One Shot Kill (22 page)

‘Tomas constantly has my dad arrested on charges of black-market dealing,’ Jae explained. ‘It’s like the stress is rotting him from inside. He’s lost his hair. And he was always thin, but now he’s like a ghost.’

‘I can only stay one night,’ Marc said sadly. ‘I’m in France for another mission.’

‘Dangerous?’ Jae asked.

Marc tried to make light of it. ‘When are they
not
dangerous?’ he asked. ‘But they haven’t killed me yet.’

‘What a hero,’ Jae said, as she gave Marc a kiss. ‘I’ve been arrested too. Three times. The last time Tomas’ mob dragged me off the land in my rubber boots. They put me in a room and wouldn’t let me go to the toilet, so I peed in a boot and threw it in Tomas’ face.’

‘Classic,’ Marc laughed.

‘Daddy told me off. He said I could have got into serious trouble.’

‘He’s not wrong,’ Marc said, but Jae gave him a soft slap across the arm.

‘Don’t take
his
side. It’s OK for you, gallivanting off having adventures. What do I get? Cow shit under my nails and constant backache.’

‘But you’re the world’s sexiest crap-sweeping potato-picker,’ Marc said cheekily.

Marc turned and ducked as Jae sent a dry clod of earth skimming over his head. Her next shot disintegrated as it hit him in the back and they threw more stuff at each other until Marc fell over and they started snogging again.

*

Even in bad times a family with as much land as the Morels can eat well. There wasn’t much wrong with Pippa’s cooking on campus, but Marc preferred French food to English and he bolted down onion soup, beef stew and more wine than was good for him.

Jae had warned Marc that her father looked unwell. The level of Morel’s physical decay wasn’t nice to see, but it was the change in status that Marc found most poignant.

All through Marc’s childhood, Morel had been an aloof and vaguely terrifying man. Slim, well dressed and with the power to do horrible things to scruffy orphan boys with a crush on his only daughter.

But now Morel accepted Marc’s position at his table, close to Jae. Morel had drunk too much and candlelight reflected off his bald patch as he listened to Marc’s news about the outside world. At fifteen, Marc was beginning to match many adults physically, but he’d never previously encountered a situation where a person of such authority looked up to him.

‘What happened to the Luftwaffe officers you had living here?’ Marc asked.

‘There were several assassinations by communists,’ Jae explained. ‘All Luftwaffe personnel now have to live on an airbase, or in Beauvais where there’s more security.’

‘Damned shame too,’ Morel added, slurring a little as he drained his fifth glass of wine. ‘They were always gentlemen. Plus they scared off Tomas, and got me out of lock-up a couple of times. I mean, how can a man live?’

Morel tailed off before shooting to his feet and erupting into a boozy rant. ‘The Requisition Authority sets me a production quota. Then it takes half my men away. Then they arrest me because I’ve not met my quota and accuse me of selling food on the black market. This farm was
so
beautiful. If my father or grandfather could see the state of things now it would kill them.’

Morel’s loud voice caused the cook to peer in from the adjoining kitchen as Jae stood up and put a soothing hand on her father’s back.

‘Maybe you should go to bed, Daddy,’ she said.

‘I’ll go to the library for a brandy,’ he said. Then a flash of the old Morel came through as he pointed accusingly at Marc. ‘And I may not be all that I was, but I’ll still come at you with a shotgun if you try sticking your penis into my daughter.’

‘Daddy,’ Jae said, through gritted teeth. ‘You’re so embarrassing.’

‘You’re a good boy really,’ Morel said, as his tone changed completely. ‘Admirable.’

As Jae helped her drunken daddy up the stairs, Marc turned to the cook.

‘It’s hard seeing him like that,’ he told her.

The elderly cook looked at the floor, as if commenting on her boss was some horrible sin. ‘The Morel men have always been drinkers, but the harassment and having no workers has done him in.’

Marc licked the cream out of his pudding bowl and drained his wine glass, then waited for Jae at the base of the stairs.

‘I didn’t realise he’d—’

Jae cut him off by pressing a fingertip to his lips. ‘Don’t,’ she said sadly. ‘Everyone talks about my dad
all
the time. I get sick of hearing it.’

Marc thought about saying sorry, but somehow sensed that Jae didn’t want him to.

‘I know you’ve got to catch an early train,’ Jae said. ‘But when I was with you at the lake last summer, I think it was about the happiest I’ve ever been.’

‘The lake,’ Marc said, smiling and a little tipsy from the wine he’d drunk with dinner. ‘Perfect.’

