orange-shaded table-lamp. Next to it sat a book of Thomas the Tank Engine stories and a bottle of pills. The walls were painted with the same whitewash as the other room, but a quilt decorated with stylized jungle animals?lions, tigers and leopards with friendly human expressions? covered the small, still shape on the bed.
It was Gemma Scupham, no doubt about it. From what Banks could see of her face between the dirty patches, it looked white, and she lay motionless on her back, her right arm raised above her head. The scar of a thin cut ran across the pale flesh of her inner arm.
Banks could sense no breath, no life. He bent over to look more closely. As he leaned over Gemma, he fancied he noticed one of her eyelids twitch. He froze. It happened again.
“My God,” he muttered to himself, and gazed down in awe as a tear formed and rolled out of the corner of Gemma’s eye, leaving a clean and shining path through the grime.
