I n t h e B l o o d S t e v e R o b i n s o n Copyright © 2011 Steve Robinson The right of Steve Robinson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 All rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. The characters in this publication are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Kindle Edition Release 1.10 For Karen Prologue 1803. Helford Passage, south-west England. Mawgan Hendry was dying. If he’d seen it coming then he might have had some chance to prevent it. As it was, all hope against such sudden and decisive brutality faded into the night with his first laboured breath. On the river’s inky swell, Cornish fishing boats continued to chatter and creak uneasily, though Mawgan could no longer hear them over the blood pressure drumming in his ears. He clawed desperately at his neck, drawing skin under his nails, tearing and ripping until his raw flesh burned. But he could not free himself. His fists lashed wildly to no effect. His feet became suddenly weightless, kicking and thrashing in frenzied panic like a crazed marionette until laboured breath became no breath at all and he was still. A strengthening easterly wind cut into the throat of the Helford River, lashing rain at Mawgan’s startled face, blueing and congested under the dim glow of the jetty lantern. His eyes grew dark as the empty night, bulging in their sockets as he dropped forcefully to his knees, thumping hard onto wet pontoon boards. He sensed unconsciousness was moments away and for all his brawn he could not fight it. Between thumb and forefinger he grasped a silver crucifix that hung loosely from his neck and prayed for deliverance. But deliver us from evil! Then a voice whispered in his ear, cold and threatening. “You know what I’ve come for.” Mawgan shook his head, jerking his neck in quick, erratic spasms. At first he couldn’t think, and then he knew. The box... Lowenna... He shook his head again - defiant. He tried to glimpse the figure bearing down on him, his head uncomfortably close, but the man’s strength restricted him - denied him. For thine is the kingdom! “No matter,” the man said. Mawgan caught the flash of a wry smile teasing at the edge of his assailant’s mouth. He felt an ear press close to his neck, like the man was listening for something. Waiting. Then it came. As the pressure increased and Mawgan’s hyoid bone fractured, he saw his assailant fully at last as the man forced their faces together. He saw his eyes narrow, his jaw relax, slowly parting his lips in a moment that seemed akin to some exquisite pleasure, like he was savouring the intimacy, absorbing the delicacy. And the power, and the glory! As Mawgan’s heart beat for the last time, he could think only of Lowenna, his love. The love that was now lost to him. For ever and ever. His body went limp, arms dropping heavily to his sides, hands like dead weights. Amen. Chapter One Air horns screamed! The air inside the car resonated, buzzing the dash, forcing Jefferson Tayte’s eyes wide open. In that same instant he watched his knuckles turn white on the wheel as a rush of adrenalin surged through him - tingling, pulsating; a burst of energy that began at his core and raged violently across his entire body. He’d never felt more awake than he did right now. He swerved just in time, narrowly avoiding the eighteen-wheeler that blocked his view - dazzled. The piercing lights quickly passed. Behind him, the drone of air horns faded at last with the uncomfortable pounding in his chest. He took a deep breath and forced it out again, still bolt upright in his seat, still clenching the wheel. He glanced down at himself; to the straining buttons on his white shirt and the heavy thighs that were tight inside his loose-fit tan linen trousers. “Gotta shape up, JT,” he told himself. He reached across to the passenger seat and scooped up an almost empty bag of Hershey miniatures. Goodbye Mr Goodbar! he thought as he popped the glovebox and slammed the chocolates inside. The dim beam of his own antiquated headlights shed a soft glow on the quiet road ahead. He squinted into the night and ran a clammy hand through the sweat on his brow, pushing his fingers back through a dense crop of dark, unkempt hair. An approaching road-sign told him he was still heading the right way at least: Boston, Massachusetts - his destination for a meeting he’d hoped to avoid because he knew his bear of a client was not going to be happy with what he had to tell him. Something about the assignment didn’t add up. Now his preoccupation with it had just damn near killed him. His mind was a torment of unsolved riddles. Eleanor Fairborne ... the children ... why can’t I trace them? What happened to them? Chapter Two Tayte’s client was a busy man and breakfast meetings were to be expected if not always welcomed - though apart from the company, Tayte could think of few better places to enjoy a fine Tuesday morning than on the terrace of Walter Sloane’s luxury penthouse condominium. Tayte was used to travelling to see his clients, but today he was weary from the four hundred and fifty mile drive from his home in Washington DC and the near death experience he’d had a few hours back. Long night drives left him drained, but it was better than the alternative. The condo unit was in South Boston, a few miles from his client’s business epicentre in downtown Boston’s financial district. It was one of four corner plots that enjoyed total privacy, boasting views across the Old Harbour towards the Harbour Islands in the east, and north to the photogenic Boston skyline. Tayte was sitting at a smoked glass and aluminium table close to the balcony, overlooking Carson Beach. He dunked another croissant in his black coffee and continued... “Somewhere close to a hundred thousand loyalists left America at the end of the War of Independence, loyal to King George III of England,” he said. “Most went to England, others to Ireland, Scotland and Canada, particularly Nova Scotia.” He unfolded some more of the genealogy chart that was part laid out on the table. He still used charts for show. Clients liked them; liked to see the family-tree grow as he revealed more and more of their past. “Some of the family didn’t make it through the war,” he continued. “Both parents and grandparents were already gone before it started - life expectancy back then for Massachusetts was only about sixty years.” He traced a finger across the chart, moving through several generations until he arrived at the first American-born ancestor of his client’s wife. “William Fairborne,” he said, “James Fairborne’s brother. He moved away long before the war broke out. Finally settled in what’s now West Virginia, and there’s nothing so far to suggest the brothers ever kept in touch.” He closed the chart again and shook his head, surprised at his own findings. “Seems unusual,” he added. “People don’t often run away from money.” Across the table sat Walter Sloane, a man who made Jefferson Tayte look fit. He appeared to be at work already, nose buried in the Boston Business Journal, a stack of national papers beside his elbow. He looked up. “Maybe they fell out.” His voice was gritty with an undertone of sub-bass that distressed the air as he spoke. “If that’s who my wife got her temper from, they probably kicked him out!” “Whatever the reason,” Tayte said. “With only daughters following and James Fairborne moving the rest of the family back to England, that was the last of this particular Fairborne line in America. James Fairborne returned to a comfortable estate and a baronetcy for his loyalty.” Sloane turned another page and slurped from a thin bone-china cup, his fingers clumsy on the delicate handle. He clanked the cup back onto the saucer. “So where to from here?” Tayte took a large bite from his croissant, dripping lukewarm coffee down his suit. If he noticed he gave no indication. His free hand riffled through a black notebook that was beside the chart. “James Fairborne and his family left in ... August 1783,” he said. “I’ve traced James back to that time - to the south-west of England.” His niggling questions about Eleanor Fairborne and the rest of the family rushed back at him, interrupting his flow and causing his client to stare at him expectantly. Tayte quickly continued. “A county called Cornwall,” he added. “Seems they arrived there...” His words lacked conviction. He knew he was speculating that the rest of the family had made it. Without records to back things up, he couldn’t know anything for sure. “But either I’ve got the wrong Fairborne, or...” His words trailed off again as he questioned the possibility. But he knew he had the right man. What he couldn’t understand was why James Fairborne’s records continued beyond 1783 when the rest of his family’s did not. Tayte stood up and finished his croissant. He went to the edge of the terrace and looked out over the balcony, pointing down over the beach to the Old Harbour. “The Betsy Ross sailed from somewhere down there.” He spoke slowly, as though confirming things to himself. He knew the brig had sailed. He’d seen the departure entry in the Ship Index. “They set up in England...” He stopped again, still puzzled. “Things get a little hazy from there.” Tayte gazed out at the expensive views of tall skyscrapers and high-rises on one side, then to the contrasting sea on the other. His mind raced with possibilities. Think JT! It was a clear day, just a little blurred towards the horizon. He pinched the inner corners of his eyes, tired and gritty, in case it was just his vision that was blurry, but the horizon remained as diffused as his thoughts. Walter Sloane closed his paper and slapped it down with the rest, focusing Tayte’s attention. “Well get over there and talk to these people. Confirm things. Half a job’s no good to me.” Tayte was afraid that was coming, however much he’d expected it. His mouth cracked nervously at the edges as he snorted the beginnings of an uneasy laugh. “Well there’s a lot more I can do from here...” He closed his eyes, silently reprimanding himself, wishing he could take the words back. His chin dropped to his chest. So unprofessional. If his university peers could see him now - Jefferson Theodore Tayte, on the brink of killing yet another perfectly good assignment because he was afraid to fly. The assignment was nearly finished. He had a briefcase full of records and transcripts: births, marriages and deaths, covering everyone directly descended from William Fairborne to the present day. From that first American-born ancestor he’d gone back to William’s father and his father who originally settled in America from England back in 1712. Most of his clients had no interest in brother’s or sister’s families to any great extent. They just wanted to trace their direct ancestry - their roots. But he had to get clever; had to open his big mouth and convince Walter Sloane that it would be great to trace the Fairborne name back to England again through William’s brother, James. Well he’d done that. Now a job he was about to wrap up had become a total mess. Question marks for James’s wife, Eleanor and their children; for his sister, Clara and her husband Jacob. And one big question mark over whom the current Fairborne line in England descended from. Complications had certainly arisen. Questions he knew he couldn’t answer in his usual stay-at-home way had presented themselves. He knew he had to go. How else could he finish the job in time? He sat down, suddenly uncomfortable in his coffee-spattered suit, which was more creased than usual from the long drive. Sloane leaned in across the table, stone-faced. “I hired you for this because someone told me you were the best.” His words were calm but firm and Tayte gave no argument. “I could have gotten Schofield for half the price!” The man leaned closer still. His eyes widened until his brows looked like they were about to slide off the back of his smooth, well-oiled head. “I’m not paying you to sit around on your fanny tapping keys and making phone calls all day.” His knuckles pressed into the glass, spreading to twice their usual size. “Get your ass to England, Tayte. Find out what you need to know and get back here and finish the damn thing!” Tayte blamed his tiredness, itself a by-product of his fear: Pteromerhanophobia. He thought they could have come up with something easier to pronounce, but figured the idea was that by the time you said it properly, the flight would be over. Sloane got up, grating chair legs carelessly against the buff limestone flooring. “You’ve got one week!” He raised a single stubby digit so there was no misunderstanding. Then he turned in the direction of the French doors that led back into the condo, pausing as he knocked into a telescope. “Keep me updated,” he called back. “Leave a message with my PA if I’m busy.” He glared purposefully at Tayte. “Don’t