The Last Queen of England (15 page)

“I think they were up to something,” Tayte said.
 
“Something connected with Queen Anne, but not the attempt on her life they were hanged for.
 
I’m sure of that.”

Jean agreed.
 
“Do you know what
Quo Veritas
were about?
 
I mean what kind of society they were?”

Fable gave a half-smile, nodding slowly.
 
“It was a Jacobite society.
 
Makes sense after what you’ve just said.”

Tayte wasn’t so sure it did.
 
On one hand they had five men who were hanged as Jacobites in the traditional sense, accused of plotting to assassinate Queen Anne as followers of the Catholic Old Pretender.
 
Now Fable had turned up a Jacobite society in which at least one of its members was a confirmed descendant of the Reverend Charles Naismith, suggesting that the family were Jacobites through and through.
 
Yet there was evidence to suggest that Naismith and his co-conspirators supported Queen Anne and the Protestant faith, and that the Screw Plot charges brought against them had to be false.
 
Tayte recalled Jean had told him that the word ‘Jacobite’ was derived from the Latin,
Jacobus
, meaning James.
 
In this case for Anne’s father, James II.
 
Anne’s blood was Jacobite blood.
 
He figured that had to be the significant difference.
 
He just couldn’t think why.

Fable started coughing.
 
He turned away and came back red faced.
 
“Excuse me.”
 
He cleared his throat.
 
“Most of what came out about
Quo Veritas
was down to an investigative journalist working for the
Nottingham Post
.
 
Someone called Ewan Stockwell.”

“Can we talk to him?” Jean said.

“Not a chance.
 
He disappeared a couple of months after the Groves murder.”

“Anything turn up later on?” Tayte asked.
 
“A body?”

“Not a trace.”

They all gazed along the river in silence for several seconds, watching the boats and the varied skyline of buildings old and new.
 
Jean was first to break the silence.

“So what’s our connection?”

It was something Tayte had been considering.
 
“I believe the victims could all be related to our five Royal Society Fellows.
 
We already know that Davenport and Jones were related to Naismith.
 
Davenport might also have been a member of
Quo Veritas
.”

“Difficult to prove,” Fable offered.
 
“Since it’s now defunct.”

Tayte agreed.
 
“But the relationship between Julian Davenport and Douglas Jones, who
was
a confirmed member, connects them.
 
They were both related to Naismith according to Marcus’s charts.
 
And they’re connected through the fact that they were both murdered.
 
Twenty years ago the killer cut off his victims’ heads, the society disbanded and now he’s caught up with them again to finish the job - only now he shoots them.”

“Different MO," Fable said.
 
“It could be the same person but I think it’s more likely to be someone else.”

Tayte had to concede that Fable was probably right.
 
Beheading someone on a tree stump was highly ritualistic.
 
It carried with it some message that the killer felt very strongly about beyond the act of killing itself.
 
Even twenty years was unlikely to have changed that.

“Either way,” Jean said.
 
“It looks like they’re after the same thing and it concerns the members of
Quo Veritas
, of which two or maybe three high-ranking members are now dead.”

Tayte rifled through the papers in his briefcase.
 
He pulled out a sheet of A4 paper and handed it to Fable.
 
It contained the names of the Royal Society Fellows they were interested in with a bullet hole just below the entry for Sir Stephen Henley.

“So let’s say for now that the killer’s victims are descendants of these men,” Tayte said.
 
“Two are already confirmed.
 
If we can connect Sarah Groves to any one of them I’d say my theory’s sound.
 
In which case we can work out who the next victims are likely to be and hopefully get to them first.
 
And if we can do that, maybe they can tell us what this is all about.”

Fable studied the list.
 
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“I do,” Tayte said.
 
“But it would take too long by myself.
 
We need a team.
 
Maybe twenty people.
 
The more the better.”

“The genealogy convention,” Jean said.

Tayte nodded.
 
He checked his watch.
 
To Fable he said, “If you’re quick you should be able to rally all the support you need.”

He told him about the convention at the Docklands Arena and how some of the best genealogists on the planet were already in London.

“I’m sure they’ll be only too happy to help,” he added, backing away as he scanned the traffic for another taxi.

“And what about you?”

“I’m sticking with Marcus’s research,” Tayte said.
 

“We’re going to see some friends of mine,” Jean added.

Tayte spotted a black cab and waved it down.
 
“Get a team together at Kew and tell them they need to identify the current descendants of the people on that list - the heirs via each generation’s firstborn dependant.
 
Tell them to start with Sarah Groves and work back to confirm things.”

“Firstborn,” Fable repeated.
 
“Got it.”

A taxi pulled up and Jean gave the driver an address for a university somewhere in the Bloomsbury area.

“Ms Summer,” Fable called.
 
“What about my identity parade?
 
My composite?”

Tayte turned back.
 
“Identify the descendants,” he said.
 
“That’s how you’ll get your man.”

