I don’t know how much time went by. Like I said, I haven’t a great notion of time, I can hardly tell a minute from an hour, but right then it felt like it stretched out forever and ever until time wasn’t a real thing a person could even reckon.

Then the door at the top of the stairs opened. I was the only one dared turn her head to see. For a moment, I couldn’t tell who it was, he was nothing but a black animal eating up all the light from around him.

Then he spake up, his voice all broken with anger, and I knew who it was.

The three of yous, says Daddy Ivan, get up here now.

40: Sara

40: Sara

Sara turned her head, saw him standing over her, horror on his face.

“What the fuck have you done?” Damien asked.

“What about Tony?” she asked. “Is he alive? Please tell me.”

Damien took a step back and said, “Get up.”

She looked back to the exposed skull, most of it still hidden in the earth. “They’re everywhere,” she said. “Mary told me. In the walls and the floors. And you knew. You knew what they found there in the extension. You knew there were others and you did nothing. Said nothing.”

“Get up,” he repeated.

“We’ve been walking over their bones,” Sara said. “All these children. You knew, your father knew, and you didn’t care. How could you imagine living here with—”

He reached down, grabbed a handful of her hair, hoisted her upright. “Get the fuck up!”

Sara howled at the pain, her back and shoulders, her knees, her scalp.

“Look what you did,” Damien said, his breath hot against her ear. “After everything my father gave us. After everything you’ve put me through. Look what you fucking did.”

He threw her to the floor, sent her sprawling through the scattered earth and sand, across the displaced and broken flagstones. She scrambled up onto her knees, but he was on her, grabbing her hair again. From the corner of her vision, she saw him raise his free hand, form it into a fist, ready to bring it down on her.

Her fingers found something long and hard, a handle, the mallet. Without thought, she swung it up behind her head, and it met his fist. Through the shaft, she felt bone break, and he gasped, an agonised inhalation, then he whined. He rolled back onto his haunches, still astride her legs, clutching his now misshapen hand to his chest.

“You fucking b—”