The Lost Ancestor (20 page)

Morton saved the entry to print out later,
then ran a living descendant search to Vivien Mansfield: one daughter, Jennifer
Margaret, born 1923, who later married a Jonathan Greenwood.  Jennifer
Greenwood.  The name rang a bell, though he couldn’t fathom why. 
Google didn’t help matters either.  It was somebody that he had
encountered recently.  Somebody to do with the Mercer Case
.  Was
it a servant at Blackfriars? 
No, he was fairly sure not.  Then
it came to him—Mrs Greenwood was the grumpy woman working on the ticket desk at
Blackfriars.  He was sure that he had heard Sidney Mersham call her
Jenny.  Could she be the same person as he was now writing to?  Did
it matter?
 
For some reason, it did matter to Morton.  It
struck him as odd that a member of the Mansfield family should be working,
clearly unhappily, as the modern-day equivalent of a domestic servant. 
From her interactions with Sidney, she was certainly not treated as anything
more than that.  And her grandfather was present around the time of Mary’s
disappearance.  He drafted and saved a similar request-for-help letter to
her, making no mention of the fact that they may already have been acquainted.

Morton took a couple of mouthfuls of
coffee then opened up his emails.  One unread message—from Sidney
Mersham.  The email said simply:
Here you go, Morton.  Regards,
Sid.

Morton grinned when he saw the paperclip
icon showing that the email contained an attachment.  Being quite a large
file size, it took a moment to load.  Eventually the image appeared onscreen
and Morton was able to zoom in close to see the features on each of their
faces.  He planned to save the image and later on, maybe tonight whilst
watching television, to digitally annotate who was who.  He looked at each
person in turn—they all held the same po-faced, serious expressions common to
portraits of the period.  However, there was something else in their eyes,
which Morton guessed to be sorrow at one of their friends and fellow servant’s
deaths just six days hitherto.  Edward had worked at Blackfriars for three
years, so his death must have come as quite a shock to them.  He noticed
that the man, whom the guidebook had identified as Walter Risler, had a
battered nose and a bruised eye.  Morton could only speculate as to what
had caused his injuries.

Zooming out and taking the staff in as one
group of people, Morton could see that they were all standing in hierarchical
order.  Except for one.  Mrs Cuff, whom Morton knew to be the
housekeeper and, therefore, the highest-ranking female member of staff, was
standing at the end of the line of the servants.  When taken with the fact
that she no longer signed the Day Book following Mary’s disappearance, Morton
became curious. 
Had she put herself at the end of the line, or had she
been put there?  Interesting
, Morton thought.  Her continuing
wages at the level of a housekeeper suggested that she had not been demoted,
yet
something
was amiss.

Whilst he had his emails open, Morton
composed a lengthy message to Ray Mercer, outlining the details of the case so
far.  He also asked Ray if he knew anything of his grandmother’s visit to
Canada in 1925.  He held back from mentioning the encounter with Douglas
Catt, but did say that he garnered a copy of the letter Mary had apparently
written from Scotland.  Morton clicked ‘send’ on the email, then turned
his attention to seeing what he could find about Edith Mercer’s visit to
Canada.

He opened up a new web-browser and ran a
search in the 1921 Canadian census for 4 West Street, Halifax.  It was
four years prior to when he wanted, but he reasoned that whomever Edith was
visiting in 1925 may have been residing there in 1921.  Within seconds,
Morton had the original census onscreen.  Unlike many of the older census
returns, the 1921 Canadian one was a goldmine for genealogists, asking as it
did thirty-five detailed questions about each individual recorded.

Morton felt a buzz of excitement as he
zoomed in for an up-close inspection of the entry.  Just one person
resided at the house, a lady by the name of Martha Stone.  He felt a rush
of anticipation as he considered that Martha Stone could be a pseudonym for
Mary Mercer.  Slowly, he moved the cursor along the entry, carefully
deciphering the handwriting as he went.  It said that Martha Stone rented
her house, that it was wooden in structure with four rooms.  She was the
head of household, aged thirty-one and her birthplace was given as England—the
same place as her mother and father.  The year of emigration was given as
1911 and she was able to read and write.  Her occupation was listed as
teacher.

