"So, how is it, living with your parents again?" Tony asked politely.
I snorted a bit. It had been a few weeks and I was absolutely done. "My dad has taken up yoga." I pinched the bridge of my nose.
"Healthy" Holly commented with an impressed smile.
"In the nude." I added with a scowl.
She started coughing and Tony patted her on the back. He looked a bit green.
"I'm going to look at a flat at four. So, are we going to pay a visit to old Marissa Fittes or what?" I asked.
"No!" Lucy hissed. She shot me a sheepish look and pointed at the skull in the jar whose mouth was moving rapidly. "Shut it… I know you don't respect her, that's not what this –"
"Right, moving on," Tony continued, "We'll need to prepare. George has been researching –"
Cubbins ceremoniously put down a stack of papers on the table.
" – and found out that there's supposedly a trapdoor at the Mausoleum."
"God, I'm going to regret this," I muttered under my breath. "The Mausoleum is under constant, armed guard."
"Armed with what?" Holly inquired.
"Pistols. So, they don't need to be close in order to kill us." I pointed out.
"Can you find out more about the guard? Possibly through our secret agent" Tony winked at me.
I rolled my eyes at his drama. "I'll ask, but I make no promises."
"Alright, but anything you can find out would be great. Second issue is the key to said trapdoor."
With a flourish, Cubbins pulled out a photo of someone I unfortunately knew.
"Michaels," I sneered.
"You know him?" Holly smiled.
"Unfortunately. He's a piece of shit and saying that is a compliment. He's a good friend of Gale's."
"He's the one with the keys," Cubbins informed us. "Do you know where we might find him?"
I rubbed my face, "No, but I can find out," I moaned.
"No need to sound so grumpy about it," Tony commented. "It was your idea after all."
"One I'm regretting more by the second. You do all realise that if we get caught doing this, it's not going to be prison, right? We won't make it out alive. You stop looking so cheerful –" I added when I saw the skull's sudden wide smile.
"But we're still doing it, right?" Tony looked around for confirmation and we all nodded, even me like the idiot I am.
"I know you said it, but we want to check… no, you're dumb –" Lucy argued with the jar.
She suddenly looked up at me and caught me staring. The skull had outed me, that bastard.
She blushed and gave me a small smile.
"Right, so I'll find something out about the guard and Michaels and what will you lot be doing then?"
"Plot." Tony waggled his eyebrows and smiled deviously.
"And we have a case in Brixton at five." Holly added.
"Yes. And Brixton." Tony smiled ruefully.
I huffed a small laugh "No rest for the wicked."
"Is that why you always look so tired?" Cubbins asked.
"That was lame, even from you, Cubbins."
I got up and stretched. "If that's all, I think I'll get going if I'm going to get to my appointment in time."
"Are you going with someone?" Holly inquired.
"Uh – No. I'm not."
"You should take Lucy," she suggested. "She's not coming with us tonight and it's always good to have a second set of eyes."
I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times.
"Besides, maybe she can hear some things you can't" she pointed out.
Lucy looked wide-eyed at Holly who smirked back at her.
I had wanted to bring Kate because I had wanted to get a second opinion. Especially an Agent's opinion was valuable, but Kate had to work, and I had been desperate enough to find a flat, to go alone.
"I mean, only if you want," I prompted Lucy with a shrug.
"I uh – Yeah, sure. I mean yes, I'll go with you."
Tony rubbed his neck and sighed heavily. "Just be careful, yeah? Both of you."
Lucy frowned. "You too, alright? Whoever gets ghost touched next will be facing the business end of my rapier," she threatened.
Tony smirked "I think I can handle that."
"Don't get cocky with me, Lockwood," she growled.
And I gave Tony a little smirk when I saw him paling.
He flipped me off behind Lucy's back when she turned to face me, and my smirk turned into a grin.
"I'll just –" she gestured at the stairs and left.
Tony pursed his lips. "Where's the flat then?"
"Mayfair. It's close to the office. I work at the archives right now, but I expect that to last a few months at most and then I'll be at the main office."
He wrinkled his nose. "What do you even do at the archives?"
I snorted, "Get lost. Seriously, the place is massive. I've gotten lost twice. We have a copy of everything ever published through us. Which is quite a lot." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.
"How long have you been in the business?" Cubbins cocked his head and looked at me like I was suddenly some sort of interesting insect he had found on his windowsill.
"My mum's family started the business a bit more than a century and a half ago." I smirked a bit when his eyebrows travelled just a bit north.
"Is that so?" he leaned forwards a bit.
"Right!" Tony exclaimed, "I remember the anniversary party,"
"Really? You can't have been more than four or five back then," I smiled.
He grinned at me. "The reason I remember it is because that was the time when you slipped on the dance floor, took Jess down with you and you both ended up in the emergency room,"
I laughed lightly, thinking back on it. "Jess slapped me because I got blood on her dress."
