Annie had fallen on the main pile of burning paper; her body had stopped it burning. Paul crawled towards his wheelchair. He had strained his back, there were blisters all over his right hand, his head ached and his stomach rolled with the sick-sweet smell of burned flesh. But he was free. The Dragon Lady was dead and he was free. He was halfway to his wheelchair when Annie opened her eyes. Paul watched, unbelieving, while she got slowly to her knees. Perhaps she could not be killed! Her eyes were staring and horrible. A huge wound, pink-red, showed through her hair on the left side of her head. Blood poured down her face. 'Durd!' Annie cried through her throatful of paper. She began to crawl towards him. Paul turned away from her and started to crawl for the door. 82 He could hear her behind him. He started across the broken glass and then he felt her hand close around the stump of his left ankle. He screamed. 'Dirt!' Annie cried. Paul looked round to see whether she had spat out the paper, but she hadn't, and her face was starting to turn purple. It was easy for him to pull his leg out of her grasp because there was no foot for her to hold on to. But she reached out again and seized him higher up the leg. Some broken glass stabbed into his elbow as he continued trying to crawl away. 'AW . . . GAW! OOO OW!' He turned again and now her face was nearly black. He reached for the doorframe and pulled hard on it to try to escape, but her hand closed on his thigh. 'No!' he cried in fear and desperation. He felt her hands run like spiders up his back and reach his neck. He felt the weight of her body on his legs, pinning him to the floor. She moved further up his body, trapping him. It was difficult for him to breathe. 'GAW! OOO . . . BIRT! DIRT!' The Dragon Lady, on top of him. She seemed dark and immense. The air was driven out of her lungs as she fell on to him, and her hands dug deep into his neck. He screamed: 'Die! Can't you die? Can't you ever die?' Suddenly her hands went loose and she lay heavily on top of him. He pulled himself out from underneath her body and crawled into the hall. Annie lay silent and face down in blood and spilled champagne and pieces of green glass. Was she dead? She must be dead. Paul did not believe she was dead. He shut the door and reached up to turn the key in the lock. He lay down, in pain and exhaustion, on the floor. He stayed there, only half conscious, for an unknown period of time. He only moved eventually when he heard a scratching sound. At first he thought it was the rats in the cellar. Then Annie's thick 83 bloodstained fingers crept under the door and tried to seize the end of his shirt. Paul screamed and punched at the fingers with his fist. The fingers did not disappear back under the door, but at least they lay still. Paul crawled further down the hall, towards the bathroom. He was in terrible pain now, from his legs, his back and his burned hand. As soon as he was inside he found the packets of Novril and swallowed three tablets. He sat with his back against the door and slept. When he woke up it was dark. He listened carefully for any noises outside in the corridor. The more he listened the more he seemed to hear slight noises. This is crazy, he told himself. She's dead . . . But what was that? Was that a light footstep in the hall? . . . and she is in a locked room. She could have escaped through the window. Paul, she's DEAD! Paul had a problem. He needed to check on something. He wanted to make sure that the typescript was safe . . . the real typescript. What Annie had seen and tried to save was just a pile of blank pages and old, uncorrected pages which he had collected. He had put the title-page on the top so that Annie would believe it was the book; but the real typescript was in his room, under the bed. He wanted it safe, he wanted people to read it. He knew it was the best book he had written. That was the problem. Did he have the courage to go back into the room to get the typescript? Suppose Annie was still alive! He crawled slowly down the hall towards his room. In the shadows he imagined Annie everywhere: waiting for him in the sitting-room or further down the corridor. The boards on the floor made a noise behind him and he turned round. Nothing . . . this time. Outside a car door shut and he heard a man's voice say, 'God! Look at this, will you?' 'In here!' he screamed. 'In here! I'm in here!' It was the two policemen from the day before. When they i 84 managed to understand what Paul was saying they looked in his room. Paul stayed in the corridor. They came out again and the detective said, 'There's no one there. There's a hell of a mess - blood and wine and stuff - and the window's broken, but there's no woman in there.' Paul was still screaming when he fainted. They told him later that they found her in the barn. She was dead, but she was grasping the axe tightly in her hands and was on her way back towards the house.