my mind on that.’