In the Blood (39 page)

Laity was wary of getting too close.
 
His aim was to lie offshore where several small craft were already enjoying the morning.
 
Out there he hoped to draw no lingering attention to himself.
 
He would follow the serrated coastline as it rose to Nare Head and the cliffs beyond, just close enough to keep an eye on the launch and to know where they planned to go ashore.
 
Then he would follow them in.
 
He knew the Lizard’s serpentine coast well, from land and sea; knew there were no other inlets or creeks to hide in even if he had to follow them all the way to Lizard Point.

But they did not venture far.
 
Their pace was steady to Nare Cove - a particularly jagged tear of coastline - and there amongst the rocks they came to a full stop.
 
Laity thought he must have been spotted, wondering if the launch had stopped just to see if he continued his course.
 
So he passed them by, heading further south, knowing that on a clear morning like this he would have no trouble keeping them in sight.

The launch did not move.
 
Ten minutes passed and still they remained at Nare Cove.
 
Waiting.
 
But for what?
Laity wondered.
 
He considered that they could be waiting for someone else.
 
Then another reason struck him.
 
He’s waiting for the tide.

Laity was a walking tide-table.
 
He checked his watch.
 
It was a little after eleven.
 
High water had long passed and the tide, though still above the median, was on its way out.
 
It would be a few hours yet before low water, when Nare Cove would expose its sandy skin and its jagged claws.

Laity heaved a weighted sigh and relaxed for the first time all morning.
 
He was confident that time was on his side; sure the launch would remain in the area for now.
 
He took his boat back towards the mouth of the Helford River and the confusion of craft coming and going.
 
Then north towards Rosemullion Head, out of sight for a while to dispel any notion that he might be following the launch.

When he returned, the launch was still there and Laity kept going, pretending to fish that stretch of water as he often did.
 
He continued down to Porthallow and waited several minutes before heading back for another sweep.
 
As he approached Nare Cove again, peering over the side of the bow canopy for a better look, he knew he’d waited at Porthallow too long.
 
The motor launch was gone, no trace of it to be seen.

Chapter Forty-Eight

S
he had been there no more than a few minutes, yet Amy could already feel the cold cave air creeping over her like an icy mist.
 
Worse was the promise that the tide would soon return to drench her and she would be colder still.
 
She stood staring at the bright slit of daylight at the cave entrance, knowing that by late afternoon when the sun fell into the west, what light it afforded her would be gone altogether.

The sand felt cool and damp against her clothing as her captor pulled her to the ground by the rusting chain around her waist.
 
Behind her she could hear the familiar clanking of more heavy chains being fastened, securing her to the rock she was forced to sit against.
 
She felt the chains yank, testing her bonds, pulling her uncomfortably close to him.
 
The man paused as though savouring the intimacy.
 
Then he stood away at last, crouching beneath the jagged cave roof, snatching up his torch and turning the soft up-lit glow into a flickering beam that danced as he moved, lighting rough walls that were no more than ten feet apart.

As Amy continued to monitor the unchanging slit of light at the cave entrance, she reflected on what she’d seen back at Gillan Harbour: the rowing boat Tayte had been standing in one minute.
 
The shattered timbers raining down over the water like matchsticks the next.
 
She felt hopelessly alone again, believing for the first time that she, like Gabriel, would never be found.

The man returned.
 
“I know this is uncomfortable for you,” he said, “but it will all be over very soon now.”
 

Then what?
Amy thought.

His torch-beam was suddenly in her face.

 
“If today goes well,” he added, “you’ll be out of here long before the tide gets anywhere near that pretty head of yours.”

The light flicked away again, towards the back of the cave, and Amy watched the man follow after it, crouching low over broken beer bottles until he was forced to crawl.
 
At the cave’s tight and tapered innermost point the light came to rest on a box Amy knew well.
 
Her captor was lying prone in that cramped space.
 
She saw him produce a letter and the sounds he made while reading it told Amy that he liked what he read.
 
But she quickly sensed the change in his mood.
 
The man picked up the box and opened it, turning it in his hands.
 
He felt inside it like he expected it to contain something more than was evident.
 
She knew his frustration had peaked when he slammed the box down again and thrust the letter inside.
 
Then he snapped the lid shut with such force that Amy thought she heard it splinter.

His bitter sigh lingered in the air and she smiled to herself.
 
She knew this man was not getting everything his way and all the while that was true she hoped to retain some value to him.
 
She heard broken glass and the crunch of damp sand as he returned then the torchlight was back in her face.

“It seems I may have been a little hasty with your new American friend,” the man said.
 
“Do you think he knew what was so special about that box you found?”

Amy tried her best to ignore him.
 
Even if she could speak through the tight gag at her mouth, she had no words for this man she had once trusted.

“Or was he holding something else back?” he said to himself.
 
