Tayte was just reaching for his phone to call them when he noticed that Rudi was still watching the video message. He thought he must have played it back several times over by now. He seemed to be scrutinising something he’d seen.
‘What is it?’ Tayte asked.
Rudi began to shake his head. ‘I’m not sure. It could be nothing. How do you feel about playing this game by a different set of rules?’
Tayte had had those thoughts already, back in DC. It had led him to a confrontation with Michel Levant and nothing good had come of it. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean there could be another way to reach the conclusion we’re looking for, other than working out this clue.’
In light of the challenges the birth registration number presented, Tayte was all ears. ‘Go on. What have you got?’
‘Well, you just said that from this clue you ultimately had to find a location—somewhere one of Jean’s ancestors died.’
‘That’s right. It’s always come down to that.’
Rudi turned the phone around to face Tayte. He’d paused the playback at the point where the Punch character was holding the knife to Judy’s throat, having moved around behind her, tilting the blade so it caught the reflection of the video camera light. Tayte leaned across the table to get a better look.
Rudi pointed to the blade. ‘There appears to be something written here,’ he said, ‘But it’s too small to make out, and it’s almost washed out by the glare. The background is also telling. It looks industrial, don’t you think? There’s a lot of ironwork.’
‘The video wasn’t shot in someone’s basement, that’s for sure,’ Tayte said, beginning to see where Rudi was going with this. ‘You think if we can work out what those words say, we might be able to identify where Jean is and cut a few corners?’
‘Exactly that,’ Rudi said. ‘You told me you had a friend who works for the FBI.’
‘Frankie Mavro,’ Tayte said, nodding.
‘Well, perhaps she could have the image enhanced enough to see what these words say.’
Tayte reached for his phone to make an international call to Washington, DC, and he was thankful that, with the five-hour time difference, his nation’s capital was just getting ready to start the day.
An hour passed slowly. Outside the cafe, the rain continued to beat relentlessly at the windows, keeping Tayte and Rudi glued to their seats while they waited for Frankie Mavro to call back. It had been a simple matter to forward the video message to her, and she had been keen to help, but despite all the technology Mavro had access to, Tayte wasn’t pinning all his hopes on her coming back to him with a positive result.
They ate lunch while they waited, and during that time, Rudi called DI Rutherford, the detective in charge of Jean’s missing persons case, suggesting they make a thorough search of Vincent Blackhurst’s former marionette shop for the remains of young Cathy Summer. Tayte contacted the General Register Office, still trying to solve the Genie’s latest clue the hard way, in case the words Rudi had seen on the video came to nothing.
Tayte’s call to the GRO had been a frustrating one, yielding little to no chance of seeing the information on the corresponding birth certificate in time, so he’d continued to work away at the clue on his laptop, having reminded himself that the Genie had to know it could be solved within the twelve-hour timeframe he’d set, or his game would be impossible to play. If only Tayte could work out how he’d done it. With no online information about the birth registration number the Genie had given him, the GRO seemed the only option.
He was just considering whether to go against their decision to keep the police out of the loop for now and call DI Rutherford again to ask for his help with the GRO, when his phone began to ring and vibrate on the table in front of him. The screen told him it was Mavro, and he almost dropped it in his haste to answer her call.
‘Frankie, please tell me it’s good news,’ he said. ‘I’m pulling my hair out over this.’
‘It could be,’ Mavro said, sounding upbeat. ‘The Computer Analysis Response Team I fired the video off to managed to enhance the image enough to see what those words were, but I’m not sure how useful it’s going to be to you.’
‘What does it say?’
‘It’s a warning sign. It reads: Danger. Lift shaft.’
‘Lift shaft?’ Tayte repeated, more for Rudi’s benefit. ‘So the video was shot someplace near an elevator?’
‘A dangerous elevator at that. Looking at all the old exposed steelwork in the background, I think you can rule out hotels and high rises. I think you’re looking for something industrial, a kind of mine, perhaps?’
‘A mine,’ Tayte mused, looking across the table at Rudi as he spoke. He could certainly imagine the video having been shot in such a place. From what he could see of the steel framework in the background, he thought it could very well be part of an open lift cage. But what kind of mine, and where was it located? He knew Mavro wasn’t going to be able to tell him that.
‘Thanks, Frankie,’ he said. ‘I really appreciate it.’
‘I just hope you find her. If there’s anything else I can do, you let me know, okay?’
‘Sure,’ Tayte said, adding hopefully, ‘Hey, maybe I’ll bring her over for pasta someday.’
‘You do that. Anytime.’
Tayte nodded to himself, fighting his emotions, wanting with all his heart to make that happen. ‘Okay then,’ he said. Then he ended the call.
To Rudi, he said, ‘It looks like Jean could have a mining ancestor or two.’
‘How do we find that out?’
