In the Blood (37 page)

“Where’s Amy!
 
And what are you doing with her boat?”

Tayte steadied himself and went for the seat.

“Stay down!” the man warned.
 
His posture was dynamic - ready.

The pole jabbed again and Tayte did as he was told.
 
He remained on his knees, hands held up in front of him.
 
“You’re making a big mistake,” he said.
 
“I know Amy.
 
I’m trying to help her.”

The man mocked him.
 
“You expect me to believe that, do you?
 
I know Amy very well and she’s never mentioned knowing any yanks.”

Tayte wondered how he could prove it.
 
This guy had clearly heard the news.
 
He could understand how seeing a stranger on Amy’s boat the next morning, looking bloody and bandaged as he did, might appear highly suspect.
 
“Her husband’s called Gabriel,” he said.
 
“He went missing two years ago.”

The man with the pole advanced.
 
“Everyone in the village knows that,” he said.
 
He stabbed the pole closer to Tayte’s face.

“Look, I just met her two days ago in Bodmin.
 
We had a common interest.”

“In what?”

Tayte thought about it.
 
The fewer people who knew about the box the better.
 
“Just some research we were into.
 
I haven’t seen Amy since the night before last.”

“The
night
before last?”

“That’s right.
 
I went to call on her with something I thought she’d be interested in.
 
We talked, had a few drinks, you know...”

The man holding the pole relaxed a little.
 
His expression was a portrait of disbelief, like what he was hearing couldn’t possibly be true.
 
“I’m not so sure I do know,” he said.
 
“What sort of drinks?”

“Just wine,” Tayte said, bemused by the man’s interest in what they were drinking.
 
“Does it matter?”

The man looked disappointed and a little distant.
 
After a few seconds he came back from his thoughts, reasserting his command of the situation with another firm thrust of his pole.
 
“Did this research have anything to do with a box?”

The question hit Tayte like a demolition ball, leaving him in little doubt over who was interrogating him.
 
“Laity?” he said.
 
“Tom Laity?”

The pole stood at ease.
 
Looks were exchanged and the bewilderment on Laity’s face at hearing his own name from this stranger soon passed.
 
“She must have considered you a friend if she showed you that box,” he said.
 
Then a moment later he smiled proudly and added, “She told you about me then?”

Tayte nodded.
 
“You own the deli in the village.”

“That’s right.”
 
Laity laughed and offered Tayte his hand.
 
“Now then,” he said, pulling Tayte to his feet.
 
“What’s happened to Amy and what are we going to do about it?”

It did not take Tayte long to convince Tom Laity that, for Amy’s sake, he had to proceed alone and quickly.
 
He’d given Laity a rushed summary of all the key points that led to Amy’s disappearance, figuring that if Amy trusted him then why shouldn’t he?
 
The plan now was that Laity would wait for him to return.
 
If he wasn’t back within thirty minutes, Laity would follow into Gillan Harbour.

Alone again in the teak motor launch, Tayte hoped as he turned Dennis Head and made for Gillan Harbour, that Tom Laity’s outlandish introduction hadn’t lost him too much time.
 
His cheap digital watch, which he was surprised still worked after all the knocks they’d shared in the last twelve hours, told him he had just fifteen minutes to spare.
 
Looking back through the bright morning glare, he could still see Laity’s boat in the mouth of the river - waiting.
 

Tayte had no idea what lay ahead, no clue as to what further instructions he might have to follow when the next call came.
 
But Laity had assured him that there was no way out of Gillan Harbour by boat that he could miss from his vantage point.
 
He was Tayte’s back-up.
 
Yet Tayte still felt very much alone as the little boat carried him further into the neck of a harbour that became narrower and shallower the further in he went.
 
He felt like a fish swimming in a net that was gradually closing around him.

To either side as he went, the banks of the inlet rose from granite foundations to a fringe of ancient oaks and other fauna.
 
Then higher up, beyond a scattering of nestled houses, green fields rolled away.
 
He could soon see the harbour boats ahead, moored to buoy markers out on the water.
 
He looked back for Laity’s boat again but could barely see it now.
 
He tried to remember his instructions.

When I see a church on my right.
 
Stop and wait.

He looked along the bank; nothing yet.
 
He checked his watch again; five minutes left.
 
He pushed the throttle forward and quickly arrived among the resting boats.
 
Then easing back he worked his way through until he came out into another stretch of clear water.

Further ahead he could see another group of boats, moored like the first, only they were fewer and generally smaller.
 
He approached and to his right he saw a small shingle beach.
 
There were a few buildings, a short make-shift jetty.
 
Then as he cleared the bank he saw it.
 
The Norman tower of what he supposed must be the church he was looking for rose out from the trees, dominating the scene.

He throttled back until the boat was barely moving and pulled out his cellphone in readiness, looking towards the beach.
 
It was quiet; no one about.
 
Then he saw a car arrive along a road to his left.
 
It was a blue hatchback: shabby-looking.
 
It continued into what he supposed was a car park further along and to the left of the church.
 
Then a moment later he saw it come out again towards the same road it had arrived by.
 
It crawled along a few metres then stopped.

