‘Everything okay?’ Juliette asked when herejoined her.
‘Yeah, just had an email from RayMercer—he’s been told to contact the local hospice.’
Juliette pulled a sympathetic face.
‘He really needs closure on this before…’Morton let the words hang in the air before continuing, ‘…I had another email,’he said, more upbeat. ‘From a Bartholomew Maslow, the grandson of one ofthe servants, and he wants to meet me tonight.’
‘That’s good,’ Juliette said with asmile. ‘The jigsaw’s coming together.’
Morton nodded. ‘Can we go now?’
‘We haven’t found a present for Jeremy andGuy yet. And I haven’t looked at any of those stalls over there,’ shesaid, indicating the far side of the room.
Morton groaned. As much as he wantedto just leave Juliette to it and go and get a coffee somewhere, he knew hecouldn’t. ‘I’m going to go and sit over there by the door and do somebits on my phone.’
Juliette nodded her agreement and hesloped off to a bench beside the door. It was the only entrance or exitto the warehouse, so he could easily keep an eye on Juliette and anyone elseintent on taking pictures of her. Morton opened a web-browser on hismobile and began to research Canadian electoral registers. None of themain genealogy websites offered him what he was looking for, so he headed tothe Nova Scotia Archives website and sent an email asking if electoralregisters existed for Halifax and if so, whether they could check the occupancyof 4 West Street. It would be pushing his luck, but he asked for searchesto be carried out 1921-1930 and then emphasised that he was from England andcouldn’t search the records for himself. In his experience, most archivesand record offices were happy to help with research requests, although herecalled one burial search request for a cemetery in Chatham which resulted ina twenty-five pounds fee for a search to be carried out ten years after and tenyears before the date of death. Madness.
Morton scanned the warehouse and locatedJuliette. She was happily chatting to two women behind a table on the farside of the room. He slowly cast his eyes over the rest of the place—nosign of Douglas Catt, thankfully.
Morton pondered the Mercer Case. TheScottish connection still bothered him. Mary had, it seemed, been sackedfrom Blackfriars at a time when most of the household was in Scotland, thenwritten a letter from there saying that she wouldn’t be coming back. Yetshe failed to turn up ever again in the country. Morton opened up theScotland’s People website and again began a series of searches for Mary, but nocredible leads were forthcoming. Unless Mary lived her whole life under apseudonym, her time in Scotland must have been very brief.
After more than two hours at the weddingfayre, Juliette wandered over to Morton and said the magic words: ‘Right, let’sgo.’
Through bleary eyes, Morton lookedincredulously at the accumulation of gift bags that she had acquired during oneafternoon in a chilly dilapidated warehouse. He still couldn’t quitefathom how this could be enjoyable for anyone.
Morton stepped outside and raised hisumbrella to shield against the incessant, driving rain.
‘Well, I’ve got loads of ideas for our bigday,’ Juliette said, as she slipped her arm through his.
‘Go on then, enlighten me.’
‘I’ll need to be asked the questionfirst,’ she said with a smile.
Morton leant over and kissed her. ‘Okay. Will you, Juliette Meade, please tell me about your ideas for ourbig day?’
Juliette squeezed his arm and smiled.
The pair hurried through the saturatedstreets, navigating ever-expanding puddles until they reached home.
Having unlocked the front door, Mortonhastened inside and was relieved not to see another envelope waiting for him onthe doormat. He looked at his watch. He had another three hoursuntil his meeting at the church with Bartholomew Maslow. Plenty of timeto shower and freshen up.
Ina tiny box-room that he had self-proclaimed as his office, the mangrinned. The room only contained a desk and a laptop, but it wasenough. He had just compiled a detailed report of all the activity onMorton Farrier’s mobile phone. Everything. He had logged his exactmovements, his incoming and outgoing text messages and phone calls, his emailsand internet browsing. The file was growing impressively and the manbegan to feel like a real spy. He laughed at how easily he hadintercepted the email to Bartholomew Maslow, then created a false Gmail accountfrom which to reply to Morton. He glanced at his watch. Two hoursuntil his scheduled meeting in St Thomas’s Church. Then it would be caseclosed for Morton Farrier and all activity on his phone would end. Theman laughed raucously as he picked up his latest acquisition—a Sig Sauerp232-22 handgun. Aiming the weapon at Morton’s communications file, theman pretended to fire.
‘Goodbye, Mr Farrier.’
Mortonwas running late. He had seriously misjudged the time that it would takehim to prepare the fish pie that he had cooked for him and Juliette. Hezoomed, far too fast, up Strand Hill, almost colliding with an oncoming carwhen the road narrowed to a single lane in order to pass through thefourteenth-century Strand Gate.
‘Shit,’ Morton yelled, slamming on hisbrakes and allowing the other car through. It didn’t help that hisvisibility was severely reduced owing to the incredible quantity of rainthrashing down.
Morton raced around the corner and parkedin a similar spot to the one used on his last visit here, just
