𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞┃ Anthony Lockwood┃2┃

Chapter Fifty One - Rampaging Rotwell

Lockwood & Co resolved the case the following morning. With old Reverend Skinner confined to his room, Kipps and Lockwood took their crowbars and prised up the flagstone beneath the kitchen door. After half an hour's digging, they located a set of small bones – a child's – complete with tattered fragments of clothing. George estimated them to date from the eighteenth century. His theory was that the boy had been a beggar who, having knocked on the door, was taken in by whoever owned the house, then robbed, killed and stowed under the floor. Personally, Nola didn't think a beggar was a very likely candidate for robbery, but then perhaps he'd been an unusually successful beggar. Up until then, anyhow. Whatever. It was impossible to know.

So that was the Old Sun Inn cleared. The agents had rid Aldbury Castle of one of its ghosts, and they hadn't been there a day. It put them in a cheerful mood. Danny Skinner, though bug-eyed at the sight of the bones, was delighted too. After a late breakfast, he volunteered to take them on a tour of the village, to point out the other supernatural highlights they had to look forward to.

Their first stop was the church next door. It was a neglected-looking building of flint and brick, with a stubby tower and a vestry roof covered in tarpaulin. Its churchyard was clearly very old, surrounded in parts by a stone wall, in parts by hedges on a raised embankment of earth. The gravestones were of the same material as the cross on the green, and many were worn soft, their inscriptions gone. Some hung at extreme angles. One or two had fallen. It was a peaceful place, if shunned and overgrown.

"This is where the Creeping Shadow walks." Danny told the agents. "Little Hetty Flinders saw it here, with the dead rising from their tombs at its command. That's got to be high on your list, Mr Lockwood, sir." Since their success with the Shining Boy, the kid's hostility had vanished. He was Lockwood & Co's jug-eared cheerleader, marching proudly at their side. "Reckon you'd fix it, no problem."

"You didn't see the Shadow here yourself?" Lockwood stared up at the stone tower, where rooks circled against the pale sky.

"Not me. I saw it up in the eastern woods, on Gunner's Top. That's where that lane goes, see? Half a mile straight, you get to the place. Had spirits following it there too – the dead from this churchyard, most like. Pale, shapeless things, caught up in the Shadow's burning cloak. Well, you'll see for yourself." He added, seeming not to hear George's sceptical sniff. "You'll fix it, you will."

"I wouldn't mind a word with Hetty Flinders." Lockwood said.

"Can't help you there. She's ghost-touched now. They caught her outside her house, with her best blue frock on, poor thing. The other kids in the village'll back me up, though. Shall we head on?"

As they descended onto the lane, the peace of Aldbury Castle was broken by the sound of revving engines. Four vehicles – three cars and a small canvas-topped truck – had driven out of the woods from the direction of the station. They slowed to cross the bridge, honking their horns at a gaggle of geese that had strayed into the road, then sped across the green. The cars were black. The truck's canvas side was stencilled with the Rotwell lion. Turning right at the Old Sun, the convoy drove up the lane, past the church and into the eastern woods. Unsmiling men looked out at Lockwood & Co as they went by. The noise faded. Clouds of dust slowly settled back onto the road.

"That Rotwell lot again." Danny Skinner spat feelingly into the grass. "On their way up to the institute. They couldn't give a fig about us. They're not a proper agency. Not like Lockwood and Co. They don't get things done."

"Quite so..." Lockwood was gazing up towards the woods. "Danny, I want you to continue the tour with Holly, George and Quill. Show them the rest of the village. James and I will just take a quick walk up to Gunner's Top, where you saw the Shadow. I'd like to get a feel for the area. We'll catch up with you shortly."