‘Oh . . . yes. So I did.’

‘So you wouldn’t forget where it was.’

‘Oh, yeah . . . Right.’

The eyes gleamed up at me as I fumbled for the string. ‘Are you panicking?’

‘Nope.’

‘Just a little bit?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘If you say so. She’s creeping closer, by the way.’

That was it. No more small talk for me. Two seconds later I had the mirror in my hand.

It was a peculiarity of this Visitor that it could not be seen directly, even by agents with decent psychic Sight. It was said to be the spirit of the murderous Emma Marchment, a lady who had lived in the building in the early eighteenth century, when it was a private house and not the offices of an insurance company. After dabbling in witchcraft and allegedly being responsible for the deaths of several relatives, she had been stabbed by her husband with a spear of glass from her own smashed dressing-table mirror. Now she appeared only in reflections – in mirrors, windows and polished metal surfaces – and several employees of the company had recently lost their lives to her surreptitious touch. Hunting her was a ticklish business. Our team tonight had brought in hand mirrors, and there’d been a lot of slow shuffling backwards, and much wide-eyed peering over shoulders into dark corners. Me, I hadn’t bothered with any of that. I’d trusted my senses and followed the sounds, and not reached for my mirror until now.

I held it up and angled it so that I could see the reflection of the room.

‘Nice bit of kit,’ the skull said. ‘Real quality plastic. Lo-o-ve the pink ponies and rainbows on the rim.’

‘So I got it from a toy store. It was all I could find in the time available.’

Moonlight flashed confusingly on the glass surface. I took a deep breath and steadied my hand. Instantly the image stabilized, becoming the bright grid of the window, with cheap curtains hanging either side. Beneath the sill was a desk and chair. I panned up, round and down, seeing only a moonlit floor, another desk, filing cabinets, a hanging plant suspended from the darkly panelled wall.

The room was just a boring office now, but once it would have been a bedroom. A place where tempers snapped, old jealousies flared, where intimacy contorted into hatred. More ghosts have been created in bedrooms than anywhere else. It didn’t surprise me to find that Emma Marchment’s death might have happened here.

‘I don’t see her,’ I said. ‘Skull, where is she?’

‘Far right corner, half in and half out of that bureau thing. Got her arms stretched wide like she wants to hug you. Eee, but her nails are long . . .’

‘What are you tonight, a Yorkshire fishwife? Stop trying to freak me out. If she moves in my direction again, I want to know about it. Otherwise, quit warbling.’

I spoke decisively, projecting confidence. Show no fear, show no anxiety: give the restless spirit nothing to feed on. Even so, I wasn’t taking anything for granted. My left hand hung at my belt, midway between my rapier and the magnesium flares.

I snatched a glance away from the mirror. Yes, there was the corner with the bureau. It was very dark; hardly any moonlight reached it. Strain as I might, I picked out nothing standing there.

So, let’s see . . . I returned to the mirror and panned it slowly round, over the desks, past the hanging plant, following the panelled walls, until it reached the bureau.

And there it was. The ghost, swinging shockingly into view.

I’d been expecting her, yet I almost dropped the mirror.

A bone-thin figure, white drapes falling from it like a shroud. A livid face hanging in a cradle of smoke-plume hair. Black eyes staring, white skin clinging to the skull like melting wax. You could see the skeletal neck; the stains on the dress, the jaw unnaturally agape. Her hands were raised, the fingers bent towards me.

The nails were very long.

I swallowed. Without the mirror, or the skull to guide me, I might have wandered unawares into those clutching arms.

‘Got her,’ I said.

‘Have you, Lucy? Good one. Now, do you want to live or die?’

‘Live, please.’

‘Call the others.’

‘Not yet.’ My hand was shaking again, the mirror wobbling. I kept losing sight of the pale form. I cleared my mind. I needed a moment’s peace for what I had to do.

‘I know you’re annoyed with them,’ the skull went on, ‘but this isn’t something to tackle on your own. You need to get over your little tiff.’

‘I have got over it.’

‘Just because Lockwood—’

‘I’m not worrying about Lockwood. Now will you shut up? You know I need absolute silence for this.’ I took a deep breath and double-checked the mirror. Yes, there was the face: a ragged smear haloed by a candyfloss swirl of hair.

Had it stolen closer to me? Maybe. It seemed a tad bigger. I shook the notion away.

The skull stirred again. ‘Tell me you’re not going to do your silly thing! She was an evil old biddy whose spirit only wishes you harm. There’s no need to reach out to her.’

‘I am doing my thing, and it’s not at all silly.’ I raised my voice. ‘Emma?’ I called. ‘Emma Marchment? I see you. I hear you. What do you want? Tell me. I can help you.’

That was how I always did it. Everything boiled down to basics. The Lucy Carlyle Formula™ – tried and tested many times over the long dark nights of the Black Winter. Use their name. Ask the question. Keep it simple. It was the best strategy I’d devised so far for getting the dead to speak.

