The Titanic Secret (32 page)

‘Is there something else you should be telling me?’ Voss asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Is there something you have to tell
me
?’

Voss nodded, then turned to the bodyguard. ‘Leonard, replace the gag for me.’

When Maria was again rendered mute, Voss leant forward and spoke to her softly.

‘You should never have believed me,’ he said, a note of triumphant gloating in his voice. ‘I don’t know how Vincent will decide to kill you, but however he does it, however quickly or slowly, you might find that death comes as a welcome relief. I promised Leonard and Vincent that they could amuse themselves with you this evening, and I always like to keep my promises – at least to my friends and employees.’

Voss watched her face carefully as he said these words and pronounced her fate, but to his surprise her expression didn’t seem to change, apart from a hardening of her eyes. It was almost as if that was exactly what she had been expecting him to say.

He turned back to the bodyguard. ‘You and Vincent can do what you like with her,’ he said. ‘Just make sure that she’s dead at the end of it. When you’ve finished, get rid of the body over the side, and make sure that you leave no evidence.’

Leonard nodded, and Voss stood up to go. Then he turned back.

‘One more thing,’ he added. ‘She’s probably going to make a lot of noise, so don’t start doing anything until seven o’clock, when most people in this section will be up in the dining saloon, having dinner.’

He looked across at Maria for the last time, and nodded his head. ‘Enjoy yourself,’ he said.

She stared back at him, her gaze unwavering, and for an instant he thought she nodded back to him. Then he opened the door and walked out.

14 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

Voss climbed back up to B-Deck, and stopped again outside Kortig’s stateroom. But the ‘Do not disturb’ sign was still displayed, and when he tried the doors, he found that both of them were still locked. That was unusual, and for a moment he debated whether or not he should contact a ship’s officer and ask that the door be opened, just to check that the banker was all right.

Then he shrugged and retraced his steps, descending to C-Deck and his own stateroom. If Kortig didn’t appear for dinner, or in the smoking room afterwards, then he decided he would get the suite door opened, just as a precaution. And he knew he would soon need to raise the alarm about Jonas Bauer, lying dead in his stateroom, killed by the man he now knew had been called Tremayne. But the following morning would be soon enough for that. Vincent and Leonard still had the Weston woman’s body to dispose of after they’d killed her, and so the less activity around the first-class accommodation areas that night, the better.

Voss turned down the passageway to his own suite, fished the key out of his pocket and opened the door. He glanced at his watch. It was a little before seven, so he just had time to dress for dinner, a meal he knew he would savour, even if this evening it looked as if he would probably be eating alone.

14 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

Alex Tremayne had spent the last hour standing just inside the open doorway of his stateroom, leaning against the wall and staring down the passageway towards Voss’s suite, waiting for the Prussian to return.

And when he did, Tremayne almost missed him, because of all the activity that was going on in the passageways as couples and individuals moved around, entering or leaving their staterooms. When he saw the figure stop outside the stateroom door, for a moment he couldn’t make out who it was. Then the crowd thinned slightly, and Voss’s unmistakable features swam into clear focus.

That was all Tremayne needed to see. He stepped back into his stateroom, checked that he had everything with him that he would need, then locked the door of his room and walked straight down the passageway towards Voss’s suite. As he got closer, he became more aware of the other people walking to and fro, and adjusted his own pace so that when he arrived outside Voss’s door, there were very few passengers anywhere near him.

He checked again, looking in both directions along the passageway, then knocked three times on the door. For a moment, he heard nothing, and then a slightly muffled voice asked: ‘Who is it?’

‘Lenz,’ Tremayne replied, imitating Kortig’s voice as much as he could, though he guessed that from the other side of the door the sound would be so indistinct that Voss wouldn’t be able to tell whose voice it was. At least, that was what he was hoping.

He heard a muttered comment that sounded like ‘at last’, then the distinct click of the lock being released, and the door swung open.

For a long moment, Voss stared at Tremayne, the blood draining from his face as he looked at the man who should have been dead, his own worst nightmare come to life. His mouth opened and closed as his brain struggled to comprehend what he was seeing, and form some kind of sentence.

