The Last Queen of England (36 page)

Starbucks it is then
, Tayte thought, deciding that Jean was definitely growing on him.
 
He turned to their silent partners who decidedly were not.
 
“I insist on buying you fine folks a coffee,” he said, forcing a smile.

Stubbs removed his leather jacket.
 
“Thanks,” he said as he sat down.
 
“Double espresso.”

Jackson kept his fleece on and didn’t ask for anything.
 
“I’ll give you a hand.”

Tayte placed his own hand on the man’s shoulder, exerting just enough force to get his meaning across without seeming offensive.
 
“Take a seat,” he said, still smiling.
 
“They have trays.”

Jackson didn’t look happy about it but he sat down just the same.
 
“Cappuccino,” he said, sourly.

At least they’re talking again
, Tayte thought as he backed away.
 
He stood in the queue under Jackson’s watchful gaze, and he wanted to give him a wave but thought better of it.
 
Instead, he turned his back to him and eyed the clock on the wall.
 
They hadn’t been at the cathedral long.
 
It was still early.
 
Just before ten.

There were three people ahead of him in the queue and there were two girls serving behind the counter.
 
It didn’t take long to reach the front of the line and when he did, another girl appeared through the staff doorway.
 
She came straight to the till, almost shoved the girl who was already there aside and smiled broadly at Tayte.

“Yes, please.
 
Can I take your order?”

She was a slender, dark-haired Eastern European girl in black jeans and a T-shirt that left her tattooed midriff exposed.
 
Tayte gave his order with a twenty-pound note and waited, and as he waited he was aware that the girl kept studying him, smiling at him every time he caught her eye.

She fumbled with his change and dropped half of it back into the till.
 
Then as she handed it to him he could see that she was nervous about something.
 
Her smile had gone and her heavily made up eyes bored into his with an urgency Tayte couldn’t fathom.
 
As he took his change she held on to his hand and leant closer.

“You need to use the men’s room,” she said in a voice so low Tayte wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.

His confused expression said enough.
 
He felt her squeeze the change into his palm, her eyes growing larger still.
 
She nodded discreetly towards the toilet facilities and repeated the line with greater urgency.
 
Then she pulled away, renewed her smile and went on to the next customer.

Tayte collected his tray and walked slowly back to the table, buying himself time to allow what had just happened to sink in.

She wants me to go to the men’s room?
 
He snorted.
 
What the hell for?

Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter.
 
He had to go if only to find out.
 
He drew a smile on his face to hide his confusion as he arrived beside Jean and set the tray down.

“I got us all a pastry,” he said as he offloaded the tray.
 
Then to Jean, he added, “How’s the research going?”

“Good,” she said.
 
“I’ve found a church in Covent Garden that seems to fit.
 
I’ve ruled several out already - Edgware and Knightsbridge and a few others that haven’t been around long enough.
 
I think I’ve got another possible match in Hammersmith.”

“That’s great,” Tayte said.
 
He paused.
 
“Look, I’ll be right back.
 
I need to use the men’s room.”

Jean threw him a smile and continued the research.
 
He turned to go but stopped when Jackson got up to go with him.

“What now?” Tayte said.
 
“Do you think I need a hand in there, too?”
 
He was talking loudly, his accent cutting through every conversation, turning heads.
 
“Don’t you think I’m big enough to go by myself?”

Jackson froze, looking around at all the people who were now looking right at him.
 
He gave Tayte a mean stare as he sat down again and Tayte turned away.
 
He let out a nervous sigh and made a beeline for the men’s room, thinking that he definitely had to find a way to lose their escort, and sooner rather than later.

Tayte was gone a full three minutes.
 
Too long, it seemed, for Officer Jackson who met him on his way back.

“Everything okay?” Jackson said.
 
He eyed Tayte sceptically.
 
Then he leant in and sniffed him like a bloodhound.
 
“You went in there for a smoke?”

Tayte just smiled at him.
 
“I don’t smoke.”
  
He squeezed past, went back to the table and sidled up beside Jean.
 
“So what do we have?” he asked, letting nothing of what had just happened in the men’s room affect his demeanour.

“St Paul’s Hammersmith checks out,” Jean said.
 
“Although it was rebuilt in 1882.
 
Every church I hit seems to have a website.
 
Makes it much easier.”

Tayte grabbed a pastry.
 
“God really is everywhere,” he said.
 
“You can’t get more omnipresent than the Internet.”

Jean laughed at him and turned back to the research.
 
“I’ve ruled out three more churches,” she said.
 
“One in Bow, another in Clapham, and one not far from our hotel in Marylebone.
 
I don’t think there are many more to check.”
 
She pushed the napkin she’d been writing on across to Tayte.
 
“That’s every St Paul’s church of Anglican denomination Google could find.
 
Just Deptford, Shadwell and Mill Hill to go.”

Tayte hadn’t heard of any of those places.
 
He looked over Jean’s shoulder, not at the BlackBerry but out the window, peering nonchalantly left and right along the street without drawing attention.
 
He sipped his coffee and turned to the research.
 
Jean had the website for the church in Deptford on the screen.

“No good,” she said a moment later.
 
“It wasn’t consecrated until 1730.”

