The Devil You Know

So when one small piece of paper or card came fluttering toward me, sailing against the storm, I noticed it at once. Unlike most of the diabolically animated paperwork, it was a lot smaller than A4. More to the point, it was dancing to the beat of a different drum, almost hovering, its short feints to left and right keeping it more or less directly in front of my face. I reached up and grabbed it out of the air. I couldn’t look at it because file folders and envelopes and catalogs and worksheets were beating against me and wrapping around me. I closed my hand on it instead, used the other hand to shield my face until, only a few seconds later, the tempest stopped. It didn’t slacken or falter, it just died, and everything that had been snatched up into the air fell simultaneously to the ground. Except for the scrap of card that I was holding—that went into my trouser pocket.

The archive staff blinked and looked around them, shell-shocked and disbelieving. Only Alice and Rich were still on their feet; Cheryl had ducked under her desk to join Jon Tiler and the other guy on the floor. Nobody said a word as they all got up again and stared around at the debris.

“Well, that was what we call a positive result,” I said into the silence.

“The—the damage!” Tiler stuttered. “Look at this! What have you done, Castor? What the fuck have you done?” Alice was just staring at me, and I saw that her hands were trembling.

“I don’t think anything much is broken, Jon,” Cheryl offered. “It’s a terrible mess, but look—most of it’s just paper.”

“Just paper? It’s my worksheets,” Tiler howled. “I’ll never get them sorted out again.”

“Looking on the bright side,” I said, “it worked. I got a really strong line on the ghost. I can pinpoint more or less exactly where it came from.”

They all looked at me expectantly.

“The first floor,” I admitted. “Just as we thought.”

Eight

I BEAT THE KIND OF RETREAT THAT COULD BE CALLED either hasty or strategic, depending on which side of the line you were watching it from. I was helped by the fact that Alice seemed unable even to frame, let alone speak, the many harsh words that she wanted to say to me. I assured her that I’d taken more from that brief encounter than just a confirmation of what we already knew, and I promised her definite progress tomorrow. Then I was out of there.

The lights in the corridor had already been turned off, but there was a strip light on in the stairwell. By its subliminally flickering glare, I reached into my pocket, took out the offering that the ghost had thrown at me, and examined it. It was card, not paper: a white rectangle about five inches by three, printed with pale blue lines and perforated close to one of the long edges by a single circular hole. This hole had once been about half an inch away from the edge, but was now joined to it by a ragged tear.

It was a card ripped out of a Rolodex or file-card index. On it there were four letters and seven numbers.

ICOE 7405 818.

ICOE? Was that a name? An acronym of some kind? The Institute of . . . Christ knew what. The rest of it looked to be a central London phone number, though—logical enough if this was from someone’s desk directory. Leaving aside the question of what I was meant to do with it, it represented a sort of breakthrough in a job—I almost thought case—that had otherwise brought me nothing but a day of aggravation.

I fished out my mobile phone—no time like the present. But the battery is faulty, and the damn thing is always out of charge; this time was no exception. I thrust both the phone and the card back into my pocket and carried on down the stairs.

The security office was already locked, and there was no sign of friendly Frank. I went behind the counter to pick up my coat, but of course it was shut into one of the lockers, and I didn’t have a key. I was contemplating kicking the flimsy door open when Alice came down the stairs at my back and saw me. I turned to face her, bracing myself for a bollocking, but what I read in her face wasn’t anything as straightforward as anger.

“Great show,” she observed, her voice tense. “Fun for all the family.”

“I don’t know,” I countered. “I think I need some tunes you can actually hum.”

“So how is it done?”

I considered tact and courtesy. Briefly. “You get a ghost. You drive it rat-arse crazy with a drop of blood. The recipe’s in the Iliad.” She didn’t answer, so I tried again. “Look, I didn’t expect that kind of a response. I’m sorry about the damage. I thought the ghost would come in for a low pass over the blood, but the reaction we got was completely—”