It was dark as Marc and Jae strolled out. The day had been warm, but the lake water was always cold and night-time brought a chill to the air. They swam naked and came out shivering, then lay against each other on a grass embankment.

They were both virgins. They’d kissed and seen each other naked, but their bodies had only touched through clothes before now. Marc wasn’t sure if the manly thing was to try having sex, but he didn’t want Jae getting pregnant in the middle of a war and knew that sex had killed off the relationship between Rosie and PT.

When Marc pushed his fingertips between Jae’s thighs, he was relieved when her head tilted backwards and she made a barely perceptible, ‘No.’

A second swim chilled Marc’s lust and after that they put clothes back on and cuddled. Marc tried to focus on here and now, but there was a clock in his head that he couldn’t shut off, constantly telling him how much time there was before he had to leave.

Jae fell asleep with her head in Marc’s lap, but he stayed awake watching her breathe, trying to fix the way she looked into his head.

He nudged her awake when the sun poked over the horizon. The smile when she woke up and recognised him sent a sob through his body.

‘It’s half five,’ Marc said. ‘I’ve got to start walking if I’m catching the first train back to Paris.’

A pair of tears raced each other down Jae’s cheek as she found her shoes and rubbed a stiff shoulder.

‘You OK?’

‘Stiff,’ Jae said, as she stretched to a yawn. ‘I need a day off, but I’ll never get one.’

‘If all goes well, I’ll be back in Paris on Saturday morning,’ Marc said, as he held up crossed fingers. ‘We might have some spare time before we go back to Britain. I may be able to come here and help for a few days.’

Jae held up her crossed fingers too. ‘I hope it’s not another year. Will you be in trouble for running away from your unit?’

‘Whatever happens to me, you’re worth it. Will you walk part of the way into town with me?’

‘I’d love to,’ Jae said. ‘But cows have to be milked.’

Marc could think of nothing better than being with Jae in a muggy stinking cowshed, but he was the best sniper after Goldberg and had to go back. They both broke down completely during their final hug.

‘I hate this,’ Marc said. ‘I’m sorry I’ve got to go.’

Marc couldn’t bear it any longer, and tore himself away. After a few metres he waved, but then he strode without looking back because he was scared that he’d be unable to leave if he saw her again.

There was nobody on the road this early and fifteen minutes brought the orphanage into view. A lot of people knew Marc around here. It was best that they didn’t see him, so he dived over a wall and walked behind it for a couple of hundred metres.

When he climbed back, he glanced at a cottage. It was tiny, with a whiff of smoke coming out of the chimney. It was summer, so someone had to be inside cooking and that someone had to be Mr Tomas.

Marc had told Jae that he’d be in Paris by the weekend, but the bunker mission was a huge risk and there was a chance he’d get killed or taken prisoner. He didn’t like the idea of being outlived by his former tormentor and he was intrigued by the possibility of an ambush. He’d stayed with Jae until the last possible second and his watch told him he could spare no more than a couple of minutes.

Dry grass crunched underfoot as Marc approached the cottage. He leaned his shoulder to the whitewashed wall and peeked into the single ground-floor room. Tomas stood in vest and boxers, eating bread with one hand, while stirring a large metal pot on the wood-burning stove in front of him.

The window was half open. Marc was an expert knife thrower and even with his clumsily unbalanced pen-knife he’d have had no problem spearing Tomas’ chest from this range. The thought of killing in cold blood troubled Marc, but it was the one way he could help Jae and he detested Tomas more than anyone else on earth.

But Tomas was also one of the most senior Frenchmen working with the Nazi regime. A bloody end might be taken as a sign of resistance activity and lead to German reprisals. So Marc didn’t just need to be quick, Tomas’ death also had to look natural.

He ran around to the front of the house and gave a playful triple knock on the door. As Tomas swore and turned to answer the knock, Marc dashed back to the window. He opened the leaded pane as quietly as he could, then dropped down into the only room on the ground floor, timing his jump to coincide with Tomas opening his front door.

‘Bloody kids,’ Tomas shouted, when he saw nobody there. ‘Dozy nuns! Can’t keep ’em under control.’

Marc grabbed a heavy griddle pan hanging over the stove, and Tomas caught sight of it as he turned around, kicking the door shut with his bare heel while scratching himself through his boxers.

‘You,’ Tomas growled as his eyes opening wide. ‘You cheeky motherless bastard.’

Tomas had been a middleweight boxer in his prime, and Marc wouldn’t be the first cocky orphan to square up and come off worst. But none of those guys 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 a feel for the place in darkness. But Marc’s punishment had to be dealt with first.

‘So what do I do?’ Henderson asked, wearing his best poker face.