The Last Queen of England (12 page)

Tayte was putting notes together as they spoke and he raised an eyebrow at hearing that, but he stuck to gathering the information for now.
 
“And what did you make of our politician, William Daws?”

“Fascinating,” Jean said.
 
“Politically he was Tory, in opposition to the then out of favour Whig party, although that all changed when Queen Anne died.
 
That’s the first interesting thing.”

“The Screw Plot,” Tayte said.
 
“You told us the Tories blamed the Whigs in an attempt to discredit them.”

Jean nodded.
 
“So why would the Tory-supporting William Daws and the rest have been blamed for it?
 
It doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” Tayte agreed, confirming his thoughts that for reasons as yet unknown, someone wanted these people dead.
 
And what more discreet and seemingly lawful way was there than to let the hangman do it for them?

 
“As a field-physiologist,” Jean continued, “his main concerns were with public health, and perhaps most interestingly his letters detail a great deal of research into the study of human blood with a focus on proving parent and child relationships.”
 

That had caught Tayte’s attention, too.
 
“Daws was on the right track, wasn’t he?” he said, thinking that it had taken science another two hundred years to make any worthwhile breakthrough in the field of blood-type analysis.

“I found it particularly intriguing,” Jean said, “because after the birth of James II’s son, the Old Pretender, Queen Mary, in a letter to Anne, claimed that the child was supposititious.
 
She publicly charged that the boy was illegitimate, smuggled in via a bed-warming pan to replace the king’s stillborn baby.
 
There was no proof of course.”

“
Nullius in Verba
,” Dattani said.

Tayte thought about that motto again.
 
“So maybe Daws was looking for a way to prove it,” he said.
 
“Or maybe it wasn’t about them at all but it got him thinking.
 
His research could have been driven by the need to prove someone else’s bloodline.”

“Necessity being the mother of invention,” Dattani said.

“Exactly,” Tayte agreed.
 
He moved on.
 
“That just leaves Dr Bartholomew Hutton - our anagram man.
 
He was an anatomist and as you said earlier, Rakesh, he was a royal physician.
 
Not a bad artist either judging from the anatomical drawings I came across.”

Jean adjusted her glasses and checked through her notes.
 
“Much of his focus seems to have been on the circulatory system.”

Dattani
 
agreed.
 
“I picked up from one letter that he was interested in the absorption of orally digested chemicals by the bloodstream.”

“Like how long it takes to lose a headache after popping a couple of Advil?” Tayte said.

“That sort of thing, yes.”

The room fell silent. Twenty seconds later, after putting together everything he’d read and heard, Tayte summed things up as he saw them.

“So, we’ve got connections to Queen Anne, either direct or via her sister, Mary II and her husband, William III.
 
We have one of the men studying infant mortality and we can’t overlook the fact that Queen Anne went through eighteen terms of pregnancy, or that both Anne and Mary died without issue, leaving the throne of England in contention.
 
We have a physician and anatomist looking into the circulatory system.
 
And we have a physiologist looking for a way to prove parent and child relationships.
 
I’m not sure where that fits and I don’t think we can draw any specific conclusions about our architect or astronomer just yet, but add in the probability that these men were hanged for something I don’t think any of us now believe they did and what have we got?”

Silence again.

Tayte couldn’t help but think that the motto to which these men adhered was both poignant and ironic.
 
Nullius in Verba - Take no one’s word for it.
 
Given the circumstances surrounding their deaths he wasn’t about to.

When at last someone stirred from their thoughts it was Jean and she sounded excited about something.

“What are your views on conspiracy theories?” she asked.

“No smoke without fire,” Tayte said.
 
That was his motto and he was open to just about anything right now.

Jean got up.
 
“Good,” she said.
 
“There are some people we should go and see.”

Chapter Eight

H
aving thanked Rakesh Dattani for his help, Tayte and Jean left the Royal Society and headed back to the car, which Hues had parked at nearby Waterloo Place.
 
It was a quiet area, not a major thoroughfare.
 
The trees in the gardens opposite Carlton House Terrace outnumbered the people Tayte could see as he followed their long shadows, his briefcase heavy from all the printouts he’d collected.

“So who are we going to see?”

Jean smiled over her shoulder.
 
“My best-kept secret,” she said, giving nothing away.

Twenty paces later, a sharp,
chirp-chirp
sound told Tayte that they had reached the car, and as everyone got in Jean’s phone rang.
 
She checked the display, adopted a sour expression and took the call.

“Hello Daniel.”

Tayte understood why she was pulling faces when he recalled that Daniel was Jean’s ex-husband.

“Elliot?” Jean continued.
 
“No, I haven’t.
 
He didn’t show last night.
 
I thought he must have changed his mind.
 
You know what he’s like.”

There was a long pause.
 
The car started up.

“The interview?
 
Yes, of course I remember.
 
No,” she added, shaking her head.
 
“Okay, I’ll do that.”

The car pulled out of the parking bay and Jean ended the call.
 
Her hands were shaking as she put the phone away and when she turned to Tayte he noticed that her face had lost a little colour.

