In the Blood (40 page)

“Hand grenades?” Tayte said, still coming to terms with this latest attempt on his life.

“That’s right.
 
Probably left over from the Second World War.
 
Strap a few grenades together and wire them to a radio servo - any high-torque radio-controlled model servo would do.
 
Then switch on the transmitter, push the control stick, the servo turns, pulling all the pins at once.”

“Boom!” Hayne added, clapping his hands together.

Bastion winced.
 
“Thank you for the dramatics, Sergeant.”

“Sorry, sir.”
 

Bastion dropped the shrapnel back onto the tray.
 
It sounded heavier than it looked.
 
“Now,
Mr
Tayte,” he said.
 
“Someone clearly wants you dead and I want to know why.”

Tayte sat forward.
 
“First, I need my briefcase.”

The faces before him questioned why.

“When you first got here, Tayte said, “you asked where I was last night.
 
I said I’d spent the night in the car you loaned me.”

“Yes, I got all that,” Bastion said.

“But I
haven’t
told you what I was doing.”

“What
were
you doing?” Hayne asked.

 
“I was trying to find out who killed Schofield - who now has Amy Fallon.”

Bastion shook his head.
 
“We haven’t established that anyone’s been kidnapped yet,
Mr
Tayte.”

“
I
have.
 
I spoke to Amy this morning.
 
I was at Gillan
Harbour
trying to get her back.”

“And you think you’ve found out who this man is?” Hayne asked.

“I might have.
 
There’s a list on my laptop.
 
That’s why I need my briefcase.
 
You need to check out the names.”

“How about I get someone to bring your car to the hospital with a change of clothes?” Bastion said.
 
“Then we can have a look at this list of yours.
 
And while we’re waiting you can tell me everything you know.”

Tayte reached across to the bedside table and picked up the keys that were there with the rest of his personal items: his notepad and wallet, which still needed to dry out, and his cellphone, which was now useless.
 
He tossed the keys to Bastion who raised a hand to the uniformed officer waiting at the door.

While Tayte waited for his briefcase and a clean suit to arrive, he gave Bastion and Hayne the full story, leaving nothing out.
 
When he reached the part about the goose chase he’d sent Schofield on, he wondered again what he’d turned up.

“I had Schofield checking out graveyards all day,” he said.
 
“When I asked him to go to Nare Point and meet this guy who’d called me about James Fairborne’s probate record, he was excited about something.
 
I wish I knew what it was.”

DS Hayne reached into a dark blue folder that was beside him on the bed and produced several photos that were badly water-damaged.
 
He flicked through them and Tayte watched him single out two images.

“Is this what he was doing, sir,” Hayne asked.
 
He passed the photos to Tayte.
 
“We found them with the rest of his belongings in the boot of his hire car this morning.”

“Shameful,” Bastion said, shaking his head.
 
“Lovely E-Type Jag, series III.
 
It was pulled from the creek at Helford Village this morning, covered in all manner of filth.
 
I’m surprised any of these photos survived at all.”

“V12,” Tayte said, recalling the throaty engine note he’d heard last night after the killer fled.
 
He figured he must have used Schofield’s car after he killed him, leaving it nearby for a quick get-away when he returned for the box.
 
Very calculated,
Tayte thought, guessing that the killer might have continued his get-away by boat after he dumped the car.

“All these photos are pretty much of the same view,” Hayne said.
 
“Something about it must have caught your colleague’s interest.
 
They were taken yesterday morning according to the digital time stamps.”

Tayte studied the photos.
 
The first showed a typical graveyard scene.
 
There was no church in the picture and Tayte supposed it must have been taken with the church behind the camera.
 
Numerous headstones scattered the foreground leading to a low stone wall.
 
Beyond that, the landscape diminished to the sea.
 
He looked at the other photo which showed a similar view.

“That’s a photo of a painting,” Hayne said in case Tayte had missed it.

Tayte could see the gilt frame just visible at the edges of the picture.
 
It was a painting of the view he’d just seen in the first photo, only this painting had fewer headstones in the foreground.
 
“It must have been painted some time ago,” Tayte said.
 
“The graveyard’s filled up a bit since then.”

He continued to study the images, and he was close to handing them back when he saw what he thought Schofield was interested in.
 
He tapped the photo of the painting.
 
“Look at that,” he said.

Hayne leaned in.
 
“Looks like a memorial stone of some sort,” he said, failing to fully comprehend the significance.

“And it’s not there now,” Tayte said.

They compared the photos to confirm it.
 
Where the memorial appeared in the painting - a tall stone pillar topped with a Celtic cross - the photo of the scene taken yesterday disclosed what appeared to be a spare plot.

“Could this be what your colleague was so excited about?” Hayne asked.

Tayte held the photos side by side.
 
The subject of interest was
centred
in each - the memorial on one, the space where it had stood on the other.
 
“I’m sure of it,” he said.

A double tap at the door announced the arrival of his briefcase and a familiar tan linen suit.
 
They were a welcome sight now that he had a church to find.
 
Though he supposed it wouldn’t be easy.
 
The scene looked like a thousand other coastal graveyards and he was sure Cornwall had more than its fair share.