Tayte supposed the driver might be lost, or a sightseer, perhaps, not staying long.
 
Then his phone rang and he nearly dropped it in his haste to take the call.

“Tayte,” he said, short and sharp.

“Congratulations, Mr Tayte.”

Tayte’s eyes were still on the car.
 
A door had opened.
 
Someone got out.
 
He wished he had some binoculars.

“Now,” the voice continued.
 
Look for a blue-and-yellow rowing boat.
 
It’s tied off to an orange buoy marker, number twenty-seven.”

Tayte was reluctant to take his eyes off the car.
 
Someone else had got out.
 
They were standing close together.
 
Both were similarly dressed in light-grey hooded sweatshirts and jeans.
 
One was taller than the other and thicker set.
 
Tayte looked for the row boat.
 
It was easy to spot, some twenty metres back.
 
He looked to the shore.
 
The two figures were walking onto the beach, joined at the hip like newlyweds.
 
It has to be them.
 
His eyes were fixed on the smaller of the two.
 
That has to be Amy,
he thought.

“Tie the launch to the row boat and turn off the engine, Mr Tayte.
 
Leave the key in the ignition.”

Tayte blipped the throttle and spun the boat in the water, showing his back to the beach.
 
He had no way of knowing now if that was Amy.

“Put her on,” he said, closing on the rowing boat.
 
The next voice he heard was thankfully familiar.

“He said he’d let me go if he got what he wanted,” Amy said.

Tayte thought she sounded tired and unconvinced.
 

“Don’t trust him!” she shouted.

Tayte heard her from the beach.
 
He spun around to see one of the figures wrench away.
 
A well placed kick sent the other crumpling and she was free.
 
Running.

Go on Amy!
 
Tayte willed her to get away and he could only watch as he saw the crumpled figure rise again, showing no urgency.
 
Amy’s movement looked awkward, like her legs were tied above the knees.
 
The man was on her instantly and Tayte felt pathetic as he watched a two-handed blow beat her to the ground.
 
Then she was yanked to her feet again.

Tayte pressed his phone hard to his ear.
 
“Amy!
 
Are you okay?”

“I think that’s enough talk, Mr Tayte.
 
Now keep to our arrangement.”

Tayte could feel his anger rising.
 
He wanted to head into the beach and take Amy back by force - a lot of force.

“You’re thinking too hard, Mr Tayte.
 
Just do it or I’ll kill her here and now!”

Tayte caught the flash of a blade in the sunlight and his focus returned to the blue-and-yellow rowing boat.
 
He bit his lip until it bled.

“Change boats, Mr Tayte.
 
Then row ashore.
 
When you’re halfway, I will leave.
 
Amy will remain.”

Tayte secured the launch to the buoy and climbed across into the rowing boat.
 
He untied it and pushed himself away then began to row ashore.
 
He saw no problem with the plan so far, not as long as he was between this man and what he wanted.

“That’s it, Mr Tayte.
 
This will soon be over.”

Tayte still had his back to the beach, and looking over his shoulder only upset his stroke when he tried, so he kept rowing.
 
He was halfway in when he became aware of an inflatable orange dinghy powering straight for the launch.
 
He stopped and looked back to the beach, the hooded figures were moving away.
 
Then someone climbed across from the dinghy into Amy’s motor launch, fired it up and left again at speed, chasing after the dinghy without a glance in his direction.
 
On shore, Tayte saw Amy being forced into the back of the car.

“Hey!” he shouted into his phone, but the call was over.

Tayte suddenly felt like he was running in both directions and getting nowhere.
 
He knew he couldn’t get to Amy before the car drove off, and he knew he had no chance of catching the launch.
 
He watched as the driver got into the car.
 
Then he heard the distant thump of the door closing.
 
Looking towards the harbour entrance, the launch was already gone.

Tayte stood up and steadied himself as the rowing boat tipped beneath him.
 
He watched the car pull away and tried to make out the face he knew was looking back from the rear window.
 
He wondered how he’d fallen for this simple deception, but he was confused.
 
Who took the launch?
 
He’d assumed the killer was working alone.
 
All he knew for sure was that he’d lost the box, the letter
and
Amy to the man who had killed Schofield and who, in his own words, wanted
him
dead.

In the back seat of the electric-blue Mazda hatchback, Amy Fallon shrieked into the gag at her mouth.
 
But her cry for help was useless.
 
There was no one close enough in sleepy St Anthony to hear her.
 
With bound hands she thumped at the car window as it pulled away from the shingle beach, all the while looking back across the water to the man who had come to help her.
 
She saw Tayte stand up on the boat.
 
She cried out again in vain desperation.

Then the car stopped.
 
She could see Tayte clearly now.
 
She quietened.
 
Through her gag she tried to smile at him; for trying perhaps.
 
Then she saw an intense flash and the blue-and-yellow rowing boat splintered apart.
 
The sound of the explosion seemed to wait for her to comprehend what had happened.
 
Then it came and there was no denying it.
 
As the debris fell, Jefferson Tayte and the rowing boat were gone.

Several minutes later, somewhere on the road between
     
St Anthony and Helford, the man driving the beat-up Mazda made a call.