Then he kicked George’s jelly legs out from under him and went in search of the broken mattock head. A moment later and he returned, and still George squirmed and gagged and wrestled with the stake in his chest. Yulian grabbed one of his twitching legs, dragged him to a spot where black soil showed between the broken jointing of displaced flags. He got down on his knees beside him, used the mattock head as a hammer to drive the stake right through him and into the floor. Finally, jammed between two of the flags, the stake would go no further. George was pinned like some exotic beetle on a board. Only two or three inches of the stake stood up from his chest, but there was little blood to be seen. His eyes were still open, wide as doors, and there was white froth on his lips, but no more movement in him.
Yulian stood up, wiped his hands down his trousers, went in search of Anne. He found her crouching in a dark corner, whimpering and shivering, looking for all the world like a discarded doll. He dragged her to the furnace room and pointed to a shovel. ‘Stoke that fire,’ he ordered. ‘I want it hotter than hell, and if you don’t know now how hot hell is, I’m the one to show you! I want that flue glowing red. And whatever else you do, don’t go near George. Leave him completely alone. Do you understand?’
She nodded, whimpered, shrank back away from him. ‘I’ll be back,’ he told her, leaving her there by the furnace, which was now just beginning to roar.
On his way out, Yulian spoke to VIad. ‘Stay, watch.’ Then he went back into the house. Upstairs, passing his mother’s room, he heard her moving. He looked in. Georgina was pacing the floor wringing her hands and sobbing. She saw him.
‘Yulian?’ Her voice was a tremor. ‘Oh, Yulian, what’s to become of you? And what’s to become of me?’
‘What was to become has become,’ he answered coldly, unemotionally. ‘Can I still trust you, Georgina?’
‘I . . . I don’t know if I trust myself,’ she eventually answered.
‘Mother,’ — he used the term without thinking — ‘do you want to be like George?’
‘Oh, God! Yulian, please don’t say. .
‘Because if you do,’ he stopped her, ‘it can be arranged. Just remember that.’
He left her and went to his own room. Helen heard him coming. She gasped at the sound of his quiet, even footfalls and threw herself on his bed. As he came in through the door she lifted her dress up to display the lower half of her body. She was naked under the dress. He saw her, the way her face worked: trying to smile through a mask of white terror. It was as if someone had thrown powdered chalk on the face of a clown.
‘Cover yourself, slut!’ he said.
‘I thought you liked me like this!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Yulian, don’t punish me. Please don’t hurt me!’ She watched him stride to a chest of drawers, take out a key and unlock the top drawer. When he turned towards her he was grinning his sick grin, and in his hands he weighed a shining new cleaver. The thing had a seven inch blade and was heavy as a small axe.
‘Yulian!’ Helen gasped, her mouth dry as sawdust. She slid off the bed and shrank away from him. ‘Yulian, I —’
He shook his head, laughing a weird, bubbling laugh. Then his face turned blank again. ‘No,’ he told her, ‘it’s not for you. You’re safe as long as you’re . . . useful to me. And you are useful. I’d have to pay a lot to find one as sweet and fresh as you. And even then — like all women
— she wouldn’t be worth it.’ He walked out and closed the door noiselessly behind him.
Downstairs, as he left the house again, Yulian noticed the column of blue smoke rising from the chimney stack at the back. He smiled to himself and nodded. Anne was working hard down there. But even as he studied the smoke, the fluffy September clouds parted a little and the sun struck through. Struck bright, hot, searing!