Текст книги "The Seventh Scroll"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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her party was awaiting her on the line in the back room.

Tessay, the monks and fifty villagers followed the postmaster back into

the exchange and crowded, jabbering, into the cubicle. The overflow

backed up into the main post hall.

"Geoffrey Tennant speaking." The upper'class English accent was tinny

with distance and static.

"Mr Tennant, this is Woizero Tessay."

"I was expecting your call." Geoffrey's voice lightened as he realized

that he was talking to a pretty girl. "How are you, my dear?"

Tessay passed Nicholas's message to him.

"Tell Nicky it's as good as done," Geoffrey acknowledged, and hung up.

"Now," Tessay addressed the postmaster, want to place another call to

Addis – to the Egyptian Embassy." There was a buzz of delight from her

audience when they realized that the entertainment was not yet over for

the day. Everybody repaired to the veranda for more tej and

conversation.

The second call took even longer to connect, and it was after five

'clock when Tessay was at last put in contact with the Egyptian cultural

attach. Had she not once met him at one of those ubiquitous cocktail

parties on the diplomatic circuit in Addis, and made a profound

impression on him then, he would probably not have accepted her call

now.

"You are very lucky to have reached me so late," he told her. "We

usually close at four-thirty, but there is a meeting of the Organization

of African Unity on at the moment and I am working late. Anyway, how may

I help you, Woizero Tessay?"

As soon as she told him the name and rank of the person in Cairo to whom

Royan's message was addressed, his superior and condescending attitude

altered dramatically and he became effusive and eager to please. He

wrote down everything she said in detail, asking her to repeat and spell

the names of people and places. Finally he read his notes back to her

for confirmation.

At the end of the long conversation, he dropped his voice to an intimate

level and told her. "I was greatly saddened to hear of your recent

bereavement, Lady Sun.

Colonel Brusilov was a man I held in high regard. Perhaps when you

return to Addis you would do me the honour of dining with me one

evening."

"How kind and thoughtful of you." Tessay's tones were honeyed. "I would

so much enjoy meeting your charming wife again." She hung up while he

was still making confused  noises of assent and denial.

By this time the sun was already setting behind the sky castles of

cumulonimbus, and there was the smell of rain in the air. It was too

late to start the journey back down the escarpment that evening, so

Tessay was relieved when the headman of Debra Maryam village sent one of

his teenage daughters to invite her to spend the night as a guest in his

home.

The headman's house was the finest in the village, not one of the

circular tukuls, but a square brick building with an iron roof. His wife

and daughters had prepared a banquet in Tessay's honour, and all the

village notables, including the priests from the church, had been

invited. It was therefore after midnight before Tessay was able to

escape to the principal bedroom, which the headman and his wife had

vacated for her.

Just before Tessay fell asleep she heard the heavy raindrops rattling on

the corrugated iron roof over her head. It was a comforting sound, but

she thought briefly of the dam further downstream in the gorge, and

hoped that this shower was merely the harbinger and not the true onset

of the big rains.

When she started awake much later the rain had passed. Beyond her

uncurtained window the night was moonless and silent, except for the

howling of a pariahdog down in the village. She wondered what had woken

her, and was filled suddenly with a premonition of impending disaster, a

legacy from the Mengistu days, when any sound in the night might warn of

the arrival of the security police. So strong was this feeling that she

could not get to sleep again. Creeping quietly out of her bed, she began

dressing in the dark. She had decided to call her monks and start back

along the trail in the darkness. Only when she was at Mek Nimmur's side

once again would she feel secure.

She had just pulled on her jodhpurs and was searching beneath the bed

for her sandals when she heard the sound of a truck engine in the

distance. She went to the window and listened. The air had been cooled

by the rain and she felt the chill on her naked arms and chest.

The truck sounded as though it was approaching the village from the

south, up the track that followed the river bank. It was coming fast,

and her sense of unease sharpened. The villagers had spoken to the

monks, and it was now common knowledge that she was Mek Nimmur's woman.

Mek was a wanted man. Suddenly she felt very vulnerable and alone.

Quickly she pulled the woollen shamma over her head and thrust her feet

into her sandals. As she crept from the room she heard the headman

snoring in the front room where he and his wife had moved to make room

for her.

