The Lost Ancestor (15 page)

A few minutes later, Morton watched
on-screen as the status of the documents changed from ‘In transit’ to
‘Available’.  He now needed to make his way into the Reference Room,
which, much to his consternation, was now being guarded by Miss Latimer. 
Quiet Brian was also on duty at the desk and Morton desperately hoped that it
would be him he would need to deal with.

Morton signed off the computer terminal
and headed to the floor-to-ceiling glass wall which separated the Reading Room
from the Reference Room.  He pulled his reader’s ticket from his wallet,
wafted it vaguely in the general direction of a stout silver pillar which
permitted entry, and a glass door glided to one side.

Morton glanced at the long wooden helpdesk
to his left.  Miss Latimer was nearest to him, standing in her usual
stance with her arms folded, scowling out at the world like a caged
animal.  At the far end of the desk, talking inaudibly on the phone, was
Quiet Brian.  Morton decided to avoid potential conflict and waltzed past
Miss Latimer as if he had not seen her and waited patiently in front of Quiet
Brian.  As seconds of waiting turned into minutes, Morton could see in his
peripheral vision Miss Latimer looking at him from the corner of her eye. 
Just as Morton began to feel self-conscious and silly, Quiet Brian finished his
conversation and hung up.  To Morton’s horror, he turned and darted through
the opening behind the desk and out of sight.  His cheeks flushing, Morton
stood in front of an empty desk, whilst Miss Latimer stood on the opposite
side, running her fingers through her hair.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Morton muttered to
himself.  He moved down the desk in front of Miss Latimer, who continued
the charade of having not seen him.  ‘I’ve got some documents to
collect.  It doesn’t matter which first.’  As usual, he had lost the
battle with Miss Latimer.

‘Reader’s ticket,’ she said flatly, holding
open her hand.  Morton handed over the ticket and watched as she scanned
it, placed it down on the counter between them, then went out the back and
retrieved the file and an A4 record of the document.  Wordlessly, she
handed him a bundle of papers contained in a blue wallet, bound with a white
ribbon. 

‘Thank you,’ he said, in spite of
himself.  He hated being nice to her.  He headed over to a vacant
table, set down his things and began to unwrap the package.  Setting aside
the protective blue wrapping, Morton carefully withdrew the contents. 
There were three original documents: all typed in black ink on thick, off-white
paper.  Years of diligent preservation had failed to stop a smattering of
small brown marks creeping into each of the papers.  At the top of each
sheet was a red stamp for two shillings and sixpence.

Morton picked up the first paper and
carefully read it through.  It was written in a standard legal way and set
out that a house in Winchelsea, called Wisteria Cottage, be given rent-free to
Doctor Joshua David Leyden.  At the foot of the document was the signature
and address of Lord Rothborne of Blackfriars, dated December 1911.

Morton moved on to the rest of the
bundle.  The second document was identical to the first, but for the
dates: it provided a further seven-year, rent-free extension to the lease of
Wisteria Cottage to Dr Leyden.  Morton set it aside, then studied the
final deed.  It was much shorter and provided a simple termination of the
lease of Wisteria Cottage, the property reverting back to Lord Rothborne. 
Morton took out his camera and took digital photographs of each of the records
and briefly pondered their content.  They seemed of little value to the
Mercer Case, but Morton was curious to know if Dr Leyden’s tenure at Wisteria
Cottage coincided with his marriage to Edith Mercer.  Running a marriage
search online, Morton quickly confirmed that the pair had married in the June
quarter of 1920, so Edith would have partially benefited from the benevolence
of the Mansfield family.

Morton gently repackaged the bundle of
papers into the protective blue wallet, then wrapped the white ribbon around
it.  He looked over to the helpdesk.  The lovely Miss Latimer was the
only person on duty.  Great.  He momentarily considered leaving the documents
in front of her and silently walking out, but he still had research avenues to
pursue and wasn’t going to let her get in his way.  Morton approached the
desk and set the package down in front of Miss Latimer.

