Constable & Toop Read online

  Praise for Constable & Toop:

  a ghost story extraordinaire

  ‘An extraordinarily witty story that accurately depicts the lives of the dead and compellingly describes the death of the living.’

  The Ghost of Oscar Wilde

  ‘As with its London setting, this book contains all that life can afford and all that death will allow. I thoroughly recommend it to all readers, the living and the dead alike.’

  The Ghost of Dr Johnson

  ‘There were many moments during the reading of Mr Jones’ thrilling tale that I would undoubtedly have held my breath with excitement had there been any breath in my lungs to hold.’

  The Ghost of Mary Shelley

  ‘I wish I had written this story.’

  The Ghost of Charles Dickens

  ‘An intriguingly constructed story with an inventive young hero and an intricate mystery that had me gripped right up to the final page.’

  The Ghost of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  ‘I very much enjoyed the melancholy and tragedy contained within these pages. The humour was less to my tastes.’

  The Ghost of Emily Brontë

  ‘Most ghost stories are written for the living. Here, finally, a story has been penned that will, in equal measure, appeal to the dead.’

  The Ghost of Henry James

  ‘A singular literary joy from a most fanciful writer with a vivid imagination.’

  The Ghost of Jane Austen

  ‘Unputdownable.’

  The Ghost of Samuel Pepys

  ‘Constable & Toop is a book full of life and crammed with death. All in all, a splendidly macabre and amusing tale.’

  The Ghost of Edgar Allan Poe

  The author thanks C.P.J Field & Co for their kind permission to use the name Constable & Toop

  Contents

  Praise for Constable & Toop

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue: The Birth of a Ghost

  1. Lapsewood’s Paperwork

  2. The Body in the Coffin

  3. The Beauty of Alice Biggins

  4. Uncle Jack

  5. Penhaligan’s Problem

  6. Mr Constable’s Good Nature

  7. General Colt

  8. The New Tenants of Aysgarth House

  9. The Anger of Viola Trump

  10. The Boy Tanner

  11. Mr Gliddon’s Dying Wish

  12. Lady Aysgarth’s Diary

  13. The Man in Grey

  14. The Blackened Church

  15. The Death of a Ghost

  16. A Trail of Infection

  17. Doris McNally’s New Residency

  18. The Bell Tower

  19. The Disappearance of Lil’ Mags

  20. The Boy in the Church

  21. Lapsewood’s Return

  22. Charlie and Jack

  23. Breakfasting Alone

  24. The Vault

  25. The Exorcism of St Winifred’s School

  26. A Parent’s Past

  27. Mrs Pringle

  28. The Parisian Problem

  29. Clara’s List

  30. The Burial of Mr Gliddon

  31. Flouting Procedure

  32. A Visitor

  33. The End of Nell

  34. Mr Sternwell’s Last Will and Testament

  35. Grunt in London

  36. What If . . .

  37. Stalemate

  38. Jack’s Last Breakfast

  39. Destiny for the Dead

  40. The Last Words of Enforcer Dawlish

  41. One Tree Hill

  42. Breaking Out

  43. The Girl in the Kitchen

  44. Emily’s New Home

  45. The Respectable Mr Reeve

  46. Last Orders

  47. Mr Reeve’s Place Of Business

  48. Those Who Mourn

  49. Breaking In

  50. Sam and Tanner

  51. The Kitchen Killer

  52. Fresh Blood

  53. The Central Records Library

  54. A New Ghost

  55. An Apprenticeship of Thievery

  56. The Responsibility of Murder

  57. Poor Mrs Preston

  58. The Return of Inspector Savage

  59. A French Intrusion

  60. Always Alice

  61. Emily’s Play

  62. The Ballad of Paddy O’Twain

  63. The Hell Hound

  64. A Widow’s Grief

  65. Colonel Penhaligan’s Agenda

  66. The Work of the Devil

  67. An Entertaining Exorcism

  68. The Eleventh Hole

  69. A Father’s Guilt

  70. Grunt’s Decline

  71. An Unexpected Visitor

  72. Jack’s Final Victim

  73. The French Angel

  74. The New Resident of Aysgarth House

  75. Jack’s Funeral

  76. The Endless Corridor

  77. Honor Oak

  The writing of Constable & Toop: a note from the author

  Copyright

  For Madi and Lauren Bliss

  Prologue

  The Birth of a Ghost

  In her last few moments of life, as the blood gushed from the knife wound in her neck, Emily Wilkins found her thoughts drifting to her mother’s death. Mrs Wilkins had lain on her deathbed for weeks without uttering a word until finally, one day, she sat up, fixed her eyes upon Emily and spoke.