Didn’t mean it always worked, mind. Or worked the way you wanted it to.

I watched the white face in the centre of the mirror. I listened with my inner ear, blanking out the sceptical snorting of the skull.

Soft sounds drifted across the bedroom through an abyss of time and space.

Were they words?

No. Just the flap of a bloodied nightdress and some shallow, rasping death-sighs.

Same old, same old.

I opened my mouth to try once more. Then—

‘. . . I STILL HAVE IT . . .’

‘Skull, did you hear that?’

‘Only just. She’s a bit husky. Still, give her credit. It’s amazing she can say anything at all with her throat torn open. What does she still have? That’s the question . . . Blisters? Bad breath? Who can tell?’

‘Shh!’ I made a grand and welcoming gesture. ‘Emma Marchment – I hear you! If you desire to take your rest, you must first trust me! What is it that you have?’

A voice spoke close behind me: ‘Lucy?’

I cried out, ripping my rapier clear of its Velcro clasp. I spun round, sword held ready, heart throbbing against my chest. The door to the bedroom had opened. A tall slim figure stood there, silhouetted by swirling torchlight and clouds of magnesium smoke. One hand was on his hip; the other rested on his sword hilt. His long coat hung rippling around him.

‘Lucy, what are you doing?’

I snatched a glance back, stabilizing the mirror just in time to see the faint, pale shape, like a breath-smudge in the air, pass through the panelling behind the bureau and disappear.

So the ghost had retreated into the wall . . . That was interesting.

‘Lucy?’

‘All right, all right, you can come in.’ I sheathed my sword and beckoned – and into the room strode Ted Daley, team leader (second class) at the Rotwell Agency.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. There were many advantages to my new life as a freelance psychic operative. I could choose my jobs. I worked whenever I wanted. I could build up a little reputation of my own. But one definite drawback was that I could never pick my fellow agents. Each case I took on, I had to fit in with whoever worked for the company that had hired me. Of course, some were OK – decent, professional and competent. Others . . . well, they were more like Ted.

Seen at a distance, in a soft light, with his back turned, Ted was tolerable; closer inspection was invariably disappointing. He was a gangly, sad-eyed youth, long in all the wrong places, with a permanently semi-open mouth hanging above a scrawny neck. Somehow he always gave the impression of having just swallowed his chin. He had a reedy voice, and a tight and nit-picking manner. As team leader, he had nominal authority over me that evening, but since he ran with his arms flapping like a goose, had the personality of a limp stick of celery, and crucially didn’t seem particularly psychic, I more or less ignored him.

‘Mr Farnaby wants a word,’ he said.

‘Again?’

‘Wants an update on how we’re doing.’

‘Not a chance. I’ve cornered the ghost: we deal with it now. Bring the others in.’

‘No, Mr Farnaby says—’ But it was too late; I knew they’d be loitering at the door. Sure enough, in an instant two nervous shapes had slipped into the room, and presto, our team was complete in all its glory.

It wasn’t exactly a breathtaking line-up. Tina Lane, Rotwell field agent (third class), was a wan girl, peculiarly colourless in a way that suggested that all her warmth and vibrancy had drained out through a hole in one of her toes. She had very pale hair like bleached straw, bone-white skin and a slow, faint way of talking that made you lean ever closer to her in an effort to catch what she said. When you realized it wasn’t worth listening to, you leaned slowly back again and, if possible, continued in the same direction until you’d left the room.

Next up: Dave Eason, Rotwell field agent (third class). Dave had slightly more to him, in a damaged-goods sort of way. He was a dark-skinned kid, squat, burly and belligerent, like an angry tree stump. I guessed he had strong natural abilities, but his experiences with Visitors had left him skittish and too free with his rapier. Tina had a scar where Dave had struck her on a previous occasion; and twice that very evening I’d almost been skewered when he’d caught sight of me in his mirror out of the corner of his eye.

Wan Tina, mediocre Ted and jumpy Dave. Yeah, that was my team; that’s what I had to work with. It’s a wonder the ghost didn’t just evaporate in fear.

Dave was pumped up, tense. A nerve twitched in his neck. ‘Where’ve you been, Carlyle? It’s a dangerous Type Two we’re dealing with here, and Mr Farnaby—’

‘Says we have to stick together,’ Ted interrupted. ‘Yes, we’ve got to keep in strict formation. It’s no good you arguing with me and waltzing off. You have to listen to me now, Lucy. We’ve got to report back to him straight away or—’

‘Or,’ I said, ‘we could just get on with the job.’ I’d been kneeling, closing up my rucksack; the others didn’t know about the skull, and I wanted it to stay that way. Now I got to my feet, put my hand on my rapier hilt and addressed them. ‘Listen, there’s no use wasting time with the supervisor. He’s adult. He can’t help us, can he? So we use our own initiative. I’ve found the probable location of the Source. The ghost disappeared into the wall just over there on the far side. Didn’t the old story say that after she was stabbed Emma Marchment fled from her husband into a secret room? Then they broke in and found her lying dead amongst all her pots and poisons? So my guess is we’ll find her room behind that wall somewhere. Join me, and we’ll put an end to this. OK?’

