Levant let out a long sigh. “Do not get me wrong, Inspector. If I had known my research would lead to murder I would still have done it given the prize. Only, I would have been more careful, of course.”
Levant stood suddenly and Fable did nothing to stop him this time. “But enough of this chitter-chatter,” the Frenchman said, discarding his cigarette. He turned and faced Fable, studying him. Then he leant in and kissed his forehead, noting that the detective’s skin had turned a pallid shade of blue.
“I am disappointed, Inspector Fable. You underestimated Michel Levant, I think.” He shook his head. “C’est la vie. You were not the first to make such a mistake.”
With that, Levant walked away, heading for the taxi rank outside the hotel. As he opened the door to an available taxi he heard a scream and looked back to the park. Fable was now lying on the bench. A woman was beside him, looking around for help. But Levant knew it was too late. Just as he knew that he had given his confession to a dead man.
He got into the taxi and gave the driver a random street name, thinking as he sat back and the taxi pulled away that he would take a sojourn to Paris. A visit was long overdue and London was already beginning to leave a bad taste in his mouth. It always did, given time.
He knew there would be an autopsy. It was a matter of procedure in all cases of unexpected or unexplained death - especially the death of a policeman. Until then it would appear to the layman that DI Fable had perhaps had a heart attack and who would be surprised. The autopsy, however, would reveal that Fable had died from asphyxiation.
As the taxi turned the corner, Levant studied his Sun King ring again and this time he made sure the needle in the band was fully recessed. It would never do to prick himself with it as he had pricked Fable’s thigh when he slapped him to hide the sting.
The lethal substance was called succinylcholine chloride, a synthetic equivalent of the naturally occurring curare, found in the jungles of South America and used by natives to tip their darts and arrows. In hospitals, tiny amounts were used in a muscle relaxant to keep patients still during delicate operations. Once it had taken effect, the neat alkaloid had quickly paralysed Fable’s entire body, preventing his lungs from functioning, rendering him unable to breathe and yet unable to draw anyone’s attention to the fact that he was slowly dying.
By the time Fable reached the pathologist’s table, Levant knew that the poison would have broken down, leaving it all but impossible to detect. Puncture marks were unavoidable, though, and even if they went undetected, questions would be raised as to how the detective seemingly died from asphyxiation on a park bench in broad daylight. Suffocation and foul play would no doubt be the verdict and Levant did not intend to stay and read about it.
He smiled to himself as he considered that the inspector had had some small triumph in his last moments. Levant’s unresolved business with Jefferson Tayte would have to wait. After all, how could he risk further involvement now? No hunt was worth the hunter, however great the prize, and with the Cornell brothers dead, there was no one left in the game to blame for the demise of Detective Inspector Jack Fable.
Chapter Thirty-One
It was raining by the time Jefferson Tayte arrived at his destination, battered briefcase once again in hand. He had no umbrella but that didn’t bother him; it had only been a short walk from the Underground station and the rain wasn’t heavy. The streets were all the quieter for it, and he liked the way they smelled when the rain first arrived and mixed with the dust. It reminded him of old things, like antique books and boxes of old photographs that hadn’t been opened in a while.
He passed through a pair of tall, iron gates that led onto Inigo Place and he recalled the conversation around the table at Rules restaurant four days ago about technology and its effect on genealogical research. He considered that as records were changing - email instead of letters, photographs on a hard drive instead of the pages of an album - so too were churchyards diminishing: headstones being swallowed whole by urbanisation and cultural progress. The thought saddened him, not least because it made him think of his friend again.
He thought that, like the Ouroboros, the assignment he had taken upon himself when Marcus was murdered, ended where it began: Covent Garden. He walked towards St Paul’s Church between the grey benches that were now empty and wet, through a memorial garden that without the sunshine and the people had lost much of its former vibrancy. Or maybe that was just his melancholy tainting the view.
There seemed to be twice as many steps leading up to the church than he remembered. They felt taller, too, because of his aching leg muscles. He climbed them laboriously, passed the advertisement board for Dido and Aeneas, and went inside. Not far inside. Just far enough to see the black and gold board on the wall that he’d seen when he last left the church after Jean and had fallen behind to read it.
The board commemorated past churchwardens, whose contributions to the Actors’ Church had earned them their place on the list. The dates ranged from 1638, when the church was consecrated, to 1820. Tayte figured there must be another board somewhere covering more recent additions, but this was the only list he was interested in.
He found the name that had previously caught his eye, and to reaffirm what he already knew, he took Marcus Brown’s charts out from his briefcase as he had on the steps outside with Jean the day before. He soon found the match. It was next to the entry for the Reverend Charles Naismith: Oliver Naismith, who according to the list on the wall had been a churchwarden at St Paul’s Church between 1698 and 1709. The charts told him that Oliver was one of Charles Naismith’s twin sons, who had carried his part of the ahnentafel through to the next generation and had been a founder member of the society created to protect it: Quo Veritas.
