“I just remembered,” he said. “I’m expecting someone to meet me here. If we’re going to the police station she won’t know where to find me.” He indicated the mobile. “You mind if I give her a quick call?”
“Not on this,” Cornell said. “Work gets funny about it.” He slipped the phone inside his jacket. “You can call her from the lounge. But don’t be too long.”
Tayte went back into the lounge and Cornell followed him.
“You know what,” Cornell said. “I could use a coffee myself. Tell her to meet you at the Star Café. It’s just around the corner on Lower Clapton Road. It’s the place you probably saw on your way here. We’ll go on to the police station from there.”
“Great,” Tayte said. He dialled Jean’s number and as expected he got her voicemail. He left a message. “She’s on the road,” he said. “Motorbike.” He ended the call and followed Cornell outside.
Cornell was about to close the front door behind him when he stopped. “Damn,” he said. “I’d put the grill on just before you arrived. I won’t be a minute.”
When he came out again he showed Tayte to a red VW that was parked a few spaces along the street. Tayte got in and the car pulled away.
It only took a few minutes to get to the Star Café: a greasy spoon with red vinyl seats over black and white linoleum. The place was busy with lunchtime trade and the air was thick with the smell of all-day breakfasts and old cooking fat. Tayte sat next to his briefcase with Cornell opposite, Tayte looking into the café, Cornell looking out. They each ordered a black coffee and against his better judgement after seeing just how greasy the place really was Tayte ordered a ham and cheese sandwich to go with it. Cornell didn’t say much. It wasn’t like they could talk about what was going on in such a public place. He stared out the window for several minutes before breaking what had become an uncomfortable silence.
“How long do you think she’ll be?”
Tayte checked his watch. “Not long now.” He sipped his coffee. “So, you’re not married.”
“Was that a question?”
Tayte realised it wasn’t. It was just another weak attempt at small talk to fill the time. He knew from his research that Robert Cornell was a single man and now another snippet of information caught up with him. It was something that applied to both the abducted Peter Harper and Robert Cornell and it suddenly struck him as odd. He figured he must have been too tired to see the significance before.
“This heirloom that’s been passed down through your family -”
“I told you I didn’t want to talk about it until we got to the police station.”
“I know,” Tayte said. “But I was just thinking. You’re in your forties, unmarried with no children. So it ends with you, doesn’t it?”
“You seem to know a lot about me,” Cornell said.
“Enough to know that you’re bucking the trend. Every one of your ancestors seemed to make a point of marrying early and starting a young family. I figured it was because they felt it was their duty - that they each had to ensure that whatever had been passed down to them survived to the next generation. I was just wondering why that’s not the case with you.”
“It’s like you said. It ends with me.”
“What does? Why now?”
“You’ll get your answers soon enough,” Cornell said. He scanned the room. “But not here.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
Tayte knew he’d done well to get Cornell to trust him this far, so as much as he wanted to push the matter he thought better of it. Cornell was right. This wasn’t the place. He finished his coffee in silence, supposing that as whatever was set in motion by the hanged Fellows of the Royal Society had remained a secret for three centuries, it could wait a little longer.
A lanky waitress in a pink T-shirt and blue jeans arrived carrying four plates of food in her arms. “Ham and cheese?” she said with an Eastern European accent.
Tayte put his hand up and with an awkward delivery the waitress set his sandwich down in front of him, rebalancing the remaining plates.
“Can I get another coffee to go with that?” Tayte asked.
“Of course.” The waitress turned to Cornell. “Anything else for you?”
“No thanks.”
The waitress turned again and at that moment she lost one of the plates. It flipped off her arm towards Cornell and he recoiled, scraping his chair back as the contents of what looked like another full English breakfast splashed down on the table and onto the floor in front of him.
“I’m so sorry!” the girl said and she rushed away.
Cornell didn’t say anything. He didn’t look too happy though as he dabbed at his trousers with a napkin. The waitress quickly returned with a cloth and an ill-advised smile, clearly trying to make light of the incident.
