The Last Queen of England (27 page)

Several folders and loose sheets of A4 cluttered his desk.
 
An MoD file painted a far from exemplary picture of Robert Cornell, who began service as an Officer Cadet, receiving training at Sandhurst before gaining his commission as Second Lieutenant, which Fable figured was on account of his highly decorated father.
 
Cornell junior on the other hand had been in trouble for fighting and bullying on several occasions before being busted back to the regular soldier ranks, ultimately being discharged for misconduct during the Occupation of Iraq.
 
No specific details.

After that, Robert Cornell had been a London bus driver for a few years and for the last two he’d been unemployed, claiming benefit, which to Fable’s mind made the man a bum; he figured he could have continued working as a bus driver somewhere but it seemed he had chosen not to bother.
 
When it came to the killer Fable was looking for, Robert Cornell’s profile was an ideal match.

All he had to do now was find him.

And his brother.

Joseph Cornell, like Robert, was a single man who had served in the British Army, but that was where any similarity between them ended.
 
Joseph had served his full term and judging from his military record Fable was sure that his father would have been very proud of him.
 
Flying colours was an understatement as far as Joseph’s career was concerned.
 
And yet, he was perhaps the main reason Fable was chain smoking in his office.
 
He couldn’t find Joseph either.
 
He wasn’t at home and he wasn’t at work.
 
But it was where he worked and for whom that really bothered him.

It was all there in the internal profile on his desk.
 
Joseph Cornell worked for the Metropolitan Police in SO14: Specialist Operations Royalty Protection Branch.
 
Another sheet of A4 somewhere in the jumble of papers told him that he’d been present at the first briefing Fable had given in that very building less than thirty-six hours ago.
 
He stared at Joseph’s photo ID again.
 
He recalled seeing him.
 
He was the tall SO14 supervisor with the severe crew cut who had spouted a mouthful of questions he hadn’t been able to answer.
 
As far as any of his records were concerned there wasn’t a single black mark against him.
 
If anything, Joseph Cornell was too good to be true.

Fable knew he couldn’t arbitrarily tar both brothers with the same brush.
 
On paper at least, he was looking at opposites - one good, the other far from it.
 
Maybe their lives today were just as contradictory, but he knew from the photographs he’d seen at the house in Clapton that they had been close at one time.
 
Either way, he supposed Joseph would know where to find his brother and right now he was the only lead Fable was interested in.
 
And while he didn’t know where he was, he knew where he was going to be.
 
He was rostered on duty in two hours time.

Click!

Cornell pulled the trigger but nothing happened.
 
He stepped away from Jean, laughing.
 
“You should have seen your face,” he said to Tayte.
 
“There’s no round in the chamber.”
 
He held the gun up and purposefully racked the slide, making sure he had all Tayte’s attention.
 
Then he took aim and fired two shots at the wall above Tayte’s head, making him cower as fragments of brick showered the room.
 
This time the sound was deafening.

Cornell laughed again.
 
“Oops, there is now, but don’t worry about the noise.
 
No one else can hear us.”
 
He went to Tayte and pulled his head back again.
 
“No more Russian roulette,” he added.
 
“The next one’s for real and if it’s any consolation I’m going to spare your girlfriend for now.
 
She’s too pretty to waste so soon.”

Cornell was trying to force the gun into Tayte’s mouth when the boiler house door swung open and a man in a beige mac walked in.
 
It was Michel Levant, and he was seemingly unfazed by the bloodstained body in the corner of the room.

Cornell froze, his face expressionless as Levant took a step closer and fired a Taser gun at him.
 
Two wire coils streaked across the room and fixed into Cornell’s chest.
 
His face twisted and contorted as his muscles locked and went into spasm.
 
A second later he fell to the ground, kicking up the dust.

Tayte’s jaw dropped.
 
What was Levant doing there?
 
He had just about given up any hope of a rescue, but Michel Levant?
 
He was the last person Tayte expected to see.

Levant dropped the Taser and sprang at the crate where the heirlooms had been.
 
The scalpel was still there and he grabbed it and proceeded to cut Jean’s bonds.

“Amazing what you can pick up these days,” the Frenchman said, indicating the discarded Taser.

He went to free Tayte and as Jean stood up Cornell began to groan and stir.
 
She went for the Taser gun to give him another blast while the wires were still attached, but Levant stopped her.

“It’s only good for one charge.”

Cornell was suddenly on his feet, still dazed and unsteady. He flicked the Taser darts off his chest and Jean didn’t waste a second.
 
She ran at him screaming.

“What have you done with my son?”

She crashed into him and he staggered back, but he stopped himself, recovering fast.
 
Tayte was on his feet then.
 
His eyes quickly found the gun on the floor where Cornell had dropped it.
 
He saw that Cornell was looking right at it.

“Jean, be careful!” he called, and as he and Cornell went for the gun together, Jean charged Cornell a second time.

“Tell me!” she screamed.

She knocked Cornell back.
 
Tayte reached the gun and took aim but Jean was in the way.
 
He watched Cornell throw a loose punch like a brawling drunk and Jean easily avoided the blow that came with such force that in his unbalanced state it spun Cornell around.
 
Then with all her adrenaline fuelled anger and hatred for the man who had come so close to ending their lives, Jean kicked him so hard in the side that it sent him tripping over the pipework and the rubble.

