‘Spies?’ Davina said.
‘It all fits, doesn’t it? It’s clear that Alice got hold of a notebook that belonged to Frank Saxby, which he desperately wanted back. She was being forced to spy on her country, and there’s Saxby in the middle of it all. I can only believe from all this that Alice came to learn more than she should have about the people who were pulling her strings. The only questions in my mind now are what was written in that notebook, and why would anyone kill your husband for it today?’
‘Whoever did kill Lionel must have thought he had it with him that night.’
‘That telegram certainly could have led someone to believe he did. Perhaps Lionel had shown it to someone.’
‘I suppose it’s possible, but I can’t think who would be interested in seeing it, or why.’
‘Any of the Metcalfe family?’
Davina smiled. ‘You’re clutching at straws again, JT. If you’re suggesting Raife Metcalfe, I should remind you that he and my husband didn’t really get on with one another, and Raife was with his wife and me at dinner the night Lionel was murdered.’
Tayte gave a thoughtful nod, wondering perhaps whether the telegram and the notebook were somehow behind the reason why Lionel and Raife fell out. But as Davina had just reminded him, Raife had a solid alibi that night. He wondered then who else had both the motive and opportunity, and he figured it had to be someone Lionel knew. He thought about Dean Saxby. There was no question that he and Lionel Scanlon were acquainted. His story about the cigar case had checked out, and he’d even provided Bishop with information he hoped would prove useful to the case, if only for the reward money. But had he told them everything about what happened the day he went to see Lionel Scanlon?
Tayte couldn’t dismiss the fact that Dean Saxby was Frank Saxby’s great-great-grandson, either. Items that appeared to be connected with Lionel Scanlon’s murder had been handed down through the Scanlon family, so why not the Saxby family, too? Was there something else from the past that Dean had neglected to tell them about? His and Lionel’s ancestors had been business partners, and their partnership had literally gone up in flames, claiming the lives of several factory workers. Did a motive for murder exist somewhere in the ashes? Tayte heaved a sigh and concluded that the only way he had any chance of working out who had killed Lionel Scanlon was to first understand why, and to do that he needed the notebook, to understand what it contained.
‘If the notebook still exists today,’ Tayte said, ‘and someone clearly seems to believe it does, where could it be?’ He was thinking aloud, but he thought that if Davina had any ideas he’d be glad to hear them. ‘How could a notebook survive for a hundred years? What kind of environment is conducive to protecting something like that in the longer term?’
The most likely answer came to both of them at the same time, perhaps because such things were always on Tayte’s mind on account of his profession, and because of the research he and Davina were currently embroiled in.
‘An archive,’ they said, turning to one another as they spoke, wearing similar expressions that were as much to suggest it was obvious.
‘Or it could just as well be tucked away in a box in someone’s attic,’ Tayte added.
‘Yes, it could,’ Davina agreed. A moment later she laughed to herself. ‘Actually, my husband would have favoured that answer. “It’s amazing what you can find in the forgotten spaces of the world” he’d say.’ She laughed again. ‘Plenty of which has ended up in his workshop over the years, I can tell you.’
That notion set Tayte wondering. ‘Do you think the notebook could be tucked away somewhere at your husband’s workshop?’
Davina shook her head. ‘It’s possible, but I shouldn’t think so. It’s the only place associated with Lionel and me that hasn’t been broken into since Lionel’s murder.’
‘Perhaps by the time the killer left your husband’s workshop, he already believed it wasn’t there, but I don’t see how he could be certain.’
‘No, and nothing much was disturbed that night, although I’m sure the police searched the place quite thoroughly. They can’t have known what my husband’s killer was looking for, though.’
‘Do you want to go and take a look?’
‘Why not?’ Davina said. ‘We’ve a few hours of daylight left, and it’s too early to eat. You don’t mind if we have dinner again this evening, do you?’
‘Not in the least.’
Tayte picked up his drink and finished what little was left. He hadn’t imagined he’d be going anywhere else that night, other than to his bed, or he’d have had a cola. ‘I’ll get reception to call us a taxi.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
By the time they arrived at the workshop-cum-warehouse where Lionel Scanlon had once breathed new life into the old furniture it had been his passion to restore, the sun had dipped below the woodland trees that backed on to the old building, casting the yard before it into shadow. Tayte and Davina left the taxi and crossed the yard to the click of Davina’s heels as she tried to keep pace with Tayte’s long strides. Taking the area in, he thought it no surprise that Lionel Scanlon’s killer had gone about his nefarious business unseen. The woodland shielded the building on one side, and to the other a flyover gave few people cause to pass by. There was a street where the taxi had dropped them off, but it was quiet and set far enough back as to be of little concern to anyone intent on breaking into the property. They reached the gate-like double doors, and Davina unlocked the deadbolts and the heavy padlock that secured them.
‘You go first, JT. There’s a light switch just inside on your right.’
Tayte entered and found the switch. When the lights came on, he almost jumped out of his skin as an eight-foot-tall grizzly bear swiped a claw at him, or so he’d imagined for the briefest of moments.