"She did. It was amazing," he grinned.
We both fell quiet, getting a bit lost in the memory. When I looked up, it was to see Cubbins frowning as if he had just discovered that he had become allergic to cake. I figured that he, like Lucy hadn't known that I had once been a familiar face at Portland Row.
He turned on his heel and went into his room.
Tony grimaced. "Right. I should probably –"
"Make ready for the case? Absolutely," Holly interrupted him.
That was when Lucy came down the stairs.
"Ready?" I asked. "Leave the rapier. I've learned the hard way, that real estate agents don't like real agents." I winced.
As we went outside, she brushed her coat to the side and showed me the holster with throwing knives attached to her belt.
"I imagine they don't like us coming to tell them that the property they're trying to sell is haunted?" She smirked.
I nodded. "Last week, Kate came with me in uniform. The guy wouldn't even show us the flat."
"Might have dodged a bullet there then. Sounds like he had something to be nervous about."
I smiled "I had actually considered giving Tony the address so that he could drop a business card off there. Seems like an opportunity."
She nodded "I think he would love that."
"It's a lovely coat by the way. Is it new?" It really did look nice on her. It wasn't the typical Lucy-look. I assumed she was keeping the parka for work now.
She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, "Holly took me shopping. I only went because she promised me chips,"
"Did you get the chips then?" I grinned.
She wrinkled her nose. "They were air-fried," she grumbled.
I laughed, "She's a devious one, isn't she?"
"You don't know half." She shook her head.
"I'm happy you decided to keep the boots," I noted.
She blushed and looked down at her feet.
"I asked my mum, by the way," I added. "Firstly, she didn't remember even having them. Secondly, she said that if anyone else of Tony's team is ever in any sort of need or trouble, she'll help, no questions asked."
Lucy's eyebrows went high on her forehead. "She'll help, just like that?"
"She'll help alright, but I don't believe the 'no questions'-bit for a second."
She smiled. "She sounds nice,"
"She can be. I know that to others, she can come off as a bit… severe, but she's fair and compassionate when it matters. My dad, however –"
"Is he strict?"
I snorted. "Quite the opposite. He'd let me get away with murder."
She smiled a bit ruefully. "My dad would rather have murdered me than let me get away with anything, I think. But he died when I was little."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't be," she looked up at the sky. "I'm not."
I looked at her and she smiled reassuringly. "I'm really not."
I couldn't figure out what to say to that so took her hand a squeezed it instead and her smile widened.
The real estate agent was already waiting when we arrived.
I had met her once before. She was a middle-aged woman with brown, curly hair, and she smiled widely when she saw us. I realised that I was still holding Lucy's hand, but I couldn't get myself to be the one to let go so I didn't. She didn't seem to mind.
The lady – Mrs Thompson, led us first through a lobby where we were greeted by a porter and then to a lift which we all three crammed into.
"The lift is a new addition. It was installed three years ago." Mrs Thompson proudly informed us.
"Bit tight though, isn't it?" Lucy commented casually.
Mrs Thompson's unnatural smile fell almost imperceptibly, "That's because they didn't want to make the flats too small,"
"Imagine going up in this with George," Lucy told me under her breath, and I huffed a small laugh.
Mrs Thompson looked at us with a bland smile. "Yes, well, we're going to the third floor."
I turned around with difficulty and pressed the right button.
The elevator crawled upwards at a snail's pace, but finally there was a light 'ding', and we were let out into a narrow hall. There was a door on each side, obviously for two flats, and then another door next to the elevator which I assumed led to a set of stairs.
Mrs Thompson went ahead with the key. She unlocked the door, went inside, and held the door open for us.
The smell of fresh paint hit me as we entered the flat into a narrow hall.
"If you just continue on, the hall opens up into the living room."
It was beautiful, I had to admit, with its herringbone wooden floors and large windows. It was the best one yet, but it was also in the pricey end of the scale.
"Absolutely perfect for a young couple" Mrs Thompson smiled.
"We're not –"
"Entirely certain." Lucy cut me off. She gave my hand a squeeze and I went with it . "I mean, it's an old building. Have you had agents in here?" she continued in a deceptively innocent voice.
Mrs Thompson's smile stiffened a bit. "Of course, we have. They did a full sweep and found absolutely nothing," she assured us.
Lucy looked clearly unconvinced, but whether she had actually picked up on anything or not, I couldn't tell.
"Which agency?" I asked, simply out of curiosity.
"That would be Bunchurch." Mrs Thompson informed us.
Lucy sent me a look. If it was Bunchurch, odds were that something was up. Not necessarily because of malicious intent, but because Bunchurch was that incompetent.
"As you can see, this is the living space – you have lovely natural light from the beautiful large windows – the original panes, upgraded with modern thermoglass. If you follow me this way, we'll get to the kitchen, which was modernised at the same time as the elevator was installed. The previous owner liked to keep it in a more classical style, but still in light colours."
