The Last Queen of England (40 page)

Jean eyed him askance.

“What did I say?”

She shook her head at him.
 
“I suppose I’d come to think of you as someone with a little more sensitivity, that’s all.”

They headed back around the church.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Tayte said.
 
“You just see so much of a thing that it stops registering.”

“Like pathologists and autopsies?”

Tayte smiled.
 
“Kind of, I guess.”

They were in the garden again and Tayte noticed that there was more than one exit.
 
“How do we get to the last of our St Paul’s churches?”

“This way to Shadwell,” Jean said, indicating an arch to their right that led out through the townhouses.
 
“We can take the Tube from Covent Garden station, change at Holborn and pick up the DLR at Bank.
 
It’s on the Thames.”

“DLR?”

“The Docklands Light Railway.”

They emerged onto King Street amidst a bustle of people, whom Tayte supposed were a blend of tourists, shoppers and office workers taking their lunch break, all heading to and from the piazza.
 
They joined the throng and made their way towards the market square as the crowd thickened and their pace slowed to a shuffle.

“It’s not usually this busy here on Wednesdays,” Jean said, almost having to shout.

“I guess it is lunchtime,” Tayte said.
 
He wanted to hold her hand so they didn’t get separated but he shied away from the idea.

Jean was trying to look ahead through the crowd, lifting her chin, walking on tiptoes.
 
“There must be something going on.”

They reached the edge of the piazza and the din from the street performers grew.
 
It was a happy sound, if a little harsh to Tayte’s ears, and he couldn’t stop himself from trying to get a look at what all the fuss was about.
 
There was a distinctly carnival atmosphere to the place.
 
Beneath the pillared portico of St Paul’s Church where it abutted the piazza, red, white and green flags hung like bunting between the pillars, matching the T-shirts he could now see on many of the people there.

He saw several posters bearing the words, ‘Republic Britain Now!’ and quickly realised that the event was part of a political campaign.
 
A small stage had been set up behind a street performer who was riding a high unicycle whilst juggling batons, warming up the crowd.
 
It was easy to get caught up in it all and Tayte did.
 
So much so that when he turned back to Jean to make sure he was still shuffling in the right direction, she was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Five

T
ayte jumped in the air to get a clear view above the crowd.

“Jean!”

She didn’t answer and he couldn’t see her.
 
He jumped again and began to turn in a slow circle.

Where is she?

Movement in the otherwise calm crowd suddenly drew his attention.
 
Someone was pushing through the people towards him.
 
All he could see of the man was his thick neck and his short blonde hair - and the urgency in his eyes as he came right at him.
 
The man touched a hand to his ear, lips moving like he was talking to someone via a Bluetooth headset or a two-way radio.
 
Then he saw someone else moving fast to his right, knocking people aside as he came in from the market.

Tayte knew there was no way he could brave this out with a few well-chosen words like he had in Hammersmith.
 
He looked around for Jean again.
 
Where was she?
 
Did they have her already?

Who the hell are they?

His first two questions were answered when he felt someone tugging at his jacket.
 
Then as he began to sink beneath the crowd he heard a familiar voice.

“Are you crazy?
 
Didn’t you see them?”
 
It was Jean.
 
She looked intense.
 
“The man coming from the market,” she added.
 
“He was driving that blue Ford.”

Tayte was too pleased to see her again to say
I told you so
.
 
“Why didn’t you say something?”

“There wasn’t time.”
 
She pulled at his jacket again.
 
“We need to get out of here.
 
Stay low.”

They filtered through the crowd like two people trying to find their way out of a cornfield, obscured by everything around them.
 
The going was too slow for Tayte’s liking, but the ever-thickening crowd made it impossible to move any faster.
 
He was crouched low over his briefcase, eyes down at Jean’s boots with no idea which way they were going.
 
The man on the PA sounded louder so he figured they must be heading for the portico where the street performers were.

Twenty seconds later Tayte emerged from the crowd behind Jean like a drowning man coming up for air.
 
He saw a contortionist on all fours, staring up at him with her face upside down.
 
Behind her he saw a man with a microphone, dressed like a circus ringmaster.

“We have a volunteer, ladies and gentlemen!”

At the edge of the crowd to his left, Tayte saw the man who had come from the market.
 
He was a gaunt, sinewy man with hollow cheeks and a shaved head.
 
Put a straw hat on him and Tayte thought he would have made a good scarecrow.

“That’s him,” Jean said.
 
“Run!”

They headed for the stage where there were fewer people.
 
One of the performers tried to grab Tayte’s arm as he passed, smiling playfully, but Tayte dodged him.
 
He glanced back.
 
The scarecrow was coming for them across the arena.
 
Tayte saw one of the performers reach for him and the man made no attempt to dodge.
 
Instead, he slammed the base of his palm into the performer’s face, knocking him down like a bowling pin.

Tayte refocused on getting out of there.
 
They cleared the stage area beneath the portico and the gathering seemed to part for them, only Tayte soon realised it wasn’t for them.
 
The key speaker had arrived to a cheering crowd.
 
He had a foldaway bicycle with him, trousers still clipped around his ankles.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the man on the PA said, seeming to ignore the fracas that had just stirred the crowd on the other side of the arena.
 
