The Lost Empress

by Steve Robinson

  ‘Is there another way out of the apartment besides this door?’ he whispered.

  Davina shook her head. ‘Only the balcony, but it’s a long way down.’

  Tayte eased the door further open and called through the gap.

  ‘Hello?’

  He stepped back again, taking Davina aside with him. If anyone was still in the apartment, he thought he’d rather the intruder knew he was there. He also hoped the person would choose to bolt rather than stick around to fight it out, but no sound followed. Tayte called again, and this time he pushed the door fully open. What he saw made him feel for Davina all the more. He shook his head.

  ‘You don’t want to see this,’ he said, but Davina was already beside him, her mouth agape.

  ‘Who did this?’ she said. She looked close to tears. ‘Why?’

  The place was a mess. Tayte scanned the room, from the internal doors that led off to his left to the glass doors that looked out past the balcony over the river to his right. It seemed as if everything that could be knocked over or flipped upside down had been. The sofa and chair cushions were strewn across the wood flooring, and the dining table had been turned on its side. Even the pictures on the walls were either crooked or lying on the floor below their hooks. Tayte thought the place looked more like a chalk pastel abstract painting than a living space.

  ‘It looks like whoever did this has gone,’ he said, ‘but I should check the rooms, just to be sure. Do you mind?’

  ‘I’d feel safer if you did,’ Davina said, and Tayte could see that she was shaking.

  ‘Do you need to sit down?’

  Davina looked around as if to ask where? ‘No, I’m okay. It’s just the realisation that someone probably was at my house last night, and that whoever it was must have been watching me this morning. He must have followed me here and waited for the opportunity to break in while we were on the boat.’ She shuddered. ‘It gives me the creeps.’

  ‘I’ll call Inspector Bishop,’ Tayte said, reaching for his phone as he began to pick his way through the debris. ‘We’d better not touch anything until he gets here.’

  Soon after Tayte had called DI Bishop, the Inspector arrived at Davina’s apartment with a small forensics team. The Scenes of Crime Officers went straight to work, and after taking a look around the apartment for himself, Bishop led Tayte and Davina back outside.

  ‘I want to be thorough with this,’ Bishop said. ‘The break-in could be linked to your husband’s murder, Mrs Scanlon, so the team will be in there awhile. Shall we grab a coffee?’

  They went to the Marina restaurant, which was quiet now, during that in-between time after lunch and before dinner. The tanned young restaurant manager Tayte had met when he first arrived at the marina seemed to be the only person on duty. He showed them to a table by a window that was like a large round porthole, looking out onto the marina.

  ‘Luca here makes the best coffee, don’t you, Luca?’ Davina said.

  ‘For you, Mrs Scanlon, always my very best,’ Luca said with a practiced smile and an exaggerated Italian accent that seemed to complement his slick persona.

  As soon as Luca left with their order, Bishop got straight down to business. ‘This looks bad just now, but it gives me hope that we’ll catch your husband’s killer, Mrs Scanlon.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean he’s still active—assuming for now that what’s happened here is connected to the case, which I think is a pretty safe bet.’

  ‘He’s clearly looking for something,’ Tayte said.

  Bishop nodded. ‘And that also tells me that your husband’s murder, Mrs Scanlon, wasn’t random. It wasn’t just some burglary attempt gone wrong, as we’d previously supposed. Your husband’s killer wanted something he thought your husband had, but he didn’t get it. He’s still looking.’

  ‘And now he thinks I have it,’ Davina said.

  ‘Seems that way. Do you have any idea what it could be?’

  Davina drew a blank expression. ‘No, none at all. An antique of some kind perhaps? I suppose it would have to be something valuable to kill my husband over it.’

  ‘Given the nature of your business, that would seem to be the obvious answer,’ Bishop said. ‘Was anything of particular value or interest acquired by you or your husband recently?’