Morton sat up with eagerness. 
Could
Martha Stone be Mary Mercer?
he pondered, as he stared out of the
window.  A solitary figure in a long rain coat, black Panama hat and a
temperamental umbrella battled with the rain, which seemed to have grown in
ferocity, buffeted by a strong wind.

Morton considered the facts.  Martha
Stone was listed as being three years older than Mary would have been in 1921,
but she could easily have lied to the enumerator.  The rest of the facts,
in particular her year of emigration, tied with Mary Mercer perfectly.  At
the moment, though, he couldn’t be certain that Martha was still resident there
in 1925.  He added to his list the need to find out whether or not
electoral registers existed for Nova Scotia in 1925.

Outside, the man’s umbrella flipped inside
out.  He gave up battling the elements and entered The Apothecary.

Morton returned his focus to his laptop
screen.  He wanted to find out whether Martha Stone’s census entry was
backed up with a paper trail in England; if his hunch was correct then there
would be none. She had stated that she was born in England in 1890. 
Therefore, she should show up on the 1891 and 1901 censuses and possibly even
the 1911 census.  First, he tried the 1891 census: three results for
Martha Stone born 1890.  The first was born in Birmingham, the second in
Derbyshire.  To his disappointment, the third was born in
Winchelsea.  Morton clicked to view the original image.  The entry
was for the Stone family: James Stone, head, gardener lived with his wife,
Flora, no occupation and their one year old daughter, Martha Stone. 
Morton moved the cursor to the left of the screen and noticed the address:
Peace Cottage, Friar’s Road.

It took Morton a moment to digest what he
had just read and to place it in the jigsaw of the Mercer Case.  Edith
Mercer, under her married name of Leyden, had simply visited a neighbour,
Martha Stone.  Morton’s initial excitement that perhaps Mary was living
under a pseudonym had not borne out.  Just to shore up his findings,
however, Morton wanted to conclude Martha’s story.  And, just as
predicted, Martha showed up alongside the Mercer girls on the 1901 census, then
promptly vanished by 1911.  Martha Stone existed in her own right. 
She could not be Mary Mercer.

Morton was momentarily distracted by the
coffee shop door opening again, as the man with the broken umbrella left
carrying a take-out drink.  A sudden gust of wind pushed through the open
door, scattering some of Morton’s papers to the floor.

As Morton bent down to pick up the fallen
papers, the waitress who had served him earlier placed something on his
table.  ‘Here you go,’ she said with a smile.  ‘A gift.’

‘Thanks,’ Morton replied.  He looked
down and saw a brown A4 envelope with his name on it—exactly the same
handwriting as the previous threatening packages that had been posted through
his door.  The waitress was heading back behind the counter.  ‘Excuse
me,’ Morton called after her.  ‘Where did you get this?’  He held up
the envelope.

‘Oh, a customer just gave it to me to give
to you,’ she said with a smile.  She evidently thought she had done him a
favour.

‘Who was it?’ Morton asked, already
knowing the answer.

‘The guy who just left—with the umbrella.’

‘Watch my stuff,’ Morton called, dashing
out the door into the thick sheets of vertical rain.  He tried to recall
which way the man had gone.  He was sure he went right, so Morton ran,
already soaked to the skin, along the high street, his eyes flicking feverishly
left and right into shop windows and passing streets, but there was no sign of
him.  He stopped and spun around, considering if he could have missed him,
when he heard the sound of a car engine starting up.  A little way further
down the street, a red Mazda was beginning to pull out from a parking
spot.  Without a moment’s thought, Morton ran as fast as he could towards
the car.  He was in luck—another car had just parked illegally in front of
the Mazda, meaning that the driver could not make a quick escape.

Morton, utterly drenched, raced to the
passenger side window as the car finally became free from its space.  He
banged on the side of the door and the driver flicked his head towards
Morton. 