“Did I get you?” she said.
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
She cleaned up and left, taking Tayte’s lunch with her. “I’ll get you another one,” she said. “No charge.”
Tayte didn’t see the girl or the food go. All his attention was on Cornell. As he’d recoiled on his chair, Tayte saw the nickel-plated grip of a handgun and the leather sheen of a shoulder holster beneath his jacket. It had appeared like a splice of subliminal advertising: a momentary flash that left him wondering if he’d seen it at all. He realised then that he was still staring at Cornell’s jacket. He looked up and their eyes met.
“I didn’t think British security guards were allowed to carry firearms,” Tayte said.
“We’re not. I picked this up for personal protection. I read the papers. You came here yourself to tell me my life’s in danger.”
“I see,” Tayte said, not sure that he really did. “Is that what you went back inside the house for?”
Cornell nodded.
“Better not let the police see it when we go to the station,” he said. “I don’t think they’d understand.”
“No,” Cornell said.
Their eyes remained locked and Tayte suddenly felt like they were the only people in the café. The noise around them, of people talking and eating and clanking their cutlery, had all but faded to a low static hiss.
Cornell smiled coldly. “You’re not going to buy that, are you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Tayte said. He’d already made it obvious enough. To deny it now would be futile. “We were never going to the police station, were we?”
“No.”
Tayte wondered then how he could have overlooked the possibility that the killer might have been one of their own number. But he was tired and he’d been caught up in the chase all night, thinking only that he had to identify the remaining descendants. To protect them.
Cornell touched his smooth scalp, drawing Tayte’s eye. “All that’s missing now is the wig and the mask,” he said, and before he’d finished speaking, his other hand had the gun trained on Tayte beneath the table. “If you try to run, I’ll kill you. If you try to warn anyone, I’ll shoot you dead before a single word leaves your mouth. Are we clear?”
Tayte nodded. Having seen how confident this man was he didn’t doubt him for a second. His mouth felt so dry that he didn’t think he could speak even if he wanted to.
“You’ve done your friend, Marcus Brown, proud,” Cornell said, almost smiling. “You found his killer. But how ironic is that?” He tapped the gun beneath the table.
Tayte said nothing.
“I knew you were looking - it’s all over the news. I just didn’t think you’d find me so soon.” He smiled fully then. “But you’re already too late.”
“Too late for what?”
Cornell shook his head. “Smile,” he said as the waitress came back with his coffee. “If she senses anything’s wrong, you’re both dead.”
Tayte did as he was told and the girl left again. He reached for his coffee, slowly. “I guess you would have shown your true colours soon enough anyway. I was about to ask if I could borrow your phone to cal
l the police and give them our new location. You couldn’t have let me do that, could you?”
“No.”
“That’s the real reason you wanted to get away from the house, wasn’t it? Because you knew they were coming. That would have been awkward for you, wouldn’t it?”
“Not as awkward as things are going to be for you and your girlfriend.”
Jean.
She was heading into a trap and it was all his fault. No wonder Cornell had changed tack when he’d said she was coming to meet him.
Two birds with one stone.
A moment later, Tayte heard a motorbike outside and his heart missed a beat. He watched a slow smile crawl across Cornell’s face. Then he turned to look out the window but the kick he received pulled his eyes back to the man sitting opposite him.
“Get up,” Cornell said. “And don’t forget your briefcase. We’re going to meet her at the door.”
Chapter Fourteen
Detective Inspector Jack Fable arrived at Robert Cornell’s address barely half an hour after picking up Tayte’s voice message. He knocked on the door again and then walked back to the gate where he turned and looked up at the windows, then along the street. Clearly Robert Cornell wasn’t home, but where was Tayte? He wished now that he’d thought to lend Tayte a mobile phone when he’d had the chance. At least he would have been able to call him.
