had Marc’s combat training and as Tomas swung, Marc ducked, bobbed up and smashed him across the temple with a brutal two-handed swing of the pan.
Tomas went down stiff, like a tree trunk. Marc reckoned the force had been enough to crack his skull, but the blow hadn’t broken skin so there was no blood.
‘That’s for every time you thrashed me,’ Marc said, wishing Tomas was conscious to hear his words.
Marc went down on one knee, turned back the top of his trousers and broke open a few cotton stitches on the inside. The break in the seam enabled him to push out a tiny L-pill – L for lethal.
After pulling Tomas’ jaw open, Marc balanced the pill on one of his rear molars and then closed the jaw up, crunching the pill and releasing a dose of cyanide. Marc had killed a man in a Rennes prison cell using the same technique, so he knew to expect spasms and vomit in his victim’s mouth as heart and lungs became paralysed.
But time was short, so rather than watch Tomas’ last moments, Marc rubbed off the skin flakes stuck to the bottom of the griddle pan and hung it back up, then turned his attention to the huge steaming pot.
Marc raised the lid and saw three of the tan-coloured shirts that Tomas wore as part of his Recquisition Authority uniform. As Tomas kicked his last spasms, Marc splashed some of the hot water on to the earth floor, purely to test the pot’s weight. He then grabbed Tomas under the arms and dragged him across to the stove, adjusting his position so that it looked like he’d succumbed to a heart attack.
Marc’s cover story had Tomas grabbing hold of something as he collapsed, but only managing to grab the heavy pot and bring it down. The water was scalding and Marc was careful not to splash his legs as he drained it over Tomas’ head.
The skin instantly blistered and a whiff of hair tonic came up with the steam. The wet shirts slapped the floor as he dropped the large pot. As a finishing touch Marc pressed Tomas’ limp palm against the side of the pot, making his flesh sizzle and leaving a burn to confirm that he’d grabbed the pot and pulled it down on himself.
The scene wouldn’t stand serious examination, but Marc knew that the Luftwaffe ran the Beauvais area with a fairly gentle touch. They left routine matters to gendarmes and while these French police varied in their degree of loyalty to the Germans, it was unlikely that a country policeman would voice suspicions that might lead to brutal German reprisals against his own community.
Marc backed up as a curtain of steam rose from the earth floor. After a few seconds making sure that he’d made no basic errors and left nothing behind, he checked his watch and backed out into a blaze of low sunlight.
He needed to gain a couple of minutes to be sure of catching the train, but running from a crime scene attracts attention, so he only ran once the orphanage was well out of sight.
Marc had killed before and would have to kill again before the week was out, but he lacked the ruthlessness of Henderson, who could kill and forget it moments later, or the sadistic streak of someone like Luc, who revelled in the vilest things he’d ever done.
Marc knew the faces of everyone he’d killed, but as he bolted downhill with a breeze buffeting his ears he didn’t see Tomas’ scalded skin. Instead he saw himself as a young boy, with Tomas lashing out mercilessly. And a dozen other boys, who’d cried themselves to sleep as their wounds bled into their bed sheets.
Marc felt strong with his oldest enemy vanquished and the sun on his back. He couldn’t stay with Jae, but by killing Tomas he was protecting her. He reached the platform at the same time as the train, but his exhilaration faded as he sat in a half-full carriage steaming towards Paris.
When would he see Jae again? And what would Henderson do when he got back?
*
After making good time, Marc was back for a late-afternoon serving of chicken soup at Joseph Blanc’s house.
Henderson was staying in the forest, so he didn’t know Marc had returned until the evening. His plan was for everyone involved in the operation to meet near the cave, then walk to the bunker so that he could plot final details, while everyone else got