Lucy and I both looked around a bit, nodding along to the woman's sales pitch.
"Back in the living room, if you go down the hall to the left, we have a bathroom on the right side,"
We stuck our heads in there quickly,
"- and further down to the left we have the master bedroom and bathroom. There's also a walk-in closet."
We had a look around and I was falling more and more in love with the place.
"Going across the hall, as you can see, the extra room here could be great for a nurs -"
"Office," we both cut her off. I smiled at Lucy who grinned back at me.
"Of course, of course, in your own time," she waved us off with a small laugh.
"Armoury," Lucy whispered in my ear and I almost melted.
"Mrs Thompson," I asked, "Would you mind terribly if we had a look around on our own?"
"Of course not, you go ahead. I'll be in the kitchen."
"So, thoughts?" I asked Lucy and bit my lip. I had a hard time containing my excitement.
"There's something here," she noted absently and ran a hand across one of the windowsills, "I can't put my finger on it."
I snorted. "Figures. I still don't get why people use Bunchurch."
"He had a lot of friends who talk him up and people outside the business don't know better," she continued in the same half-absent tone.
I rolled my eyes, "It was more of a rhetorical question, but you're probably right."
Lucy narrowed her eyes at me. "Do you think we could take a slow tour?"
"Please! If you can pick up on something, maybe I can get the place cheaper," I whispered gleefully.
She grinned at me, "I'll do my best."
We spent half an hour going from room to room, where Lucy was touching walls fixtures and doorknobs, trying to get a feel for the place. While she was doing that, I was mentally decorating the place, imagining how my furniture would fit.
When we reached the absolutely gorgeous window seat in the living room, Lucy made a small jump and a yelp.
"What?" I asked.
"Mrs Thompson?" Lucy called instead.
The woman came to join us. "Have you reached a decision, or do you need some more information?"
Lucy snorted. "No, but you ought to get your money back from Bunchurch."
Mrs Thompson scoffed, "I beg your pardon?"
"Someone was murdered here. Thrown out of that exact window," she pointed at the window next to us.
"No!" I exclaimed. "You mean to tell me that there's been an actual legitimate defenestration taking place right here?" I laughed.
Lucy nodded and looked a bit smug.
Mrs Thompson soured. "You're an agent, aren't you?"
"Absolutely. Now, my bet is that this happened a long, long time ago, Victorian times most likely and there hasn't been much trouble, but you changed the glass in the windows."
Mrs Thompson scoffed. "Agents have already cleared this before we changed the windows. They didn't sense anything. Why would I believe anything you say?"
"Some older types of glass had a very high iron content. When you had that glass removed and replaced with the modern thermoglass, the iron that kept the ghost suppressed was removed and now he's free to do as he pleases. Lucy said cheerfully.
"And George thinks I don't listen to his scientific rantings," she added for my benefit.
I tried to keep my smile in check.
Mrs Thompson's jaw worked and she scowled at us.
Lucy cleared her throat. "I have a suggestion. If you were to sell the place to us, you could cut the price for having the row of windows in the living room changed. We'll take care of the agent work ourselves. Your other alternative would be to hire an agency who will charge you for minimum two nights' work plus handling of the Source, which if I should venture a guess is going to be of the large sort. Furthermore, you would most likely have to change all the windows anyways in order to make them match and fussy clients will notice it when the windows in the living room don't match the ones in the other rooms," she pointed out with a smile.
"If you don't believe me, feel free to stay after dark. Should be fun I think," she added when Mrs Thompson's face became sterner and sterner.
"I will need to discuss this with my partners," Mrs Thompson forced out.
Lucy nodded, "Naturally. Just remember that if you sell it to someone else without disclosing the haunting, you could be charged with negligent homicide," she reminded her cheerfully.
I stepped just a bit closer as it looked like Mrs Thompson was seriously considering making Lucy the victim of the second defenestration on the address.
"You will hear from me by tomorrow afternoon" She said with a shaking voice.
"Sounds splendid. We'll let ourselves out," I gave the woman a cheerful little wave and pulled Lucy with me by the hand.
When we were outside, Lucy seemed to deflate a little. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have –"
"Are you kidding me? You were amazing in there," I laughed.
I picked her up and twirled her around in the air to the annoyance of a man passing by on the sidewalk. I didn't care.
She blushed and gave me a shy smile.
"I would kiss you if you hadn't told me not to," I muttered. I was, in fact, barely able to restrain myself.
She blushed deeper and looked down.
"But please let me buy you dinner. You've potentially saved me tons of money,"
She grinned. "Alright. But nothing air-fried."
"Deal," I laughed.
The next day, I received the call. I got the flat and the price cut was more than enough to change all the windows. Apparently, the company wanted to avoid public humiliation.
As soon as my stilted conversation with Mrs Thompson ended, I used the phone to call the florist.
…
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