Tremayne saved him the trouble.

‘Hullo, Gunther,’ he said, then smashed his right fist into the centre of his face.

14 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

Since Voss had left, the bodyguard – Leonard, a strangely incongruous name for a man in his line of work, she thought – had barely taken his eyes off Maria. And when he had looked away, it was usually just to check his watch. Maria guessed that he was waiting for seven o’clock so that he could start doing whatever he had planned for her.

Finally, he obviously decided he’d waited long enough. He went to the door and checked the corridor, and Maria could hear no sound of movement.

The bodyguard closed and locked the door. Then he walked over to where Maria was still sitting in the chair, and undid her gag.

‘If you scream,’ he said, ‘I’ll punch you in the mouth, break a few teeth. But you can talk to me, if you like. I might enjoy that.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be waiting for Vincent?’ Maria asked, sarcasm dripping from every word. ‘Surely it’s safer if there are two of you great big men to handle me? Or do you really think you’re strong enough to do it all by yourself?’

He looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘You’ve got some spirit, girl, I’ll say that for you, but you’ll probably find it better if you just shut up and lie still. That way, I won’t have to slap you around. And trust me, if I have to do that, I will. Now stand up.’

Maria obeyed. The bodyguard grabbed her by the arm and turned her round, and she heard the click as he released the handcuffs. The relief at being able to move her hands and arms was inexpressible, and she rubbed her wrists to try to get the blood circulating properly again.

‘Now walk over to the bed,’ Leonard instructed, ‘and take off your clothes. All of them. And be quick about it.’

She bowed her head and walked slowly across the small room to the bed, where she turned to face him.

‘Get on with it,’ he snapped, ‘or I’ll come over there and make you do it.’

Maria started to undo the buttons on her blouse.

14 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

As Voss staggered backwards, Tremayne turned round, closed the door of the stateroom and snapped the lock to secure it.

But Voss was far from finished.

Tremayne felt a massive blow on his back as the Prussian charged at him, head down, like a bull, and slammed him against the door, driving the breath from his body. Then two powerful blows to his stomach completed the job. The second one caught the end of his stab wound, sending a searing throb of agony lancing up the right side of his chest. Through a red mist of pain, Tremayne hit out, punching with both fists, trying to gain some distance, create some breathing space.

Voss was fighting for his life, and it showed. He hadn’t always had money. As a young man he’d worked in the mining industry, and that was a tough apprenticeship for anyone. He’d had his fair share of brawls along the way, and now he was drawing on his experience of every fight he’d ever had.

Tremayne’s back was against the door, so there was nowhere he could retreat to. But retreat wasn’t a part of his plan. As Voss lunged at him again, head down and fists flying, Tremayne kicked out, catching him in the stomach. And then he lifted his right arm above his head and brought his elbow crashing straight down. The point caught Voss on the back of the neck, and he dropped to the floor.

In seconds he was up again, back on his feet, but that brief respite was all Tremayne needed. He’d already spotted his cosh lying on a table near the door, along with the other devices Voss had taken from him. He took two quick steps over to the table, seized the weapon and, as the Prussian charged at him again, he swung it against the side of his head. There was a sickening thud as the lead-filled end of the cosh connected with Voss’s skull, and he dropped to the floor, unconscious.

For a minute or two, Tremayne just stood where he was, catching his breath and clutching his injured side. Then he pulled Voss across the floor and propped him up against the wall. Voss was still out cold, and showed no signs of coming round, which was a problem, because Tremayne was worried sick about Maria, and the unconscious man lying in front of him was the only way he had of finding her.

He took a few moments to recover his weapons and tuck them away in his pockets, then went into Voss’s attached bathroom and came back with a glass of water. He gulped a couple of mouthfuls and then threw the rest of the liquid into Voss’s face. The man stirred slightly, but didn’t open his eyes. Pain was a good way of waking somebody, Tremayne believed, so he walked across and trod firmly on Voss’s right hand, grinding his fingers into the carpeted floor.

