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through impact with the same wall.
    She recalled the grey cell they had been guarding, and wondered at the fate of the prisoner.
    She looked around the sun-pierced gloaming of the chamber. A hundred yards away was the blocky shape of the cell. It had fetched up at an angle like a rolled die against the far wall. Jani made out a dark rent – in the shape of forked lightning – in the front wall of the cell.
    She wondered whether she should hurry from the chamber, attempt to locate the restaurant and kitchen and then return to Lady Eddington – or obey her instinctive curiosity and approach the cell. She wanted to know who the soldiers had been guarding, and whether or not the prisoner had survived the crash. Certainly, confined in the box, he would have suffered broken bones and concussion at least.
    Her step slowed as she came to the split in the leaden grey wall. She drew a breath, paused before the cell, and peered in through the rent.
    The cell was empty.
    She stepped back. She had expected to see the prisoner within, dead or badly injured.
    She turned and looked around her. To her relief she appeared to be alone in the chamber.
    Then, just as she had decided to move on and continue her search for provisions, she heard a voice.
    “I am here,” it said.
    Her first thought, once she had recovered her wits and calmed her breathing, was to wonder how he had known of her presence.
    The voice had issued from around the far side of the cell. She wondered whether to turn and run, but had second thoughts. She carried with her medical supplies; what if the prisoner were in need of aid?
    As she moved with purpose towards the corner of the cell, she thought what an irony it would be if the prisoner turned out to be Russian.
    She began quickly, “I have medical supplies with me, should you need them...” and stopped when she made out the prisoner squatting before her.
    She had seen many terrible sights that day – a catalogue of horrors it would take her years, if ever, to expunge from her consciousness – but not one was equal to what she set eyes on then.
    The man sat on his haunches, his back against the wall. At least, she thought it was a man, and then revised her opinion.
    The creature was naked but for the tattered blue trousers of what might have once been a uniform. It was long and thin, its skin deathly white. In fact, had it not spoken, she would have assumed it dead, as it sat with its head tipped back against the wall and its eyes closed.
    The head was skull-like, with white skin drawn over the bone – as tight and pale as canvas stretched around a frame. Its features were almost human, in that it had two eyes, a nose and a mouth, but the mouth was almost lipless, the nose flattened and splayed, and the eyes huge.
    The eyes opened and the head turned, and Jani received another shock. Its eyes were flat and grey, without any whites at all.
    Jani found herself saying, “What are you?”
    She remained standing before the creature, clutching the bunched medical supplies to her chest.
    The thin mouth elongated in a travesty of a smile. “My name,” it said in barely a croak, wincing with pain, “is unimportant.”
    He shifted his position against the wall, and Jani took fright and backed away. The creature gestured. “Do not be afraid. I wish you no harm.” He spoke English as if it were not his first language.
    “Why...” she began, “why were you imprisoned?”
    “Because... because they feared me? I was in the custody of the Russians. They tortured me.” He held up his right hand, which was missing two fingers, the stumps badly amputated and ill-stitched. With the mangled hand he gestured to his bare torso, and Jani made out a herringbone pattern of stitched scars. “I escaped and fled south, only to be found by the British in northern Greece and incarcerated once again.”
    She gazed at the creature and found herself stating, “You are not human, sir.”
    “Perspicacious.”
    “You patronise