  ‘You’re a good girl, ain’t you, Em?’

  ‘I try to be, Mam,’ she replied.

  ‘You deserve more than I’ve ever been able to get for you.’

  ‘I’ve never wanted for anything,’ said Emily.

  Her mother shook her head. ‘You never had no schooling, but you’re a bright girl. I only wish I had done better by you.’

  ‘I just want you to get well,’ Emily pleaded.

  ‘There’s no chance of that now, my love,’ said her mother. ‘I can hear them knocking for me.’

  ‘Who?’ Emily looked up. ‘There’s no one knocking.’

  Mrs Wilkins smiled weakly. ‘Soon I’ll have no choice but to answer. But promise me this, Em. You need to make the most of this life because who knows what lies on the other side of that door.’

  ‘What door, Mam?’

  Her mother pointed at the blank wall beside her bed. Her smile was so full of sadness and regret that it drew yet more tears from Emily’s eyes. She wiped her face with the cloth she was using to mop her mother’s forehead.

  Her mother coughed; a dry, throaty cough that sent a splatter of bloody phlegm into the palm of her hand, before she fell back and died, leaving Emily alone and orphaned.

  At the time, Emily had childishly believed this final cough was her mother’s body ejecting all of its blood before dying.

  She realised how very wrong she was as the red liquid now gushed from her own throat. The human body contained much more than a handful of dry blood. The murdering hands that were taking Emily’s life were covered in it.

  The hands had appeared out of nowhere.

  The right had closed around her throat. The left, around her mouth. Emily tasted the salty sweat of the skin as she struggled and kicked, but the hands were strong and this wasn’t the first time they had been put to such use.

  The blade slid across her neck so smoothly she barely felt it cut the skin. The blood gushed out like water breaking through a dam until the murderer’s right hand closed around the wound, stopping the flow.

  ‘Can’t ’ave you dyin’ in the street like a dog, can we, girl?’ snarled a voice. ‘That would never do.’

  The hands dragged her up the dark, cobbled alleyway.

  She could hear knocking.

  ‘Don’t you heed that, girl,’
said the gruff voice. ‘We ain’t far now. Hang on yet.’

  1

  Lapsewood’s Paperwork

  Lapsewood dipped his pen into the pot of black ink, licked his fingers and pulled a piece of paper from the pile on his desk. In the top right-hand corner he wrote the date: 16th January 1884. His in-tray was stacked higher than ever and today’s Dispatch documents had not been delivered yet. It concerned him greatly.

  He didn’t mind the work. Quite the contrary. In life, Lapsewood had lived to work. In death, he was no different. Work was orderly. It was structured. It was safe. It meant arriving early, sitting down at his desk and working his way through the paperwork to be completed by the end of the day.

  Work was satisfying.

  Except recently, there had been an unsettling amount of paperwork still left in the in-tray when the final bell tolled.

  He tried staying late to get on top of it, but if old Mr Turnbull, the night watchman, found him at his desk he would take the opportunity to recount the tale of his bloody Crimean death, while idly scratching the gaping bayonet wound through his heart.

  Lapsewood tried working on Sundays, but still the paperwork grew and grew. Perhaps he was being too conscientious about his processing, taking too long over each one, but he couldn’t bear the thought of speeding up at the expense of doing a good job. The Bureau was all that stood between an orderly afterlife and utter chaos, and Lapsewood’s Dispatch documents were a vital cog in that great machine.

  The office door opened. ‘Morning, Lapsewood,’ said Grunt.

