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.But before he could make up his mind, it was already too late.The woman left the sheet hanging askew, a corner skimming the ground, and stepped down from her stool to waddle across to the cottage.She took one last searching look at Trent, as though mentally logging his features, then hurried around the far wall.She’d be on her way to the house, Trent supposed.Reporting to Alain.Nothing he could do about it.He marched on over the patio and across an expanse of neatly trimmed lawn, the grass scratching drily against his boots.It occurred to him that the estate must require some dedicated landscaping and maintenance.It was the kind of role that would be physically beyond the ageing housekeeper.Was it something Serge had been involved in? Or did somebody come in from outside? Trent made a mental note to raise the point with Alain.He kept moving and covered something like two hundred metres before the grass became longer and thicker.He could see the perimeter fence up ahead for the first time and a grove of perhaps twenty olive trees just in front of it.The trees were young and green and looked to have been recently planted.The ground beneath them had been scraped back to bare, dusty earth, though it would be many years before the trees offered up any fruit worth cultivating.Trent swivelled slowly, surveying the fall of the land and the line of the fence from left to right.There was no loose cluster of trees here.No sign of an isolated cabin.He turned and hurried back the way he’d come, fighting the urge to jog.He circled around via the housekeeper’s conservatory, keeping his eyes down as he marched past the fountain and the cars and across the driveway, then on through the line of cypress trees, traversing the lawn to the right of the house, heading towards the treetops he’d spied early that morning.The grass here was just as precisely cut, the ground every bit as level.He was starting to understand why Philippe had been tempted to occupy himself with Jérôme’s golfing equipment.Trent had played on eighteen-hole courses that weren’t nearly so manicured.He walked on, upping his pace and covering some considerable distance before he turned and found that he could only just glimpse the pitch of the terracotta roof of the house behind him.He realised, with some surprise, that there was a gradual curve to the lawn, minor enough to fool the eye, then increasing to a recognisable slant.The grass became longer as it sloped downwards, mimicking the fringed rough on the golf course Trent had pictured in his mind.Long strands knotted round his toes and ankles so that he could feel the snag and tear as he moved.There were weeds here, and thorns and meadow flowers.Insects drifted up from below, dizzily circling his legs and waist, clouding around his clenched fists.He was breathing hard.His face was flushed, his body filmed with sweat, his heart beating rapidly.Anxiety, he supposed.Adrenalin.He really didn’t want to be stopped before he’d found what he was searching for.A scattering of trees lay ahead and he sensed he was close.He weaved through almond trees and lotus trees.Then the earth became drier and it wasn’t long before he found himself in a stand of aged pines, the soles of his feet sinking through drifts of dead needles, his toes punting hollow-sounding cones.The fence was perhaps thirty feet away.The chirrup of the cicadas in the undergrowth on the other side was loud and insistent, like a maddening samba beat.There was a sort of clearing in front of him.A break in the trees.And in the centre of the space was the dilapidated shack he’d seen on the surveillance footage.His first instinct was to search for the cameras.He’d come at the cottage from the side but the images he’d seen on the monitors had been taken from the front and rear.The trees were sparse and it didn’t take him long to spot the two devices.They were high up in some tall maritime pines.The trunks had been stripped of all possible hand and footholds until well above the height he might jump to.There was no way of reaching the cameras or of avoiding their gaze.And if the housekeeper had alerted Alain already, there was every chance he might be watching.But Trent wasn’t prepared to quit.He wanted to get inside the cabin.There was a pale green stable door at the front and he approached it at speed, visualising himself hurrying through the first camera’s field of vision, then yanking down on the handle once he was in the middle of the shot.The door was locked.He leaned his weight on it.Pulled the other way.There was some give.The frame looked old and wormholed.It was possible he could kick it through, but it would be difficult to explain why he’d felt the need to if he failed to find anything connected to Aimée.Slatted wooden shutters guarded the low windows on either side of the door.The timber looked to be as warped as the doorframe and some of the boards were split
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