SEVENTY-TWO
De Griffon almost ran headlong into Moulton coming the opposite way. Any noise of their progress across the mud was masked by the new barrage, and both had taken the chance to make rapid progress on all fours.
‘Sir,’ Moulton gasped as they confronted each other in the gloom. ‘Thank God. Farrar’s got it.’
‘Got what?’
‘Whatever the others had. What you had. He’s . . .’ he pointed back over his shoulder. ‘I’m going to get help.’
‘Good.’ He grabbed the boy’s arm. ‘Just a second. What about you? Are you all right?’
‘Yes. It hasn’t got me.’ He made to leave. De Griffon pulled his arm back and stabbed him through the neck with the trench knife. The boy’s gurgles were lost to the rolling thunder of the Allied guns and the whistles of shells overhead.
‘I’m beginning to think you didn’t drink the rum. Probably spat it out. Teetotal, are you? Oh, well.’ He pulled out the blade, feeling the serrations catch on bone, and slit the soldier’s throat open. There was nothing but anguish and confusion in the lad’s expression. Not an iota of understanding. Pity. It was telling them why they were dying that he had enjoyed most.
Lord Stanwood had been the most satisfying, because he had eked it out for so long. Leverton, too. But out here, apart from Tugman, they had been rather rushed affairs. Perhaps he could stretch out the pleasure with Farrar. ‘Your father, that’s why I am doing this. The sins of the father avenged by the actions of a son. Say hello to him when you see him in hell. Tell him Anne Truelove’s boy did this.’
He waited until the light went out in Moulton’s eyes, before he tossed him onto his back. With the tip of the blade he scratched the next number in the sequence on the lad’s unlined forehead. Six. One more to go.
De Griffon realized his own uniform was caked in both mud and still-warm blood. There were spots of blood on his face, too. Still, it was going to back up the story he would bring home of fierce hand-to-hand fighting, out here in the dead man’s land. Right, he thought, one more to go and it was all over. No, two more. Once he dispatched Farrar, there was another person to get rid of. It would be time to retire Robinson de Griffon, the trickiest murder of all.