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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
     
     
    O n 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