‘You’re not our leader,’ Dave said.

‘No, but I know what I’m doing, which is a nice alternative.’

There was a silence. Tina looked blank. Ted raised a bent finger. ‘Mr Farnaby says—’

It was hard to keep my temper under control, but I’d got better at it these last few months. So many agents were like this: lazy, ineffectual, or just plain scared. And always so concerned about their supervisors that they never acted like proper teams. ‘Here’s how I see it,’ I said. ‘The secret door’s by that bureau. One of us finds it and breaks through; the others stand guard with mirrors. Any funny business from the ghost, it’s salt bombs and rapiers all the way. We get the Source, we shut it down, and we’re out of here before Farnaby gets halfway through his hip flask. Who’s with me?’

Tina blinked around at the silent room. Ted’s long white hands worried at the pommel of his sword. Dave just stared at the floor.

‘You can do this,’ I persisted. ‘You’re a good team.’

‘They so aren’t.’ That was the skull, in whispers only I could hear. ‘They’re a bunch of knock-kneed losers. You know that, right? Ghost-touch is too good for them.’

I didn’t acknowledge the voice. My smile didn’t falter, nor did my purpose. They may not have answered, but they weren’t arguing with me any more, so I knew I’d won.

After five minutes’ further hustling I’d got us all set up. We’d pushed some desks and tables to the side, to give us a good free space. A protective arc of iron chains lay on the floor, closing off the corner with the bureau. Within this we had three lanterns glowing by the wall. I was there too, my mirror hanging at my belt, my rapier in my hand, ready to hunt for secret doors. My three companions stood safely beyond the barrier with their mirrors in position, angled so that they had coverage of the whole area where I’d seen the ghost. I only had to look back at them to check that I was safe. Right now the only thing that was reflected in the mirrors was me – just me three times and nothing else.

‘OK,’ I said, keeping the encouragement going, ‘that’s perfect. Well done, everyone. I’ll start looking. Keep those mirrors steady.’

‘I admire your confidence,’ the skull said from my rucksack. ‘These idiots can barely walk and breathe at the same time, yet you’re relying on them to keep you safe. I’d say that’s risky.’

‘They’ll do just fine.’ I spoke so low that no one else could hear, meanwhile shining my torch on the old dark panelling. What would it be? A lever? A button? Most likely a simple pressure-release board that, when pushed, allowed a weighted door to open. It had been closed a long time; maybe it had all been sealed up, in which case we’d need to smash it in. I changed the angle of the beam of light. Now one section of the wood seemed slightly shinier than the rest. I pushed at it experimentally. Nothing stirred.

Or at least, nothing natural did. But my inner ear caught a gentle cracking noise close by, like glass shards being trodden underfoot.

The woman had been stabbed to death with broken glass. My stomach twisted, but I kept my voice upbeat. ‘Anything in those mirrors?’ I said. I shoved at the panel again.

‘No, you’re good. All’s clear.’ That was Dave, tones flat with tension.

‘It’s getting colder,’ Ted said. ‘Getting colder really fast.’

‘OK.’ Yes, I could feel the temperature draining away; the wood was freezing to the touch. I struck the panel with cold and sweaty fingers, and this time felt it move.

Glass crunched.

‘She’s coming back, pulling herself out of the past,’ the skull said. ‘She doesn’t like you being here.’

‘Someone’s weeping,’ Tina said.

I’d heard it too: a desolate, angry sound, echoing in a lonely place. And with it came the rustling of approaching linen – sodden fabric, wet with blood . . .

‘Watch those mirrors, everyone,’ I ordered. ‘Keep talking to me . . .’

‘All’s clear.’

‘Getting colder . . .’

‘She’s very near.’

I shoved again, harder – and this time it was enough. The piece of wood swung in – and out seesawed a narrow door: a section of panelling cracking free of the wall, wreathed in cobwebs and trailing dust.

Beyond it? Only darkness.

I wiped the sweat from my face; both hand and brow were freezing. ‘There we are,’ I said. ‘As promised – one secret room! Now all we need to do is go inside.’

I turned back to the others, gave them all a beaming smile –

And looked into their mirrors.

There was my pale face, reflected three times. And close behind it another face, its skin melting off the bone. I saw pale hair like clouds; I saw bared teeth as small and red as pomegranate seeds. I saw the black and glinting eyes; and, last, in the split second I had left, the five clawed fingers reaching for my throat.

2

We all reacted in our different, self-defining ways. Tina screamed and dropped her mirror; Ted leaped back like a scalded cat. Only Dave held his mirror firm – or firmish – while he scrabbled for something at his belt. Me? Before Tina’s mirror had shattered on the floor, I’d reversed my rapier and driven it behind me. Wheeling round, I stared into emptiness. But smoke rose from the middle of the sword, and a worm of ectoplasm writhed and fizzed on the iron blade.

