The Titanic Enigma (13 page)

George waved his comment away. ‘Don’t be silly, young man. It’s not every day I get to see Fortescue’s handwritten work . . . It’s a marvel.’

*

They ran for the car parked in the narrow lane just past the hedge. The Campions stood arm in arm at the door to the cottage, the warm glow from inside surrounding them. The
rain was coming down in sheets. Lou got into the driver’s side and brought the car to life and the wipers began to swish away the water from the windscreen. Giving a final wave, they set off
into the darkness, the twin beams of the car headlights the only illumination.

The trees skirting the lane flashed past like spectres in the night. After a few minutes they reached the main road, and the lights of civilization. They turned onto the highway heading east
back towards the institute.

‘Do you really think there’s another set of notes somewhere down in the wreck?’ Lou asked.

‘George seemed pretty certain about it. God knows if they have survived, though. And what are the chances of finding them now, a hundred years after the
Titanic
sank?’

‘Couldn’t the work have been done in Manchester? Maybe Fortescue hid the stuff there.’

‘I don’t think so. One thing I’ve learned from my godfather is that mathematical physics is an organic mental process. One physicist can see the mental processes at work when
they study another’s equations. It’s a bit like when we peel away the debris from a relic and can see what has happened to the object over intervening centuries.’

Lou was distracted by headlights in the rearview mirror. ‘God! They’re driving fast!’

‘Who?’

The lights grew brighter as a car drove up close behind.

‘Them.’ Lou flicked his head back. ‘I’m doing a steady sixty, they must—’

Kate was just starting to turn when they felt a jolt.

‘Christ!’ Lou exclaimed.

There was loud crunch from the rear of the Toyota as the car rammed them again.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Kate exclaimed.

They could see almost nothing behind except for the outline of a vehicle and the dazzle of its powerful headlights.

Lou gripped the wheel. ‘I’m going to pull over.’

‘You sure that’s the right thing to do?’

‘Well, I can’t outrun them in this tin can.’

He put his headlights on full beam, lighting up a larger patch of road ahead. Fields lay each side skirted by wire fence. He was about to yank the wheel round when the car hit them again, much
harder this time. They heard the grating of metal, the smash of glass. Something broke away from the car and clanked along the road behind them.

Kate screamed as Lou lost control. The Toyota spun a hundred and eighty degrees, and for a second they were travelling backwards along the highway, the other car, a white Cadillac, bearing down
on them. They skidded to the left and ploughed through the wire fence and into a field, the car’s suspension grating. The drive shaft disengaged and the engine squealed like a pig. Two
airbags inflated and the Toyota rolled once, twice, then stuttered to a stop a hundred feet from the highway.

Lou opened his eyes. Everything was a blur of colour. Then he smelled petrol.

He turned and saw Kate’s face partially concealed by an airbag. He did a mental check. He could feel pain, but it wasn’t intense – a stabbing in his left wrist. He could move,
so he found the seat-belt buckle and released it. He felt around for the door handle, pulled and then pushed and the door fell away. He crawled out and around the car to the passenger side.

Kate’s door was stuck fast. But he wrenched it and it swung out. Leaning in, he saw that Kate was regaining consciousness. She opened her eyes as he reached around her and unclasped the
belt.

The smell of petrol was growing stronger. Lou heard a hissing sound coming from the front offside tyre. Gripping Kate’s lapels, he pulled her away from the airbag, helping her out of the
car. She groaned and mumbled something unintelligible.

He saw a light. It came from about fifty feet away, up towards the road and the ripped-open fence. The light bobbed about. Then he saw another. Torches. The beams swept the wreck of the car. Lou
ducked and pulled Kate to the hard ground beside him. Looking down, he could see her face, eyes half-closed. She winced. Lou put a finger to his lips and Kate realized what was happening, gripped
Lou’s arm, and together they scrambled away from the Toyota.

They headed towards an oak tree fifty yards into the field. Lou stopped. ‘The documents,’ he said and started to turn.

‘Lou . . . No!’ Kate grasped his arm.

The car exploded in a great ball of yellow flame. The heat hit them and they shielded their eyes from the burst of light. Lou glimpsed two dark figures running back towards the highway.

