by M J Lee
'So you'll take the case?'
'I haven't decided yet.'
'I will pay your usual fee plus a $50,000 dollar bonus if you give me a successful report before the end of the month.'
'That's just eight days away. Why the rush?'
'Two reasons. I will be in England till then so you can deliver the report to me in person.'
'And the second?'
'I have leukaemia, Mrs Sinclair. Two months the doctors give me.' The old man chuckled, the skin on his neck waving like flags in a breeze. 'After 90 years on this earth, they decide I only have a couple of months left. I think it's God's way of telling me to slow down.'
'What exactly do you want to know, Mr Hughes?'
'Oh, that's easy, Mrs Sinclair. Before I die, I want to know who I am and who my father was.'
'Do you have anything else for me to work with besides the birth certificate and your adoption papers?'
'Not really. I was brought to the States in October 1929. I always say I caused the Great Crash.' He chuckled once more. Richard Hughes passed him another glass of whisky. 'I was adopted by Tom and Glenda Hughes and given my new name. John Hughes.'
'I've seen it around.'
'It amused me to put it on the side of sixty-foot long trailers. I always made sure the letters were immense.' He chuckled once again. 'There's a certain irony since it's not even my real name.'
'Do you remember anything at all from that time?'
The old man stared into mid-air, forcing his mind to go back in time, a long way back in time. 'Nothing, I'm afraid. I've tried to remember but nothing comes. It's as if there was a wall there, no matter how I high I jump, I still can't see over.' He paused again.
Jayne could see him, staring into space, trying to jump harder to see over the wall.
'It's almost as if I didn't exist before I came to America. The earliest memory I have is of standing on the deck of the ship, holding somebody's hand, looking at the Statue of Liberty.' He chuckled. 'The classic immigrant's dream. But even then, I'm not sure if it actually happened, I was told it happened, or I saw it in a movie.' He lapsed into silence.
'Do you have anything from that time?'
'There's an old photograph. I think it was taken a couple of days after my arrival.' He gestured impatiently for his nephew to pass over the clear plastic sleeve.
Jayne looked at the photograph. It had serrated edges and was in black and white. A young boy was looking straight at the camera, a stern, composed expression on his face. He was wearing an overcoat that looked too small for him. In his left hand, he carried a book. His right hand was being held by a man but his face was out of the shot.
'I was four years old when this was taken. Strange to see an image of myself from so long ago. It could be a different person.' He gestured impatiently to his nephew again.
Richard took a small black book out of another folder and handed it to Jayne.
'This was the book I was carrying when I arrived, The Lives of the United Irishmen.'
'Not normal reading for a four-year-old.'
'I was advanced for my age even then.'
Jayne opened the book. On the inside front cover was an inscription, the ink faded with time.
To MD,
Our cause is true,
The fight is right,
We will be free,
To see the light.
From DF
'You have no idea who wrote this?'
'No idea at all.' He leant from his wheelchair to put his drink on the side table. Richard Hughes jumped up but was waved away dismissively by his uncle. 'Listen, Mrs Sinclair, Tom and Glenda Hughes were good people. They made sure I had a proper education, looked after me, treated me well. I loved them both, particularly Tom. Glenda was the harder woman. She was the one who pushed me all the time. I guess you could say she was the one who made me what I am today. Tom was softer, warmer than her. Even when they finally had their own child…' He pointed disdainfully at Richard, '…his father. Tom still treated me just like his own son. But they never told me anything about my real parents. Tom and Glenda were both killed in a plane crash in 1949.' He chuckled again. It was the noise of a baby being strangled at birth. 'Ironically, they were on their way to see me. I had just graduated from Stanford on the GI Bill.' The laugh stopped and the man stared into mid-air again.
For a small moment, Jayne could see the immense sadness at the heart of this incredibly wealthy man.
'I often thought my adopted parents were going to tell me something the day I graduated. Glenda had said she would. But they were both killed before they could say anything.' The deep blue eyes lost their watery sadness and focussed on Jayne. 'In some cases, they treated me better than their own son. But now I'm rich and old, and I'm going to die in the next two months. I just want to know who I am before I go.'
'I understand, Mr Hughes.'
The old man held out his wrinkled hands towards her. 'Tell me who I am, Mrs Sinclair. Just tell me who I am.'
Chapter Five
Lobby, Midland Hotel. November 14, 2015.
'I'm sorry about my uncle's behaviour, Ms Sinclair. He's old and he can get a little cranky at times.'
Richard Hughes had escorted Jayne down to the lobby of the Midland Hotel. 'I understand, Mr Hughes.'
'Call me Richard.'
She held up a plastic folder with the book and the photograph inside. 'Is this really all there is, Richard?'
'I'm afraid that's all, there is nothing else. We searched through my grandfather and grandmother's papers but there's nothing about the adoption.'
'It's not much to go on.'
'Can I be honest with you, Ms Sinclair?'
'Call me Jayne.'
'My uncle has become obsessed with this over the last couple of months. It consumes him to the point of ignoring everything else. Despite his age, he's still very much involved in running the company. Without him, decisions don't get made.'