  Davina took a moment to think about it. Then she began to shake her head. ‘I can’t be sure whether Lionel had come across anything, of course, but we usually only buy to order, in which case I’d know about it. Our most valuable pieces tend to be items of furniture, but whoever broke into my apartment was clearly looking for something small, or why make such a mess?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s not something with an obvious face value,’ Tayte said.

  Bishop nodded. ‘Whatever it is, it’s clearly valuable to someone for some reason. Was there anything in your apartment that might fit the bill, Mrs Scanlon? Anything that was taken there recently by you or your husband?’

  Again Davina shook her head. ‘We’ve always kept the place quite minimalist. Nothing’s old or worth anything—just some seascape paintings by local artists and a few cheap sculptures, mainly of seabirds. We bought everything new when we bought the apartment.’

  ‘Good,’ Bishop said. ‘So it’s unlikely that whoever broke in got what he came for.’

  ‘I should say it’s highly unlikely,’ Davina said.

  The coffee arrived, momentarily pausing the conversation. When it started up again, Bishop sipped his drink and thoughtfully said, ‘Why now?’ He turned to Tayte. ‘My investigation was in danger of stagnating before you arrived. Then someone runs you off the road.’ He paused and turned to Davina. ‘And now your apartment’s been ransacked, Mrs Scanlon. I mean, whoever did this could have done it weeks ago, so why now?’

  ‘It backs up the idea that all this has something to do with my assignment,’ Tayte said. ‘Something I might turn up if I keep digging.’

  Bishop agreed. ‘But what does any of this have to do with your research into Alice Stilwell? Have you got any ideas yet? If you have, I’d love to hear them.’

  Tayte quickly thought about what he had so far, and even more quickly concluded that he had next to nothing. ‘It’s too early to say, but there are some leads from Davina’s research I want to follow up on. I’d like to find out what I can about the people who were around Alice Stilwell before she boarded that ill-fated ship in 1914.’

  ‘Well, keep at it,’ Bishop said. ‘If whatever you’re looking for really is connected to what our killer’s looking for, maybe he’s worried your research will lead you to it first.’ He turned to Davina then and asked, ‘Is your apartment alarmed? Was it set?’

  ‘Yes, and no,’ Davina said. ‘It has one, but it wasn’t set. The marina has gated security. We never set the alarm while we’re here, only when we leave. That is, Lionel would set it. I’m hopeless when it comes to security. I’m sure there are security cameras, though. Perhaps you could check those.’

  ‘I will, Mrs Scanlon. Who else knows you own an apartment here? I mean, apart from various marina staff and the estate agency you bought it through.’

  ‘Very few people as far as I know,’ Davina said. ‘It was a private weekend retreat, and I wanted to keep it that way.’

  ‘And what about your husband?’ Bishop asked. ‘Do you think he could have told any friends or family members?’

  ‘He might have, I suppose, but not to my knowledge.’

  Tayte was already thinking about Raife Metcalfe. ‘Did any of the Metcalfe family know about it?’

  ‘Not from me,’ Davina said. ‘I’ve told no one except my parents. That’s why I came here this morning after my scare last night.’

  ‘Ah, yes, your prowler,’ Bishop said. ‘I saw the report a few hours ago. You said you were woken at around four this morning and that when you went to your bedroom window, you sa
w someone running across your front lawn.’

  ‘I was beginning to think I’d imagined it until this happened,’ Davina said. ‘As I told JT before you arrived, Inspector, whoever was watching my house last night must have still been there this morning, and he must have followed me here.’ Davina looked suddenly alarmed. ‘Christ,’ she said, standing up. ‘My house . . . I need to go and make sure everything’s okay. Can you drive me there, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Bishop said. ‘You have a house alarm, I suppose?’

  Davina nodded, but there was something apologetic about it.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Bishop said. ‘It wasn’t set either.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. Lionel was always telling me off for not setting it, and I was in such a hurry to come here this morning. I never gave it a thought until now.’

  Bishop knocked his coffee back. To Tayte he said, ‘Do you want to come along?’

