The Titanic Secret Read Free Page A

ended at the small, grey stone farmhouse. But still he wasn’t sure. Since he’d started watching the building, he had seen nobody in it or near it, and had heard nothing. The place appeared to be deserted, but it was clearly not derelict. Both the front and rear doors were in place, closed and probably locked, and there was glass in all the windows. And somehow the house conveyed a sense of occupancy, of cautious watchfulness, as if whoever was inside the building was paying just as much attention to Tremayne as he was to the farmhouse.
    That was ridiculous, he knew, because his approach to the property had been so circuitous and had taken him so long that he was absolutely certain he’d been unobserved at all times, just as he was sure that he was effectively invisible in his present position. His clothing was brown and green, the colours of the hedgerow and the soil around him, and he was still almost 100 yards away from the house.
    Then the faintest of movements caught his eye. A darker grey shape had just moved past one of the upstairs windows. At least, that’s what Tremayne thought he’d seen, and he concentrated hard, straining to make out any detail. That window remained dark, but at that moment the other window on the top floor of the farmhouse flared with light.
    A man appeared on the left-hand side of the illuminated window, and beside him Tremayne saw the figure he’d been hoping to spot ever since he began his vigil. The girl – she looked about twelve years of age – had blonde hair cut in a distinctive style, and was wearing a dark-blue dress that Tremayne had seen before. She was struggling in the man’s grip as the two figures moved from one side of the window to the other, and just after they moved out of sight, he heard a shrill scream from the house, the sound abruptly cut short.
    Tremayne’s grip tightened involuntarily on the binoculars. Seconds later, the man appeared at the window again and roughly pulled the curtains closed. Moments later, one of the downstairs windows was also illuminated, but all Tremayne could see was a thin vertical sliver of light between closed curtains.
    For perhaps a minute he remained immobile, studying the house. Then he eased slowly backwards out of the hedgerow until he was able to stand upright and still not be seen from the farmhouse. He had already planned the route he was going to take to the property, and now he had seen all he needed to confirm his suspicions. He knew the girl was in the house, and in which room he was likely to find her.
    He tucked the binoculars into one of the capacious pockets of his shooting jacket, and then began walking away from the property, following the line of the hedgerow to the point where it terminated in a small copse. He stopped at that point and stared back towards the house. It looked exactly the same as it had minutes before, with two lighted windows and no sign of movement.
    Tremayne picked a path carefully through the copse, trying to avoid treading on any broken branches or anything else that could make a noise and give away his position, although he was still far enough away from the farmhouse for that not to be a problem.
    At the other side of the copse, another hedgerow ran at right angles to the first, and passed within about fifty yards of the house. More importantly, the side of the farmhouse which faced the hedgerow had neither windows nor doors, so that when he approached the building, Tremayne knew that unless one of the occupants was outside the property and looking in the right direction, he would not be seen.
    The nearer he got to the house, the slower and more carefully Tremayne moved, and it took him almost five minutes to cover the last fifty yards. When he reached the closest point to the house, he stopped moving and for several seconds just stared across at the property. There was still no sign of movement, and none of the occupants was outside. The hedgerow was thick, but not impenetrable, and