The Last Queen of England (34 page)

The other man gave an impassive nod.

“What’s this about?” Tayte asked.

“I think you know what this is about,” Jackson said.
 
“We’ve been assigned to stick with you until you find what you’re looking for.
 
There’s a car waiting outside.”

“I see,” Tayte said.
 
“You mind if I make a quick call first?”

“Not at all.”

Tayte called Fable on the BlackBerry, checking his watch while he waited for him to pick up.
 
It was eight-fifteen and he figured the inspector would be on the job again by now - if he’d slept at all.
 
When he picked up, the conversation was surprisingly short, Fable’s tone drained of emotion.

“That’s right,” Fable said.
 
“The Security Service are running things from here.
 
Until we get a lead on Joseph Cornell, I’m going to be sitting in my office filling out paperwork.”

Tayte was sorry to hear that, but given the government’s concerns he wasn’t surprised.
 
When the call ended he turned back to Jackson and Stubbs.

“Okay,” he said.
 
“Let’s go.”

As they followed the officers outside, Tayte whispered to Jean, “Don’t say anything about the note.”

Jean nodded back, indicating that she understood why.
 
The Security Service wanted them to solve this genealogical puzzle and discover the heir’s identity.
 
Yet when they did, if Jean wanted to see her son again, they had to hand the prize over to the very person they were trying to stop.
 
Tayte felt like he was in a one horse race he couldn’t win and the appearance of the two officers only served to complicate things.
 
Stepping out into the cool morning, he knew they had to lose their escort.
 
They needed to be free agents if they were going to find a way to satisfy everyone and reunite Jean with her son.

But how?

The question dominated Tayte’s thoughts all the way to St Paul’s.

Trenton McAlister was sitting in the back of a silver Mercedes near Buckingham Palace when the call he’d been waiting for came through.
 
His driver had pulled over beneath the trees along Constitution Hill, hazard lights flashing while he set up the folding bicycle from the boot of the car.
 
McAlister didn’t want to arrive at the rally out of breath or heaven forbid, sweating.

His caller’s tone immediately told him he was not about to receive the news he was hoping for.

“Further complications have arisen.”

McAlister felt his skin prickle.
 
“What kind of complications?
 
No.
 
Don’t tell me.
 
I don’t want to hear any of the details.”

“Then let’s just say that it’s a matter of risk versus reward.”

“Get to the point,” McAlister said.
 
“What do you want?”

“I want more money.”

McAlister smiled to himself.
 
“Of course you do.
 
How much?”

“Double.”

McAlister nearly choked on his dry tongue.
 
“As much as that?
 
My, my.”

As a contingency McAlister had factored in half as much of the asking price again.
 
It was human nature to be greedy and he wasn’t going to play the hypocrite now.
 
But he hadn’t figured on double.
 
He would have to make up the deficit from his own private funds, which amounted to just about everything he had if not a little more.

“And I want half up front,” the caller said.
 
“Transferred to my account within the next hour.
 
The details will follow after this call.”

McAlister had to take a deep breath at hearing that.
 
He hadn’t parted with any of his or his associates’ money yet and he had no guarantee that he would ever hear from this man again once he had.

“Why should I trust you?”

“Trust me, don’t trust me.
 
I could tell you that I’m a man of my word but what would that mean to you?”

McAlister felt trapped.
 
It was a gamble, but all his dreams came down to this and he’d made promises that powerful people expected him to deliver on.

He gave a long sigh.
 
“Very well.
 
But the payment fixes the price.
 
Don’t try to screw me over a second time.”

“The price is fixed,” the caller agreed.

“Good.
 
So when am I going to get what I’m paying for?”

“It may only be a matter of hours.”

Hearing that put the smile back on McAlister’s face.
 
“That’s very good indeed.”

As the call ended and he got out of the car, McAlister wanted to call his journalist, Webber, to instruct him to begin the campaign that he believed would discredit the monarchy beyond redemption.
 
But something told him to wait.
 
If Queen Anne’s heir proved to be real, he could show how the plot that put the Hanoverian bloodline on the throne in the first place was perhaps more than just a theory.
 
It might cause the people to question the Royal Family’s right to be there at all, and if a bona fide heir to Queen Anne could be produced...

McAlister snapped his bicycle clips around his ankles and took the bicycle from his driver.
 
He felt goose bumps ripple through him as he imagined the royal scandal that would ensue: the manipulation of the royal bloodline, the heinous way in which it had been manipulated and the cries for a royal referendum.
 
He put on a cycling helmet and proudly took up a campaign board on which was written, ‘Republic Britain Now!’.
 
Then he cycled along Constitution Hill towards Buckingham Palace like Don Quixote, the board as his lance and the small bicycle as his mighty charger, galloping to victory.

Chapter Twenty-One

S
t Paul’s Cathedral sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point in the City of London.
 
Tayte and Jean were standing across the street amidst the morning rush-hour commuters, facing the Great West Gate with officers Jackson and Stubbs close beside them.
 
The air was pungent with acrid engine fumes, not that it bothered Tayte.
 
His attention was focused elsewhere.

The Portland stone from which the cathedral was built appeared bright against the clear morning sky as Tayte continued to gaze upon it.
 
