"You cannot imagine the terrible things that are happening here. I dare not trust hose whom I thought I knew. It must surely end with my desire for I know too much. I want you to know that I love you, should you not hear from me again.

Love, Aunt Lou."

The whole horrifying business began with the cablegram. At least as far as Marny was concerned. For it was because of her aunt's desperate lea that Marny raced across the ocean to her childhood home - to Alderney, a small island off the coast of England.

But no even the reassurances of Brian and Peter, with whom she had grown up, could still the painful fear that something dreadful had happened to Aunt Lou.

For Aunt Lou had disappeared. Totally. Without a trace.