you fail me!” he warned. Then he disappeared inside. One week. Genealogy had never been an easy business to make money at. The popularity of Tayte’s profession had perhaps never been greater, but that popularity had pulled the competition wriggling from the woodwork. Now it was eating at the pie he used to enjoy with relatively few like-minded friends - back when there was plenty to share. If business had been better, he might have told the man exactly what to do with his chart. One week wasn’t long in light of what he had to go on. He knew it would be tight. He also knew he was kidding himself if he thought he could walk away from this one. He had to find these people. There were bigger issues at stake. Then there was the mention of Schofield. That upstart! The kid had been breathing down Tayte’s neck for a few years now and much as Tayte hated to admit it, he was starting to get to him. Totally new-school, Peter Schofield had jumped straight out of Senior High and onto the Internet with nothing more than his blonde-haired, pearly-toothed looks and a truck-full of charisma, seemingly fuelled by the singular ambition of knocking Tayte off his top spot. He’d told Tayte as much at a recent genealogy convention. “You’re a forty-something who’s had his day,” Schofield had said after the usual banter had fallen into decay. He was flaunting the latest copy of Genealogy Today magazine, the front cover of which carried an annoyingly cocky portrait of the new wonder-boy. “Yeah, right,” Tayte replied, feigning a smile. “And that’s thirty-nine.” He’d kept walking, past Schofield’s stand, discouraging any further exchange. “Oh, come on.” Schofield ran ahead and thrust the magazine in Tayte’s face with both hands. “This!” He poked aggressively at his own image, creasing it. “This is what they want now, man!” Tayte held out a hand, still walking. “There’s no substitute for experience in this game, kid,” he reminded Schofield. But all he got back was that grinning magazine cover, dancing arrogantly in his face, telling him he’d better watch out. He never could forget Schofield’s parting jibe. “Least I know who my own folks are!” It was way below the belt and it hurt. After twenty plus years of searching, all Tayte knew about his parents was that his mother had an English accent and that she’d abandoned him to some South American mission when he was just a few months old. She’d been good enough to leave him a photograph at least; he liked to think that she couldn’t bear the idea of him growing up not knowing what she looked like. He’d kiss her image goodnight at the end of every day, and she’d watch over him from the bedside table as he slept. That’s what he liked to think she had in mind, but who knows? He didn’t even know his date of birth; not that birthdays ever meant much. They were just a sore reminder to him that, while he seemed perfectly adept at finding connections for other families, he just wasn’t good enough to find his own. He shook his head to dispel the memories and collected his things from the table: pad, pen, the incomplete chart. “It’s just a plane,” he told himself as he stuffed everything into a shabby leather briefcase that was as travel-worn as his suit. But he could already feel the sweat glands in his palms getting to work. He rose to leave, taking a last gulp of coffee and helping himself to a chocolate pastry to cheer himself up. Chapter Three The rushing sound coming from the circular vents above him told Jefferson Tayte that he was getting all the air American Airlines would allow. He twisted at them some more, just to be certain. Then he checked his seat belt again, knowing it was as tight as he could bear it. It was creasing his second linen suit that day, this one a shade paler than the last. A brief sleep in the passenger seat of his Torch Red, 1955 Ford Thunderbird had barely refreshed him, but he was used to it. 4.8 litres of V8 muscle with manual three-speed overdrive. He’d had the car since he started pulling paychecks, and even if it was on its third reconditioned engine, for all its faults he absolutely loved it. Running on whitewall tires with a white hardtop and enough chrome to shame a custom Harley, it looked a little ostentatious when he pulled up to see a client, but he didn’t care. That car was his only family. A suitcase nearly as shabby as his briefcase was testament to a lifestyle of stopovers at cheap motels, imposing a diet of fast food and a snacking habit that had contributed to his appearance over the years. Travelling prepared had at least saved him the trip back to DC to pick up a flight, and a few provisions from the shopping lounge at Boston’s Logan International Airport had serviced any needs his suitcase couldn’t provide for. He even carried a valid passport. He figured always having one with him meant he could go anywhere in the world if he wanted to, even if he had no intention of using it. Looking around the cabin he noticed it was half empty and wondered what the absent passengers knew that he didn’t. Then the thing happened that he’d been trying to avoid. He caught the eyes that had been drilling into the side of his head from the window seat since he’d first sat down. The woman’s voice suddenly burst the air, like she’d been holding her breath all this time, waiting to get an introduction out. “Hi, I’m Julia - Julia Kapowski.” Her voice was nasal with a grating edge, and she hung onto her words as though afraid to let them go again until she’d thought of something else to say. She was grinning childishly, like she was meeting someone famous and was their all-time greatest fan. Tayte twitched in his seat, recoiling intuitively. Her accent was easy to place. New York City, he thought. Queens - maybe Brooklyn. A hand shot across the empty seat. It was connected to the widest smile he’d ever seen and he was thankful for the space between them. He shook the hand and offered an uncomfortable nod. “JT,” he said. The woman wriggled in her seat. “J... T...” She repeated his initials slowly, as though buying herself time to work out what they stood for. “Well... The mysterious kind!” Mysterious? Tayte thought she’d never finish the word. I really don’t need this. His lips tightened, saying nothing to provoke further conversation, but she was off. “You know, you look a lot like my last husband.” Tayte imagined she must have gone through a few. He just nodded politely. “You do, it’s almost spooky.” She turned to face him. “He was a cuddly man,” she mused. “Tall too.” Her knees edged closer, straining beneath a dark trouser suit that was as sharp and raven as her hair. The body language told Tayte that he would not be allowed to face his fears quietly. The woman continued to stare at him. “You have nice eyes...” She sounded very sincere. Tayte felt trapped. “Did you know you had nice eyes? I bet you didn’t.” Nothing about Tayte felt nice. “I bet you’re a kind man. Kind men usually have nice eyes. Well that’s my experience.” She went quiet. Tayte could feel her studying him again. “They’re a nice shade,” she said. “A girl could drown in there!” She giggled, then at last she turned away and pulled a magazine from the holder in the back of the seat. “My dog has brown eyes too,” she added. “Not so nice as yours though.” Tayte was thankful for that at least. He didn’t know if she was coming on to him or just couldn’t help herself. He figured the latter and weakly smiled. Then he closed his eyes, fixed a song from Les Misérables in his head and pretended to sleep. This would be Tayte’s second flight ever; the first was twenty-five years ago and he remembered it like it was just last week. He was fourteen, taking an internal flight to Vermont from Washington National Airport as it was known before it was dedicated to Ronald Reagan in 1998; a promising winter vacation ruined by the sickening worry of the return flight home. Everyone had said how lucky they were and that the storm hadn’t really been that bad. Planes are designed to deal with lightning strikes. He’d looked up the statistics and discovered that every commercial plane in the States is struck, on average, just over once a year. He also knew that the last time a plane had crashed because of a lightning strike was back in 1967, when it hit the plane’s fuel tank. But none of that put him any more at ease. He remembered reading that you are many times more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to be in a plane crash and thinking that he’d very nearly had both together. The passenger safety announcements came and went. The video screen in the headrest in front of him was blank again, reflecting unruly black hair that needed a cut and a comb, and a tired, sagging face in need of sleep. He knew he should have paid closer attention to the announcements, but it made him think of all the negative situations that could occur. He pictured himself fumbling beneath his seat for the lifejacket, and wearing the oxygen mask that would drop from the hatch beside his air nozzle as the plane plunged and they lost cabin pressure. Then sliding down the inflatable escape chute, arms crossed on his chest as he sank into a freezing sea. Yeah, he thought. A great help. He looked out the window beyond Julia Kapowski who was thankfully buried in the duty free pages of the inflight magazine. There were a few clouds, but it was otherwise clear. He almost began to relax in spite of his thoughts and memories, then he heard the jet engines pick up and he continued to squeeze the seat arms. A voice over the intercom said, “This is your captain speaking.” Tayte tried to switch off - shut himself down until it was all over. He only heard snippets: “Taxiing ... runway ... cleared for takeoff.” Already way too much information. The plane jolted as it began to move and Jefferson Tayte’s toes curled. He took some comfort from the odd bump or two as the plane’s wheels caught the ridges in the asphalt, letting him know he was still connected to terra-firma. Then the plane stopped and he knew they were at the end of the runway. A lump came to his dry throat as he waited. He thought he would have forgotten the little details, but he could already feel the impending rush of speed and the effect it would have on his body as powerful unseen hands pushed him back into his seat and held him there. Then it came, and if he’d had any loose muscle left in his body to clench, he would have. “Whooosshh!” Julia Kapowski slapped her magazine onto her lap and jumped in her seat. Tayte jumped with her. “Don’t you just love the take-off?” If only she knew. Ten seconds later and that part at least was over. When Tayte opened his eyes again, the plane was safely in the air and climbing - though safe was the exact antonym for how Tayte felt. If he had the stomach to look out the window again, he would have seen the Boston Harbour Islands diminishing below, but his butterflies began to fight one another now, turning his stomach into a boxing ring. Then the engine note changed. The raging violence of exploding gases out on the wings, courtesy of Pratt & Whitney, settled and a bong! sounded around the cabin as the seat-belt light went out. None of which gave him any further comfort. He checked his watch - a cheap digital affair with glowing red digits that he’d had since the ‘80s and was still fond of in a retro kind of way. It read ‘11:40’ and he couldn’t believe they’d only been up ten minutes. A quick calculation told him that it would be 22:30, UK time, when they arrived. Tayte couldn’t stop himself from rephrasing the sentence with the word if instead of when. He needed something else to think about. