The Last Queen of England (17 page)

They all had to think about that.
 
Then the only person there who hadn’t uttered a single word since the introductions, Megan, whom Tayte had supposed was just the quiet one of the group, spoke.

“Don’t forget Occam’s Razor,” she said.
 
“Eliminate the improbable.
 
So it wasn’t the Hanovers.”

Dave scratched at his temple, confusion furrowing his brow.
 
“But they were the only ones with anything worthwhile to gain from the fall of the House of Stuart.”

“Are you sure about that?” Megan said.
 
“The failed pregnancies didn’t start with Anne, did they?”

“No,” Jean said.
 
“That’s right.
 
It started with her sister, Mary.
 
So the conspiracy - assuming for now that there was one - might have begun several years before the Act of Settlement was passed, when the Hanovers were still around fiftieth in the line of succession.
 
As far as they were concerned at the time they had nothing to gain at all.”

“So who did?” Tayte asked.

Another pitcher of ale arrived and Ralph went the rounds with it.
 
“Yeah, come on, Megan, you little tease.
 
Who else stood to gain from the end of the Protestant House of Stuart?”

“Okay,” Megan said.
 
She paused and smiled as she added, “The Whigs.”

“Politicians?” Ralph said.

“Of course,” Jean said, as though the bigger picture had just fallen into place.
 
“Anne favoured the royalist Tories.
 
She sought to reduce the Whig majority because they wanted Parliament to run the country, giving less of that power to the monarchy.”

“It was with a Whig majority,” Evie said, “that the Act of Settlement was passed.”

“Yes, it would have been,” Jean said.
 
“The text books would have us believe that the Act of Settlement was passed to ensure a Protestant line of succession after Mary’s death when it seemed unlikely that her husband, William III of Orange, would remarry, or that Anne, because of her stillborn pregnancies, would be able to produce an heir either.”

“How did William III die?” Tayte asked.

“A fatal riding accident,” Jean said.

“One year after the Act of Settlement was passed,” Ralph added.
 
“Now am I the only one here who thinks that’s a little too convenient?”

Megan spoke then.
 
“So another take on the situation is that the whole thing was a plot by the Whigs to gain control of the nation.”

“Same great motive,” Dave said.

Megan nodded.
 
“They passed an Act to ensure that the Catholic Stuarts could make no further claim to the throne while making sure that the Protestant Stuart monarchy died out, paving the way for the Hanovers who favoured a Whig parliament.
 
King George I hardly spoke a word of English.
 
He was more than happy to leave the running of the country to the politicians.
 
To the Whigs.”

“Anne was addicted to laudanum,” Ralph said.
 
“They called her
Brandy Nan
for obvious reasons.
 
It would have been easy enough to get other drugs to her on a regular basis.”

“So the
Hanovers
were probably nothing more than political pawns,” Jean said.
 
She turned to Tayte.
 
“Perhaps our five Fellows of the Royal Society were wise to what was going on.”

Given everything he and Jean had learnt about them, Tayte thought they might well have come to believe in such a plot.
 
Perhaps the Reverend Naismith’s suspicions had been aroused by what had amounted to an unlikely total of twenty failed pregnancies and infant deaths out of twenty-one attempts, first with Mary and then with Anne.
 
And maybe Dr Hutton believed that someone was drugging the royal sisters to keep them in a state of ill health, particularly to ensure that they were unable to bear healthy children.
 
Then there was that fatal riding accident a year after the Act of Settlement was passed, taking no chances that William III would remarry and produce an eligible heir.

But what about the eleven-year-old William?
Tayte thought.
 
One child appeared to have slipped through the net.

“A lot rested on the young Duke of Gloucester, didn’t it?” he said.
 
“He was the Protestant Stuarts’ last real chance for an heir, wasn’t he?
 
Anyone know how he died?”

“Physically, he was a weak boy,” Jean said.
 
“Even as he grew up he had trouble climbing stairs without help.”

Dave got out his iPhone.
 
A minute later he was summarising information from a palm-sized webpage.

“The young Duke reportedly wore himself out at his eleventh birthday party and retired early complaining of a headache, nausea and a sore throat.”
 
He flicked at the screen, scrolling the text.
 
“Next day the family doctor was sent for.
 
He suspected smallpox so he bled him to lower the fever, but it came back with a vengeance later that evening.
 
The leading physician of the time, a Dr Radcliffe, was then called for and he suspected scarlet fever, adding that whoever had prescribed the boy to be bled had destroyed him.
 
William died five days after his birthday.”

“I wonder if that family doctor supported the Whigs?” Tayte mused.

“Hang on,” Dave said, flicking at his iPhone again.
 
“There was an autopsy.
 
It showed that William had an abnormal accumulation of fluid on the brain, although there was still some question as to whether the bleeding had fatally weakened him.
 
A family doctor should have known what effect such a bleeding would have on the boy, don’t you think?”

Tayte did.
 
It seemed a rash choice of treatment for someone known to have been so weak that he had trouble climbing the stairs.
 
He couldn’t be sure about anything, but the alternative suggestion that Jean and her friends had provided seemed to fit well enough.
 
Perhaps more importantly, it gave him some insight into what the hanged Fellows of the Royal Society were really into.
 
