The Lost Empress

by Steve Robinson

  ‘Davina. Where am I?’

  ‘You’re on my boat. Don’t you remember?’

  Tayte drew a deep breath and thought about it. He looked around at the semi-familiar interior of the main cabin as he tried to recall when he’d been there before. Then snippets of information flashed back at him from somewhere deep within his subconscious, and he knew his life was in danger. His initial instinct was to get as far away from Davina and her boat as possible, but the drug Davina had slipped into his drink had fully incapacitated him. He literally felt as if he were glued to his seat.

  ‘I think I might have given you too much Rohypnol,’ Davina said. ‘I was beginning to think you were out for good.’

  Tayte felt himself drifting out of consciousness again. Then the boat slapped a wave and gave him a jolt. He was aware of the engine noise then, and he wondered why it hadn’t registered before. They were moving at speed, or were they? Everything was so unclear.

  ‘Raife’s taken us out of the estuary. The sea’s a little choppy,’ Davina said, confirming his thoughts. ‘It won’t be long now, though.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Tayte asked, but he figured Davina couldn’t have understood a single slurred word he’d said, because she didn’t answer.

  A moment later, as though she’d been waiting for Tayte to regain consciousness all this time just so she could continue to gloat, she said, ‘Now then, what was I saying?’ She paused. ‘Oh yes, I remember. I was about to tell you how you’re going to help me fool the police. You can see now that you never really had a choice in the matter, can’t you?’

  Tayte wanted to tell her that she wouldn’t get away with it, but by the time the words had formed, he’d forgotten them again.

  ‘I expect you’re still wondering who killed my husband and who ran you off the road,’ Davina continued, as though unable to stop the ego trip she was on, filling the time until they reached their destination by revelling in how clever she had been.

  Tayte didn’t even try to answer. He’d heard enough.

  ‘Do you remember Luca?’ Davina said. ‘You met him the other day at the Marina restaurant. He would have done anything for me—for the promise of my affection and another night in my bed.’ She paused and opened Tayte’s eyelids more fully, as if to make sure he was still paying as much attention to her as he was able to. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she added. ‘The affair I told you about earlier wasn’t with Luca—I was just using him. I was having an affair with Raife. That’s why Lionel didn’t want to go to the restaurant with us the night he was murdered. He’d not long since found out about our affair, so you can see why I had to shut him up, can’t you? As soon as Raife found out that Lionel knew, he wanted to take care of the matter himself, but that wouldn’t have been very clever, would it?’

  Davina leaned across the table and slapped Tayte’s face again. His eyes shot wide open, and he managed to shake his head, albeit slowly. He heard himself moaning something, but he couldn’t understand what it was.

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t try it on with me,’ Davina continued. ‘I’m sure most men would have in your situation, and it’s not as if I didn’t give you enough opportunity.’ She smiled to herself. ‘Don’t you like women? Or perhaps there’s someone special in your life, is that it? Are you that rare, faithful type?’

  Tayte didn’t try to answer her. Jean Summer was none of her business, and he planned to keep it that way.

  ‘Anyway, here’s how you’re going to help me one last time,’ Davina said. ‘I’ve made up a little story for the police. It tells how you came here with the notebook and that Luca must have been watching the boat, having seen me come aboard earlier. When we went below deck, Luca must have crept aboard and listened to our conversation until he was satisfied we had the notebook. At that point he burst in, wearing the same grey ski mask caught on the marina’s CCTV cameras after I had him break into my apartment. He was brandishing a knife exactly like the one that was found at the scene of Lionel’s murder. Can you see where this is going yet?’

  Tayte didn’t care. He just wanted to sleep.

  ‘So at knife point,’ Davina continued, ‘Luca made you take the boat out to sea. I’ll say that when he ordered you to stop the boat, you managed to run back inside and grab the notebook, using it to distract Luca long enough to gain the upper hand. You flung the notebook into the sea and charged at Luca.’ Davina paused for thought. ‘Yes, that should work fine,’ she added, as though she were narrating her story to Tayte just to make sure there were no holes in it.

  Tayte wondered where Luca was. He figured he already had to be aboard the boat. He managed to ask the question, and his words were heavily slurred as before, but he knew Davina understood him this time.

  ‘Where’s Luca?’

  Davina looked over Tayte’s shoulder towards the Osprey’s bow, from where Raife had earlier appeared. ‘Luca had already played his last part for me before you came aboard,’ she said. ‘The promise of another small sexual favour was all it took to get him down here, and Raife was only too happy to take care of him. Poor Raife needs the money, you see. He’s afraid he’ll be broke when his grandfather dies and leaves everything to his wife and her son.’

  Davina cast her eyes around the cabin. ‘The rest of the story goes that you fought one another from bow to stern while I sat huddled in a corner out on deck, too scared to move. I see you both come out from the main cabin again, and now Luca has been stabbed with his own knife. I say you must have turned it on him, being the stronger man, and now you appear to have the advantage. But in the last moments of the fight you go overboard, while Luca bleeds out on the deck and dies. You and the notebook are lost to the sea, where you drown. The police have their killer, and the case is closed.’

