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.We've been hoping that you might be able to help us.Wedesperately need any information that you can give us'I shook my head, slowly. That's all the description I can give you, I said.'You see, Miller went on,  there's so much about this entire affair which seems to make no sense at all.All three of you you, Molari and the little girl ended up with cut throats.Both you and Gil had someweird kind of bruising to the throat even before you were cut.Gil told me that you have a nervous habitof picking at your throat, and that was what raised your bruise, but he couldn't explain his own.He didn'teven seem to know that he had it.Can you explain that?''No, I said.It was the first lie I'd told, but I told it without hesitation. That is.I suppose I used to pickat my throat, when I was fidgety.Gil told me to stop doing it half a dozen times.He didn't do anything ofthat kind, though.'Miller was still staring at me, accusatively. This is all very weird, Anne, he said. Very weird indeed.Do you have any idea why Gil Molari would want to kill himself, if he didn't kill the little girl?''No, I said.He wasn't satisfied with that, but there seemed little point in my insisting that Gil hadn't acare in the world, if he really was dead. Perhaps it was an accident, I added, lamely.'I watched him do it, said Miller, in a curiously aggressive tone. It was no accident. After a pause, hewent on:  I also talked to his supervisor.He said that Gil believed that he'd picked up some sort of virusin the lab where he worked and that Gil was extremely disturbed by that belief.But the professorswears that hehadn't picked up any such virus, and that even if he had, it would only have given him acold in the head.He did have a cold in the head, didn't he?''Yes, I said.'I talked on the phone to his father and mother in California, and spoke to them face to face yesterday,when they arrived here to fly the body home.This is one hell of a mess, Anne.I just don't know what thehell is happening here.The newspapers are already talking about some kind of Jack the Rippercharacter they seem to have taken it for granted that the guy who cut you also killed the girl.If that's so,he must be a real screwball to go back so soon to a spot where he'd already carried out one attack.Thepapers seem to feel that it was our fault.that careless policing let it happen a second time.But I hadjust smashed through the door of your boyfriend's flat when he struck that match, Miss Charet, and I'llnever forget what I saw in those few seconds.Something very strange is happening here, and I don'tknow what it is.I want you to help me, Anne.I want you to help me figure out why one person is in thehospital and two are dead.''I don't know, I said, faintly.Detective Sergeant Miller looked as if he were about to contradict me.He looked almost as if he wouldhave liked to charge me with having murdered both of them.'She doesn't know, Derek, said WPC Linton, becoming anxious about his state of disturbance. Shereally doesn't.'Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlThe detective's pent-up anger seemed to ebb away. I'm sorry, Anne, he said, eventually. I was hopingthat you'd be able to give us a little more, but I guess we have to be grateful for what we've got.If there'sany other detail, however trivial, that comes back to you, you have to let us know.If the man whoattacked you is still out there, with one attempted rape and a murder already on his charge sheet, there'sno knowing what he might do next.''No, I said, dutifully.'Whatever impression you pick up from the papers, said the policewoman, still trying to be gentle withme,  this isn't the kind of thing that happens every day.It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing for all of us.Wewere really hoping that you could help us.and you have.It's not much of a description, but it'ssomething.It gives us something to go on.We'll do our level best to catch him, Anne.''Yes, I said.They got up from the bed as Dr Fellowes came back into the room.He looked at them as if to say thatthey'd had more than their ration of time.The policewoman let go of my hand, after one last reassuringsqueeze.She really did care; I had the impression that she daren't let it show how much she felt for me.She thought that she understood how I must feel, to wake up to news like this.'The inspector will probably want a word, said Miller. And someone will be in to take a formalstatement.I want you to think very hard, Anne.Anything else you remember.anything at all.''It's important, WPC Linton added, for the sake of having the last word. Take your time.'When they had gone, I looked up at the doctor.'Take it easy, he advised. You may have been asleep for a very long time, but that doesn't mean youcan't be tired.You'll have to stay in for a few days, while we see how you are.Just for observation, youunderstand.You're getting better, but it must have been a very nasty experience.You need time to getover it.'He didn't know what he was talking about.He was just waffling away, for want of something better tosay or do.I suppose that he'd been practising that kind of hopeful non-activity all his life, in betweenthose brief occasions when actual treatment was being administered.He took my pulse again and lookedinto my eyes: more medical rituals, for the sake of reassurance.Then he went to the door and told Mumand Sharon that their turn had come around again, and that the field was entirely clear for their equallymeaningless rituals of rejoicing.I couldn't take part, even though they expected it of me.I couldn't think of anything except the fact thatGil was dead.I didn't know why, but I knew that I must have had something to do with it.Somehow, itwas my fault.I'd never explained to him what I had done, or why.Somehow, it had all gone wrong, andnow he was dead.So was Cynthia's daughter.What must poor Cynthia be feeling?It was all Maldureve's fault, I thought, savagely.If he hadn't abandoned me if he had only come tosave me from the man with the filthy gloves, it would all have been all right.But if he had, I probablywouldn't ever have found out the truth about him, about the owls and about myself.I closed my eyes, wishing that I could see the light again, wishing that the eyes of the owls were still uponme.There was nothing but the darkness; nothing but the empty, lonely darkness.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlMum's hand was on my shoulder.'It'll be all right, darling, she said. It'll all be all right, now.'But she didn't know.She couldn't even begin to suspect.It wasn't all right at all; it was all wrong.It hadto beput right, if only I could find the strength.If only.2At first, being with the owls was all pain, all fear.At first, it was the ultimate horror.But that was becauseI didn't understand.How could I? How could I even begin to understand, when everything Maldurevehad told me had been so cryptic, so evasive?He'd intended me to be terrified of the owls.He wanted me to try with all my might to resist them.Because I loved him, I did try.Even though he'd failed to come to my aid, even though he'd let the owlsseize me and imprison me, I still loved him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]