She turned down the short passage to the kitchen. The fir i I in the

hearth had burned down, but she could make out the shapes of the

sleeping monks on the mud floor. They lay With their shamnus pulled over

their heads, completer   overed, like a row of bodies on mortuary

tables. She knelt beside the nearest of them and shook him, but

obviously he had enjoyed the tej at dinner because he was difficult to

rouse.

The sound of the approaching truck was much louder and closer by now,

and she felt her uneasiness take on a tinge of panic. Realizing that in

an emergency the monks would probably be of little real help to her, she

stood up and groped her way quickly towards the back door.

The truck was right outside the front of the house now. The headlights

flashed across the front windows and were briefly reflected down the

passageway. Abruptly the engine roar sank to a burble as the driver

decelerated, and she heard the squeal of brakes and the crunch of tyres

in the gravel outside. Then there was shouting and the trampling of many

feet as men jumped down from the back of the stationary truck.

Tessay froze halfway across the small kitchen, her head cocked to

listen. Suddenly there was a loud banging on the flimsy front door, and

chillingly familiar shouts of, "Open up here! Central Intelligence! Open

the door! Nobody leave the house!'

Tessay ran for the back door, but in the darkness she tripped over a low

table covered with dirty dishes from the previous evening's meal. She

fell heavily and the bowls -till and tei flasks crashed to the floor and

shattered. Instantly the men at the front door put their shoulders to

it, tearing it off its hinges. They burst into the house, shouting and

breaking furniture, torches flashing as they searched the front rooms.

There was a confused babble of alarm as the headman and his family

struggled awake, and then the sound of heavy blows with club and rifle

butt, followed by shrieks of pain and terror.

Tessay reached the back door and struggled to open it.

The sound of strange men rampaging through the house made her fingers

clumsy. She struggled with the lock. All the while she could hear other.

men outside running through the yard to surround the house completely.

At last she got the door open. It was dark and the area was unfamiliar

so she did not know in which direction to run, but she heard the river

close by in the night.

"If I can only reach the bank," she thought, and started across the

yard.

As she did so the beam of an electric torch blinded her, and a coarse

voice bellowed, "There she is!'

Any doubt that she was the prey was instantly dispelled, and she fled

like a startled hare in the beam of the light. They bayed behind her

like a pack of hounds. She reached the bank of the river and spun off to

the right, downstream. A pistol cracked out behind her and she ducked as

a shot fluted past her head.

"Don't shoot, you baboons!" a voice roared in commanding tones. "We want

her for questioning."

In the torch beam her white shamnw flashed like the wings of a moth

flitting around the candle flame.

"Stop her!" shouted the officer behind her. "Don't let her get away."

But she was fleet as a gazelle, and her lightly sandalled feet flew

across the rough terrain while the heavily equipped soldiers blundered

along behind her. Her spirits soared as she realized that she was

pulling away from them.

The sound of the pursuit dwindled behind her and she had reached the

limit of the effective range of the torch beam when she ran into a fence

of rusty barbed wire. Three wire strands whipped across her lower body,

at the level of her knees, her hips and her diaphragm. The top strand

drove the breath from her lungs, and the barbs tore through the wool of

her clothing and into her flesh. They snagged her like a fish in the

mesh of a net, and she hung there struggling helplessly. Rough hands

seized her and dragged her off the wire, and she sobbed with despair and

with the pain of the sharp wire spurs tearing her skin. One of the

soldiers grabbed her wrist and twisted it up between her

shoulder-blades, laughing with sadistic relish when she cried out at the

pain.

The officer came up panting over the rough ground.

He was overweight, and even in the cold night air he was sweating

heavily. It greased his fat cheeks and glistened in the light of the

torch.

"Do not hurt her, you oaf," he gasped. "She is not a criminal. She is a

high-bred lady. Bring her to the truck, but treat her with respect."

With a man on each arm they marched her to the truck, holding her so

that her feet barely touched the rough ground, and then shoved her up

into the cab on to the seat beside the uniformed driver. The plump

officer climbed in heavily after her, and she found herself wedged

in'firinly between the two men. The soldiers scrambled up into the rear

of the truck, and the driver revved the engine and let out the clutch.

Tessay was sobbing softly, and the officer glanced sideways at her. She

saw in the reflection of the headlights that his expression was gentle

and sympathetic, completely at odds with his actions.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked softly, stifling her sobs. "What

have I done wrong?"

