A solid weight dropped on his shoulders, pushing him flat on the dusty, smelly carpet. Nick knelt on his back.
“Don’t move,” the Greek said. “She’ll be hack in a little while.”
George lay still.
Then a sound came from somewhere in the building—a violent scream, which was immediately stifled, as if by a ruthless hand. Every nerve in George’s body stiffened.
“Still!” Nick said, breathing garlic and wine fumes in George’s face.
Slowly and cautiously George raised his head and looked round the room. The woman at the cash desk, the Hebrew behind the bar and the waiter were all staring at him.
George thought he heard another muffled scream, but he could not be sure. He looked at the others, but they showed no sign that they had heard anything. The woman at the cash desk curled a straggling lock of dyed hair round her fat finger. Her eyes were stony, blank.
What were they doing to Cora? George made a convulsive movement.
“Still!” the Greek warned, pressing a sharp knee into George’s hack.
The silence in the room and in the building terrified George. Minutes ticked by slowly. It seemed to him that he had been lying on the dirty, evil-smelling carpet for hours.