‘Done?’ she asked flatly.

‘Yes, thank you,’ Morton replied.

Miss Latimer looked down at the document,
raised an eyebrow and proceeded to unravel the ribbon and re-tie it in an
almost identical fashion to how Morton had bound it.  Having repackaged it
to her satisfaction, Miss Latimer turned and headed out behind the help
desk.  Morton was left wondering how their relationship had got to this
point.  He had known her for more than ten years now and in all that time
she had never once been nice to him.  To the best of his recollection,
Morton couldn’t recall anything specific which had founded her acrimony towards
him; he had always put her virulence down to her infuriation when the head of
the archives, Max Fairbrother, would bend the rules for him.  He wished
Max had been on duty today.

Finally, Miss Latimer returned to the
desk, seemingly unaware that Morton was still standing where she had left him
moments before.

‘Could I have my next document, please?’
Morton asked.

‘Reader’s ticket,’ she repeated. 

Morton again handed over the ticket and waited
patiently for Miss Latimer to return.  She handed over the burial register
for Winchelsea, which Morton duly took and set about devouring.  It would
have been very easy for him to dive straight into 1911, but that would have
gone against his training.  He was a
forensic
genealogist and
needed to be exacting and precise in his searches.  Starting at the
beginning, in January 1813, Morton studied every aspect of every page, noting
down anything and everything of interest.  Each time the name Mercer or Blackfriars
cropped up, he wrote the information down and took a digital photograph of
it.  He also had open his three lists of people around Mary Mercer at the
time of her disappearance and noted down the burial of some of the domestic
servants.  When he reached the page detailing all of the burials in 1911,
Morton took extra care to ensure that nothing was missed; he even photographed
the relevant pages for future reference, but there was definitely no sign of
Edward Mercer.  Morton continued until October 1934, then exchanged the
register for the next one.  In it, he found the burial notifications of
several Blackfriars employees and members of the Mansfield family, which he
diligently scribbled down against the list in his notepad.  He found the
burials of Lady Rothborne in 1928, Philadelphia Mansfield in 1953 and Cecil
Mansfield in 1959.  The register ended in July 2009 and Morton then
switched his attention to the Icklesham burial register.  Having logged
the burial of several members of the Mercer family, Morton located Edward.

Date
: 28
^th
May 1911

Name
: Edward Mercer

Residence
: Winchelsea

Age
: 20 years

As
he had predicted, the register had added nothing to the Mercer Case, other than
confirming Edward’s date and place of burial.  On past occasions, Morton
had been delighted to find a descriptive vicar annotating burial registers with
his own unique take on the world.  He recalled finding the burial of one
George Barton who was buried in 1844 in East Peckham.  The vicar had added
to the usual perfunctory information something along the lines of:
the last
of 3 brothers all of whom were too fond of drink to live long, see 1840 and
1836.

Morton photographed the record and
continued searching in the register, noting down people of interest.  All
the while, Edward’s death, so close to Mary’s disappearance, played on his
mind. 
Were there really no other records that showed what had happened
to him? 
He allowed his mind to mull over the question, considering
then dismissing possible research avenues.  When he had finally ended the
register in 1975, Morton returned the ledger to Miss Latimer.

‘
Deidre,
I’ve got a research
question that I wonder if you could help with,’ Morton said, relishing the way
that she winced when he addressed her by her first name.

‘It’s Miss Latimer, as you have been told
before.  What is it that you need help with now?’  She didn’t even
try to hide her annoyance with him.

Morton glanced at his notepad.  ‘I’m
looking for a record of an inquest that took place in Winchelsea in 1911—do you
know if it still exists?’

Miss Latimer frowned.  ‘I doubt it,’
she said.  Perching a pair of glasses on the end of her nose, she turned
to the computer and began tapping at the keyboard.  After a while she
removed her glasses, looked up at Morton and shook her head.  ‘Nothing at
all for that period.  We’ve got bits and pieces for the Brighton district
and Lewes district, but nothing for the Rye district.  Those are the only
two districts for this county.’

