Monk straightened up. "Thank you. Will you and Sergeant Orme take him to the morgue and call the police surgeon? I must tell the prosecutor in the Sixsmith case, and Superintendent Runcorn. A man's life may hang on this." It was an order, at least as far as Orme was concerned, and a request to Crow.

Orme relaxed. "Of course," he said resignedly. "Come on.'"

Monk went back to Paradise Road to tell Hester what had happened. No message from anyone else, however sympathetically or precisely delivered, would satisfy her-or Monk's own need to see her and tell her himself. He was confused and exhausted by the emotional horror of seeing so many people, in agony of body and terror of mind, whom he could not help. He knew those who were dead had been crushed, buried, and suffocated in the darkness, often alone as they felt life slip away from them. Hester could not heal that. No one could. Nor could she erase the memory. But she would understand. Just to see her would ease the knots locked hard inside him.

It was only now that he realized with amazement that he had not had time, or emotion, to spare, to be afraid for himself! It was a sweet, hot kind of relief. He was not a coward, at least not physically.

And he needed to see for himself that Scuff was still recovering. It was absurd that he should feel so intensely about it, but something compelled him to see Scuffs face for himself.

The moment he opened the door he heard movement upstairs. Before he was halfway along the passage he saw the light go up on the landing and Hester's figure on the top step. Her hair was unpinned and tangled from sleep, but she was still dressed, although barefooted.

"William?" she said urgently, her voice sharp with anxiety. She did not ask specific questions, but they were all there implicitly. Their understanding of each other was founded on the battles and the victories of the past.

He wanted to know about Scuff.

She answered him before he asked. "He's getting stronger all the time," she said, coming silently down the stairs. "A little feverish about midnight, but it passed. It's going to take a week before he can get up much, and far more than that before he can go back to his own life. But he will." Her eyes searched his face. She did not ask if the experiences of the night had been terrible; she read the answer in his demeanor and the fact that he did not even try to find words for what he had seen.