JT01 - In The Blood Page 4

  He needed more.

  “You know what I’m looking for,” he said, directly addressing that spot on the ground, like he was talking to some imaginary friend. He dropped the notebook into a side pocket of his three-quarter length black leather jacket and sighed. A half empty ale bottle rested beside him. He took another slug, draining it back. He gazed at the familiar label: Cornish Knocker, a favourite that served him well on occasions like this.

  “They have to pay!” he shouted, coiling as he launched the spent ale bottle into the darkness beyond the soft up-lit glow of his torch. The bottle smashed against jagged rock and the pieces fell, tinkling amongst what was left of earlier bottles and the remnants of previous visits. The sound cut the still air, echoing against cold hard surfaces, shrill and piercing.

  He stirred the air with the leather cord and the silver crucifix spun low circles over the ground. “Call it an anniversary present too if you like!”

  Damp sand shifted beneath his feet as he made his way towards a narrow slit of moonlight at the mouth of the cave - a beacon amidst dark rock barely wide enough to fit through. He followed the torch beam to a foaming edge of lapping water, then went through to the row-boat that awaited him on the other side.

  Chapter Seven

  Wednesday.

  Tayte paid the cab driver who brought him the rest of the way from Truro train station and wondered if he’d arrived at the right address. As the car pulled away, disturbing the bright morning, he found himself at the end of a short driveway looking through a cloud of roadside dust. Beyond, was a double-fronted Georgian house that he figured must be on the outskirts of the village he’d just come through - Mawnan Smith. That was a mile back and there were now very few other buildings around. Even the road had narrowed and to Tayte, who was more used to the wide multi-lane freeways back home, it resembled little more than a track. A sign stuck out towards the road at the end of the driveway that read, ‘St Maunanus House - Bed & Breakfast’, refuting his doubts.

  Tayte had no idea what he was in for. His hurried brief to the woman at the Cornwall Tourist Board before he left Boston was for simple accommodation: five nights, as close to Mawnan as he could get. He started along the driveway, crunching loose gravel underfoot, then he stopped himself. It seemed a little early. Curtains were still drawn behind white sash windows in some of the upstairs rooms. He checked his watch - the digital display read ‘08:11’ and he was glad he’d taken the time to freshen up at the station and get some breakfast or it would have been even earlier.

  He looked beyond a glistening lawn of dewy, well kept grass, through pots of pink and white geraniums and large tubs containing palm trees. Palm trees? Not something he considered synonymous with England, but they were definitely palms. The view led his eyes through a jungle of colourful abstract precision to the front door, which had panels of stained glass tulips in the top half, glowing in the early sunlight.

  Nice, he thought. Peaceful. But why did he feel so intimidated? Too peaceful. He began to wish he’d been more specific with the Tourist Board; wished he’d asked for a hotel - something indifferent. He turned away, deciding to take a stroll and come back at a more sociable hour. Then a bell jangled and the door behind him opened.

  A cheery voice sang to him. “Hello…”

  He turned back to see a woman standing in the doorway. She looked to be in her early fifties, slim, with blonde hair styled high off her forehead. She wore beige jeans and a sage-green sweatshirt beneath an apron on which she was hurriedly wiping her hands.

  “Saw you on the drive there,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you so early. You must be my American.”

  Tayte wondered if his appearance was really that transparent. He eyed his comfy beige loafers and the white shirt that was pushing out through the jacket of his travel-creased suit and realised it probably was. He reached the door and the woman stepped back into the porch, inviting him through.

  “Good morning,” Tayte offered, stepping inside. “I was about to take a walk down the lane … seemed a little early.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. People turn up at all sorts of times. Expect the unexpected, that’s what I say. Mr Tayte, isn’t it?” She led Tayte through into the hallway. “You’re my third American this month and it’s barely started,” she added. “Always busy early September. Especially when the weather’s nice like this. Drops off in a week or two though.”

