The Last Queen of England (13 page)

“Right there,” Jean insisted.
 
“Dark hair, grey suit.
 
No mask.
 
He’s looking away now.”

Tayte counted no less than four grey-suited men.
 
They all had dark hair.
 
In the distance he heard the wail of sirens growing louder by the second.
 
He turned back to Jean.
 
“Are you sure?”

“Shit!” Jean said.
 
“He’s crossing over.”

She grabbed Tayte’s arm and before he could look back to see for himself they were moving again, maintaining a determined march as Jean guided them closer to the string of shop facades on their left, putting a wall of people between them and their pursuer.

“Where are we headed?” Tayte asked.

“Piccadilly Circus.
 
It’s after the next crossroads.”

Tayte had been to the Criterion Theatre before and he remembered a little about Piccadilly Circus.
 
He tried to make out the Eros statue, where people always seemed to congregate like pigeons.
 
There were plenty of roads leading off that busy junction.
 
Maybe they could lose him there.

“There’s an Underground entrance,” Jean said, contradicting Tayte’s thoughts as they arrived at Jermyn Street and crossed with the crowd that had become an unwitting human shield around them.

“The subway?” Tayte said.
 
He didn’t want to share such a confined space with a killer who had made it very clear that he wanted them dead.
 
“Are you serious?
 
What if he makes it too?”

“Trust me,” Jean said, and when they arrived at the steps that led down to the station they took them two at a time.

Tayte didn’t have a ticket.
 
That fact was foremost in his mind by the time they reached the last step because he knew he didn’t have time to stop and buy one.
 
The turnstiles were busy - three or four people at each.
 
Jean headed straight for the luggage gate and they ducked beneath it, still running, heading for the escalators and the sign for the Bakerloo line.

“Hey!” someone shouted.

Jean flashed her Oyster card.
 
“Sorry,” she called.
 
“We’re in a hurry.”

They reached the escalator and Jean looked back as they began to descend.

“He’s coming through,” she said.
 
“I’m sure he’s seen us.”

“He’s using a ticket?” Tayte said.
 
He was incredulous.
 
He imagined such a man would have leapt the barriers and come right at them, gun blazing.

“He doesn’t want to draw attention to himself,” Jean said.
 
“Come on.”

She started down the left side of the escalator, which was clear of people not already walking or running down themselves.
 
It was a long escalator and Tayte knew the gunman had to be right behind them, closing on them for all he knew.
 
He wanted to look back but it took all his concentration not to trip over the steps as he tried to keep up with Jean, briefcase clutched to his chest.

When they reached the bottom Jean grabbed Tayte and led him into a white-tiled tunnel that was bright with overhead strip-lights.
 
He saw maps and signs for train destinations.
 
All were a blur as they ran through the people against a warm breeze that grew with the rumble of an approaching train.
 
A second later they were on the northbound concourse just as a train arrived, clicking over the tracks, screeching as it slowed.

“We made it!” Tayte said.

He ran out to meet it but Jean grabbed him again and pulled him back, pinning him to the wall as people continued to pour onto the concourse behind them, all predictably heading for the train.
 
Tayte saw plenty of grey suits go past, their backs to him and Jean as they went with the flow of the commuters heading home.

“There he is,” Jean whispered.
 
“Keep low.”

Then they ran back out, following the signs to the streets above where Tayte filled his lungs with the cool city air.
 
He pulled out his phone to call DI Fable and smiled to himself, just happy to be alive.

DI Jack Fable was in a control room at New Scotland Yard studying live CCTV feeds from the national surveillance network.
 
A manhunt had begun.
 
All available police units in the area had been called in and a perimeter was fast being established, locking down a quarter-mile radius around the scene of the shooting at Waterloo Place where two Security Service officers were confirmed dead.
 
They had no idea where the passengers of the silver Audi were until Fable answered his phone.

“DI Fable.”

“Fable?
 
It’s Jefferson Tayte.
 
We’re at Piccadilly.
 
We’ve been attacked.”

Tayte sounded out of breath.
 
A little panicked.

“Try to remain calm, Mr Tayte.
 
We know what happened.”

Fable had already seen footage of a silver Ford Mondeo blocking the road at Waterloo Place where the Audi had come under fire.
 
He’d seen a masked man in a grey suit get out of the Mondeo and he’d seen the Audi veer and crash.
 
The entire gunfight between Hampshire and the assailant had been caught on camera from two different angles, right up to the point where Hampshire went down and the masked gunman walked up and put another bullet in him for good measure.

“Are you safe?” Fable asked.

“We’re okay.
 
We managed to give him the slip on the subway.
 
I think he could have taken a train on the Bakerloo line, heading north.”

Fable cupped a hand over his phone and spoke to one of the surveillance team.
 
“Put a call out,” he said.
 
“SO19 to Piccadilly station.
 
Cover all terminals on the Pic line and Bakerloo.”

He went back to Tayte.
 
“Firearms officers are on their way to you,” he said.
 
“Can you give me a description of the man?”

The surveillance team had been busy working on the continuity of the images between the camera handoff points.
 