They were all looking up at the neoclassical structure, with its symmetrical Corinthian portico.
 
The columns led the eye skyward to the relief on the central tympanum depicting the conversion of St Paul, whose statue stood directly above it between the cathedral’s two towers.

In the background Tayte could just see the top of the great dome and he had to smile at the hypocrisy.
 
Judging by what he’d learnt from Jean over the past few days, the last Catholic king of England, James II, had been forced to abdicate.
 
And later, in 1701, the Act of Settlement had been passed, formally turning the nation’s back on Catholicism for good.
 
And yet, here was Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece, consecrated barely ten years later, whose crowning glory was modelled on the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome - the head of the Catholic Church.

As the traffic lights changed and Tayte turned his attention to Queen Anne and the statue that was the subject of their first line of investigation, he wondered if Anne had known this.
 
He’d heard about Wren’s secret after-hours meetings at the Royal Society in support of Catholic Jacobitism.
 
Was this a backlash?
 
The great architect’s last laugh?
 
The additional irony of seeing the Church of England monarch standing in the foreground certainly put a smile on Tayte’s face.

He crossed the street at a pace, making directly for the statue.
 
Anne seemed pivotal to everything that had happened, then and now.
 
The ahnentafel, through Ethelred II, had led them here.
 
It seemed fitting then that the statue of Queen Anne herself, standing before the west gate beneath St Paul’s unceasing gaze, might have some part to play in the puzzle.
 
He studied the figures under the scrutiny of Jackson and Stubbs, who hadn’t spoken a word since leaving the hotel.

Tayte saw a proud monarch with a golden orb and sceptre atop a high pedestal.
 
Below the central figure at each corner sat four ladies - allegorical representations of Great Britain, Ireland, France and the North American colonies.
 
To the front of the statue between Britannia and France was the Royal Arms, depicting the British lions, the French fleur-de-lis and the Irish harp: those dominions over which Anne considered herself sovereign.
 
Tayte approached the plaque on the north side and read it aloud.

“This replica of the statue of Queen Anne was erected at the expense of the Corporation of London in the year 1886.”
 
He turned to Jean, disappointed and a little perplexed.
 
“It’s a copy.”

“Yes, but it’s supposed to be an exact copy,” Jean said.
 
“Francis Bird’s original was sculpted from white marble.
 
This is in stone but that should be the only difference.”

“1886,” Tayte mused.
 
“Do you know when the original was erected?”
 
To hold any significance, he figured the statue had to have been there before the Royal Society Fellows were hanged.

Jean turned to the BlackBerry.
 
A moment later she sighed and said, “Not until 1712.
 
Two years after the cathedral was completed.”

“And four years after the hangings at Tyburn,” Tayte said.
 
He turned away and headed for the entrance.
 
“Come on.
 
Ethelred led us here.
 
Let’s see what he’s got to say.”

Having not long opened for the day the cathedral was quiet.
 
They were not the first visitors to enter, however, and within the hour Tayte supposed the place would be filled with the murmurs of hundreds of tourists.
 
For now, though, as he peered into the baroque interior, he could count the visitors he could see on one hand.

He looked back towards the street, wondering if anyone beyond the pediment they had just passed beneath was watching them.
 
Given how quiet it was inside the cathedral he figured anyone following them would be easy to see - especially if that someone was the flamboyant Michel Levant.
 
He saw the same bustle of commuters that seemed to have intensified since they arrived.
 
No one stood out.
 
He paid Jean’s entrance fee along with his own and suggested to Jackson and Stubbs that they wait outside.

“No sense all of us paying to go in,” he said, thinking that he’d find another way out when the time came.
 
“I doubt we’ll be more than five minutes.”

Tayte got no comment or expression from either of the Security Service officers - just their steady eyes boring into him.
 
Jackson stepped up first.
 
He handed the admission fee to the attendant and the pair followed Tayte and Jean in.
 
Their countenance was beginning to unnerve Tayte.
 
He wanted to crack a joke just to make one of them smile, but instead he just tried to forget they were there, which was difficult given their insistence on maintaining such close proximity.
 
Tayte imagined they were being overly protective because of what happened the last time two Security Service officers had been assigned to them.
 
Whatever their motives, they were far too officious in their duties for Tayte’s liking.

“I guess this isn’t your first visit?” Tayte said to Jean as they walked along the nave beneath the high ceiling.

“I’ve lost count,” Jean said.

“So we don’t need to ask for directions to the crypt?”

“No.
 
Access is through the north and south transepts.
 
It wasn’t open last time I was here.”

“Well, let’s hope it is today.”

They continued across a black and white chequerboard floor towards the quire and high altar at the east end of the cathedral.
 
Tayte’s neck was already stiff from looking up all the time, trying to take everything in.

“Queen Victoria commissioned the mosaics,” Jean said.
 
“She thought the place lacked colour, particularly in the quire.”

They reached the Great Circle beneath the main dome, which formed the centre of the transept crossing.

“The Frescos in the cupola above us were painted by Sir James Thornhill,” Jean said.
 
“He was the pre-eminent painter of his day.”
 
She guided Tayte to their left, into the north transept, passing a monument to Lord Leighton.
 
“Another great painter,” she said.
 
“Victorian era.”