Dying Games (Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery Book 6)

by Steve Robinson

  ‘Where does that leave us?’

  Tayte was wondering the same thing. ‘If Donald Blackhurst brought Cathy Summer here after he abducted her in 1982, and if this is where he concealed her body after he killed her, I should think there’s every chance her remains would have been found when the site was redeveloped. As that doesn’t appear to have happened, I’d say this is probably not the right place. If it was, it would also be nigh on impossible to know exactly where the puppet theatre was amidst all these apartments. We couldn’t specifically know where the Genie had taken Jean. It’s all too vague. It doesn’t feel right to me.’

  ‘I agree. So now we go to plan B?’

  Tayte gave a nod. ‘We go and talk to the family. That’s if Vincent Blackhurst’s family will agree to see us.’

  Before Tayte had turned in for the night, he’d carried out several searches on Vincent Blackhurst, and he’d found his obituary in the newspaper archives. From that he’d learned that Vincent left behind a wife called Elizabeth, and a married daughter whose name was Georgina Budd. The obituary had given Georgina’s age as twenty-nine when her father died in 1973, making her seventy-three years old today. Armed with this information, Tayte had then used an online directory service to obtain a telephone number for Georgina, along with her address, which, according to Rudi’s map, was on the other side of the harbour on Dickens Road.

  Tayte headed back to the car. ‘You drive,’ he said. ‘I’ll call ahead and see if I can set something up.’

  ‘Drive? It’s not far. What’s wrong with your legs?’

  ‘Nothing, I just thought it would be quicker if we took the car.’

  ‘Nonsense, the sea air is good for you, and so is the exercise. Come on, you’ll have plenty of time to make that call and I’m sure you could use a cup of coffee on the way.’

  It was a little after eleven by the time Tayte and Rudi turned off Eastern Esplanade on to Dickens Road, having kept the sea to their right all the way, first along West Cliff Promenade and down to the harbour at Viking Bay, where they had coffee, and then along East Cliff Promenade before heading up again to the road. Tayte was still a little out of breath as they came to the house they were looking for, although he tried to hide it, sensing that Rudi was hungry for the exercise and would have liked to step it out more than they had. Tayte’s telephone call to Georgina Budd had been well received and, intrigued by his and Rudi’s interest in her late father, she had agreed to see them as soon as they could get there.

  The three-storey house looked as if it had been there since before the war, although that wasn’t true of all the houses they passed on their way there. It had a terraced porch, painted white, with a balcony above it, and mock-Tudor beams on the upper front gable. Tayte opened the gate and they stepped up to the door. He knocked, and as they waited for Georgina to answer, Rudi pointed an index finger at Tayte.

  ‘The scarf,’ he said, grinning. ‘I wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea about us.’

  Tayte had barely managed to snatch it off and stuff it into his briefcase before the door opened, and they were greeted by a golden-haired woman of medium height and build, dressed from head to toe in navy-blue casual wear. She was smiling so enthusiastically that Tayte instantly felt as if he were visiting with a dear friend whom he hadn’t seen in a long while.

  ‘Mr Tayte?’ she said, straightening her glasses.

  Tayte returned her smile. He shot out his hand. ‘Thanks so much for agreeing to see us, Mrs Budd. I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate it. This is my brother, Rudi Langner.’

  Rudi stepped closer. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Budd.’

  Georgina shook his hand and invited them both in. ‘Please, call me Georgina,’ she said as they went inside. ‘Would you like some tea?’

  They were led into the living room, which faced the street through a wide bay window, the view through which was blocked by a thick net curtain. The decor was busy with floral-print wallpaper and furnishings, and more antiques and ornaments than Tayte could count. It was a homely room, filled with more than one lifetime of character. They were invited to sit on the sofa and Georgina then left them, returning several minutes later with their drinks, having found an old jar of instant coffee for Tayte.

  ‘You say you’re brothers,’ Georgina said as she sat in one of the armchairs opposite them and sipped her tea. ‘You’re not both from America, though, are you? And you have different surnames.’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Tayte said, ‘but to cut it short, we were adopted as babies into different families. We only found one another recently.’