  If Tayte hadn’t already eaten, the aroma that confronted him as he walked through into the hallway would have been too much to bear: bacon, eggs, sausage and mushrooms. He passed an open doorway and saw a middle-aged couple sitting at a large table tucking into their breakfast. Their tanned skin was testament to the fine weather. Another two places were set, but as yet empty.

  “Good morning,” they said together.

  “Morning,” Tayte replied, offering a polite smile.

  “That’s John and Barbara,” his host said. She lowered her voice to a whisper, which grew louder again by the time she’d finished speaking. “Lovely couple. Two of my regulars. Always come this time every year.”

  They passed another doorway on the left and his stomach audibly groaned as he peered into the command centre and caught the bacon smell full on.

  “Your room won’t be ready for a few hours yet I’m afraid,” the woman continued. “But you can leave your things. You don’t want to be lugging those about.”

  She stopped at the foot of a full-turn stairway of stripped and waxed pine. “Where are my manners - I’m Judith, by the way. You can drop your bags just there.” She indicated a space beside the stairs where a few coats were hanging. “I’d say you could leave them in your room, only the couple that have it haven’t left yet.”

  “That’s fine.” Tayte put his bags down. “I don’t want to keep you from your guests. How about I come back around midday.”

  “Midday would be super. Just give the bell a good pull and I’ll be there.”

  “Thanks.”

  They made their way back to the front door and Tayte gave a nod and another smile to the guests in the breakfast room as he passed. Ahead, the porch was lit with colour from the stained glass in the door and higher up in the frieze on the windows.

  “There was just one thing,” Tayte said, one foot into the porch. “Which way is the church?”

  “Well that depends. There’s St Michael’s up in the village, and there’s a Methodist church near that. Then the other way there’s the parish church and a Catholic church. We’re well catered for spiritually.”

  Four churches. Tayte wasn’t sure. “Which is the oldest?”

  “That would be the Parish church of St Mawnan.” She turned to a narrow table by the front door and picked up a pile of pamphlets. She riffled through them and pulled one out. “Here you are, take this,” she said. “It’s a walking guide of the area. Save you getting lost. Oh, and this is a good one. Cornish Smugglers. It’ll tell you all about our shady past.”

  “Thanks.” Tayte smiled and slipped the pamphlets into his jacket.

  Judith stood in the porch and pointed down the driveway. “Turn right as you leave the drive - left takes you up to Mawnan Smith, that’s the main village - then just follow the road. You can’t miss it.”

  “So this is Mawnan?”

  “Yes, that’s right. It’s a hamlet really. We’re part way between the two I suppose. Neither here, nor there. It’s all Mawnan as far as the postman’s concerned.”

  “Is it far to the church?”

  “No, only about ten minutes. If you want to go a bit further, there’s a lovely walk down to Helford Passage. Just pick up the coast path. It’s well sign-posted. That should take you about forty minutes from the church.”

  Tayte held onto the smile he’d been wearing a little too long. “Well, thanks again,” he said.

  Beyond the drive, to the right as directed, the road continued straight for a few hundred metres where it became lost to a copse of trees. The sun was already warm on Tayte’s face as he mad
e his way there, observed from a distance by several horses on the other side of a post-and-rail fence. To the other, cows grazed nonchalantly in a field behind a Cornish hedge of rock and earth, hidden beneath a barrier of lichen and the subtly fading late summer purples of leggy foxgloves and wild scabious, glistening with dewy gossamer in the morning sun. It could still have been mid-summer; no sign of autumn’s onset.

  As he arrived at the copse, beneath the shade of its tangled treetops, Tayte began to wonder what he might find at the church. Would there be a headstone in the graveyard for each of the missing death records? One each for Eleanor and her children, another for Clara and Jacob Daniels? The recurring question began to circle in his mind again. Round and round it went like a starving buzzard looking for an elusive prey.

  Why can’t I trace them? Why only James?

