The Blood Detective (5 page)

On the way across London they spoke about genealogy.

Heather said she wanted to know more about

her family, how they lived, the struggles they endured; Foster just sneered. To him, it was a bit like stamp collecting, or grown men building a train set in their attic with hills and signals and sheep and stuff.

He couldn’t care less who his ancestors were; all you needed to know was that your greatgreat-greatgrandfather wasn’t firing blanks.

Foster found a meter near Exmouth Market and

parked. He completed the entire manoeuvre one

handed, spinning the steering wheel furiously first one way and then the other with an open palm. He could sense Heather looking at him, not without disapproval. But she drove like a vicar, as he often told her. Hands at ten-to-two, like a seventeen-year old out with her dad for her first drive.

They found Beni’s almost immediately. It was a

spartan, wooden-fronted coffee shop that thrived on the lunchtime trade, but was in the process of winding down for the day.

‘Can I have a decaf latte please?’ Heather asked.

‘God’s sake,’ Foster muttered, but she failed to hear. Or ignored him again.

The jovial, rotund man with thick hairy arms

nodded. ‘And you, sir?’ he asked Foster.

‘Black coffee, please. Hot as you can make it.’

‘We’re looking for Nigel Barnes,’ Heather said to the barista.

‘Downstairs,’ he replied, motioning towards a

narrow staircase in one corner of the cafe. ‘The smokers always sit downstairs.’ He looked them up and down, clocking their suits and demeanour. His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re not police, are you?’

‘God forbid,’ Foster muttered.

Nigel was waiting, wondering if he’d picked a good place to meet. When he’d spoken to DS Jenkins on the phone, the only discreet place he could think of was the sparsely populated room beneath Beni’s cafe.

The handful of people who used it were smokers, allowed by Beni to continue feeding their habit out of sight, if not smell, of the other clientele. He came here every morning on his way to the FRC for a cig and a scan of the newspaper. But now he was wondering if a windowless dungeon filled with the scent of stale smoke was not, after all, the best place to meet a female detective. All of a sudden the place seemed seedy.

She will have experienced worse, Nigel thought.

He shifted nervously in his seat, nursing his coffee, waiting for the arrival of DS Jenkins. He had tried to imagine what she might look like — she had sounded young, perhaps around his age, early thirties - but he’d given up when all he could muster were images of sour-faced ball-breakers whose femininity and softness had been eroded by years of work in the brutal, relentlessly male world of crime and detection.

Two people descended the stairs, something in

their bearing marking them out as police officers. The female was wearing a tight-fitting black trouser suit.

Her black corkscrew hair was tied back, her kohl lined eyes suggested chilliness, and his fears appeared to be founded. Her aquiline nose wrinkled on meeting the polluted air. But on seeing him, and realizing, as the only person in the room, he must be the person she wanted to see, she broke out into a beaming smile that breathed life and warmth into her entire face.

The smile was genuine, not forced. He felt himself smiling back.

Ms Nice, he concluded. Presumably that meant

the tall, thickset figure, bored and looming at her shoulder, holding their drinks, was Mr Nasty. DS

Jenkins introduced him as DCI Grant Foster and, once he had put down their coffee, Nigel felt his enormous paw grasp his own less-weathered, perspiring hand and grip tightly. The detective was over six feet in height, his head closely shaved, he guessed in response to a receding hairline, with a face that looked like it had seen a few fights. Unlike his female colleague’s, the smile was fleeting and perfunctory.

Nigel sat down, both officers facing him.

‘Bit airless down here,’ DS Jenkins said, wrinkling her nose once more. ‘The smoking room, I presume.’

Nigel nodded. ‘Beni realizes there’s a few of us desperate souls who like to combine …’

Nigel realized his unease over meeting here was not only caused by chivalry. Beni sold sandwiches, so the existence of this room was against the law.

The DS saw the penny drop.

‘Don’t worry,’ she reassured him. ‘Secret smoking dens are the least of our worries.’ She looked around, taking her bag off her shoulder and laying it on the floor beside her feet. ‘Actually, I like it,’ she said. ‘It’s got character. I’d rather have places like this than one of those soulless chains any day.’

