In the Blood (52 page)

We’re being rescued by James Bond for Christ sakes!

The canopy guarded the man’s face, but beneath it Tayte could see the contrasting sheen of a glossy black lapel and bow tie crowding a crisp white shirt.
 
He’d seen that attire earlier this evening on the guests at Rosemullion hall.
 
He knew it had no place out there tonight on a lone fishing boat of dubious identity.

As the figure stepped out from the canopy, the barrel of a silencer demanded Tayte’s full attention.
 
His eyes flicked up to a face he recognised from his first morning in Cornwall and suddenly everything on Durgan beach fell into place.
 
The image of Simon Phillips sprawled back in the dinghy where he’d found him flashed in Tayte’s head like a single frame of subliminal advertising.
 
That
is
Laity’s boat
, he thought.
 
He figured Simon must have used it to get about in after he’d ditched the ferry, taking it to Durgan.
 
Then it changed hands again - clearly not part of Simon’s plans.

Warwick Fairborne edged closer, his gun hand brandishing the black-market Bulgarian Makarov he’d acquired for the occasion; a gift from his creditors to help secure the debt.
 
“Sorry to see you’re still running about,” he said.

Tayte eyed the gun and the nervous look on Warwick’s face, registering that the two didn’t mix well.

“Find anything out here?” Warwick added.

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know.
 
Like a woman who probably knows as much about my family history as you do?”

Tayte swallowed hard and shook his head.
 
“Nah...
 
Still looking.”

“That’s a shame.
 
Still, the tides in.
 
I heard she’d be drawing her last breath about now anyway.”

It was clear to Tayte that Simon must have done a little plea-bargaining before Warwick shot him.
 
He wished he had something to fight back with, but a piece of broken glass against a bullet was no fair contest.
 
All he had were words - they had served him well before.

“Don’t you want to tell me all about it,” he said.
 
“How you’re going to kill me to protect your family’s interests.
 
Anyone would have done the same, right?
 
Survival of the fittest and all that crap!”

Warwick’s smile looked uncomfortable.
 
“That’s very amusing, Tayte, but Darwinian Theory’s not really my bag, and I’m afraid you’ll get no megalomaniacal drawl from me about protecting my
family’s
interests.”
 
He cocked the gun like he’d practiced it a thousand times.
 
“This isn’t personal.
 
You’re just an unfortunate side effect.
 
A loose end in a game that’s gone too far.”
 
He levelled the gun at Tayte’s chest.
 
“Now it’s time to end it.”

A split second later, a 7.62 calibre round hit home and Jefferson Tayte fell back into the inflatable.

Chapter Sixty-Three

D
CI Bastion was with Hayne’s uniformed stand-in at Rosemullion Hall; company for an arrest that was now on hold.
 
He was sitting, curled over his radio, waiting for news like an expectant father while Sir Richard and Lady Fairborne were detained in a room along the hallway.

When Bastion had arrived at Rosemullion Hall, Sir Richard had thought himself ready for him.
 
His political years had prepared him well enough for a little police banter and he understood his rights.
 
He knew from Tayte’s earlier visit with Hayne that the American was still alive, so that was off his conscience, and if the money had turned up and had been traced back to him then so what?
 
He’d get his money back.
 
What had he done wrong?
 
Once Sir Richard knew why Bastion was really there, however, his steely façade had buckled, and it wasn’t until he was part way through explaining the situation that he realised the terrible truth of what he was indirectly suggesting.

Sir Richard had moved the conversation from the entrance hall into a private room off the first floor gallery.
 
He looked like he was scrutinising something on Bastions face that he could barely see.
 
“Murder?” he said, still unable to comprehend how it was possible.

“That’s right, sir,” Bastion said.
 
“Simon Phillips.
 
Young lad.
 
Works the ferry down at Helford Passage.
 
He was shot twice in the chest.
 
Did you know him?”

Sir Richard curled his lower lip and shook his head.
 
“No.”
 
It was an honest reply.

“Well he seems to have known you.
 
Your mobile was the last number he called.
 
About one-forty this afternoon.
 
The call lasted a few minutes.”

“I was flying back from London.
 
We were halfway through the journey by then.”

 
Bastion threw Sir Richard a raised eyebrow.
 
“I do hope you’re not going to tell me it was a wrong number, sir?”

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t.”
 
Sir Richard pulled at his bow tie and let the silk fall to either side of his neck.
 
He rubbed it like his collar had been too tight.
 
“Truth is I didn’t know who the caller was.”

“Anonymous then?”

“No.
 
Not exactly anonymous either.
 
You see, that wasn’t the first call.”
 
Sir Richard paused, still unsure whether he was ready to unleash the nightmare he knew would follow if he continued.

“Go on, sir.”

Sir Richard took the deepest breath of his life and sighed.
 
Then he said, “I was being blackmailed.”

It was out.

Bastion shifted in his seat, his brows rising as though to the welcome ring of familiarity.

“I was at Durgan tonight making a pay-off,” Sir Richard said.
 
“A man called a few days ago.
 
Said he had information that would destroy my career - perhaps even my family.
 
He sent proof.
 
Part of it at least.”

“James Fairborne’s last will and testament?” Bastion said.
 
He looked proud of himself.