"I have been ordered to take you to Colonel Nogo, the district

commander, for questioning in connection with shufta activities in the

Gojam," he told her, as they jolted and bounced down the rough track.

They were both silent for a while, and then the officer said quietly in

English, "The driver speaks only Amharic, I wanted to tell you that I

knew your father, Alto Zemen.

He was a good man. I am sorry for what is happening here tonight, but I

am only a lieutenant. I have to follow my orders."

"I understand that it is not your choice, or your blame."

"My name is Hammed. If I can, I will help you. For Alto Zemen's sake.,

"Thank you, Lieutenant Hammed. I need friends now."

while they waited for the dust of the cavein to settle, and for any

loose hanging rock to fall or stabilize, Nicholas dressed the minor

injuries that Ryan had sustained. The cut over her temple was not deep,

barely more than a scratch.

Nicholas saw that it did not require a stitch. He disinfected it and

covered it with a Band Aid. However, her shoulder, which the falling

rock had struck, was badly bruised. He massaged it with arnica cream.

His own bruises he treated less ceremoniously. Within an hour of the

cave-in he was ready to go back up the tunnel. He ordered Royan and

Sapper to remain on the causeway over the sink-hole while he returned to

the landing at the top of the stairs alone. He carried a bamboo pole and

a hand lamp connected to the Honda generator.

Nicholas proceeded with the utmost caution, probing the roof of the

tunnel for weakness as he went. When he reached the landing he saw at

once that the rock fall had smashed down what remained of the wkite

plaster door that had originally sealed the entrance to the tomb. The

ammunition crates, eight of which contained the statues JVI from the

shrines, had been knocked about and scattered, and some of them were

partially buried under the fallen rubble. He retrieved them and opened

each of the packed crates in turn to check the contents. With immense

relief he discovered that the stout metal containers had withstood the

rough treatment and there was no damage to the precious statues they

held. One at a time he carried them back down the tunnel as far as the

causeway and handed them into Sapper's care.

When he returned to the landing outside the tomb, Royan insisted on

accompanying him. Even his lurid descriptions of the danger of a further

rock-fall could not dissuade her. Her dismay when she stood outside the

shattered gallery was overwhelming.

"It's totally destroyed," she whispered. "All those mar, vellous works

of art. I cannot believe that Taita wanted this to happen."

"No,'Nicholas agreed ruefully. "His plan was to give us a big send-off

along the road past the seven pylons to the happy hunting grounds. And

he damned nigh succeeded."

"It's going to take a lot of hard work to clear up this mess," she said.

"What on earth are you talking about?" He turned on her in genuine

alarm. "We have saved the statues, and that's all we can hope for. Now I

think it's time to cut our losses and get out of here."

"Get out of here? Are you crazy?" She rounded on him furiously. "Are you

out of your mind?"

"At least the statues will pay our costs," he explained, and there might

even be something left over to divvy up between us, in accordance with

our agreement."

"You aren't dreaming of giving up now, when we are so close?" Her voice

rose sharply with agitation.

"The gallery is destroyed-' he began in more reasonable tones, but she

stamped her foot with agitation and shouted him down.

"The tomb is still there. Dammit! Nicky, Taita would not have gone to

those lengths if it were not. We are getting too close now – that is why

he fired that warning shot across our bows. Don't you see? We have him

really worried now. We can't give up with the prize almost in sight."

"Royan, be reasonable."

"No! No! You be reasonable." She refused to listen.

"You have to start clearing the gallery right away. I know the entrance

is open now. All we have to do is clear this mess, and I am certain that

we will find the true entrance to the tomb behind the rubble that Taita

deliberately dropped on us."

I think that bang on your head has loosened a couple of nuts and bolts."

He threw up his hands in resignation.

"But what's the use arguing with a crazy woman? We will clear just

enough of the scree to prove to you that there is nothing more to

discover in there."

"The dust is going to be our big problem." Sapper eyed the blocked

gallery entrance when they told him what they intended. "As soon as we

touch that rubble there is going to be clouds of it – more than our

little blower fan can handle."

"Right," Nicholas agreed briskly. "We will have to wet it all down. Two

lines of men back down the tunnel to the sinkholes One chain passing up

water buckets, and the other chain passing back the rubble from the

cave-in."