‘There’s been a coffee shop on this site since the seventeenth century, give or take a few decades,’

Nigel said.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the coffee isn’t that great, but at least it tastes like coffee. And it rather lacks for comfort in here, but it makes me feel better to know I’m supporting an independent place with a bit of history, rather than some faceless, corporate monolith.’

She smiled at him once more. ‘Hear, hear.’

‘You’re a genealogist, then?’ DCI Foster asked, cutting in impatiently, as if he hadn’t heard the preceding exchange.

‘More of a family historian,’ Nigel replied.

‘There’s a difference, is there?’

‘Only a bit. But you wouldn’t believe how offended some people feel if you get it wrong.’

‘Much money in it?’

Nigel shrugged. No, he thought. ‘It’s a living.’

‘How do you get into something like that?’

‘It depends,’ Nigel answered. ‘I did a history degree at uni, and during the summer holidays I did some research for a guy who traced people’s family trees.

I did it full time for a while. Then he dropped dead of a heart attack while giving a talk at a conference on early medieval finance, so I took over the business.’

Last year I tried to get out of it, he thought. But, like the Mafia, I was sucked back in.

‘And enough people actually pay you to trace their ancestors?’

‘Yeah. Genealogy’s a very popular pursuit. The

third most popular on the Internet. Behind porn and personal finance.’

Foster’s face showed surprise.

‘Or wanking and banking,’ Nigel added. His

face reddened immediately, unaware of how police officers reacted to smut.

DS Jenkins stifled a laugh; Foster smiled weakly.

Nigel felt the urge to smoke. The craving was too strong to ignore. He picked up his cigarette papers from the table. ‘Mind if I… ?’

Heather gave her head a quick shake. He thought maybe she did mind. He felt a twang of disappointment for inciting her disapproval. But it would look pathetic to put away his fixings now, so he looked at Foster, who was staring intently at Nigel’s pack of tobacco. In the absence of a complaint, Nigel plucked a paper from the packet.

‘You ever traced your family tree at all?’ he said as he placed a wad of tobacco in the crease and started to roll it out expertly between the forefinger and thumb of each hand.

Foster shook his head.

‘My mum did,’ DS Jenkins said. ‘She hired you to do it for her.’

Nigel’s eyes shot up from the cigarette he was

rolling. ‘Really? When?’

‘Two or three years ago. That’s how I got your

number.’

Funnily enough, the reason they had chosen to call him, and not someone else, had simply not crossed his mind.

‘Jenkins,’ he said to himself. He could not remember and wondered whether he should pretend to, but realized she was sharp enough to know instantly whether he was bullshitting.

‘It’s all right. I don’t expect you to recall my family tree,’ she said, helping him out. ‘I bet you’ve traced your family tree back to the Domesday Book or something, haven’t you?’ she added.

He shook his head. ‘I can’t trace my own

father.’

‘Your father?’ Heather said, eyes widening.

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Your mother’s side?’

He shook his head once more. ‘As I said, it’s a long story.’

‘Oh.’ A waty look crept across her face.

‘History has a habit of putting obstacles in your way,’ he explained. ‘It’s one of the reasons I liked the job.’

Neither Heather nor Foster appeared to notice his use of the past tense.

‘You get a real sense of achievement from helping people overcome those obstacles, track down relatives and ancestors they knew nothing about.’

Heather smiled at him. ‘I can imagine you do.’

‘I’m also interested in surnames: their origins, their meanings.’

‘Really? What does Jenkins mean?’

‘Kin of John. Or Jones, perhaps. “Kin” is Flemish in origin, but it’s one of those names that doesn’t really indicate an area or locality. Too popular, really. It was the forty-second commonest surname in America in 1939.’

‘What about him, then?’ she said, indicating Foster.

‘What does his surname mean?’

Nigel pulled a face. ‘Literal meaning is difficult to pin down, as is origin, the study of surnames being inexact, to say the least.’

‘Fair enough,’ Foster said, sitting forwards. ‘About why we’re here

‘Oh, go on,’ Heather interrupted. ‘What about the name Foster?’

‘There are several possibilities. It could be derived from a forester, a man who is in charge of a forest.