'Was it you who made the initial investigation?'
He nodded. 'I found his adoption papers through a BIBA form. The bureaucrats in your country even wanted my uncle to go through counselling before they would let him access the birth certificate, but a sharp letter from our solicitors soon ended that crap. When we received the original certificate, I thought it would be simple enough to trace any living relatives or ancestors.'
'But then you hit a brick wall.'
He nodded again. 'I didn't get very far. His father had died seven years before he was born. How could that be?'
'I don't know, Richard, but somehow we will find out. Did you look into the mother's side?'
'She died in 1929. I could find no living relatives, another dead end.'
'Perhaps, these can help us.' She held up the plastic folder.
Richard looked down at his feet. 'My uncle is dying, Jayne. What you saw tonight was sheer willpower keeping him going. When I go back to the suite, he will be asleep in the wheelchair.'
'I could see he was ill.'
'I've looked for answers to this riddle and found nothing. It all happened nearly 100 years ago, for Christ's sake. It's dead and buried.'
'The past has a habit of giving up its secrets, Richard. You only have to look in the right places.'
'Honestly, what are the chances of finding out the truth?'
'I don't know until I've looked. One never knows. That's the beauty of genealogy, secrets reveal themselves over time in the most unlikely places.'
'Can I lay my cards on the table, Jayne, as we say in America?'
'Go ahead.'
'He's old, he's dying. I don't want to get his hopes up that you can discover his past in just eight days. Why don't you tell him you can't find anything. We'll still pay you. Then he can die in peace.'
Jayne stepped back. 'I can't do that, Mr Hughes. Your uncle has paid me to look for his ancestors. I will try my best to find them.'
'What is this Ms Sinclair, some sort of Genealogist Boy Scouts Honour shit? Give me a break, will ya.' A
s he became flustered, Richard's accent became more American.
'It's not 'shit' as you so graciously put it, Mr Hughes. Your uncle, my client, has commissioned me to perform the research to the best of my ability. I am going to do that and report my findings to him in eight days. Is that clear?'
Richard Hughes' face had changed again, a smile dancing across his lips. 'I'm sorry, Jayne. Please forgive me. But you must understand I'm dealing with a man who has less than two months to live. In that time, he needs to sort out the company affairs. Otherwise, when he's gone, the world's largest transportation company is going to be going down the tubes along with the jobs of 88,000 men and women. Instead of sorting out the company business, he is obsessing about who he is and where he came from.'
'I understand Mr Hughes, but your uncle is my client, not you. I will report back to him in eight days with my findings. In the meantime, I will say good night to you.'
He put his hand gently on her arm. 'One last favour, Jayne. Can this conversation stay private between the two of us? You saw how my uncle treats me. I don't want him to know how concerned I am.'
Jayne took his hand off her arm. 'Of course, Richard. I'll be in touch.'
She turned and walked through the doors into the Manchester rain. This case was getting more complicated by the second.
Chapter Six
Didsbury, Manchester. November 14, 2015.
When she returned home to Didsbury that evening, Paul was still asleep. She pulled the duvet over his sleeping body and crept quietly downstairs.
The room was quiet, only the Ikea clock ticking on one wall. The cat mewed a welcome, padding over to rub his body against her leg and remind her that he hadn't been fed yet. She grabbed a tin of cat food from the shelf. Liver and bacon, sounds yummy, could eat that myself, filling his bowl in the corner with the food. He went straight over and began to eat. The poor little sod must be starving she thought. Then, she realised that she hadn't eaten herself since this morning. Good for the waistline, bad for the health.
She opened the fridge. There was a selection of food from the deli. Cheeses, hams, slices of saucisson, even pickled Polish gherkins which she hated but he loved. A tray of what were fancifully called crudités, but looked like a few raw carrots and a couple of dips to her. Paul had insisted on stocking up just in case people had come back from the funeral to their house. Fat chance of that.
She knew exactly what she wanted, though. From the side door of the fridge, she took a bottle of St Hallett Faith Shiraz. Not the best drop on earth but a good buy for ten quid. A good, jammy Aussie Shiraz would go down well. From an airtight container in the fresh section of the fridge, she selected a Valrhona Estate Grown chocolate from the Palmira Plantation. The honey and nuts of these Criolla Cacao beans would go well with the wine.
Her idea of heaven. Chocolate and red wine. And God she needed it. The client was a bit of a nightmare, an unpleasant old man who made Richard Hughes' life a nightmare. 'I wonder why he puts up with it,' she said out loud. Why does anybody put up with anything?
She opened the wine, enjoying the satisfying pull of the cork. Always a good sign when it's nice and tight. A quick whiff to check for taint and she poured the rich, ruby liquid into a glass, adding an extra glug because she thought she needed it. She snapped the block of chocolate in half. What a lovely sound, the breaking of chocolate, putting one half back in the airtight box and taking the other, still wrapped in its silver foil over to the counter.
She flipped open the lid of her computer and logged on. Where to start? Well, Jayne, my love, you could try the beginning, it's usually the best place. But in this case, she knew her client's beginning was just the end of one life.
