Mordaunt started the engine. Tweed gritted his teeth as the dinghy wobbled and was steered out into the main channel. There was no wind but it was cold as Siberia on the river. Tweed began to study his surroundings as they moved downriver.
`Damn! I hope he didn't see me.'
Brigadier Maurice Burgoyne stood behind the beached hull of the yacht, a pair of glasses looped round his neck. He was positioned in the boatyard and near by was a large lifting machine used to transport beached vessels into the water. The blonde Lee Holmes looked at him with a quirky smile. •
`You hope who didn't see you?'
`Tweed, I think. He stared towards me when he was on the catwalk. I'll just check..
Burgoyne was wearing a leather jacket and cavalry twill trousers. The vintage Bentley was concealed inside a shed, his helmet and goggles on the driving seat. He shinned up a ladder perched against the hull, raised his glasses.
The dinghy was moving away from the landing stage. He recognized Tweed crouched at the prow as he turned to say something to the girl next to him. Paula Grey. He climbed rapidly back down the ladder.
`I was right. It is Tweed. And his female sidekick, Paula Grey. This is dangerous. They could ruin everything. We have to find out where they're headed for.'
`How?'
`Do I have to think up all the tactics? Take the small dinghy, follow them.'
`They could recognize me,' she warned him.
`Heavens above!' he snapped. 'Disguise yourself. You have those dark glasses. Put them on.'
`Dark glasses now? In winter? I know the sun is shining. No, it was. They'll just draw attention to me.'
`Put them on! Girls wear dark glasses any time. They think it makes them look sexy. Get after those people, Lee. I want to know what they're up to. Quick march.'
Lee moved fast. She twisted her long blonde hair and tied it with a bow at the back. Taking a silk scarf out of her capacious hold-all, she wrapped it round her head so it totally concealed her hair. She put on the dark glasses, ran down to the water's edge, and climbed into the small dinghy. A minute later she was purring across the water in pursuit.
As soon as their large dinghy had left the landing stage the sun went in and a sold grey mass of low clouds dimmed the light. Despite his dislike of the motion, Tweed was looking all round and not happy about what he saw.
There was not a straight stretch of water resembling a river in sight. From east bank to west the water was cluttered with grassy islands and it was not apparent where the main channel led its devious way south towards the open sea. Paula shivered.
`Creepy atmosphere,' she whispered.
'It could be more stimulating,' Tweed agreed.
Mordaunt seemed to know what he was doing as he guided the dinghy among the islands and out into a clearer channel. But as they moved south down what was obviously the Beaulieu River the brooding sensation increased.
Round a bend, they left Buckler's Hard behind, and when Paula glanced back the anchorage had vanished. They had left all relics of civilization behind. On both sides mushy green flats, an almost sinister acid-green colour, spread out towards the main channel as though trying to strangle it. The flats were interlaced with murky-looking creeks. Even the main river was a sullen green colour.
`This is getting claustrophobic,' Paula said. 'I feel it's all closing in on us.'
There was something in what she'd said, Tweed thought. Beyond the treacherous-looking fiats rose the dense jungle of the forest, a tangle of firs and oaks crammed on top of each other. They passed a landing stage and beyond it he caught sight of a Tudor house, buried in the foliage, smoke rising vertically from one chimney. Here and there on the river a lonely yacht was tied up to a buoy. No one aboard. They began to sweep round a wide bend. The sun came out through a hole in the grey overcast, a brief shaft. Tweed looked quickly to his right. The sun had flashed off something in the undergrowth. Were they being watched through field glasses? And this was the point where he'd calculated the chopper had descended. Then the sun went in. Paula glanced back, stiffened.
`There's another dinghy – a smaller one – coming up behind us. I think there's a woman aboard it.'
`Out for a spot of fresh air, I expect. And it's arctic fresh.'
They passed several other landing stages, some of which looked derelict. Then Mordaunt called out: 'There we are. That landing stage ahead of us. That's the one for Moor's Landing. Are you sure you want to go ashore? Private property.'
`A whole village?' Newman snorted. 'Ridiculous.' `Don't say I didn't warn you…'
He steered the dinghy away from the main channel to a very long landing stage. Freshly painted, railed, the planks seemed to have been renewed. A prominent notice carried the message: INTRUDERS TRESPASS HERE AT THEIR PERIL. PRIVATE. Mordaunt steered the dinghy to the steps. Nield was the first to jump out. As he climbed the steps he appeared to slip, grabbed at the notice board, wrenched it savagely. It came loose and Nield shrugged as he watched it floating off and vanishing inside a creek amid the acid-green marsh.
`Accidents will happen,' Nield remarked, brushing off his gloved hands.
Accident my foot, Paula thought. You destroyed the board deliberately. And then made your flip remark for the benefit of Mordaunt. She was about to disembark nimbly when someone gripped her arm to steady her balance.
`Easy does it,' Mordaunt assured her with his broad smile.
`Thank you,' Paula said.
Tweed appeared to lose his balance making his way towards the stern from the prow. He grabbed at the end of the landing stage. The board Nield had wrenched free had been held by only two screws. Tweed was holding on to solid timber where a larger ship would disembark passengers. He looked at the smooth area of fresh wood, unpainted. Something very strong and sharp had sliced a piece out of the timber, neater than if a chainsaw had been used. He made the comment as he joined the others without referring to what he'd observed.
`I think we've come to the right place.'
`I'm staying with the dinghy,' Mordaunt called out. 'It needs guarding. Even on the river you get yobbos who make off with any vessel they can lay their hands on. I will wait, of course…'
With Newman in the lead they began walking down the long bridge to the distant shore. Paula paced herself alongside Tweed.
`That small dinghy has stopped in midstream. I think the girl aboard is watching us through binoculars.'
`Idle curiosity, I expect.'
`I still think I know her. Something about her movements. And why did you say we've come to the right place? I don't see anything that suggests that.'
`Call it sixth sense,' Tweed replied off-handedly.
`All right, be enigmatic,' she snapped, and quickened her stride towards the invisible village of Moor's Landing.
8
On the surface Moor's Landing appeared to be the kind of village you occasionally see on picture postcards. Stepping off the long railed catwalk they had walked on down a short country lane which ended at the beginning of the main street.
`It's so picturesque,' Paula said.
`It doesn't look real to me,' Tweed said in a neutral tone, registering his first impression. He'd found in the past initial impressions were correct.
They stood close to an old stone well in the middle of a straight cobbled street. On either side were detached cottages with thatched roofs and small walled gardens in front. Tweed counted fourteen cottages, seven on each side. Then the village ended as abruptly as it had started where they stood.
`No sign of shops, not even a general store,' Nield remarked. 'Just an estate agent half-way down on the right. Strange sort of village. And not a soul anywhere.'
He had caught something of the atmosphere which had attracted Tweed's attention. All the windows of the cottages facing each other were curtained. They appeared inhabited except there were no inhabitants.