Letters from the Dead (Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery Book 7)

by Steve Robinson

  Tayte followed Sinclair and Murray into the tunnel, stooping so low that he felt as if he were bent double at times. Apart from the cobwebs and the occasional spider, there wasn’t much to see beyond Murray’s back and the stone floor and walls, which were stained with rusty brown streaks where the rainwater had soaked through over time. He could hear dripping sounds and he imagined he might see a rat or two at any minute.

  They kept going, shuffling along at a steady pace until Sinclair called out from the front.

  ‘I can see the opening.’

  Tayte had been aware that they were rising all the time, gradually climbing to ground level. The air became fresher, and he could soon hear the wind and the rain in the trees outside. It was suddenly brighter, and then he came to a few steps that ran up to a horizontal iron gate. He heard it being pushed open with a low rusty squeal, and he was soon following Murray up and out into the daylight and the shelter of the woods. He could make out the house through the gaps in the trees and hear the nearby course of the burn that was swollen from all the rain.

  Sinclair was holding something out. ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘It’s been cut through.’ It was a length of old chain, which had clearly been used to secure the gate. ‘It’s more evidence, as if any were needed, that someone’s been using this old tunnel to gain access to the house.’

  ‘Callum Macrae’s as guilty as sin, if you ask me,’ Murray said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’s been stealing things from the house, too.’

  ‘Aye,’ Sinclair said. ‘He told me my brother’s debt to him was now my debt.’ He handed the length of chain to Murray. ‘Make all this secure. Then come and join us for some lunch.’

  As Tayte followed Sinclair back down into the tunnel, he wondered about Callum Macrae. He still thought it odd that he would use his own phone to send that text message. It was a foolish mistake to make, and Tayte didn’t think that whoever was behind this would do such a thing unless he intended to. That person, Macrae or otherwise, had a plan, and that worried Tayte.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  They had buttered bread rolls and a dish called Cullen skink for lunch, a thick soup of smoked haddock, potatoes and onions. It was a favourite of Jamie’s, according to Sinclair, so on the day of his funeral Murray had prepared it in his honour. All Sinclair had to do was warm it up and butter the rolls. As they ate, Tayte brought Sinclair up to date with his research, letting him know how things had turned out for Sir John Christie, courtesy of the records he’d found among Gordon Drummond’s files. As keen as he was to continue trying to establish what Jane had done with the Blood of Rajputana, he was never at his best on an empty stomach, and he sensed that Sinclair wanted his and Murray’s company on this day of all days.

  Murray was sitting opposite Tayte at the dining table, still eating. He’d joined him and Sinclair part way through their meal, having secured the door in the old wine cellar with planks of wood that he’d nailed to the frame, making sure no one could use it. He was about to put another spoonful of soup into his mouth when the house phone rang in the hall. He started to get up, but Sinclair stopped him.

  ‘Finish your lunch, Murray,’ he said. ‘I’ll get it.’

  When Sinclair returned with the phone, he sat down again and told the caller, ‘Hold on a moment, I’m just putting you on speaker. I think this is something we all need to hear.’ To Tayte and Murray, he added, ‘It’s Inspector Ross.’ He pressed a button and set the phone down on the table. ‘Alastair, could you repeat what you’ve just told me.’

  ‘I said Callum Macrae is dead,’ Ross said. ‘We managed to triangulate the signal from his phone. It led us to his garage where we found his body, which, I might add, he clearly wanted us to find.’

  ‘How did he die?’ Sinclair asked.

  ‘He appears to have killed himself with what I suspect is the same shotgun he used on Ewan Blair. Perhaps you can tell me if it’s the one that’s missing from Drumarthen. It’s engraved with the same maker’s name—MacNaughton, Edinburgh—and there’s a small chip above the trigger on the right-hand side of the stock.’

  Murray gave Sinclair a nod. ‘Aye, that sounds just like the one we’re missing.’

  ‘Are you sure he killed himself?’ Tayte asked.