If they did have cause to believe in such a conspiracy then he wondered what they had sought to do about it.

He was considering how such a plot could have been proved or disproved back then and how it might be connected to what was going on now, some three hundred years later, when Jean’s phone rang.

“It’s detective Fable,” she said to Tayte.
 
“He wants to speak to you.”

Tayte took the call and the group fell silent except for Ralph, who couldn’t seem to help himself.

“Detectives?” he said.
 
“Whatever you guys are into I want some.”

Tayte cupped a hand over the phone and shot Ralph a cold glare.
 
“No,” he said.
 
“Believe me.
 
You don’t.”

He went back to the call.

“JT,” he said, and he listened to Fable for half a minute then checked his watch.
 
It was almost eight p.m.
 
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll head back to the hotel.”
 
He nodded.
 
“That’s right.
 
The Hyatt in Marylebone.”

When the call ended, Tayte stood up, leant in close to Jean as he handed back her phone and said, “Time to go.
 
There’s been another murder.”

Chapter Eleven

W
hen they arrived at the hotel it occurred to Tayte that a change of address might have been a good idea under the circumstances, but the prospect of changing hotels so late in the day was far from appealing.
 
He was beat, and after the kind of day they had had he supposed Jean was, too.
 
The best compromise he could think of was to change rooms, taking adjacent doubles and trusting to the reception staff’s discretion should anyone enquire after them.

They ate a light meal in the Regency Club Lounge, going over their research and considering their next direction, and they decided that the Jacobite society,
Quo Veritas
, needed further investigation.
 
They talked about Jean’s son, too, and Jean’s growing concern for his safety given that it had now been over twenty-four hours since anyone she knew had seen him.

DI Jack Fable found them in the Churchill Bar: a panelled room with leather furnishings and a light oak floor.
 
It was nine-thirty p.m. and the area was busy, yet quiet enough to hear the jazz piano music that was playing in the background.

“I got waylaid,” Fable said as he joined them at the bar.
 
The acrid tang of nicotine hung heavy on his breath as he spoke.

“You ever find time to relax?” Tayte asked.

“Not much.
 
I reckon I’ll rest when I’m ninety and sleep when I’m dead.”
 
He gave a rare smile.
 
“I read that on a T-shirt somewhere.”

Tayte indicated his glass.
 
“Can I get you something?”

Fable took a moment to answer.
 
“What the hell,” he said.
 
“Scotch.
 
Thanks.”

Tayte turned to get the barman’s attention, still talking to Fable.
 
“Don’t you have a sidekick?” he said.
 
“I thought you cops always came in pairs.”

Fable shook his head.
 
“Not me.
 
I prefer to work alone when I get the choice and there isn’t exactly a list of people eager to team up with me.”

The barman approached.
 
Tayte finished his drink and slid the glass towards him.
 
“I’ll take two more of those,” he said.
 
“And another cocktail for the lady.”

“A mojito,” Jean said.

“You seen your bike outside?” Fable asked her.
 
“It’s just along the street.”

“I did.
 
Thanks.”

“Hear anything from your son yet?”

Jean shook her head.

“I’ve passed his details to the Missing Persons Bureau,” Fable said.
 
“I’ve got people checking the CCTV images in the areas you said he frequented.
 
No banking transactions have shown up today - no cashpoint withdrawals.”
 
He coughed into his hand, rough and throaty.
 
“We’re running regular traces on his mobile phone, too, but so far it’s been switched off.”

Jean tried to smile as if to say thank you.

“Oh, and don’t worry about that identity parade,” Fable added.
 
“All the grey suits they pulled in checked out.
 
Just people heading home for the day.
 
I’d appreciate it though if you could drop by in the morning to sit with one of our sketch artists.
 
A composite drawing of the man could be useful, however little you saw.”

“I will,” Jean said.
 
“First thing.”

They took their drinks to a table.

“It’s a hell of a business,” Fable said as they sat down.
 
“Before I get to why I’m here though you might like to know that we have some people at Kew working on those names you gave me.”

“From the convention?” Tayte said.

Fable nodded and knocked back his drink.

“How many?”

Fable sighed.
 
“Three.”

“That’s all?”
 
Tayte knew they needed more help than that.

“Bad timing, I guess.
 
Most of the people who were still there wanted to go home.
 
The three we got said they knew Marcus Brown.”

Tayte shook his head, thinking that it could take three people all week to get a single result and since Fable had called with news of another murder he supposed they didn’t have that long.

“I’ll freshen up when we’re done here and head over,” he said.
 
He turned to Jean.
 
“You might as well stay and get some rest.
 
Identifying the descendants of long dead ancestors is just my thing but I shouldn’t think there’ll be much for you to do.”

Tayte wondered who else could help and Michel Levant sprang to mind.
 
The Frenchman still left a bitter taste in his mouth but he couldn’t ignore the fact that an heir hunter would be useful to have on the team.
 
Finding descendants of the recently, and not so recently, deceased was exactly what Levant professed to be so good at and they worked fast - had to beat the competition to make their money.
 
Even so, Tayte had thought the man was bad news since he’d first set eyes on him in
Rules
restaurant so he quickly dismissed the idea.