Jean stopped him. “It can’t be right,” she insisted.
“Why not?”
She grabbed Tayte’s arm. “Come with me,” she said, and she led him to the south aisle beneath the quire. “Look. See for yourself.”
They were standing before Sir Christopher Wren’s tomb. Tayte read the epitaph on the wall behind the sarcophagus. It was a Latin inscription that he didn’t understand, but beneath it was a translation.
“If you seek his memorial, look around you,” he said, and instinctively he did.
Jean sighed. “Not that. Wren was the first person buried here at new St Paul’s after the old cathedral burned down.” She pointed to the inscription on the sarcophagus. “Look here.”
Tayte read the inscription and the penny dropped. “Died 1723,” he said. “I guess that rules St Paul’s Cathedral out altogether, doesn’t it?”
“It does if we’re looking for a headstone dated between 1697 and 1700.”
“I’m sure of it,” Tayte said. “The Fellows had to pass the heir’s identity on somehow. And it had to be in such a way that would stand the test of time. A headstone or some other memorial has to be the answer.”
Jean gave a humourless laugh. “Then we’re in the wrong place.”
Tayte couldn’t argue with that. He started walking again, heading for the exit. “Let’s get some air. We need to think this over.”
Back outside, standing beside the Queen Anne statue again, Tayte tried to block out the cacophony of human and mechanical traffic that was raging behind him as he stared up at the cathedral. He was thinking about the ahnentafel and about Ethelred II, wondering where else, or what else, it might point to, and whether it had anything to do with St Paul’s Cathedral at all.
“They were men of science,” Tayte said to himself.
His thoughts wandered with his eyes as they strafed the tall pillars all the way up to the relief of the conversion of St Paul. His instincts told him that this was not a complicated puzzle. He recalled the conversation at the pub Jean had taken him to, where he’d met her history-student friends. He thought about Ralph’s Isaac Newton speech. Occam’s Razor. Keep it simple. It was another rule by which the Fellows of the Royal Society lived. It made sense that they would have tried to follow it in everything they did. The idea suggested something to Tayte that now seemed obvious.
“The ahnentafel was the puzzle,” he said. “The rest should be easy.”
“How do you mean?” Jean said.
“I mean once the ahnentafel had been put together, our five Fellows must have wanted whoever was in possession of it to find what they were looking for, and with relative ease. Getting the pieces of the puzzle together and understanding what it meant was the main thing.”
“So if the rest should be easy, why can’t we see it?”
Tayte turned back to the cathedral and returned his gaze to the central relief. He cleared his mind, keeping his thoughts simple.
“The ahnentafel points to Ethelred,” he said. “That’s a fact we can bank. Ethelred was buried here at St Paul’s, but not at this St Paul’s.” His gaze wandered up to the statue of St Paul himself, standing above the tympanum.
Not at this St Paul’s…
“Of course,” he said, his eyes still fixed on the saint high above them. “So what we’re looking for isn’t at this St Paul’s, either. This isn’t about Queen Anne’s statue or Ethelred’s tomb. And it’s not about the cathedral. It can’t be about any of those things.”
“So Ethelred doesn’t point to St Paul’s Cathedral?” Jean said.
Tayte spun around, his face beaming. “No,” he said. “He points to St Paul himself. What we’re looking for is another St Paul’s - a church.”
Jean returned his smile. Then her shoulders slumped. “But which St Paul’s? How are we supposed to know?”
“There must be a clue to that answer somewhere,” Tayte said. “Maybe we’ve already seen it. When we read about the executions at The National Archives, didn’t it say where the Reverend Naismith was rector?”
“Whitechapel,” Jean said. She shook her head. “But it was St Mary’s, not St Paul’s.”
Tayte kept thinking but nothing came to him. “There can’t be many St Paul’s churches in London that fit our criteria,” he said. “Maybe we’ll only know it’s the right one when we see it.”
“It would have to be a church of Anglican denomination,” Jean said.
“And there would have to be burial plots dating far enough back,” Tayte added. “Is there someplace nearby where we can get a coffee? We’ve got some research to do.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
They found a Starbucks on Ludgate Hill, not far from the cathedral. As they headed towards it, Tayte’s thoughts re-settled on the problem of how they were going to lose their escort. It seemed that Jackson and Stubbs would give them no easy opportunity and he didn’t think they would get very far if they tried to make a run for it. Just the same, he concluded that he would have to devise something soon. If only he knew what.
He followed Jean inside the coffee shop and the place instantly struck a familiar and welcome chord. The merchandise branding was the same as it was back home and the sweet aroma of coffee and pastries was just as good. He drew a deep breath and was reluctant to let it go again. It reminded him of home, which, with everything that had happened that week, was somewhere that now seemed further away than it ever had before.
They took a table by the window, where a red bus or black cab was rarely absent from the view, and Tayte noticed that the previously dominant office apparel on the people passing by began to shift with the hour to more casual attire. Jean sat down and got straight to work on the BlackBerry and Tayte couldn’t see how she was going to manage on such a small keyboard and screen.
“We could try to find an Internet cafe if it’d be easier,” he said.