‘What do you want?’ Morton yelled.

He recognised the driver.

After
what had happened yesterday, Morton was happy to spend today close by
Juliette’s side.  When she had got home last night Morton had, as
promised, relayed everything of his day to her.  They sat in the kitchen
with the lights dimmed and a candle burning on the windowsill, as the rain and
wind continued to batter the house.  They were eating a wild mushroom and
spinach lasagne that Morton had cooked when he had returned from his drenching
on the high street.  He hadn’t waited to be asked about his day, but
blundered straight in by telling her that something had occurred that she
needed to know about.

‘You can skip all these bits,’ Juliette
had said playfully, when Morton began to detail the minutiae of each individual
search and his reasons for doing it.

‘Skip the boring bits you mean,’ he said,
feigning offence.

‘No, I just know that you’ve got something
in there that I’m probably not going to like.’

Damn, she was good.  Skipping over
the finer points of his research, Morton had told her about the waitress
delivering the envelope and him rushing out into the rain to find the
perpetrator.  ‘And I stared him right in the eyes,’ Morton had said.

‘And?’

‘Douglas Catt.  The one and only.’

Juliette had looked puzzled for a
moment.  ‘But I thought you said you phoned him and he was at home.’

‘He must have had the phone on a redirect
to his mobile.’

‘What’s he got against you?’

Morton had shrugged.  ‘You’re the
police officer, you tell me.’  Morton had no idea why he was so hell bent
on stopping Morton from researching the Mercer Case.  Morton had been
wracking his brains for any semblance of a reason Douglas would have, but the
only thing that had come to mind was that he knew more about Mary’s
disappearance than he was letting on.

Juliette had run her fingers through her
hair, her eyes searching his face.  ‘What was inside the envelope?’

Morton had handed it to her, allowing her
to sift through it at her own speed and to make her deductions about the
contents.  And she had taken her time, setting about the contents like a
diligent police officer.  First, she looked at the handwritten note with
the simple words ‘
Final
warning’
.  Then she examined another
photograph of her getting into the car.  ‘Jesus, I
really
need to
start wearing make-up.’

‘You really don’t,’ Morton had replied.

‘The thing is, apart from taking awful
photos, he hasn’t actually committed a crime by taking photos.’ 

‘What about harassment?’

‘The trouble with harassment is you need
to show a course of conduct—in other words, it needs to be persistent and you
have to have formally told them to stop.’

‘Legalities aside, are you really okay
with someone photographing you like this?’ Morton had asked, more worried about
her than the finer points of the law Douglas Catt might or might not be
breaking.  ‘Can’t you put a trace on his car or something?’

‘Not without good cause and not as a
trainee, no, but I will take it to my boss.  No arguments this time,
Morton.’

He wasn’t about to argue, he agreed with
her: Douglas Catt needed stopping right away.  ‘Do it.  Until then,
you’re spending your day off tomorrow, with me.’

Juliette had laughed and pecked Morton on
the lips.  ‘Oh, thank you.  We’ll have a brilliant time.’

Morton’s face had suddenly fallen. 
‘Why?  What were you planning on doing tomorrow then?’

‘Not
were
planning,
am
planning.  Rye Wedding Fayre.’

‘Bloody hell.’  He had slumped with
some exaggeration into his chair, but actually dreaded the very idea.

‘You’ll have to come now—you said you
would.  Besides, I need a bodyguard to save me from being photographed,’
Juliette had mocked.  She held up the most recent photograph of
herself.  ‘Especially if I look like
that.
’

The
wedding fayre was held in an old warehouse on the periphery of the town. 
The cold uninspiring building was filled with a plethora of stalls selling
every conceivable aspect of marriage, all equally abhorrent to Morton.  He
trudged around the building like a sullen teenager, trailing a few steps behind
Juliette who was having the time of her life, delighting at the wares on display
at each stall.  The rain, which had started yesterday, had continued
without stopping and was now drumming noisily on the corrugated tin roof. 
He wasn’t sure if she had dressed for the occasion, or whether Douglas Catt’s
recent attempts at taking her photo had done it, but today she wore an unusual
amount of make-up and had even straightened her hair—very un-Juliette. 
They had only been there an hour and she had amassed an impressive collection
of free gifts, which Morton lugged around like a pack-horse.

