by Lee Child
He said, ‘I need to ask you about an old real estate record.’
‘Is it for a title dispute?’ the woman asked. ‘In which case you should get your attorney to request it. Much faster that way.’
‘No kind of dispute,’ he said. ‘My father was born here. That’s all. Years ago. He’s dead now. I was passing by. I thought I would stop in and take a look at the house he grew up in.’
‘What’s the address?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can you remember roughly where it is?’
‘I’ve never been there before.’
‘You didn’t visit?’
‘Never.’
‘Perhaps because your father moved away when he was young.’
‘Not until he joined the Marines when he was seventeen.’
‘Then perhaps because your grandparents moved away before your father had a family of his own. Before visits became a thing.’
‘I got the impression my grandparents stayed here the rest of their lives.’
‘But you never met them?’
‘We were a Marine family. We were always somewhere else.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault.’
‘But thank you for your service.’
‘Wasn’t my service. My dad was the Marine, not me. I was hoping we could look him up, maybe in a register of births or something, to get his parents’ full names, so we could find their exact address, maybe in property tax records or something, so I could drop by and take a look.’
‘You don’t know your grandparents’ names?’
‘I think they were James and Elizabeth Reacher.’
‘That’s my name.’
‘Your name is Reacher?’
‘No, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Castle.’
‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ Reacher said.
‘Likewise,’ she said.
‘I’m Jack Reacher. My dad was Stan Reacher.’
‘How long ago did Stan leave to join the Marines?’
‘He would be about ninety now, so it was more than seventy years ago.’
‘Then we should start eighty years ago, for a safety margin,’ the woman said. ‘At that point Stan Reacher would be about ten years old, living at home with his parents James and Elizabeth Reacher, somewhere in Laconia. Is that a fair summary?’
‘That could be chapter one of my biography.’
‘I’m pretty sure the computer goes back more than eighty years now,’ she said. ‘But for property taxes that old it might just be a list of names, I’m afraid.’
She turned a key and opened a lid in the countertop. Under it was a keyboard and a screen. Safe from thieves, while unattended. She pressed a button, and looked away.
‘Booting up,’ she said.
Which were words he had heard before, in a technological context, but to him they sounded military, as if infantry companies were lacing tight ahead of a general advance.
She clicked and scrolled, and scrolled and clicked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Eighty years ago is just an index, with file numbers. If you want detail, you need to request the physical document from storage. Usually that takes a long time, I’m afraid.’
‘How long?’
‘Sometimes three months.’
‘Are there names and addresses in the index?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s really all we need.’
‘I guess so. If all you want to do is take a look at the house.’
‘That’s all I’m planning on doing.’
‘Aren’t you curious?’
‘About what?’
‘Their lives. Who they were and what they did.’
‘Not three months’ worth of curious.’
‘OK, then names and addresses are all we need.’
‘If the house is still there,’ he said. ‘Maybe someone tore it down. Suddenly eighty years sounds like a real long time.’
‘Things change slowly here,’ she said.
She clicked again, and scrolled, fast at first, scooting down through the alphabet, and then slowly, peering at the screen, through what Reacher assumed was the R section, and then back up again, just as slowly, peering just as hard. Then down and up again fast, as if trying to shake something loose.
She said, ‘No one named Reacher owned property in Laconia eighty years ago.’
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About the Author
Lee Child is one of the world’s leading thriller writers. He was born in Coventry, raised in Birmingham, and now lives in New York. It is said one of his novels featuring his hero Jack Reacher is sold somewhere in the world every nine seconds. His books consistently achieve the number-one slot on bestseller lists around the world and have sold over one hundred million copies. Two blockbusting Jack Reacher movies have been made so far. He is the recipient of many awards, most recently the CWA’s Diamond Dagger for a writer of an outstanding body of crime fiction, the International Thriller Writers’ ThrillerMaster, and the Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award.
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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bantam Press
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Copyright © Lee Child 2018
Cover design: Stephen Mulcahey
Images: Johnny Ring and Shutterstock
Lee Child has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473562653
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