Or someone who lived near a forest, or worked in a forest.’

Nigel thought it politic to leave out another explanation: one of Foster’s ancestors was either a foster child or a foster parent.

‘Fascinating,’ Foster said, as if it was anything but.

‘Now can we get on?’ He looked at his colleague.

She spread her arms wide, as if to say, ‘It’s your show.’

‘This morning we discovered a man’s body. He’d

been murdered. At the scene we discovered a reference written by the killer. We believe it refers to a birth, marriage or death certificate. We thought you could help us out.’

Nigel lit his roll-up and inhaled deeply. ‘Could I see the reference?’

Foster shook his head slowly. ‘No. But I can tell you what it was: 1 A 1 3 7.’

‘Small “a” or capital?’ Nigel asked.

‘Capital’

‘Should strictly be a small “a”. But it could be the reference for a birth, marriage or death certificate for central and west London issued between 1852

and 1946.’

‘Why those specific areas? And why those dates?’

‘Every district was given an index reference.

Between the dates I mentioned 1 a was assigned

to Hampstead, Westminster, Marylebone, Chelsea, Fulham and Kensington.’

‘The body was found in Kensington,’ Heather

said, looking across at Foster. ‘Think there’s anything in that?’

Foster rubbed his chin slowly. ‘I don’t think we can ignore it. Is there any way you can tell whether it’s a birth, marriage or death certificate?’

‘It could be any one of them,’ Nigel replied.

‘So could you go off and locate the certificate with this reference?’

‘Yes, no problem. But we’d get thousands of

results. This is simply a reference to a registration district and a page number. If I’m going to have any chance of finding the certificate quickly then I need to know an exact year, preferably a name. The Family Records Centre has indexes going back as far as 1837.’

Both detectives sat back, frustrated. Heather took a sip of her coffee, while Foster stared at Nigel. The DCI sat forwards once more.

‘We found the victim’s mobile phone,’ Foster said.

‘The last-dialled number wasn’t a telephone number; it was punched in after his death. We thought it might have been pressed by accident, when the body was moved. But perhaps it was put there intentionally.’

‘What was the number?’

‘1879’

‘1879,’ Nigel said thoughtfully.

‘Is that enough for you to go on?’ Foster asked.

Nigel grimaced. ‘Yes, but it won’t be quick. A lot of people will have been born, married or died in 1879 m central and west London.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘A day. But then you have to order the certificates and wait for them to be copied and posted.’

‘Can’t we just go to the local register offices?’

‘That reference is a General Register Office index number, not a local office one. It would be of no help there. If this is a reference to a birth, marriage or death certificate, then it was discovered through the central index.’

‘Who handles that?’ Foster asked.

‘The General Register Office in Southport.’

‘Southport? What the hell is it doing there?’

‘London isn’t the centre of the universe, sir,’

Heather said.

‘It is when you work for the Metropolitan Police.’

There was a pause while Foster thought. Nigel

watched him earnestly. The DCI drummed his right finger on the table.

‘Heather, get on the phone to headquarters. Get them to ask Merseyside Police to send a couple of officers to the GRO.’ He turned to Nigel. ‘What do they need to do?’

‘Commandeer a couple of staff to pull the full

certificates - once you’ve identified the ones you need — and pass the information on to you as quickly as possible.’

‘Got that, Heather?’ Foster asked.

She went upstairs to make her call. Both men

watched her go.

‘How busy are you at the moment?’ Foster said.

‘Relatively.’

‘Well, can I hire you and your staff to hunt down these references for me?’

Nigel’s cheeks flushed. ‘There’s a problem with my staff.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t have one. Not at the moment. I…’

Foster held his hand up to stop him. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Barnes. I’ll get you some help. They’ll be with you first thing. What time does this records centre let people in?’

‘Nine a.m.’

‘They’ll be waiting for the doors to open.’

Nigel experienced a feeling denied him for some time: excitement. For the first time in months, he couldn’t wait to start a day’s work.

It was after ten p.m. when Foster returned to his terraced house on a quiet, unspectacular street in Acton, too late to even think of going to the pub. He parked and then switched the engine off, but not the electrics so he could continue listening to the music.