I slashed the rapier frantically to and fro. Then I did it some more.

‘Waste of time,’ the skull said, after a pause. ‘She’s gone back inside the wall.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me that right away? I hit her. How badly did I hit her?’

‘It was hard to see, what with your immense display of raw skill blocking my view.’

‘Well, where—?’ But at that point I was blown sideways by a blast of salt, iron and white magnesium fire that erupted from the wall a few feet to the left. For a second the room shone bright as day; it was like we’d been dropped into the sun. Then the flames drew back and darkness closed in, and I was lying in a bed of ash and glowing cinders, with my ears ringing and my hair over my eyes.

I got stiffly to my feet, tapping at my ear, supporting myself with my sword. Through the smoke I could see Ted and Tina goggling at me from a far corner of the room. Close by, Dave was crouched like a small, squat panther, a second magnesium flare ready in his hand.

‘Did I get it?’

I patted down a small white flame licking from my sleeve. ‘No, Dave. No, you didn’t. But it was a very good try. And you don’t need to chuck another one. She’s gone into the secret room.’ I coughed out a glob of ash. ‘We have to follow her and finish this. We— Yes, Ted?’ From his corner, Ted had raised a hand.

‘You’ve got a trickle of blood coming from your nose.’

‘I know.’ I dabbed at it with a sleeve. ‘But thanks for pointing it out. Right, we need to go in. Who’s coming with me?’

The three of them might have been carved from stone. Their fear was so solid it was like a fifth person in the room. They stared at the opening in the wall. I waited while wreaths of smoke spread and mingled, filling the office, blocking them from my sight.

‘Mr Farnaby says—’ Ted’s voice began.

‘Like I care what Farnaby says!’ I cried. ‘He’s not in here! He’s not risking his life with us! Think for yourselves for once!’

I waited. No answer came. Rage and impatience filled me. I turned alone to the secret door.

I could still feel the wave of cold following the ghost like a bridal train, running away into the dark. The side of the bureau shone with nets of ice crystals, delicate as lacework. The panelling was frosted over too. I flicked on my torch.

It was a narrow passage, woolled with cobwebs, bending almost immediately to the left and out of sight. Darkness hung there, and also a faint tart tang, the smell of dust and death.

Somewhere inside was the Source of the haunting, the place or object to which the ghost was tied. Suppress that by covering it with silver or iron, and you trapped the Visitor too. Simple. I took my mirror in one hand, my torch and rapier in the other, and squeezed into the hole.

It wasn’t something I wanted to do, exactly. I could have waited for the others; I could have spent ten minutes cajoling them to follow me. But then I might have lost my nerve as well. Once in a while you have to be a little reckless; that’s a skill I learned somewhere.

The passage was so narrow I brushed against brick on either side, the cobwebs tearing off as I passed through. I went slowly, steeling myself for ambush.

‘Do you see her?’ I whispered.

‘No. She’s tricksy; flicks in and out of this world. Makes her hard to pin down.’

‘I wonder what the Source is – what she’s guarding.’

‘Some bit of her, more than likely. Maybe the husband got over-enthusiastic, hacked her into pieces. A toe rolled off, say, went under a chair and got lost. Easily done.’

‘Why do I ever listen to you? That’s so disgusting.’

‘Hey, there’s nothing disgusting about random body parts,’ the skull said. ‘I’m one myself. It’s an honest profession. Steady here – blind turn.’

Darkness bled round the corner. I took a salt bomb from my belt and chucked it ahead of me, out of sight. I heard it burst, but there was no psychic impact – I hadn’t hit anything.

I raised my torch and peered round. ‘Maybe she wants us to find it,’ I muttered. ‘That’s a possibility, isn’t it? It’s almost like she’s showing us where to look.’

‘Maybe. Or luring you to a miserable death. I reckon that’s an option too.’

Either way, we hadn’t far to go. The concentration of spiders – always a sign of Visitors – told me that. Ahead was a little room choked with a thousand cobwebs; they were strung from wall to wall, fireplace to ceiling. Over and through each other they passed, forming a maze of soft grey hammocks and knobbly, dust-encrusted intersections. My torch beam was fractured, split and inexplicably absorbed. I was inside a birds’ nest of maddening distortions. Tiny, black-bellied bodies moved on the fringes, scuttling to find shelter from the light.

I hesitated, letting my eyes make sense of the confusion. The place was a former dressing room, I guessed, sealed behind the fake panel; remnants of tattered wallpaper backed this up. One wall had rows of empty shelves, another a mean brick fireplace, with a skeleton of a bird lying amidst the sooty rubble. There was no window. Black dust washed in dead, dry waves against the sides of my boots. The room had been shut up for a long time.

I listened; somewhere close I heard a woman weeping.