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his travel documents, looking for the onward train journey details. He picked out the highlights. London, Paddington to Truro. The departure time read, ‘23:45’. That gave him over an hour to clear the airport and get to the train: an overnight sleeper that would take him to Cornwall in just over seven hours. As he put the tickets away and the plane began to level, he recalled how close he’d come to jacking it in, even as he stood there at the departure gate, ticket shaking in his hand. He always had when the f-word came up - found some excuse why he couldn’t fly here or fly there. But not this time. Irrespective of his client’s insistence, he wasn’t into this game just so some rich entrepreneur’s wife could have a nice birthday present. This assignment was all about finding a family that someone did not want to be found and that made the whole thing far more personal than Walter Sloane could know. If you can’t find this family, he told himself, how the hell do you expect to be good enough to find your own? Tayte settled back and began to think about James Fairborne and his family again, wondering what they were like, piecing their lives together from the records he’d found. He compared journeys: a couple of months being blown about in a wooden tub, guided by the stars at the mercy of the Atlantic Ocean, versus seven hours in a relatively comfortable seat surrounded by the best technology modern science could provide. The plane was steady now. He had no idea how high they were and he cared even less. It was just like riding a Greyhound bus, cruising on some smooth interstate. He felt pathetic as tiredness caught up with him and he began to drift. Chapter Four Named in honour of the woman credited with having made the first flag of the American Union, the Betsy Ross was a one hundred and ten ton brig, bluff-bowed with a flat transom stern and both masts square rigged for speed. Primarily, she carried cargo, trading in anything saleable along the busy coastal waters of the Eastern Seaboard between Boston and the Indies to the south. In the August of 1783, however, she had a very different itinerary. Sitting in the dock at Boston harbour, some seventy feet in length, she appeared to Katherine Fairborne as a ramshackle of heavy cordage and patched sail cloth, which did not instil confidence. Yet Katherine understood the importance of the day well enough. She had watched her father closely in the weeks that had built towards this cool yet fine morning, filling her journal with reflections of excitement and anxiety in equal measure. Now she wished nothing more than to get underway so that she might continue to record their adventure. Katherine was sixteen and the eldest of three children. She was draped in a dull and heavy woollen cloak that concealed all but her face and its frame of golden ringlets. So as not to miss anything of the scene she would later paint with her words, she had positioned herself strategically at the quayside. Her father was to one side of her with her brother, little George, who was just five, and her mother was to the other side with her sister, Laura, who was twelve. Her aunt and uncle were also with her mother, and all Katherine could hear from that direction was the wag of Aunt Clara’s tireless tongue. Little George, whose head barely reached the buckle of his father’s breeches, was so slight a child that it was difficult to believe he was there at all. The illusion was aided somewhat because he was the image of his father, dressed in a shorter cut of the same dark-brown greatcoat. He was watching the cargo being carried onto the Betsy Ross; arms crossed and standing perfectly still, mimicking. Katherine thought his expression was far too serious for his years. “What are they putting onto the boat Father?” George said. He looked up for the answer, blinking against the glare of the sunrise and the intense effect it had on the sea. James Fairborne continued to study the activity before them. A ramp stretched up from the quayside to the deck of the Betsy Ross, along which a seemingly endless line of men carried an assortment of crates and barrels. “Seed I believe - flax,” he offered. “They use the plant fibres to make linen.” “How long will it take to get there?” James turned his head to the sea. “There’s a big ocean between here and England,” he mused, gazing out past the northern edge of Spectacle Island, which appeared in relief against the early sun. He gazed far out, beyond the shelter of the harbour entrance between Deer Island and Long Island Point where it opened into Massachusetts Bay. Beyond that, like a promise, the Atlantic waited. James answered slowly, perhaps in awe of the journey ahead. His expression was flat and distant. “Over three thousand miles to England.” He squatted, giving George a smile and his full attention. His tone lifted. “The Master supposes we’ll make a hundred miles a day. Can you work it out?” Katherine smiled as she watched George act out his notion of a man in great thought. His eyes narrowed to a squint as they fixed on a far away space, high in the rapidly lightening sky. But it seemed that George could not work it out, so he continued to pull faces until his serious expression at last betrayed him. He grinned at his father who laughed heartily and ruffled the lad’s hair. “It will take seven or eight weeks,” James said. “If the weather is with us and God permits it.” Katherine had been too distracted to notice her uncle until he entered the scene. He was a barrel of a man, adorned with enough lace to drown himself in. He needed no greatcoat to combat the morning chill. “James, I must speak with you,” he said. His voice was low and gruff, as befitted his portly appearance, and his jowls quivered as he spoke. “I have concerns, James.” Katherine watched her father’s expression sour. “It’s this boat,” her uncle continued. “Is it big enough for such a voyage? Is it strong enough? That is to say, is she capable?” He motioned in the direction from which he’d come and his eyes settled on his wife’s cradled belly. “To own the truth, I’m concerned for the child.” “Jacob, do not distress yourself,” James said. “I am assured she is a craft worthy of the passage and it will not be her first Atlantic crossing. She has a good crew.” “Yes, but only fifteen in all. Is it enough for such an undertaking?” “She carries a carpenter and a sailmaker.” Jacob nodded his approval. “We should count ourselves fortunate,” James said. “We have the means to charter such a fine vessel where others do not. And to have found her already converted to take us.” He put a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “Return to my sister and comfort her. Clara will be in need of your support.” Katherine’s eyes followed her uncle’s return, catching her mother’s who waved discreetly back so as not to disturb the flow of the one-sided conversation Clara was having with her. “I’m just not comfortable with it,” Clara continued. “I like to know where my things are. Like them where I can see them, and that’s not on the other side of the world.” Eleanor continued to nod, smiling politely. A moment later she said, “Do excuse me.” She raised her petticoats and followed her gaze towards her husband, passing Jacob midway who tipped his head and touched the emerald brim of his beaver-felt tricorne. With Eleanor gone, Clara turned to Laura to continue her monologue, but Laura too had left her. “Well, I don’t know. I’m sure I don’t,” Clara said. Little George had seen the gathering break. He rushed past Katherine, heading straight for Laura, and Katherine knew that his toothy smile and bright eyes spelled trouble. Eleanor drew close to James as she arrived beside him, sinking her cheek into the soft ruffles of his cravat. “Tell me again that this is all for the best,” she said. “Tell me that our lives will be just as they were.” “They will be better!” James held her shoulders, easing her away, yet keeping her close. “You pay too much attention to the worries of my sister and her husband.” He searched her eyes briefly, moving in again when he seemed to find that place he was looking for. His tone softened. “We must remain loyal to our sovereign, God bless him and keep him safe. There is nothing here for us now save our own persecution.” “But so far away?” Eleanor said. James brushed her cheek and kissed her forehead. “Do not trouble yourself,” he added. “All is set. Everything we have of value is safely arrived in England where it awaits us. We go to a magnificent estate there too, and a familiar business to continue. We can thrive in England, Eleanor! These are exciting times.” He let her go and began to pace the quayside, frothing with enthusiasm. “Instead of copper, we’ll mine tin. There are no richer deposits to be found anywhere in the civilised world than in Cornwall.” Two blurs arrived between them, circling in a figure of eight before dashing off again. “Give it back,” Laura yelled, snatching at a bright yellow ribbon that danced tantalisingly out of reach. James shook his head, though his expression was as playful as the scene. His eyes lifted towards Katherine then, drawing her into the proceedings that she had previously felt distanced from, like a biographer writing about the lives of others. “I think you had better round up your siblings and teach them a little decorum,” he said. A stranger approached, though his apparel stated his business. “Captain Grainger’s about ready for you, sir,” he said. No one watched them leave, and Katherine Fairborne was in no doubt that few cared they were going as the brig heaved and creaked through the calm of the early morning tide towards the sunrise. Yet she continued to stand with her family on the deck of the Betsy Ross, looking back at Boston Harbour’s quiet quayside, reflecting, as she supposed everyone was, on the lives they were leaving behind. Above her, sheets of sail-cloth calmed momentarily, limp and flapping, then all snapped full, drawing the breeze, ushering them headlong into an uncertain destiny. Katherine could barely control her desire to rush off and find her writing box, but she waited, and in doing so she saw a change in little George that disquieted her. He looked close to tears, pale of complexion and rigid as the portside rail he clung to. He was tight lipped as though imprisoning his emotions; she could see that the thrill of the adventure had deserted him. Now it seemed that fear had replaced it, watching like mischief beside him, sharing dark thoughts and painting darker pictures that were perhaps very different to their father’s ideals. George snatched at his father’s hand, edging closer until there was no space left between them. “I don’t think I want to go father.” James Fairborne tightened the bond between them. “Be strong, lad,” he said. “Be strong.” As they cleared the harbour entrance, turning hard to starboard into the Black Rock Channel and the open sea, Katherine at last broke away, climbing the steps to the upper deck and descending through the hatch into the Great Cabin where her writing box and journal waited. Journal of Katherine Fairborne. Thursday, August 21st 1783. The day has finally arrived and we are at sea with several weeks ahead of us and the promise of little else to do but watch the ocean and listen to it break against the boat. Father is being positive, but I sense he is uneasy about the crossing and our new lives in England. I will miss my friends and will write to them all as soon as we land - no doubt with exciting tales of adventure that will make them all pitifully jealous. Everyone is being sick apart from Father and I - I do hope poor George will soon acclimatize and recover his usual temperament, not least because the matter affords the crew a degree of merriment that upsets Mother. I am sure, however, that they will all soon settle down to their duties as the demands of the voyage dictate. Of the crew, I have noticed one in particular. As he guides our course in the weeks to come, I know he and I shall become good friends. I have already caught his eye and I must confess to enjoying his attentions. Chapter Five Somewhere over the Atlantic, American Airlines flight AA156 from Boston, Massachusetts to London, Heathrow began to judder. Bong! The seat-belt lights lit up around the cabin, by which time Jefferson Tayte’s strap was already tight. The comfortable innocence afforded him by the state of half-sleep he’d been in for the last couple of hours was over. Another judder shook his seat, reaffirming his now lucid state. He peered down the aisle to see a leggy stewardess buckling up and knew this was going to be bad. Julia Kapowski must have seen Tayte startle back to life. “Turbulence!” she said. “It’s just turbulence.” Her eyes lit up, and as though sensing his anxiety, she said, “Here sweetie, let me hold your hand.” Tayte reacted just in time, crossing his arms like a sulking schoolboy as she moved in. “Thanks. I’m okay.” “Hey! Suit yourself.” Kapowski settled back in her seat and looked out the window. Silence descended between them like an uncomfortable two minutes remembrance. When it was up, Tayte offered an apology. “Sorry,” he said. “But I’m okay. Really.” He knew she meant well. Kapowski’s smile returned. “Don’t like to fly eh? My first husband didn’t like planes either. Said they scared the shit outta him!” She put a hand to her mouth. “Excuse me. That was just his way.” The captain’s familiar voice gave the usual greeting, then proceeded to confirm that they were indeed experiencing turbulence. By the time the announcement had finished, Tayte had heard the word more times than he cared to, and if he didn’t already know that turbulence was a state of flow in which the instantaneous velocities exhibit irregular and apparently random fluctuations - he did now. Who is this guy? He figured the idea was that if you knew what you were experiencing and knew what caused it, then it wouldn’t scare you. But the logic was flawed to Tayte’s mind. He knew exactly how Dirty Harry Callahan’s .44 Magnum worked, but he still knew