Chapter 158

“I could smell the fluid and, in an instant, I knew what they were about to do. But an instant was not even enough time to prevent it.”

Jeanne-Marie fell silent once more and Beau was about to tell him he had no need to go on when the man continued.

“Like you, when that ultimate horror arrived, my conscious mind, to protect me, I suppose, obliterated the memory. I have no recollection of the flames, the smell of my own burning flesh…. The next thing I knew, I awakened on Pill Hill, in a hospital’s burn ward, my face wrapped in bandages.

“Jerome stayed by my bedside day and night and I could hear him looking after me, ensuring the many doctors and nurses assigned to me were doing all they could to help me heal.

“He stayed until the day came when they took off the bandages and my face was revealed for the first time.

“When they allowed me to look in a mirror, I fainted dead away, like some romance novel heroine, but the shock and horror of my own face was enough to do that.