The Lost Empress (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Present day.

Standing in the front porch of a flat in Gravesend, ten miles northwest of Chatham, Jefferson Tayte continued to catch his breath as he watched DI Bishop knock on the door again. The lift was out of service, and they had to take the stairs—all ten flights to the top, which Tayte thought was typical. When Davina had checked her records for Dean Saxby’s contact details, as she had told Tayte she would, she had found nothing, suggesting that no business had been conducted during Dean’s visit with Lionel Scanlon on the day Davina had seen him at the workshop—at least, none that Lionel had recorded. Locating this descendant of Frank Saxby had then fallen to Bishop, who had received his details while they were visiting the Ashcrofts earlier that morning. Both men stepped back as a shadow appeared beyond the privacy glass and the front door opened. Dean Saxby was expecting them.

‘Mr Saxby?’ Bishop said with a businesslike smile. He showed his badge. ‘Detective Inspector Bishop. We spoke on the telephone earlier. This is Mr Tayte. He’s assisting with my investigation.’

Tayte gave a nod, noting the close-cropped hair and the sagging sports pants and T-shirt the man before them was wearing, thinking that he understood now what Davina had meant when she’d said that Dean Saxby hadn’t looked like their usual type of client.

‘Sure. Come in,’ Dean said. ‘You wanna cuppa? Kettle’s just boiled.’

‘Coffee, thanks. Black, no sugar,’ Bishop said.

‘Same here,’ Tayte added.

They were shown into the sitting room, where tired furniture seemed to sigh at them as they entered. The wallpaper was peeling back, the carpet was close to threadbare in places, and the air was heavy with the odour of stale cigarettes.

‘Make yourselves at home,’ Dean added. ‘I won’t be a mo.’

Tayte sat beside Bishop on the sofa with his briefcase and continued to take the place in; the old-style cathode ray tube television set and the faded prints on the walls, telling him that Dean Saxby was either down on his luck or that he cared little for his surroundings. He was gone no more than a minute. When he came back and handed out the drinks, he sat in one of the armchairs opposite them and put his feet up on the low table that stood between them.

‘So, what’s this about?’ Dean said. He laughed to himself. ‘Not in any trouble, am I?’

‘Not at all,’ Bishop said. ‘I’m hoping you might be able to help me out, that’s all.’

Bishop relayed everything Tayte had told him—everything Davina had said about the day she had seen Dean Saxby visiting her husband at his workshop a month ago.

‘Can you tell me why you went to see Lionel Scanlon?’

‘I knew this was about that,’ Dean said. ‘I read about his murder. I didn’t have anything to do with it, if that’s what you think.’

‘I don’t think that, Mr Saxby. I’d just like to know why you went to see him.’

‘I had something to sell that I thought he’d want to buy.’

‘What were you trying to sell him?’

‘An antique cigar case. Solid silver.’

Tayte looked around at the décor again, and he couldn’t help but wonder what a man who lived in a place such as this was doing with an antique silver cigar case.

‘It’s been in the family ages,’ Dean added, answering Tayte’s thoughts. ‘I needed the money.’

Bishop glanced at the photograph on the mantle that was above a plastic, plug-in fireplace. ‘Kids draining the coffers, are they,’ he said, half jokingly. ‘I know all about that, believe me.’

‘I’m divorced,’ Dean said. ‘It’s the maintenance and lack of work that’s keeping me in this dump.’

‘Do you mind if I ask what do you do for a living?’

‘Electrician. Contracts mostly. There’s not much work about at the moment.’

Tayte sat forward then, and he looked at Bishop as if to ask if he minded him asking a question. Bishop nodded back at him.

‘Why did you take the cigar case to Lionel Scanlon?’ Tayte asked. ‘You said you thought he’d want to buy it, but why him? There must be plenty of other places more local you could have taken it to.’

‘I took it to Lionel Scanlon because I thought he’d pay the best price. I said I thought it belonged to one of his ancestors.’

Hearing that aroused Tayte’s interest further. ‘Do you know which of his ancestors?’

Dean nodded. ‘Someone called Oscar Scanlon. Him and my great-great-granddad knew each other.’

