“It’s the one way of leaving a message.”
“I know. I understand. I’m not so dumb as you think, and you’re not so damn clever either!”
Mr. Campion found him terrifying because he was not pretending, and the precise frame of mind in which he approached the act he was preparing so obviously was limpidly clear. He was proceeding exactly like a professional killer of any other kind—like an executioner, a butcher, a mercenary, or a vermin exterminator. He took the operation with enormous seriousness, aware of all its difficulties, but with no superstition whatsoever. The annoyance of the scratched paint had got under his skin, and he was giving himself time to settle again to avoid being clumsy.
He stood by the nose of the van, facing his victim, and rubbed the marks with an aggrieved thumb bu