A tall, gold-rimmed dressing-table mirror stood against one wall. Its pane of glass was smashed; dust caked the few remaining shards.

When I’d first looked round the corner, I’d sensed – just for an instant – a faint grey shape standing before the mirror, bent slightly, as if looking in. But the apparition, if such it was, had instantly vanished, and I was left to cut my way through the cobwebs with my rapier, scowling as they stuck to hand and blade. The mirror was cocooned like some giant fly.

In the story, Emma Marchment had been stabbed with glass from her mirror. The looking glass might be the Source. I opened one of the pouches at my belt, shook free its silver chain net, and draped it over the top of the mirror. I listened again. The weeping noise continued; the feeling of wrongness in the room remained.

‘No . . .’ I said. ‘Pity . . .’ I was turning my gaze slowly around the room. The mirror . . . the fireplace . . . the empty shelves. The cobwebs were a nightmare: in places, visibility was down to nothing. I cursed the Rotwell group softly. ‘It’s so hard,’ I muttered, ‘doing this on my own.’

‘What?’ A shrill voice of protest echoed from my rucksack. ‘Who are you talking to, if you’re “on your own”? Let’s have some accuracy here.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Sorry. Scratch that. Apart from an evil talking skull imprisoned in a dirty old jar and carried around out of a perverse sense of pity, I’m on my own. That makes a world of difference.’

‘How can you say that? We’re pals, you and me.’

‘We are so not pals. You’ve tried to get me killed dozens of times.’

‘I’m dead too, remember. Maybe I’m lonely. Ever think of that?’

‘Well, keep a close watch now,’ I ordered. ‘I don’t want her leaping out at me.’

‘Yeah, a kiss from old jawless would be a bit messy,’ the skull said. ‘Mind you, she’s not the worst we’ve come across. That must’ve been that Raw-bones in Dulwich. Remember its moaning? “I want my skin! I want my skin!” Yeah, yeah, so you’ve lost it! Tough! Get over it!’ It chuckled to itself, then stopped abruptly. ‘Oh, wait, hold on a second – you’re not trying that, are you? Lucy, Lucy . . . it never ends well.’

Which was only partly true. One of my Talents, along with Sight (fair) and Listening (better than anyone), was Touch – a variable and frustrating gift, which often gave me nothing (or too little), and sometimes far too much. In recent months its accuracy had noticeably improved, and it was worth a try here. I stretched out my hand to the mirror and touched a fragment of remaining glass. Closing my mind to the present, I opened it to the past, inviting the object to loop me back to long ago.

As so often these days, the sounds came swiftly, and with them, dimly, images . . . The weeping noise faded, to be replaced by the pop and crackle of burning logs. I shut my eyes, saw the same room, but now filled with colour and variety – as different from its modern incarnation as a living body is from bones. A fire flickered in the hearth; the shelves gleamed with jars and pots and leather-bound books. On a table, piles of herbs lay scattered, together with other, bloodier things.

A lady with long dark hair stood by the hearth, her dress stained red by firelight, the lace fringes of her sleeves rippling in the currents of warm air. She was doing something to the chimney breast, adjusting the position of a broad, thin stone. As my gaze alighted on her, she froze. Her head turned, and she glared across at me; it was a look of such malignant possessiveness that I recoiled. My shoulder bumped against the wall behind me, and I was back in the present, in the dark, cold, empty shell of the little room.

‘You took your sweet time,’ the skull said.

I rubbed my eyes. To me it had been a fleeting instant. ‘How long was I gone?’

‘I could have done with a pipe and slippers, I was that bored. Find anything?’

‘Maybe.’ I flicked my torch beam onto the black hole of the fireplace. A little higher up, scarcely visible under its patina of dirt, was that broad, thin stone.

I still have it. That’s what the ghost of Emma Marchment had said.

Still in there. Her special thing.

I took my crowbar from my belt. In two steps I was at the stone, prising and scraping at its edge. It wasn’t the nicest thing in the world, turning my back on that cobwebby room, but there was no alternative. Years of black soot had filled the gaps around it, and the stone was hard to shift. I wished I was stronger. I wished I was part of a proper team. Then I’d have had someone to stand behind me, guard my back and watch the shadows. But I didn’t have that luxury.

‘Speed it up. A mouse could pull that pebble out.’

‘I’m trying.’

‘I could do better, and I don’t have hands. Put some beef into it, woman.’

My only answer was a muttered curse. I had the crowbar wedged in and the stone was moving, but the weeping noise was getting louder, and once again I could hear the soft tread of footsteps through broken glass. I looked round. Ice was spreading along the cobwebs in the room.

‘She’s coming,’ I said. ‘I’d prefer insights to insults at this stage.’

‘Oh, with me you get the full package. This is a tight spot, Lucy. Why don’t you set me free? I’d put you out of your misery then.’

‘I bet you would. I’ve almost got it . . . Just keep watch.’

‘You want me to tell you when she’s creeping close?’

‘No! Before that!’