‘Frank Saxby?’

‘That’s right,’ Dean said, eyeing Tayte quizzically, as if to ask how he knew. ‘The cigar case must have changed hands at some point. Maybe he won it off him.’

Bishop came back into the conversation. ‘So you thought Lionel Scanlon might like to have it back in the family and would pay extra for it?’

‘I did. Only he didn’t want to pay much for it at all—the cheapskate.’

‘Did you sell it to him?’

‘No,’ Dean laughed. ‘Not for the price he was offering.’

‘Can we see it?’ Tayte asked.

Dean shook his head. ‘Sold it last week.’

Bishop drew an audible breath and Tayte understood why. Without the cigar case, Dean Saxby could have just made the whole thing up.

‘Who did you sell it to?’ Bishop asked.

‘There’s a place on Northfleet Hill,’ Dean said. ‘Can’t remember the name.’

‘Did you get a receipt?’

‘Probably, but I didn’t keep it. I had the cash. What was the point?’

Tayte stepped in again. ‘How do you know Oscar Scanlon and your great-great-grandfather knew one another?’ He was keen to find out what Dean Saxby knew about his ancestors.

‘There was an old photograph of two men inside the case. It had their names on the back. That’s how I matched the inscription, “O.W.S”. I’ve no idea what the “W” stands for.’

‘Do you still have the photograph?’

Dean shook his head again. ‘Sorry. I sold it with the cigar case. Apparently it made it more valuable.’

‘Provenance,’ Tayte said. ‘Do you have any other old photos? Was anything else handed down to you?’

‘I wish,’ Dean said. ‘I was lucky to get the cigar case.’

‘That’s too bad. Do you know much about Frank Saxby?’

‘No. I was just told who the man in the photo was.’

Bishop sat forward then, as if he were about to stand up. ‘It’s just a routine question,’ he said, a little ominously, Tayte thought, ‘but before we go, can you tell me where you were on the night of Friday the 23rd of May—the night Lionel Scanlon was murdered.’

Dean Saxby scoffed. ‘I knew that was coming.’ He paused. Then he began to shake his head. ‘No, I can’t. I was probably here, as I am most nights—and days, come to that. I already told you I wasn’t getting much work.’

Tayte could see that Bishop’s question with its possible implication was angering their host. His tone had changed, and his arms were now tightly crossed around his chest.

‘Would you have been with anyone on that Friday night who could vouch for you being home?’ Bishop continued.

Dean scoffed again. ‘No, it’s just me. I can’t afford to go out and find a girlfriend, if that’s what you mean—let alone afford to keep one.’ He shot forward to match Bishop on the edge of his seat. ‘That doesn’t mean I killed anyone.’

‘Calm down, Mr Saxby. As I said, it was just a routine question.’ Bishop offered him a calming smile as he rose to leave. ‘Northfleet Hill, you said?’

‘That’s right. Silver cigar case. You can go and ask the dealer if you want.’

‘Thank you for your time, Mr Saxby,’ Bishop said, and as Tayte followed him out, he knew the Inspector fully intended to.

‘Come in, Mr Tayte. Have a seat.’

An hour after leaving Dean Saxby’s flat, DI Bishop ushered Tayte into a small office at the North Kent and Medway Division police headquarters. Tayte sat at one end of the desk, facing a window that looked out onto a featureless part of the building and the car park below. As Bishop put his coffee down and lowered himself into his chair, Tayte offered him a chocolate to go with it.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Bishop said, dipping his hand into the proffered bag of Mr Goodbar miniatures. ‘I think you’ve given me a taste for these.’

They had gone straight to the police station after their last visit, picking up a sandwich for lunch along the way. Bishop had received word that the information he’d previously told Tayte he was waiting on had arrived, and Tayte was more eager to see it than ever when Bishop told him it concerned Alice Stilwell. There was a screen on the desk, surrounded by photographs. Bishop switched it on and slid it around so Tayte could see it better.

‘So, your wife’s in law enforcement, too?’ Tayte said, eying a photograph of a woman in uniform beside another photograph of the same woman, this one with two small children in a park somewhere.

