JT01 - In The Blood

by Steve Robinson

  As Amy continued to monitor the unchanging slit of light at the cave entrance, she reflected on what she’d seen back at Gillan Harbour: the rowing boat Tayte had been standing in one minute. The shattered timbers raining down over the water like matchsticks the next. She felt hopelessly alone again, believing for the first time that she, like Gabriel, would never be found.

  The man returned. “I know this is uncomfortable for you,” he said, “but it will all be over very soon now.”

  Then what? Amy thought.

  His torchbeam was suddenly in her face.

  “If today goes well,” he added, “you’ll be out of here long before the tide gets anywhere near that pretty head of yours.”

  The light flicked away again, towards the back of the cave, and Amy watched the man follow after it, crouching low over broken beer bottles until he was forced to crawl. At the cave’s tight and tapered innermost point the light came to rest on a box Amy knew well. Her captor was lying prone in that cramped space. She saw him produce a letter and the sounds he made while reading it told Amy that he liked what he read. But she quickly sensed the change in his mood. The man picked up the box and opened it, turning it in his hands. He felt inside it like he expected it to contain something more than was evident. She knew his frustration had peaked when he slammed the box down again and thrust the letter inside. Then he snapped the lid shut with such force that Amy thought she heard it splinter.

  His bitter sigh lingered in the air and she smiled to herself. She knew this man was not getting everything his way and all the while that was true she hoped to retain some value to him. She heard broken glass and the crunch of damp sand as he returned then the torchlight was back in her face.

  “It seems I may have been a little hasty with your new American friend,” the man said. “Do you think he knew what was so special about that box you found?”

  Amy tried her best to ignore him. Even if she could speak through the tight gag at her mouth, she had no words for this man she had once trusted.

  “Or was he holding something else back?” he said to himself. “There must have been more in there?”

  He dropped to his knees and held the torchlight on Amy’s face, forcing her to shut her eyes. “I’d call him and ask, but of course I can’t now, can I?” He pushed his face into Amy’s as though he was going to kiss her. She flicked her head away, kicking out, stirring the sand at her feet.

  The man laughed. “I don’t think you’d tell me if you knew,” he said, so close to her ear that she could feel his warm breath through the cold cave air.

  He backed off. “Who cares? It’s pay day! Time to start collecting.”

  The torchlight flicked away and Amy willed it to return despite the hatred she felt for the man controlling it. Then like a wish come true, it did.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” the man said. “I got you a present.” He produced a half-spent candle. “Should keep you company for an hour or so.” He lit it and fixed it to the rock behind Amy. “If the afternoon goes as well as this morning, I’ll be back in time for tea with some dry clothes. I’m afraid it’s fish and chips again.”

  Amy watched the man’s silhouette shrink towards the cave entrance where it paused. “I’ll move you out of harm’s way for the night when I get back,” he said. Then he left.

  Just before the candlelight deserted Amy, leaving her to darkness and imagination, she caught the glint of something bright in the disturbed sand beyond her feet. She leant closer trying to make it out, kicking again to expose it further. As the object flicked into view, glowing in the fading light, she gazed upon it with unsettling recognition. She caught her breath. Then a silent scream burned in her chest until all light was gone.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  It became necessary for me to kill you…

  That was the last thought Jefferson Tayte had before the blue-and-yellow row boat he was standing in at Gillan Harbour blew apart. It had saved his life.

  After being cheated out of Lowenna’s letter, he’d watched the beat-up Mazda pull away from St Anthony, knowing he’d lost everything. He could see Amy’s bound hands pounding at the window until the low morning sun hit the glass and she was lost to the glare. Then the car had stopped again. The nearside front window drew his eye as it opened and the glare dissipated. Set back inside the car, Tayte saw a face beneath a light-grey hood that was too small to distinguish, but he’d known he was looking at the face of his adversary.

  Why has he stopped? Tayte had thought. What’s he doing?

  The glint of chrome plated steel extending from the open car window like a swordsman’s foil told him this game wasn’t over. There had to be more to it. Something he wasn’t seeing. The killer had the box and the letter, and he had Amy. So why had the car stopped? What else did he want?

  It had taken Tayte a few slow seconds to realise that he was watching an aerial extend from the car window. Sunlight danced along the length of the antenna, mesmerising him as it lengthened, causing him to wonder what the hell was going on. It was fully extended by the time he registered exactly what it was, and in that instant Tayte could only think of one reason why the killer had stopped. He wanted him dead. Now there was a radio transmitter aerial hanging out of the man’s car window.

  Tayte’s only thought was to get out of that rowing boat. He’d leapt sideways into the water just as the boat erupted beneath him. He felt a searing pain in his legs and the shock wave from the blast slammed him several feet through the water. The explosion boomed above him, dull in his submerged ears as he began to rise. At the surface, he was aware of debris falling around him. He felt something catch his head, knocking him under again. Then he’d blacked out.

  He came to, lying on his back, blinking at a low white ceiling, bright with overhead lighting. A face he didn’t know stared down at him. A hand reached across and one at a time his eyelids were forced open and a bright light shone into them.