  ‘Sure,’ Tayte said. He wasn’t one to abandon people in their hour of need, however much he wanted to get on with the research.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was early evening by the time Davina was allowed back into her apartment. The police had left, but Tayte was still with her, knowing she would be glad of his company for a while longer. Visiting her house near Foxburrow Wood had realised Davina’s fears that it, too, had been broken into earlier that day, and the chaos and sense of violation that had greeted her as she opened her front door and walked into her second nightmare, so soon after the first, made her feel so light-headed she had to sit down for a few minutes.

  It had taken DI Bishop little time to discover that access to the property had been gained through a downstairs window at the back of the house: the glass was broken, and the latch had been lifted in order to fully open the window and climb inside, unobserved and unhindered. Davina’s insurance had covered the twenty-four-hour tradesmen who had promptly been dispatched to make both of her homes secure again.

  ‘You should stay with family tonight,’ Tayte said as soon as the locksmith had left. He was helping Davina straighten the place up, and they had almost finished. Surprisingly, Davina had reported nothing broken.

  ‘I don’t have anyone within two hundred miles of here,’ Davina said as she moved closer, straightening one of the sofa cushions on the way.

  ‘Well, maybe you could stay with friends, or book into a hotel—anywhere but here.’

  ‘I won’t be chased away from my own home, JT. Besides, if whoever did this wanted to harm me, he could have done so last night.’

  Tayte didn’t doubt that was true under the circumstances, and it seemed unlikely to him that anyone would come back to the apartment tonight, especially given that by now the intruder already knew that what he was looking for wasn’t there. He straightened the last of the crooked paintings and said, ‘Okay, so why don’t I come by again in the morning and see how you are?’

  Davina looked horrified by the thought. ‘What about our research?’ She checked her watch. ‘It’s only just after six.’

  Tayte had thought the research would have been the last thing on Davina’s mind right now. He fully intended to continue himself, but he’d supposed, given everything that had happened, that he’d be doing it alone in his hotel room. ‘You want to carry on as if none of this happened?’

  Davina’s eyes widened into a resolute stare. ‘More than ever. What’s happened today has only made me more determined.’

  Tayte liked her spirit, and he wasn’t about to pour cold water over it. He went to his briefcase, which he’d left inside the door, and brought it back with him. ‘Shall we set up at the dining table?’

  Davina gave a small smile—the first Tayte had seen since they’d left her boat that afternoon. ‘Thank you,’ she said, pulling out a chair for Tayte to sit on. ‘I’ve lost my appetite, and I don’t suppose I’ll get it back tonight, but I can order you a take-away later if you’re hungry.’

  All the excitement had made Tayte feel very hungry, but he thought he could hold out until he was back at his hotel. ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘A drink then?’ Davina said. ‘I’m definitely having one of those—probably several. I’ve got wine, gin, Jack Daniels . . .’

  A part of Tayte knew it was a bad idea, but the thought of a JD over ice right now was too much for him to resist. Davina left him briefly and came back with two large tumblers full of ice in one hand and a half full bottle of Jack Daniels in the other. She poured two large measures and raised her glass.

  ‘Cheers,’ Tayte said, and they both took a mouthful. Then as Davina sat beside him at the table, facing the picture windows and the shimmering early evening view of the estuary, he opened his laptop and logged in. ‘We might as well just use mine for now. Can we take a look at that group photo you showed me on the Osprey again?’

  Davina fetched her research files and laid them out on the table. She handed Tayte the photograph showing Alice on her father’s knee, with her mother standing beside them, Oscar Scanlon and his wife Cordelia to the right, Frank Saxby to the left, and a line of highly decorated naval uniforms in the background.

  ‘So, what are we looking for?’ Tayte said. ‘I find it’s good to focus on something specific and see where it leads.’

  ‘You said you were looking to prove that Alice Stilwell and your client’s grandmother, Alice Dixon, were one and the same person.’

