The Main chance

24

`I'm off to bed, sir,' Snape said to Newman as he entered the library. `No, you're not. I want you to stay up until I get back. So you can open the gates when I walk out and open them for me when I get back.' `A walk? At this time of night?' `That's what I said. So get cracking and open the gates…'

Newman left by the exit on the lawn. Walking on pebbles in the drive might be heard by someone. Reaching the road, he turned left towards Gladworth. Walking under the overhead canopy of fir branches was an eerie experience. It was so damned quiet and nothing moved. No breeze. Just the sinister silence.

Arriving at the point where the Hengistbury wall curved away from the road, he slowed down. He moved very cautiously as he reached the unmade drive leading to Shooter's Lodge. The drive was ankle-deep in pine needles. He listened. No sound from the lodge and no lights in any windows. It was too quiet.

By now his night vision was functioning well. The lodge was about ten yards back from the road, on the right of the drive. It was very old, as Paula had said, built years ago of grey stone; it was one storey high with a steep sloping roof and wide stone square chimneys rearing up. The entrance had a long stone-roofed porch protecting it. Too quiet, Newman said to himself again. Yet it had all the appearance of being uninhabited.

With his Smith amp; Wesson held down by his side he began to walk up the drive, his soft-soled shoes making no sound as they pressed deep into the carpet of pine needles. He thought he saw a movement behind the largest chimney, stopped, waited, stared up. Nothing.

Then he noticed a complex web of radio-like wires attached to the chimney. This was the first sign this place was not all it pretended to be.

Inside Shooter's Lodge an alarm button had flashed red as Newman trod through the pine needles on the sophisticated pressure pad. Two men in the kitchen at the rear looked at each other.

One was dressed in a velvet jacket and trousers. He wore a Jewish-style cap on his head and gold-rimmed pince-nez on the bridge of his long, strong nose above thick lips. He had a professorial look.

His companion, Jacques, was a contrast. Taller and heavily built, his hands were huge. He produced from a leg sheath an ugly wide-bladed knife. He made a gesture of cutting a throat, pointed outside.

The professor frowned, shook his head, pointed first up the chimney, mimicked taking a photograph. Jacques nodded, then carefully removed a sheet of metal from the base of the chimney. Bending his head, he shinned up a ladder leading up the chimney to the roof.

The Professor bent down, removed a heavy floor rug, dug his fingers into a slot, heaved, hauled up a trapdoor, went down a series of stone steps into the vast cellar. Jacques would follow him by the same route. Warmth from the cellar drifted upwards.

The cellar was luxuriously furnished. Wall-to-wall carpet covered the floor. Heat came from a log fire which the Professor hastily damped down. Then he calmly sat on a sofa and began studying an old book entitled Weapons in the Middle Ages.

Jacques took his photo of the intruder walking towards the porch with his non-flash camera. Climbing back inside the chimney onto the ladder, he closed the cleverly designed stone door, descended the ladder, re-entered the kitchen, carefully put back into place the stone-coloured metal sheet.

His only real problem was closing the trapdoor after taking several steps down towards the cellar. The heavy kitchen rug had a strong adhesive attached to its base.

Once this was accomplished he slotted the trapdoor back into its place and descended into the cellar. His large hands were sweaty as he sat down on the sofa beside the Professor, who was calmly reading his book. Without looking at Jacques he took a large blue handkerchief out of his pocket, handed it to him. Jacques used it to dry his hands.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Jacques produced the small camera, extracted the photo he'd taken from behind the chimney. The Professor always paid for the best – the camera worked without a flash and yet took clear pictures in the dark. He handed the print to the Professor who examined it over the top of his pince-nez. Nothing in his expression registered a reaction.

He reached for a notebook on a nearby table. He wrote in it with care. Then he handed it to Jacques, watching him closely as Jacques read the words.

Robert Newman. Key member Tweed's team.

Jacques lurched forward, his wide-bladed knife already in his hand. The Professor reached forward with one hand. With surprising strength he placed it on Jacques's chest, pushed him back into the chair. Then he used two fingers of the same hand, pressed them against his lips. Not one word, his gesture signalled. He resumed reading his book.

On the floor above, Newman was checking each room. When he entered the second bedroom the same atmosphere met him. The bed was made but there was mould on the sheets. And everywhere he went he walked through cobwebs dangling from the ceiling. It seemed even chillier inside the lodge than it was outside.

He entered the last room to check, the kitchen. More cobwebs and again all the surfaces were covered with dust. No aroma of food being prepared, maybe for years. Then he stopped, frowned. Was it his imagination or was there a faint feeling of warmth?

He took off a glove, held his bare hand over the cooker. Nothing. So why had he briefly detected warmth? He swung the beam of his pencil torch round. Unlike the other rooms this floor was covered with plastic sheets instead of stone paving.

Logical, he thought, this being the kitchen. He swivelled the beam of his torch, saw a thick rug in the centre of the floor. He crouched down and felt the corner which was turned up. He frowned. It was sticky, as though covered with an adhesive.

He slowly peeled the rug to one side, exposing the floor beneath. On one side the plastic sheet didn't fit perfectly. There was a deep narrow slot. Carefully, he slid one hand down inside, felt a handle, resisted the impulse to lift. Very carefully he replaced the rug over the whole slab.

His expression was grim as he stood up. There was a cellar below. If opened and closed recently it explained why he had sensed warmth in the kitchen only. As he had examined the apparently uninhabited lodge there had been someone hiding below him. Maybe more than one person. It gave him a creepy feeling.

He walked quietly back to the front door. It was protected by a Keylock, the most complex on the market. On his way in he had used the advanced pick-lock supplied to him by Harry. He had opened it easily.

Now, standing in the long arched porch, he closed the door, which had well-oiled hinges. Harry's instrument locked it silently. He emerged slowly from the porch, Smith amp; Wesson by his side, listened.

Then he was careful to walk back towards the road down the centre of the drive just as he had come in, his feet again sinking into the carpet of pine needles. He was near the exit when his right foot felt something hard. He crouched down after a quick glance back at the lodge. Using his gloved hand, he swept aside a whole mass of pine needles and there it was.

A wide metal band which appeared to span the drive, a deep trench in the middle of the bar occupied by a thick cable. Whoever was inside the lodge had been warned of his coming by the weight of his foot on the signal cable. Probably a red light came on somewhere inside the lodge.

He took care to sweep back pine needles over his discovery. Then he started the long trudge through the icy night to the manor. He used the speaker-phone, Snape replied immediately, opened the gates.

Newman thanked him for waiting up so late, gave him a generous tip, toiled up the staircase which seemed longer than usual. He paused outside Tweed's apartment door, his hand raised to knock, then decided not to disturb him.

He walked on to his apartment. Once inside he forced himself to take a shower, climbed into pyjamas, flopped under the sheets. The moment his head hit the pillow he fell into a deep sleep. His bedside light remained on all night.