he’d need a change of underwear if it was pointed at his head. When the lesson finished, the captain signed off with that well oiled phrase, “There’s really nothing to worry about...” Yeah right. Tayte could picture the cheesy grin on his face as he said it. Another violent jolt saw Tayte’s fingernails stabbing back into his armrests, preceding the sweat beads that broke across his brow as the plane suddenly dropped. He felt lighter, then heavy again as it levelled out. His stomach churned. He still couldn’t believe he’d passed on lunch, however dire the offerings in front of Kapowski had looked, but he was glad now that he had. It was all going so well. At one point he’d even come close to real sleep, drifting to the rhythm of the riddles he had no answers to, convincing himself over and over that he had the right James Fairborne despite the obvious incongruities. His research had been meticulous. He was confident of his findings no matter what further issues they raised, and now, of all those concerns, the dominating question that stood on the shoulders of the rest and kept waving at him was: who is Susan Fairborne? He knew as much as records allowed, but he expected them to show James Fairborne and his wife, Eleanor. Their children: Katherine, Laura and George. Instead, he’d found James and his wife, Susan, and two completely different children: Allun and Lowenna. The copy of the transcript in his briefcase was very clear. James’s marriage to Susan Forbes on Saturday, March 12th 1785 was unquestionable. So what happened to the rest of the family? Why are there no records? Why only James? Tayte knew well enough that records are sometimes lost or filed incorrectly. Names were frequently misspelled, either because they were written in some difficult to read, idiosyncratic style, or simply because the scribe recorded the information badly. Any combination of such things made records harder to find - sometimes impossible to find. But so many? Only one person out of seven with records intact? It was too much for Tayte to write off as coincidence. Something else had started to puzzle him too, but he could no longer think straight. The plane was audibly banging now and moving in all dimensions. Tayte couldn’t remember the last time he’d had any religious inclinations, but he suddenly found himself thinking, dear God, get me through this! He pictured his Ford Thunderbird, all alone in some strange parking lot, and wondered whether he would ever see it again. It was some time later when Tayte became aware that something else was annoying him. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It felt like an injection stabbing into his right arm, just below the shoulder, only the injection kept coming and the applied force grew until he felt himself rocking from side to side under the weight of the heavy needle that just kept jabbing and jabbing into his arm. No records... The injections became painful. What happened to them? He began to feel desolate. Eleanor? The children? A cloudburst of despair washed over him and he sensed the answer was not good. The injection came again, but he no longer cared. He began to sob at the sheer hopelessness. Then over the sobbing he heard another voice. The nurse? “Hey!” The voice was familiar. The needle jabbed into his arm again only now it felt more like a knife. His arm went numb, squeezing and pumping, like the nurse was checking his blood pressure. “JT... Hey!” The despair left him as suddenly as it arrived. He shocked back into his seat to a rush of air vents and the muddled chaos of people standing all around him, struggling over each other to get their bags from the overhead compartments. “I thought we’d lost you.” Kapowski was perky in her seat, a sharp fingernail still poised to give him another jab. “You slept like a baby for the last two hours. “We’re there already!” “Where?” He was still dazed from the heavy sleep that had finally caught up with him. “Heathrow dummy! You missed the best bit.” “Best bit?” “The landing!” Tayte let out a sigh and rubbed his eyes. “Sorry. I was dreaming.” “Oh... Anyone special?” “No. No one special.” He stumbled over the words. “Well, maybe,” he added, feeling the need to correct himself. “It’s - well it’s something I’m working on.” He stood up, eager now to get off the plane. “It’s a little complicated.” “Oh, don’t mind me. I’m not the prying kind.” The passengers were clearing. Tayte reached into the compartment above their seats and pulled out a familiar briefcase that he hoped had enjoyed the trip more than he had. “Can I get your bag?” he asked. “I’d like that, I really would. But I travel light.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a card. “Look me up if you need anything,” she said, winking as she handed it to him. “I’m in town the rest of the week.” Tayte knew he wouldn’t use it, but he took the card anyway. “Thanks,” he said, slipping it beneath the flap of his jacket pocket without giving it a glance. The aisle had cleared. They were the last few on the plane. “Well, nice meeting you,” Tayte offered. Then he went for the exit, still half asleep and scarcely able to believe the flight was over and he was still alive. Outside, the taxi rank droned with the chatter of diesel engines. It was raining and cool, and the air under the canopy shelter was heavy with the smell of diesel fumes. Tayte made his way towards the black cab at the front of the queue, opened the passenger door and followed his bags in. “Padding-ton station,” he said, forcing a neutral accent that sounded a little too phonetically correct. The cabby looked mildly confused. “Paddington?” “That’s right - Paddington.” “You do know there’s a rail link that’ll get you there in half the time for about a third of the price?” “No, I didn’t. Good of you to say, but I’m here now.” “Okay mate - it’s your money.” The cabby turned back to the wheel and pressed a few buttons on the meter. Tayte checked his watch. “I have a connection to make at ten to midnight.” “No problem pal. It’ll be quiet once we clear the airport. Tayte settled back and stretched out his legs, still tense from the flight. Beyond his own reflection in the glass window, which now told him he was in need of a shave as well as a hair cut, it was too dark to see anything much: other cars, grey buildings, an outline of trees that were no more than damp shadows beyond the street lights. As he sat listening to the clickety-hum of the engine and the rush of tire rubber against the road surface, he reflected again on what else had started to puzzle him. He considered the facts. James Fairborne had remarried. The question was why? And just over a year after arriving in England? Divorce seemed unlikely, though not impossible. But why would Eleanor have gone in the first place if things were already rocky between them? Then there was the question of the lack of records for Eleanor and the children, and for James’s sister, Clara and her husband, Jacob Daniels. No death records, no further marriage record and nothing at all in the IGI - the International Genealogical Index, otherwise now known as Family Search. According to recorded history they just vanished. He felt certain the Betsy Ross had made it to England - James Fairborne’s arrival was proof enough of that and there was nothing in the Lloyds Register of Shipping to suggest the Betsy Ross hadn’t completed the voyage. But it concerned him that there was no information on the brig at Falmouth; nothing in the Ship Index to register her arrival. All he knew for sure was that she sailed from Boston in the August of 1783 and that James Fairborne was buried in the parish of Mawnan in Cornwall, England in 1829, having lived there for forty-six years and to an above-average age of eighty-one. Tayte even considered death at sea, against the odds that everyone in the family apart from James had died due to some illness or accident, and knowing that only half such deaths were ever reported in the first place. But that route came to a quick end when he discovered that records of births, marriages and deaths at sea only existed for a few British ports before 1800 and Falmouth was not one of them. The further back in time you went the less information there was. But no records for any of them? It was all too much coincidence for Tayte, who was beginning to suspect that someone had been playing with the past and had done a very good job of hiding these people. But why? The sense of despair from his earlier dream on the plane told him that no good had come to Eleanor and her children. For now, it was the only thing he could think of to account for James remarrying. “Never been to America myself,” the cabby said, breaking into Tayte’s thoughts. “Where ‘bouts you from?” “Washington DC, home of the Redskins.” “Oh, I know.” There was a pause. “What’s the DC bit stand for?” “District of Columbia. It’s between Richmond and Baltimore.” The cabby’s head was shaking before the sentence was out. “Nah, sorry.” “Two hundred miles south-west of New York?” Tayte offered, figuring everyone knew where that was. “Oh, New York. Yeah ‘course. Heard of that ... so good they named it twice!” “That’s the one.” Tayte was stupefied. They stopped at a roundabout and Tayte thought he heard a chuckle over the clicking indicator relay. Then they were off again, cutting out in front of a white van. The cab’s rear window immediately began to glow with the flash of headlights as distant obscenities split the night. The cabby shook his head as the van sped past. “Can’t remember who sang it though,” he said, dismissing the near accident. He caught Tayte’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. “The New York song?” Tayte nodded back. “Right.” His tone was one of agreement, feigning distraction. He wasn’t going any further down that road. Then what started as a low, semi-tuneful hum beyond the screen in front of him, quickly built into the worst rendition of Gerard Kenny’s ’78 disco hit, New York, New York Tayte had ever heard. He couldn’t believe the cabby was actually singing. Nice to see a man happy at his work, he thought as he settled back. He smiled to himself and hoped the service wasn’t extra. Chapter Six On the A389 in Cornwall, heading south-west away from Bodmin on the western edge of Bodmin Moor, a beat-up, electric-blue Mazda 323 hatchback sped through the darkness, main beam pumping light out into the void. It was late. There was no other traffic around and the last road sign the driver had passed told him that Truro was twenty miles away. Another thirty miles and he’d be back in Helford - safe. The driver slapped the steering wheel to the bassline of a punchy tune that was playing too loud on the cheap car-stereo. He sat forward in his seat, still high - energized. A sizeable grin split his face. “I can’t believe it!” he shouted, hard against the music. I can’t believe I fucking did it!” He looked down at the Tesco bag in the passenger seat footwell, knowing what was inside. He wanted to touch his ill-gotten prizes again, to prove they were real and that he really had pulled it off. Bodmin was behind him now, but he was still back there in the moment, savouring the buzz of the snatch. It had been far easier than he’d expected. Now, at last, it felt like things were finally coming together. By the time the driver arrived at his intended destination, the night had deepened to its darkest reaches. A small row-boat had been necessary for the last leg of his clandestine journey, and now, as he sat grinning at his star prize, he was still buzzing from the thrill of his night’s work. His eyes narrowed and sharpened on a silver crucifix that dangled from his left hand, swinging gently in harsh torchlight, suspended from a thick leather cord that was almost brittle with age. The light from the torch bounced off the crucifix, casting bright crosses against dark and angular walls. In his right hand was a tan leather-bound notebook, cracked and faded. He knew the museum would miss them in the morning - of course they would. But what did that matter to him? No one would be able to connect him to the theft. No one yet knew what he knew. “Not like it’s stealing really,” he said to himself. It had taken time to gather the truth, piece by piece. It had taken a long time. His elation soured. It was a sudden change, like a resting alligator snapping without warning at a meal that had strayed too close. “It’s taking too much time!” he shouted. His words echoed around him then just as suddenly he was calm again. A gratifying thought occurred to him, twisting his mouth. His gaze dropped to the ground as he tried to focus on a sandy spot just beyond his sprawled out legs. “How can you steal something that’s rightfully yours?” he asked. It wasn’t everything he felt belonged to him, but it was a start. 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