"It's going to take a lot of work." Sapper sucked his bottom lip

lugubriously.

"You signed on to be tough,'Nicholas reminded him.

"No time to start whinging now."

The monks, still convinced that they were engaged on the Lord's work,

accepted this new task cheerfully. They sang as they passed the chunks

of broken plaster and -rock in one direction and the clay pots of water

from the sinkhole in the other. Nicholas worked at the rock-fall with

the gang of Buffaloes, led by Hansith. It was hard, messy and dangerous

work, for each piece of rubble had to be doused with water before it

could be levered out of the pack and passed down the chain. The

staircase was soon running with muddy water and the steps were

treacherous underfoot. The fallen rock was loose and unstable, and there

was always the danger of a secondary collapse.

So many men working in the confined spaces of the gallery and tunnel

taxed the ability of the little blower fan to recirculate the air, and

it was hot and oppressive. The men stripped to loincloths and their

bodies glistened with sweat. The rubble passed back down the tunnel was

dumped into the sinkholes Even that large volume of material made no

difference to the level of the black waters. It was simply swallowed up

into the depths without trace.

Nicholas found the crowded workings so humid and claustrophobic that at

the change of the first shift he had to escape into the open air, if

only for a few minutes. Even the dark and forbidding chasm of Taita's

pool was a relief after the close confines of the underground workings.

Mek Nimmur was waiting for him when he climbed out over the wall of the

coffer dam on to the ledge beside the pool.

"Nicholas!" Mek's handsome dark face was grave. "Has Tessay returned

from Debra Maryam yet? She should have been back yesterday."

"I have not seen her, Mek. I thought she'was with you." Mek shook his

head. "I wanted to make certain that she had not returned without my men

seeing her, before I send a patrol up the trail to search for her."

"I am sorry, Mek. I did not anticipate any danger in sending her up the

escarpment." Nicholas felt a stab of guilt.

"If I had thought there was any danger, I would not have allowed her to

go," Mek agreed. "I have sent men to search for her."

But Tessay's absence was another worry for Nicholas.

It I urked at the edge of his mind during the days that followed, as the

clearing of the long funeral gallery proceeded too slowly for his

satisfaction.

Royan spent as much time at the face as Nicholas did, and both of them

were as filthy with mud and dirt as the Buffaloes who were labouring

there beside them. She mourned over each fragment of the shattered

murals.

Before they were carried away to be thrown into the sinkhole, she tried

to retrieve those on which significant portions of the paintings were

still intact. There was one jagged piece of plaster on which the lovely

head of Isis was still in one piece, and another on which the entire

figure of Thoth, the god of writing, was preserved. However, most of the

paintings were destroyed beyond any hope of ever restoring them, and

sadly they were consigned to the pit.

There was no sense of time in the long gallery, and they could not tell

night from day. It was always a surprise to leave the precincts of the

tomb and find that the stars were shining in the narrow strip of sky

that showed above Taita's pool, or to find the bright African sun

burning hotly down out of the cloudless blue. They ate and slept only

when their bodies demanded it, not according to the passage of the

hours.

Re'entering the tomb after a few hours' sleep in their shelters beside

the pool, they were crossing the causeway over the sink-hole when a wild

cry reverberated down the shaft ahead of them. Immediately there was a

hullabaloo of query and answer, and excited shouts from the men working

in the upper levels of the tunnel.

"Hansith has found something," Royan cried. "Dammit, Nicky, I knew we

should have stayed-' She began to run, and he hurried after her.

They came out on the landing in front of the gallery to find it crowded

with chattering, gesticulating, half-naked workmen. Nicholas forced his

way through them with Royan on his heels. They realized that Hansith had

cleared the gallery as far as where the shrine of Osiris had once stood.

The roof above them was jagged and broken, and lying amongst the rubbish

on the ruined agate tiles of the floor Nicholas made out the remains of

the mechanism which Taita had placed in the roof, and which they had

brought crashing down when they had activated the device.

The main part of this was an enormous stone wheel, resembling a mill

wheel and weighing many tons. Nicholas stopped to give it a cursory

examination.

"When you read River God, you realize that Taita had an obsession with

the wheel," he told Royan. "Chariot wheels, water wheels, and now this

must have been the balance wheel of his booby-trap. VA-ten we moved the

levers, we toppled the wedges that held this monstrosity in place. Once

it started rolling, it tumbled all the drop-stones that he had stacked

above the ceiling of the gallery." He glanced up at the shattered roof.

