Chapter 167

• Almeric’s body had at last stopped shuddering and he rolled to one side so that Elizabeth could breathe more easily. Then a shrill sound assaulted his ears.
• He heard the sound without association. Or maybe he just didn’t want to recognise it, he realised. But as it continued he was forced to identify it as his mobile phone.
• His face was buried in the pillows beside Elizabeth’s head, and he wished with an urgency that bordered on paranoia that someone would just turn the damn thing off. But then he remembered that the phone was still secure in its own little pocket in his suit jacket. The jacket that was lying on the floor in the other room.