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Number 35 Portland Row was so quiet that you’d be forgiven for thinking someone had died. What happened? Well, it all started 3 days ago…
“Lockwood, I can’t believe you’ve accepted a case for tonight, that’s not nearly enough time to do any acceptable research!” George shouted.
“Calm down George, you’ll have plenty of time to research if you head to the archives now. Me and Luce will head to Satchell’s and stock up on supplies. From the description it’s just a weak Type 1, it’ll be fine don’t worry,” Lockwood grinned at George hoping to calm his head researcher.
Well, as you’ve probably guessed it wasn’t fine. Although the house may have looked pretty in its prime, the climbing ivy and peeling blue paint left it looking lacklustre. I spent the second part of the night hearing glasses being thrown at the wall and mirrors being smashed just to find when the door was opened everything was intact, with the long-forgotten echoes of past arguments ringing in my ears, whilst Lockwood eventually found two unexpected death glows.
If you were wondering where the other two members of Lockwood & Co were, well, Holly was off on holiday visiting a friend whilst Kipps’ had caught a bout of the flu, so this left me, Lockwood, and George to battle the Visitor.
At first, everything was normal. We set up the chains and went into the kitchen to review what the customer had stated about the haunting and the research George had found.
“Okay, so the client reports that she’s seen a shadowy figure out of the corner of her eye, hears faint tapping and experiences a feeling of despair. All consistent with a Type 1 visitor, most probably a Stone Knocker. George, what have you found?”
“Not as much as I would have liked to, but what I have seems to match up with what the client said. An elderly lady by the name of Beverly Jones used to live here with her daughter until she passed of a heart attack at the age of 90. To communicate with her daughter she used to knock on the wall that they shared. I did find mention of another 2 people who lived here but because Lockwood once again didn’t leave me enough time to complete my search I ran out of time at the archives.”
I saw Lockwood open his mouth to respond so I cut in before they had a chance to get properly going.
“GUYS! Let’s not forget where we are! We’re at a client’s house with a visitor, cut the arguing please. Let’s just wrap this case up as quickly as we can and go home.”
With the argument successfully headed off we finished our tea and biscuits and split up to try and find the source. I managed to follow the sound of tapping to a false back hidden in a wardrobe. After removing the back, at about 10pm we found the source, stuffed into a crevice in the wood; it was a gold locket belonging to Beverly. We placed into a silver net and secured it into a silver glass.
And that was then the screaming started.
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Remember the 2 unidentified people George had found mention of? Turns out they were a married couple who lived in the house before Beverly. Their names were Hannah and James Davies. James had been abusive, drinking to cope with the stress of losing his job and had turned his anger onto Hannah. Hannah, unable to cope, had gone to a lawyer to get divorce papers drawn up. Upon returning home from the local pub, James had found out about Hannah’s visit to the lawyer and had started attacking Hannah. Hannah, who had finally had enough, snapped and hit James across the face, dislodging a tooth. James then grabbed a gun that he kept hidden and proceeded to kill Hannah and then himself.
In the process of attempting to find the Ghost Knocker’s source it turns out that we had accidently dislodged the steel bed frame, which had been hiding James’ tooth and bumped into a picture hanging on the wall in a silver frame, which had been hiding the divorce papers. This led to Hannah revealing herself as a Type 2 visitor whilst James himself had become a poltergeist.
Which brings us back to what Holly had walked into in which Lockwood and George were not speaking and I was walking on eggshells with both. As I was washing the dishes in the kitchen Holly joined me, as if summoned by my thoughts, and started drying with a tea towel.
“I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. I hope they both make up soon,” Holly whispered to me.
“Well, they both just need to get their heads out of their arses and apologise to each other. It wasn’t this bad after the Wimbledon Wraiths case!” I muttered back to her. Holly sighed and carried on drying.
We quickly fell into a rhythm and the silence in the house kept growing, becoming almost oppressive. To combat this, I turned the radio on. Jailhouse Rock began playing through the speakers.
As the song carried on the tension in the kitchen slowly began to fade. Eventually me and Holly had abandoned the dishes and were dancing and singing along with the radio.
“Dancing to the Jailhouse rock, dancing to the Jailhouse rock--”
As soon as the song finished, another one started almost immediately. Recognising it as I’ve Had the Time of My Life, me and Holly laughed and started singing along. About a quarter of the way into the song I heard a noise at the door and turned to see George standing in the kitchen doorway looking and me and Holly with a perplexed expression.
“What the—” George started to say but I had darted forward to grab his arm and pulled him into the kitchen to join us. Upon realising we were not going to give up, George gave in and joined us in our impromptu dance party and started laughing along with us.
Inevitably, the song changed, this time playing I Want to Dance With Somebody, and we carried on dancing. As I spun around anchored by Holly’s hand, I spotted Lockwood leaning against the doorframe, smiling wistfully at us. I gestured for him to join us but he shook his head glancing at George.
George, being ever observant as he is, noticed this interaction and caught Lockwood’s eye. He smiled at Lockwood and shook his head indicating that he’d forgiven Lockwood. Lockwood beamed back and nodded, indicating he’d also forgiven George. He then fully entered the kitchen and immediately got swept up in the atmosphere.
If anyone had looked in the window of Number 35 Portland Row that night, they wouldn’t have seen four agents, they’d have seen four teenagers, dancing and singing in the kitchen and finally acting like the children they were.