‘When her fingers are closing round your neck?’

‘Just tell me when she’s in the room.’

‘Too late for that. She’s here.’

The hairs on the back of my neck did that thing they always do when I’m no longer alone. I took one hand off the crowbar, picked up the mirror dangling at my belt and angled it over my shoulder. The chamber was black, but a faint gleam shone in the centre of the glass. It was the chill blue glint of other-light, cast by a thin, thin figure drifting towards me through the dark.

It was at this point that I remembered I’d left the silver net draped over the looking glass on the far side of the room.

Desperation gave me strength. I dropped the mirror, plucked a salt bomb from my belt and threw. It burst and scattered. There was a smell of burned ectoplasm. The falling granules of salt picked out a woman’s form in tumbling, burning green. The shape became two snake-like strands that split and darted away. The salt burned out, and darkness fell again. I launched myself onto the crowbar and heaved; the stone came free. I danced aside as it dropped to the ground. Where was my torch? There, lying in the fireplace. I snatched it up, angled it into the shallow recess left behind the stone.

Inside: a large dark object, like an irregular-shaped football, heavily spun about with cobwebs, and with spiders crawling on its surface. It was furry with dust and age.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘A head.’

‘Yep. Old. Mummified. Nice.’

‘But not her head.’

‘Nope. Or if it is, there’s another good reason her husband killed her: she had a beard.’

Even under the cobwebs you could see the wiry black tufts sprouting from the chin.

I picked up the head. Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s the sort of thing we have to do.

‘Where is she, skull?’

‘The apparition has re-formed. Now she’s standing by the mirror. Ooh, there are cobwebs running through her wounds. That’s weird. Now she’s moving forward. She’s not happy you’ve got her Source – she has her hands stretched out—’

I could have thrown a flare, I guess, but there was nowhere for me to hide from the concussion. I could have used the rapier, but I couldn’t have held that and the mirror and the Source all at the same time. So I did what I’d learned to do, back when I’d worked with proper agents. I improvised.

I threw the head away from me across the room. I felt the wave of cold shift sideways, saw cobwebs ice over as the ghost moved instinctively after it. At the same moment I sprang the other way, over to the looking glass, where I seized the silver net and spun round. I snatched up my hand mirror, just in time to see the ghost turn back to me. There was a whole host of horrid details on show right then – you could take your pick of which was worse, the ravaged, bloody body or the deranged wickedness in the face – but I took no notice of any of them. I was doing the matador routine that Lockwood had taught me long ago, feinting with the silver net, darting in and out, keeping the Spectre at bay. All at once I let my guard down, stood unprotected. The ghost surged forward, fingers raking; as it did so, I twisted aside and, with a flick of the arm, tossed the net directly into the face of the apparition.

Silver did what it always does: the ghost shimmered and went out.

I picked up the net again, bent down to the head lying on its side against the wall and covered it with the silver. Something popped in my ears; the feeling of immanent evil in the room burst and was gone.

I spoke in the general direction of my rucksack. ‘How’s that?’

‘Not bad, I grant you.’

I sank to the floor and regarded the bundle at my feet. ‘This is some Source. Whose head do you think it is? And why did she want it?’

‘She’ll have picked it up at a gallows, most likely. That was the usual way witches did it, back in the old days – to aid them in whatever useless spells they were attempting.’

‘Ugh. That is so foul.’

‘Yeah . . .’ The skull left a significant pause. ‘Hanging out with a severed head . . . What kind of sick person would do something like that?’

‘I know.’ I sat there in the dark of the secret room until my breathing returned to normal and my heart stilled. Then I got stiffly to my feet, swaddled the head securely in the silver net and went to find the others. I didn’t exactly hurry. The dangerous part of the night was over, but the worst bit was just beginning.

3

You might think that finding the head was the end of the matter. Ghost gone, Source suppressed, another building made safe – everything done and dusted. But no. Because now we come to the main drawback of being a freelance psychical detection agent: reporting to the adults at the end.

This was the central paradox of the agencies. Only children and teenagers had decent psychic Talent, so operatives like me were young. We were the ones who dealt with ghosts; we were the ones who risked our lives. Yet it was the grown-ups who ran the show. They called the shots, they paid the salaries; they were in charge of all the teams. The adult supervisors had zero psychic sensitivity and, since they were mortally afraid of going anywhere near an actual Visitor, never ventured far into a haunted zone. Instead they hung around on the sidelines, being old and useless, and shouting orders that were utterly out of sync with whatever was going on.

Every agency worked like this. Every agency in London, except one.

Mr Toby Farnaby, my supervisor from the Rotwell Agency that evening, was typical of his breed. He was a man well into rotund middle age, and thus hadn’t seen anything remotely supernatural for more than twenty years. Nevertheless, he considered himself indispensable. He had parked himself in the marble foyer of the house, close to the exits and safe within a triple circle of iron chains. When I slowly emerged, limping, onto the first-floor balcony, I could see him squatting below me like an enormous pot-bellied toad. His ample backside rested in a folding canvas chair; a hip flask and a stack of sandwiches sat on a trestle table beside him.

