The Lost Empress

by Steve Robinson

  The question took Alice aback. She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry.’ She smiled politely and turned back to her family. The children were getting into the car, and now one of the men was holding Henry’s arms. She started walking again, and when she saw her husband begin to struggle, concern engulfed her. She quickened her pace until she could feel the purple band at the knees of her dress tighten like a strap that bit into her skin as she tried to run. Then she saw something that forced her to stop altogether.

  As Henry freed himself from the man who had tried to restrain him, the man produced a gun. Alice saw it stab into Henry’s ribs. Words were exchanged, but she couldn’t hear them. Then Henry turned to her without expression and climbed into the car beside their children, who were smiling, as though they had seen nothing of what had just happened.

  ‘Henry!’

  She called out to him and began to move again, but it was too late. The car pulled away, and within seconds her family was gone.

  She turned back, thinking only that she must report what had happened to the police—that she must get help. But when she did so, the man who had just asked her for directions was still there, and he was still smiling, even though he, too, must have witnessed what had just happened. Now she saw his smile for what it was.

  ‘Please, do not alarm yourself, Mrs Stilwell. Your husband and children are quite safe.’

  Alice tried to pass him, but she made so little progress in that ridiculous dress that she knew any attempt to escape the man would be utterly futile. The man made no effort to stop her. His words were enough.

  ‘If you want to see your family again, Mrs Stilwell, you will do exactly as I tell you.’

  Alice froze. She turned back and stared up into his eyes. ‘Who are you? What do you want with my family?’ She felt close to tears, but she fought them. Her dress now seemed two sizes too small, and she found it hard to breathe.

  The man stepped closer, and suddenly he was towering over her again. ‘I am Raskin,’ he stated. ‘And it is not your family we want.’

  ‘Then who?’ Alice began, but she already saw the answer reflected in the man’s eyes. ‘Me?’ she asked, at a loss to understand why. ‘You want me?’

  Raskin nodded, but he made no attempt to elaborate. ‘You are over-excited,’ he said. ‘You need to lie down. Look at your hands. They are shaking.’

  Alice made fists with them.

  ‘In one hour,’ Raskin continued, ‘the telephone in your room will ring three times. When it does, you must go down to the hotel reception desk. There will be a letter waiting for you. Collect it and take it back to your room, and do not let anyone else see it.’ He stared down at Alice until she could feel his eyes boring into her. ‘If you want to see your children again, Mrs Stilwell, you will follow your instructions exactly. Do you understand?’

  Alice sniffed back a tear and nodded, and with that the Dutchman turned and walked briskly away.

  Chapter Three

  Kent. Present day.

  ‘Get off my property!’

  It wasn’t the first time Jefferson Tayte had heard that line, but its delivery on this occasion was among the most aggressive. It made the usual trials of his flight to England seem calm by comparison. As soon as the man knew who Tayte was and why he was there, he’d deliberately made a show of rolling up his shirtsleeves, as if he were bruising for a fight. Every word he’d spoken since was punctuated by jabbing an index finger at Tayte, almost making contact several times. But Tayte wasn’t giving up just yet. Right now he had very few leads, and the Metcalfe family were key to his assignment. He looked along the drive, trying to catch a glimpse of the house, but his view was blocked by the sunlit trees that lined the way, and more immediately by the man standing like an ox in front of him.

  ‘I’d just like to speak with Reginald Metcalfe for a few minutes,’ Tayte said. He began to smile, but quickly decided that a show of charm was ill-advised under the circumstances. ‘I believe he’s the current owner of the Hamberley estate.’

  ‘It’s Lord Metcalfe to you. Now piss off before I throw you off!’

  The ox was called Raife Metcalfe. Tayte had managed to get that much information from him when he’d met him by the gatehouse, before he’d introduced himself. Tayte thought he looked to be in his mid-thirties, and at around six feet tall he was a few inches shorter than Tayte, but heavyset and muscular. He had wavy brown hair and thick, wiry sideburns, the likes of which Tayte thought belonged in a period drama.

  ‘Alice Stilwell was Lord Metcalfe’s grandmother,’ Tayte persisted. ‘She was your ancestor, too.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. My ancestor—and none of your damned business!’

  ‘Don’t you even want to know what it is about her that brought me here?’

  ‘No, quite frankly, I don’t, and neither does my grandfather. Now get off our property, or I’ll set the dogs on you. I won’t tell you again.’

  Tayte put his hands up. ‘Okay, I’m going. But give him this, will you?’ He offered out a calling card, which Raife Metcalfe took and tore up and threw back in his face.

  ‘You’re not welcome. If you come around here again, I’ll see you off with the lead from my shotgun.’

  Ten minutes later, Tayte was in his hire car, driving through the Kent countryside towards the centre of Rochester. It was mid-afternoon and he was already beginning to feel tired from the travelling and the jet lag, so he’d put some music on and turned the volume up to help keep him going. He was listening to ‘Mr Mistoffelees’ from the Cats soundtrack he’d packed for the trip along with several other show-tune CDs, although on this occasion he didn’t feel much like singing along.