Tayte closed his laptop and stood up. ‘We go back to basics and follow the first rule of genealogy. We go and talk to the family.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Tayte and Rudi arrived back at Jean’s parents’ home near St Albans feeling positive about their visit, despite the fact that they were now almost four hours into their twelve-hour deadline with no concrete progress to show for it. Rudi had driven the hundred or so miles through heavy rain that seemed to cover the entire southeast of England, and along the way Tayte had called ahead and spoken with Jean’s father, Keith, about the possibility of there having been a mining ancestor in the family. His answer was the reason Tayte felt so optimistic as he and Rudi were invited to sit down in the living room.
‘I’m sorry Linda isn’t here,’ Keith said. ‘She has a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. We think it’s anxiety. She’s having trouble sleeping, among other things.’
Given the circumstances, Tayte fully understood. He knew first-hand what it was like to be incapable of sleep. Over the past few months there had been times when he’d gone for days on end with no more than a couple of hours sleep here and there, his body finally shutting down from sheer exhaustion until the next nightmare woke him again. ‘I’m sorry to have missed her.’
‘Yes, well perhaps it’s for the best that she’s not here at the moment. I take it from your call you’ve found something? Are you any closer to finding Jean?’
Tayte didn’t want to raise anyone’s hopes too high just yet, any more than he wanted to lose any of the precious time left to them through explaining everything that had happened since their last visit. Hopefully there would be time for that later.
‘I believe she’s alive,’ he said, ‘but time is critical, so please excuse me if I don’t go into any details right now.’
‘I understand,’ Keith said, nodding attentively. ‘I’ve dug out some more photographs for you to see.’
‘Of the mining ancestors you spoke about on the phone?’
‘That’s right. There aren’t many, I’m afraid, but I thought you’d like to see them.’
It hadn’t escaped Tayte’s notice that Keith already had them in his hand. He passed them across the table. There were only three, all in faded black and white, with curled edges. The first showed two men with shiny blackened faces, wearing safety helmets and dark overalls, their white smiles gleaming. It had obviously been tak
en at a colliery somewhere.
‘Who are they?’ Tayte asked, handing the image to Rudi.
‘The man on the left is my paternal grandfather. That’s his brother, my great-uncle, beside him. My family’s from the West Midlands, the Black Country, although I’ve never lived there myself. My father was the first to move away from the area, looking for alternative work when the coal mining industry began to collapse.’
‘Do you know the name of the mine where your grandfather worked?’
‘I’m afraid not. I’m sure I’d know it if I heard it, but I’ve been trying to recall the name since you rang. I may have only heard my father mention it once or twice. I do know that my grandfather died in a pit disaster back in the 1940s. A tragic accident. Many lives lost. Sadly, such incidents were all too common.’
Tayte and Rudi both looked at one another, understanding that if they were on the right track they had just heard something of the manner of death the Genie intended to replicate for Jean if they were too late.
‘The other photos you have there are of the same two men,’ Keith said. ‘As you can see, they were also taken while they were at work.’
Tayte looked at them, but they offered no further clue as to where in the West Midlands the colliery was. It didn’t matter. He now knew the area and decade in which Jean’s great-grandfather had died, and such a tragic mining accident was sure to have been widely reported and documented. He reached down into his briefcase and took out his laptop.
‘You said this part of West Midlands is called the Black Country?’ he said to Keith as he fired up his laptop.
‘That’s right. It was appropriately named, too. There were hundreds of small coal pits in the area at one time.’
Hundreds, Tayte thought, knowing that wasn’t going to help when it came to identifying the one they were interested in. He brought up Google and searched for mining disasters in the Black Country. The number of results was overwhelming.
‘Do you know when in the 1940s your grandfather died?’ he asked, knowing he had to be more specific.
Keith paused to think about it. Then he shook his head. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I have a copy of my father’s death certificate, but nothing for my grandfather. I’m not being of much use, am I?’
‘You’re doing just great,’ Tayte said. He brought up another browser screen. ‘Perhaps with a little more information I can find the year your grandfather died via the birth, marriage, and death indexes.’
Rudi, who had been listening quietly up until now, sat forward then and indicated Tayte’s laptop. ‘There are only ten years in a decade, Jefferson. Why don’t you just search for each year specifically. There may have been many colliery accidents in the Black Country in the 1940s, but I doubt you’ll find many that could be described as disasters during any given year.’
‘That’s a good point,’ Tayte said, once again glad to have his brother with him, not least because he seemed to see things with such a logical, common-sense eye. It was a refreshing alternative to his own tried and tested way of thinking.
He ran the search again starting with 1940. There were still many results, and while he expected any wholly relevant match to be on the first results page, he wanted to be thorough, so he kept looking in the hope that one of the colliery names would jog Keith’s memory, or at least match with the kind of disaster they were looking for. Most were of no interest, and the more pages of results they looked at, the less relevant they seemed to be. Tayte moved on to the next year, and the next, scanning the information in the links that came back. He became interested enough to open a few of the links he saw, but nothing seemed to fit. Time passed, and it wasn’t until he came to 1947 that things took a positive turn.
Keith sat up with a jolt. ‘There,’ he said, pointing to the screen. ‘Westborough Colliery disaster, 1947. That’s where my grandfather worked. I told you I’d remember the name if I heard it.’
