‘No serving Iremonger quits this place,’ said Piggott. ‘Once here, here you stay, there are only different stations, different positions, going downwards. There are dark places in Heap House, dark and deep. There are gloomy chambers down below where people can be quite lost and forgotten.’

‘There are certain places in this mansion that only the butler knows,’ said the butler. ‘Certain deeps, where only I wander. I go to see how the house is far underground, it used to be deeper, but it was flooded. The heaps do bleed in upon us. This great house is very vulnerable, there are cracks, cracks everywhere, I know them all like old friends, and take sharp note of their progress. A person could fall through those cracks, Iremonger. Have a care.’

‘There’s another name for Heap House, you might call it “The End”. That’s where you are and that’s where you’ll stay. At the very pitch black bottom of The End.’

‘You can’t keep me here!’ I screamed.

‘We can keep you here.’

‘We shall keep you here.’

‘I want to go. I demand to be let go!’

‘Then let her go, Claar. Let her sink.’

‘Yes, Olbert, I’ll let her go, tumbling, falling, thrown all the way to the bottom.’

‘Exactly right, Claar, as I said, dump her.’

‘Iremonger,’ she said, looking hard at me, ‘consider yourself dumped.’

‘What does that even mean, what are you talking about?’

‘Dumped!’

‘Dumped!’

‘Dumped!’

‘Dumped!’

‘What are you saying? Speak English!’

‘You’re going out in the heaps, you’re not to work in the house any more,’ said Claar primly.

‘I’m going home,’ I said.

‘If by home you mean the heaps, then yes indeed, you’re going there, it’s all you’re good for.’

‘You can’t make me,’ I said.

‘Wrong!’ grinned the butler. ‘Can! Do! Will!’

‘I’ll tell. I’ll tell them above. I know some of them above, what do you say to that? They’ll help me. They won’t stand for it. I demand to see him, yes, that’s it, take me to him now, he’ll explain, he won’t let it happen. He’ll have me put on the train.’

‘Who,’ said the Butler, trembling now, ‘who he?’

‘An Upiremonger!’ I cried.

‘You talked to an Upiremonger?’

‘Many times, every night! We even held hands. We even kissed, Mrs Piggott!’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Piggott.

‘And I liked it!’ I cried. ‘And I liked him! I like him very much.’

‘Name the superior,’ said the butler, ‘name please.’

‘Clod!’

‘Master Clodius?’ gasped Piggott.

‘Clodius, Ayris’s son, his own grandchild! I don’t believe it,’ said the butler.

‘His birth object,’ I declared, ‘is a bath plug!’

‘I shall give in my resignation!’ the butler groaned.

‘You shall do no such thing, Olbert.’

‘It has never happened before, Claar.’

‘It shall never happen again, Olbert.’