The House That Jack Built (46 page)

    'On? On?' Jack Belias shouted at him. 'All that's "on" in this room are bets. All bets are on. And I've won this woman fair and square!'

    Effie sat up. Her left eye was almost closed, and she was dribbling blood and saliva from the side of her mouth. 'Fair and square?' she mocked him. She didn't care now. 'You used this library to cheat… you used this floor to cheat… I know about Balam and I know about floors that aren't floors. You cheated when you won Gina, and even then you couldn't break her.'

    'What is this about cheating?' Remy Morse demanded. 'What is this about a floor?'

    'Spin yourself around a few times, clockwise, and you'll see.'

    'Pardon?' asked Remy Morse, completely perplexed.

    But now Jack Belias was seriously enraged. He dragged Effie up from the floor and punched her on the ear, and then on the cheekbone, 'I'll kill you,' he breathed. 'So help me I'll kill you.'

    'Go on then, kill me,' Effie pouted back at him, through swollen lips. 'But you will never, ever beat me.'

    Jack Belias went for his walking-cane; but that was his mistake. He gave Effie time to scramble onto her feet, dodge around the baccarat table, and push her way into the hall.

    'Stop her!' Jack Belias screamed, whacking his cane against the baccarat table, so that the cards jumped. But all the other men sat in their evening dress as if they were waxworks; as if they were memories, frozen in time; and perhaps they were.

    Effie ran across the hallway and into the kitchen. The swing doors closed behind her:
joink-squeak-joink-squeak
. She went around the tables, frantically pulling out drawers, looking for knives, anything to protect herself, but there wasn't even a teaspoon. She heard the swing doors burst open again, as Jack Belias came after her, and she almost panicked. But there was the cellar door, with the key still in it. She tugged it open, and clambered in semi-darkness down the cellar steps. Two-thirds of the way down, she stumbled and almost fell, but she managed to hobble her way to the very bottom, and look around.

    The cellar was illuminated by nothing more than the light from the kitchen door. She could see the floor glistening, because it was so wet. She could see vaulted arches, with nothing beyond them but blackness. She took one step forward, and then another; and behind the arches she was sure that she could hear a flurrying sound, a scratching sound. She peered into the shadows and the light reflected back at her from two red eyes, and then two more.

    
Oh Jesus,
she blasphemed to herself.
Rats. I can't take rats.

    She was about to grope her way back up the stairs to the kitchen when she heard the sharp chipping of a man's pumps crossing the kitchen floor. Then the rap of a walking-cane, and the cellar door opened even wider.

    'Gina! Are you down there? What the hell are you doing down there? I order you to come up! I order you to come up!'

    Effie said nothing, but stood in the half-light with her hands clasped together, not knowing what to do.

    'Goddamn it, Gina, I'm going to kill you for this!'

    
No, you're not
, she thought to herself.
I'd rather face rats first, than give you the pleasure
.

    She began to walk into the cellar - through the first row of vaulted arches, past the boilers, and into the darkest recesses where even the exterminators hadn't yet dared to venture. The rushing of rats was like the surf on the beach at Hyannis, where her parents used to take her when she was little. There must be thousands of them, nesting in this cellar. A whole subterranean kingdom, ruled by tooth and claw.

    She ventured further and further, with her hands held out in front of her, in case she collided with one of the arches in the dark. She heard the scratching and scuttling very close to her now, and she started to whimper. She didn't want to, but she couldn't help herself. A rat ran over her shoe, and she felt its horrible bootlace tail whipping against her ankle, and she had to force her hand into her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

    Behind her, she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She turned, and saw that Jack Belias was following her, waving his walking-cane from side to side, like a blind man. She plunged on into the darkness, as quickly as she could, praying that she wouldn't step on anything terrible, praying that the rats wouldn't get her.

    'Gina?' called Jack Belias. 'I won you, Gina, fair and square! I'm coming for you, Gina!'