  ‘Yes, and if that’s true—as I believe it is—I also want to find out why she felt she had to leave her old life and her young family behind her when the Empress of Ireland sank. Those are the main answers I hope to find—the big picture if you like—but to see it clearly, I think it might help if we first try to put some of the smaller pieces of the puzzle into place.’

  ‘The people in the photo?’ Davina said.

  Tayte tapped the image, nodding thoughtfully. ‘All these people knew Alice. Most of them would have been around her in the years before she’s supposed to have died. What do you know about Alice’s father, Lord Charles Metcalfe?’

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid. As I said earlier, most of my research has been about my husband’s and my direct family history.’ She tapped the image of Cordelia Scanlon née Metcalfe as she finished speaking. ‘My husband’s ancestry is only connected to the Metcalfe family through Oscar Scanlon’s marriage to Alice’s Aunt Cordelia here.’

  ‘I just wondered whether you knew anything about Charles Metcalfe from his descendants, since you’re in touch—whether you’d heard any stories over the years.’

  ‘No, I can’t say I have,’ Davina said as she topped up her drink. ‘He was something of a British bulldog, by all accounts—very patriotic and pro British Empire. He served in the Royal Navy most of his life, extended service in the Admiralty before dabbling in politics after that. What do you know about him?’

  ‘Only as much as Wikipedia and his vital records tell me, and what I’ve learned since arriving in England, which so far isn’t much.’ Tayte entered ‘Lord Charles Metcalfe’ into his Internet browser. ‘The current family’s attitude towards Alice must stem from her father, though. He’s as good a place as any to start digging.’

  The search came back with too many results for Tayte to get interested in anything. Most were for a first baron, Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, who was a British colonial administrator in the early Victorian period.

  ‘It’s not him,’ Tayte said as he added ‘Admiral’ to the search, which brought up the Wikipedia link he’d previously looked at.

  ‘There’s another entry for him,’ Davina said a moment later, pointing a long polished fingernail at an entry partway down the screen.

  ‘House of Commons speeches,’ Tayte said. ‘We could be here all night wading through those for anything useful.’ He ran through the results, page by page, skipping over what appeared to be several minor connections to the Charles Metcalfe they were interested in, most of wh
ich were political. Then he saw a familiar entry that never failed to excite him. ‘Here we are.’ He clicked on the link. ‘The Times Digital Archive. It’s one of my favourite resources.’

  Tayte logged in via his paid subscription to the online newspaper archive that contained scanned images of every complete page from the newspaper dating from recent years back to its creation in 1785. Available to search online for close to a decade, it had helped him to break through many brick walls, and as he finished entering his information and the page he had requested came up, he hoped it might do so again now.

  The article was dated December 1911, which Tayte thought was perhaps a little early to be of any interest. It concerned the Admiralty, in particular a memo from Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time, proposing that, because of the Anglo-German arms race, British merchant ships should be armed for their own protection, in case the need to defend themselves should arise. Reading on, Tayte saw only a passing mention of Charles Metcalfe in connection with the establishment of a committee to explore the matter further.

  ‘That’s no good,’ Tayte said, but he hadn’t expected to get lucky with the first hit. He knew he had to be more specific.

  Returning to the archive’s main search screen, he entered the date range he was interested in, which was between January and June 1914, covering those months of the year up until the date of death on Alice Stilwell’s death certificate—29 May 1914. He entered ‘Charles Metcalfe’ into the search keywords field and clicked the search button. Several entries came back, and most seemed to be in connection with general Admiralty business as before, but not all.

  ‘Admiral Christopher Waverley,’ Tayte said to Davina. ‘You mentioned that name before.’ He brought Davina’s photograph closer and singled out the man standing in the background with white hair and wiry sideburns.

  ‘That’s him,’ Davina said. ‘It looks like his obituary.’

  ‘It is.’ Tayte quickly found the entry in the right-hand column of the scanned newspaper page he was looking at.