  ‘I’m not entirely sure of anything just now,’ Ross said, ‘but he left a note. It was beneath his mobile phone on the desk he was sitting at when he pulled the trigger. The shotgun was on the floor between his legs.’

  ‘Can you tell us what the note said?’ Sinclair asked.

  ‘As his mother’s already dead, I don’t see why not. It said they were all guilty—that they had it coming to them.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Tayte said. ‘Nothing else? No reason why he decided to kill himself? I thought he wanted the ruby—the Blood of Rajputana.’

  ‘That’s all it says, Mr Tayte. Maybe he wanted us to think it was about the ruby to confuse what he was really up to. I don’t know. There could be more to it. We found another of Jane Hardwick’s letters on his desk, just as that text message you received said there would be.’

  ‘The last letter,’ Tayte said. ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘Not the original,’ Ross said. ‘I’ve taken a photo, though, as I did before. I’d have brought it over, but forensics have found something I need to look at. I’ll text the photo through to you shortly. Maybe it’ll help you find that ruby.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ Tayte asked. ‘I mean, if Macrae was behind this, surely it’s over.’

  ‘Just keep going for now, Mr Tayte. Maybe there’s more to it. Now, I have to be going.’

  ‘Did Callum kill my Jamie?’ Sinclair asked before Ross was able to end the call. ‘Can you tell me that?’

  ‘I really don’t know, Damian. I’m sorry.’

  With that, the call ended and Tayte sat back with a sigh, unsure what to make of this recent turn of events. As he saw it, there were too many possibilities to contemplate. Had this been Macrae’s plan all along, a simple matter of revenge for reasons yet to be established? Or had Macrae been working with someone else, who had now staged his murder to make it look like suicide? For that matter, his apparent suicide could just as well have been staged by whoever was really behind all this, simply to draw attention and make it look as if it were all over. But what of the Blood of Rajputana? Was it really all just a decoy?

  Tayte didn’t think so. That the killer felt he had a strong motive to want his victims dead, Tayte didn’t doubt, but he also believed that where there was the promise of such great wealth as the Blood of Rajputana offered, there was also the propensity for greed. There was no question in Tayte’s mind that someone still wanted that ruby.

  His phone beeped. He took it out and checked the display. ‘It’s the text from Detective Ross,’ he said as he opened it. ‘It’s the last of Jane Hardwick’s letters.’ He studied the image, expanding it so that he could see it more clearly. ‘It’s dated August 1823,’ he said. ‘Four months after the previous letter.’ He cleared his throat, and then he read the letter out.

  My dearest brother,

  I must apologise for not having written to you sooner following the terrible events of April, and for the brevity of this letter now that at last I have, but I have fallen on difficult times. Following the death of my good friend, the Lady Elspeth, and of our daughter, Arabella—for that is how I came to know and love her—I have been forced to seek alternative accommodations, altho’ I was permitted to remain at the residency long enough to attend their coffins and do what had to be done. My change of fortune as a result of leaving the residency has taxed me greatly, having necessitated the need to find work so that I might earn my living expenses. I am well, however, and have now taken a position with a respected Jaipur family, providing translation services, for which I am most humbly grateful.

  Of Sir John Christie, I have little news, having seen him but once since I left the residency. It was at the funeral service, and I must report that his demeanour was understandabl
y as wretched as my own, as first Elspeth’s and then Arabella’s coffins were laid together in a quiet corner of the British cemetery here in Jaipur, where I am informed a fitting tomb is to be erected. I have also heard that Sir John was removed from office soon afterwards. What will become of him I do not know, and for himself I suspect he no longer cares.

  I find myself racked with guilt over everything that has happened. Could I have said or done anything which might have altered this most tragic course of events? I can only imagine how these thoughts must continually torture Sir John, and I hope in God that he soon finds his peace. How different things might have turned out had Arabella not been denied the love of her young sowar-prince. How all this could have been prevented if Naresh Bharat Singh had been allowed to continue his journey the night he came to elope with Arabella. But their hearts are together again now. That much I have seen to.