  Through Tayte’s blurred vision, he saw Davina smile and clap her hands together, as if she had never been more pleased with herself.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ she asked.

  Tayte thought her story sounded as watertight as the Osprey’s hull. He also thought that if he went into the sea in his present state he would sink helplessly to the bottom and drown in seconds. The boat slowed suddenly then, and he found himself falling forward, causing Davina to put her hands out to prevent him from face-planting the table.

  ‘We’re stopping,’ she said. ‘Ready to play your last part?’

  Seconds later, the boat was still and silent, pitching and rolling with the waves. Then Raife came below. Somehow Tayte didn’t seem to care what was going to happen to him now—another effect of the Rohypnol. He felt Raife pull him from his seat and lock his burly arms around his chest. Then Tayte was half on the floor and Davina was at his feet. She lifted them and Tayte was suddenly floating, up through the cabin door and out onto the deck where rain lashed at his face in the fading grey of the late afternoon.

  ‘Ready?’ Raife said to Davina.

  A moment later, Tayte heard Raife groan, and then Tayte was hauled up onto the side of the boat, where Raife’s strong hands held him steady as the boat rose and fell.

  ‘You’ll make a fine meal for the fishes before your body’s found,’ Raife said to him.

  Tayte opened his eyes and saw Davina again. Her face held no expression as she spoke to him for the last time.

  ‘I wasn’t going to play the hypocrite and tell you how sorry I am that it had to end this way, JT. But I came to like you more than I wanted to, so a part of me really is sorry—for what it’s worth.’

  With that she stepped closer, and as Raife loosened his grip, Davina shoved Tayte’s chest, sending him overboard into the sea.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  St Lawrence River. Friday, 29 May 1914.

  At two o’clock on the morning the Empress of Ireland sank, Canada’s St Lawrence River was barely above one degree Celsius. At such a low temperature, those who are able to survive the cold shock response following their initial plunge
into such frigid waters are faced with hypothermia, the debilitating effects of which can take hold of a person in less than ten minutes, rendering that person incapable of survival unaided. Alice Stilwell was a young and healthy woman. She was unconscious when she hit the water. Within seconds she was gasping for air, drawing deep, uncontrollable breaths—hyperventilating.

  Her eyes quickly found a thick section of wooden beam floating nearby—perhaps the very beam that had struck her. All around her, she could hear people splashing and crying out for help. The fog limited her view, but as it rolled and shifted, she could make them out now and then: some people clinging to debris as she was, others treading water as they looked for something to hold on to. A greater number than she cared to think about were just floating lifeless, their ghostly faces as ashen as the fog. She could see no trace of the Empress of Ireland, and she sensed the ship was already on the riverbed. For the second time that night, she wondered how many lifeboats had been launched before it became too late to do so.

  A minute passed, maybe two or three, Alice couldn’t be sure. She was surprised she no longer felt cold. She had imagined the sensation would be akin to a thousand daggers constantly stabbing at her skin, but she could feel little now beyond a slight tingling on the soles of her feet. A few minutes more and her breathing slowed, and she found it a challenge to move her legs. All around her the night gradually became quieter, and it seemed somehow peaceful to her in its way. Her grip on the beam that was helping to keep her afloat was rapidly weakening. Where were the lifeboats? Why wasn’t she calling for help?

  As the beam began to drift away from her, Alice knew why she did not call out. It was because she had already come to terms with her death, knowing that it would be better for everyone if Alice Stilwell died right there in the St Lawrence River. Even if she survived the night and returned to England, she would return to her immediate arrest. Since marrying Henry, she had held dual citizenship. As a British citizen under the protection of the Crown, as Archie had pointed out, she would be tried and executed for high treason for all she had done. With Henry dead there was no one left to corroborate her story. She would tell it, but who would believe such a fanciful account from a woman who would surely say anything to avoid the hangman’s noose or the firing squad’s bullets? With Henry dead, her own fate had been sealed, and if she were going to die anyway, then she would do this one last honourable thing for her family.

  Without Alice Stilwell there could be no trial. Her father would receive the letter she had sent to him, explaining everything, but would he believe her? It pained Alice to think that he would not—that he would go to his grave believing his daughter was a traitor. But at least she would bring no public disgrace upon him or the family name. No ruinous scandal would ensue.

  As Alice took one last breath and began to drift beneath the water, she thought about her children and smiled. Above all, she would gladly embrace death for Chester and Charlotte. They would not grow up in the shadow of having a traitor for a mother, and neither would they see her executed as one. Even if by some miracle she managed to stay the executioner’s hand, she understood now that all the while she lived, she would be a threat to her children. Frank Saxby would never let the matter rest; he had shown her as much when he sent Raskin and then Herr Albrecht to kill her. He would not hesitate to threaten her children again to get what he wanted from her, and if not him, then it would fall to another of his many associates to do so.

  Frank Saxby . . .