  ‘It was you who found me, Jefferson,’ Rudi said. ‘I can take no credit for it.’

  ‘How lovely,’ Georgina said, and Tayte agreed, recalling that night up on Beachy Head, and shuddering to think what might have happened if his brother hadn’t been there for him.

  ‘Your phone call left me intrigued, I must say,’ Georgina said, bringing Tayte’s focus back into the room. ‘How did you come to know about my father and his marionettes?’

  Tayte didn’t want to talk about Jean unless he had to, or that they were there because of a possible connection to a place Donald Blackhurst might have brought her sister before he killed her. Neither was he sure of what Georgina knew about Donald Blackhurst, so he thought it best to establish that before getting to the crux of their visit. He also wanted to confirm the relationship between Donald and Georgina’s father.

  ‘We came across Vincent Blackhurst while we were looking into someone called Donald Blackhurst,’ he said. ‘Do you know whether you have a relative called Donald?’

  The smile that had never been far from Georgina’s lips since their arrival suddenly left her. ‘Assuming you’re referring to the infamous Donald Blackhurst, yes, he’s my cousin.’

  ‘And I guess you know what he did?’

  Georgina frowned more fully, as if recalling the events of the early 1980s. ‘I heard all about it, yes. The whole country soon knew what Donald Blackhurst had done, but it’s not something one wants to be associated with, is it?’

  ‘No,’ both Tayte and Rudi agreed.

  ‘I never knew him, and I don’t actually recall ever meeting him,’ Georgina continued. ‘I do know that Uncle Terry, Donald’s father, used to bring his family to Broadstairs in the early 1960s. The marionette theatre had closed by then and my father was reduced to giving Punch and Judy shows on the beach.’

  ‘Your father must have been great fun to grow up around,’ Tayte said.

  ‘Yes, he was, although I moved away from the area soon after the theatre closed. I would have been in my late teens in the early sixties when Uncle Terry and his family used to visit. I married young and my husband’s work took us to Bristol for a time, which is why I never knew them. I moved back here with my husband, may he rest in peace, soon after my father died and I inherited the house. I suppose it’s a mercy my father never came to know what a monster Donald turned into.’

  Rudi sat forward, his eyes narrowing into a quizzical expression. ‘If you never knew Donald, or hadn’t even met him, how is it that you know the family used to visit Broadstairs? I suppose your father told you about them?’

  ‘More than that,’ Georgina said. ‘Amongst the many things my father left in this house when he died was a box full of old photographs. I came across them one day while sorting through everything.’

  Now Tayte sat forward, eager to see them. ‘Do you still have those old photos?’

  ‘Yes, I have them,’ Georgina said. She waved a hand across the room. ‘As you can see, I’m a bit of a hoarder.’

  Tayte liked hoarders. The things people kept in their families, their heirlooms, were often invaluable to his research. He was about to ask if it would be possible to see them, when Georgina stood up.

  ‘I’ll go and fetch them,’ she said. ‘It’s true that a picture can paint a thousand words, don’t you think?’

  Tayte did, and more besides. He knew that photographs cou
ld tell you things that people couldn’t. Once Georgina had left the room, he turned to Rudi and said, ‘So we know for sure that Donald was Vincent Blackhurst’s nephew, and that the family used to visit here in the sixties. That’s a good start.’

  ‘Yes, but with her father’s puppet theatre gone, I still don’t see where that leaves us.’

  ‘I’ll ask about the theatre when Georgina comes back. Maybe she can tell us some more about it.’

  Georgina wasn’t gone long. When she came back into the room this time, she had a large mahogany box cradled in her arms. Rudi, who was closest, shot to his feet and helped her with it, setting it down on the coffee table between them.

  ‘I’ll swear that old box is getting heavier every year,’ Georgina said, smiling. She sat down and opened the hinged lid. She began to rummage inside. ‘I keep meaning to sort these out,’ she added. ‘There are several pictures in here somewhere of my Uncle Terry’s family.’