  In the January of 1784, not six months after the Betsy Ross had sailed for England, James Fairborne was alone. His great estate on the exposed Cornish headland, where Falmouth Bay meets the Helford River, was as his desolate tomb. He had not left the house all winter, serviced in those months by a single manservant. All other staff had been dismissed immediately upon his taking up residence.

  The Elizabethan manor house was a dark place. It was seldom lit at any time save for a single fire by which James Fairborne sat every day and well into the night, brooding. Occasionally the flicker of his manservant’s candle could be seen pacing the long gallery as he went about his limited duties, scarcely distinguishing the shrouded furnishings and ornaments. Less often, a candle glowed for James Fairborne as he eventually retired for the night, but only at such times that he went to bed at all.

  James Fairborne would continue to sit alone in his own personal darkness, constantly troubled by what lived there. Such plans had been laid. Now he could do nothing but wait. The more time passed, the easier it would become. He knew that was the way of such things. A few more months perhaps. That would surely be long enough. Then the cloud would lift and light and life would once again fill Rosemullion Hall. And for James Fairborne, life’s journey would begin again.

  Chapter Eight

  Mawnan parish church was built in 1231 and is dedicated to Saint Maunanus, a 6thcentury Celtic saint after whom the village of Mawnan is thought to be named. The church stands one hundred metres from the coastal foot-path, south of Falmouth, and sits high up, looking out over the mouth of the Helford River.

  Tayte was standing at the lych gate, peering along a shingle pathway that led away to a blue church door. The gate itself was supported on either side by two deep stone walls that carried a tiled roof over a granite coffin rest in the centre. He looked up and read the words painted over the gate: Da thymi nesse the Dhu. Then a gentle voice spoke to him from within.

  “It is good for me to draw nigh unto God.”

  Tayte startled and peered into the shadows, to the stone benches that were shaped from the walls beneath the lych roof. “Excuse me?” he said.

  A slight, fair-haired man rose from the shadows. He was dressed in black trousers and a navy-blue fleece jacket. The white of his dog-collar immediately gave his calling away. He looked older than Tayte suspected he was. His hair had receded and was thinning, but his face still held a youthful freshness.

  “The inscription you were reading,” the man said. “Cornish … from The Life of Meryasek. It means - it is good for me to draw nigh unto God.”

  “Oh, I see. Thanks.” Tayte feigned a painful clutch at his chest and smiled. “You set my ticker running there.”

  “My apologies,” the man said. “I’m Reverend Jolliffe. There are no services today, but you’re welcome to look around.”

  Tayte extended a hand. “Jefferson Tayte.”

  The reverend’s hand was small in Tayte’s. His skin felt cold and dry. He opened the gate and Tayte went through.

  “I expect you get this all the time,” Tayte said. “But I’m looking for some graves.”

  “We have many graves, Mr Tayte.” The reverend waved a slow hand to either side of him as they walked. Headstones scattered the lawns. “There are many more beyond the south wall.”

  “Graves from the late eighteenth century,” Tayte added. “Early nineteenth, maybe.”

  “An old family member?”

  “Sort of. It’s what I do - for other people.”

  “A family historian? We have many enquires.”

  The reverend stopped walking and Tayte could see by his semi-perplexed expression that he had something to ask.

  “Tell me, Mr Tayte,” Jolliffe said. “Visitors often ask me about such things, but I’m afraid I’m shamefully close to useless when it comes to your profession. How does it all work? I mean, how do you manage to connect everyone together.”

  The question was one that Tayte had grown accustomed to answering. “It’s really not all that complicated,” he said. “Documents like birth, marriage and death certificates hold more information than most people think. Take a subject’s birth certificate. From that, as I’m sure you know, you get their parents’ names, mother’s maiden name, the father’s occupation and address. In its simplest form, you just repeat the process for each parent going back through time.”

  “I’m sure it’s not as straightforward as all that,” Jolliffe said.