    Effie took one more step forward, and then another. It was then that the rats came for her. She felt one jump up on her back and dig its claws into her shirt. Then she felt two or three of them biting at her ankles, through her socks and her boots. Another flung itself onto her shoulder, but she swung herself around and it dropped off into the dark.

    She was quaking with fright and disgust. But she could see Jack Belias coming towards her, swooshing his cane from left to right, and she knew that she would rather face the rats than face up to him. To the rats, she was nothing but prey. To Jack Belias, she was a victim, a possession, the proof of man's God-given superiority.

    Another rat tried to scurry up her leg. She beat it off, but she felt it nip her hand. Oh God, what kind of diseases did it carry? It was probably riddled with fleas; and the fleas had probably come from squirrels or polecats or bats or any number of wild animals that carried rabies. Another one jumped up, as heavy as a sandbag, and then another, and suddenly she was wearing thick, squirming boots made out of living rats.

    She kicked her feet up in the air, one after the other, like a child kicking through heaps of leaves, and some of the rats were flung away. But then a huge rat jumped onto her right shoulder, and another followed it. She felt their claws digging right through her shirt, and their teeth tearing her skin. She tried to twist around and beat them off her, but they clung on ferociously, and she was afraid that if she pulled them away, they would take large chunks of her own muscle with them.

    She dropped to her knees on a carpet of scratching, writhing rats. A rat ran up her back and into her hair, and clung to her scalp. Another tried to scurry up the front of her shirt. She knelt for a moment without moving, with her head bowed, as if she were a willing victim, and then she took a deep breath and said to herself:
I've never been a victim, ever, not of men, not of rats, not of anything!

    She climbed to her feet in a swinging coat of rats. She staggered ankle-deep in rats to the nearest wall. Then she turned her back, and deliberately collided with the brickwork, so that all the rats on her back were crushed. She heard their bones cracking; she felt their bellies burst. She threw herself backwards again and again, until they dropped off her back and onto the floor. Then she ripped the rats off' the front of her shirt, and threw them as far as she could across the cellar.

    

    

    Upstairs, Pepper cautiously knocked on the library doors and called, 'Effie? You there?'

    She waited, but there was no reply. Very slowly, she turned the handles and opened the doors just three or four inches.

    'Effie?'

    The library was empty. Effie must have gone in search of Jack Belias somewhere else in the house. Unless Jack Belias had already taken her.

    She glanced back worriedly at the cleaning fluid spreading across the ballroom floor. The last thing she wanted to happen was for Effie and Brewster to be trapped in Valhalla once she set it alight. But she knew that she had to do it, she had to bring it down, or Effie and Craig would never be free of it, and neither would anyone else who ever came here looking for a house to restore their status and their pride.

    'Effie!' she called. 'I'm going to set a fire! Get out of the house, Effie, wherever are you!'

    She listened; but there was no reply. She waited another half-minute; then she closed the library doors, crossed herself, and walked over to the centre of the ballroom floor, flicking her cigarette lighter as she did so.

    

    

    Effie could see Jack Belias silhouetted in the arches, holding his walking-cane.

    'Gina?' he shouted, 'Is that you, Gina?'

    Around her feet the live rats were voraciusly falling on the dead rats, and tearing their skins to shreds. She kicked one or two more, but they were far too greedy for their brothers' flesh to take any notice.

    'Gina!' Jack Belias roared, into the rat-infested darkness.

    Effie glanced quickly around her, wondering which way to go. Maybe she could dodge around behind him, and run up the kitchen steps before he noticed. But then she realised that light was faintly penetrating the cellar in the arch where she was standing, and she looked up to see that the ceiling wasn't a ceiling at all, but a large tarpaulin. This wasn't 1937 any more. The library floor was still broken where Morton Walker had dropped through. And if Morton Walker had dropped through, then she could climb back up.

    She groped her way across the floor. She could see something shadowy in front of her, something tall and dark. Whatever it was, maybe she could climb up it, and reach the tarpaulin that covered the library floor. She made her way forward, inch by inch, feeling bruised and scratched and deeply panicky. It seemed to take her an age to reach the shape; especially with Jack Belias shouting 'Gina!' every few seconds, and slowly advancing into the darkness of the cellar, striking with his walking-cane the few rats that scurried up to him, and breaking their backs. Every step was accompanied by a
thwack
! And another
thwack
! And a squealing of pain.