Tayte slipped the charts back into his briefcase, thinking about Occam’s Razor and the idea that once the ahnentafel was complete, the rest should be easy. Having already seen the connection, he knew that to those Fellows of the Royal Society who had created the puzzle, it was easy. The ahnentafel pointed to Ethelred II, who pointed to St Paul. The fact that Oliver Naismith was churchwarden at St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden would have been apparent to every one of them at the time.
Keep it simple...
Tayte smiled to himself as he went back out into the morning drizzle. It stood to reason that the Fellows needed someone on the inside if they were going to fake a burial, which was what they had to do. He made his way around the church to his right - to the few headstones and memorials that the current churchwarden had told them about. The answer to the puzzle had been right under their noses.
He supposed it was something you either saw right away or you didn’t see at all. And Jean hadn’t seen it. That was why he had seemed so insensitive to the tragedy of the mother who had died giving birth to a daughter who drowned eight years later, and whose father felt so responsible as to believe that he had let her die. Tayte had wanted to get Jean away from that memorial before she saw the truth.
He turned the corner making for that memorial now, sheltering from the rain beneath the trees that seemed to crowd the limited space between the church and the town houses, darkening what was already a dull and forgotten space. He turned another corner, around the north transept, considering as he came to the memorial that the Fellows had chosen its placement well - of course they had, given what was at stake. As he was now sheltered from the elements by the canopy of trees and by the church itself, so was the memorial, giving the inscription the best chance of survival.
Tayte reached into his briefcase and took out his digital camera. Using software to enhance the shadows and highlights, he could make difficult-to-read inscriptions legible, although he didn’t need any help on this occasion. He took several shots of the memorial from different angles and then took out a pad and transcribed the inscription, underlining the subject of the search: Maria Jane Booth. Born February 14th, 1700. Died March 21st, 1708.
It was a lie. Tayte could clearly see that now. He supp
osed the date of birth had been fabricated to remove any association with Anne Stuart, who was not then Queen of England. It would have been easy enough to falsify the date of the mother’s death and the birth of their daughter by a mere three weeks, and it had worked. He and Jean had been looking for a date that matched one of Anne’s failed pregnancies and had found none recorded in any of the Anglican parishes connected to St Paul.
But the date was not the marker.
It was the father’s apparent display of guilt that left Tayte in no doubt that he had found Queen Anne’s heir. He knelt before the inscription and read it again, murmuring the words beneath his breath.
“I let her die.”
He thought about Dr Bartholomew Hutton, who had been Anne’s physician until his execution in 1708 and who, according to Rakesh Dattani at the Royal Society, had a penchant for anagrams. ‘I let her die’ was just that - an anagram of the name the ahnentafel had pointed to: Ethelred II.
Tayte’s eyes drifted to the mother’s name on the memorial, knowing from it that she had died when the child was born. He thought about the timing. To make something like this work, the substitute baby had to be born on the same day as the heir. Dr Hutton would have known when Anne went into labour, but it puzzled him as to how the Booth family - who must have been in on the deceit - could have engineered the birth of their own child to coincide so precisely.
The only answer he could think of was that the mother’s labour had been forced as soon as Dr Hutton gave word. And it had killed her. Tayte considered that the poor child was already forfeit and he supposed the baby would either have died during what must have been an extremely traumatic birth, or had been suffocated immediately afterwards. That was the real tragedy to his mind. He wondered at the lengths this family must have gone to in order to fulfil their part in protecting the Royal Stuart bloodline. Perhaps ‘I let her die’ had a much deeper, truer meaning.
His thoughts wandered. He questioned why there had been any need to feign the child’s death and hide her away, and the answer came quickly to him: 1708. He recalled that the five Fellows of the Royal Society were hanged on the 25th of April, 1708. Maria Booth had apparently died a month earlier.
Were they betrayed? Did they know that they had been discovered?
He thought they must have. The child’s apparent death would deter anyone from looking further if they suspected who she was. And the Fellows’ elaborate ahnentafel puzzle would find her again when the time was right: when science could irrefutably prove her Royal Stuart bloodline.
Tayte stood up, stiff and aching, like his joints were rusty hinges exacerbated by the damp. His eyes remained fixed on the inscription. For all it now seemed to be, it was still nothing more than so many words on a memorial. No genealogist of any repute would take such findings at face value, however good the connections. A good genealogist would go on to confirm his findings.
He supposed that if he looked he would find another burial record for Maria Jane Booth, perhaps in some faraway parish, many miles from the faces that might otherwise have recognised her. It would prove that she had not drowned in the Thames in 1708, but had lived on. He supposed he would find a record of her marriage, too, and baptism records for her own children. And from there he could trace her descendants to the present day heir.
If he chose to.
He considered that his friend’s research was now all but complete, and he questioned whether Marcus would have wanted to take it any further. Tayte couldn’t know for sure. What he did know was that it had proven a deadly game, then and now, and he supposed no good could come from digging deeper. What if he did go on to identify an heir? What if through DNA testing they proved the conspiracy was no theory at all? He had little doubt that he would just be putting more people in danger. “Move on,” Fable had said, and Tayte fully intended to.
