𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞┃ Anthony Lockwood┃2┃

Chapter Twenty Eight - Barnes' Socks

So, night bled into morning, and Lockwood & Co emerged blinking from the darkness with its future changed.

The tunnel terminated beneath an abandoned wharf on the north shore of the Thames, a couple of blocks from the department store. There was evidence that the entrance had been carefully concealed: a large number of rotten posts had been propped against the muddy bank; some, sawn through and ingeniously attached to a kind of rough panel, had clearly been set across the hole to hide it from view. The way the panel had been cast aside suggested that someone had made a hasty exit, and boot prints in the mire supported this. Even as Lockwood and Nola watched, however, the incoming tide was pooling in the prints, and soon they were lost to view.

At Aickmere Brothers, or what remained of it, much was going on. A DEPRAC ambulance had recently removed Bobby Vernon. The prognosis had been favourable, a sprained ankle and suspected concussion being the worst of it. Kat Godwin had gone with him to hospital. The others were sitting outside the shattered glass entrance doors, shivering in the half-light and talking in muted voices to other agents, who were arriving in dribs and drabs from across Chelsea. Periodically, people would go up to the doors and peer in wonder at the ruined foyer. From a distance, it looked like a doll's house that had been picked up and briskly shaken by an angry toddler. There was almost nothing standing. Everything laid formless and in heaps. In the centre of the floor, startling in its vastness, a chasm opened to the buried rooms below. George and Kipps were grim-facedly fixing a rappelling line to one of the columns, prior to climbing down in search of Lockwood and Nola.

Their arrival changed the mood at once. Everyone crowded round, bombarding them with questions. Nola was patted on the back, grinned at, given high-calorie energy drinks, congratulated, ticked-off, urged to keep moving and told to sit down, all at the same time. Lockwood provided her with many cuddles. George offered her doughnuts. Flo Bones nodded at her with something approximating good-natured contempt. Even Kipps seemed relieved at her reappearance, though he immediately got into an argument with Lockwood about what to do next. He wanted to wait for Barnes and lead DEPRAC down in triumph to the underground chambers of the prison. Lockwood had other plans.

While they discussed the matter, Nola hung back on the fringes of the crowd, and so saw Holly.

She was definitely not her normal radiant self. By her standards, she was bedraggled. Actually, though, compared to Nola, her clothes were fashionably ripped, her face delicately bruised. She came within a whisker of making beaten-up look stylish.

Their eyes met. "Hey." Nola said.

"Hello."

"How are you?" Nola tried probing, but it didn't really seem like Holly was having any of it.

"Fine... You?"

"Bashed about a bit, but good... I'm glad you're okay."

She nodded. "So you made your way back in the end. I'm pleased."

"Yeah."

"I found something." She said. "Caught on a spike in there. I wonder if it might be yours..." It was Nola's rucksack that she had in her hand, battered, covered with brick-dust. You could just see the top of the ghost jar peeping out from under the top flap.

Nola took it from her. "Thanks." She said.

"No problem."

Let's face it, it wasn't the most thrilling conversation one will ever hear; not exactly one to be carved on a tombstone or strung up in lights over a front door. But it was good enough for Nola. Because for once, there wasn't a subtext to it. No hidden agenda. It was weary, wary and cautiously forgiving. It was what it was, basically, and that was a start.