“You little devil,” he swore thickly and glared at her for a moment.
Then very suddenly, before Fiona’s horrified eyes, he clutched at his throat and a strange choking sound came from his chest.
He staggered back a foot or two and then sank into the armchair, still gurgling with a horrible suffocating sound, his eyes bulged, his face contorted.
Slowly he became rigid, his hands outstretched, his mouth twisted at the side of his face and his eyes horribly staring.
For just a moment he had a spasm of convulsion and then he was still, his legs stretched stiffly before him.
Fiona stood gazing at him, paralysed with terror.
How long she stood there she did not know. She felt as though her whole body had suddenly turned to lead and she could not move or cry out or even walk forward to see
