“Immy,” said Lord Charles, “he’s not dead. He’s alive still ”
“Will he live?”
“It doesn’t seem possible.”
“Charlie — if he dies?”
“It seems that if Gabriel dies he will have been murdered.”
There was a dead silence and then Henry said in a strange voice: “Isn’t there a book called It Can’t Happen Here?”
Stephen said: “Of c-course he’s murdered. Of course he’ll die. With that thing through his b-brain, why didn’t he die at once?”
“Shut up,” said Colin.
Lord Charles sat on the arm of his wife’s chair and put his hand on her shoulder. It was the first time Roberta had ever seen him do this. “Where’s Patch?” he asked.
“I sent her away with Mike and Nanny. She — didn’t see, but I thought—”