"Not now, Nicky!" Royan was hopping with impatience. "Time for your

lectures later. Taita's deathtrap is not what has excited Hansith. He

has found something else. Come on!'

They pushed their way through the pack of workmen until they reached

Hansith's tall figure.

"What is it?" Nicholas shouted over the heads of the others. "What have

you found, Hansith?"

"Here, effendi," Hansith shouted back. "Come quickly."

They pushed their way to the face, and stopped beside the monk at the

end of the blocked gallery.

"There!" Hansith pointed proudly.

Nicholas went down on one knee in the shattered remains of the shrine.

Small pieces of the painted plaster still adhered to the fractured rock

wall. Hansith pulled a slab out of the collapsed face, and pointed into

the space it had left. Nicholas peered into it and felt his pulse begin

to race. There was an opening in the side of the gallery, Even at first

glance he realized that it was the mouth of another tunnel leading off

at right-angles from the long gallery. It had been concealed behind the

plaster-covered image of the great god.

As he stared into it with awe, he felt Royan's hand on his arrn and her

warrii breath on his cheek. "This is it, Nicky. The entrance to the true

tomb of Mamose. This gallery was a bluff. Taita's red herring. This is

the veritable tomb."

"Hansith!" Nicholas called to him in a voice that was hoarse with

emotion. "Get your men to clear this doorway."

As the workmen moved the rocks Nicholas and Royan hovered close behind

them, so that they were able to watch the shape of the doorway as it was

fully revealed. It proved to be a dark rectangle, of the same dimensions

as the tunnel leading up from the sink-hole, three metres wide by two

high. The lintel and the door jambs were of beautifully cut and dressed

stone, and when Nicholas shone his lamp into the opening he saw a flight

of stone steps rising before him.

They moved the cables and the lights into the gallery and arranged them

at the entrance to this new doorway, but when Nicholas set foot on the

first step he found Royan at his side.

"I am coming with you, she told him firmly.

"It's probably booby-trapped," he warned her. "Taita is lying in wait

for you around the first bend."

"Don't try that. It just won't work, mister! I am coming."

They went slowly up the steep steps, pausing on each one to survey the

walls and the way ahead. Twenty steps from the bottom they reached

another landing. A pair of doorways led off it, one on either side.

However, the staircase continued climbing directly ahead of them.

Which way?"Nicholas asked.

"Keep going up," Royan urged him. "We can explore these side passages

later."

Cautiously, they continued climbing. After twenty more steps they came

out on an identical landing, with a doorway on each side and the

stairway in front of them.

"Keep going up," Royan ordered, without waiting for him to answer,

Twenty more steps and there was another landing with the familiar

openings on either side and the stairway straight ahead.

"This isn't making sense," Nicholas protested, but she prodded him in we

should keep going on upwards," she told him, and he did not protest

further. They passed another landing and then yet another, each of them

the exact image of those that they had passed lower down.

"At last!" Nicholas exclaimed when they came out at ay on each the top

of the staircase,,with the expected door.

"This is as far side but now a blank wall in front of them. as it goes."

she asked. "How man

"How many landings are there?  altogetherr

"Eight he answered.

"Eight," she agreed. "Isn't that a familiar number

nowr lamplight. "You He turned to stare down at her in the mean-'

"I mean the eight shrines in the long gallery, these the bao board."

eight landings, and the eight cups of They stood silent and undecided on

the top landing  looked about them.

an Okay," he said at last, "if you are so damned clever, tell me which

way to go now."

she recited. "Let's try the

"Eeny'meeny-miny-moe,'

t'hand doorway." righ and passage only a short They followed  ri t

distance before they were confronted by a Tjunction – a blank wall with

identical twin passageways on each side.

"Take the right one again," she counselled, and they followed– it. But

when they came to the next T junction Nicholas stopped and faced her.

"You know what is happening here, don't your he demanded. "This is

another one of Taita's tricks. He has led us into a maze. If it were not

for the cable, we would be lost already."

With a bemused expression she looked back the way they had come, and

then down the unexplored passages to their right and left.