  “Well, perhaps not, but that’s the idea. It gets a whole lot trickier the further back you go, and much of it’s about confirming your data, but there are all kinds of indexes to help point you in the right direction. Deciphering old texts can be a challenge too, but you get used to it.”

  “You must have a third eye,” Jolliffe said.

  Tayte smiled to himself. “I guess. A degree in palaeography helps too.”

  “I should tell you that we keep no parish records here before 1900,” the reverend said. “The older records are stored at the record office in Truro now - have been for some time as I remember. But of course, you would already know that.”

  Tayte recalled numerous telephone conversations with a girl called Penny Wilson at the Cornwall Record Office, bringing to mind her soft tones. He wished the records were there.

  They approached the blue door that led into the main body of the church. Ornamental hinges covered the door in wide fans of swirling black iron-work, like sculpted leaves. Tayte’s eyes drifted right, then rose with the church tower to its battlements. On each corner, surrounding a white flag-pole, two-metre-high stump pinnacles rose to the sky, like spires pointing the way to heaven.

  “The tower is over six hundred years old,” Jolliffe said, noting Tayte’s interest. “And there’s said to have been a structure here before that.”

  Tayte didn’t want to get side-tracked by an architectural history lesson. “I’m interested in a family that settled in the area in the late 1700s,” he said.

  The reverend raised his eyebrows.

  “James and Eleanor Fairborne in particular. Then there’s Daniels. That’s the name James’s sister took when she married. Clara and Jacob Daniels?”

  “Daniels…” Jolliffe gazed skyward, following his raised brow as it furrowed in thought. “I really couldn’t say, but Fairborne is a familiar name to most around here. If it’s the same family they have the estate on Rosemullion Head. Lovely views.” He looked suddenly distracted. “You really must take in the view from our south door. It looks out across the estuary to Nare Point. Quite breathtaking at times.”

  “Thanks, I’m sure I will.”

  The reverend appeared lost to the scenic images conjuring in his mind as they made their way in slow steps around the church tower. They passed another blue door, this one below an arched window. Above that a further arch was slatted to facilitate the bells.

  “So, the Fairbornes?” Tayte continued. “Any buried here?

  “Oh yes, Fairborne… I think not.” The Reverend Jolliffe pondered a while. “No, I don’t recall any. Their land falls within this parish, all within the Deanery and Hundred of Kerrier, but I suspect their family members are buried on the esta
te. Quite typical for well-connected, well-financed families with enough land for it.” The reverend gently nodded. “A most impressive estate, too.”

  Now on the church’s south side, Tayte began to understand why Jolliffe had led him this way. He looked out over long shadows, across the tops of memorial headstones and stone crosses, changed and worn by time and stained by lichens. He looked through a framework of trees to an untroubled Helford estuary, then across a silver-foil sea to a jutting headland beneath a clear and bright sky.

  “You’re welcome to look at our headstones, of course,” the reverend continued. “Take as long as you need. We have a great many for a church of such relatively small proportions. Although…” Jolliffe paused, smiling suddenly, like someone who was about to give away a gift, knowing that the recipient would be overjoyed with it. “As you’re looking for something specific…” He spoke slowly, teasing. “You might find it more productive to come inside and take a look at the books.”

  “You keep plot records here at the church?” Tayte said. He couldn’t believe his luck.

  “We do.”

  “Then please, lead on.”

  Chapter Nine

  Tayte waited beside an octagonal stone font inside the church, looking up at a stained glass window that bore the images of three saints framed by a single gothic arch. Similar arches mirrored the length of the church to either side of the main aisle, and above him the ceiling was high and vaulted, painted white with dark wooden beams in stark contrast. Reverend Jolliffe had disappeared behind a blue velvet curtain to fetch the promised book of burials and Tayte remained surprised that the church still kept them. Most were centralised in regional offices and he considered that might explain why he couldn’t access this information from back home.