They had followed the gunman north towards Piccadilly Circus, losing him somewhere along Regent Street as the rush hour hit full flow.
 
They had little by way of a description to go on.
 
After a pause, Tayte came back on the line.

“I didn’t see him myself,” he said.
 
“But Jean did.
 
He’s about six feet tall.
 
Medium build.
 
Dark hair.
 
She says she’s sorry but she can’t single anything else out about him.
 
Just a regular looking guy, I guess.”

Great
, Fable thought.
 
A regular looking guy with dark hair, wearing a grey suit in London during the Monday evening rush hour.

Fable sighed, “Okay, here’s what I want you to do.
 
There’s a department store opposite the Eros statue - Lillywhites.
 
Go inside and wait there.
 
I’ll have someone bring you in.”

“No,” Tayte said.
 
“We’re not coming in.
 
We’re getting a cab.”

Fable thought he heard the familiar chatter of an idling diesel engine in the background.
 
“You’re not safe,” he said.
 
“You need to come in.”

“We’re no good to you if we do,” Tayte said.
 
“And we don’t need another escort.
 
They draw too much attention and I don’t want anyone else’s death on my conscience.”

Christ
, Fable thought.
 
I need a cigarette
.

He was about to suggest they at least meet up somewhere to share information.
 
He had plenty to tell them about his investigation into the death of Douglas Jones twenty years ago and he thought they must have something for him by now.
 
But what he heard at the other end of the line cleared all thoughts from his mind.

“Tayte!”

He heard gunshots.
 
Two, in quick succession.
 
The sound was unmistakable.

“Tayte!”

His phone clicked and fell silent.
 
He heard static.
 
Then the call went dead.

Frenchman Michel Levant was reclining on a Louis XIV chaise somewhere in southwest London, sipping chocolate from a delicate golden tulip cup.
 
The sweetly rich drink, made in the old style of part cream, part bitter chocolate and sugar, was one of the many decadent pleasures he afforded himself.
 
His thin lips pursed as he swallowed the warm liquid.

He was thinking about the American and Professor Jean Summer.
 
He wondered how productive their day had been; what they had discovered on their predictable visit to The National Archives and on their telling visit to the Royal Society of London.
 
He pondered these things at great length, but most of all he wanted to know who this American was and Michel Levant was not the kind of man who waited long for anything.

Levant was an avid collector of French antiques from the Baroque period.
 
He admired the delicate craftsmanship and the opulent gilding that embodied the style.
 
He often thought that his appreciation came not from the furniture itself but from his adulation for the man after whom it had been named.
 
Louis XIV, known as the
Sun King
, took many mistresses and had a highly favourable opinion of himself.
 
He was a man who knew what he wanted and he took it.
 
At just five years of age, when called to his father’s bedside and asked his name, he told him that it was Louis XIV - to which his father replied, “I did not die yet, my son.”
 
As far as Levant was concerned, the man who had reigned as King of France for seventy-two years was to be greatly admired.
 
His portrait hung in every room.

Levant sat up sharply when the expected knock came at his study door.
 
He swung his legs around and slipped his bare feet into a pair of blue velvet slippers that, like his silk gown, were emblazoned with the crest of his family coat of arms.

“Un moment,” he called.

Despite living in London much of the time he insisted that the language of his forebears be used exclusively within the walls and grounds of his far from humble abode.
 
As far as his staff were concerned, to speak any other language in his presence was an offence that would earn their instant dismissal.
 
He sauntered to the regal writing desk that dominated the room and set his chocolate cup down.

“Entrez!”

It was Françoise, of course.
 
The beautiful Françoise, whom he had taken in several years ago and so delicately broken at the tender age of just fourteen.
 
Françoise, his secret, whom he had named after the
Sun King’s
young and secret wife, Françoise
d’Aubigné
, Marquise de Maintenon.
 
She wore a flowing cornflower-blue dress with flat patent shoes and pure white ankle socks.
 
How tantalising he thought she looked today as every day.
 
She came to him and Levant slowly extended his hand, offering out the ring he always wore on his left index finger: a thick banded gold ring with black enamel detail.
 
It was the size of a full sovereign and bore a likeness of Louis XIV, centred within a flaming sun.

Françoise bowed her head and kissed the ring.
 
“Monsieur,” she said, smiling, always smiling for him.
 
“Il y a quelqu’un pour
vous
.”

 
Levant knew that she had brought someone to see him as soon as she had knocked.
 
Just as he knew who it was.
 
He flicked his limp hand towards the door, the ring seeming to weigh it down.
 
“
Faites
-le
entrer
,” he said, and she showed the man in.

His name was Cullen, although Levant never used his name and rarely saw him in person.
 
He was a stocky Irishman who, to Levant’s chagrin, spoke no French.
 
Instead, he grunted words that were hardly recognisable as English in such coarse tones that Levant could not bear to listen to him for more than a few minutes at a time.
 
But,
c’est la vie.
 
Cullen was too good at his job to be bloody-minded about house rules.

Nonetheless, as the man lumbered across the room with his oafish gait and his eternally dour expression, Levant regarded his every movement with displeasure.

“For me?” he said, indicating the brown manila folder beneath Cullen’s arm.