Boden stopped at the end of his solitary progress. A small dais had been prepared for him and he stepped on to it. He wasn’t an enormous man – perhaps six foot, about the same as Wilde – but he had the lean power of an athlete and, more importantly, he had presence. Erect and still, he placed his left hand on the hilt of his ceremonial dagger, and thrust out his right arm in salute.

The swastika of men broke apart into two lines and they marched past him, eyes left and saluting as they came near to their master.

Wilde was bemused. Was Hitler here somewhere? There was no sign of him; in fact, these people almost seemed to be treating Julius Boden as their führer. And then Wilde saw Heck, moving low from behind a barn, heading straight for Boden. His hand was coming out of his jacket and even from this distance Wilde realised with dread that it was gripping a pistol.

*

Heck had been waiting in the dark shadow of the barn for an hour. What for? What had he expected? He had seen the Mercedes arrive and had seen the two men and a woman emerge. From their body language, he knew that the taller one – proud, chin tilted with inborn arrogance – was Julius Boden. And surely the beautiful but shabbily dressed young woman clutching his arm and gazing at him with adoring eyes must be Lilly Marais.

As he saw the build-up of activity, the old men and women in the street, the splashing of petrol on the high wooden stacks that he had noted being built during the day, he realised that some sort of strange event was about to unfold.

He began to understand what he must do. For all his family and all the other families, there must be retribution. The only question was who to kill? He still hoped that Hitler, the architect of the horror, would appear, but in his absence then Boden would pay the blood price.

Heck knew he could be discovered at any moment. The villagers were all out on the street now and there were few places of concealment from people who knew these buildings so well. All he could do was crouch low and keep still.

Then the whole world was lit by fire and the air was filled by drumbeats and the soft thud of stamped boots on light snow and grass and the reek of flaming petrol. He saw the gathering of the enemy and the arrival on the scene of Boden in the uniform of the devil.

He could hold back no longer.

*

Just as he had called Lilly to his car that first day at Ste-Estelle-sur-Seine, Boden now curled his fingers again and summoned her from the front door to join him on the dais.