That produced a response. Voss groaned and his eyes flickered open. Tremayne stepped back, pulled the Colt automatic from one pocket, and the suppressor from another, and screwed it onto the end of the barrel, his eyes never leaving Voss.

‘You fight well, I’ll give you that,’ Tremayne said, ‘but this is the end of the line for you. This morning you offered me a choice of a hard or an easy way to die, so the least I can do is return the favour. Tell me where Maria is, and it’ll be quick. If you don’t, well, I’ve got plenty of ammunition for this pistol. It used to belong to a man named Vincent, but I suppose you’d already guessed that. So I can shoot you full of painful holes that won’t kill you for hours, maybe days. Your choice.’

Voss stared at him, hatred smouldering in his eyes.

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he said.

‘Try me,’ Tremayne replied. ‘I’ve already killed three of your bodyguards, as well as Bauer and Kortig, so I’ve got nothing left to lose. So that’s what? Five or six? Who’s keeping count? I promise you that one more killing won’t make any difference to me. And with this suppressor on the pistol, nobody outside this room will hear a thing.’

‘And what happens when they find the bodies?’

‘Oh, I think I’ve already worked that out,’ Tremayne replied. ‘The bones of the bodyguards are probably all at the bottom of the Atlantic by now. Bauer unfortunately had a heart attack, and I think the authorities in New York will probably decide that you and Kortig had an argument, and you shot him with this pistol. Then, in a fit of remorse, you came back here and committed suicide with the same weapon. End of story.’

Tremayne levelled the Colt pistol at Voss’s stomach. ‘What they’re probably going to find particularly sad is that you weren’t such a good shot when you turned the gun on yourself, and the first few bullets unfortunately didn’t kill you. Maybe you thought you should suffer for what you’d done. I don’t know, and nor will they. But you will be dead, Voss, and that’s a promise.’

He aimed the pistol carefully and prepared to squeeze the trigger. ‘Now, for the last time, where is Maria?’

14 April 1912
HMS
D4

It took Bernard Hutchinson a long time to decipher the next signal sent to the submarine. Apart from the usual routing indicators, it consisted of four paragraphs. The first was the single word ‘Prepare’; the second specified that the boat was to have two torpedoes, fitted with live warheads, loaded into the forward tubes and in all respects ready to fire, no later than eighteen hundred hours, six in the evening, Eastern Standard Time. That section he could ignore, because the tubes were already loaded and had been since just before noon that day.

The third paragraph simply amended the rendezvous position slightly and confirmed that the boat was to be at that location no later than twenty-one hundred hours that night.

The fourth and final paragraph was the longest. That instructed him to maintain a listening watch on his radio contact frequency, which he’d been doing, in any case, ever since he left Dover. It also told him to expect either the ‘execute’ or the ‘return to base’ signal shortly after twenty-two hundred hours EST. Whichever signal he received, he was to decipher it and then send an acknowledgement that he had fully understood his orders.

If the submarine was ordered to return to base, it was to remain on the surface and proceed at its normal cruising speed to a further rendezvous position with an oiler, and take on sufficient fuel to allow it to reach Dover. On passage, the torpedoes were to be removed from the tubes, the warheads taken off them and made safe, and all weapons returned to their normal peacetime status.

If the ‘execute’ signal was sent, his orders were entirely different. After sending the acknowledgement, the radio aerial was to be unshipped – an essential action before the boat submerged – and the submarine was then to dive and to remain submerged until after it had engaged the target which would be specified in that signal. Then, still submerged, the boat was to proceed for a minimum distance of twenty miles clear of the location of the engagement, then surface, re-rig the radio aerial and confirm that the operation had been carried out. After that, the vessel was to rendezvous with the oiler as before and return to base.

Hutchinson noted the slightly amended coordinates of the rendezvous position on a piece of paper, and walked out of his cabin into the control room. He plotted the new position on the chart, measured the distance the boat still had to cover in order to get there by the specified time, and ordered a slight change of heading and speed to ensure that it was easily achievable.