  ‘Morning,’ Lapsewood responded. He didn’t look up.

  Grunt was new. He had been hanged at Newgate for the murder of his wife and wore a silk scarf around his neck to hide the red marks from the rope. But the soft skin around his throat had been broken during the hanging, meaning that now, with no blood left in his veins, grey fluid seeped out, collecting at the top of the scarf. Every so often, Grunt would wipe it away with a spotted kerchief from his waistcoat pocket. Lapsewood found this habit utterly unacceptable. In his less charitable moments, he secretly wished that Grunt had been guilty of his crime, thus making him ineligible for Official Ghost Status and unable to work at the Bureau.

  Grunt, however, was innocent. He had been hanged for another man’s crime.

  ‘Penhaligan wants to see you,’ said Grunt.

  Lapsewood felt one of his headaches coming. This was not good news. Not good news at all. It had to be the paperwork. He knew what would happen. He would be called into Colonel Penhaligan’s office, given a dressing down, then escorted to the Vault where he would reside until he was tried and convicted of professional incompetence.

  ‘Did he say what it was about?’ he asked.

  ‘Nah,’ said Grunt. ‘He just told me to tell you to come up and see him urgently.’

  ‘Urgently? He used the word urgently?’

  ‘I think so. Might’ve been immediately. Or just now. It was something like that, anyway.’

  ‘Grunt, this is important. Exactly what did he say?’

  ‘He didn’t say anything,’ replied Grunt. ‘He more bellowed . . .’

  Grunt’s smile suggested this was supposed to be funny.

  ‘Bellowed?’ exclaimed Lapsewood.

  ‘I’d say it was a bellow, yes. He bellowed, “DAMN IT. DAMN IT. DAMN IT. GRUNT, GET LAPSEWOOD UP HERE IMMEDIATELY.”’ The ghost looked pleased with himself for remembering this. ‘Yes, I think that was it.’

  ‘Did he sound angry?’

  ‘I ain’t never heard a bellow that didn’t sound angry. It’s the nature of a bellow, isn’t it? Shouting, now that’s different. My wife used to shout at me all the time but that was on account of the deafness I got in one ear. Funny thing – since being dead, I can hear perfectly well in both. It’s as though the hangman’s rope dislodged the wax when it snapped my neck.’ He chuckled.

  Lapsewood had no interest in Grunt’s post-death hearing improvements. His mind was as busy as a beehive, bustling with questions, concerns, theories and fears.

  Colonel Penhaligan was angry with him. It had to be the paperwork, but what did he expect Lapsewood to do? He was working as fast as he could. The Bureau needed to employ more clerks to help to clear the backlog. That’s what he would say. He would demand help. He refused to be forced to do a second-rate job for the sake of speed. Hadn’t it been Colonel Penhaligan himself who had praised Lapsewood’s exemplary work ethic and attention to detail last Christmas? Admittedly, the colonel had consumed a substantial quantity of spirit punch that night, so who knew whether he had really meant what he said.

  ‘Do you think I have time to walk?’ asked Lapsewood.

  ‘You’d better not,’ said Grunt. ‘In my experience, immediately means as soon to now as possible. Best use the Paternoster Pipe if I were you.’

  Lapsewood glanced with dread at the small tube in the wall that led to the Paternoster Pipe Network. While all spirits had the ability to turn into the grey smoke-like substance known as Ether Dust, Lapsewood found the whole business thoroughly dehumanising. To quite literally disappear into a puff of smoke was another blatant reminder of his own deadness. He preferred to walk one step at a time like a man rather than whoosh about like burnt tobacco on a breezy day.

  However, on this occasion he had no choice. He had wasted enough time already. If he stood any chance of persuading Colonel Penhaligan not to dispatch him, he needed to move quickly.

  Lapsewood shook Grunt’s hand solemnly. It was damp.

  ‘Mr Grunt, it’s been a pleasure working with you,’ he lied.

  Grunt laughed. ‘You look like I did when I stepped up on to those gallows.’

  ‘That’s precisely how I feel.’

  More laughter. ‘Didn’t no one tell you? You can only die once, Lapsewood.’