‘Sorry,’ Davina said, turning off the alarm. She looked as if she was trying not to smile. ‘I should have warned you. Lionel picked him up at auction, goodness knows how many years ago, and we’ve been stuck with him ever since.’
‘Not much call for antique taxidermy in the Medway area?’
‘You could say that.’
They moved further into the high-ceilinged building, which seemed to accommodate more floor space than had been apparent from the outside. Looking around, Tayte saw a potential Aladdin’s cave of treasures, few items of which he imagined held much value to a burglar in their present state. It was mostly furniture, with other large items such as antique fire surrounds and chandeliers, old picture frames, and an assortment of stone carvings in various states of disrepair. All of which must have aroused their buyer’s interest at some time, but which—like the bear—had yet to find another home.
‘I’ve not been down here much since it happened,’ Davina said. ‘Apart from anything the police might have disturbed, everything should be the same as it was when Lionel . . .’ She paused, unable to finish the sentence.
Tayte rested a hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, knowing how difficult it must be for her to come back to the scene of her husband’s murder—to stand so close to where Lionel was killed. ‘We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.’
Davina sniffed. ‘No, I’ll be fine, and I do want to. I have to face up to it.’ She moved further in, brushing a hand gently over the things she passed, as if stirring fond memories.
‘Where do we start?’ Tayte said, looking around at all the possible places a notebook could be hidden.
‘Why don’t we take half the room each? You go that way, and I’ll look over here.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
Tayte moved off to his left as Davina began to rummage among the things to his right. He came to a trunk, which he opened and found empty. He felt around inside it and tapped the base, hoping to discover whether it had a secret bottom, but he quickly decided it did not. It was beside a tall set
of drawers—a Wellington chest that, as with everything else, had seen better days. He removed the drawers one at a time in case anything had been taped to the back, but he found nothing. Moving on, he put his hands inside every opening and drawer he came to, scrutinising everything in his path until an hour or more had passed in fruitless pursuit of a notebook he was fast coming to believe wasn’t there.
‘I think you were right,’ he called to Davina. ‘There’s not much else I can check this side.’ There were several other items, and he continued to explore them, but he knew it wouldn’t take more than ten minutes to satisfy himself that they had gone there in vain.
‘Same here,’ Davina said as she came over. ‘Still, it was worth a look.’
Tayte was standing beside a motley collection of antique photographic equipment, some of which he thought must date back to the late 1800s. There was an assortment of smaller cameras, all chipped and tacky with dust. The jewels of the collection—if such a comparison could be made in their present state—appeared to be a pair of mahogany and brass bellows cameras on wooden tripods, complete with dark cloths hanging off their backs.
‘Lionel had a passion for collecting old cameras at one time,’ Davina said. ‘He wound up with far more lost causes than he could ever hoped to have restored.’ She picked one of them up—a Kodak Box Brownie—and opened the case. ‘He had his great-grandfather to thank for that.’
‘Oscar Scanlon?’ Tayte said with interest.
Davina nodded. ‘Lionel told me once that Oscar had a studio in Maidstone. Some of his equipment remained in the family and was handed down, sparking Lionel’s interest.’
Tayte went to one of the tripods and put his head under the dark cloth. He turned the camera to Davina as he looked into the apparatus, and saw her upside down, which amused him enough to draw a small laugh.
‘I’m sure the camera on that other tripod used to belong to Oscar.’
Tayte studied it briefly. Then he threw the cloth over his head as he had before. ‘Now hold perfectly still, ma’am,’ he said in an old Wild West accent, playing the part of the kind of photographer he imagined would have used such equipment back home. When he couldn’t see an image, upside down or otherwise, he came out from under the dark cloth, thinking the front lens cap must have been on, but there was no cap.
He threw the cloth forward over the camera body, exposing the back. It was a wet plate camera, and he thought an old plate must have still been in there, obstructing the view, but there was no plate either. The back was exposed, and now he could clearly see the problem. Inside the body of the camera was a cloth parcel, which he took to contain no more than a collection of items necessary for the camera’s upkeep—until he removed it and unwrapped the material. It was a set of photographs.
Davina came closer. ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t exactly know,’ Tayte said, studying the first image. Whatever it was, it was incomplete. He looked at the next image, which was similar. ‘Words,’ he added. Then as he looked at another image, he felt a tingle of excitement run through him. ‘I think they’re photographs of a document.’
He went to a nearby pedestal desk and spread the photographs out on the faded leather inlay. There were twenty images in all, and they didn’t appear to be in any kind of order, but some clearly had edges, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He went through them and sorted those with edges from those without. Distinct corners could also be seen, and he was quickly able to put them in place, using the orientation of the words to guide him. When he’d matched the left side, he could see that the image coming to light wasn’t so much a document, but another, much older photograph of a document.
‘It looks as though someone’s taken all these pictures to magnify the original,’ he said as he continued to set the pieces of the puzzle in place. ‘Lionel?’
‘I suppose so, or perhaps his father. I’ve never seen them before.’
