Too quickly. Too nervously. Antonia would never have moved so fast.
Reacting to her sudden movement, the policeman reached out and grabbed it first.
‘What have we got here, then?’
‘Give it to me.’ Suddenly the old fears flapped and swooped like vultures. This was dreadful, ruinous. She wasn’t going to get away with murder. She was only Rose Bell, the luckless Rose.
‘I said what have we got here?’
He flashed the lamp at her, dazzling her. The white light had a strange, disorientating effect. It bleached out the bomb site, the Bentley, the policeman, in fact everything that had happened since she had last been blinded by torchlight. She had a horrid conviction that Antonia was still there, pointing the torch, mocking her.
She screamed. A full-throated, terrified scream.
The policeman lowered the lamp and said quite calmly, ‘I think I’d better see what all the fuss is about, don’t you, miss?’
He started to unfold the ball of paper.