Tayte followed the link, which was to a blog detailing the events of the tragedy. ‘Thirty-eight miners lost their lives,’ he said, and the hairs on the back of his neck began to tingle when he read that the accident was due to a lift-shaft collapse, which had effectively entombed the ill-fated miners below.
‘This has to be the place then,’ he said, turning to Rudi. ‘The type of accident also fits perfectly with the words Mavro managed to get enhanced for us. “Danger. Lift shaft.” The Genie plans to entomb Jean in this mine, just as her great-grandfather was entombed there in 1947.’
‘Please no!’ Keith said as the shock of what Tayte had just said hit him.
Tayte put his hands up. ‘I’m so sorry. I forgot where I was for a moment. We still have several hours. We can prevent this, I’m sure we can.’
He quickly read on and discovered that the Westborough Colliery had closed in 1959, and that only a few pithead buildings and the engine house now remained, protected by Grade II listed building status so that the site’s past would be remembered.
‘To the Black Country then?’ Rudi said.
Tayte gave him a nod, thinking he could find out where the site of the former Westborough Colliery was along the way.
‘It’ll be dark soon,’ Keith said, standing up. ‘I’ll fetch a couple of torches. I’d like very much to come with you, but I need to be here for Linda when she gets home.’
‘I understand,’ Tayte said. ‘And perhaps it’s for the best. If we’re right about this, it could be dangerous.’
‘Well, do be careful,’ Keith said. ‘If you call the police I’m sure they can meet you there.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Westborough Colliery was located between Walsall and Wolverhampton, close to a now-disused railway line that had previously conveyed the pit’s coal production to service the area’s once booming industry. It had taken two hours to drive there, and Tayte was glad to have left the rain behind as he and Rudi approached along an empty road that was no more than an unlit, potholed track. It was just after six in the evening as they climbed out of the car to better take the place in. As it had been dark now for almost an hour and a half, however, with no moon or stars visible in the blackness above them, they were unable to see much more than a silhouette of the engine house and the sheave wheel that sat directly above the lift-shaft head frame. It was eerily quiet.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to call the police?’ Rudi asked in a whisper, continuing a discussion they had begun in the car on the way there.
‘No, I’m not sure at all,’ Tayte said, questioning the rationale that had seemed logical enough to him in the relative safety of the car. ‘But it’s like I said. This isn’t going to stop unless we stop it. The Genie has made it very clear that he wants me to suffer, and he doesn’t care who he uses to achieve that. If this doesn’t end tonight, one way or another, it’ll never go away. I’ll be looking over my shoulder the rest of my life, worrying myself sick about everyone I ever care about. The way I see it, this is my best chance—maybe my only chance—to make it all go away.’
Tayte checked the beam on the torch Keith had lent him. ‘I don’t know if the Genie’s still here,’ he added, ‘but if the police show up with their lights flashing and their sirens wailing, it’s sure to scare him away if he is, and there’s no telling what might happen to Jean if he thinks the game’s up. We have almost six hours left before the deadline. That has to give us some kind of advantage.’
‘Okay then, we’ll play it by ear,’ Rudi said, checking his own torch. ‘Let’s go and see what’s there.’
The surrounding area was lightly wooded, screening the former colliery from the rest of the world. Shining their torches into the darkness Tayte saw that they were in a clearing that was covered with tall grey weeds long since gone to seed. They set off slowly towards the sheave wheel that loomed above the tree line, a relic of the area’s industrial past, crunching gravel beneath their feet as they followed the rusting iron railway tracks for a time. Then they headed across the clearing and the brittle weeds that snapped and crackled
at their every step. If the Genie was there, despite their slow and steady approach, Tayte thought he would hear them coming a mile away.
As they approached the head frame, Tayte shone his torch over the small red-brick building that surrounded it. ‘The lift shaft’s in there,’ he whispered.
‘And look,’ Rudi said. ‘There’s a gate.’
They went closer to inspect it. The gate was offset to the right of the building’s centre. It was painted black with large padlocks at the top and bottom, securing thick steel bars to the frame. The whole thing looked heavy duty, having been added to the structure after the pit had closed to seal off access. Beyond the gate was an arched brickwork opening that led to the shaft, through which the miners would enter and the coal would be brought out. There was no light from within. Tayte could hear no sound. He shone his torch through the arch and saw a glimpse of the iron support girders and more exposed brickwork.
His attention was drawn to Rudi then as he began to shake the gate. ‘What are you doing?’
‘If this is the right place, there has to be a way in,’ Rudi said, and as soon as he’d finished speaking, the gate nudged open.
They stared at one another with their mouths agape. Closer scrutiny of the locks, which remained intact, revealed that the bars they were securing to the frame had been cut clean through.
‘Cordless angle grinder,’ Rudi said. ‘Noisy, but what would that matter out here?’
Tayte pushed the gate and it opened further, emitting a loud grating sound from the rusty hinges. He quickly stopped it from opening any further and heard roosting birds flapping in the nearby trees. He looked back at Rudi and winced.
Dying Games (Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery Book 6) Page 27
