The Lost Ancestor (10 page)

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Douglas
said, finishing the last of his latte.  ‘If anyone in the family knew,
they didn’t pass that information on.’

‘Do you mind if I take a digital photo of
the letter?’ Morton ventured.

‘Go ahead,’ Douglas said.

Morton withdrew his mobile and took a
series of photographs of the envelope and the letter.  He would later
undertake a detailed analysis of it to make sure that it was genuine. 
From his initial assessment, though, it seemed real enough.  As Douglas
had said, it clearly read as though Mary were starting a new life and didn’t
want to maintain contact.

‘Notice there’s no contact address,’ Susan
said, almost inaudibly.

Morton had noticed and nodded his
agreement, not wanting to give away that he still found it odd that she should
remove herself from her entire family and nobody attempted to find her. 
‘You said that you thought the story of Mary returning to her twin’s funeral
wasn’t true, but I’ve seen the locket that was found on the grave,’ Morton
said, carefully studying Douglas’s reaction.

Douglas shot a quick uncertain glance in
Susan’s direction.  ‘Doesn’t mean it was found at the grave, does
it?  I could hand you one of Susan’s lockets and make up any kind of a
tale about where I got it.’

He had a fair point, although Morton felt
that Ray Mercer was speaking truthfully and from the heart. 
Besides,
why would he lie?
Morton asked himself.

Another pregnant pause lingered between
the three of them.

‘I said we should have had a whisky!’
Douglas said, gently squeezing Susan’s knee.  ‘Heavy going, all
this!  It’s why my mum didn’t used to speak much about old Mary: there are
just some family secrets that need to remain just that; a secret.’

Morton scribbled more notes on his pad,
then finished his latte.  ‘Is there anything else that you can think of
that would help me?’

Douglas looked taken aback.  ‘Help
you do what?’

He really did think he had laid the
winning hand
,
Morton thought. 
Case closed.
  ‘Help me
find what happened to Mary.’

Douglas took a lengthy breath in and his
cheeks flushed crimson.  ‘Look, I don’t want to fall out over this, Mr
Farrier, but I do urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to drop this
ridiculous quest of yours.  It’s going nowhere.’

‘It says so in the letter,’ Susan added
feebly.

Douglas leant over, reached around to his
back pocket and pulled out a leather wallet.  ‘Here you are,’ he said,
pulling out a wodge of notes.  He handed them to Morton.  ‘For your
trouble.  I know you’ve got to earn your money like anyone else.’

Morton took the money and quickly ran his
thumb through the bunch of fifty pound notes.  There was at least five
hundred pounds in his hand.  Morton placed it on the table between
them.  ‘Thank you, but I’m being paid by my client to find out what
happened to Mary, and that’s what I intend to do.’

‘How much is he paying you?  I’ll
match it,’ he said, turning to Susan.  ‘Get the chequebook, love.’

Susan began to rummage in her handbag
again.

‘Please, stop,’ Morton said.  ‘I’m
not interested.  I’m working for my client.’

‘You might regret that,’ Douglas said,
standing up and signalling that the meeting was over.  With his left hand,
Douglas scooped up the pile of cash and Morton noticed for the first time that
his two fingers, index and middle, were bandaged together.  Morton sat and
watched as the couple hurried from the hotel out onto Mermaid Street.

Well, that went well,
Morton thought.  At least he had
digital copies of Mary’s letter to add to the growing jigsaw puzzle that
surrounded Mary’s life.  His uneasiness about the letter was only
compounded by the fact that Douglas had driven nearly two hundred miles to
deliver it personally, believing it would put the nail in the Mercer Case
coffin.  Morton didn’t trust the letter and he certainly didn’t trust
Douglas Catt.

Morton finished his latte, packed up his
bag and left
The Mermaid
.

A
hulk of a man blocked the entrance to Blackfriars with unnecessary drama,
standing with his legs apart and hand raised defiantly towards Morton’s
Mini.  The man, wearing a thick black bomber jacket, came over to the
driver’s window.  ‘Shut,’ he said eloquently.