“There must have been more in there?”

He dropped to his knees and held the torchlight on Amy’s face, forcing her to shut her eyes.
 
“I’d call him and ask, but of course I can’t now, can I?”
 
He pushed his face into Amy’s as though he was going to kiss her.
 
She flicked her head away, kicking out, stirring the sand at her feet.

The man laughed.
 
“I don’t think you’d tell me if you knew,” he said, so close to her ear that she could feel his warm breath through the cold cave air.

He backed off.
 
“Who cares?
 
It’s pay day!
 
Time to start collecting.”

The torchlight flicked away and Amy willed it to return despite the hatred she felt for the man controlling it.
 
Then like a wish come true, it did.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” the man said.
 
“I got you a present.”
 
He produced a half-spent candle.
 
“Should keep you company for an hour or so.”
 
He lit it and fixed it to the rock behind Amy.
 
“If the afternoon goes as well as this morning, I’ll be back in time for tea with some dry clothes.
 
I’m afraid it’s fish and chips again.”

Amy watched the man’s silhouette shrink towards the cave entrance where it paused.
 
“I’ll move you out of harm’s way for the night when I get back,” he said.
 
Then he left.

Chapter Forty-Nine

I
t became necessary for me to kill you...

That was the last thought Jefferson Tayte had before the blue-and-yellow row boat he was standing in at Gillan
Harbour
blew apart.
 
It had saved his life.

After being cheated out of Lowenna’s letter, he’d watched the beat-up Mazda pull away from
St Anthony
, knowing he’d lost everything.
 
He could see Amy’s bound hands pounding at the window until the low morning sun hit the glass and she was lost to the glare.
 
Then the car had stopped again.
 
The nearside front window drew his eye as it opened and the glare dissipated.
 
Set back inside the car, Tayte saw a face beneath a light-grey hood that was too small to distinguish, but he’d known he was looking at the face of his adversary.

Why has he stopped?
Tayte had thought.
 
What’s he doing?

The glint of chrome plated steel extending from the open car window like a swordsman’s foil told him this game wasn’t over.
 
There had to be more to it.
 
Something he wasn’t seeing.
 
The killer had the box and the letter, and he had Amy.
 
So why had the car stopped?
 
What else did he want?

It had taken Tayte a few slow seconds to
realise
that he was watching an aerial extend from the car window.
 
Sunlight danced along the length of the antenna,
mesmerising
him as it lengthened, causing him to wonder what the hell was going on.
 
It was fully extended by the time he registered exactly what it was, and in that instant Tayte could only think of one reason why the killer had stopped.
 
He wanted him dead.
 
Now there was a radio transmitter aerial hanging out of the man’s car window.

Tayte’s only thought was to get out of that rowing boat.
 
He’d
leapt
sideways into the water just as the boat
erupted
beneath him.
 
He felt a searing pain in his legs and the shock wave from the blast slammed him several feet through the water.
 
The explosion boomed above him, dull in his submerged ears as he began to rise.
 
At the surface, he was aware of
debris
falling around him.
 
He felt something catch his head, knocking him under again.
 
Then he’d blacked out.

He came to, lying on his back, blinking at a low white ceiling, bright with overhead lighting.
 
A face he didn’t know stared down at him.
 
A hand reached across and one at a time his eyelids were forced open and a bright light shone into them.

“What’s your name?” the stranger had asked.

Tayte could feel movement beneath him; he’d sensed he was in a vehicle.
 
“JT,” he’d said.
 
Medical equipment and a smiling face registered just before he began to drift again.

Tayte was sitting up on a firm bed in a private room at Truro’s Royal Cornwall Hospital, patched up again and being held for observation after the
concussion
he’d received from the falling boat debris.
 
He looked down at the bandages on his legs.
 
They covered everything from his ankles to his knees, which were barely hiding beneath the hem of the pale-green hospital gown he was wearing.
 
It was hardly his style, but he was thankful to be out of that bloody suit at last.

Now with a clean bandage around his left hand and another around his neck to keep the replacement butterfly stitches secure, he looked like he was gradually undergoing some living mummification process.
 
Fortunately, the wounds beneath the bandages were largely superficial and he was surprised at how little he hurt, which he put down to the strong pain killers he’d been given.
 
DCI Bastion and DS Hayne were sitting to either side of him, making him feel more like a suspect than a victim.

Bastion stirred the contents of a stainless steel tray he was holding.
 
“You don’t mind if we keep hold of these, do you,
Mr
Tayte?”

Tayte looked at the pieces of shrapnel that had been pulled out of his legs along with the splinters from the row boat.
 
“I don’t care if I never see them again,” he said.

Bastion studied one of the pieces.
 
“It’s amazing what devices people come up with,” he said.
 
“Primitive of course, but deadly just the same.”