I n t h e B l o o d

S t e v e

R o b i n s o n

The right of Steve Robinson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

The characters in this publication are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Kindle Edition

Release 1.10

For Karen

Prologue

1803. Helford Passage, south-west England.

Mawgan Hendry was dying. If he’d seen it coming then he might have had some chance to prevent it. As it was, all hope against such sudden and decisive brutality faded into the night with his first laboured breath.

On the river’s inky swell, Cornish fishing boats continued to chatter and creak uneasily, though Mawgan could no longer hear them over the blood pressure drumming in his ears. He clawed desperately at his neck, drawing skin under his nails, tearing and ripping until his raw flesh burned. But he could not free himself. His fists lashed wildly to no effect. His feet became suddenly weightless, kicking and thrashing in frenzied panic like a crazed marionette until laboured breath became no breath at all and he was still.

A strengthening easterly wind cut into the throat of the Helford River, lashing rain at Mawgan’s startled face, blueing and congested under the dim glow of the jetty lantern. His eyes grew dark as the empty night, bulging in their sockets as he dropped forcefully to his knees, thumping hard onto wet pontoon boards. He sensed unconsciousness was moments away and for all his brawn he could not fight it. Between thumb and forefinger he grasped a silver crucifix that hung loosely from his neck and prayed for deliverance.

But deliver us from evil!

Then a voice whispered in his ear, cold and threatening.

“You know what I’ve come for.”

Mawgan shook his head, jerking his neck in quick, erratic spasms. At first he couldn’t think, and then he knew. The box... Lowenna... He shook his head again - defiant. He tried to glimpse the figure bearing down on him, his head uncomfortably close, but the man’s strength restricted him - denied him.

For thine is the kingdom!

“No matter,” the man said.

Mawgan caught the flash of a wry smile teasing at the edge of his assailant’s mouth. He felt an ear press close to his neck, like the man was listening for something. Waiting.

Then it came.

As the pressure increased and Mawgan’s hyoid bone fractured, he saw his assailant fully at last as the man forced their faces together. He saw his eyes narrow, his jaw relax, slowly parting his lips in a moment that seemed akin to some exquisite pleasure, like he was savouring the intimacy, absorbing the delicacy.

And the power, and the glory!

As Mawgan’s heart beat for the last time, he could think only of Lowenna, his love. The love that was now lost to him.

For ever and ever.

His body went limp, arms dropping heavily to his sides, hands like dead weights.

Amen.

Chapter One

Air horns screamed!

The air inside the car resonated, buzzing the dash, forcing Jefferson Tayte’s eyes wide open. In that same instant he watched his knuckles turn white on the wheel as a rush of adrenalin surged through him - tingling, pulsating; a burst of energy that began at his core and raged violently across his entire body. He’d never felt more awake than he did right now. He swerved just in time, narrowly avoiding the eighteen-wheeler that blocked his view - dazzled.

The piercing lights quickly passed. Behind him, the drone of air horns faded at last with the uncomfortable pounding in his chest. He took a deep breath and forced it out again, still bolt upright in his seat, still clenching the wheel. He glanced down at himself; to the straining buttons on his white shirt and the heavy thighs that were tight inside his loose-fit tan linen trousers.

“Gotta shape up, JT,” he told himself. He reached across to the passenger seat and scooped up an almost empty bag of Hershey miniatures. Goodbye Mr Goodbar! he thought as he popped the glovebox and slammed the chocolates inside.

The dim beam of his own antiquated headlights shed a soft glow on the quiet road ahead. He squinted into the night and ran a clammy hand through the sweat on his brow, pushing his fingers back through a dense crop of dark, unkempt hair. An approaching road-sign told him he was still heading the right way at least: Boston, Massachusetts - his destination for a meeting he’d hoped to avoid because he knew his bear of a client was not going to be happy with what he had to tell him.

Something about the assignment didn’t add up. Now his preoccupation with it had just damn near killed him. His mind was a torment of unsolved riddles. Eleanor Fairborne ... the children ... why can’t I trace them? What happened to them?

Chapter Two

Tayte’s client was a busy man and breakfast meetings were to be expected if not always welcomed - though apart from the company, Tayte could think of few better places to enjoy a fine Tuesday morning than on the terrace of Walter Sloane’s luxury penthouse condominium. Tayte was used to travelling to see his clients, but today he was weary from the four hundred and fifty mile drive from his home in Washington DC and the near death experience he’d had a few hours back. Long night drives left him drained, but it was better than the alternative.

The condo unit was in South Boston, a few miles from his client’s business epicentre in downtown Boston’s financial district. It was one of four corner plots that enjoyed total privacy, boasting views across the Old Harbour towards the Harbour Islands in the east, and north to the photogenic Boston skyline. Tayte was sitting at a smoked glass and aluminium table close to the balcony, overlooking Carson Beach. He dunked another croissant in his black coffee and continued...

“Somewhere close to a hundred thousand loyalists left America at the end of the War of Independence, loyal to King George III of England,” he said. “Most went to England, others to Ireland, Scotland and Canada, particularly Nova Scotia.”

He unfolded some more of the genealogy chart that was part laid out on the table. He still used charts for show. Clients liked them; liked to see the family-tree grow as he revealed more and more of their past. “Some of the family didn’t make it through the war,” he continued. “Both parents and grandparents were already gone before it started - life expectancy back then for Massachusetts was only about sixty years.”

He traced a finger across the chart, moving through several generations until he arrived at the first American-born ancestor of his client’s wife. “William Fairborne,” he said, “James Fairborne’s brother. He moved away long before the war broke out. Finally settled in what’s now West Virginia, and there’s nothing so far to suggest the brothers ever kept in touch.” He closed the chart again and shook his head, surprised at his own findings. “Seems unusual,” he added. “People don’t often run away from money.”

Across the table sat Walter Sloane, a man who made Jefferson Tayte look fit. He appeared to be at work already, nose buried in the Boston Business Journal, a stack of national papers beside his elbow. He looked up. “Maybe they fell out.” His voice was gritty with an undertone of sub-bass that distressed the air as he spoke. “If that’s who my wife got her temper from, they probably kicked him out!”

“Whatever the reason,” Tayte said. “With only daughters following and James Fairborne moving the rest of the family back to England, that was the last of this particular Fairborne line in America. James Fairborne returned to a comfortable estate and a baronetcy for his loyalty.”

Sloane turned another page and slurped from a thin bone-china cup, his fingers clumsy on the delicate handle. He clanked the cup back onto the saucer. “So where to from here?”

Tayte took a large bite from his croissant, dripping lukewarm coffee down his suit. If he noticed he gave no indication. His free hand riffled through a black notebook that was beside the chart. “James Fairborne and his family left in ... August 1783,” he said. “I’ve traced James back to that time - to the south-west of England.” His niggling questions about Eleanor Fairborne and the rest of the family rushed back at him, interrupting his flow and causing his client to stare at him expectantly.

Tayte quickly continued. “A county called Cornwall,” he added. “Seems they arrived there...” His words lacked conviction. He knew he was speculating that the rest of the family had made it. Without records to back things up, he couldn’t know anything for sure. “But either I’ve got the wrong Fairborne, or...” His words trailed off again as he questioned the possibility. But he knew he had the right man. What he couldn’t understand was why James Fairborne’s records continued beyond 1783 when the rest of his family’s did not.

Tayte stood up and finished his croissant. He went to the edge of the terrace and looked out over the balcony, pointing down over the beach to the Old Harbour. “The Betsy Ross sailed from somewhere down there.” He spoke slowly, as though confirming things to himself. He knew the brig had sailed. He’d seen the departure entry in the Ship Index. “They set up in England...” He stopped again, still puzzled. “Things get a little hazy from there.”

Tayte gazed out at the expensive views of tall skyscrapers and high-rises on one side, then to the contrasting sea on the other. His mind raced with possibilities. Think JT! It was a clear day, just a little blurred towards the horizon. He pinched the inner corners of his eyes, tired and gritty, in case it was just his vision that was blurry, but the horizon remained as diffused as his thoughts.

Walter Sloane closed his paper and slapped it down with the rest, focusing Tayte’s attention. “Well get over there and talk to these people. Confirm things. Half a job’s no good to me.”

Tayte was afraid that was coming, however much he’d expected it. His mouth cracked nervously at the edges as he snorted the beginnings of an uneasy laugh. “Well there’s a lot more I can do from here...” He closed his eyes, silently reprimanding himself, wishing he could take the words back. His chin dropped to his chest. So unprofessional. If his university peers could see him now - Jefferson Theodore Tayte, on the brink of killing yet another perfectly good assignment because he was afraid to fly.

The assignment was nearly finished. He had a briefcase full of records and transcripts: births, marriages and deaths, covering everyone directly descended from William Fairborne to the present day. From that first American-born ancestor he’d gone back to William’s father and his father who originally settled in America from England back in 1712.

Most of his clients had no interest in brother’s or sister’s families to any great extent. They just wanted to trace their direct ancestry - their roots. But he had to get clever; had to open his big mouth and convince Walter Sloane that it would be great to trace the Fairborne name back to England again through William’s brother, James.

Well he’d done that. Now a job he was about to wrap up had become a total mess. Question marks for James’s wife, Eleanor and their children; for his sister, Clara and her husband Jacob. And one big question mark over whom the current Fairborne line in England descended from. Complications had certainly arisen. Questions he knew he couldn’t answer in his usual stay-at-home way had presented themselves. He knew he had to go. How else could he finish the job in time? He sat down, suddenly uncomfortable in his coffee-spattered suit, which was more creased than usual from the long drive.

Sloane leaned in across the table, stone-faced. “I hired you for this because someone told me you were the best.” His words were calm but firm and Tayte gave no argument. “I could have gotten Schofield for half the price!”

The man leaned closer still. His eyes widened until his brows looked like they were about to slide off the back of his smooth, well-oiled head. “I’m not paying you to sit around on your fanny tapping keys and making phone calls all day.” His knuckles pressed into the glass, spreading to twice their usual size. “Get your ass to England, Tayte. Find out what you need to know and get back here and finish the damn thing!”

Tayte blamed his tiredness, itself a by-product of his fear: Pteromerhanophobia. He thought they could have come up with something easier to pronounce, but figured the idea was that by the time you said it properly, the flight would be over.

Sloane got up, grating chair legs carelessly against the buff limestone flooring. “You’ve got one week!” He raised a single stubby digit so there was no misunderstanding. Then he turned in the direction of the French doors that led back into the condo, pausing as he knocked into a telescope. “Keep me updated,” he called back. “Leave a message with my PA if I’m busy.” He glared purposefully at Tayte. “Don’t you fail me!” he warned. Then he disappeared inside.