  Dearest brother, I regret to say that I shall not see you again. I have decided to remain in India, as there is much need of education here, and in truth I have never felt a greater sense of belonging anywhere on this earth. Time will judge my decision, but for now I am sure of it. To-morrow I am to take my first English language student, and it is my hope that this vocation will flourish in me and continue to do so for many years to come. All that remains is for me to wish you a good night, and ask that you do not worry over me. I shall write again soon.

  Your loving sister,

  Jane Hardwick

  Tayte lowered his phone. ‘Do what had to be done,’ he said, slowly repeating Jane’s words. ‘What do you make of that?’

  ‘Last respects?’ Murray offered. ‘Maybe she just means she had to look at their faces one last time before their coffins were sealed.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Sinclair said, ‘but what of that last part? I think it must be significant.’

  ‘So do I,’ Tayte said, aware that he was expecting to find some clue from this letter, the last letter, as to what Jane did with the ruby. ‘Their hearts are together again,’ he added. ‘She can’t mean in the spiritual sense because she goes on to say that she’s seen to it herself. That sounds more physical to me, but how could she possibly accomplish that? Naresh Bharat Singh wouldn’t have been interred with Arabella. His body would have been taken to his brother in Kishangarh. I don’t think the line can be taken literally.’

  ‘So she’s speaking metaphorically,’ Sinclair said.

  ‘Yes, and if this is about the ruby, as it almost certainly is, then we can suppose it’s the ruby that Jane’s really referring to here.’ A moment later Tayte threw his head back and smiled as the obvious answer suddenly struck him. ‘We know from her letter that Jane didn’t sell the Blood of Rajputana because she says she had to go out and earn a living after she left the residency. So she has the ruby, which she takes to represent Bharat Singh’s heart. He was bringing it to Arabella the night he was murdered. It was meant for her. When it fell into Jane’s hands she made sure no one else would have it—no one but Arabella, as her young sowar-prince had intended.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sinclair said. ‘By doing what had to be done in Jane’s eyes, by placing the ruby as the representation of Bharat Singh’s heart inside Arabella’s coffin, she was seeing to it that in a manner of speaking their hearts were brought together again.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Tayte said. ‘The Blood of Rajputana was entombed with Arabella. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. That has to be what Cornelius Dredger drew from these letters, and what Sir Robert Christie clearly came to believe, enough for him to have killed Dredger before travelling to India in search of it.’

  Tayte was now all the more keen to continue his research. He stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’m going up to my room to explore this further.’

  Sinclair rose with him. ‘Perhaps we could explore it together. Why don’t you bring your laptop down here?’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Tayte said, glad to know that Sinclair remained keen to continue in light of what DI Ross had just told them. Whether this was over or not, he wanted to see it through. It was the only way to be sure.

  When Tayte returned to the dining room with his laptop, Sinclair was waiting for him, having set two chairs closely side by side for them to work at. Murray was no longer there.

  ‘Didn’t Murray want to join us?’ Tayte asked.

  Sinclair pulled his cardigan sleeves up over his forearms, as if keen to get stuck into the research. ‘He’s giving the dishes a quick wash. He said he had some clearing up to do after securing that door in the old wine cellar, too. There’s always something for him to do around here, I doubt we’ll see him again before suppertime.’ He paused and eyed Tayte with enthusiasm. ‘Now, where do we start?’

  Tayte sat down and fired up his laptop, wondering just that. ‘First of all, I think we need to determine whether Sir Robert Christie’s travels in India in 1870 were a success.’

  ‘By which you mean, did he manage to find the Blood of Rajputana?’

  ‘Exactly. It’s something I’ve wondered before, of course, but until I read the last of Jane’s letters, I didn’t really know where to begin trying to answer that question. Now, on the other hand, we know everything from Jane’s letters that Christie knew. If the ruby really was entombed with Arabella Christie in 1823, as we’re supposing from her letters, then that has to be the best place to start.’

  ‘Aye,’ Sinclair agreed. ‘Jane’s letters would have led him to the British cemetery in Jaipur. But how do you propose to discover whether Robert was there?’

