In the Blood (41 page)

Sir Richard adjusted himself in his comfortably padded grey leather seat beside the window, which was one of four identical seats in a row behind the cockpit, and continued to gaze down over the aerial views of mid-southern countryside.
 
Celia Fairborne was sitting next to him with one hand resting on the back of his.
 
The other two seats were empty.

They were passing into the airspace over Dorset when an amber light on the passenger radio phone began to flash; he’d put his cellphone on divert to the onboard communications system before switching it off at the heliport.
 
He froze momentarily as he felt Celia’s hand squeeze into his.

“Richard Fairborne,” he said, his eyes locked knowingly with Celia’s.
 
He was conscious of his own voice suddenly, though the pilot seemed oblivious through his headset.

“I thought I’d keep things local for you,” the expected caller said.
 
“There’s a boat tied up on the beach at Durgan.
 
It has a blue tarpaulin cover stretched across it.
 
You can’t miss it.”

“When?”

“Be there at 7pm, sharp.
 
Slip the agreed package beneath the tarpaulin and walk away.
 
It’s that simple.”

“And that’s the end of it?” Sir Richard said.

No answer came back.

He returned the handset to its cradle and fixed on Celia.
 
“He’s gone,” he said.
 
“I’m to go to the beach at Durgan, tonight at seven.”

At that point Warwick interjected from the front seat, next to the pilot where all the toys were.
 
He’d only just made the flight to London with seconds to spare.
 
His mother had been pleased to see him.
 
His father had not.

“You’re not really going through with this?”
 
Warwick said, twisting around to face them.
 
“He’ll never go away.”

“Don’t concern yourself,” Sir Richard said.

Warwick began to fidget, like he didn’t know whether to shut up or labour the point.
 
“Blackmailers are like stray cats,” he added, opting for the latter.
 
“Feed them once and they’ll keep coming back for more.
 
You can’t do it!”

Sir Richard sat forward in his seat.
 
“I’ll deal with it,” he said, firmly.

Warwick scoffed, offering a nervous smile that twisted his mouth.
 
“You’d rather support this criminal than help me out, wouldn’t you?”

“I’ll do whatever I decide is the right thing to do,” his father said.
 
“It’s not your concern!”

Chapter Fifty-One

T
he thirteenth century parish church of St Keverne lies to the west of Porthoustock, between Porthallow to the north and Coverack to the south.
 
The tip of its spire sits above a square bell tower some 148 feet high and approximately one mile from the sea.

Jefferson Tayte was standing in the grounds looking out over scattered headstones and memorials to a low stone wall.
 
Beyond that, across an abstraction of emerald countryside, was the sea and the Manacle rocks that had betrayed the church’s identity.
 
Tayte raised Schofield’s photo in front of him again to confirm that the view he was looking at was the same.
 
The stones were varied and distinct and he had no trouble distinguishing them.
 
The view was identical.

In his other hand was the photo of the painting that bore the same view, and it was immediately clear to him where the memorial had once stood.
 
He checked the image again and noted the pattern and type of headstones around the memorial, then he glanced back at the photo and finally to the scene in front of him again.
 
He could see the space he was looking for not fifteen metres away.

His eyes remained fixed on that space as he walked the path towards it, not wanting to cut across the burial plots out of respect.
 
He arrived beside a fallen headstone that had cracked in two as it fell and it looked like it had been lying there a while; grass grew up through the crack like a thick ribbon of moss and the engraving was all but gone.
 
He stepped carefully beside it, moving further in until he came to a small stone cross, barely a foot in height.
 
The space he was interested in was just beyond that.

As he arrived it became apparent that there was nothing spare about the plot of land before him.
 
He saw a circular slab set into the ground, centred in what appeared to be a burial plot that was about four feet square.
 
Long grass had since overgrown it but he could still make out the relief lines that gave its presence away.

He squatted to get a closer look at the circular slab, drawing a deep breath as he parted the grass around it.
 
Then he caught that breath and held it, afraid that if he let it go again the words before him might blow away.
 
The inscription he read on the stone said very little, and yet it said so much.
 
He read the words, ‘Betsy Ross’ and beneath them the date, ‘October 23rd 1783’.

Inside the church, Tayte gazed up at the stained glass window that had caught his eye upon entering and drifted towards it.
 
The scene was poignant.
 
It depicted a shipwreck on the Manacle rocks; the lost souls being delivered by St Christopher.
 
Tayte drew closer, through arched stone pillars, then between red furnished pews ended with heavy oak carvings.
 
At the base of the scene he read that the window was dedicated to the memory of the one hundred souls who lost their lives in the wreck of the SS Mohegan on the Manacles in October 1898.
 
It set him wondering how many lives were lost when the
Betsy Ross
met with that same fate over a hundred years earlier.

Tayte was looking for the painting in Schofield’s photo.
 
It was the only record he had of the
Betsy Ross
memorial.
 
The circular stone in the ground outside had confirmed it was the vessel he was looking for, but it said nothing of the people aboard her.
 
He needed to know who was buried there and he hoped the painting might lead to some further clue; a dedication perhaps or an inscription like the many he could see on the walls around him.