  As his journey progressed and the view beyond his windows changed from the green of the countryside to the grey of town, he began to wonder whether his first day in England could get any worse. The door he’d hoped would lead to many answers about Alice Stilwell had been slammed, none too delicately, in his face. Now his already tentative connection to the Scanlon side of the family through Alice’s Aunt Cordelia, who, according to the 1911 census, had lived at Hamberley, looked to be heading the same way.

  Tayte had no home address for the present-day Scanlon family. As soon as he’d got back into his car, he’d called the phone number of the business premises he’d previously identified as belonging to a Mr Lionel Scanlon, whom he believed was a descendant of Alice Stilwell’s aunt and uncle, Cordelia and Oscar Scanlon. Receiving no answer, he’d left another message, but he wasn’t holding his breath. The business was located in Rainham. It was less than ten miles away according to the car’s navigation system, so that’s where he was heading now. He hoped he might at least find someone he could talk to about the Scanlons. Maybe then the day would end on a brighter note.

  He pulled up at a junction with the main road he needed to take towards Chatham, and the traffic became busy to the point of congestion. He sat listening to his CD and the plink-plink of the indicator until a few cars began to build up behind him. Then he saw his gap and put his foot down, pulling out and joining the flow of traffic. Somehow the car behind him managed to squeeze out, too, and Tayte made a mental note that he had to be more assertive with his driving in England if he wanted to get anywhere.

  Several minutes later, as he left Chatham and the pace began to pick up again, he considered that his day had really started going wrong as soon as he’d stepped off the plane and called Jean. The surprise visit he was hoping to drop in her lap had backfired when she’d told him she was in Spain and wouldn’t be back in London until the weekend, which, as it was now only Monday, seemed a long time off. Jean had told him she was attending a series of royal history seminars on the kings and queens of Spain, with someone called Nigel, whom, Tayte noted with great interest, she had mentioned more than once during their conversation. But what did he expect? If he’d called Jean more often—if he hadn’t let his research take over his life
like it always did—he would have known she was away this week.

  Tayte had apologised to her for being so aloof in recent months, and with great enthusiasm he’d told her he was finally making progress with his own research and that although he’d hit another brick wall, he was waiting on a phone call he hoped would bring that wall tumbling down—as if any of that justified his behaviour. She had sounded genuinely pleased that he was making progress at last, but there was something in her tone throughout the conversation that told him he’d blown it. When he’d added that he hoped to go into the details with her in person when he next saw her, she had given him no reply.

  ‘So, can I see you when you get back from Spain?’ he’d asked her.

  ‘I don’t know, JT. I need some time to think. I’ll call you when I get back to London.’

  ‘When exactly is that?’

  ‘Next Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘And you’ll call me then?’

  ‘Yes, JT. I’ll call you then. I promise.’

  And they had left it there.

  Tayte couldn’t help going over the conversation again and again. He tried to focus on the road, but try as he did, he couldn’t stop thinking about Jean and whether she wanted to see him again. And there was Nigel. Tayte hadn’t been able to get that name out of his head since he’d heard it. He figured he was just a colleague—a like-minded associate whom Jean knew through her work. That’s all he is, he told himself, but it didn’t matter how many times he did so, he still couldn’t help picturing the two of them together, staying in the same hotel, seeing each other every day. He sighed as he navigated a roundabout, watching for his turn, wishing he could be there in Nigel’s place—not that he thought he deserved to be. He knew that now and only hoped it wasn’t a lesson learned too late.

  The traffic had thinned, and Tayte supposed from all the houses he could see beyond the street lamps and neatly trimmed hedges to either side of him that he was passing through a residential area. He’d become so lost in his thoughts about Jean and how he was going to win her affections back that he hadn’t realised he was driving so fast. He slowed down and began to reminisce, picturing the goofy expression Jean had pulled for the photograph he’d taken of the two of them outside Buckingham Palace on his last visit. He smiled to himself, and then his smile suddenly dropped as a flash of silver coachwork shot past his side window, slamming into his front wing, knocking all thoughts of Jean Summer from his head.

  Tayte’s hands tightened like a pair of vices on the wheel as he tried to control the car, but the force of the other vehicle as it careened into him made it impossible. A split second later he was forced half onto the verge, wheels spinning and the car sliding out of control. He saw the other car briefly as it sped past him. The driver clearly had no intention of stopping. Then as Tayte’s car fully mounted the verge and began to spin, he couldn’t help but stare at the steel lamppost he knew he was about to hit.

  Chapter Four

  Kent. Saturday, 18 April 1914.

  Five days had passed since Alice Stilwell’s objectionable encounter with the Dutchman known to her only as Raskin. She had followed his instructions, trusting and hoping that if she complied, then he would be true to his word, and her family would be safe. She still had no idea how she’d managed to compose herself enough to go down to reception that morning to collect the letter that was left for her, precisely one hour after the ordeal, as Raskin had said. She had been shaking violently and crying until the moment the telephone rang, and she was shaking again by the time she got back to her room with the letter and opened it. What she read immediately lifted her spirits, causing her to laugh and cry at the same time. Her children were to be returned to the hotel that afternoon, but as she read on she learned that her husband was not.