Lying in the pitch-black boot of an unmarked police car, the man in the smart grey suit had had plenty of time and solitude to consider how careless he’d been.
 
He’d put himself at risk and he’d put the man who had pulled him out of there at risk - not that it had been difficult.
 
The brief flash of a Specialist Operations Metropolitan Police Service badge as they cleared the quarter-mile perimeter checkpoints around Piccadilly had guaranteed their unquestioned passage.
 
But it should not have come to that.
 
He knew he had jeopardised everything they were working towards.

You never make it personal,
he thought.
 
And you let the woman see your face.
 
What the hell were you thinking?
 
In and out - that’s how you do it.
 
You don’t ponce about chasing people on foot.
 
Once the element of surprise is gone, that’s it.
 
It’s over.
 
You go back to the car and drive calmly away.

He calculated that he’d been in the cramped boot for thirty minutes or so.
 
They were heading east.
 
Not much further now.
 
He was sick of the slow rush-hour traffic.
 
He wanted to straighten his legs, kick his feet right through the damn wing, but he couldn’t.
 
He couldn’t relax either and that only made things worse.
 
The problem was that he couldn’t stop thinking about the American and Jean Summer and the fact that they were both still alive.

They’re making you look like a fucking amateur!
he thought.
 
And the problem with that was that it did make things personal.
 
It made things very personal.

When the car finally stopped and he heard the driver’s door open and close with a thump, he turned his thoughts to the bigger objective - to the string of binary numbers that was not yet complete.

Don’t lose sight of that.
 
You need to stay focused.
 
Need to hurry now.

The boot popped open and daylight momentarily blinded him.
 
When his eyes adjusted he saw locked gates ahead and through them the shell of an Edwardian gasworks, now derelict with its bare steel framework, broken windows and crumbling brickwork.
 
It was quiet there.
 
No one around to witness his activities.
 
Just one pot-holed road in and out.

Chapter Ten

J
ean’s best-kept secret was a small group of history students she’d taught a few years ago when they were studying for their degrees.
 
They were all in their twenties and were now working on their doctorates at the Birkbeck University of London.
 
Jean’s phone call from the taxi on the way to the university had forced a change of address to a pub she knew well.

“It’s their local,” she said to Tayte as the taxi pulled up outside.

“And they’re your best-kept secret because?”

A smile washed over Jean’s face and Tayte was glad to see it again.
 
“Let’s just say that as far as their chosen subject is concerned they share some pretty unorthodox views.”

They approached the bar’s narrow, predominantly glass facade and Tayte jumped ahead and opened the door for her.
 
The gesture seemed to take her aback.
 
She stopped and stared at him.

“I didn’t have you pegged as the old-fashioned type.”

“Usually, I’m not,” Tayte said.
 
“I mean, I wouldn’t really know.
 
I’ve had so little practice.”
 
He almost laughed.
 
“I guess seeing me do that would have surprised Marcus, too.”

“Is that why you did it?”

Tayte shrugged and followed Jean inside.
 
“Maybe.”

The bar ran deep into the stonework building.
 
Soft lighting cast an amber glow over decor that was a blend of modern furnishings and old architecture, with arches and pillars, high tables with stools and a long, polished brass-plate bar.
 
It was busy and consequently loud with competing voices that drowned out the background music.
 
Tayte could smell the bitter tang of alcohol in the air and on the breath of the people consuming it.

“There they are,” Jean said, heading further in.

Tayte didn’t have to look too hard to see who she meant.
 
There was a gathering around one of the tables - some people sitting, others standing.
 
The centre of attention was a young, overweight man with greasy-looking fair hair.
 
He wore three-quarter-length khaki shorts and a black T-shirt that bore the words, ‘HISTORY: from the Greek -
historia
.
 
Knowledge acquired by investigation.
 
The study of the human past.’

When they saw Jean it seemed that everyone wanted to hug her at once.
 
Tayte just stood back and waited for the excitement to fizzle out.
 
He didn’t know what he expected a bunch of history academics to look like - geeky nerds with bottle-bottom glasses and pale complexions perhaps - but this group seemed far from it.
 
As soon as they let Jean go again she gave the introductions.

There was Evie, a tall girl in skinny jeans with long dark hair and Morello cherry lips whom Tayte found intimidating.
 
Next to her was Megan, a girl-next-door type in a blue print dress and boots, and beside her, close beside her like maybe they had a thing going, was a man called Dave.
 
He wore a pinstripe suit jacket over jeans and beneath the jacket was a retro black and acid-yellow, smiley-face T-shirt.
 
The centre of attention was called Ralph.

“And this is JT,” Jean said, turning to him.
 
“He’s a genealogist.
 
American.”

Ralph fetched more stools and Tayte was given a glass into which Dave poured a honeyed liquid called Old Speckled Hen from a half-full pitcher.
 
Tayte didn’t want to be a prude and refuse, but given that someone was trying to kill them he didn’t plan on drinking much either.
 
Jean had the same.