The stairs of Lodestar House were broken; the floorboards in the turret room were rotten; the whole place stank of ammonia and damp. Windows were so dirty they scarcely let in the light. Creepers had found their way between glass and frame. Plaster flaked from walls; paper shredded by tiny rodent teeth eddied in draughts from broken doors. The roof leaked: the rooms once occupied by Wendy and Congo were cold, forlorn and wretched: dejection added up to more than its filthy parts.
Brian Moss showed Una around the property. That is to say, he ventured as far as the foot of the staircase and said, ‘A tragedy, a tragedy. The place is too far gone. I’ll have it condemned. If I pull a few strings, I can get a demolition order, in spite of its Grade I listing.’
But Una said, looking back from halfway up the stairs, that the solicitor was unnecessarily gloomy. She would do the place up: it was the house where she’d been born. It had to be ‘made good’, in the builders’ terminology. She’d hire someone competent to do it: she had very little time herself. She needed the place for an in-house residence for her Agency team. It was good for the team’s morale to bring them all together under one roof from time to time. It fostered togetherness and she found it reduced the turnover rate. Good staff were hard to find, particularly in her line of work.
Brian Moss thought that even this strong woman was nervous of going further up the stairs. She was talking too much.
‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ said Brian Moss, ‘but this place is spooky.’
‘All the better,’ said Una. ‘The dead can be energising. My team will soon have them exorcised, in any case. Fancy mother letting the place get into a state like this.’ And, thus restored by her own words, she went on boldly up the stairs, calling, ‘Mother, mother Wendy? Are you there?’ At which Brian Moss shivered and went outside and stood on the step; but even there the air seemed brackish, and a drop of water fell upon his nose from the vaulted stone archway above, and startled him. He longed to be back in his office; he wished old Catterwall had never taken the Musgrave family on as clients. They were all hopeless. He waited.
Una came out smiling.
‘Mother’s happy for me to do up the house,’ said Una. ‘She always meant to get round to it some time,’ and, when Brian Moss looked askance, she said, ‘Only joking!’ He felt she was humouring him, and was not consoled. He looked at his watch: it had stopped.
A taxi drew up and a young woman stepped out. She was a stocky little thing, with a wide, low forehead from which dark curly hair sprang profusely. She had large eyes and a little mouth. Her bosom was high and plump. Brian Moss felt cheered at once.
‘This is Maria,’ said Una, ‘my administrative assistant.’
‘And you’ll be the solicitor with the shoulder for crying on,’ said Maria, little hand already on his arm. ‘I used to be on the team but Una moved me sideways. I’m getting used to it now, but it did upset me. I’m a psychic, and the dead just don’t seem able to stay away. And Una was right: it could interfere with my work.’ She put her nose inside the door of Lodestar House. ‘Oh my!’ said Maria.
‘A lot of creaks and groans,’ said Una, ‘even for an old house.’
‘Sounds more like cris de joie to me,’ said Maria, ‘trying to get through from the other side. This place will do wonderfully. You were really born here?’
‘I lived here on and off in my youth,’ said Una. ‘Till my mother threw me out. But I’ve made my peace with her.’
‘What is this team you’re talking about,’ asked Brian Moss, more in nervous conversation than in interest. He had gone right off Maria. He moved out of her reach.
‘Una’s Happy Boys and Girls,’ said Maria. ‘And I really miss the work, but what Una says goes. That’s how she is. We all adore her.’
And Una and Maria, the older and the younger woman, went back in to Lodestar House and Brian, the man, went back to his office, where Lois, whom he had persuaded to stay, waited for him.