“The Right Honourable Mr Trenton McAlister MP!”

Tayte almost ran into him.
 
He tripped over the front wheel of his bicycle instead.
 
“Sorry,” he called back, getting to his feet.

At that moment Tayte saw the scarecrow again.
 
He was at the end of the parting, not twenty feet away.
 
A thin smile slowly split his face, prompting Tayte to grab his briefcase, turn on his heel and run after Jean as the crowd began to close in.

The timing conjured biblical connotations in Tayte’s mind.
 
It was like Moses and the Israelites - the parting of the Red Sea now returned to devour the enemy.
 
Tayte wished it would, but as he emerged on the other side he knew the crowd would only buy them a few seconds.
 
From then on they would be in the open.

Jean was waiting for him across the street, waving frantically.
 
“Come on!
 
We can cut across The Strand.
 
It’s not far to the Embankment.”

Tayte didn’t know what was at the Embankment and he didn’t ask.
 
As they ran down the first street they came to, all he was interested in was a taxi but he couldn’t see any.
 
When they were halfway to the main road, he glanced back and saw their pursuers turn into the street after them.
 
He ran harder and somehow he managed to overtake Jean.
 
It was downhill all the way and his weight gave him momentum.
 
He was panting fiercely by the time they reached the main road.

“I don’t know how long I can keep this up,” he said.

“Just remember they want to kill us,” Jean said.
 
“It works for me.”

That thought kept Tayte going.
 
They crossed The Strand, taking their chances with the traffic.
 
His jacket suddenly felt two sizes too small, like it was crushing the air from his chest, making it hard to breathe.
 
Behind him, he heard a car horn and figured whoever was chasing them had just crossed the road after them.
 
He thought about grabbing Jean and ducking into one of the shops, but he didn’t think that would offer any kind of sanctuary and Jean seemed to have a plan.
 
He only wished he knew what it was.
 
He looked for a taxi again.
 
The few he could see were either going the other way or were already occupied.
 
Jean turned left into a narrow side street that ran out to a steep bank of steps, which they took two at a time.

“You think you can make the park?” she said, indicating the trees further down beyond the high buildings that now crowded in on either side of them.

The street was quiet - no one else around.
 
Fire escapes and commercial bins lined their way and the air reeked of rotting kitchen waste.
 
At the bottom of the steps another narrow street began to slope away.
 
The park was two hundred metres at most.

“I’ll make it,” Tayte said, hoping that he could.

They crossed a narrow intersection with another quiet road and the trees and mature shrubs that marked the boundary of Victoria Embankment Gardens seemed real to Tayte for the first time.
 
Nothing, however, seemed as real as the muted gunshots he heard behind him as chunks of paving suddenly blistered at his feet.

“They’re shooting at us, for Christ sakes!”

As he continued to run for his life, curiosity got the better of him and he looked over his shoulder again.
 
The scarecrow had cleared the steps and his partner was close behind him.
 
When Tayte turned back to Jean he knew he was slowing down.
 
She’d gained twenty paces on him and was almost at the park gate.
 
It was a single, wrought iron gate - a minor access point.
 
Tayte’s legs felt like lead pendulums swinging beneath him as he focused on it.
 
But what then?
 
The park was no safe haven either.
 
What was Jean thinking?
 
It didn’t seem to matter.
 
Over the sound of his own wheezing lungs he heard the scarecrow’s voice for the first time.

“You’re mine now!”

Tayte didn’t have enough energy left to doubt it.
 
He knew he should have ditched his briefcase when they left Covent Garden but he couldn’t bring himself to part with it any more than he wanted to lose all the paperwork that was inside.
 
He thought about making a stand.
 
At least maybe Jean could get away.
 
He was the bigger man after all.
 
But he knew he didn’t have the skills.
 
The men chasing him in all probability did and there were two of them.
 
They would be on him in seconds and if that happened he thought Jean would try to help him.

That thought alone decided him.
 
He got mad at the idea and kicked his legs harder, running flat out down the slope, barely able to control himself.
 
He saw that Jean was now on the other side of the gate.

Why is she waiting?
 
Why doesn’t she run?

“Come on!” she yelled, spurring him on.
 
“Don’t look back.”

Tayte shot through the opening like a sprinter crossing the finish line.
 
Then he caught an exposed tree root and fell headlong into a flower border.
 
He heard the gate clank shut behind him and turned to see that Jean had locked it with the disc lock from her bike.
 
The scarecrow crashed into it, clawing at Jean through the bars as she backed away.

She yelled at Tayte.
 
“Get up!”

Tayte needed to catch his breath but the pop of another silenced gunshot and the puff of dirt in the border between his legs quickly got him to his feet.

“They’ll be over that gate in seconds,” Jean said, grabbing Tayte’s arm.
 
“We’ve got to keep moving.”

Somewhere along the way, Tayte thought Professor Jean Summer had turned into the personal trainer from Hell.
 
He was on his feet again, trying to run, but the lactic acid in his muscles was shutting him down.
 
They crossed the colourful gardens in thirty seconds, unhindered.
 
Jean’s disc lock seemed to have delayed their pursuers, but when they emerged from the main gates, close to Embankment Underground Station, it was clear that at least one of them had thought around the problem.