  ‘I don’t think we have to prove whether Robert was there or not,’ Tayte said as he began tapping the keys on his laptop. ‘It’s the ruby we’re interested in, or rather where the ruby was.’

  ‘Inside Arabella’s tomb.’

  ‘Precisely. The way I see it, that’s all we need to focus on. If Robert’s trip was a success, he’d have had to partake in a little grave-robbing. That kind of thing doesn’t usually go unnoticed, especially when it concerns the graves of prominent families such as the Christies.’

  Tayte accessed a website he’d used to good effect before when looking into Robert Christie—the Families In British India Society, known as FIBIS. He navigated to the section inviting him to ‘Browse Records’ and clicked on the FIBIS database folder entitled ‘Cemeteries, monuments and memorial inscriptions.’

  ‘That has to be as good a place as any to start,’ he said.

  When he clicked on the folder he was presented with a list of possible locations to search. He scrolled down, and was pleased to see there was a folder for Jaipur. He opened it. There were two items: ‘All Saints, Jaipur’ and ‘Jaipur Graves.’ The first was clearly a church, the second perhaps a general list of graves in the area.

  Sinclair was closely following the information with Tayte. ‘It’s a pity Jane Hardwick’s letter didn’t mention the name of the church she attended for Arabella and Elspeth’s funeral.’

  ‘There are only two options,’ he said. ‘It shouldn’t take long to check them out.’

  He clicked on the first, which presented him with sixty-four results. The year he was interested in was 1823, so to save time he quickly scanned the rightmost column, which bore the heading ‘Date of Death.’

  ‘That’s no good,’ he said a moment later. ‘The oldest records here are from the 1870s.’

  ‘Maybe All Saints Church hadn’t long been built by then,’ Sinclair offered.

  Tayte nodded. Then he tried the file for ‘Jaipur Graves,’ hoping for better luck. He frowned when he saw that there were only twenty-one records, the oldest being from 1863, which was forty years too late to be of any interest.

  ‘Now what?’ Sinclair asked.

  ‘Now we try another angle. It’s possible that the year we’re interested in is just too far back for this area. It would have been good to find a burial entry for Arabella Christie, which would have given us the name of the graveyard we’re interested in, thus helping to narrow down our further search
es, but it may not matter.’

  Tayte went back to the ‘Browse Records’ section, and this time he opened the ‘Publications’ folder. Inside that was another folder with the heading ‘Newspapers and periodicals.’

  ‘I think it’s safe to assume that Robert Christie wasn’t caught in the act,’ he said, ‘or I doubt he’d have made it safely back home again, which we know he did.’

  ‘He’s entombed in my basement,’ Sinclair said.

  ‘Exactly, so there’s no use searching for Robert Christie by name. What we’re looking for is an event from the time he was there. He arrived in Bombay in April 1870. Allowing several months for his onward journey overland to Jaipur, he’d have arrived late in 1870, or perhaps even early in 1871. It’s possible that one of the news publications of the time reported an incident.’

  There were twenty-six newspapers and periodicals listed. Tayte scanned them, looking for anything that might be related to Jaipur or Rajputana. He saw publications for Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, but nothing specifically for Jaipur. There were publications which covered India in general, such as The Times of India and Allen’s Indian Mail, but when he looked at those he quickly came to realise that he was looking in the wrong place for the type of information he was after.

  ‘These entries are all for births, marriages and deaths,’ he told Sinclair. ‘I don’t think the FIBIS organisation is going to be able to help us this time.’ He opened another Internet browser. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen an online archive for Allen’s Indian Mail, though. It’s worth taking a look.’

  He ran another search, entering the name of the publication along with the first of the two years he was now interested in: 1870. The top result showed free access via Google Books to content that had been provided by the Bavarian State Library. He clicked it, and within seconds he was looking at the title page of the first publication that year, which was on Wednesday, 5 January 1870.

  ‘Search in this book,’ Sinclair said, pointing to the option on the left side of the screen.