  The letter contained little by way of an explanation as to why her husband and children had been taken from her, simply stating that she must return to England at the earliest opportunity, and once there await further instructions. It gave no clue this time as to how contact would be made, only that it would. She was to tell no one of what had happened, and to anyone who asked, she would say that her husband had to remain in the Netherlands on unexpected business. The letter also reiterated that her husband’s life, and the lives of her children, depended on her full cooperation.

  As Alice sat in her old bedroom at Hamberley, her parents’ home near Rochester, purposefully delaying her appearance at the dinner party her father had thrown for a few friends and family, she recalled the last part of the letter again, and it sent a shiver through her. It was clear that her children, who were now safely asleep in their beds, had been taken in order to scare her, and she had little doubt that these people could get to them again if they so wished. She had, of course, asked Chester and Charlotte—almost to the point of interrogation—what had happened that day, and she had come to realise that Henry had cooperated for their sakes, because the men who had taken them had caused the children no apparent distress. To the contrary, she was surprised to receive them back so full of joy. The children had by all accounts enjoyed a grand outing, having been told that Mummy wasn’t coming with them so they could spend more time with their father.

  Alice pictured the towering image of Raskin again, as he had stood in the hotel lobby, holding her children’s tiny hands in his, as though having throughout the course of the day formed a bond of friendship with them. It made her feel sick just thinking about it. She wondered again who Raskin was and more importantly, whom he was working for. She had gone over their brief conversation outside the Hotel Des Indes many times since her return to England, and she distinctly recalled him using the word ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ suggesting that he was perhaps as much a pawn in these terrible events as the men who had arrived in that cream-coloured car and more directly stolen her family.

  A knock at Alice’s door preceded the appearance of her mother, who had no doubt come to find out what was keeping her daughter from the dinner guests. She came into the room as full of smiles as she had been since Alice first arrived at Hamberley, and it had forced Alice to realise that her mother, who always seemed to have her best interests at heart, must have missed her and the children a great deal since they had made the decision to settle in America. Alice returned her mother’s smile, but it was tainted by her thoughts and all the dark possibilities she could not block from her mind.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ her mother said. ‘Don’t you want to come down? Are you missing Henry? Is that it?’

  Henry . . .

  Alice could neither hear nor think his name without feeling her stomach cramp with worry. Instinctively, she clutched at the engraved picture locket she wore on a chain around her neck: a wedding gift from Henry.

  ‘I heard you again last night,’ her mother added. ‘Will you at least let me call for the doctor? I’m sure he could prescribe a tonic to help you sleep.’

  ‘No, I’m well enough,’ Alice said. ‘Really, I am. It’s as you say—I’m missing Henry, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, come along then. Stand up and let me have a better look at you.’

  Alice drew a deep breath as she rose, and then she smiled more fully as she looked at her mother properly for the first time since she had entered the room. Her hair was pinned up in a tight roll, and her dress was dark grey below the waist and white above it. She wore nothing bright or colourful, and Alice blamed her father’s influence for that—not that Alice felt like wearing any of her own colourful dresses any more, but they were all she had packed.

  ‘Your father has invited someone special along this evening,’ Alice’s mother said. ‘Someone to see you.’

  Alice could only think of one person in the world her father would invite to dinner specifically to see her.

  ‘Archie?’ she said, already knowing the answer.

  Her mother nodded. ‘It wasn’t my idea. You know how your father is.’

  Alice knew
very well. Archie Ashcroft had been introduced to her before her memories began, which she supposed was on her third birthday because she could vividly remember the rocking horse her parents gave her, with its long black mane and its bright red and gold painted stand. She couldn’t recall anything before that day, when she had been guided into her bedroom with her hands over her eyes. ‘No peeking,’ her father had said, but she had. Perhaps she was just a baby when she and Archie first met, neither having any clue as to what their parents had planned for them.

  Those were such carefree times, she thought, and her memories made her smile. ‘It’s quite all right, Mother,’ she said. ‘I shall be glad to see him again.’

  ‘It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I don’t believe you’ve seen him since the wedding.’

  ‘No, I’m sure I haven’t,’ Alice said. ‘I suppose he’ll barely recognise me.’

  Her mother gave a small laugh. ‘Oh, I’m certain he will.’

  Dinner was at eight, although the guests at Hamberley had all arrived by six thirty for canapés and cocktails, and Alice, who wasn’t in any kind of mood for small talk was glad to have missed it. She arrived in the dining room along with the creamed chicken soup, and without looking at anyone, she followed her mother to the head of the table, where they each took a seat beside her father, Lord Charles Metcalfe.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late, Father,’ Alice said.

  ‘Are you? I was beginning to think you weren’t coming to your own dinner party at all.’

  There was more than a hint of sourness in his tone, and Alice, when she glanced at him, could see that pinched expression she knew so well, hiding beneath his beard. It told her to choose her words carefully, or better still to say nothing at all.