She sipped the first mouthful of Shiraz, holding it in her mouth, letting the cold liquid gradually warm as it played across her tongue. Good fruit, a pleasant drop. But it could do with a longer time to get a little warmer. She snapped off two squares of chocolate and popped them in her mouth. The initial hardness of the chocolate gradually softened, releasing its sweet bitterness across her tongue and teeth, where it blended with the aftermath of the red wine.
Better than sex, she thought. Well, at least, it was better than sex with her husband. An image of a snoring Paul lying fully dressed beneath the covers of the duvet elbowed its way into her mind, followed by a sense of guilt. God, he's lost his sister today and you can think about him like this.
She resolved to make it up to him in the morning. Be nice, she thought, it's the least you can do.
Time to work. The one time she felt fully in control. It had been the same in the police. The soft stuff, dealing with people, holding their hands, massaging egos, she hated all that. What she loved was the nitty gritty of investigations and later, as computers began to take over their world, the power she felt as she delved into someone's life and world as she investigated them. It always amazed her how much people revealed of themselves online. Too much, far too much.
And now, the past reveals itself too. So many records had been digitised, the painstaking work of diving through dusty tomes full of indecipherable handwriting was less necessary these days. Sometimes, it was the only way to go, but the first step was always online.
She pulled across the adoption certificate John Hughes had given to her. The old man had been resident at The Ilkley Children's Home before he was adopted. She quickly typed the name into Google. 2043189 results in 0.38 seconds. Useless information, but she was sure Google were keen to tell everybody how quick their algorithms were. She bypassed the first two sites. Ads for adoption agencies, providing services. The third was more interesting. A Wikipedia article:
Ilkley Children’s Home was situated at 23, Ireton Drive, Ilkley in an old Georgian house that had previously been a rectory. It was founded By Alderman George Dukinfield in 1901 to take in children whose fathers had been killed in the Boer War. It continued to take in orphans and unwanted children after the end of the war, eventually reaching its peak of occupation in 1920. The children in residence stayed there from two years old to 11 years old and, by this time, many were the offspring of single mothers from the mills of Bradford and surrounding areas. In 1920, the staff comprised a Matron, three sisters, two handymen and a gardener. The home burned down in mysterious circumstances in 1932. Fortunately, nobody was killed in the fire but the building was left a ruin. It was pulled down in 1946 and the new Drayfield Estate was built on the land.
That's all. A brief summary of thirty years in the lives of so many children. John Hughes had spent some time in this home before being sent to America. But how was the adoption achieved? The article said nothing about adoptions from the home. She wondered if the records still existed in some government archive in West Yorkshire. But the chances were remote. In those days, people didn't move paper records unless a home was closed or moved building. Most were probably destroyed in the fire. Nevertheless, she would have to check. She wrote a note to herself in the small book she always carried with her. Another legacy of her work in the police. Always write everything down. It had been drilled into her by her first desk sergeant. A traditional Lancashire copper who remembered the days before panda cars, when a beat was something you did on foot. 'Write it all down. Paper's t'only way to wipe your arse, and t'only way to cover it too.'
As she was writing the note to herself, she noticed the dark cover of the book through the plastic film of the file. Why a book? Why was the only thing a young child took with him when he left the Children’s home a book?
She opened the folder and took it out. Pretty standard cover, The Lives of the United Irishmen by James Cameron, Esq. She opened it. The inscription stood out against the white of the inside page. The ink had faded slightly now, turning a greyish blue from its original black. She turned over the leaf to the wonderfully ornate title page. Inside an elaborate, decorative Celtic border was the title and author. At the bottom, the name of the publisher, James Duffy and Co. Ltd. 30 Westmoreland Street, with a date of MCMXIV.
She
quickly returned to school to work out what the Roman numerals meant. 1914. The book must have been published in that year, just before the outbreak of the First World War.
She didn't know why but she was certain this book was key to understanding what happened. Perhaps, it was the way the young boy clutched it in the photograph. Hanging on to the one piece of security he trusted when all about him was changing.
She flicked through the pages hoping to find a letter or another photograph.
Nothing.
The paper was of good quality though and the line illustrations seemed to have been done by a fine engraver. There was a craftsmanship here one didn't see anymore. The love of producing something well and which had a beauty all of its own. So different from the throwaway paperbacks of today, printed on cheap paper with even cheaper covers.
She turned it over. The book was as well finished at the back as it was crafted at the front. She opened the back cover and flicked through the pages of the index, moving forward towards the front.
Nothing inside.
She looked at the inside back cover again. Something was different here, the paper felt thicker. She held it up to the light.
The last white page of the book was stuck to the inside of the back cover. She reached for the scalpel in the pen box next to her laptop. Deftly, she prised open the last page, cutting away the old glue where it had stuck the two pages together.
An ex libris mark was stuck inside, the glue having seeped out to stick the last two pages together. The piece was engraved and beautifully decorated in orange and green. On it, were the words:
EX LIBRIS COLLEGIUM UNIVERSITAE DUBLINENSIS.
Chapter Seven
Dublin. March 24, 1915.
'Are you coming, Fitz?'