One week. Genealogy had never been an easy business to make money at. The popularity of Tayte’s profession had perhaps never been greater, but that popularity had pulled the competition wriggling from the woodwork. Now it was eating at the pie he used to enjoy with relatively few like-minded friends - back when there was plenty to share. If business had been better, he might have told the man exactly what to do with his chart. One week wasn’t long in light of what he had to go on. He knew it would be tight. He also knew he was kidding himself if he thought he could walk away from this one. He had to find these people. There were bigger issues at stake.

Then there was the mention of Schofield. That upstart! The kid had been breathing down Tayte’s neck for a few years now and much as Tayte hated to admit it, he was starting to get to him. Totally new-school, Peter Schofield had jumped straight out of Senior High and onto the Internet with nothing more than his blonde-haired, pearly-toothed looks and a truck-full of charisma, seemingly fuelled by the singular ambition of knocking Tayte off his top spot. He’d told Tayte as much at a recent genealogy convention.

“You’re a forty-something who’s had his day,” Schofield had said after the usual banter had fallen into decay. He was flaunting the latest copy of Genealogy Today magazine, the front cover of which carried an annoyingly cocky portrait of the new wonder-boy.

“Yeah, right,” Tayte replied, feigning a smile. “And that’s thirty-nine.” He’d kept walking, past Schofield’s stand, discouraging any further exchange.

“Oh, come on.” Schofield ran ahead and thrust the magazine in Tayte’s face with both hands. “This!” He poked aggressively at his own image, creasing it. “This is what they want now, man!”

Tayte held out a hand, still walking. “There’s no substitute for experience in this game, kid,” he reminded Schofield. But all he got back was that grinning magazine cover, dancing arrogantly in his face, telling him he’d better watch out. He never could forget Schofield’s parting jibe.

“Least I know who my own folks are!”

It was way below the belt and it hurt. After twenty plus years of searching, all Tayte knew about his parents was that his mother had an English accent and that she’d abandoned him to some South American mission when he was just a few months old. She’d been good enough to leave him a photograph at least; he liked to think that she couldn’t bear the idea of him growing up not knowing what she looked like. He’d kiss her image goodnight at the end of every day, and she’d watch over him from the bedside table as he slept. That’s what he liked to think she had in mind, but who knows? He didn’t even know his date of birth; not that birthdays ever meant much. They were just a sore reminder to him that, while he seemed perfectly adept at finding connections for other families, he just wasn’t good enough to find his own.

He shook his head to dispel the memories and collected his things from the table: pad, pen, the incomplete chart. “It’s just a plane,” he told himself as he stuffed everything into a shabby leather briefcase that was as travel-worn as his suit. But he could already feel the sweat glands in his palms getting to work. He rose to leave, taking a last gulp of coffee and helping himself to a chocolate pastry to cheer himself up.

Chapter Three

The rushing sound coming from the circular vents above him told Jefferson Tayte that he was getting all the air American Airlines would allow. He twisted at them some more, just to be certain. Then he checked his seat belt again, knowing it was as tight as he could bear it. It was creasing his second linen suit that day, this one a shade paler than the last.

A brief sleep in the passenger seat of his Torch Red, 1955 Ford Thunderbird had barely refreshed him, but he was used to it. 4.8 litres of V8 muscle with manual three-speed overdrive. He’d had the car since he started pulling paychecks, and even if it was on its third reconditioned engine, for all its faults he absolutely loved it. Running on whitewall tires with a white hardtop and enough chrome to shame a custom Harley, it looked a little ostentatious when he pulled up to see a client, but he didn’t care. That car was his only family.

A suitcase nearly as shabby as his briefcase was testament to a lifestyle of stopovers at cheap motels, imposing a diet of fast food and a snacking habit that had contributed to his appearance over the years. Travelling prepared had at least saved him the trip back to DC to pick up a flight, and a few provisions from the shopping lounge at Boston’s Logan International Airport had serviced any needs his suitcase couldn’t provide for. He even carried a valid passport. He figured always having one with him meant he could go anywhere in the world if he wanted to, even if he had no intention of using it.

Looking around the cabin he noticed it was half empty and wondered what the absent passengers knew that he didn’t. Then the thing happened that he’d been trying to avoid. He caught the eyes that had been drilling into the side of his head from the window seat since he’d first sat down.

The woman’s voice suddenly burst the air, like she’d been holding her breath all this time, waiting to get an introduction out. “Hi, I’m Julia - Julia Kapowski.” Her voice was nasal with a grating edge, and she hung onto her words as though afraid to let them go again until she’d thought of something else to say. She was grinning childishly, like she was meeting someone famous and was their all-time greatest fan.

Tayte twitched in his seat, recoiling intuitively. Her accent was easy to place. New York City, he thought. Queens - maybe Brooklyn. A hand shot across the empty seat. It was connected to the widest smile he’d ever seen and he was thankful for the space between them. He shook the hand and offered an uncomfortable nod. “JT,” he said.

The woman wriggled in her seat. “J... T...” She repeated his initials slowly, as though buying herself time to work out what they stood for. “Well... The mysterious kind!”

Mysterious? Tayte thought she’d never finish the word. I really don’t need this. His lips tightened, saying nothing to provoke further conversation, but she was off.

“You know, you look a lot like my last husband.”

Tayte imagined she must have gone through a few. He just nodded politely.

“You do, it’s almost spooky.” She turned to face him. “He was a cuddly man,” she mused. “Tall too.” Her knees edged closer, straining beneath a dark trouser suit that was as sharp and raven as her hair. The body language told Tayte that he would not be allowed to face his fears quietly.

The woman continued to stare at him. “You have nice eyes...” She sounded very sincere.

Tayte felt trapped.

“Did you know you had nice eyes? I bet you didn’t.”

Nothing about Tayte felt nice.

“I bet you’re a kind man. Kind men usually have nice eyes. Well that’s my experience.”

She went quiet. Tayte could feel her studying him again.

“They’re a nice shade,” she said. “A girl could drown in there!” She giggled, then at last she turned away and pulled a magazine from the holder in the back of the seat. “My dog has brown eyes too,” she added. “Not so nice as yours though.”

Tayte was thankful for that at least. He didn’t know if she was coming on to him or just couldn’t help herself. He figured the latter and weakly smiled. Then he closed his eyes, fixed a song from Les Misérables in his head and pretended to sleep.

This would be Tayte’s second flight ever; the first was twenty-five years ago and he remembered it like it was just last week. He was fourteen, taking an internal flight to Vermont from Washington National Airport as it was known before it was dedicated to Ronald Reagan in 1998; a promising winter vacation ruined by the sickening worry of the return flight home.

Everyone had said how lucky they were and that the storm hadn’t really been that bad. Planes are designed to deal with lightning strikes. He’d looked up the statistics and discovered that every commercial plane in the States is struck, on average, just over once a year. He also knew that the last time a plane had crashed because of a lightning strike was back in 1967, when it hit the plane’s fuel tank. But none of that put him any more at ease. He remembered reading that you are many times more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to be in a plane crash and thinking that he’d very nearly had both together.

The passenger safety announcements came and went. The video screen in the headrest in front of him was blank again, reflecting unruly black hair that needed a cut and a comb, and a tired, sagging face in need of sleep. He knew he should have paid closer attention to the announcements, but it made him think of all the negative situations that could occur. He pictured himself fumbling beneath his seat for the lifejacket, and wearing the oxygen mask that would drop from the hatch beside his air nozzle as the plane plunged and they lost cabin pressure. Then sliding down the inflatable escape chute, arms crossed on his chest as he sank into a freezing sea. Yeah, he thought. A great help.

He looked out the window beyond Julia Kapowski who was thankfully buried in the duty free pages of the inflight magazine. There were a few clouds, but it was otherwise clear. He almost began to relax in spite of his thoughts and memories, then he heard the jet engines pick up and he continued to squeeze the seat arms.

A voice over the intercom said, “This is your captain speaking.” Tayte tried to switch off - shut himself down until it was all over. He only heard snippets: “Taxiing ... runway ... cleared for takeoff.” Already way too much information.

The plane jolted as it began to move and Jefferson Tayte’s toes curled. He took some comfort from the odd bump or two as the plane’s wheels caught the ridges in the asphalt, letting him know he was still connected to terra-firma. Then the plane stopped and he knew they were at the end of the runway. A lump came to his dry throat as he waited. He thought he would have forgotten the little details, but he could already feel the impending rush of speed and the effect it would have on his body as powerful unseen hands pushed him back into his seat and held him there. Then it came, and if he’d had any loose muscle left in his body to clench, he would have.

“Whooosshh!” Julia Kapowski slapped her magazine onto her lap and jumped in her seat.

Tayte jumped with her.

“Don’t you just love the take-off?”

If only she knew.

Ten seconds later and that part at least was over. When Tayte opened his eyes again, the plane was safely in the air and climbing - though safe was the exact antonym for how Tayte felt. If he had the stomach to look out the window again, he would have seen the Boston Harbour Islands diminishing below, but his butterflies began to fight one another now, turning his stomach into a boxing ring. Then the engine note changed. The raging violence of exploding gases out on the wings, courtesy of Pratt & Whitney, settled and a bong! sounded around the cabin as the seat-belt light went out. None of which gave him any further comfort.

He checked his watch - a cheap digital affair with glowing red digits that he’d had since the ‘80s and was still fond of in a retro kind of way. It read ‘11:40’ and he couldn’t believe they’d only been up ten minutes. A quick calculation told him that it would be 22:30, UK time, when they arrived. Tayte couldn’t stop himself from rephrasing the sentence with the word if instead of when. He needed something else to think about.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out his travel documents, looking for the onward train journey details. He picked out the highlights. London, Paddington to Truro. The departure time read, ‘23:45’. That gave him over an hour to clear the airport and get to the train: an overnight sleeper that would take him to Cornwall in just over seven hours.

As he put the tickets away and the plane began to level, he recalled how close he’d come to jacking it in, even as he stood there at the departure gate, ticket shaking in his hand. He always had when the f-word came up - found some excuse why he couldn’t fly here or fly there. But not this time. Irrespective of his client’s insistence, he wasn’t into this game just so some rich entrepreneur’s wife could have a nice birthday present. This assignment was all about finding a family that someone did not want to be found and that made the whole thing far more personal than Walter Sloane could know.

If you can’t find this family, he told himself, how the hell do you expect to be good enough to find your own?

Tayte settled back and began to think about James Fairborne and his family again, wondering what they were like, piecing their lives together from the records he’d found. He compared journeys: a couple of months being blown about in a wooden tub, guided by the stars at the mercy of the Atlantic Ocean, versus seven hours in a relatively comfortable seat surrounded by the best technology modern science could provide. The plane was steady now. He had no idea how high they were and he cared even less. It was just like riding a Greyhound bus, cruising on some smooth interstate. He felt pathetic as tiredness caught up with him and he began to drift.

