on his shoulder.
'Who was your friend?'
He turned around. It was Duckworth.
'I'm just doing a bit of work, Dave.'
'Private client?'
'Something like that.'
'Just that he looked like a detective, that's all.'
Nigel stared back, saying nothing.
'Perhaps you've got pohce protection now.'
What was he on about?
'Maybe someone has taken a contract out on your life.' A smile played on his greasy lips. 'Perhaps the family of a nubile history student.'
Nigel kicked back his chair and stood up. 'You've been speaking to Gary Kent, haven't you?'
Duckworth backed up theatrically, eyes flicking right and left, hands up. 'Calm down. Kent told me about your woman trouble at the university. Never had you down as that sort.'
'What sort is that, Dave? She was a mature student, twenty-nine years old, two years younger than me.
An adult. Don't make me out to be some sort of predator who stalks young women. Now leave it.
And tell your mate Kent to fuck off, too.'
He was shocked to hear the venom in his voice, and an expletive he rarely used. Those seated around them had stopped peering at their screens and had turned their gaze on him. A security guard appeared at his shoulder.
'Could I ask you to lower your voice, sir, and mind your language?' he said. 'Otherwise I will have to ask you to leave.'
Nigel continued to stare at Duckworth, but nodded to acknowledge the security guard, then unbailed his fists and sat back down. Duckworth took the seat next to him.
'Dave, I have never ever been thrown out of an archive. But, at the moment, it seems worth it - if only to have the satisfaction of punching you in the face,' he hissed. He had never hit anyone in his life either, but his threat was genuine.
'I'm sorry,' Duckworth said. 'One wasn't very tactful.
It has never been my forte, as you are well aware.
It's just that I sense an opportunity here for you and, yes, me too, to make ourselves a few pounds at the expense of the fourth estate. Kent was telling me they have a man in custody. I am helping him out with his researches into Terry Cable's background, and helping him locate a few relatives. He's already compiling a piece about his troubled life, what made him a killer. He's been informed by a reliable source that Cable is guilty and will be charged.'
'That's what I've heard, too,' Nigel lied.
'The thing is, Kent is also desperate to find out what the historical background actually is. Why were you involved? What was the family history angle?
It would be an exclusive -- and, let's just say, the remuneration would not be insignificant.'
Nigel shook his head slowly.
'If you were reluctant to use Kent - after all, he is not everyone's cup of lapsang souchong -- there are several other reporters I can name who would sell their own daughters for this tale.'
Nigel just wanted to get on with his search. If he threatened Duckworth again, he would be thrown out. He could always go to the FRC but, by the time he had rattled across London on the tube, he would barely have time to get under way.
'I've made it clear that I'm not interested, Dave.
Now, please, leave me alone. Surely you have some dirt to uncover about the ancestors of some second rate celebrity.'
Duckworth shook his head, as if rueing Nigel's lack of commercial nous.
'Actually,' he sniffed, 'as well as the Cable stuff, I have a very lucrative private client. Doing a bit of bounceback for him; been doing it for several months. Currently working my way through some Metropolitan Pohce records. Without much luck.'
'Good for you,' Nigel said, staring at the screen.
'You know, Nigel,' Dave said, standing up, 'there's no point returning to this job if you're not willing to adapt to the times. Private clients are all well and good when they pay well, but there's a fortune to be made from the press and media. I've got three jobs for TV companies at the moment: I'm hiring people to help me out. I can put a lot of work your way, if you're interested.'
Nigel ignored him.
'Suit yourself,' Duckworth said and shuffled away.
Much as it pained him, Nigel knew Duckworth was right. Private chents alone did not pay the bills and well- paid jobs involving serious research, losing yourself for weeks in another world, were rare. The best-paid jobs came from the press, either wanting you to trace the ancestry of the newsworthy and famous, or tracing descendants and relatives of someone in the pubhc eye they could doorstep, and from TV companies seeking to satisfy their thirst for new formats. Working for the pohce might be thrilling, but it would soon end and was unlikely to lead to anything else. Given his paucity of chents, the time may well come when he would be forced to take a long spoon and sup with Duckworth.
That was for another time. Here was a job in which he could lose himself; and it was unfinished. The future could wait.
He entered Eke Fairbairn's name into the 1871
search field, typed London and hit enter. Two results.
One fitted the bill. He was sixteen years old, living on Treadgold Street, North Kensington with his father, Ernest, and mother, Mary Jane. There were no other siblings in the home at that time. Nigel went back to 1861: the family were at the same address, Eke was six, and there was a girl, Hannah, aged nine, and a boy of four, Augustus. What had happened to Augustus in the intervening ten years? Perhaps he had died, which may have explained why the Fairbairns did not have any more children. Hannah was different; she would have been nineteen by 1871 and may well have married. He made a note in his notebook to search out a death certificate for Augustus and a marriage, or death, certificate for Hannah.
The Fairbairns left Notting Dale, probably to escape the shame and opprobrium Eke's conviction had brought upon them. But where did they go? He scoured records for London, then widened out to the whole country, but found no trace of an Ernest and Mary Jane Fairbairn living together, or who were single, and the right age. He scoured online death certificates and found his answer: Ernest died aged forty-six in 1881; Mary Jane's demise came two years later at the age of forty-five. In the same records he found confirmation of the death of their son, Augustus.
The National Archives were about to close. There was no more to be done here. He knew Hannah was the only survivor of the Fairbairn family. Had she managed to continue the bloodline?
It was late and Foster's suit wore the ammonia smell of the tower block when he arrived home. Without even pausing to take his jacket off, he booted up his sleek chrome laptop that lived on the kitchen table.
It was the only time he used that piece of furniture; most of his food was eaten standing up, late at night or early in the morning.
He charged a large glass of wine and sat back down as the computer chuntered and whirred. The top of his head felt as if it was in a vice, pressure pulsating both sides. Each time he raised his eyes to focus, he felt a dull ache behind them.
The killer, if he was still at large - and something told Foster he was - was due to strike the next night.
The very next night, they would discover if Terry Cable was the right man: if no body was found, it meant Harris's confidence was justified. If not, well, they had a fourth murder on their hands. Foster wanted to do all he could to prevent that happening.
By nine that evening he, Heather and Khan had knocked on the door of every single flat in the block.
They had a list of everyone: who lived where, which flats were vacant, which had new tenants, all cross referenced with the electoral roll. There was little they could do about the empty flats, or those where they had