    Effie blindly reached out her hands and touched the tall dark shape in front of her. It was soft and heavy and very wet and it stank of ripe blood and sour stomach-acids and something worse. She said, 'Urrh' out loud, and stepped back in disgust. But it was only when the draught momentarily lifted the tarpaulin on the library floor, and let in the briefest wash of evening light, that she realised what it was.

    Morton Walker, impaled on his heating pipe, dead and eaten and ready for burial. A glistening carcass of scarlet and grey. Yet he had already been buried. He couldn't be here. His body was lying in the Cold Spring Cemetery, awaiting a headstone.

    But what had Pepper said?
Time has gone haywire here tonight.

    Jack Belias whacked his cane against the vaulted arches so that it echoed. 'Gina!' he called. 'I know you're in here. You're mine, Gina! I want you to come back and give yourself up to me, just like you promised. I won you, Gina! I want you back!'

    Effie covered her face with her hands and said a prayer for Morton Walker's departed soul. Another rat jumped for her ankle, and tore her sock open, and she kicked it against the wall and broke its neck. Then, without any further hesitation, she walked up to Morton's body and started to climb it, using his knees and his pelvis as footholds, and his collar bone for a handhold.

    The climb was slippery and greasy and total disgust. She kept grasping handfuls of spongy lung and body fat. His bones fell out of his arms when she tried to use them as supports, and his bloody head fell backward in utter resignation.

    With one foot on Morton's collar bone and the other perched on his rubbery, collapsing face, Effie managed to reach up and grip the rope that fastened the tarpaulin. She was smothered in blood and mucus, but she didn't care. Jack Belias wasn't going to get her, no matter what. She thought of the pictures Jack Belias had taken of Gina being abused, and she was totally determined that he would never lay hands on a woman again.

    On the very top of Morton Walker's impaled body, she swayed like a circus performer. His ribcage lurched under the weight. For a moment, she thought she was going to join him, impaled on that pipe. But then she reached out and seized the edge of the crumbling floor. 'Oh God,' she prayed. 'Never again. Not rats. Please, not ever. Not rats.'

    She heaved herself up, and lay panting on the library floor. She felt bruised and torn and shaky. Both eyes were closing up, and the left-hand side of her jaw was hugely swollen. Her hair was clogged with blood, and looked more like a rat's-nest than a real rat's-nest.

    She couldn't help thinking of those photographs, and what Jack Belias had done to Gina Broughton.

    Tortured her, raped her, tattooed her, scarred her and blinded her. And on top of all that, had given Douglas Broughton the greatest insult of all: he had made her pregnant.

    Effie painfully climbed to her feet. As she did so, she thought she smelled burning. She sniffed, and sniffed again, and she was sure that she could definitely smell smoke. She looked toward the library doors and saw pale ribbons of smoke pouring out from underneath them.

    She went to the doors and listened. From the ballroom, she could hear a brisk crackling sound. She pressed the flat of her hand against the wood panels. They weren't warm yet: maybe the fire had just started. She knew that she shouldn't open the doors, but supposing Pepper was still in the ballroom? Supposing she was hurt, or unconscious?

    She hesitated for a moment, and then she risked it. Shielding her face with her hand, she opened the doors just a couple of inches.

    Instantly, she shut them again. The ballroom was a dazzling, dancing inferno of fire. The whole floor looked like medieval paintings of hell, with tongues of flame licking twenty or thirty feet in the air, and a huge column of black smoke was billowing up to the oval skylight.

    There was no sign of Pepper. Even if she had been there, it would have been too late to save her.

    Effie hurried back through the library and out to the hallway. She stopped and listened. The wind had died down now that the storm had passed, and apart from the spitting and the rumbling of the fire, still muffled by the solid oak doors, Valhalla was unnervingly quiet.