Tayte crossed it off the napkin.

“Shadwell.
 
Jean said.
 
Built in 1657.”
 
She paused, shoulders slumped.
 
“Rebuilt in 1820.”

“Oops,” Tayte said.
 
“The churchyard might still be intact, though.
 
And there’s the burial registers.”
 
He drew a circle around Shadwell on the napkin.
 
“We’ll check it out.
 
What about the last one?”

Jean brought up the website for the church at Mill Hill.
 
She navigated to the website’s ‘About Us’ page and a moment later, shook her head.
 
“It wasn’t consecrated until the 1830s.”

Tayte crossed Mill Hill off the list, and as he looked up he glanced out the window again.
 
He took a piece of paper from his jacket pocket.
 
“So we’ve got three churches that fit,” he said, writing them down.
 
“Covent Garden, Hammersmith and Shadwell.
 
What are their addresses?”

“We’ve got the BlackBerry,” Jean said.
 
“Might as well look them up as we go.”

“I’d sooner write them down.
 
What if the battery dies?”

Jean pulled up the details for each of the three churches again and read out the addresses.
 
When Tayte had finished writing them down he asked Jean for the phone.

“There’s something I want to check,” he said, and when she passed it to him he pretended to tap the keys.
 
He nodded thoughtfully at the screen as though he’d found what he was looking for.
 
Then he put the phone in his pocket.

“What were you looking up?” Jean asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing.”
 
Tayte sent a smile across the table to Jackson and Stubbs who had long since finished their coffees and looked stone-faced bored.
 
“I just wanted to see how last night’s Redskins game went.”

He put his hand in his pocket and felt over the phone for the battery release.
 
When he found it he flicked it open with his thumb and held out his coffee to misdirect attention as he popped the BlackBerry’s battery out to make sure it was off.
 
Outside the window the arrival of a flashing blue light caught his eye.
 
He saw three cars pull up, blocking the road.
 
One was a police car with a bold orange stripe down the side.
 
The other two were unmarked.

“What do you suppose that’s all about?” Jean said.

Tayte shrugged his shoulders but he knew well enough.

Across the table, Jackson pulled out his phone.
 
“Are we done here?”

“I’m good,” Jean said, draining her latte.

Jackson pressed his phone to his ear and Tayte heard him tell whoever was on the other end that there was something going on outside - that the street looked like it was about to be closed off.

“Bring the car to the bottom of Ludgate Hill,” Jackson said.
 
“On Farringdon Street.
 
We’ll meet you there.”

When they got outside, several men wearing plain clothes and ballistics vests rushed them, handguns drawn.

“Armed police!” at least three of them shouted.

Tayte and Jean were clear of the doorway.
 
Jackson and Stubbs were just behind them.
 
The Security Service officers were clearly the focus of attention - just as Tayte knew they would be.
 
He saw Stubbs reach a hand towards his jacket but he thought better of it.

“Hands behind your heads!” another police officer shouted.

They got no protest from either Jackson or Stubbs.
 
Tayte watched both men raise their hands behind them and Jackson had his eyes fixed on Tayte the whole time.
 
He thought the man looked ready to rip his head off.
 
A split second later, the two men were on the ground with police all over them.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Jean said.

Tayte grabbed her arm and they started running.
 
“Come on.
 
I’ll explain later.”

They ran back towards St Paul’s Cathedral and didn’t stop running until they found an available taxi to get them out of there.
 
They took a left turn before the cathedral into Ave Maria Lane and picked up a black cab further down towards Amen Corner.

“Marylebone,” Tayte said.
 
He was panting hard as he followed Jean in.
 
He slammed the door behind him and flopped back onto the seat.

“Explain,” Jean said, wide-eyed and naturally confused.

Tayte had to wait to catch his breath.
 
When he did, all he said was, “Fable.”

“What?
 
What about him?”

“He was in the men’s room.”

Jean didn’t look any less confused.
 
“Why?
 
What happened?”

“He said he was concerned for our safety.
 
He told me there were things going on that we should know about.”

“Like what?”

“Like the government’s getting jumpy.
 
That they’ll do just about anything to stop this from getting out if it proves to be real.”

“But only if it fell into the wrong hands, surely?”

“Not exactly,” Tayte said with a humourless laugh.
 
“Fable didn’t come right out and say it but I got the impression that if we found what we were looking for, agents Jackson and Stubbs had another agenda to follow.
 
They weren’t there to protect
us
, if you know what I mean.”

Jean looked numb.
 
“Oh my God,” she said.
 
“They were there to protect the identity of the heir?”

“Eliminate all threats,” Tayte said.
 
“That was my take on the situation.
 
Whoever’s pulling our strings with that note has done well to stay off their radar.
 
They must have understood the risks far better than we have.”

“Christ,” Jean said.
 
She sat back, momentarily dumbstruck.
 
A few seconds later she added, “So Fable set all that up back there?
 
The armed police?”

Tayte thought about the two Security Service officers lying face down on the pavement outside Starbucks and smiled to himself.
 
“Yes he did.
 
I had no idea what he had in mind.
 
He just told me he’d handle it.
 
I guess he must have called in their location and descriptions with a reasonable cause for an armed response unit.”