He went back to his car and leant on the bonnet, not yet ready to leave. He was annoyed that his meeting with the Security Service at Thames House had overrun and that he’d had to break away from getting on with the job in the first place just to tell everyone how badly the investigation was going. The worst of it was that being incommunicado for almost an hour and a half had forced Tayte to act on his own initiative and without support. He didn’t blame him for that under the circumstances, but he wished to Christ he knew where he was.
He got back into his car and slammed the door behind him. Then he made a tight three-point turn and headed back out the way he’d come, pulling out onto the busy main road where he soon came to a small parade of shops: a newsagent, a bookmaker, an off-license and a café. He thought the only thing missing from the line-up was a greengrocer, but they were disappearing rapidly along with the sense of community he’d once known. He stopped at a pedestrian crossing in the middle of the parade and watched an old lady pulling a bag on wheels. She ambled across the road as if reaching the other side was a rare treat not to be rushed.
That was when he saw Jean Summer’s motorbike.
There were cars parked bumper-to-bumper outside the shops to either side of the crossing. The bike was just beyond: a very recognisable yellow BMW. He sat up and read the number plate to be sure. H15 TRY. It was the right registration.
A horn sounded behind him. He checked his mirror and pulled over onto the kerb. The bike was illegally parked, half on and half off the no-stopping lines, and there was no disc lock on the wheel. He figured Jean couldn’t have planned on leaving it there long. The café across the pavement drew his eye and he thought Tayte must have brought Robert Cornell there to get him away from the house. Clearly Jean must have met them. He got out of the car and went to check, thinking they must still be inside.
Three minutes later he was back outside again. Yes, they had recently served a big, dark-haired man with an American accent wearing a bright tan suit. Yes, he was with another man: a bald man in a security guard uniform. No, there was no one else with them and the waitress who had served them hadn’t seen them leave, but she’d said it can’t have been more than five minutes ago.
So why is Jean Summer’s bike still here?
Fable stood beside it and put a hand on one of the big, twin-cylinder heads. It was still warm. Five minutes or so would be about right, but he couldn’t imagine Jean would just leave it there, hanging over the pedestrian-crossing zone like that. She would have known it would be towed away.
So why did she leave it? Where are they now?
Fable felt the telling knot in his stomach begin to tighten and instinctively he knew the answer was not good.
Tayte and Jean were heading east in a black cab. Beyond the partition a football match was playing loudly on the radio, filling the driver’s ears. They were side by side on the back seat and Robert Cornell was on the pull down, facing them, his gun held low so the driver couldn’t see it but Tayte and Jean could. It let them know who was in control. It made them fear for their lives. That’s how Tayte saw it from Cornell’s point of view and that’s exactly how he felt it.
“Sorry,” he whispered to Jean and before he’d finished the word Cornell cracked the butt of the gun into his kneecap.
“I said no talking.”
Jean had a menacing stare fixed on Cornell. It was clear to Tayte that she was over the confusion of seeing him leave the café with the gunman she probably recognised from Piccadilly Circus, and she was over the fear of seeing that gun thrust into her face for the second time. She was at the loathing stage now, deeply ensconced in the kind of hatred that would consume you if you let it.
“Where’s my son?” she asked.
“Goes for you too, bitch.” Cornell put a finger to his lips. “Shh. There’s a good girl.”
“I don’t care what you do to me,” Jean continued. Defiant. “I want my son back.”
“Do you care about the cabby? He’s just doing the daily grind. I bet he has a nice family. Couple of kids.” Cornell leant towards Jean. He spoke slowly, his voice low and deliberate. “Now shut your mouth or I’ll shoot him. Plenty of cabs in London.”
Tayte had no doubt he’d do it, too. He nudged Jean’s leg with his and she seemed to get the message. She sat back and knotted her arms.
“Try anything - anything at all,” Cornell said, “and I promise you, I’ll pay the cabby’s family a visit. All of them. You understand me?”
The journey continued in silence. Tayte stared at his sorry-looking reflection in the partition as he listened to the rise and fall of the football commentary and the shared sense of anguish and excitement from the driver. Jean continued to stare at Cornell who occasionally stared back. Fifteen minutes passed. Then the driver spoke.