At his shoulder stood another man, slight, willowy, a plastic clipboard in his hand. His name was Johnson, and I’d never seen him before that night. He had a soft, forgettable face and nondescript brown hair. He also worked for Rotwell’s and, as far as I could make out, was supervising our supervisor. It was that kind of company.

Right now Mr Farnaby was busy lecturing the other members of the team, who had evidently sloped down to report to him when I disappeared into the wall. Tina and Dave were standing slumped in attitudes of bored dejection. Conversely Ted stood smartly to attention, an expression of fatuous concentration on his face.

‘And it is paramount,’ Farnaby was saying, ‘that when you go back up, you proceed with the utmost caution. If Miss Carlyle is dead, which is more than possible, she will only have herself to blame. Keep close, and watch each other’s backs. Remember, Emma Marchment poisoned her stepson and attempted to kill her husband! If she was so cruel and vengeful in life, her restless spirit will be worse by far.’

‘I think we should hurry, sir,’ Dave Eason said. ‘Lucy has been gone ages. We ought—’

‘To follow regulations, Eason, which are there for your protection. Take two demerits for interrupting.’ Mr Farnaby put soft, plump hands together and cracked a knuckle. He reached for a sandwich. ‘The girl chose to rush off on her own, instead of reporting back to me. This is the problem with using freelancers. They haven’t been properly trained, have they, Johnson?’

‘No, indeed,’ said Johnson.

I called down from the balcony. ‘Hello, Mr Farnaby.’ I took a bleak satisfaction from seeing them all jump.

Farnaby had dropped his sandwich in his lap; his little eyes glinted as he gazed up at me. ‘Ah, Miss Carlyle has elected to join us. I have heard about your reckless behaviour! At Rotwell’s we work in teams! You cannot be a maverick here.’

I tapped my fingers slowly on the parapet. Below me, Farnaby’s lank black hair glistened in the lantern-light; his stomach cast a shadow like a lunar eclipse. Sacks of iron and salt littered the floor at his feet. Officially he was guarding our supplies; unofficially they were guarding him. ‘I’m all for teamwork,’ I said, ‘provided it’s the right kind. Field agents need to be left alone to use our psychic Talents.’

Farnaby pursed his lips. ‘I hired you this evening for your admirable Listening skills, Miss Carlyle, not because I need your shrill opinions. Now, you will do what I asked for an hour ago, and that is to give me a proper report on your actions, which—’

There was a stirring in my rucksack. ‘This guy’s a drag.’

I spoke under my breath. ‘He sure is.’

‘Know what I suggest?’

‘Yep. And the answer’s no. I’m not going to kill him.’

‘Oh, you’re no fun. There’s a plant pot over there – you could drop it on his head.’

‘Hush.’

Farnaby looked up at me. ‘Sorry, Miss Carlyle – did you speak?’

I nodded. ‘Yeah, I was just saying that I’ve got the Source. I’ll bring it down to you now. Save me a sandwich; I’ll be with you shortly.’

I limped off, found the stairs and descended to the foyer. Ignoring my fellow agents, who were all gazing at me blankly, I strolled across the lobby, the silver bundle under my arm. When I got to Farnaby, I dumped it on the table with a flourish. It made a satisfying thud.

The supervisor drew back. ‘This is the Source? What is it?’

‘Take a look, sir. You might want to move your snacks back a little.’

Farnaby lifted a corner of the net. He gave a cry and sprang away, bowling over his chair. ‘Fetch a silver-glass box! Quickly! And put that thing on the floor! Don’t bring it anywhere near me!’

A box was found and the head placed inside. Sweating, dabbing at his pate, Farnaby returned to his seat. He inspected the box from a distance. ‘What a hideous thing! You think this was Emma Marchment?’

‘It’s not her head,’ I said. ‘But it most definitely belonged to her. I got a flash of what the secret room was like, back in her day. Lots of pots and herbs, weird books and charms. She was into some kind of nonsense sorcery, that’s for certain. This old head was one of her prized possessions, which is why her ghost is so attached to it.’

‘Fascinating.’ Bland-faced Mr Johnson made a note on his clipboard. ‘Well done, Carlyle.’

‘Thank you, sir. It was a joint effort. Everyone played their part.’

Farnaby grunted sourly. ‘It’s certainly an unusual specimen. The sort of thing your boys at the institute would like, eh, Johnson? Fancy taking it home?’

Mr Johnson smiled thinly. ‘Sadly, that’s no longer possible under the new DEPRAC regulations. It will have to be destroyed. I’ll make a report that the premises are now clear. A notable success for your team, Farnaby, despite your lack of personal control.’ He patted the supervisor on the shoulder, stepped out of the circle and drifted off towards the doors.