  “What’s your name?” the stranger had asked.

  Tayte could feel movement beneath him; he’d sensed he was in a vehicle. “JT,” he’d said. Medical equipment and a smiling face registered just before he began to drift again.

  Tayte was sitting up on a firm bed in a private room at Truro’s Royal Cornwall Hospital, patched up again and being held for observation after the concussion he’d received from the falling boat debris. He looked down at the bandages on his legs. They covered everything from his ankles to his knees, which were barely hiding beneath the hem of the pale-green hospital gown he was wearing. It was hardly his style, but he was thankful to be out of that bloody suit at last.

  Now with a clean bandage around his left hand and another around his neck to keep the replacement butterfly stitches secure, he looked like he was gradually undergoing some living mummification process. Fortunately, the wounds beneath the bandages were largely superficial and he was surprised at how little he hurt, which he put down to the strong pain killers he’d been given. DCI Bastion and DS Hayne were sitting to either side of him, making him feel more like a suspect than a victim.

  Bastion stirred the contents of a stainless steel tray he was holding. “You don’t mind if we keep hold of these, do you, Mr Tayte?”

  Tayte looked at the pieces of shrapnel that had been pulled out of his legs along with the splinters from the row boat. “I don’t care if I never see them again,” he said.

  Bastion studied one of the pieces. “It’s amazing what devices people come up with,” he said. “Primitive of course, but deadly just the same.”

  “Hand grenades?” Tayte said, still coming to terms with this latest attempt on his life.

  “That’s right. Probably left over from the Second World War. Strap a few grenades together and wire them to a radio servo - any high-torque radio-controlled model servo would do. Then switch on the transmitter, push the control stick, the servo turns, pulling all the pins at once.”

  “Boom!” Hayne added, clapping his hands together.

  Bastion winced. “Th
ank you for the dramatics, Sergeant.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  Bastion dropped the shrapnel back onto the tray. It sounded heavier than it looked. “Now, Mr Tayte,” he said. “Someone clearly wants you dead and I want to know why.”

  Tayte sat forward. “First, I need my briefcase.”

  The faces before him questioned why.

  “When you first got here, Tayte said, “you asked where I was last night. I said I’d spent the night in the car you loaned me.”

  “Yes, I got all that,” Bastion said.

  “But I haven’t told you what I was doing.”

  “What were you doing?” Hayne asked.

  “I was trying to find out who killed Schofield - who now has Amy Fallon.”

  Bastion shook his head. “We haven’t established that anyone’s been kidnapped yet, Mr Tayte.”

  “I have. I spoke to Amy this morning. I was at Gillan Harbour trying to get her back.”

  “And you think you’ve found out who this man is?” Hayne asked.

  “I might have. There’s a list on my laptop. That’s why I need my briefcase. You need to check out the names.”

  “How about I get someone to bring your car to the hospital with a change of clothes?” Bastion said. “Then we can have a look at this list of yours. And while we’re waiting you can tell me everything you know.”

  Tayte reached across to the bedside table and picked up the keys that were there with the rest of his personal items: his notepad and wallet, which still needed to dry out, and his cellphone, which was now useless. He tossed the keys to Bastion who raised a hand to the uniformed officer waiting at the door.

  While Tayte waited for his briefcase and a clean suit to arrive, he gave Bastion and Hayne the full story, leaving nothing out. When he reached the part about the goose chase he’d sent Schofield on, he wondered again what he’d turned up.

  “I had Schofield checking out graveyards all day,” he said. “When I asked him to go to Nare Point and meet this guy who’d called me about James Fairborne’s probate record, he was excited about something. I wish I knew what it was.”

  DS Hayne reached into a dark blue folder that was beside him on the bed and produced several photos that were badly water-damaged. He flicked through them and Tayte watched him single out two images.

  “Is this what he was doing, sir,” Hayne asked. He passed the photos to Tayte. “We found them with the rest of his belongings in the boot of his hire car this morning.”

  “Shameful,” Bastion said, shaking his head. “Lovely E-Type Jag, series III. It was pulled from the creek at Helford Village this morning, covered in all manner of filth. I’m surprised any of these photos survived at all.”

  “V12,” Tayte said, recalling the throaty engine note he’d heard last night after the killer fled. He figured he must have used Schofield’s car after he killed him, leaving it nearby for a quick get-away when he returned for the box. Very calculated, Tayte thought, guessing that the killer might have continued his get-away by boat after he dumped the car.

  “All these photos are pretty much of the same view,” Hayne said. “Something about it must have caught your colleague’s interest. They were taken yesterday morning according to the digital time stamps.”

  Tayte studied the photos. The first showed a typical graveyard scene. There was no church in the picture and Tayte supposed it must have been taken with the church behind the camera. Numerous headstones scattered the foreground leading to a low stone wall. Beyond that, the landscape diminished to the sea. He looked at the other photo which showed a similar view.

  “That’s a photo of a painting,” Hayne said in case Tayte had missed it.