  As Alice sank lower and began to fade from the world, she knew her death was close at hand, and in those last moments she was consumed with hatred for the man who had taken everything from her. Wherever she looked in that black abyss, she saw his likeness, laughing and mocking her in his triumph. He had taken everything. She began to convulse as her lungs cried out for oxygen. She started thrashing and kicking as she fought the urge to open her mouth and put an end to her torment. Then a white light appeared above her, and instinctively Alice tried to kick her legs—to reach out for it, believing that if she could reach it in time, she would be reborn. Saxby had not yet taken everything, and she would be damned if she would let him. She would have the world believe that Alice Stilwell died when the Empress of Ireland sank. But she would live on to spite him. The water splashed above her, and she saw a hand reach down through the light. She grabbed it, accepting that in doing so she would have to endure the pain of giving up those she loved, knowing that she would never be able to return to her old life again.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Present day.

  Tayte managed to stay afloat no more than a minute in the cold sea off the Medway estuary where the Osprey had left him. As soon as he hit the water, all he could see was the stormy sky above and the sea rolling around him, further disorientating him. He held his breath as time and again the sea crashed over him, taking him under and tossing him around as if his life had already left him. He willed his legs to kick beneath him—to tread the water—but they would not. A high swell took him under again, and before long he felt his breath run out. Slowly, he began to let it go, and he watched the bubbles rise, wishing he could go up to the surface with them, but he knew now that the only way for him was down, and the more air he exhaled, the deeper he sank.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen . . .

  Tayte thought about Jean then. He couldn’t bear the idea of things ending this way between them. He imagined she would miss him, or at least he thought she would miss the idea of him, despite everything. It was no consolation to him, though, in his last moments to know that she would be the only person in the world who would. He tried to clear his mind, which had become surprisingly lucid since hitting the water, in spite of the debilitating sedative Davina had given him. He closed his eyes, and it was as if the sea were suddenly filled with light. He opened them again and thought he must be close to death because he could see the guiding light—the one all the stories told you not to go towards.

  But very soon, Tayte had no choice.

  There was a splash above him, and a moment later he was no longer alone. He saw a diver’s mask and a pair of eyes staring back into his. Then both men were rushing up through the water towards the light. Tayte felt his face break the surface, and he gasped for the air that was howling down around him, flattening the sea. Above him he heard the drone of a helicopter, and then he was flying above the sea, being winched to safety. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The emotions that rushed out in that moment were a mixture of both. He was alive.

  Below him now he heard a voice over a megaphone, drowned out as it was to some extent by the rotor blades spinning above him as the winch continued to pull him up. He turned towards the indistinct voice below and saw another spotlight shining onto the Osprey from a vessel that had moved alongside it. The Osprey was not as far away as he’d imagined. He saw Davina and Raife out on deck. Then he saw several police officers boarding, some with guns drawn.

  About time, Tayte thought as the helicopter moved closer to the boats, heading towards land. The air-sea rescue helicopter above Tayte directed its own spotlight onto the vessels, floodlighting them as it went closer, and in that moment Tayte saw Davina look up at him. Their eyes met, and with a scornful glare Tayte ripped his shirt open and pulled out the concealed wire he’d been wearing since he left Bishop earlier that afternoon. He held it out for Davina to see, knowing that it had picked up every damning word she’d said.

  As the helicopter passed beyond the vessels and Tayte was hauled inside, his thoughts drifted back to the previous afternoon when he’d met Davina at his hotel. It was there that she had tripped herself up, although Tayte hadn’t realised it at the time. It was not until he was back in his room after visiting Lionel’s workshop that he knew she had lied to him about her research into Phoebe Dodson. Aside from the practice of following up other people’s research, he had also wanted to look for details of the inquest he knew must have been held followi
ng the house fire that had taken Phoebe’s and her mother’s lives.

  What Tayte found was that the newspaper report Davina had apparently printed off, concerning the house fire in Charlesbourg, did not exist in any online archive today. The Quebec Daily Mercury ran from the early 1800s to the 1950s, but Tayte had discovered that—possibly due to fire or other environmental damage—archives only existed for the newspaper between 1870 and 1903, meaning that it was impossible to find such an article from 1914 and print it off today, as Davina had said she had done. The copy she had shown him then could only have been made from an original copy of the newspaper, which had to have been another of the legacy items handed down through the Scanlon family. Davina had therefore had it all along.

  Having explained all this to DI Bishop on the way to London the following morning, the pair had hatched their own plan to sign the notebook out of the SIS archive and to use it to draw Lionel Scanlon’s killer out. Tayte had readily agreed to wear the microphone and transmitter that would be used to record his conversations. Then he had called Davina and dangled the bait, knowing that Bishop and his team would be watching and listening, and that all the required services would be on standby, ready to act when the right moment came—before any harm could come to Tayte.

  As the air-sea rescue helicopter reached land, heading for a hospital, Tayte thought he would have to have a word with Detective Inspector Bishop about his timing as soon as the opportunity arose.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Following a restful night under observation in a hospital bed, where he’d slept like a baby, courtesy of the acute sedative Davina had slipped into his drink the day before, Jefferson Tayte spent the morning with DI Bishop at the police station. He had gone there to give his statement, but he’d found he couldn’t recall much of what had happened during the time between stepping aboard the Osprey and waking up at the hospital.