outside his head, and now that those phantoms had been rendered visible, given recognisable shape and form, in the figure of Swift, he felt only drained and soiled as a consequence. Somehow, too, this made his revenge seem less legitimate than it had been, at least in his own mind. More than anything else, Pyke just wanted Swift to be dead. Swift saw this, too, and any lingering hope evaporated in his eyes.
‘Just one more question,’ Pyke said, lifting the hatch next to Swift’s bound form. ‘How did you know where to find the cousin, Mary Johnson? I mean, I presume it was you who strangled her and her boyfriend?’
Swift tugged at the bindings around his wrists and ankles and strained to look beneath him at the rats that covered every inch of floor and wall space at the bottom of the cage.
‘How did you find her?’
‘I can’t remember,’ Swift said, sounding panicky. ‘I don’t know. Edmonton must have told me.’
Pyke took his knife and cut through Swift’s hand bonds. He gouged his thumb into the wound on Swift’s chin. Swift gurgled and momentarily passed out. Pyke cut the bonds around his ankles and shunted Swift’s prostrate body across towards the open hatch. Beneath him, the carpet of rats seemed to move as one.
He waited until Swift came round. His hands were gripping Swift’s ankles. The rest of his body was dangling upside down inside the cage. The rats could almost touch his scalp. He was screaming now, screaming and pleading with Pyke for pity and for mercy. Pyke held him there for as long as he was able to. Finally, however, his grip weakened; he let go of Swift’s ankles and watched as he fell into the mass of rats, at least six or seven deep, watched as Swift’s body - first his legs and then his arms, torso and, finally, his neck and mouth - seemed to disappear as the rats swarmed over him. He watched - fascinated and sickened - as a body of wet, black fur and long, twitching tails engulfed Swift’s disintegrating form, and he listened as the almost unbearable carnivorous screeches finally drowned out the stomach-churning gurgles emerging from Swift’s body. Eventually, the only sound in the cellar was the unmistakable noise of ten thousand teeth tearing into bloodied flesh. Pyke would remember that terrible sound for as long as he lived.
TWENTY-FIVE
‘My God, you look terrible, m’boy. Come in.’ Godfrey looked up and down the street outside his apartment. It seemed quiet enough. Certainly there was no sign of the men who had been stationed there but it was late, after two in the morning. Still, Pyke had taken great care to slip into the building unnoticed.
He had not been able to face the prospect of another long, cold night in the church and had walked the three miles from Holborn to his uncle’s apartment in Camden Town.
In the front room, Godfrey poured him a large brandy and threw some more coal on to the fire. The room was as untidy as Pyke remembered it: piles of books, pamphlets and papers covered every inch of floor space. It had been a while since he was last there, perhaps as much as a year. Pyke felt himself begin to relax. This had been as much a home for him as he had ever known: even the vaguely musty smell was reassuringly familiar.
‘So you gave Emily my address, then?’ Godfrey was wearing his silk dressing gown.
‘How did you know?’
‘I know because she’s here. She turned up on my door-step a few hours ago in quite a state. Told me she’d tried to find you in the church but you weren’t there. Thought you might have been arrested. Or worse.’
Pyke found Emily, half-asleep, curled up in his old bed. For a few moments, she stared at him, as though she did not know where she was, but her anxiety soon gave way to relief; she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into an embrace.
‘I thought you were dead,’ she said, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘I really thought you were dead.’
As he rubbed the tears from her cheeks, he wondered whether she could smell the pungent vermin odour on him.
‘I can’t do it any more,’ Emily said, once the relief at seeing him had worn off.
‘Can’t do what any more?’
‘It’s such a mess.’ Emily sighed. ‘The man my father expects me to marry . . .’
‘He’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ Emily stared at him, bewildered.
‘James Sloan, otherwise known as Jimmy Swift, is dead.’
Briefly, a look of relief registered on her face. Emily had identified Sloan as Swift from Pyke’s earlier description. This was the reason she had fled from his home.
‘Dead how?’ she mouthed.
‘He’s dead,’ Pyke said. ‘That’s all you need to know.’
‘When?’
Pyke stood up and looked around his old bedroom, expecting more of a reaction, but he felt neither validated nor unsettled by the feelings and memories that surfaced.
‘I presume it’s a naive question, but did you . . . kill him?’
‘No.’
She screwed up her face and gave him a quizzical stare. ‘But he’s dead,’ she repeated.
He waited for a few moments. ‘Will you marry me?’ There. He had asked the question.
‘Pardon?’ She did not seem to have understood what he had asked her.
Pyke exhaled loudly. In the silence, he could hear his own heart beating. He wanted to tell her how he felt but his willingness to do so was foundering on her apparent indifference.
‘You just asked me to marry you, didn’t you?’ she exclaimed, as though the notion were an absurd one.
‘It’s perhaps a stupid question, but do you . . .’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
‘Do I love you?’ Her expression softened. She even smiled a little. ‘Of course I do.’ The way she said it sounded so pained, so heartfelt, so doomed, he couldn’t help but reach out to her.
‘Perhaps I could talk to him.’ He threaded his fingers through hers.
‘Who? My father?’ She laughed in a derisive manner.
‘I can be quite persuasive.’
‘He won’t countenance it.’ She shrugged. ‘He would never relent. He detests you.’
He pretended to ponder this notion for a while. ‘But can he stop you?’
‘No, but he can disinherit me,’ she said, as though this put an end to the discussion.
Pyke nodded, as though he appreciated the problem. ‘But what if I were to confront him?’
‘For what purpose?’ Emily seemed almost irritated by such a suggestion. ‘Anyway, he’s holed up in Hambledon, protected by his own private militia. You wouldn’t get as far as the main gates.’
‘But it’s a large house. There must be other ways of getting in.’
‘There are, I suppose. But what would you say to him?’
‘I would ask him for your hand in marriage.’
That drew an incredulous laugh. ‘And you think he would readily agree to such an arrangement?’
‘Let me ask you a question. If it was not for the terms of your father’s will, would you marry me then?’
‘But that’s a hypothetical question, isn’t it?’
‘A hypothetical question?’ He tried not to appear annoyed by her answer. ‘What’s hypothetical about it?’
Emily just shrugged.
‘Then perhaps we should address the dilemma from a legal perspective.’
Emily looked at him, frowning. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Perhaps I should talk to your father’s lawyer instead.’
‘You think he’d divulge anything to you?’
‘You know him, then?’
Emily shrugged. ‘We’ve met on occasions. Gerald Atkins. He’s as mean as my father.’
Pyke wondered whether he had already said too much. Emily’s brown eyes were unreadable.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It all seems so hopeless.’ They stared at one another for a while.
‘Hopeless,’ he repeated listlessly.
‘But you know, it means a lot to me, that you even asked,’ she said, smiling belatedly, as though the subject
