The Family Game(48)

Olivia nods, pulling out her iPhone and tapping away furiously, her brow furrowed. ‘Maybe I’m spelling it wrong. Here, you try.’

She hands me the phone, the screen open on a letter-reshuffling app. She has typed my name in correctly: H-A-R-R-I-E-T—R-E-E-D. The best suggestion comes up beneath it: reheated.

‘Reheated,’ I mutter. ‘Could there be a microwave, or an oven, in the basement?’

Olivia shakes her head. ‘Kitchen’s on the ground floor. And out of bounds.’

I look at the letters again. ‘Oh my God,’ I say, my own slowness surprising me. I tap in the initial of my middle name, Yasmin, and I press reshuffle once more.

The letters of my name rearrange into a new word and I shake my head at the nerve of the clue. Hereditary. Someone in the Holbeck family’s got a real sense of humour all right. I spin the phone back to Olivia.

‘I don’t know what that word means; I’m thirteen,’ she says.

‘It means inherited characteristics, or inherited property,’ I tell her. ‘Is there anything up here or in the basement that word could refer to?’ That said, I think, is there anything in this house that it wouldn’t?

Olivia grins broadly, her eyes suddenly alive. ‘Oh my gosh. I know what it is. This was J. L. Holbeck’s first home in New York. It’s been in the family ever since. There’s a placard in the basement. Like a foundation stone. Everyone who’s ever lived in this house has inherited it.’

‘Great,’ I cheer, the prospect of the end almost in sight. ‘Now, how in hell do we get down to the basement from here?’

Billy raises his tiny hand once more, his finger pointing towards the large industrial-looking unit in the corner of the room. ‘Hatch,’ he says with authority.





23 Down the Hatch




Friday 16 December

Olivia slides the hatch doors shut on me and I flick on my torch in the darkness of the service lift.

I try not to think about the empty lift shaft beneath me and content myself with the fact that I am not above the maximum weight warning on the hatch door.

Olivia would have been lighter, but there was no way I was going to let a child travel down five flights in a service hatch lift on my watch.

Besides, if you want a job done right, do it yourself. I want this game over.

The lift clanks down and I think of the Holbecks and the bizarre drinks party they must still be having in a different part of the house, pure anger burning through me. I could laugh at the situation, sure, but cramped up in a service lift covered in toddler piss at eleven weeks pregnant, it doesn’t seem like that much of a joke.

I flick off my torch as the lift rattles to a stop and sit in silence for a moment. No sound from the basement beyond. No seven-foot monsters. Or men in seven-foot monster suits, I should say.

Gently I slide my fingers into the gap between the hatch doors and prize them open. The room beyond is dark.

I slip from the hatch then follow the right-hand wall along as per Olivia’s meticulous instructions. I need to follow this corridor and pass two doorways before I reach up. Above the final door frame is the placard, and the Evergreen should be there. I count the doors to my right as I pass them.

One.

I shuffle on in the blackness, noises of the party above just audible from down here; faint music, laughter. Then I hear another noise. I freeze. Ahead of me, the sound of breathing. My hand flies to my mouth to mask my own.

I stay still for a second listening but the noise is gone as quickly as it came. I hold a moment longer then remind myself that if I don’t end this, no one will. I force myself to continue, to creep on past the second door.

Two.

After three more steps I feel the lip of another doorway. This is it. With incredible care I raise my arms above the door frame and sweep my hand along the lip. My baby finger makes contact first but I react too slow and the stick rolls away from me, my stomach clenching with primal terror as I wait for it to clatter to the ground. There’s a moment’s hiatus in the thick blackness and then it does just that.

I drop immediately into a low crouch, scrambling to grab it before it rolls away. There’s the sound of breathing again; deep, hoarse, animalistic breathing. I freeze. It’s here; he’s here. Whoever it is in that suit is down here with me. The Krampus.

I wonder who could be inside that costume. And how odd it is that whoever’s in there is still keeping up their monster act when it’s only me and them down here.

I push the thought away. The Holbecks obviously take their traditions very seriously. As I reach in the dark, images of who it might be flash through my thoughts: Oliver, Stuart, Edward. Then my mind inevitably lands on Robert, and it will not budge. I think of the girl on his tape, of what he said he did to her, and the silliness of being down here in the dark melts away, leaving only dread. I push the thoughts away and try to locate where the sound of the creature is coming from.

It is to my right, about six feet from me. Two large strides away.

But the Evergreen stick is near, and the end of the game is tantalisingly close. I want to go home.

I tentatively let my fingers search for it. But I need to stretch further, and I realize that if I want this game to end, I’ll need to turn on my torch, come what may.

Every nerve in my body rebels at the idea, but the truth is all I need to do is grab that stick that’s on the floor right in front of me, and shout the magic word. It doesn’t matter if he sees me. It’ll all be over. I can grab it before he reaches me.