Gripping Kate by the shoulders, he looked into her eyes. ‘You all right?’

Her face was smeared with grease and mud and a line of blood trailed from her nose to her mouth. She was clutching her side with her right hand. ‘I think I’ve cracked a rib,’
she rasped. ‘It’s agony to breathe.’

Lou helped her up and went for his mobile. ‘Damn, I left my phone in the car.’

Kate searched for hers, pulled it from her pocket. The screen was shattered. She tapped it. It was dead.

‘Can you walk?’

She nodded then noticed blood running down Lou’s cheek. ‘You’re hurt.’

He touched a spot above his ear and gasped. ‘Ow!’ He lifted his left hand. ‘I think I’ve damaged my wrist too.’

They looked back to the devastated car, fire engulfing the chassis. A second explosion ripped through the night, followed by a roar of flame. They lurched back from the intense heat. A sound
came from up on the highway: a car accelerating away, its tyres screeching on the tarmac. They saw a flash of white then red rear lights disappear into the darkness.

Lou supported Kate under her shoulder and helped her up a gentle slope leading away from the wreck. Keeping a safe distance from the Toyota, they picked their way through the damp undergrowth,
brambles scratching at them in the dark. The ground was stodgy and wet; mud clung to their shoes.

They reached the highway, looked back and saw the red and yellow flames still feeding off the petrol spilled from the Toyota, the burning rubber and the plastic turned to stinking black smoke.
They sat beside the road. Lou put his arm around Kate. She was shaking. He took off his ripped flying jacket and wrapped it about her shoulders.

Lou had no idea how long they sat there. Both of them felt too traumatized to speak, and when he saw the lights of a car approaching his first emotion was fear. He got up and was about to help
Kate into the shadows when he realized the car was not the Cadillac that had followed them but an SUV. It started to slow. They could see a man and a woman in the front, two kids in the back.

The car stopped and the driver, a middle-aged man in a windcheater, jumped out and ran over to them.

‘You folks OK?’ he said.

Kate was clutching her side and looked very pale.

‘I’m all right,’ Lou said. ‘But my friend . . .’

‘I’m fine,’ Kate said – and fainted.

*

‘Wake up, sleeping beauty.’

Kate recognized the voice immediately, opened her eyes and saw Captain Jerry Derham staring down at her.

It took her a few moments to comprehend where she was and what was happening. She made to get up.

‘Easy, Kate. You’ve got a nasty concussion.’

She brought a hand to her head. ‘Lou?’

‘I’m here.’

She turned and saw him sitting on the other side of the bed. He lifted his left arm to show her a bandage about his wrist. ‘Nothing broken. We both got off pretty light.’

‘How long have I been out?’

‘A couple of hours. Doctors checked you over. Two cracked ribs, cuts and bruises. Lou’s filled me in on what you learned from Professor Campion.’

Kate began to get out of bed.

‘Hey, hey . . . where do you think you’re going?’ Derham began.

She glared at him. ‘I’m not hanging around here.’

‘Just—’ Lou began and stepped forward.

‘I’m perfectly OK!’ Kate pushed Lou’s hand away. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to either of you that the Campions might be in danger?’

Lou turned to Derham. The captain sighed.

‘The bastards who ran us off the road knew who we were. It wasn’t an accident. They must have tailed us from the base.’ Kate’s expression hardened. ‘Someone has
betrayed us.’

Lou stared at her. ‘Newman,’ he said. ‘Professor Newman.’

Derham strode towards the door and out into the corridor beyond, pulling out his cell phone as he went.

Lou left Kate to get dressed. A nurse stopped him at the door. ‘What the hell is—’

‘We’re leaving,’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘We’ll see about that—’

‘No, we won’t,’ Lou snapped, blocking the door.

Kate appeared, looking pale.

The nurse turned and left.‘I’m fetching the consultant.’

Derham appeared around a corner close to Kate’s room. They could tell from his expression that something was very wrong.

‘Newman has vanished,’ he said. ‘My people are searching the base. I’ve sent men to his home. Another team is checking security footage at the base and from cameras on
the roads around it. No one’s seen the man since he left the base twenty-four hours ago, soon after we talked to him.’

