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a head into the black sky.
     
     
-- A prisoner in Plato's cave, watching the shadows of the greater world.

In another minute, back on the road: who are you, what are you doing here?

Inspector Hofford, I'm Dr Fidler and you were talking to me a moment ago!

My name isn't Hofford and your name isn't Fidler and this world is a trick

and a lie, a vault of illusion and the time for deceit is over. . . .
     
     
Shuddering, he turned to retrace his path, hurrying a little because

that momentary vision seemed so much of a piece with his surroundings.
     
     
" Tiriak-no?"
     
     
The voice struck out of nowhere, uttering that single incomprehensible

word on a rising, questioning note. Paul gasped and whirled, his torch

beam slashing across tree trunks flick-flick and halting. To be spoken

to here, and in an unfamiliar language, was a foretaste that his vision

would come true.
     
     
Then he saw her, uncertainly shading her eyes against the light, and

brief terror was swept aside by disbelief.
     
     
-- She can't be the one! Damn it, she's so tiny! Like a doll! And yet

there couldn't very well be two women walking this wood without clothes.
     
     
     
     
     
     
*6*
     
     
She stood in the beam of the torch, a pallid, somehow pathetic figure.

The world paused long enough for Paul to study her and compile an almost

clinically thorough description of her in his mind.
     
     
-- Feet and half her calves out of sight in the undergrowth but the rest

perfectly proportioned, so . . . Not over five feet at the tallest.

Age? Twenties, just possibly eighteen/nineteen but I think older.

Take that hand away let me see your face -- ah. Black hair cropped very

short. Sharp face: sharp nose, chin. Big eyes. Never seen a facial

structure quite comparable. Must be white European, but she has the

epicanthic fold. Chinese somewhere, generations back? I've no idea how

long it keeps recurring after the initial incrossing. Small breasts,

nipples practically unpigmented, navel not re-entrant so no fat on the

belly, all muscle, narrow hips, legs scratched all to hell with thorns

and a patch of mud on the thigh as if she's been pushed over and sat on

wet ground. . . .
     
     
She was still just standing, poised either to flee or to defend herself.
     
     
-- If you're really the girl who beat up Faberdown, you're a wildcat.

You can't possibly weigh more than eighty pounds. And I said: must be

like Mrs Weddenhall.
     
     
The absurdity of the idea made Paul want to laugh, but memory of the

salesman's injuries sobered him. He was by himself with a girl who had

probably broken a man's arm with bare hands, and he was going to have to

be very tactful indeed. He cast around for something to say and decided

on a phrase which promised maximum reassurance.
     
     
"Hullo. I'm a doctor. I've come to look for you."
     
     
She raised both arms, fists clenched, not menacingly but with an

expression of dismay. After a pause she responded, but his tense ear

could not identify the wards.
     
     
"English!" he said slowly and clearly. "Do you speak English?"
     
     
Her head lifted in a quick gesture he recognised from seeing Cypriot nurses

do it at the hospital: a Balkan negative equivalent to a headshake.
     
     
-- Deadlock.
     
     
He realised suddenly he was shivering. And if he was chilled, how about her?

He hesitated, weighing the facts: the salesman's arm against the way she had

shown herself when he might have walked past without noticing her.
     
     
-- Watch it. Don't let superficial helplessness persuade you because

you don't like men in imitation old school ties.
     
     
Nonetheless, if he didn't act quickly Hofford would have filled the wood

with noisy men and that lingering terror on her face would spur her to

flight. He unbuttoned his coat carefully, one-handed.
     
     
"Here, put this around you," he said, trying to make the tone convey

what the words could not.
     
     
-- That headshake. Greek, perhaps? I don't