“Do you have a name?”
“They call me Black Tom,” he said, and I made a note.
Black Tom held out his hands palm first towards the Hangover Stone.
“Splendid,” he said. “The nights can be so chill. Strange to meet such a fine company out here amongst the clowns, but then the city has become very strange of late.”
“How so?” asked Nightingale.
“Why, the coaches run on iron tracks,” he said. “And at such speeds a man might despair of making an interception.”
I looked over at Nightingale who shrugged.
“With hindsight,” he said, “we really should have anticipated this problem.”
When a third ghost—a morose, thankfully silent, young man in frock coat and top hat—joined us it became clear that soon the entire ghost population of Harrow was likely to line up at our psychic soup kitchen.
“Psychic soup kitchen,” said Jaget who was still snapping away. “Good one.”
“Go easy with the camera Jaget,” I said. “That film’s hard to come by.”
Nightingale decided that he’d find a nice secluded spot away from the station and stage an all-you-can-eat magic buffet for the local ghosts. As they trailed hopefully after him, the three ghosts vanished into the morning sunlight. But I swear I could still hear Mr Ponderstep talking about his wife’s Sunday brisket, heading up the stairs to the station concourse.
Toby didn’t so much as look up to watch them go. He stayed sleeping through the arrival and departure of the next two trains, but on the third he leapt to his feet and stared intently as it rolled into the station.
“Finally,” I said and Toby whined. I wasn’t sure I liked the anxious tone, but if this was our train then at least we could slope off for refs afterwards.
The rush hour was in full flush and the platform was rammed. Travellers were pushing up against our first line of tape and glaring at Jaget because he was blocking their access to their habitual carriage door. We’d arranged the tape so that anyone getting off at our end, including actual alive people, could filter out.
We didn’t see our girl at first, just heard a young voice cry—“Doggie!”
Toby’s head snapped around to look at the closest train door; I followed his gaze and saw her. She was young, white and dressed in late Victorian style—a white pinafore over a dark-coloured dress and a wide-brimmed straw hat. She was too transparent to be sure of any colours, but I thought her eyes were blue and her hair blonde.
She skipped off the train, ducked under our tape and, laughing, made a dash for Toby. He in turn pulled his head loose from his collar with suspicious ease and bolted up the platform. The ghost girl totally ignored our carefully crafted magical lure and chased after him. Exeunt dog pursued by ghost.
At the high point of rush hour in Harrow station there’s no appreciable gap between a train leaving and a platform filling up, so that even as I started after them I saw Toby and the ghost girl vanish into a thicket of grumpy commuters. Fortunately, despite them all looking like a sack full of misery, the travellers knew which side the next train was due, so I cut across to the relatively-empty other platform and ran up that.
Harrow on the Hill has an elevated concourse built over the tracks through which the commuters trudged like extras from Metropolis. As I ran up the stairs I waved my warrant card and shouted—
“Police! Police!”
The crowd parted in front of me in reluctant confusion with, I estimate, a third wondering who I was chasing, a third wondering why the police were chasing me and the last third thinking This I need first thing in the morning.
At the top I saw Toby slip under the ticket barrier and got a barest flicker of a sense of movement that indicated the ghost girl was following. I didn’t have time to alert the London Underground staff, so I vaulted the barrier and hoped they believed me when I shouted police again.
Someone yelled “Oi” behind me, but I had Toby in my sights as he streaked between the legs of the commuter and down the stairs towards the street. Here the bland 1930s art deco stylings of the station gave way to the horror that was the 1980s where every public building was deliberately crafted to look as much like a urinal as possible. I’ve got longer legs than Toby, so I went down stairs faster than he did—still catching flickers of movement that I assumed was the ghost. A short barren indoor shopping precinct led to the main road which Toby crossed at full speed.
Presumably the ghost wasn’t worried about the traffic, but I was. I had to slow down and watch in frustration as Toby raced into the shapeless red brick pile that was the St Anne’s shopping centre. I made up the lead coming down the stairs into the shopping centre’s central atrium and was right behind them when Toby made the mistake of running into WH Smith’s and got himself cornered in the Back to School section. There he made his stand before a wall of brightly coloured folders and discounted plastic Ziploc school stationery kits—now with safely blunted plastic compasses.
Toby bared his teeth as the ghost, much more visible in the store’s strip lighting, advanced with her hand held out.
“Good doggie,” she said. “Don’t be afraid.”
I slipped around until I was facing her. She didn’t notice me—her whole focus was on Toby.
“Good boy,” she said, her face bright with excitement.
Toby snarled and then snapped at her hand.
The ghost snatched it back, as if being bitten was a real possibility, a look of confusion on her face.
Toby looked at me and then managed an impressive jump right into my arms. Once safely there he wriggled around until he could face the ghost and bare his teeth at her.
She looked on the verge of tears.
I told Toby to behave and gave the ghost my best winning smile.
“My name is Peter,” I said. “What’s yours?”
She looked longingly at Toby and then at my face.
“You’re awfully brown,” she said. “Are you from the Empire?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me your name,” I said. “It’s only polite.”
The girl gave me a dainty little curtsy. “Alice Bowman at your service,” she said.
“Pleased to meet you,” I said and told her that my mum was from Sierra Leone, which she actually knew was in West Africa, which put her ahead of the bulk of the modern population.
“Are you really a policeman?” she asked. “The master said I was to find a policeman or a magistrate but not a priest. Definitely not a priest.”
“I am most certainly a police officer,” I said and showed her my warrant card. “Who is your master?”
“Not my master, silly,” said Alice. “The Master, the master of the palace.”
“And he wanted you to find a policeman?” I remembered the Postboy looking for someone to deliver a message to. “Did he want you to deliver a message?”
“He wanted me to tell you a story,” she said. “I wish I had a doggie.”
“If you tell me the story I’ll let you pet him,” I said and decided not to worry about how I’d persuade Toby to allow that until after I had the bloody story.