to it.
This was not the cause of Georgina's distress. She held Magic in her
lap, and was bowed over him in an attitude of abandoned grief; the sound
of it bubbled up unchecked from deep inside her. The spaniel's chest had
been crushed between metal and earth. His tongue lolled from the corner
of his mouth in his last smile, but the blood dripped steadily from the
pink tip and Georgina was using her scarf to wipe it away.
Royan sank down beside her mother and placed one arm around her
shoulders. She had never before seen her mother weep. She hugged her
hard and tried by main strength to quell the sound of her sorrow, but it
went on and on. , She never knew how long they sat together like that.
But at last the sight of her mother's maimed leg, and an awakening fear
that the driver of the truck might return to finish the job, roused her.
She crawled up the bank and tottered into the centre of the road to stop
the next car that arrived on the scene.
Not until Royan was two hours late for their meeting did Nicholas become
sufficiently worried to phone the police in York. Fortunately he had
noticed the licence plate of the Land Rover.
It was an easy one for him to remember. The registration number was his
mother's initials combined with an unlucky 13.
There was a delay while the woman constable checked her computer, and
then she came back. 'I am sorry to have to tell you, sir, that Land
Rover was involved in an accident this morning.'
'What happened to the driver? Nicholas demanded brusquely.
'The driver and one passenger have been taken to the York Minster
Hospital.'
'Are they all right?'
'I am sorry, sir. I don't have that information.' It took Nicholas forty
minutes to reach the hospital and almost as long again to trace Royan.
She was in the women's surgical ward, sitting beside her mother's bed.
Her mother had not yet come round from the anaesthetic.
She looked up when Nicholas stood over her. 'Are you all right? What the
hell happened?'
'My mother - her leg is badly smashed up. The surgeon had to put a pin
in her thigh - the femur.
'How are you?'
'A few bruises and scrapes. Nothing serious., 'How did it happen?'
'A truck - it pushed us off the road.'
'Not deliberate?' Nicholas felt something inside him quail as he
remembered another truck on another road on another night.
I think so. The driver wore a mask, a balaclava. He crashed into us from
behind. It must have been deliberate.'
'Did you tell the police?'
She nodded. 'Apparently the truck was reported stolen early this
morning, long before the accident, while the driver was stopped at one
of those Little Chef cafes. He is German. Speaks no English.'
'That is the third time they have tried to kill you,' Nicholas told her
grimly. 'So I am taking over now.'
He went out into the hospital waiting room and used the telephone there.
The chief constable of the county was a personal friend, as was the