  2

  The Body in the Coffin

  Sam Toop was awoken by a hammering on the door and a voice crying out, ‘Let me in! Charlie, I know you’re there. Let me in!’

  Charlie? he thought, half asleep. Charles was his father’s name, but he had never heard anyone call him Charlie.

  Rain pelted against the window. Wind rattled the frame.

  ‘For God’s sake, let me in, Charlie . . .’

  Sam slipped out of bed and went to the window. Bare feet on the cold floorboards. It was the middle of the night and blowing a terrible storm outside. Who would be out in such weather? Customers never came at night. The business of funerals rarely called for urgency. The funerals of Constable and Toop were arranged as they were conducted: gracefully and calmly.

  ‘Charlie!’ yelled the voice.

  Definitely not a customer. Customers only ever spoke in hushed, respectful tones. It was as though they feared waking the corpses that were occasionally kept in the coffins in the back room.

  The figure banged on the door. It occurred to Sam that maybe he was one of Them. But no, they didn’t bang on doors. Why would they, when they could easily pass through them? Sam placed his hand over his right eye to be sure. Yes, he could still see him.

  Lightning snaked across the black sky, illuminating the man’s face. His eyes looked wild and desperate. Rain dripped off his crooked, broken nose. The realisation that this man was alive was of little comfort. Sam feared the living far more than the dead. Ghosts were powerless to hurt him. Their threats were empty. It was the living who could inflict pain.

  A floorboard creaked and a light appeared at the base of his door. His father was up and crossing the landing, heading down the stairs and through the shop front. Sam watched the light of his lamp through the slit in the floorboards.

  He could not hear what was said but he heard the door open and the man step inside, accompanied by a gust of wind that rushed through the building. A feeling in the pit of Sam’s stomach kept him rooted to the spot. From the back room he heard the sound of banging. Hammer on nail. A familiar enough sound, except never before in the middle of the night. He waited until his father’s footsteps came back up the sta
irs and had passed his room before he went back to his bed, curling up and gripping his toes to warm them.

  He must have eventually fallen asleep because when he opened his eyes, the sky was light blue and there were voices downstairs. He could hear his father saying, ‘I’m afraid I haven’t seen a thing. It’s just me and my boy here.’

  ‘Then I’d like to speak to the boy too,’ said a man’s voice.

  ‘Sam,’ shouted Mr Toop. ‘Please come down.’

  Sam climbed out of bed, dressed quickly and went downstairs. A man dressed in black with grey pockmarked skin stood in the doorway. His suit had the look of clothing that had been smart when first put on, but was now bedraggled and damp.

  ‘Sam, this gentleman is the law,’ said Mr Toop.

  ‘Savage,’ said the man. ‘Detective Inspector Savage. Some of your neighbours said they heard a hollering last night. Did you hear anything, young man?’

  ‘I fell asleep last night and woke up just now,’ said Sam. ‘I don’t know of anything in between.’

  Sam neither knew where the lie came from nor how it was that it sprang so readily to his lips, but he sensed his father’s relief upon hearing it.

  ‘May I ask who it is you’re looking for?’ asked Sam’s father.

  ‘A villain by the name of Jack Toop. I noticed the name on the shop sign. There’s a coincidence, I thought. You wouldn’t have a relation by the name of Jack, would you, Mr Toop?’

  ‘None that I know of,’ he replied. ‘But Toop is not such an uncommon surname.’

  ‘Nor such a common one neither. You have no brother nor uncle by that name?’

  ‘I was born an only child and orphaned as an infant, sir,’ said Sam’s father.

  ‘Then you’ve done well for yourself, Mr Toop. A shop with your name on it.’

  ‘I have been fortunate.’

  ‘Tell me about this fortune,’ said Inspector Savage.

  ‘As a lad, a carpenter took me under his wing and taught me the ways of his noble trade, then, as a man, I had the great honour of making the acquaintance of the man who would become my business partner: Mr Constable. A finer and more upstanding gentleman you will never meet. He made me a partner, and gave me and my boy a roof above our heads. He has been as good as a second father to Sam.’