In the Blood (43 page)

Tayte felt like he was playing noughts and crosses; he couldn’t win.
 
He eased off.
 
Thinking.
 
He didn’t like the way this was going.

“Irony’s a funny thing, isn’t it?
 
Turn me in and you kill Amy.
 
The very person you want to save.
 
You have to save me from the police now in order to save Amy.”

Tayte couldn’t miss the mocking smirk on Simon’s face.
 
“I’m through playing your games, you sick fuck!
 
You’ll tell the police where she is or -”

“Or what?
 
They’ll lock me up for murder.
 
Too late.
 
I’m already up for two recent counts.
 
What have I got to lose?”

“Two counts?” Tayte said as the inference of Simon’s statement hit him.

“That’s right,” Simon said.
 
“Oh, you don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“That deli owner...”

Tayte went limp.

“I told you not to get anyone else involved.”

Tayte looked around for anything he could use to smash this kid’s head with.
 
If something suitable had been within reach he might well have used it.

“Then there’s Gabriel Fallon,” Simon added.
 
“I saw him at the cottage through the dining room window one afternoon.
 
I was sure he’d found the box - it looked like a box.
 
Next day he came strolling out looking pleased with himself.
 
He was carrying something in an old towel, so I followed him onto the river.
 
I figured he was taking it to show someone.
 
It must have been important to him - the weather had turned to shit by the time we reached Toll Point.
 
I mean, he must have had a good reason to stay out there, right?”
 
Simon laughed through his nose.
 
“Well, I couldn’t let the opportunity go?”

Tayte could feel his breath catch in his tightening chest as adrenalin began to pump through his veins.
 
His hands formed tight knots beside him.

“I slit his throat for a fucking tackle box!” Simon added.
 
His laugh was sickening.
 
“The idiot was out fishing and he didn’t even have the sense to turn back when the storm hit.
 
What was I supposed to think he was doing out there?
 
A fucking tackle box!
 
So don’t think Amy’s life means more than piss to me, because it doesn’t.”

 
Tayte had heard enough.
 
He raised an arm above his head, ready to end this.
 
Then through his rage he saw an image of Amy, cold and alone.
 
His only thought was that he had to help her if he could.
 
He let out a frustrated roar and slapped the deck hard beside Simon’s face.

Simon glared back at him.
 
“So here’s the new game,” he said.
 
“Get your fat arse off me.
 
Find out what’s so valuable about that box.
 
Then meet me on the beach at Durgan tonight at eight o’clock with the answer.
 
If I like what I hear, I’ll tell you where Amy is so you can be the all-American hero and go save her.”

“What if I can’t find the answer in time?”

“It’s a gamble, but that’s all the time you have.
 
At the risk of sounding like a broken record...”
 
Simon slipped into his alternate voice again.
 
“If you don’t find out by eight o’clock tonight, Mr Tayte - Amy dies!”
 
He laughed at himself then stopped abruptly.
 
“Or you can just turn me in now and she dies anyway.
 
It’s up to you.”

That’s really all it came down to and Tayte knew it.
 
He could turn Simon in and risk drowning Amy if he couldn’t find her in time.
 
Or he could let Simon go.
 
In which case he had five hours to find out what dark discovery Lowenna Fairborne had made.
 
Five hours to find out what she knew that was so valuable that she could use it against her father to protect herself.
 
Tayte assumed that Simon wanted this information to use against the Fairbornes himself, all these years later.

“So that’s all this is about?” Tayte said.
 
“Revenge?”

“More or less,” Simon said.

“Revenge for Mawgan Hendry?”

“For Mawgan...”
 
Simon nodded.
 
“And for me.
 
I need to set things right.”

“And I suppose you’ll get rich along the way?”

Simon mocked him, like he resented the suggestion that this was all about the money.
 
“The chat’s over,” he said.
 
“Time to choose.”

Tayte sat there a moment, though he already knew what he had to do.
 
He shook his head and pushed himself up off Simon’s shoulders, knowing he had to take the chance.
 
If he turned Simon in, Simon would deny knowing anything about Amy’s whereabouts until it was too late.
 
He stood back and let him up.
 
He could barely look at him now, grinning as he rose from the deck, smug in his moment of triumph.

“Enjoy your freedom,” Tayte said through gritted teeth.
 
“It won’t last.”

The two men circled one another warily as Simon went to the wheel and regained control of the boat, guiding the vessel back to shore but away from the ferry pontoon.

“So you’re a descendant of Mawgan Hendry and Lowenna Fairborne,” Tayte said as the boat took him in.

“Once a bastard always a bastard, eh?” Simon said, still wearing that grin.
 
“I’m glad you worked it out,” he added.
 
“It’s good to know someone else knows the truth, and the letter you gave me this morning proves it.”

“Not much good to you now, though, is it?”
 
Tayte said.

“Not much,” Simon agreed.
 
“I can’t exactly tell anyone, can I?
 
When this is all over, I can hardly turn up as the rightful heir to claim the spoils.
 
That’s why the rest of the puzzle is so important.”
 
Simon lined the craft up for the landing.
 
“Looks like you’ve won yourself a victory after all,” he added.
 
“Still, it’s important to know who we are, don’t you think?”