‘This is brilliant,’ Juliette muttered
about the whole event, before making her way to the fifth table showcasing the
talents of yet another photographer.

Morton sighed.  It quite easily
ranked amongst the worst possible days of his life.  It wasn’t
that
bad, really, he just couldn’t stand the commercial aspect of marriage. 
With a slight groan, he realised then that he was turning into his adoptive
father, a man who refused to take part in any special occasion, apart from
birthdays, because of
commercialisation. 
Even when Morton and
Jeremy were small boys, he never bought Mother’s Day cards or gifts on their
behalf; it was only when they went to Sunday school and primary school that
their mother began to receive anything.  The two boys learnt early on not
to bother with Father’s Day when their efforts at homemade cards were met with
the derisory glimmer of a glance before being tossed to one side.  He
never bought Valentine gifts for his wife and only really took part in
Christmas celebrations begrudgingly and under duress from the rest of the
family.  Ever since Morton’s mother had died of cancer, his father had
celebrated Christmas alone, despite numerous offers from friends and
family.  Every year was the same for him: a quiet walk around the park, a
meal of shop-bought fish and chips at home and strictly no television. 
Since 1990, Christmas had officially been banned from the Farrier
household.  Morton was determined
not
to turn into him.

‘What do you think of this one?’ Juliette
said quietly, handing Morton an example of the photographer’s work.  It
was a close-up of the bride’s shoes and a close-up of a filled champagne glass
with a red lipstick mark on the rim.

It was hard for Morton to select among a
possible bank of adjectives to describe the photos.  He decided to use one
that Juliette wanted to hear.  ‘Stunning.’

Juliette shot an incredulous look at him,
turned her head away from the man behind the table and lowered her voice. 
‘Morton, don’t just say what you think I want to hear.’

‘I…’ he began when his phone began to
shriek its ringtone into the air.  Saved by the bell.  ‘Sorry,’
Morton said, pulling his phone from his pocket.  It was an unidentified
mobile number.  He answered the call and stepped away from Juliette, who
pulled an apologetic face to the man behind the table.  ‘Hello.’

‘Hello, is that Morton Farrier?’ a female
voice asked.

‘Speaking.’

‘This is Jenny Greenwood here.  I’ve
just got your letter.’  Her voice was flat and Morton couldn’t detect her
reaction to having received the letter.

‘Oh yes, thank you for getting in touch,’
he said, treading very carefully with his words.

‘Well, even though your letter doesn’t
mention that we’ve already met at Blackfriars, I’m guessing that you’ve
discovered my little secret?’ she asked.  There was still no emotion in
her voice.

‘It did click, when I found out that
Vivien Mansfield had had a daughter called Jennifer and she’d gone on to marry
a Greenwood, that it was you, yes.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask the
whys and wherefores of your situation.  I’m really only interested in Mary
Mercer—as I set out in the letter.’

The line went quiet and Morton removed the
phone from his ear to check if the call had ended, but it hadn’t.  After a
few seconds, Jenny spoke.  ‘I’ve got my own reasons for working there,
which I will tell you.  Can we meet up?’

Morton thought for a moment.  He
didn’t need to see Jenny to discuss why she was working at Blackfriars when she
was actually a member of their family.  ‘Listen, Jenny, you really don’t
need to explain your story to me.  As I said—’

Jenny interrupted him.  ‘What if part
of my story is part of Mary’s story?’ she asked cryptically.

Interesting,
he thought.  ‘Okay… when do you want
to meet, then?’

‘My next day off is in two days. 
That any good?’

‘Yes, that’s fine.  When and where?’

‘How about one o’clock at the Winchelsea
Farm Kitchen?  It’s just a stone’s throw from Blackfriars and not far from
you.’