"When he built this, Taita could not have anticipated the age of

electricity. He expected any grave robber to be -quipped the same way he

was. Imagine being caught in here without the electric cable to follow

back the way we have come," Nicholas said softly. "Imagine having only

an oil lamp for light. Imagine what would happen to you when the oil

burnt out and you were lost in here in the utter darkness."

Royan shivered and gripped his arm.

whispered. "It's scaring!" she "Taita is beginning to play rough,'

Nicholas said softly.

"I was developing rather a soft spot for the old boy. But now I am

beginning to change my mind."

She shuddered again. "Let's go back," she whispered, "We should never

have rushed in here like this. We must go back and work it out

carefully. We are unprepared. I have the feeling that we are in danger -

I mean real danger, the same as we were in the long gallery."

As they started back through the twists and turns, picking up the

electric cable as they retreated down the stone passageways, the

temptation to break into a run became stronger with each step. Royan

hung tightly to Nicholas's arm. It seemed to both of them that some

intelligent and malignant presence lurked behind them in the darkness,

following them, watching them. and biding its time.

The army truck carrying Tessay drove back through the village of Debra

Maryam, and then turned off on to the track that followed the Dandera

river downstream towards the escarpment of the Abbay gorge.

"This is not the way to army headquarters, Tessay told Lieutenant

Hammed, and he shifted awkwardly on the seat beside her.

"Colonel Nogo is not at his headquarters. I have orders to take you to

another location."

"There is only one other place in this direction," she said. "The base

camp of the foreign prospecting company, Pegasus."

"Colonel Nogo is using that as a forward base in his campaign against

the shufta in the valley," he explained. "I have orders to take you to

him there."

Neither of them spoke again during the long, bumpy ride over the rough

track. It was almost noon when at last they reached the edge of the

escarpment and turned off on to the fork that brought them at last to

the Pegasus campThe camouflage'clad guards at the gate saluted when they

arrived. The truck drove through the gates, recognized and parked in

front of one of the long Quonset huts within the compound.

"Please wait here." Hammed got down and went into the hut, but was gone

for only a few minutes.

"Please come with me, Lady Sun." He looked "awkward and embarrassed, and

could not meet her eyes as he helped her down from the cab. He led her

to the door of the hut, and stood aside to let her enter first.

She looked around the sparsely furnished room, and realized that it must

be the company's administration centre. A conference table ran almost

the full length of the room, and there were filing cabinets and two

desks set against the side walls. A map of the area and a few technical

charts were the only decorations on the bare walls. Two men sat at the

table, and she recognized both of them immediately.

Colonel Nogo looked up at her, and his eyes were cold behind his

metal-framed spectacles. As always, his long, thin body was immaculately

uniformed; but his head was bare. His maroon beret lay on the table in

front of him.

Jake Helm leaned back in his chair with his arms folded.

At first glance his short-cropped hair made him look like a boy. Only

when she looked closer did she see how his skin was weathered, and

notice the crows' feet at the corners of his eyes. He wore an

open-necked shirt and blue jeans that were bleached almost white. His

belt buckle was of ornate Indian silver, the shape of a wild mustang's

head.

The sleeves of his cotton shirt were rolled high around his lumpy

biceps. He chewed upon the dead butt of a cheap Dutch cheroot, and the

smell of the strong tobacco was rank and offensive.

"Very well, lieutenant," Nogo dismissed Hammed in Amharic. "Wait

outside. I will call you when I need you." Once Hammed had left the

room, Tessay demanded, "Why have I been arrested, Colonel Nogo?"

Neither man acknowledged the question. They both regarded her

expressionlessly "I demand to know the reason for this high'handed

treatment," she persisted.

"You have been consorting with a band of notorious terrorists," said

Nogo softly. "Your actions have made you one of them, a shufta."

"That is not true."

"You have trespassed in a mineral concession in the Abbay valley," said

Helm. "And you and your accomplices have begun mining operations in the

area which belongs to this company."

"There are no mining operations," she protested.

"We have other information. We have evidence that you have built a dam

across the Dandera river-'

"That is nothing to do with me."

"So you do not deny that there is a dam?"

"It is nothing to do with me," she repeated. "I am not a member of any

terrorist group, and I have not taken part in any mining operations."

They were both silent again. Nogo made an entry in the notebook in front

of him. Helm stood up and sauntered across to the window behind her

right shoulder. The silence drew out until she could bear it no longer.