Jean carried on tapping the keys and flicking her thumb over the scroller. “It’s okay. I’m used to it. I’ll have a latte,” she added without lifting her head.
Starbucks it is then, Tayte thought, deciding that Jean was definitely growing on him. He turned to their silent partners who decidedly were not. “I insist on buying you fine folks a coffee,” he said, forcing a smile.
Stubbs removed his leather jacket. “Thanks,” he said as he sat down. “Double espresso.”
Jackson kept his fleece on and didn’t ask for anything. “I’ll give you a hand.”
Tayte placed his own hand on the man’s shoulder, exerting just enough force to get his meaning across without seeming offensive. “Take a seat,” he said, still smiling. “They have trays.”
Jackson didn’t look happy about it but he sat down just the same. “Cappuccino,” he said, sourly.
At least they’re talking again, Tayte thought as he backed away. He stood in the queue under Jackson’s watchful gaze, and he wanted to give him a wave but thought better of it. Instead, he turned his back to him and eyed the clock on the wall. They hadn’t been at the cathedral long. It was still early. Just before ten.
There were three people ahead of him in the queue and there were two girls serving behind the counter. It didn’t take long to reach the front of the line and when he did, another girl appeared through the staff doorway. She came straight to the till, almost shoved the girl who was already there aside and smiled broadly at Tayte.
“Yes, please. Can I take your order?”
She was a slender, dark-haired Eastern European girl in black jeans and a T-shirt that left her tattooed midriff exposed. Tayte gave his order with a twenty-pound note and waited, and as he waited he was aware that the girl kept studying him, smiling at him every time he caught her eye.
She fumbled with his change and dropped half of it back into the till. Then as she handed it to him he could see that she was nervous about something. Her smile had gone and her heavily made up eyes bored into his with an urgency Tayte couldn’t fathom. As he took his change she held on to his hand and leant closer.
“You need to use the men’s room,” she said in a voice so low Tayte wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.
His confused expression said enough. He felt her squeeze the change into his palm, her eyes growing larger still. She nodded discreetly towards the toilet facilities and repeated the line with greater urgency. Then she pulled away, renewed her smile and went on to the next customer.
Tayte collected his tray and walked slowly back to the table, buying himself time to allow what had just happened to sink in.
She wants me to go to the men’s room? He snorted. What the hell for?
Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. He had to go if only to find out. He drew a smile on his face to hide his confusion as he arrived beside Jean and set the tray down.
“I got us all a pastry,” he said as he offloaded the tray. Then to Jean, he added, “How’s the research going?”
“Good,” she said. “I’ve found a church in Covent Garden that seems to fit. I’ve ruled several out already - Edgware and Knightsbridge and a few others that haven’t been around long enough. I think I’ve got another possible match in Hammersmith.”
“That’s great,” Tayte said. He paused. “Look, I’ll be right back. I need to use the men’s room.”
Jean threw him a smile and continued the research. He turned to go but stopped when Jackson got up to go with him.
“What now?” Tayte said. “Do you think I need a hand in there, too?” He was talking loudly, his accent cutting through every conversation, turning heads. “Don’t you think I’m big enough to go by myself?”
Jackson froze, looking around at all the people who were now looking right at him. He gave Tayte a mean stare as he sat down again and Tayte turned away. He let out a nervous sigh and made a beeline for the men’s room, thinking that he definitely had to find a way to lose their escort, and sooner rather than later.
Tayte was gone a full three minutes. Too long, it seemed, for Officer Jackson who met him on his way back.
“Everything okay?” Jackson said. He eyed Tayte sceptically. Then he leant in and sniffed him like a bloodhound. “You went in there for a smoke?”
Tayte just smiled at him. “I don’t smoke.” He squeezed past, went back to the table and sidled up beside Jean. “So what do we have?” he asked, letting nothing of what had just happened in the men’s room affect his demeanour.
“St Paul’s Hammersmith checks out,” Jean said. “Although it was rebuilt in 1882. Every church I hit seems to have a website. Makes it much easier.”
Tayte grabbed a pastry. “God really is everywhere,” he said. “You can’t get more omnipresent than the Internet.”
Jean laughed at him and turned back to the research. “I’ve ruled out three more churches,” she said. “One in Bow, another in Clapham, and one not far from our hotel in Marylebone. I don’t think there are many more to check.” She pushed the napkin she’d been writing on across to Tayte. “That’s every St Paul’s church of Anglican denomination Google could find. Just Deptford, Shadwell and Mill Hill to go.”
Tayte hadn’t heard of any of those places. He looked over Jean’s shoulder, not at the BlackBerry but out the window, peering nonchalantly left and right along the street without drawing attention. He sipped his coffee and turned to the research. Jean had the website for the church in Deptford on the screen.
“No good,” she said a moment later. “It wasn’t consecrated until 1730.”
Tayte crossed it off the napkin.
“Shadwell. Jean said. Built in 1657.” She paused, shoulders slumped. “Rebuilt in 1820.”
“Oops,” Tayte said. “The churchyard might still be intact, though. And there’s the burial registers.” He drew a circle around Shadwell on the napkin. “We’ll check it out. What about the last one?”