‘It’s how we met,’ Bishop said, smiling momentarily at the face in the picture as he spoke. ‘She put her career on hold to have a family, but if I know Amanda, she’ll be back as soon as they’re in school.’ He indicated the photograph of the children. ‘That’s Benjamin—he’s quite a handful. Beside him there is Olivia.’

‘Great-looking kids,’ Tayte offered, thinking that a simple family day out in the park must be a wonderful way to spend some time.

Bishop thanked him, and then he began tapping at the keyboard in front of him. ‘Are you familiar with the history of our Secret Intelligence Service, commonly referred to as MI6?’

Tayte sipped his coffee and smiled to himself as he recalled his last visit to England and how he and Jean Summer had encountered one such government agency while helping out with a very different kind of murder investigation.
That was MI5,
he reminded himself,
the Security Service
.

‘I’ve had some dealings with your homeland security,’ he said. ‘But I’m not too clued up on your secret service.’

‘I was surprised how little I knew,’ Bishop said, ‘so I conducted some research of my own. The SIS began as the Secret Service Bureau in 1909, a collaboration between the Admiralty and the War Office, largely on account of the German threat and the arms race that was going on at the time. Given what you’ve told me about Alice, I thought there might be some information on her to support the allegations that she was a spy.’

‘It would certainly be good to confirm the rumours,’ Tayte said.

‘My thoughts exactly. I don’t know whether it’s the same in the US, but government bodies here in the UK have a legal obligation under the Public Records Act of 1958 to place records in the public archive. For reasons of national security, however, the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service are exempt. So, the decision on what gets transferred to The National Archives is made on a case-by-case basis.’

‘It’s no wonder my searches on Alice Stilwell returned so little information,’ Tayte said.

Bishop agreed. ‘Where information is considered sensitive for whatever reason, it remains out of public sight, under lock and key.’

‘How come you’ve been allowed access to this information?’

‘You mean apart from being a detective inspector in charge of a murder investigation?’ Bishop said, half-grinning. ‘Actually, as the file is just over a hundred years old now, it was up for review. Apparently, a large number of records that have previously been deemed too sensitive to release are being looked at again.’

‘Why was it deemed sensitive at all?’ Tayte asked, thinking aloud.

Bishop opened a folder on the computer’s desktop and clicked on one of the files that appeared inside. ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’

Tayte edged closer as the file opened, filling the screen with a scanned image of a document bearing the title ‘Home Office:
Registered
Papers, Supplementary.’ Below that Tayte read the
subheading
, ‘CRIMINAL CASES: Stilwell, Alice Maria.’

‘ “Observation,” ’ Bishop read aloud. ‘ “21st of April, 1914.” ’

Both men continued to take the document in. Tayte read the account of observations that had been recorded in Dover on that day by a member of the Secret Service Bureau. He read that Alice had been seen meeting with a German waiter who was already known to the SSB as Raimund Karl Drescher, a man who was himself under observation for spying. The account stated that Alice had left the hotel where Drescher worked and had proceeded to Dover harbour, where she had loitered suspiciously for some hours. The account ended with a brief summary of how the SSB officer had attempted to confront Alice to enquire into her purpose there, stating that Alice had then wilfully evaded him so as not to expose that purpose.

‘That’s very interesting,’ Tayte said. ‘I wonder how they knew that the person they were observing was Alice Stilwell.’

Bishop closed the file and opened another. ‘I suppose they must either have already known or had collated the information afterwards, once Alice’s identity was discovered.’

The next file was dated a few weeks later, and it explained precisely how the SSB came to know who Alice was. The report was similar to the first, but two further incidents were logged, of Alice having been observed loitering at England’s southern ports, where it was thought she was engaged in monitoring the movements of British warships, helping to provide the enemy with an account of Britain’s naval strength and placement. Scans of several train ticket stubs were also attached, and Tayte imagined they must have been found at Hamberley at some point. Reading on, he saw that no attempt had been made to question Alice on these occasions, presumably because the purpose of her activity was now obvious to the SSB. On these further occasions, the task was not then to engage, but to follow.