‘What is?’ Morton asked, unable to resist
a gentle goading.

The hulk flicked his head back towards the
building.  ‘Getting ready for filming.’

Morton nodded politely.  ‘I’ve got an
appointment to see Sidney Mersham, the archivist.’

‘The what-avist?’ the hulk asked with a
snarl.

‘Archivist,’ Morton reiterated.

The hulk didn’t move.  Or
blink.  Morton had a flashback to childhood staring competitions and
looked belligerently into the hulk’s menacing eyes.  Seconds passed. 
The hulk blinked, sniffed loudly then spat the contents of his nasal passages
onto the shingle beside the car.  Nice.  Pulling a walkie-talkie from
his belt, he muttered something inaudible, all the while keeping his gaze fixed
firmly on Morton.

With a minute nod of his head, the hulk
stood back and allowed Morton to drive towards the house. 
What a
lovely maître d’,
Morton thought, as he parked up close to the house. 
He had the choice of pretty well the whole car park today; the only vehicles on
site were the monstrous trucks belonging to the television company here to film
The Friary. 
A handful of casually dressed people milled about
carrying television-making paraphernalia to and from the house.  Morton
followed one lad, with jeans inexplicably suspended halfway down his legs, into
the main entrance of the house.

The grand saloon appeared very differently
to Morton’s last visit; all of the photographs, life-size cut-outs and rope
barriers had been removed and replaced by Edwardian-era furniture.  Morton
might have felt that he had stepped back in time but for the plethora of
cables, monitors, lights and cameras directed in the general direction of the
fireplace, ready for the next scene.  A motley bunch of men and women all
purposefully busied themselves about the set.  Morton recognised the
actors who played Lord and Lady Asquith; they were sitting on a
chaise longue
in full Edwardian garb, anachronistically tapping at their mobile phones.

‘Can I help you?’ a voice asked from
beside Morton.  He turned to see Mrs Greenwood, the sullen woman who had
been on the entrance desk when he had last visited.

‘Hello again, you probably don’t remember
me from my previous visit, but you kindly arranged for me to meet with the
archivist.’

A flicker of recognition illuminated her
eyes.  ‘Oh, yes.’

‘I’ve got an appointment with him—do you
know where he might be?’ 

Mrs Greenwood seemed slightly taken
aback.  ‘They’re letting you in, are they?  Aren’t you the lucky
one,’ she said with a smile.  ‘I’ll take you down there—follow me.’

‘Thank you,’ Morton said, following her,
as she dodged her way through the organised chaos of a television set.

She led him through the large hallway to a
door with ‘Private’ written in large black letters.  Beside the door was a
security keypad, which Morton couldn’t help but stare at as she punched in the
four-digit code: 1536. 
Was that a nod towards the beginning
of
the Dissolution of the Monasteries
? Morton wondered. 
The beginning
of the end for the Catholic Church’s ownership of Blackfriars?

The door led to another shorter and
simpler corridor with four closed doors.  Mrs Greenwood marched towards
the one at the far end.  ‘I’d love to get a look in those archives for my
own family history,’ she muttered, her voice echoing around the low vaulted
ceiling.  ‘I have managed to take a peek but not quite what I’d like,’ she
said, pulling open the door and beginning a short descent of a stone spiral
staircase.  ‘They’re a bit funny about people prying, even staff. 
Consider yourself very fortunate.’

Morton was sure that luck played no part
in his admission but rather the Mansfields’ knowledge of a previous case which
had gained him entry.  ‘I can see why these parts aren’t open to the
public,’ Morton said, almost banging his head on the ceiling.

‘You get used to it.’

As they neared the bottom, Morton tried to
get a representation in his head of their exact location within the depths of
the house.  He reckoned that they were almost in the dead centre. 
The protected and concealed heart of the house.  Another key-padded door
awaited them at the bottom.  Mrs Greenwood, making no attempt to conceal the
code, tapped in 1540.  The end of the Dissolution of the Monasteries and
the granting of Blackfriars, eighteen years later, to the Mansfield
family.  Genius.