Jean brought up the website for the church at Mill Hill. She navigated to the website’s ‘About Us’ page and a moment later, shook her head. “It wasn’t consecrated until the 1830s.”
Tayte crossed Mill Hill off the list, and as he looked up he glanced out the window again. He took a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. “So we’ve got three churches that fit,” he said, writing them down. “Covent Garden, Hammersmith and Shadwell. What are their addresses?”
“We’ve got the BlackBerry,” Jean said. “Might as well look them up as we go.”
“I’d sooner write them down. What if the battery dies?”
Jean pulled up the details for each of the three churches again and read out the addresses. When Tayte had finished writing them down he asked Jean for the phone.
“There’s something I want to check,” he said, and when she passed it to him he pretended to tap the keys. He nodded thoughtfully at the screen as though he’d found what he was looking for. Then he put the phone in his pocket.
“What were you looking up?” Jean asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” Tayte sent a smile across the table to Jackson and Stubbs who had long since finished their coffees and looked stone-faced bored. “I just wanted to see how last night’s Redskins game went.”
He put his hand in his pocket and felt over the phone for the battery release. When he found it he flicked it open with his thumb and held out his coffee to misdirect attention as he popped the BlackBerry’s battery out to make sure it was off. Outside the window the arrival of a flashing blue light caught his eye. He saw three cars pull up, blocking the road. One was a police car with a bold orange stripe down the side. The other two were unmarked.
“What do you suppose that’s all about?” Jean said.
Tayte shrugged his shoulders but he knew well enough.
Across the table, Jackson pulled out his phone. “Are we done here?”
“I’m good,” Jean said, draining her latte.
Jackson pressed his phone to his ear and Tayte heard him tell whoever was on the other end that there was something going on outside - that the street looked like it was about to be closed off.
“Bring the car to the bottom of Ludgate Hill,” Jackson said. “On Farringdon Street. We’ll meet you there.”
When they got outside, several men wearing plain clothes and ballistics vests rushed them, handguns drawn.
“Armed police!” at least three of them shouted.
Tayte and Jean were clear of the doorway. Jackson and Stubbs were just behind them. The Security Service officers were clearly the focus of attention - just as Tayte knew they would be. He saw Stubbs reach a hand towards his jacket but he thought better of it.
“Hands behind your heads!” another police officer shouted.
They got no protest from either Jackson or Stubbs. Tayte watched both men raise their hands behind them and Jackson had his eyes fixed on Tayte the whole time. He thought the man looked ready to rip his head off. A split second later, the two men were on the ground with police all over them.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Jean said.
Tayte grabbed her arm and they started running. “Come on. I’ll explain later.”
They ran back towards St Paul’s Cathedral and didn’t stop running until they found an available taxi to get them out of there. They took a left turn before the cathedral into Ave Maria Lane and picked up a black cab further down towards Amen Corner.
“Marylebone,” Tayte said. He was panting hard as he followed Jean in. He slammed the door behind him and flopped back onto the seat.
“Explain,” Jean said, wide-eyed and naturally confused.
Tayte had to wait to catch his breath. When he did, all he said was, “Fable.”
“What? What about him?”
“He was in the men’s room.”
Jean didn’t look any less confused. “Why? What happened?”
“He said he was concerned for our safety. He told me there were things going on that we should know about.”
“Like what?”
“Like the government’s getting jumpy. That they’ll do just about anything to stop this from getting out if it prov
es to be real.”
“But only if it fell into the wrong hands, surely?”
“Not exactly,” Tayte said with a humourless laugh. “Fable didn’t come right out and say it but I got the impression that if we found what we were looking for, agents Jackson and Stubbs had another agenda to follow. They weren’t there to protect us, if you know what I mean.”
Jean looked numb. “Oh my God,” she said. “They were there to protect the identity of the heir?”
“Eliminate all threats,” Tayte said. “That was my take on the situation. Whoever’s pulling our strings with that note has done well to stay off their radar. They must have understood the risks far better than we have.”
“Christ,” Jean said. She sat back, momentarily dumbstruck. A few seconds later she added, “So Fable set all that up back there? The armed police?”
Tayte thought about the two Security Service officers lying face down on the pavement outside Starbucks and smiled to himself. “Yes he did. I had no idea what he had in mind. He just told me he’d handle it. I guess he must have called in their location and descriptions with a reasonable cause for an armed response unit.”
“Coffee shop drugs deal?” Jean said.
“Who knows?”
“How did he know where to find us? We didn’t tell him we were going to St Paul’s.”
“The BlackBerry,” Tayte said. “He took it out of his pocket and showed her the pieces. “I took the battery out so the Security Service wouldn’t be able to find us again the same way. I’m sure they’ll be trying so we don’t dare use it for now.”
“I don’t think it’s going to take them long to find us again anyway.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, unless by some unlikely chance they weren’t listening to a word we said back there, they know exactly where we intend to go.”
Tayte sank his head into his hands. “Of course,” he said. “The St Paul’s churches.” He sat up again. “So, we’ll have to be careful, that’s all.”
The Last Queen of England: A Genealogical Crime Mystery #3 (Jefferson Tayte) Page 22