pencil.
“No one’s sure,” he said. “There was evidence of the crime in most of the rooms.”
I looked at him. “‘Evidence of the crime’? Meaning…”
“Bits of Mr. Dunn.”
“Right. I thought you meant that. Just wanted to check.”
“The good news is that it’s a small enough place,” Lockwood said. “With the four of us, it should be easy to keep tabs on it tonight. Just a thought, though. We don’t actually know which spirit is informing the house, do we? Isn’t it more likely to be Dunn’s ghost, rather than Guppy’s? He’s the one who died there.”
“Could be,” George said. “Until we find the Source, we won’t know.”
“I
hope
it’s Dunn,” Holly said, and I nodded. It’s not often I actively
want
to meet the angry ghost of a murder victim, but after seeing the photograph in George’s file, I really didn’t want to meet the owner of that blurry shape, even in death. The others were nodding, too.
Lockwood took out his wallet and put some money on the table.
“Time to find out,” he said.
D espite our best intentions, the afternoon was far advanced by the time we arrived at the house of the Ealing Cannibal. We’d forgotten that everyone liked to get out of central London well before curfew; the traffic on the arterial roads was sluggish, and repair work at the Chiswick roundabout delayed us even more. As the cab moved slowly through the suburban streets of Ealing, the last commuters were already in force on the sidewalks, hurrying home beneath the flickering ghost-lights. The sun had swung low, and a layer of black clouds lay over us like a broken slab of chocolate, with streaks of blue-and-yellow sky showing through the cracks. The air held the threat of rain.
Whether or not our driver knew the reputation of The Leas, he knew the business we were in and didn’t care to get too close to our final destination. He dropped us, and our swords, workbags, and lengths of chain, at the far end of the street, and we walked the final hundred yards to the house where horrors stirred.
It’s a common misconception that places that have suffered psychic trauma must
look
sinister, too, with gaping windows, creaking doors, and walls twisted subtly out of shape. As with people, so with houses—a smiling, innocuous exterior can conceal the blackest heart, and number 7, The Leas, didn’t look like anything much at all.
It stood halfway along the east side of a crescent of modest detached buildings, each with its own garage, each with its own neat scrap of lawn beside its thin concrete drive. They were fairly modern homes, the windows broad and generous, the roofs made of pleasant reddish tiles. The front doors were paneled with glass and protected by simple, flat-topped porches. It was neither a poor district, nor a rich one. Dark laurel hedges separated the plots, and cypress trees rose up in the backyards, black and sharp as knives.
Number 7 looked in no worse repair than any of the other houses; in fact, in many ways, it seemed in better shape. The nearby buildings were noticeably shabby, with cars rusting under tarps on weedy drives; small signs, perhaps, that what had happened here so long before still worked its poison on the neighborhood. But the house once inhabited by Mr. Solomon Guppy was white and painted; its lawn mowed, its hedges trimmed. The local council, conscious of civic pride, had not allowed it to fall into disrepair.
The street was quiet; the only signs of life were small ones: lights coming on in downstairs windows, curtains being drawn. We hadn’t set eyes on anyone until, nearing number 7, a thin figure detached itself from the shadows of the hedge. Arms folded, it waited gloomily as we drew near.
George let out a groan. “Penelope Fittes must have
hundreds
of supervisors. Why did she have to choose
him
?”
The young man wore the silver-gray jacket of the Fittes Agency and had an ornately handled rapier hanging at his belt. His narrow, freckled face was
“No one’s sure,” he said. “There was evidence of the crime in most of the rooms.”
I looked at him. “‘Evidence of the crime’? Meaning…”
“Bits of Mr. Dunn.”
“Right. I thought you meant that. Just wanted to check.”
“The good news is that it’s a small enough place,” Lockwood said. “With the four of us, it should be easy to keep tabs on it tonight. Just a thought, though. We don’t actually know which spirit is informing the house, do we? Isn’t it more likely to be Dunn’s ghost, rather than Guppy’s? He’s the one who died there.”
“Could be,” George said. “Until we find the Source, we won’t know.”
“I
hope
it’s Dunn,” Holly said, and I nodded. It’s not often I actively
want
to meet the angry ghost of a murder victim, but after seeing the photograph in George’s file, I really didn’t want to meet the owner of that blurry shape, even in death. The others were nodding, too.
Lockwood took out his wallet and put some money on the table.
“Time to find out,” he said.
D espite our best intentions, the afternoon was far advanced by the time we arrived at the house of the Ealing Cannibal. We’d forgotten that everyone liked to get out of central London well before curfew; the traffic on the arterial roads was sluggish, and repair work at the Chiswick roundabout delayed us even more. As the cab moved slowly through the suburban streets of Ealing, the last commuters were already in force on the sidewalks, hurrying home beneath the flickering ghost-lights. The sun had swung low, and a layer of black clouds lay over us like a broken slab of chocolate, with streaks of blue-and-yellow sky showing through the cracks. The air held the threat of rain.
Whether or not our driver knew the reputation of The Leas, he knew the business we were in and didn’t care to get too close to our final destination. He dropped us, and our swords, workbags, and lengths of chain, at the far end of the street, and we walked the final hundred yards to the house where horrors stirred.
It’s a common misconception that places that have suffered psychic trauma must
look
sinister, too, with gaping windows, creaking doors, and walls twisted subtly out of shape. As with people, so with houses—a smiling, innocuous exterior can conceal the blackest heart, and number 7, The Leas, didn’t look like anything much at all.
It stood halfway along the east side of a crescent of modest detached buildings, each with its own garage, each with its own neat scrap of lawn beside its thin concrete drive. They were fairly modern homes, the windows broad and generous, the roofs made of pleasant reddish tiles. The front doors were paneled with glass and protected by simple, flat-topped porches. It was neither a poor district, nor a rich one. Dark laurel hedges separated the plots, and cypress trees rose up in the backyards, black and sharp as knives.
Number 7 looked in no worse repair than any of the other houses; in fact, in many ways, it seemed in better shape. The nearby buildings were noticeably shabby, with cars rusting under tarps on weedy drives; small signs, perhaps, that what had happened here so long before still worked its poison on the neighborhood. But the house once inhabited by Mr. Solomon Guppy was white and painted; its lawn mowed, its hedges trimmed. The local council, conscious of civic pride, had not allowed it to fall into disrepair.
The street was quiet; the only signs of life were small ones: lights coming on in downstairs windows, curtains being drawn. We hadn’t set eyes on anyone until, nearing number 7, a thin figure detached itself from the shadows of the hedge. Arms folded, it waited gloomily as we drew near.
George let out a groan. “Penelope Fittes must have
hundreds
of supervisors. Why did she have to choose
him
?”
The young man wore the silver-gray jacket of the Fittes Agency and had an ornately handled rapier hanging at his belt. His narrow, freckled face was
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