Kate turned on her heel and walked away towards the exit. ‘Get me to my godparents,’ she said without looking back.

Outside, the rain was still heavy. It seemed to have set in for the night. After the accident Lou and Kate had been taken to Sentara Obici Hospital, a five-minute drive north
of Suffolk and about twenty miles from the Campions’ place.

Jerry Derham was driving a navy pool car, an unassuming silver Ford, and a young uniformed naval officer, Lieutenant Niels Goldman, sat next to him. Lou and Kate were in the back. They
couldn’t see much through the windows other than the black shapes of passing trees and occasional lights, the rain hammering out a tribal beat on the roof. Kate was dosed up with painkillers,
but her anxiety more than counteracted them; she felt jumpy, anxious.

The traffic was light, the town of Suffolk almost deserted, and soon they were back on the highway heading out into the wooded windswept countryside, retracing the journey Kate and Lou had made
a few hours earlier. They turned left off the highway onto the same country lane they had driven down, the street lights falling away behind them, the wheels of the Ford crunching over the uneven
and rutted surface.

Lights were on at the Campions’ house, and for a few moments Kate held on to the image of her godfather burning the midnight oil in his study, poring over his books and papers.

The car had barely stopped when Kate reached for the door handle and started to push her way out.

‘Kate . . . please,’ Derham snapped.

She kept going.

The captain was out, heading her off. ‘Kate!’

‘I’m going in there.’ She went to push him back, ignoring the sharp pain in her side.

‘Not yet! We don’t know the situation. Just wait . . . please!’

He pulled out his pistol and turned towards the house. Lou eased out the other side of the car and Lieutenant Goldman came up on Derham’s right side, his weapon raised in both hands. The
younger officer shifted the gate inwards and was first onto the path, Derham close behind.

The front door was ajar. Kate saw it in the half light and felt a stab of fear in the pit of her stomach. The two officers stood either side of the front door and beckoned to Lou and Kate to
fall back into the shadows. Derham slithered into the hall.

It took all Kate’s willpower to stay still and quiet but it was not enough; she made for the path. Lou gripped her arm, hard. She whirled on him, furious, but he kept hold of her and met
her gaze, jaw set.

Goldman emerged from the house, his gun lowered. Kate pulled free from Lou and ran.

The hall was empty, but through a gap between the frame and the door to the living room Kate caught a flicker of movement. She went to push on the door just as Derham was emerging.

‘Kate . . . I don’t think you should . . .’

She shoved at the man’s shoulder. He resisted but then saw the resolve in her eyes and reluctantly let her through.

The scene was instantly etched into her brain. A vision she would never forget, one that would haunt her at night and tear into her dreams. George and Joan Campion were slumped in a pair of
chairs against the far wall of the living room. They had been gagged, their hands tied to the chair backs behind them. They had been tortured, disfigured, then dispatched with a bullet to the
temple, execution style. Great fans of blood and brain tissue covered the rear wall. It had sprayed in an arc across the ceiling and the light fixture in the centre of a plaster rose.

Kate could not move. Then slowly she brought her right hand to her mouth as vomit swept between her fingers and down her front. She stepped towards the dead couple. Derham moved to hold her back
but she knocked his hand away with surprising force and let out an almost inaudible cry as she knelt down between the two pathetic, mutilated figures. ‘What have they done?’ she
whispered and ran a finger along her godfather’s knee. She pulled up, turned to the three men behind her, her face ashen. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why?’

Lou gazed at her, stricken, barely able to take it in. Kate went to him and fell into his arms, the tears exploding from her, her body heaving as he guided her back to the hall.

The place had been completely trashed. The door to George Campion’s study hung open. Kate could see the edge of the devastation before she reached the opening into the
room. The shelves had been emptied, the chairs upturned, the upholstery shredded. The contents of her godfather’s desk were scattered around randomly.

Kneeling down behind the desk, she plucked the professor’s ancient cassette player from the wreckage, brushed away some crumbs of sandwich from the top and placed it back where it had sat
earlier under a pile of papers. Tears streamed down her cheeks.