  Tayte could see the gilt frame just visible at the edges of the picture. It was a painting of the view he’d just seen in the first photo, only this painting had fewer headstones in the foreground. “It must have been painted some time ago,” Tayte said. “The graveyard’s filled up a bit since then.”

  He continued to study the images, and he was close to handing them back when he saw what he thought Schofield was interested in. He tapped the photo of the painting. “Look at that,” he said.

  Hayne leaned in. “Looks like a memorial stone of some sort,” he said, failing to fully comprehend the significance.

  “And it’s not there now,” Tayte said.

  They compared the photos to confirm it. Where the memorial appeared in the painting - a tall stone pillar topped with a Celtic cross - the photo of the scene taken yesterday disclosed what appeared to be a spare plot.

  “Could this be what your colleague was so excited about?” Hayne asked.

  Tayte held the photos side by side. The subject of interest was centred in each - the memorial on one, the space where it had stood on the other. “I’m sure of it,” he said.

  A double tap at the door announced the arrival of his briefcase and a familiar tan linen suit. They were a welcome sight now that he had a church to find. Though he supposed it wouldn’t be easy. The scene looked like a thousand other coastal graveyards and he was sure Cornwall had more than its fair share.

  Chapter Fifty

  It was early afternoon by the time Jefferson Tayte managed to separate himself from Bastion and Hayne. Since he’d realised the significance of Schofield’s photos - that in some Cornish graveyard an empty space existed where once a memorial stood - all he wanted to do was find it. He felt like Schofield was reaching out to him, trying to tell him why he’d been so wired that day - his last day.

  DCI Bastion had insisted Tayte answer a few more questions about the events that led up to the explosion at Gillan Harbour before they parted company. He took the telling-off he’d expected from Bastion as he told them about his telephone conversations with the killer and of his few words with Amy, and that he’d left Tom Laity waiting in the mouth of the Helford River. He’d suggested they put out a search for Amy’s motor launch and Bastion had been quick to assure Tayte that finding the launch was already a high priority. As was interviewing Tom Laity.

  Against the advice of the hospital staff, Tayte discharged himself, insisting that no further fuss was made and refusing the offer of DS Hayne’s company for the afternoon. As far as Tayte was concerned, he figured the killer must have thought him dead after witnessing the explosion at Gillan Harbour and he saw that as an advantage. He left with a warning to be careful and the loan of a mobile phone, which Bastion had insisted he keep handy.

  The day had changed little while he’d been at the hospital. Now as he drove along a familiar country lane, looking ahead through a tunnel of canopied branches to the bright sunlight beyond, his destination was in sight. He needed to know what church Schofield’s photos were taken from, and he only knew one person who might be able to tell him. As he pulled the yellow Citroen into the parking area outside the parish church of St Mawnan, he hoped Reverend Jolliffe was there.

  Tayte passed through the lych gate and followed the shingle path around the church to his right, towards the bell tower. A tunefully whistled rendition of Lizette Woodworth Reese’s, Glad that I live am I, immediately greeted him. The sound drew him into the graveyard, to the rear of the church where he saw Jolliffe clearing dead flowers from the cremation plots. The whistling stopped as soon as the reverend saw him.

  “How good to see you again,” Jolliffe said, smiling. “So many people drop by the once, never to return.”

  Tayte almost felt guilty. “I’m afraid I have another motive for being here,” he admitted.

  The reverend met Tayte on the path. “All reasons are accepted,” he said. Then he noticed Tayte’s bandaged neck and hand and said, “Whatever’s happened to you?”

  “It’s a long story I’d be glad to share with you some day,” Tayte said. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out photocopies of the images Schofield had taken. “I’m in a bit of a hurry just now though, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Jolliffe said. His eyes followed the pictures in Tayte’s hand. �
�So how are you getting along with your work?”

  “That’s why I’m back,” Tayte said. He offered the images to Jolliffe who squinted at them then pulled away as he tried to bring them into focus. “I was hoping you could tell me where this graveyard is.”

  “I’ll need my glasses,” Jolliffe said, reaching for them before he realised he didn’t have them with him. “Follow me,” he added. Then he marched off towards the blue south-facing door.

  Tayte paused in the doorway and looked back at the view. Across the river he could clearly see part of the route he’d followed in Amy’s launch earlier. He could see Nare Point and could even make out the rectangular shape of the observation hut. He couldn’t seem to escape it; that place where Peter Schofield had met his bloody end.

  Tayte caught up with the reverend as he was taking a glasses case out of from his fleece jacket, which had been resting over the pulpit.

  “Now let’s take a look,” Jolliffe said, squaring his reading glasses on his nose.

  Tayte set the photocopies down on a nearby table and he could tell the reverend was still having trouble seeing them clearly. One minute he was looking through the lenses, the next he was peering over the top.

  “The originals were a little water-damaged,” Tayte said, giving him an excuse.

  “So I see.”

  “I guess it looks like most churchyards around here.”

  Jolliffe was bent double over the images now. Tayte sensed he was struggling and expected him to give up any minute. Then the reverend straightened and smiled.