Morton, ever the tearoom connoisseur, knew
of the place.  ‘Yes, that will be fine.’

‘See you then,’ Jenny said and hung up.

Morton was intrigued about what Jenny had
just said.  The implication was surely that Frederick Mansfield was
somehow associated with Mary Mercer’s disappearance.  He was about to put
his mobile away when he spotted that he had two new emails.  He glanced
over at Juliette.  She had now moved on to a table filled with every type
of wedding cake imaginable.  She was in her element; he had plenty of time
to open his emails.  The most recent one was from Ray Mercer. 
Dear
Morton, Thank you for your very detailed email.  I can see why you are a
‘forensic’ genealogist!  You sound as though you are pursuing avenues I
wouldn’t even have thought of.  I was most intrigued by what you said
about my grandmother travelling to Canada.  I had no idea about this, but
of course it was years before I was even born.  She certainly never
mentioned it to me.  Perhaps just a holiday?  You asked after my
health—not good I’m afraid.  I’ve been given the details of a nearby
hospice, which I’m sure doesn’t require much more of an explanation on my
part.  I know you’re working at full speed, so hopefully my lost ancestor
will appear from the shadows of the past sometime soon.  With warmest
regards, Ray.
  Morton felt an even greater sense of urgency now that
Ray’s health was deteriorating.  He really needed to go all out on
bringing this case to a resolution as quickly as possible.  When he
considered all that he had discovered so far, he believed he
would
find
out what happened to Mary.  Before Morton looked at the next email, he
peered over at Juliette, who was now busy stuffing her face with cake
samples.  The email was from Bartholomew Maslow, grandson of Jack Maslow,
a Blackfriars servant.  
Morton, I received your email.  I have
something to show you which might be of interest.  Meet me in St Thomas’s
Church, Winchelsea tonight at 8pm. 
Morton re-read the email several
times.  He had found Bartholomew’s email address on the University of
Brighton’s website, although the reply was sent from a Gmail account. 
Probably
not wanting to use his work email address for personal business,
Morton
reasoned.  He was excited that his email had hit the right person
and
he had something which might help the Mercer Case
. 
Brilliant. 
He felt a surge of satisfaction that his relentless efforts were starting to
pay off.

‘Everything okay?’ Juliette asked when he
rejoined her.

‘Yeah, just had an email from Ray
Mercer—he’s been told to contact the local hospice.’

Juliette pulled a sympathetic face.

‘He really needs closure on this before…’
Morton let the words hang in the air before continuing, ‘…I had another email,’
he said, more upbeat.  ‘From a Bartholomew Maslow, the grandson of one of
the servants, and he wants to meet me tonight.’

‘That’s good,’ Juliette said with a
smile.  ‘The jigsaw’s coming together.’

Morton nodded.  ‘Can we go now?’

‘We haven’t found a present for Jeremy and
Guy yet.  And I haven’t looked at any of those stalls over there,’ she
said, indicating the far side of the room.

Morton groaned.  As much as he wanted
to just leave Juliette to it and go and get a coffee somewhere, he knew he
couldn’t.  ‘I’m going to go and sit over there by the door and do some
bits on my phone.’

Juliette nodded her agreement and he
sloped off to a bench beside the door.  It was the only entrance or exit
to the warehouse, so he could easily keep an eye on Juliette and anyone else
intent on taking pictures of her.  Morton opened a web-browser on his
mobile and began to research Canadian electoral registers.  None of the
main genealogy websites offered him what he was looking for, so he headed to
the Nova Scotia Archives website and sent an email asking if electoral
registers existed for Halifax and if so, whether they could check the occupancy
of 4 West Street.  It would be pushing his luck, but he asked for searches
to be carried out 1921-1930 and then emphasised that he was from England and
couldn’t search the records for himself.  In his experience, most archives
and record offices were happy to help with research requests, although he
recalled one burial search request for a cemetery in Chatham which resulted in
a twenty-five pounds fee for a search to be carried out ten years after and ten
years
before
the date of death.  Madness.