“You sure about the address? Looks like a building site.”
“Take the lane there,” Cornell said. “Next left.”
The driver shrugged and the taxi turned onto a dusty, potholed track. There was a high barbed-wire fence on one side, trees and overgrown shrubbery to the other. The track went on, slowly rocking the taxi as it dipped into the potholes for two hundred yards or so. Then they came to a double gate.
“I get it,” the driver said as he pulled up. “You work here, do you? I saw the uniform.”
He turned around for his fare and without hesitating Cornell put two bullets through the partition. Both found their target and the driver fell sideways. Jean was already out of her seat, arms reaching for the gun and Tayte was about to follow but Cornell was too quick. The butt of the gun cracked into the side of Jean’s head, knocking her back. Then the muzzle was suddenly pressing hard into Tayte’s forehead.
“Not so brave now, are you?”
Cornell elbowed the partition where the bullets had cracked it. It fell away enough for him to reach across for the door release, not taking his eyes off Tayte and Jean as he did so.
“Get out,” Cornell said, and as though reading Tayte’s mind he added, “If you try to run for the trees, I’ll cut you down before you’re half way.”
Cornell got out of the taxi on the opposite side, removing any opportunity they might have had to jump him if he followed them out the same way. Tayte and Jean were looking in through the driver’s window when he caught up with them again and Jean had a very different expression on her face now. The fear had returned and it had stuck: fear for the man she had just watched Cornell shoot, wondering if he was dead or alive, and fear now for herself since Cornell had so effectively reminded them how deadly serious he was. He opened the driver’s door and to remove any doubt he put anothe
r bullet in him.
“Get him out!”
Tayte felt every bit of the kick Cornell gave him. It shoved him towards the taxi and he grabbed the dead man’s legs and swung them out. He lifted them and paused as Jean moved in to support the man’s head. He noticed she had tears in her eyes and he silently wished she was anywhere else but here.
“Get on with it!”
Tayte knew there was no delicate way to get the dead man out of the taxi, so as much as he didn’t like to he pulled his legs and the man’s body fell off the seat. Jean tried to hold on to him but all that dead weight was too much for her. They all fell to the ground, blood from the dead man’s wounds soaking into the dirt.
“Get up!” Cornell shouted.
As quiet as the area was, Tayte had the feeling that Cornell didn’t want to stay out in the open too long. He looked around. There was an old building beyond the wire fence and some kind of industrial landscape further back beyond the trees. They were somewhere in East London, two hundred metres from a road that few people seemed to use, perhaps half a mile from the nearest occupied house. As far as he could see they were in the middle of nowhere.
“Pick him up!” Cornell shouted. “Big guy gets the bloody end.” He flicked the gun at Jean. “You get his feet.”
Tayte linked his arms around the dead man’s chest and started to drag him by his heels. “I can manage by myself,” he said. He would have spared Jean that but Cornell was having none of it.
“Do it,” he said to Jean, pointing the gun at her. “I want your hands busy.”
They carried the body to the gate, which Cornell unlocked and opened ahead of them. Once inside the compound he flicked his gun towards what was left of one of the gasworks buildings a hundred or so feet away.
“We can make it,” Tayte whispered to Jean, and by the time they got there he was panting so hard his chest hurt, hindered as he was by the taxi driver’s lifeless arms as they kept slipping through his own.
They went in via an arched doorway at the side of the building. There was no door, just the opening and the draught that constantly rattled through the place. The corridor they were led down looked like a blowtorch had been taken to it: the walls were peeling back, repelling the many layers of paint that had been applied over the years. It was colourful, but in an unsettling way. There were splashes of graffiti here and there and the ceiling had fallen through in places. Around the broken windows nature had begun its reclamation, binding everything it touched with pale ivy runners and anaemic-looking leaves.
The Last Queen of England: A Genealogical Crime Mystery #3 (Jefferson Tayte) Page 14