me just check the timetable with you again,” I said. “The sightings started in September, is that right?”
“I believe so, yes. At least, that’s the first time anything was said to me about it, and so that’s the first entry in the incident book. I didn’t see her myself for a few weeks after that.”
“Do you have an exact date? For the first sighting, I mean?”
“Of course.” Peele seemed slightly affronted at the question. He opened his desk drawer and took out a double-width ledger with a marbled hardboard cover, put it down on the blotter in front of him, and started to leaf through it. I’d assumed that “incident book” was a quaint, archaic title for a database file, but no, here was a real book with real writing in it. Maybe working in a place like this gave you an exaggerated respect for tradition.
“Tuesday, September the thirteenth,” he said. He reversed the book and offered it to me. “You can read the entry, if you like.”
I glanced down at the page. The entry for September 13 ran to most of a side, and Peele’s handwriting was very small and very dense. “No, that’s fine,” I assured him. “It’s unlikely I’ll need to refer to it in detail. In any case, the attack on Mr. Clitheroe—Rich?—happened a lot more recently?”
“Yes.” He turned the book back around to face himself and consulted it again. “Last Friday. The twenty-fifth.”
I pondered this for a moment. Active versus passive is one of the ways I tend to classify ghosts—with passive making up more than 95 percent of the total. The dead keep themselves to themselves, most of the time; they scare us just by being there, rather than by actually going out of their way to harm us. But what was even rarer than a vicious ghost was one that had started out docile and then turned.
Well, let that lie for now. What I needed more than anything was a place to start from.
“Go back to September,” I said. “Did you bring in any big acquisitions in the days or weeks before that first sighting? What else was happening in late August or early September? What else that was new?”
Peele frowned, visibly rummaging through the interior archives of his memory. “Nothing that I can think of,” he said, slowly. But then he looked up—as far as my chin, anyway—as a mild inspiration struck him. “Except for the White Russian materials. I believe they came in August, although we were expecting them as far back as June.”
My ears pricked up. White Russians? A female ghost who wore a monastic hood and a white gown? It sounded like a link worth clicking on.
“Go on,” I prompted him.
Peele shrugged. “A collection of documents,” he said. “Quite extensive, but it’s hard to tell how much of it is going to be of any use. They’re letters, mostly, from Russian émigrés living in London at the turn of the century and just after. We were very pleased to get them because the LMA—the London Metropolitan Archive, over in Islington—was showing an interest, too.”
“Where are they kept?” I asked.
“They’re still in one of the storerooms on the first floor. Until they’re fully referenced and indexed, they won’t be added to the rest of the collection.”
“I’d like to go down there and see them later, if that’s okay.”
“Later?” Peele seemed perturbed by this concept. “Is there some reason why you can’t do the exorcism straight away?”
And here we were again. But he didn’t know, of course, how closely he was echoing his senior archivist. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, there is. Mr. Peele, let me explain to you how this is going to work—what you’ll get if you decide to hire me. I’d like to go through it in a bit of detail, because it’s important to me that you understand what’s likely to happen. Is that all right?”
He nodded curtly, his face saying louder than words that he really wasn’t interested in the traveling hopefully—only in the arrival. I ploughed on anyway. It would
“I believe so, yes. At least, that’s the first time anything was said to me about it, and so that’s the first entry in the incident book. I didn’t see her myself for a few weeks after that.”
“Do you have an exact date? For the first sighting, I mean?”
“Of course.” Peele seemed slightly affronted at the question. He opened his desk drawer and took out a double-width ledger with a marbled hardboard cover, put it down on the blotter in front of him, and started to leaf through it. I’d assumed that “incident book” was a quaint, archaic title for a database file, but no, here was a real book with real writing in it. Maybe working in a place like this gave you an exaggerated respect for tradition.
“Tuesday, September the thirteenth,” he said. He reversed the book and offered it to me. “You can read the entry, if you like.”
I glanced down at the page. The entry for September 13 ran to most of a side, and Peele’s handwriting was very small and very dense. “No, that’s fine,” I assured him. “It’s unlikely I’ll need to refer to it in detail. In any case, the attack on Mr. Clitheroe—Rich?—happened a lot more recently?”
“Yes.” He turned the book back around to face himself and consulted it again. “Last Friday. The twenty-fifth.”
I pondered this for a moment. Active versus passive is one of the ways I tend to classify ghosts—with passive making up more than 95 percent of the total. The dead keep themselves to themselves, most of the time; they scare us just by being there, rather than by actually going out of their way to harm us. But what was even rarer than a vicious ghost was one that had started out docile and then turned.
Well, let that lie for now. What I needed more than anything was a place to start from.
“Go back to September,” I said. “Did you bring in any big acquisitions in the days or weeks before that first sighting? What else was happening in late August or early September? What else that was new?”
Peele frowned, visibly rummaging through the interior archives of his memory. “Nothing that I can think of,” he said, slowly. But then he looked up—as far as my chin, anyway—as a mild inspiration struck him. “Except for the White Russian materials. I believe they came in August, although we were expecting them as far back as June.”
My ears pricked up. White Russians? A female ghost who wore a monastic hood and a white gown? It sounded like a link worth clicking on.
“Go on,” I prompted him.
Peele shrugged. “A collection of documents,” he said. “Quite extensive, but it’s hard to tell how much of it is going to be of any use. They’re letters, mostly, from Russian émigrés living in London at the turn of the century and just after. We were very pleased to get them because the LMA—the London Metropolitan Archive, over in Islington—was showing an interest, too.”
“Where are they kept?” I asked.
“They’re still in one of the storerooms on the first floor. Until they’re fully referenced and indexed, they won’t be added to the rest of the collection.”
“I’d like to go down there and see them later, if that’s okay.”
“Later?” Peele seemed perturbed by this concept. “Is there some reason why you can’t do the exorcism straight away?”
And here we were again. But he didn’t know, of course, how closely he was echoing his senior archivist. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, there is. Mr. Peele, let me explain to you how this is going to work—what you’ll get if you decide to hire me. I’d like to go through it in a bit of detail, because it’s important to me that you understand what’s likely to happen. Is that all right?”
He nodded curtly, his face saying louder than words that he really wasn’t interested in the traveling hopefully—only in the arrival. I ploughed on anyway. It would
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