Tayte gave no answer as the catamaran slid into the shingle.
 
He went out onto the bow and lowered the ramp, wondering what Simon meant by
rightful heir
as he watched the kid collect his knife from the seat moulding.

“Don’t forget this.”
 
Simon tossed Tayte his phone.
 
“You might need it.”

As Tayte jumped clear of the craft, he was aware of a police car arriving along the road towards the Ferry Boat Inn.
 
He turned back to the river and watched the catamaran pull away and he just stared after it.
 
He felt sick to his stomach.

Chapter Fifty-Three

F
ive hours...
 
Tayte couldn’t get that number out of his head.
 
He knew he had plenty to do in that time if he was going to save Amy and he knew where he wanted to start: Rosemullion Hall.
 
Eleanor Fairborne and her children had to be buried on the estate.
 
Their headstones would tell him if they survived the
Betsy Ross
or not, and he was sure that the circumstances of their deaths and Lowenna’s dark discovery had to share the same answer.
 
Find one, find all.

Tayte
wanted
to go to Rosemullion, but he couldn’t.
 
The police car that had arrived at Helford Passage to take Simon Phillips in for questioning had left instead with Jefferson Tayte.
 
Now he was on his way to see Bastion and Hayne at an address a few miles away in Porth Navas: Simon’s flat.

As the car arrived along a tight single lane, sandwiched between a terrace of cottages on the left and a tree-lined creek on the right, Tayte supposed that police boats would be out on the river and the surrounding coastline by now, looking for the distinctive catamaran that Simon had made off in.
 
He found himself hoping that Simon had had sense enough to ditch it, and it pained him to think like that - like he was on the killer’s side, rooting for him.
 
And he knew he would have to lie to Bastion and Hayne.
 
He’d been picked up at Helford Passage, having crossed the river on the most wanted ferry in England with the man
his
list had led them to.
 
He was ever aware that he’d helped the killer evade the law; he would have to watch what he said.

“This way, sir.”
 
A uniformed officer was standing by the car; another was already at the door to a stone cottage that faced the creek.
 
There was no garden as such, just a bench that sat in a three foot deep border with large red and pink hydrangeas to either side.
 
The officer at the door led Tayte in and up a short flight of stairs to the upper flat.
 
He announced Tayte then left.

“Mr Tayte,” Bastion said.
 
He offered his hand and Tayte shook it.
 
“Keeping out of trouble, are we?”

If only you knew!
 
Tayte thought.
 
“So far,” he said, staring into the room, intrigued by what he saw.

“I must ask you to stay by the door and not touch anything,” Bastion said.
 
“You shouldn’t really be here, but given what we’ve found, I could use your professional opinion.
 
See if you think we’ve got the right man.”

Tayte already knew they had.
 
“Of course,” he said.
 

Across the room DS Hayne was arched over a teak sideboard that had several stacks of A4 paper piled neatly on top of it.
 
He looked up and gave Tayte a nod.
 
They were in a sitting room of minimal comforts: a television in one corner, a thin-legged table by the window.
 
A dark brown sofa and two matching armchairs rested against white walls and the sage carpet looked like it was long overdue for replacement.
 

The thing about the room that had Tayte mesmerised was behind DS Hayne, on the wall.
 
He was looking up at a neatly constructed family tree.
 
Short lines linked a muddle of names written in tidy boxes in black felt pen.
 
At the top of the chart were James and Susan Fairborne.
 
On the left it traced down to Sir Richard and Lady Celia Fairborne and below that was their only dependent, Warwick.
 
Lowenna Fairborne and Mawgan Hendry appeared to the right, beneath which he saw Mathew Parfitt and other names that were familiar to him from last night’s research.
 
Circled in red at the bottom of the family tree, opposing Warwick’s, was a name Tayte recognised from his list of suspects: Daniel Hawthorne.

So that’s your real name...
 

Hayne picked up another pile of papers and began to flick through them.
 
“What happened to that phone call?” he asked.
 
I thought you’d like to know about that list you gave me.”

“The line was bad,” Tayte said.
 
The lie sounded natural enough.
 
His eyes were back on the wall like it was no big deal.
 
“We must have got cut off.
 
Then I couldn’t get a signal.”

“Reception’s a bit like that around here,” Hayne said.
 
“Funny though, I got a ring tone when I called back.”

Tayte made no further comment.
 
Hayne went back to the papers he was looking at.

Bastion eyed Tayte quizzically.
 
“They tell me you were at Helford Passage when the car arrived to bring Phillips in.”

“That’s right.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I went to look for Tom Laity.
 
Did you speak to him?”
 
Tayte wanted to change the subject.

“No one’s seen him,” Bastion said.
 
His eyes squinted at Tayte.
 
“But you were on the wrong side of the river, weren’t you?
 
His shop’s in the village.”
 

“I was planning to catch the ferry across,” Tayte said, hoping they didn’t check where his car was parked.
 
“Only it wasn’t there.”
 
His brow lifted and stuck there.
 
“Now I know why.
 
You didn’t get your man then?”

Bastion shook his head, brushing a hand through his wiry hair.
 
“No,” he said.
 
“Looks like he knew we were coming, and judging by what we’ve found here, he had good reason to run.”