Chapter Fifty

I
t was early afternoon by the time Jefferson Tayte managed to separate himself from Bastion and Hayne.
 
Since he’d realised the significance of Schofield’s photos - that in some Cornish graveyard an empty space existed where once a memorial stood - all he wanted to do was find it.
 
He felt like Schofield was reaching out to him, trying to tell him why he’d been so wired that day - his last day.

DCI Bastion had insisted Tayte answer a few more questions about the events that led up to the explosion at Gillan Harbour before they parted company.
 
He took the telling-off he’d expected from Bastion as he told them about his telephone conversations with the killer and of his few words with Amy, and that he’d left Tom Laity waiting in the mouth of the Helford River.
 
He’d suggested they put out a search for Amy’s motor launch and Bastion had been quick to assure Tayte that finding the launch was already a high priority.
 
As was interviewing Tom Laity.

Against the advice of the hospital staff, Tayte discharged himself, insisting that no further fuss was made and refusing the offer of DS Hayne’s company for the afternoon.
 
As far as Tayte was concerned, he figured the killer must have thought him dead after witnessing the explosion at Gillan Harbour and he saw that as an advantage.
 
He left with a warning to be careful and the loan of a mobile phone, which Bastion had insisted he keep handy.

The day had changed little while he’d been at the hospital.
 
Now as he drove along a familiar country lane, looking ahead through a tunnel of canopied branches to the bright sunlight beyond, his destination was in sight.
 
He needed to know what church Schofield’s photos were taken from, and he only knew one person who might be able to tell him.
 
As he pulled the yellow Citroen into the parking area outside the parish church of St Mawnan, he hoped Reverend Jolliffe was there.

Tayte passed through the lych gate and followed the shingle path around the church to his right, towards the bell tower.
 
A tunefully whistled rendition of Lizette Woodworth Reese’s,
Glad that I live am I,
immediately greeted him.
 
The sound drew him into the graveyard, to the rear of the church where he saw Jolliffe clearing dead flowers from the cremation plots.
 
The whistling stopped as soon as the reverend saw him.

“How good to see you again,” Jolliffe said, smiling.
 
“So many people drop by the once, never to return.”

Tayte almost felt guilty.
 
“I’m afraid I have another motive for being here,” he admitted.

The reverend met Tayte on the path.
 
“All reasons are accepted,” he said.
 
Then he noticed Tayte’s bandaged neck and hand and said, “Whatever’s happened to you?”

“It’s a long story I’d be glad to share with you some day,” Tayte said.
 
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out photocopies of the images Schofield had taken.
 
“I’m in a bit of a hurry just now though, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Jolliffe said.
 
His eyes followed the pictures in Tayte’s hand.
 
“So how are you getting along with your work?”

“That’s why I’m back,” Tayte said.
 
He offered the images to Jolliffe who squinted at them then pulled away as he tried to bring them into focus.
 
“I was hoping you could tell me where this graveyard is.”

“I’ll need my glasses,” Jolliffe said, reaching for them before he realised he didn’t have them with him.
 
“Follow me,” he added.
 
Then he marched off towards the blue south-facing door.

Tayte paused in the doorway and looked back at the view.
 
Across the river he could clearly see part of the route he’d followed in Amy’s launch earlier.
 
He could see Nare Point and could even make out the rectangular shape of the observation hut.
 
He couldn’t seem to escape it; that place where Peter Schofield had met his bloody end.

Tayte caught up with the reverend as he was taking a glasses case out of from his fleece jacket, which had been resting over the pulpit.

“Now let’s take a look,” Jolliffe said, squaring his reading glasses on his nose.

Tayte set the photocopies down on a nearby table and he could tell the reverend was still having trouble seeing them clearly.
 
One minute he was looking through the lenses, the next he was peering over the top.

“The originals were a little water-damaged,” Tayte said, giving him an excuse.

“So I see.”

“I guess it looks like most churchyards around here.”

Jolliffe was bent double over the images now.
 
Tayte sensed he was struggling and expected him to give up any minute.
 
Then the reverend straightened and smiled.

“Definitely St Keverne,” he said.
 
“No question about it.”

Tayte moved closer as Jolliffe led his eyes to the scenery in the background.
 
It was distant and indistinct, and he wondered how anything much could be drawn from it.

“See here,” Jolliffe said, pointing to the sea at the top of the photo.
 
“Specifically this rock formation.”

Tayte could see something there in the distance, but he thought he’d need a magnifying glass to discern any detail.

The reverend put his glasses away, snapping the case shut.
 
“They’re called the Manacles,” he said.
 
“There’s only one church with that treacherous view.
 
It’s definitely St Keverne.”

Several hundred feet above Salisbury Plain, a blue-and-yellow Eurocopter was returning to Cornwall.
 
Sir Richard Fairborne’s official investiture as a life peer of the realm had passed well enough, though recent events concerning his right to even live at Rosemullion Hall had tainted the occasion.
 
He knew he’d earned the honour he’d just received in London, but the question over his right to any hereditary claim was far-reaching.
 
It all came back to that.
 
Without the privileges of wealth and position afforded him through those he thought to be his ancestors he knew he would not have had the opportunity to achieve what he had.