Mr Farnaby sat in silence for a moment, brooding. When he spoke, it was to Ted, who was nervously standing near. ‘I blame you for this, Daley,’ he said. ‘You were in charge of the team. You should have kept Miss Carlyle on a tighter leash. It’ll be five demerits for you.’

Annoyance flared within me. I could sense Ted shrinking away. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ I said. ‘The team achieved its objectives. Our actions were entirely correct.’

‘Not,’ Farnaby said, ‘according to me, and that’s all there is to it. We will begin packing up now.’ He waved me away and made to take up his hip flask, but I stood my ground.

‘There was no time for me to consult you,’ I went on. ‘I had to pinpoint the exact location of the Source before the Spectre disappeared. It was the most efficient thing to do. And the team worked very effectively in the initial confrontation. They helped me locate the secret room, and Dave helped drive away the Spectre. You were an agent once, sir; you remember how you have to make certain decisions on the ground. It’s good practice to trust your fellow operatives. Isn’t that right, Ted?’

I looked round to find Ted some way off, busily lugging a sack of iron towards the door in preparation for departure. I blinked at him. ‘Tina?’ I asked. ‘Dave . . . ?’

But Tina was packing away some unused salt bombs, Dave folding away the iron chains. They were silent, disconnected, intent on their work. They paid me no attention.

I found myself cast into sudden shadow. Farnaby’s stomach blocked the lantern-light; with ponderous finality he was rising from his chair. His eyes were burnt currants at the best of times; now they had shrunk further, to become fragments of glass, black, malevolent and glittering. I stepped back, my hand instinctively moving to my rapier.

‘I know where you worked before, Miss Carlyle,’ Farnaby said. ‘I know why you act the way you do. It is a mystery to me why DEPRAC has never moved to shut down that ramshackle, disreputable little outfit. An agency run by children? The idea is absurd! It will end in disaster soon enough, mark my words. But Miss Carlyle, you are not at Lockwood and Company any more. Whenever you work at Rotwell, you will find it a real agency, where child agents know their place. If you wish to be hired again, you will keep silent and in future do as you’re told. Do I make myself clear?’

My lips were a tight white line. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘In the meantime, since you’re so keen to improve our efficiency, you can finish tonight’s job for me. As Mr Johnson said, new DEPRAC rules demand that all Type Two Sources be destroyed immediately. There is a black market for precisely this kind of vile object and we cannot take any chances.’ He nudged the silver-glass box with his boot. ‘Here is the mummified head. Take it to Fittes furnaces and see that it is burned.’

I gazed at him. ‘You want me to go to Clerkenwell? Now? It’s four o’clock in the morning.’

‘All to the good. The furnaces will be roaring. When you send me their stamped certificate tomorrow, I will pay you for tonight’s work, and not a moment before. You others’ – he glanced at the industrious trio – ‘I was going to give you the rest of the night off. But since Miss Carlyle has such a high opinion of your energies, we will see whether we can’t fit in a second job. I believe there is a Changer in Highgate Cemetery that needs tackling. I shall drive you there. So, hop to it and finish your tidying!’

He turned away from me and began packing up his sandwiches. My fellow agents, with evil glances in my direction, did as they were told. I was otherwise ignored. I picked up the silver-glass box.

‘Skull,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘You had a point about that plant pot.’

‘There you are, you see. Didn’t I say?’

Without further words I tucked the mummified head under my arm and left the house. I was tired, I was angry, but I didn’t choose to show it. Arguments with supervisors were nothing new; I had them almost nightly. It was just how things were, part of the deal of my new freelance life.

From the start I’d done things properly. I’d got myself a card, nicely laminated, with a classy silver-grey border. Here’s what I handed out to all my employers, and why they all wanted me, even if I did annoy them.

I could have gone for a swanky logo, with crossed rapiers or skewered ghosts or something, but I preferred to keep it simple. Just being a consultant was enough to get me noticed, because that meant I was independent. There weren’t many psychical investigation agents working solo in London, on account of most of us ending up dead.

Being freelance, I could hire myself out to any agency that wanted my services, and let me tell you, during the course of the Black Winter, a lot of them had wanted those services bad. My special sensitivity – Listening was my particular Talent (and between you and me, I was better at it than any agent I’d ever heard of, except perhaps one) – gave almost any group an additional edge. An extra bonus for them was that I knew how to survive. I knew when to Listen and Look, I knew when to use my rapier, and I knew when to get the hell out. That’s what it always boiled down to, in the end. Three options, and simple common sense. It’s how you stayed alive.

In short, I was very good at what I did. Of course I was. I’d learned my trade with the best.

And I wasn’t with them any more.

The Black Winter had been a decent time to start a business. Right now, in late March, there were signs of seasonal respite. The weather was improving, the days lengthening, pretty spring flowers were showing their heads beside crusted flecks of ancient snow, and you were marginally less likely to be fatally ghost-touched when venturing out for an evening pint of milk. We hoped the ordeal was easing for a time.