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hurt.'
'Was it Katy Budd?' Thom asked, already aware of the answer as he took in the
terrible damage to the green car. Although the VW's rear end was closest to
him, he could see that the windscreen was completely smashed and the front of
the roof itself so badly dented its metal almost touched the front seats'
headrests.
'It was a girl drivin' all right, but I wouldn't know her name. Policeman'll
tell you though, he's had to look through her things.'
'It's okay. I know it was her. How badly was she hurt?'
'Can't say, but they tell me they took her out unconscious. The driver of this
thing ' Eric pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the front-damaged
transport-carrier' tol' me she was pretty messed up though. They rushed her
off to Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, didn't waste no time gettin' her there.
Another ambulance took this driver off too, after he'd made a statement to the
police, en'all. Had to be treated for shock, poor chap.'
'Did they tell you about the girl?' Thom was still eyeing the wrecked VW as if
in shock himself. 'How bad were her injuries?'
'Don't know, Thom. They jus' said she was none too good. I came on it after it
had all happened and stuck aroun' so's I could give a hand, bein' the accident
occurred on the edge of the estate. Spoke to the driver though, managed to
calm him down a bit.' Eric rubbed at his veined nose, then shook his head. 'He
still seemed in bit of a daze to me, like he'd banged his head or somethin'.
Kept goin' on about a bird.'
Thom at last took his eyes off the wreckage and regarded the gamekeeper
curiously.
'Said the car appeared from nowhere, too late for him to stop,' Eric went on.
'Must've come out the lane to your place, Thom. One of your lady friends, was
it? Someone up from London?'
Thom gave a quick shake of his head. What did you
mean, Eric? When you said the driver was talking about a bird?'
'Oh, I think he was just a bit confused, like. As I say, he must've taken a
knock on the head. Couldn't make much sense of him, to be honest.'
'But tell me what he said.'
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The old gamekeeper huffed, and shook his head yet again. 'He said that after
the crash, when the other car had been pushed down the road and into that
there ditch, he saw a bird, a black and white bird, he said, fly out from the
windscreen. I reckon he was mistaken. I reckon if there was a bird, it was
already in the ditch lookin' for worms or grubs, an' it flew up from
underneath the car. I mean, it's not likely she'd be carryin' a magpie as a
passenger, is it? Not likely at all.'
OF BANES / SPELLS
& DECEPTIONS
HUGO HAD gone to the plate-glass windows of his .father's bedchamber at the
top of Castle Bracken, closing all the curtains so that the evening sun burned
against their thick material. The spacious but now darkened room suddenly
seemed claustrophobic, the air somehow heavier, and he felt his father's
watery, old-ivory eyes watching him over the plastic oxygen mask, the invalid,
as usual, propped up by pillows as he lay wasting away on the four-poster. He
thought he detected momentary panic in them.
'Just giving you some shade,' Hugo called across the room.
Hugo grimaced at the sound of the laboured breathing in the shadowy room, for
the initial sharp intake of air was like a grasp at life itself, the drawn-out
rattling exhalation like final submission to the inevitable.
A beastly noise.
'Uuh - aaarrrghhhh ...'
Grasp, submit; grasp, submit...
And so on it went.
You need to sleep, Father,' he called out again, wondering if the old boy
even understood his words these days. Sometimes he thought he caught a spark
of intelligence in those vapid eyes, but mostly Sir
Russell continued to stare blankly, observing without reaction or recognition.
And yet at other times, when his breathing was regular and there was no need
for pure oxygen, Sir Russell could appear quite lucid. Well, the time had come
for some plain, sensible speaking from the old man and Hugo hoped
Nell's new concoction would do the trick. Their patience was running out
He returned to the bedside, hands in the pockets of his creased trousers, and
watched Nell tilt a vial over a small ball of cotton-wool as she stood by the
trolley containing genuine medications and equipment.
What is it this time?' he asked, impressed by her knowledge of potions and
poisons. 'Hemlock?' He gave a nervous laugh.
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