  ‘Please, take your time,’ Tayte said. ‘We’re in no hurry.’

  Georgina continued to browse through the photographs, discarding the majority of them on to a pile to her left, every now and then smiling to herself as she placed one to the right. By the time the box was empty, one half of the coffee table was scattered with unrelated photographs, while the other contained a small, neat pile of perhaps six or seven black-and-white images. Georgina handed them to Tayte and began to put the rest of the photographs away again.

  ‘That’s everything I have of Uncle Terry’s family,’ she said. ‘I think they only visited for a few years. When my father died the family connection was broken, I suppose, as so often happens.’

  Tayte thought the reason the visits had stopped had to be related to the violent break-up of Donald’s family and the death of his sister, Stephanie. He looked at the first of the photographs before handing it to Rudi. It had a date on the back: 1962. He quickly calculated that Donald would have been six years old when the photograph was taken. His younger sister was four. The picture showed the family on the beach, all smiles and happiness, and having just walked past the harbour, Tayte recognised the distinct line of two-storey beach huts that were set below the cliff at Viking Bay.

  The second photograph Tayte came to was in a similar setting, but this time it was a close-up of two small children sitting on the sand, eating ice cream and getting most of it on their faces. It was dated 1961, a year before the previous picture, and inscribed with the names Donald and Stephanie. When Tayte looked at Stephanie, whose ice cream seemed almost as big as she was, he couldn’t help but feel sad for the innocence he knew was all too soon to be lost.

  The third photograph was very different. It was not taken at the beach, but inside what Tayte at first took to be the marionette theatre that had brought him and Rudi to Broadstairs. Then he remembered that Georgina had said the theatre was no longer there by the time Donald and his family came to visit. Wherever it was, there were several puppets visible in the background: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, one of which was perched on Donald’s shoulder as his sister sat beside him, laughing. According to what was written on the back of the image, this picture was also taken in 1962, and it led Tayte to his next line of enquiry.

  ‘Where was this taken? Did your father open another puppet theatre?’ he asked, quickly going through the rest of the photographs and noting that they were all happy pictures of the two children in the same location, surrounded by puppets. ‘Apart from his Punch and Judy show, I mean.’

  Georgina finished putting the last of the other photographs away and closed the lid. She squared her glasses on her nose as she took the photograph back from Tayte to take a closer look. ‘No, this picture was taken at my father’s shop.’

  ‘His shop?’ Tayte said, glancing at Rudi, suddenly excited by the prospect of there being another location associated with Vincent Blackhurst’s marionettes—another place where happy childhood memories had perhaps been formed in the young Donald Blackhurst’s mind.

  ‘Yes, my father ran a shop where he sold puppets and carried out repairs. He was quite well known for it. Puppeteers and other theatre companies used to visit him all the time.’

  ‘What happened to your father’s shop after he died?’ Rudi asked, beating Tayte to the same question.

  ‘My son ran it for several years. He tried to keep the puppet theme going for a while, although it was more of a novelty shop, mostly selling jokes and magic tricks—hand buzzers and squirting neckties, that sort of thing. I kept all the original marionettes, though.’

  ‘Is the shop still in the family?’ Tayte asked.

  ‘No, it was sold a long time ago, complete with all the stock. It wasn’t making much money and my son eventually lost interest in it. I don’t think the new buyer was too impressed with his profit margin, either, because it had closed down by the following summer.’

  Tayte was growing more anxious by the second to go and see the place. ‘Is the building still there?’

  Georgina nodded. ‘As far as I know, although it was boarded up the last time I saw it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been sold on again by now. It’s just off Harbour Street.’

  Rudi produced his map from his jacket pocket. ‘Could you please circle it for us?’

  ‘Of course. It’s not far. It shouldn’t take long to get there.’