“Christ,” she said.
 
“I’d forgotten about Elliot.”

“What’s happened?”

“He had an interview this afternoon.
 
Something his dad set up.”

“And he didn’t show?”

“No, and Daniel hasn’t been able to reach him.”
 
She tensed suddenly and thumped the seat.
 
“I should have called him last night.
 
I should at least have found out where he was staying.”
 
She thumped the seat again.
 
Harder this time.
 
“And I should have called him this morning and told him what had happened - told him not to go to the flat.
 
Why didn’t I call him?”

“It’s been a distracting twenty-four hours,” Tayte said, trying to pacify her with what he thought was a reasonable defence.

“That’s no excuse.”

It fell quiet as the car reversed out of the parking bay.
 
Tayte wanted to tell Jean not to worry, but he decided that telling a concerned mother not to worry about her child was asking for the same kind of thump she’d just given that seat.
 
He turned to face her.

“We don’t know if anything’s happened,” he said.
 
“You told me last night that he often stayed with friends.
 
Why don’t you call them?”

Jean took a few deep breaths.
 
She nodded to herself.
 
“Yes, I told Daniel I would.”

She reached for her phone again and at that point Hampshire turned and put his face in the gap between the headrests.

“Let’s have his details and a description, Ms Summer.
 
I’ll call it in anyway.”

Hampshire readied his pen, but as Jean began to give him her son’s description the windscreen exploded.
 
Glass shattered into the car and everyone except Hues jumped in their seats.
 
Hues just slumped forward over the wheel and the car began to swerve.
 
A second later it slammed to a bone-jarring halt as it hit a parked car and set its alarm wailing.

“Stay in the car!” Hampshire ordered.

He got out, drawing a firearm from beneath his jacket as he went.
 
Tayte didn’t know whether such an officer from what was fundamentally a civilian organisation was authorised to carry a gun but he was glad he did.
 
Through the gaps where the windscreen had been Tayte saw a man striding confidently towards them, coming fast in tactical zigzag lines.
 
He saw that novelty Prince Charles facemask again and the gun in the man’s hand as it levelled towards them.

“
Who the hell is this guy?” Tayte said.
 
“And how did he know we were here?”

“We’re following Marcus’s research, aren’t we?” Jean said.
 
“He knows exactly where we’ll go.
 
You said as much yourself last night.”

If we get it right
, Tayte thought, concluding that they clearly were.

He heard two shots ring out, followed by the quick thump of the bullets as they hit the door Hampshire was using for cover.
 
Then he heard return fire.
 
Stay in the car
, Hampshire had said.
 
Tayte didn’t know what to do but he did know that playing sitting ducks wasn’t it.

Jean nudged him.
 
“This side,” she said, shoving the door open, clearly thinking the same thing.

They crawled out.
 
Keeping low.
 
Another volley of shots was exchanged, buying them time.
 
The glass in Hampshire’s door shattered and Tayte heard him on his radio, calling for backup.
 
That was good.
 
Help would come.
 
The area would be crawling with police in a matter of minutes.
 
Tayte followed Jean to the cover of the parked cars and they began to weave between them.
 
Behind him, the firefight seemed to intensify, the sounds of the gunshots in constant reverb between the buildings to either side of them.

Then it all stopped.

Tayte listened for the all clear from Hampshire but it never came.
 
He wanted to look back - wanted to call out to make sure he was okay - but the fizz of a bullet as it zipped past his ear told him everything he needed to know.

“Go!” he urged, and they ran.

“This way!” Jean called.
 
“The Park’s too open.”

They cleared the cars, heading north on the opposite side of the street.
 
Common sense told Tayte they needed the crowds but where were they?
 
The few people he could see were running with them and ahead of them - clearing the area.
 
As they reached the intersection with Pall Mall and hurried across, Tayte was disappointed to find it no busier.
 
The gunshots had taken care of that, clearing a line of fire between them and the gunman.

He chanced a look over his shoulder, still running after Jean, already panting hard and wishing he’d left his briefcase in the car.
 
There was no sign of the man in the novelty face mask and while a part of Tayte was glad about that, it made him feel all the more uneasy.

They quickly arrived at another intersection, this time with Charles II Street where Waterloo Place met the bottom of Regent Street.
 
Tayte didn’t have a clue where Jean was leading him but he figured she knew London better than he ever would.
 
Further into Regent Street it began to get busier.
 
He saw faces around him at last: people with no idea what had just happened.

“Did you hear that?” he heard someone say.

“Was that a bomb?” someone else said.

The pavement began to get busy, forcing their pace to an uncomfortable crawl.
 
Then Jean came to a sudden stop.
 
Someone bumped into her but she was so tense she barely moved.
 
She was looking through all the people to the other side of the road.

“What is it?” Tayte said.
 
I think we lost him but we need to keep moving.”

Jean slowly shook her head, her stare unwavering.
 
“He’s there.”

“Where?”

“He’s looking right at me.
 
He must have been running with us on the other side of the road.”

Tayte felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
 
He crouched and followed her gaze but he couldn’t make out who she was looking at.
 
There were too many people.