Chapter Four

Named in honour of the woman credited with having made the first flag of the American Union, the Betsy Ross was a one hundred and ten ton brig, bluff-bowed with a flat transom stern and both masts square rigged for speed. Primarily, she carried cargo, trading in anything saleable along the busy coastal waters of the Eastern Seaboard between Boston and the Indies to the south. In the August of 1783, however, she had a very different itinerary.

Sitting in the dock at Boston harbour, some seventy feet in length, she appeared to Katherine Fairborne as a ramshackle of heavy cordage and patched sail cloth, which did not instil confidence. Yet Katherine understood the importance of the day well enough. She had watched her father closely in the weeks that had built towards this cool yet fine morning, filling her journal with reflections of excitement and anxiety in equal measure. Now she wished nothing more than to get underway so that she might continue to record their adventure.

Katherine was sixteen and the eldest of three children. She was draped in a dull and heavy woollen cloak that concealed all but her face and its frame of golden ringlets. So as not to miss anything of the scene she would later paint with her words, she had positioned herself strategically at the quayside. Her father was to one side of her with her brother, little George, who was just five, and her mother was to the other side with her sister, Laura, who was twelve. Her aunt and uncle were also with her mother, and all Katherine could hear from that direction was the wag of Aunt Clara’s tireless tongue.

Little George, whose head barely reached the buckle of his father’s breeches, was so slight a child that it was difficult to believe he was there at all. The illusion was aided somewhat because he was the image of his father, dressed in a shorter cut of the same dark-brown greatcoat. He was watching the cargo being carried onto the Betsy Ross; arms crossed and standing perfectly still, mimicking. Katherine thought his expression was far too serious for his years.

“What are they putting onto the boat Father?” George said. He looked up for the answer, blinking against the glare of the sunrise and the intense effect it had on the sea.

James Fairborne continued to study the activity before them. A ramp stretched up from the quayside to the deck of the Betsy Ross, along which a seemingly endless line of men carried an assortment of crates and barrels.

“Seed I believe - flax,” he offered. “They use the plant fibres to make linen.”

“How long will it take to get there?”

James turned his head to the sea. “There’s a big ocean between here and England,” he mused, gazing out past the northern edge of Spectacle Island, which appeared in relief against the early sun. He gazed far out, beyond the shelter of the harbour entrance between Deer Island and Long Island Point where it opened into Massachusetts Bay. Beyond that, like a promise, the Atlantic waited.

James answered slowly, perhaps in awe of the journey ahead. His expression was flat and distant. “Over three thousand miles to England.” He squatted, giving George a smile and his full attention. His tone lifted. “The Master supposes we’ll make a hundred miles a day. Can you work it out?”

Katherine smiled as she watched George act out his notion of a man in great thought. His eyes narrowed to a squint as they fixed on a far away space, high in the rapidly lightening sky. But it seemed that George could not work it out, so he continued to pull faces until his serious expression at last betrayed him. He grinned at his father who laughed heartily and ruffled the lad’s hair.

“It will take seven or eight weeks,” James said. “If the weather is with us and God permits it.”

Katherine had been too distracted to notice her uncle until he entered the scene. He was a barrel of a man, adorned with enough lace to drown himself in. He needed no greatcoat to combat the morning chill.

“James, I must speak with you,” he said. His voice was low and gruff, as befitted his portly appearance, and his jowls quivered as he spoke. “I have concerns, James.”

Katherine watched her father’s expression sour.

“It’s this boat,” her uncle continued. “Is it big enough for such a voyage? Is it strong enough? That is to say, is she capable?” He motioned in the direction from which he’d come and his eyes settled on his wife’s cradled belly. “To own the truth, I’m concerned for the child.”

“Jacob, do not distress yourself,” James said. “I am assured she is a craft worthy of the passage and it will not be her first Atlantic crossing. She has a good crew.”

“Yes, but only fifteen in all. Is it enough for such an undertaking?”

“She carries a carpenter and a sailmaker.”

Jacob nodded his approval.

“We should count ourselves fortunate,” James said. “We have the means to charter such a fine vessel where others do not. And to have found her already converted to take us.” He put a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “Return to my sister and comfort her. Clara will be in need of your support.”

Katherine’s eyes followed her uncle’s return, catching her mother’s who waved discreetly back so as not to disturb the flow of the one-sided conversation Clara was having with her.

“I’m just not comfortable with it,” Clara continued. “I like to know where my things are. Like them where I can see them, and that’s not on the other side of the world.”

Eleanor continued to nod, smiling politely. A moment later she said, “Do excuse me.” She raised her petticoats and followed her gaze towards her husband, passing Jacob midway who tipped his head and touched the emerald brim of his beaver-felt tricorne.

With Eleanor gone, Clara turned to Laura to continue her monologue, but Laura too had left her.

“Well, I don’t know. I’m sure I don’t,” Clara said.

Little George had seen the gathering break. He rushed past Katherine, heading straight for Laura, and Katherine knew that his toothy smile and bright eyes spelled trouble.

Eleanor drew close to James as she arrived beside him, sinking her cheek into the soft ruffles of his cravat. “Tell me again that this is all for the best,” she said. “Tell me that our lives will be just as they were.”

“They will be better!” James held her shoulders, easing her away, yet keeping her close. “You pay too much attention to the worries of my sister and her husband.” He searched her eyes briefly, moving in again when he seemed to find that place he was looking for. His tone softened. “We must remain loyal to our sovereign, God bless him and keep him safe. There is nothing here for us now save our own persecution.”

“But so far away?” Eleanor said.

James brushed her cheek and kissed her forehead. “Do not trouble yourself,” he added. “All is set. Everything we have of value is safely arrived in England where it awaits us. We go to a magnificent estate there too, and a familiar business to continue. We can thrive in England, Eleanor! These are exciting times.” He let her go and began to pace the quayside, frothing with enthusiasm. “Instead of copper, we’ll mine tin. There are no richer deposits to be found anywhere in the civilised world than in Cornwall.”

Two blurs arrived between them, circling in a figure of eight before dashing off again.

“Give it back,” Laura yelled, snatching at a bright yellow ribbon that danced tantalisingly out of reach.

James shook his head, though his expression was as playful as the scene. His eyes lifted towards Katherine then, drawing her into the proceedings that she had previously felt distanced from, like a biographer writing about the lives of others.

“I think you had better round up your siblings and teach them a little decorum,” he said.

A stranger approached, though his apparel stated his business. “Captain Grainger’s about ready for you, sir,” he said.

No one watched them leave, and Katherine Fairborne was in no doubt that few cared they were going as the brig heaved and creaked through the calm of the early morning tide towards the sunrise. Yet she continued to stand with her family on the deck of the Betsy Ross, looking back at Boston Harbour’s quiet quayside, reflecting, as she supposed everyone was, on the lives they were leaving behind. Above her, sheets of sail-cloth calmed momentarily, limp and flapping, then all snapped full, drawing the breeze, ushering them headlong into an uncertain destiny.

Katherine could barely control her desire to rush off and find her writing box, but she waited, and in doing so she saw a change in little George that disquieted her. He looked close to tears, pale of complexion and rigid as the portside rail he clung to. He was tight lipped as though imprisoning his emotions; she could see that the thrill of the adventure had deserted him. Now it seemed that fear had replaced it, watching like mischief beside him, sharing dark thoughts and painting darker pictures that were perhaps very different to their father’s ideals.

George snatched at his father’s hand, edging closer until there was no space left between them. “I don’t think I want to go father.”

James Fairborne tightened the bond between them. “Be strong, lad,” he said. “Be strong.”

As they cleared the harbour entrance, turning hard to starboard into the Black Rock Channel and the open sea, Katherine at last broke away, climbing the steps to the upper deck and descending through the hatch into the Great Cabin where her writing box and journal waited.

Journal of Katherine Fairborne.

Thursday, August 21st 1783.

The day has finally arrived and we are at sea with several weeks ahead of us and the promise of little else to do but watch the ocean and listen to it break against the boat. Father is being positive, but I sense he is uneasy about the crossing and our new lives in England. I will miss my friends and will write to them all as soon as we land - no doubt with exciting tales of adventure that will make them all pitifully jealous.

Everyone is being sick apart from Father and I - I do hope poor George will soon acclimatize and recover his usual temperament, not least because the matter affords the crew a degree of merriment that upsets Mother. I am sure, however, that they will all soon settle down to their duties as the demands of the voyage dictate.

Of the crew, I have noticed one in particular. As he guides our course in the weeks to come, I know he and I shall become good friends. I have already caught his eye and I must confess to enjoying his attentions.

Chapter Five

Somewhere over the Atlantic, American Airlines flight AA156 from Boston, Massachusetts to London, Heathrow began to judder. Bong! The seat-belt lights lit up around the cabin, by which time Jefferson Tayte’s strap was already tight. The comfortable innocence afforded him by the state of half-sleep he’d been in for the last couple of hours was over. Another judder shook his seat, reaffirming his now lucid state. He peered down the aisle to see a leggy stewardess buckling up and knew this was going to be bad.

Julia Kapowski must have seen Tayte startle back to life. “Turbulence!” she said. “It’s just turbulence.” Her eyes lit up, and as though sensing his anxiety, she said, “Here sweetie, let me hold your hand.”

Tayte reacted just in time, crossing his arms like a sulking schoolboy as she moved in. “Thanks. I’m okay.”

“Hey! Suit yourself.” Kapowski settled back in her seat and looked out the window.

Silence descended between them like an uncomfortable two minutes remembrance. When it was up, Tayte offered an apology.

“Sorry,” he said. “But I’m okay. Really.” He knew she meant well.

Kapowski’s smile returned. “Don’t like to fly eh? My first husband didn’t like planes either. Said they scared the shit outta him!” She put a hand to her mouth. “Excuse me. That was just his way.”

The captain’s familiar voice gave the usual greeting, then proceeded to confirm that they were indeed experiencing turbulence. By the time the announcement had finished, Tayte had heard the word more times than he cared to, and if he didn’t already know that turbulence was a state of flow in which the instantaneous velocities exhibit irregular and apparently random fluctuations - he did now.

Who is this guy?