He collected his briefcase and headed back out the way he’d come, considering that everyone involved had to believe the heir hunt ended in Shadwell and that Queen Anne’s heir was a lost treasure that could never be found.
And it had worked, hadn’t it?
He looked over his shoulder at the church and wondered if it really had. He scanned the area as he made his way back along Inigo Place to the gates and the main road beyond, and by the time he reached them he was laughing at himself for being so jumpy. As he stepped across the threshold he popped a Hershey’s chocolate into his mouth and left all thoughts of heirs and ahnentafels behind him. He was thinking about buying a new shirt and suit before lunch - thinking about Professor Jean Summer and how much he was looking forward to seeing her again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
She was waiting for him at the bar, gazing absently into the restaurant at nothing in particular, much as she had been at Rules restaurant the first time he’d seen her. The black dress, patent heels and overly bright makeup she’d been wearing when Marcus introduced them had gone in favour of a simple dress, low heels and a cardigan. She had her glasses on, hair tied up, and if she was wearing any makeup at all, it was subtle. Tayte thought the look suited her perfectly.
Something else about her had changed, too. It was something intangible that Tayte couldn’t put his finger on. Perhaps it was because of everything they had been through in the past few days, or maybe it wasn’t her at all. Maybe it was him. He’d never felt protective of anyone in his life - never had to. But he did right now, just looking at her. He was already smiling when she saw him in his new tan suit.
Then she was smiling, too.
“I just got here a few minutes ago,” she said. “Shall we have a drink first?”
“Sure,” Tayte said, wondering why he suddenly felt so nervous.
He put his briefcase down and sat on a stool beside her. They ordered champagne cocktails and as Tayte settled he turned and took the place in. It was an airy, modern interior with polished wood flooring and wire-framed chairs and tables. His eyes were instantly drawn to the windows and the cityscape panorama beyond.
“Great view,” he said, picking out Nelson’s column, Big Ben and the apex of the London Eye.
“Shame about the rain,” Jean said, frowning. “It’s much better on a clear day.”
Despite the grey backdrop and reduced visibility, Tayte thought it looked just fine. They watched the barman make their cocktails and when he set them in front of them they looked at each other as they clinked glasses.
“Here’s to the end of a very eventful week,” Tayte said.
“And good riddance,” Jean added.
Tayte snorted. “Amen to that. So how’s Elliot?”
“Better than I’d expected. He’s back with his father - a little sore, but he’ll mend. We’re spending a few days together next week.”
“That’s great,” Tayte said.
Jean nodded. “It’s too early to hope for much, but we’ll see.” She paused. “And what about you? What did you get up to this morning?” She laughed as she added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you stayed in bed.”
Tayte laughed with her, considering his reply carefully. Jean had every right to know the truth and he wanted to tell her everything he’d done in what he considered to be everyone’s best interest. He wanted to explain how he’d seen what was possibly the only way out of their predicament while they were at St Paul’s in Shadwell, even though it had meant taking a risk as far as Elliot was concerned. He didn’t think she would ever forgive him for that and he wouldn’t blame her. It was something he would face up to someday, but he knew that to tell her everything now could put her life in danger again and that he would not do. As for the current British monarchy, Tayte knew Marcus would have wanted no part in bringing something to light that might ultimately threaten such an institution, however great or small the impact might be, and neither did he. He wasn’t usually one to leave the past unresolved if he could help it, but on this occasion he felt it was the right thing to do.
“I went to see Marcus’s wife Emmy before I came here,” he said. “The funeral’
s tomorrow at ten. I thought I’d stay the rest of the week and fly home Sunday.”
He thought he saw Jean’s eyes open a little wider at hearing that, or maybe he just imagined it. He wanted to see her again. They hadn’t even sat down to lunch yet and he already knew it would not be enough. Sure, he’d see her tomorrow at the funeral, but then what?
“I was just wondering,” he began.
He faltered. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just say it?
He knew why. It was the perennial fear of rejection that had stalked him and taunted him since learning that his own mother hadn’t wanted him.
Why should Jean? What if she says no?
He couldn’t ever recall feeling like this before. Somehow he’d made it to forty and there he was stumbling over feelings that were entirely new to him. He wasn’t sure he liked it, either. It was so much easier to crawl back into his hole, wasn’t it? But he felt light-headed to the point of being giddy and it wasn’t because of the champagne cocktail.
Even my palms are clammy.
“What is it?” Jean asked through her smile.
Tayte sat on his hands and cleared his throat. He was going to do this. He had to.
“I was just wondering,” he said. He was blushing. He could feel the heat in his cheeks. “When will I see you again?” He rushed the words out and immediately thought that he’d had all his life to think of a good line for when it really mattered and all he could come up with was some damn song title.
“Do you want to see me again?”
Tayte smiled and nodded like a puppy in a pound waiting for someone to want him in return. “We never got to see that show Marcus wanted to take us to, did we?”
“Les Mis?”
Tayte nodded again. His mouth was dry. He swallowed hard. “I was wondering if you’d care to see it on Saturday. With me,” he added, like such a caveat might adversely affect her decision.
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