The image forming in front of them was not that clear, but it was legible. Judging by the paper and the degree of fading, Tayte thought the photographs must have been taken during the 1970s or 1980s, and it seemed likely that they were taken in order to preserve and expand the original, which by now might otherwise have perished. It led Tayte to wonder, as he had with the telegram, why the original had been preserved at all, and why it had been kept in the Scanlon family all this time.
He found another match and turned to Davina. ‘Most secret,’ he said, drawing her attention to the words.
Davina leaned in and set another piece into place in the bottom right-hand corner. It contained a signature. ‘ “Charles Metcalfe,” ’ she read. ‘ “For and on behalf of the Board of Admiralty.” ’
‘So the clues reveal themselves,’ Tayte said under his breath.
Davina looked puzzled. ‘How on earth did Lionel come by such a thing?’
‘I think that signature goes some way to explaining it. Oscar Scanlon was living at Hamberley when this document was signed. Perhaps it was drawn up and signed at Hamberley, or maybe it was with Charles Metcalfe at his home at some point—long enough for Oscar to take a photograph of it, as has clearly happened.’
Tayte was more intrigued than ever now to know why someone had gone to such lengths to keep the image of this particular document in the family. He continued to put the photographs together, and once the outside of the puzzle was complete, it was only a matter of minutes before the full picture could be seen. Tayte’s eyes were immediately drawn to the name near the top of what was evidently a photograph of a naval court of enquiry—a court martial, where after the outbreak of war, civilians could be tried under the Defence of the Realm Act. It showed a schedule and a summary of evidence against Francis Edwin Saxby, who, on 20 July 1914, was charged with high treason for spying. On the right-hand side it showed a verdict of guilty and the sentence of ‘death by being shot,’ together with another signature confirming that the sentence had been carried out on 5 August 1914.
‘Oh my goodness,’ Davina said, as she seemed to realise what she was looking at. ‘This explains the significance of Saxby’s date of death, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, it does,’ Tayte said, wondering whether Alice had played an anonymous hand in Saxby’s arrest. Perhaps she had tipped off the authorities at some point. Tayte liked to think she had, and he couldn’t imagine Alice would sit back and let the man go unpunished for what he had done—and what he might have gone on to do if she had not. However the arrest came about, Frank Saxby had clearly been uncovered for the spy he was.
Tayte began to read the summary details, which was heavy going given the quality of the images and their disjointed nature. The summary of evidence showed that following Saxby’s arrest on Tuesday, 7 June, various incriminating items were found at his home, such as the materials required to write invisible messages and an envelope bearing an address in Antwerp, Belgium, that was known to the Secret Service Bureau as that of Mr Dierks, one of several men involved in the recruitment of spies for Germany’s spy network. Also found was an Enfield revolver with thirty rounds of ammunition. Tayte came to another section that detailed a further discovery made after Saxby’s arrest.
‘The notebook,’ Tayte said. He pointed to one of the photographs below the section he’d just been reading. ‘It’s mentioned right here.’ He read out the salient points. ‘ “A coded notebook containing names and addresses was also found on the suspect’s person.” ’
‘Names and addresses,’ Davina repeated. ‘Do you think that’s what my husband’s killer is after?’
‘It’s possible, but only his killer or the notebook itself can tell us why, and I think I now know where it is.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, and it’s no wonder I couldn’t find anything when I looked online, given its “most secret” classification. This was all carried out in camera—a private court martial led by Admiral Lord Charles Metcalfe, presumably becaus
e he wanted to oversee Saxby’s punishment personally because of his betrayal not only of his country but of the man who had been his lifelong friend. There’s only one place that notebook can be—the non-public Security Intelligence Service archive in London. The notebook should still be there, along with all the other evidence against Saxby.’
‘But if it’s non-public, how can we get to see it?’
Tayte smiled. ‘DI Bishop,’ he said, thinking about the file on Alice Stilwell that Bishop had previously been granted access to. ‘He’s conducting a murder investigation, and that notebook would appear to be a vital piece of evidence. The time that’s lapsed between then and now is also in our favour.’ Tayte started gathering the photographs together. ‘I’ll call him first thing in the morning and explain everything. Maybe I can accompany him to London to see it.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
By three o’clock the following afternoon, Tayte was back at his hotel, waiting for Davina to pick up his call so he could share his good news with her. DI Bishop had just dropped him off after their trip to the government’s SIS archive in London that morning, and he was keen now to get to work on bringing whoever was responsible for Lionel Scanlon’s murder to justice. The call rang for the umpteenth time, and he was about to hang up when a breathless voice answered.
‘Hello.’
‘Davina? It’s JT.’
‘JT! Sorry about that. I had my hands full. I was just taking some boxes out to the car. How did it go?’
‘It went very well,’ Tayte said. ‘Inspector Bishop made a few calls, and I imagine a bunch of other people made a few more calls. It was pretty much as I said last night. The release of information is considered on a case-by-case basis. As Frank Saxby’s file contained information that was deemed useful to a current murder investigation, that was all the justification needed to see it. Everything the SIS had on Saxby was waiting for us in a reading room outside the SIS archive when we arrived. I have the notebook with me now.’
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