“Jean!
 
Get down!” Tayte called.

She turned to him.
 
He had the gun trained on Cornell and given what that man had put them through he knew he would have no hesitation pulling the trigger.
 
But he didn’t have to.
 
Cornell was caught up in his own momentum, unable to steady himself on the debris that littered the ground.
 
Tayte lowered the gun, staring wide-eyed as he watched Cornell trip and fall headlong into the fire.
 
The mesh grate collapsed under his weight as he landed and the white-hot coals fell in around him and began to consume him.

Cornell made no sound as he burned.

His back arched impossibly over as he twisted and thrashed in the flames, kicking hot, smoking coals from the makeshift grate that had now ensnared him.
 
As Tayte reached Jean, all he could think about was her son and the ahnentafel that Cornell had been gathering, both of which now appeared to be lost to them.
 
Out of humanity Tayte tried to grab the man’s boot, thinking to pull him out, but the heat from the flames, augmented now by Cornell himself, was too intense.
 
In just a few seconds it was too late.

Cornell was dead.

Jean stepped back with her hands to her mouth.
 
“Elliot,” she said.
 
“What have I done?”
 
Her voice was tiny, almost lost in the hiss of the fire and the roar of the flames in the chimney.

Tayte put an arm around her and turned her away.
 
“It was an accident.
 
You didn’t mean to kill him.”

Jean kept shaking her head.

“And we’ll find your son,” Tayte added, leading her away from the heat.

As they approached Levant, who had backed away towards the door, Tayte saw Jean’s personal effects and his wallet in the rubble where Cornell had thrown them.
 
He gathered them up and returned them to her: motorbike keys and disc lock, lipstick and hairbrush.
 
The Frenchman was still staring at the flames when they arrived beside him, an expression of disbelief hanging limp on his face.

“Thank you, Mr Levant,” Jean said, snapping him out of the daze he was in.

Tayte still couldn’t understand how Levant came to be there but he figured there was plenty of time to ask.
 
Right now all he wanted to do was get out of there.

“Do you have a phone?”

“Oui, of course, but -”

“Are the police on their way?”

“No,” Levant said.
 
He took his phone out and showed them why.
 
The display was blank.
 
“The battery’s dead.
 
I must have forgot to charge it last night.”

Tayte made for the door, taking Jean with him.
 
“The cab driver should have one,” he said.
 
“We’ll use that.”

“What about the key,” Levant said.
 
“For the gate?”

Tayte stopped.
 
“It’s locked?”

Levant nodded and Tayte eyed him with scepticism.

“Just how come you’re here, Levant?
 
How did you get in if the gate’s locked?”

Levant sighed.
 
“Ah, I must confess.
 
I’ve been following you.
 
Just like I followed dear Marcus.
 
That’s why I was at
Rules
restaurant the day he was murdered.”

Tayte asked why.
 
He had a good idea but he wanted to hear it from Levant.

“Marcus was on to something.
 
I knew it.
 
Something big.
 
Now you know it too, eh?
 
I’ve been following you since Kew this morning.
 
You were on the news last night.”

Jean cut in.
 
“Well, Mr Levant.
 
I for one am glad you were following us.”
 
She shot Tayte a glare.

He sighed.
 
“Yeah, I guess some thanks are in order.
 
But I’d still like to know how you got in if the gate’s locked.”
 
He eyed Levant’s slight and feeble frame.
 
“I know you didn’t climb that barbed fence.”

Levant pursed his lips and smiled playfully.
 
“No, of course not.
 
The taxi I followed you in stopped at the end of the cul-de-sac.
 
By the time I walked up to the gates you were gone and the gate was open.
 
I went through and saw you coming from the main building so I hid behind the portacabin.
 
When I heard that gunshot I had to do something.”

Tayte wished he’d done it sooner.
 
“You always carry a Taser around with you?”

Levant shrugged.
 
“Personal protection,” he said.
 
“It’s more effective than Mace and I’m afraid I would be quite ineffective in a fistfight.”

“I’m going to get one myself,” Jean said.
 
“Now can you leave Mr Levant alone so we can get the keys and get out of here?”

Tayte considered himself scolded again.
 
He went to the jacket that was still on the back of the folding chair.
 
“I hope they weren’t in his trouser pocket,” he said as he picked the jacket up and shook it.
 
It rattled.
 
The keys were there.

“What about a phone?” Levant said.
 
“Maybe he had one?”

Tayte gave a slow nod.
 
“I saw him with it at the house.”

He went through all the pockets and found it.
 
Battery good.
 
Signal good.
 
He checked the call history, wondering whether Cornell was the loner type he imagined him to be or whether he was working with anyone else.

“No calls,” he said.
 
“Not a single one, in or out.”

“Odd,” Jean said.
 
“What about text messages?”

Tayte checked.
 
“Nothing,” he said.
 
“It’s like the phone’s never been used.
 
Unless he deleted everything as he went.”

Levant was suddenly close beside Tayte, looking at the phone’s display.
 
“Maybe the police will find something, no?”

“Maybe,” Tayte said.
 
He stepped away to put some space between them.
 
Then he made for the door again.
 
“It’s too damn hot in here.
 
I’ll call Fable outside.”