Sir Richard nodded.
 
It surprised him that Bastion knew, but it eased the pressure of talking about it.
 
“I couldn’t afford the scandal,” he said.
 
“Even if the implication was a lie.
 
I suppose it will all be looked into now anyway?”

“I couldn’t say just now, sir,”
 
Bastion said.
 
He turned the conversation back to the beach at Durgan.
 
“So you dropped the money off and left, did you?”

“That’s right.
 
I was there no more than five minutes.
 
Did you recover the suitcase?”

“Suitcase, sir?
 
We found no suitcase.
 
Just Mr Phillips’s body.

No suitcase,
Sir Richard thought.
 

“Did anyone else know about this pay-off?” Bastion asked.

And there it was.

Warwick knew.
 
And I’ve led the police to him.

No one had seen Warwick since the guests began to arrive at Rosemullion Hall.
 
It was clear to Sir Richard that Warwick must have followed him to Durgan; that he’d waited for the blackmailer to show.
 
Then he’d killed him to protect his future and taken the money to clear his debts.
 
Sir Richard might have played things down even now, suggesting that the blackmailer might have had an accomplice who’d turned on him.
 
But with Tayte still alive and Warwick on the loose, he understood that Warwick could not let Tayte live now he’d gone so far.

And it was all
his
fault.
 
He could see it no other way.
 
Systems fail.
 
Sir Richard Fairborne does not.
 
He knew that maxim now for the lie it was.
 
He’d failed his son.
 
Every bitter discourse between them had pushed Warwick further away.
 
And now to this.
 
He knew he had to end it before anyone else was killed.

“Where is Mr Tayte?” he asked.

Bastion related Amy’s situation.
 
“... and Mr Tayte’s out with my sergeant looking for her now.”

“I believe they’re both in danger,” Sir Richard said.

Soon after the conversation ended, a high-speed police response RIB launched out of Falmouth.
 
It cleared Falmouth Bay and passed the mouth of the Helford River in under two minutes, heading for a rendezvous with the Aquastar.
 
Hayne had already told them they should expect to find Tayte somewhere in between and the bright beam of Tayte’s dive lamp had been easy to locate.
 
But the situation was already hot as they came in sight of him.
  

Now, in a room off the first floor gallery, the radio Bastion was cradled over suddenly crackled into life.
 
“We have confirmation, sir.
 
The subject has been taken down.”

Bastion sank his head into his hands.
 
“Thank you,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he meant it.
 
It was not the result he was hoping for.
 
It never was to his mind, regardless of the things people did that led to the need for an Armed Response Unit.
 
He’d promised Sir Richard that they would, as always, use as little force as was deemed necessary.

They would have had no other option,
Bastion told himself as he left the room to tell Sir Richard and Lady Fairborne that their son was dead, killed long distance by a 7.62 calibre sniper round.

Chapter Sixty-Four

A
s the bullet hit its mark at Nare Cove with a dull thump, Jefferson Tayte fell back into the inflatable.
 
He watched the impact explode from Warwick’s chest, staggering the man forward, jerking his gun closer, and the shock of Warwick’s sudden advance under those heightened circumstances sent Tayte reeling and tripping over the seat board.
 
Were it not for the blood spattering off Warwick’s dinner jacket, Tayte would have been checking himself for holes.
 
As it was, Warwick’s plans had been terminally interrupted before he’d squeezed out a single shot.

The gun fell to Warwick’s side like it was suddenly too heavy to hold.
 
Tayte heard it clatter onto the deck with focused clarity as he watched the nervous grin on his adversary’s face turn to disbelief.
 
His wide eyes stared at Tayte, lost and child-like in the lamplight.
 
Then Warwick dropped and Tayte didn’t know if he was shaking more from the cold or the shock.
 
As he sat up he saw a searchlight off to his right; the Aquastar had turned the point.
 
To his left, the rapid response RIB approached, skimming another bright light low over the water.

Within twenty minutes Tayte was sitting in the RIB with two grey blankets around him.
 
He was watching Amy being winched like a giant foil wrapped sub sandwich into a pillar-box-red air ambulance.
 
She was still alive, but it was too soon to tell how the next few hours would go; too soon to know if any damage had been done.
 
Her core temperature had dropped dangerously low.

DS Hayne was with him.
 
“She’s in good hands,” he said as the helicopter dipped its nose and headed back.

Tayte nodded.
 
He believed him.
 
Amy would get the care she needed now.
 
He watched until the helicopter banked inland and passed out of sight.
 
Then he turned an absent gaze back past the Aquastar, to the cave that could so easily have claimed her.
 
Police divers were still in the water and Tayte knew they couldn’t have done a better job.
 
With all the gear and the expertise they made getting Amy out of there look easy.
 
Tayte knew it wasn’t.
 
Now that Gabriel was off the missing person’s list the cave was yet another crime scene.
 
The divers would be there a while, Tayte supposed, as the RIB fired up.

“Are you going to keep that torch, too?” Hayne asked indicating the dive lamp.

Tayte returned his smile.
 
The dive lamp had become such a part of him that he almost forgot he was still holding it.
 
He studied it briefly, relaxing his grip at last, knowing what was inside.
 
“Can I?” he said.