At the opposite end of the church, past a young couple reading something on one of the pillars, he saw a table laid out with a white cloth before another stained glass window.
 
A man was arranging candlesticks to either side of a golden cross.
 
As Tayte made his way between the pews towards him, he saw the gilt frames on the wall beside the table and quickened his step.
 
As he came closer, between regiments of wooden chairs, he was met with disappointment.
 
The gilt frames were not paintings at all; more words of comfort and remembrance.
 
He turned away, scanning the walls again, but nothing he could see gave him any further hope.

“Can I help you?” a voice behind him asked.

Tayte spun around.
 
The man arranging the candlesticks held an expectant smile.
 
He wore stone-coloured trousers and a light-grey check shirt - no clergy collar.
 
He was thick set, about Tayte’s age with tidy brown hair combed in a side parting.
 
His face was full and ruddy.

“I was looking for a painting,” Tayte said.
 
“Looks like I’m in the wrong place.”

“Or right place, wrong time,” the man said.
 
“If you were expecting to see an art exhibition, I’m afraid the fund-raiser finished yesterday.”

“Just my luck,” Tayte said.
 
He offered out the photo of the painting.
 
“I was looking for this in particular,” he added.
 
“Do you know if it was here?”

The man took the photo and nodded.
 
“It was,” he said.
 
“It’s by Joseph Horlor, painted mid 1800s.
 
I know it well.”

“Do you know where it is now?” Tayte asked.
 
“Was it sold?”

“The painting wasn’t for sale.
 
It was one of the show pieces.
 
It’s back with its owner.”

“That’s too bad,” Tayte said.
 
He reached a hand to the photo and pointed out the memorial he was interested in.
 
“I was hoping to find out more about this,” he said, running a finger along the image of the Celtic cross that no longer existed.
 
“Do you know anything about it?
 
There’s a plaque outside where this used to stand.”

“The
Betsy Ross?
” the man said, like he knew everything about it.

“That’s right.
 
I’m trying to find out what happened to her passengers.”

The man gave Tayte an amused smile.
 
“This has to be more than coincidence,” he said.
 
“I’ve been warden here for nearly twenty years and no one in all that time has shown any interest in the
Betsy Ross
- until yesterday.”

Tayte could almost hear Schofield’s exuberant introduction.
 
He supposed the warden would not have forgotten it so soon.
 
“Peter Schofield?” he said.

The warden nodded, smiling more fully now.
 
“Enthusiastic young man,” he said.
 
“You know him then?”

Knew him,
Tayte thought.
 
“Yes,” he said.
 
“A colleague.”

“Did he miss something?”

“No, I’m sure he didn’t,” Tayte said thoughtfully.

The Warden handed back the photo.
 
“He had me looking into things I haven’t seen in years,” he said.
 
“I’m sorry there wasn’t much information to give him.
 
I doubt that I can add anything further to what I said yesterday.”

“Do you know who’s buried in the plot?” Tayte asked.

“Ordinarily, I would,” The warden said.
 
“I catalogue all the plots.
 
Bit of a hobby and it’s useful to visitors.”

Tayte agreed.
 
“I wish every church did that.”

“Whatever happened to the Betsy Ross memorial,” the warden continued, “happened long before I came here.
 
The plaque was there bearing the name and the date, but little else.
 
What records I managed to find at the time only gave a few names.
 
I looked them up for your colleague yesterday.
 
I think
Grainger
was one of them.
 
The others I don’t recall, but they were all members of the crew.”

“Nothing about any passengers?”

The Warden shook his head.
 
“All I know is that there are fifteen souls buried in the plot and at least three of them were crew.
 
Who the others are remains a mystery, but then I’m no professional.
 
If you find anything more, I’d be glad of the information.”

“Of course,” Tayte said, distracted suddenly by his thoughts.
 
When he’d looked into the
Betsy Ross
back home, he’d read that she carried a crew of fifteen.
 
He supposed then that all the crew might have gone down with the ship and were buried in this plot at St Keverne.
 
In which case, where were the passengers?

Tayte now knew that the
Betsy Ross
hadn’t made it, but there had to be more to it than that.
 
Why was there no record of the ship in the registers he’d checked?
 
The wreck should have been recorded at Falmouth.
 
There should be detailed lists of the victims and survivors.
 
More missing records
.
 
He felt he had to be getting close.

As he made for his car, he understood that he had to return to his first line of enquiry; he had to find a way into the family crypt at Rosemullion Hall.
 
A headstone bearing Eleanor Fairborne’s name and the date of her death would tell him if she’d survived the
Betsy Ross
or not.
 
All that would be left to figure out was why someone wanted to keep the family’s history a secret from that point on.

Chapter Fifty-Two

W
here is Tom Laity?
Tayte wondered as he paced through Helford Village beneath a trail of bunting, heading for the ferry pick-up.
 
At the delicatessen, Laity’s mother had told him she hadn’t seen Tom all day and that it wasn’t like him to be away from the shop so long.
 
Tayte understood her concerns more than she knew.
 
It was low tide now.
 
Over the white-washed stone wall to his right, the creek continued to bake beneath the afternoon sun.
 
He looked for Laity’s boat, but there was no sign of it.
 
Tayte couldn’t think why he’d still be out on the water.