  ‘Thank you, Georgina,’ Tayte said, hurriedly getting to his feet, impatient to find out what was there. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The building Georgina Budd had directed Tayte and Rudi to was along a narrow cul-de-sac off Harbour Street, not far from the beach. Although it was close to the harbour, Tayte could see why things hadn’t worked out too well for those owners who had tried to run the place as a novelty shop for the summer tourist trade. There was no through road and no other shops evident along the quiet little street; it would have been all too easy for people to pass it by without ever knowing it was there. He imagined there had once been a sign on the main road, but clearly it had not been enough.

  The building was painted white with royal-blue window frames. The lower windows had been boarded up, as Georgina had said, both to the front of the building and along the short alleyway Tayte could see to the right-hand side. To brighten things up, the boards had been painted with colourful seaside murals, although the general paintwork on the bricks and window frames was faded and flaking, and the upper sash windows were so dirty it was doubtful anyone could see out of them. The general impression Tayte got as he stood alongside Rudi, briefcase in hand as he took everything in, was that it looked as if no one had been there in years.

  ‘I have a good feeling about this,’ Tayte said, stepping closer.

  ‘Me, too,’ Rudi said. ‘So perhaps we should be careful.’

  ‘Do you think we should call the police?’

  Rudi shook his head. ‘And tell them what? I think we first need to satisfy ourselves that this is the right place.’

  Rudi stepped up to the door, which was painted the same shade of blue as the window frames. It had a brass anchor in the centre for a door knocker and he knocked twice. While they waited Tayte looked back along the street. There was no one around, but then it was January and the weather was far from encouraging—it still looked as if it could rain hard at any minute. He turned back to the door. There was no sound from within, and given the state the building was in, he didn’t expect anyone to answer. Rudi tried to push open the letterbox, but it appeared to have been sealed shut.

  ‘No one’s home,’ Rudi said, stepping back.

  They moved around to the side of the building. The alley was no more than a tight cobbled track that had once served as access to the walled rear gardens of the buildings facing Harbour Street further down. It was evident that there had once been gates in the walls, but the openings had since been bricked up, giving the alleyway no purpose other than to provide an unhindered space for weeds to grow. It was accordingly even quieter here, and Tayte and Rudi realised they
were all but hidden from view. Rudi went up to one of the painted window-boards and began tapping at one of the lower corners.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Tayte asked him, speaking in a loud whisper.

  ‘I want to see inside. I think this board’s loose.’

  Tayte looked around again to make sure no one could see them, and then he joined Rudi at the window, just as Rudi gave the board a tug and it fell away. He felt as if he were up to no good, but he had little choice other than to help Rudi catch it, and together they lowered it to the ground. Behind the board was a tangle of cobwebs and scurrying spiders.

  ‘I’m really not sure we should be doing this,’ Tayte said, still whispering.

  ‘Can you think of a better way to find out if this is the right place? If we call the police it could take ages—perhaps too long. Are you prepared to risk that?’

  Where Jean was concerned, Tayte wasn’t. The only thing keeping him going right now was the hope that she might still be alive. If she was, then as far as he was concerned every second counted. He leaned in and began to brush away the cobwebs, which clung to his fingers as countless spiders of various sizes began to fall to his feet. Rudi helped to clear the cobwebs away and they rubbed at the dirty glass to get a better look inside.

  ‘It’s too dark,’ Tayte said, cupping his hands over the glass. ‘I can’t make anything out.’

  ‘Look,’ Rudi said, pointing to a gap along the bottom edge of the window. ‘It’s not closed properly.’

  ‘Or maybe someone left it open for us,’ Tayte offered, thinking that if this was the right place—the place where Cathy Summer had been murdered and her body hidden all these years—the Genie would have to be sure they could get inside in order to find Jean.

  Tayte took a deep breath as he and Rudi slid their fingers into the gap and began to lift the old sash window open. He reminded himself that over three months had now passed since Jean was abducted, and the thought conjured vivid and terrifying pictures inside his head. Was he about to find her body, decomposed and covered in flies? As the window continued to rise, he tried to block the image from his mind, hoping with all his heart that Rudi had been right when he’d pointed out that the clue hidden in the Genie’s last note had given no time limit to finding her, meaning there was a faint hope that she was still alive.