As Morton suspected, the door opened into
a windowless room.  It was a small and simple office, just a desk,
computer and a few filing cabinets.  There was no way that hundreds of
years of history had been stuffed into those few metal drawers.  At least,
he hoped not.  To the right of the desk was yet another door, behind
which, Morton suspected were four hundred and seventy years of Blackfriars and
Mansfield archives.

‘Mr Mersham,’ she called out. 
‘Visitor for you.’

A man dressed in tweed trousers and jacket
appeared at the door.  Morton recognised the geeky round glasses and
swept-over black hair from the picture in the Blackfriars guide.  ‘Sidney
Mersham,’ he said, offering Morton his hand.

‘Morton Farrier.  Thank you for
seeing me.’

‘You’re quite welcome.  Please, take
a seat.’

‘I hear you don’t usually open up the
archives to researchers?’ Morton said, taking a seat on a cracked green leather
chair opposite Sidney.

Sidney scrunched up his face.  ‘Not
really.  We have in the past.  It’s just not practical or
manageable.  I think on this occasion Daphne took a shine to you and your
quest.’

Morton considered the brief conversation
he had had with Milton and Daphne Mansfield: it was hardly worthy of his
gaining unusual access to hundreds of years of personal papers. 

Sidney must have sensed Morton’s
uncertainty.  ‘I think it was the nature of the case that swayed
her.  Essentially, it’s a missing person’s enquiry for a young girl. 
She’s got daughters and I think she empathised.  Most of the requests we
get are from people just wanting to be nosey.  Although, now a lot of the
requests are from people interested in
The Friary.
’
 

Morton nodded and Sidney opened his hands
in a gesture which said
fait accompli.

‘Let’s get started, then,’ Sidney
said.  ‘You tell me what you know already and I’ll tell you what we’ve got
that might fit with what you’re looking for.’

‘Right—’ Morton began but was interrupted
by Sidney frowning and raising a finger to stop him.

Sidney’s attention had turned towards the
door where Mrs Greenwood was still standing, quietly absorbing the exchange
between the two men.  Sidney removed his glasses and stared at her. 
‘I’m sorry, Jenny, was there something else?’

Her cheeks flushed.  She shook her
head, mumbled something incoherent then scuttled from the room.

‘Sorry, do carry on,’ Sidney said,
remounting his glasses upon his nose.

Morton felt bad for the poor woman but,
when he was about to speak in her defence, decided that the end of his
appointment time might be a more appropriate time to suggest that she be
allowed to conduct some personal research.  Morton pulled his notepad from
his bag and began to recount the salient points of the
Mercer case.

As he wrote, Sidney nodded, made noises of
agreement and scribbled his own notes.  ‘A sad case for the family,’ he
said solemnly when Morton had finished.  ‘I think we should have a few
bits and pieces which might show Mary’s life here.  I doubt very much that
the answer to her disappearance lies in there, though,’ he said, pointing to
the room behind him.  He shrugged.  ‘We’ll see.’  Sidney smiled,
stood and gestured for Morton to follow.

The room in which Morton found himself was
much larger and somehow more modern than he had imagined that it would
be.  It was at least forty feet long with no windows and no other
doors.  A low, whirring sound emanated from a complicated labyrinth of
tubes and vents, which Morton suspected was controlling the humidity and
temperature of the room.  On each wall were tall metal filing cabinets.

‘You look impressed,’ Sidney said, pushing
his glasses onto the bridge of his nose.

‘Yes, I am,’ Morton said.  ‘It must
keep you busy.’

Sidney laughed.  ‘Very much so. 
I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying to get the archives into some kind of
order and to catalogue what we have.  When I started here it was in one
hell of a mess.  Generations’ worth of paperwork.  Of course, at the
moment it’s the writers of
The Friary
that are keeping me busy, asking
questions about the ins and outs of life here in the Edwardian period. 
That’s how I know exactly what we have here that might show your Mary.’