Kent tapped his nose theatrically. 'So does that mean you're back in use?'
Nigel shook his head. 'No, straight genealogy for me.'
'Well, that's not strictly true, is it? You're working for the cops.'
Duckworth, Nigel thought. He said nothing.
'Look, I'm interested in the story,' Kent said. 'Why have the Met hired you to work on the Notting Hill slaying?'
'My indiscreet days are over, Gary. No comment.'
He knew Kent would not leave it there.
'There must be some sort of family history angle there. You know I'll find out: the cops are leakier than a Russian submarine. You might as well make a few quid from it while you can.'
'I'm not saying anything. Not today, not tomorrow.
Not forever. My days being your lapdog are over.'
Kent shook his head ruefully.
'Duckworth's cleaning up all the press work. You really want that fat toad lording it over you every time you see him?'
'He's welcome to it.'
'What happened at that university to make you so holier-than-thou all of a sudden? Maybe I should make a few calls, have a poke around. There could be a story in it, particularly now you're working for the forces of law and order.'
Nigel wondered whether he knew, whether he had already made those calls. 'Do your worst, Gary.'
Kent shrugged and sucked in air between his teeth.
'Shame. As I said, this genealogy game is pretty popular.
Our newspaper might be looking for someone to do a piece or two about it. Maybe troubleshooting a few readers' problems, some sort of ancestral agony aunt. Pains me to say it, but you could do all right if they need a photogenic young expert: twinkling blue eyes, good cheekbones, full head of hair, pair of glasses that make you look clever.'
'Flattery will get you nowhere, Gary.'
Kent just stared at him, nodding as if he understood exactly what Nigel was doing, as if every word confirmed his expectations. 'You obviously feel some loyalty to the police,' he said, tossing his business card on to the table in front of Nigel. 'Which reminds me. You must pass on my regards to DCI Foster.'
He turned to leave, but looked back over his shoulder.
'Tell him it's good to see him dealing with deaths outside the family for a change.'
Nigel was intrigued by Kent's comment. He went outside and waited for the hack to leave before he called Foster.
The detective answered the phone with a growled 'yeah'. He sounded distracted. Flustered, even.
'His descendants died out,' Nigel said succinctly.
'What, all of them? How?'
'Nothing suspicious. He had two kids: one died of TB when he was six; the other never married. I suppose there is a chance the daughter had a child even though she never married, but that would be impossible to trace, given the surname is Smith. The wife married again and had two more kids with another man. I could trace them, I suppose . . .'
Nigel's voice trailed off. Despite his desperation to remain involved, he hoped to God that Foster would not make him do that: he was looking at two or three days' backbreaking work, ploughing through thousands and thousands of Smiths; and he suspected it would be in vain.
'No, they're not the link. Beck wasn't even their dad. I can hardly see them passing the story of his murder down the generations. Knock it on the head for now.'
'One more thing.'
'Yeah,' Foster said, impatiently.
'I've just been tapped up by a reporter from the Evening News. Gary Kent.'
Foster sighed.
'Told me to pass on his regards.'
'Forget him. He's a creep. Right now, to be blunt, I couldn't give a rat's arse. Did he know about the reference?'
'No, he didn't mention it and I didn't tell him anything. But he knows I'm working for you.'
'Bully for him. If any more reptiles come crawling, tell them to shove it, too. And don't fall for the money thing: newspapers will always find a way not to pay, so you won't see a dime.'
There was a pause.
'Detective, I was thinking: the Metropolitan Police archives have been destroyed, so there are no details of the murder.'
Foster murmured his assent.
'The National Newspaper Library has copies of every single local and national newspaper going back a couple of hundred years. There's a good chance it will have been reported in the press in 1879. I thought it might be worth digging the reports out.'
'OK, sounds good. The one in Colindale? Is it open on Saturday?'
'Yes, until four.' He glanced at his watch. It was coming up to one p.m.
'Will you have time?'
'Let's see,' Nigel said.
'Look, I tell you what. I'll get someone to give this place a call and see if we can get it to stay open a bit later. Would that help?'
'It would.'
'Consider it done. Give me a call if you turn anything up.'
The line went dead.
Thanks to the vagaries of the Northern Line, it was approaching two thirty when Nigel exited the station at Colindale. The sun was out, offering even this ignored and unloved part of London a healthy glow.
Nigel turned right and strode with purpose down Colindale Avenue, a soulless strip of road, eating up the forty or fifty yards to the newspaper library. It was built in 1903 as a repository for yesterday's news, and opened to the public in 1932, a dirty red-brick building that still wears the austerity of the period.
Once inside the main reading room Nigel was hit by the familiar, rich, almost sickly smell of fading, worn paper. Becoming immersed in the bound volumes of newspapers was like entering a portal to the past. Here he was able to flesh out the stories of the people he hunted, their times and the events that shaped them. Inquests, court reports, obituaries, news reports, all these were genealogical gold. At the FRC, the act of looking through indexes rather than original forms removed you from history: at Colindale, you climbed a ladder and dived in.
Nigel found a seat. The whole archive is the size of several football fields - almost every single British newspaper, local and national, printed since 1820 is housed there -- but the area given over to researchers is not much bigger than a penalty box. The main room has barely changed since 1932: the stark white walls, the wooden clock that has never shown the right time and, most of all, the fifty-six original reading tables. These were, to Nigel, objects of beauty.
Not the tables themselves, but the reading stands perched on them. Made of brass in art deco style, each possesses a strip lamp -- turned on by a switch that flicks with a satisfying thud - the table number and wooden frames, chipped and tattered from decades of use, on which to stand the huge bound volumes. If not for the odd, usually neglected computer terminal and the hysterical whirr of rewinding microfilm reels from the neighbouring room, it could be any time since 1932.
Nigel went to the inquiries desk first.
'Hi,' he said to the timid woman sitting behind the counter. 'Nigel Barnes. I believe someone from the Metropolitan Police might have said I was coming.'
He winced at how formal his introduction sounded. Her eyes lit up.
'Oh, yes,' she said eagerly. 'Ron on the order desk is expecting you. He'll be helping you out.'
A minute or so later a proud-looking fat man, hands the size of shovels, was greeting him. He had a stubbled chin and an enormous stomach that strained against his T-shirt.