Morton saw the tiny hint of a satisfied
smile on Miss Latimer’s face.  She really was an obnoxious woman who
should have a restraining order on being within fifty miles of the general
public.  ‘Okay.  How about police surgeon reports?’

Miss Latimer sighed, remounted her glasses
and began tapping at the computer keyboard.  ‘Again, nothing.  I
assume you’ve tried the
Sussex Express?’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘That’s probably all you’re going to find,
then,’ she said, ending their conversation by picking up a booklet and reading.

Morton returned to his desk.  There
was little other research he could conduct here at this point in the Mercer
Case
.
  It was time to go home and investigate other potential
avenues.

Having collected all of his belongings,
Morton headed out of the Reference Room.  ‘Could you open the door
please?’ Morton asked as he passed the helpdesk, avoiding an inevitable
stand-off.

Without looking up, Miss Latimer pressed
the release and the glass door rolled open.

‘Thanks, Deidre,’ Morton called, striding
through the opening, through the Reading Room and back into the main
lobby.  He collected the remainder of his bits from his locker and left
The Keep with a smug smile on his face at having had the last word with Miss
Latimer.

His smile dropped when he saw his
Mini.  The front passenger-side tyre was flat.  Brilliant.  Just
what he needed, to waste time changing a tyre in The Keep car park.  As
Morton approached the boot of the car, he noticed that the back passenger tyre
was also flat.  ‘Damn it!’ he said, circling the car and discovering that
every tyre was flat, each with an inch-long incision just above the metal
alloys.  Morton flicked his head around the car park: he couldn’t see
anybody suspicious loitering in the shadows.  He marched back inside the
archive.  ‘Do you have CCTV here?’ he asked the kindly receptionist.

She smiled.  ‘Absolutely.  Why’s
that?’

‘Excellent, I’ve just had all four of my
car tyres slashed,’ Morton said.

The lady’s smile faded.  ‘Oh. 
We have CCTV
inside
The Keep,
not
outside.  Sorry.  Do
you think it was deliberate, then?’

Morton nodded, trying to contain his
consternation at the stupidity of the question.  That would really have to
be some bizarre pot-hole.  Morton thanked her, although he wasn’t sure
what for and returned to his car.  The image of Juliette in the fish and
chip shop flashed in his mind.  Instinctively, he dialled her mobile.

‘Hi,’ she answered.  ‘You were lucky
to catch me—I’m just about to go back in from lunch.  You okay?’

He was relieved to hear her voice. 
Should
I tell her about the tyres?  Should I tell her about the contents of the
envelope sent yesterday?
  Morton knew he needed to tell her, but not
now.  Not on the phone.

‘Hello?  Are you there, Morton?’

‘Sorry, yes, I’m here.  Just wanted
to say hi and see how you were getting on today.  Not too boring is it?’

‘We’re doing more role-play and mock
arresting.  It’s quite fun, really.  I’ve been arrested for
aggravated assault and possession of a Class A drug so far today.  How are
you getting on?  Did you say you were at The Keep?’

‘Yeah, it’s going okay.  Going to go
home shortly.’

‘Okay, I’d better get back in.  See
you tonight.’

‘Try not to get arrested for anything
else.  Bye.’

Juliette was fine. 
But what if…?
Someone out there clearly meant for him to stop working on the Mercer Case
. 
But why?  What secrets was he threatening to resurrect in investigating
Mary Mercer’s disappearance? 
When this had happened to Morton in the
past, his tenacious personality had forced him to persist with the case, to use
every research method, including illegal ones, to finish the case. 
But
I lost so much,
Morton reminded himself,
almost including my life.
 
No case, however interesting, was worth such a risk. 
And yet…
Morton’s obstinate nature resurfaced.  It came down to a simple matter: he
had promised a dying man that he would find what had happened to his aunt,
Mary.  And that’s just what he was going to do.  The fact that
someone out there wanted to stop him only made him more resolved to find her.