He figured the idea was that if you knew what you were experiencing and knew what caused it, then it wouldn’t scare you. But the logic was flawed to Tayte’s mind. He knew exactly how Dirty Harry Callahan’s .44 Magnum worked, but he still knew he’d need a change of underwear if it was pointed at his head. When the lesson finished, the captain signed off with that well oiled phrase, “There’s really nothing to worry about...” Yeah right. Tayte could picture the cheesy grin on his face as he said it.

Another violent jolt saw Tayte’s fingernails stabbing back into his armrests, preceding the sweat beads that broke across his brow as the plane suddenly dropped. He felt lighter, then heavy again as it levelled out. His stomach churned. He still couldn’t believe he’d passed on lunch, however dire the offerings in front of Kapowski had looked, but he was glad now that he had.

It was all going so well.

At one point he’d even come close to real sleep, drifting to the rhythm of the riddles he had no answers to, convincing himself over and over that he had the right James Fairborne despite the obvious incongruities. His research had been meticulous. He was confident of his findings no matter what further issues they raised, and now, of all those concerns, the dominating question that stood on the shoulders of the rest and kept waving at him was: who is Susan Fairborne?

He knew as much as records allowed, but he expected them to show James Fairborne and his wife, Eleanor. Their children: Katherine, Laura and George. Instead, he’d found James and his wife, Susan, and two completely different children: Allun and Lowenna. The copy of the transcript in his briefcase was very clear. James’s marriage to Susan Forbes on Saturday, March 12th 1785 was unquestionable. So what happened to the rest of the family? Why are there no records? Why only James?

Tayte knew well enough that records are sometimes lost or filed incorrectly. Names were frequently misspelled, either because they were written in some difficult to read, idiosyncratic style, or simply because the scribe recorded the information badly. Any combination of such things made records harder to find - sometimes impossible to find. But so many? Only one person out of seven with records intact? It was too much for Tayte to write off as coincidence.

Something else had started to puzzle him too, but he could no longer think straight. The plane was audibly banging now and moving in all dimensions. Tayte couldn’t remember the last time he’d had any religious inclinations, but he suddenly found himself thinking, dear God, get me through this! He pictured his Ford Thunderbird, all alone in some strange parking lot, and wondered whether he would ever see it again.

It was some time later when Tayte became aware that something else was annoying him. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It felt like an injection stabbing into his right arm, just below the shoulder, only the injection kept coming and the applied force grew until he felt himself rocking from side to side under the weight of the heavy needle that just kept jabbing and jabbing into his arm.

No records... The injections became painful. What happened to them? He began to feel desolate. Eleanor? The children? A cloudburst of despair washed over him and he sensed the answer was not good. The injection came again, but he no longer cared. He began to sob at the sheer hopelessness. Then over the sobbing he heard another voice. The nurse?

“Hey!” The voice was familiar.

The needle jabbed into his arm again only now it felt more like a knife. His arm went numb, squeezing and pumping, like the nurse was checking his blood pressure.

“JT... Hey!”

The despair left him as suddenly as it arrived. He shocked back into his seat to a rush of air vents and the muddled chaos of people standing all around him, struggling over each other to get their bags from the overhead compartments.

“I thought we’d lost you.” Kapowski was perky in her seat, a sharp fingernail still poised to give him another jab. “You slept like a baby for the last two hours. “We’re there already!”

“Where?” He was still dazed from the heavy sleep that had finally caught up with him.

“Heathrow dummy! You missed the best bit.”

“Best bit?”

“The landing!”

Tayte let out a sigh and rubbed his eyes. “Sorry. I was dreaming.”

“Oh... Anyone special?”

“No. No one special.” He stumbled over the words. “Well, maybe,” he added, feeling the need to correct himself. “It’s - well it’s something I’m working on.” He stood up, eager now to get off the plane. “It’s a little complicated.”

“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m not the prying kind.”

The passengers were clearing. Tayte reached into the compartment above their seats and pulled out a familiar briefcase that he hoped had enjoyed the trip more than he had. “Can I get your bag?” he asked.

“I’d like that, I really would. But I travel light.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a card. “Look me up if you need anything,” she said, winking as she handed it to him. “I’m in town the rest of the week.”

Tayte knew he wouldn’t use it, but he took the card anyway. “Thanks,” he said, slipping it beneath the flap of his jacket pocket without giving it a glance.

The aisle had cleared. They were the last few on the plane. “Well, nice meeting you,” Tayte offered. Then he went for the exit, still half asleep and scarcely able to believe the flight was over and he was still alive.

Outside, the taxi rank droned with the chatter of diesel engines. It was raining and cool, and the air under the canopy shelter was heavy with the smell of diesel fumes. Tayte made his way towards the black cab at the front of the queue, opened the passenger door and followed his bags in.

“Padding-ton station,” he said, forcing a neutral accent that sounded a little too phonetically correct.

The cabby looked mildly confused. “Paddington?”

“That’s right - Paddington.”

“You do know there’s a rail link that’ll get you there in half the time for about a third of the price?”

“No, I didn’t. Good of you to say, but I’m here now.”

“Okay mate - it’s your money.”

The cabby turned back to the wheel and pressed a few buttons on the meter.

Tayte checked his watch. “I have a connection to make at ten to midnight.”

“No problem pal. It’ll be quiet once we clear the airport.

Tayte settled back and stretched out his legs, still tense from the flight. Beyond his own reflection in the glass window, which now told him he was in need of a shave as well as a hair cut, it was too dark to see anything much: other cars, grey buildings, an outline of trees that were no more than damp shadows beyond the street lights. As he sat listening to the clickety-hum of the engine and the rush of tire rubber against the road surface, he reflected again on what else had started to puzzle him.

He considered the facts. James Fairborne had remarried. The question was why? And just over a year after arriving in England? Divorce seemed unlikely, though not impossible. But why would Eleanor have gone in the first place if things were already rocky between them? Then there was the question of the lack of records for Eleanor and the children, and for James’s sister, Clara and her husband, Jacob Daniels. No death records, no further marriage record and nothing at all in the IGI - the International Genealogical Index, otherwise now known as Family Search. According to recorded history they just vanished.

He felt certain the Betsy Ross had made it to England - James Fairborne’s arrival was proof enough of that and there was nothing in the Lloyds Register of Shipping to suggest the Betsy Ross hadn’t completed the voyage. But it concerned him that there was no information on the brig at Falmouth; nothing in the Ship Index to register her arrival. All he knew for sure was that she sailed from Boston in the August of 1783 and that James Fairborne was buried in the parish of Mawnan in Cornwall, England in 1829, having lived there for forty-six years and to an above-average age of eighty-one.

Tayte even considered death at sea, against the odds that everyone in the family apart from James had died due to some illness or accident, and knowing that only half such deaths were ever reported in the first place. But that route came to a quick end when he discovered that records of births, marriages and deaths at sea only existed for a few British ports before 1800 and Falmouth was not one of them.

The further back in time you went the less information there was. But no records for any of them? It was all too much coincidence for Tayte, who was beginning to suspect that someone had been playing with the past and had done a very good job of hiding these people. But why? The sense of despair from his earlier dream on the plane told him that no good had come to Eleanor and her children. For now, it was the only thing he could think of to account for James remarrying.

“Never been to America myself,” the cabby said, breaking into Tayte’s thoughts. “Where ‘bouts you from?”

“Washington DC, home of the Redskins.”

“Oh, I know.” There was a pause. “What’s the DC bit stand for?”

“District of Columbia. It’s between Richmond and Baltimore.”

The cabby’s head was shaking before the sentence was out. “Nah, sorry.”

“Two hundred miles south-west of New York?” Tayte offered, figuring everyone knew where that was.

“Oh, New York. Yeah ‘course. Heard of that ... so good they named it twice!”

“That’s the one.” Tayte was stupefied.

They stopped at a roundabout and Tayte thought he heard a chuckle over the clicking indicator relay. Then they were off again, cutting out in front of a white van. The cab’s rear window immediately began to glow with the flash of headlights as distant obscenities split the night.

The cabby shook his head as the van sped past. “Can’t remember who sang it though,” he said, dismissing the near accident. He caught Tayte’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. “The New York song?”

Tayte nodded back. “Right.” His tone was one of agreement, feigning distraction. He wasn’t going any further down that road. Then what started as a low, semi-tuneful hum beyond the screen in front of him, quickly built into the worst rendition of Gerard Kenny’s ’78 disco hit, New York, New York Tayte had ever heard. He couldn’t believe the cabby was actually singing.

Nice to see a man happy at his work, he thought as he settled back. He smiled to himself and hoped the service wasn’t extra.

Chapter Six

On the A389 in Cornwall, heading south-west away from Bodmin on the western edge of Bodmin Moor, a beat-up, electric-blue Mazda 323 hatchback sped through the darkness, main beam pumping light out into the void. It was late. There was no other traffic around and the last road sign the driver had passed told him that Truro was twenty miles away. Another thirty miles and he’d be back in Helford - safe.

The driver slapped the steering wheel to the bassline of a punchy tune that was playing too loud on the cheap car-stereo. He sat forward in his seat, still high - energized. A sizeable grin split his face.

“I can’t believe it!” he shouted, hard against the music. I can’t believe I fucking did it!”

He looked down at the Tesco bag in the passenger seat footwell, knowing what was inside. He wanted to touch his ill-gotten prizes again, to prove they were real and that he really had pulled it off. Bodmin was behind him now, but he was still back there in the moment, savouring the buzz of the snatch. It had been far easier than he’d expected. Now, at last, it felt like things were finally coming together.

By the time the driver arrived at his intended destination, the night had deepened to its darkest reaches. A small row-boat had been necessary for the last leg of his clandestine journey, and now, as he sat grinning at his star prize, he was still buzzing from the thrill of his night’s work. His eyes narrowed and sharpened on a silver crucifix that dangled from his left hand, swinging gently in harsh torchlight, suspended from a thick leather cord that was almost brittle with age. The light from the torch bounced off the crucifix, casting bright crosses against dark and angular walls. In his right hand was a tan leather-bound notebook, cracked and faded.

He knew the museum would miss them in the morning - of course they would. But what did that matter to him? No one would be able to connect him to the theft. No one yet knew what he knew.

“Not like it’s stealing really,” he said to himself.

It had taken time to gather the truth, piece by piece. It had taken a long time. His elation soured. It was a sudden change, like a resting alligator snapping without warning at a meal that had strayed too close.

“It’s taking too much time!” he shouted. His words echoed around him then just as suddenly he was calm again.

A gratifying thought occurred to him, twisting his mouth. His gaze dropped to the ground as he tried to focus on a sandy spot just beyond his sprawled out legs. “How can you steal something that’s rightfully yours?” he asked. It wasn’t everything he felt belonged to him, but it was a start.

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