‘How do they know that?’ Morton asked.
‘He just made a lot of mistakes. Thekill wasn’t clean, he left footprints and DNA material, and grainy CCTV fromthe pub over the road shows him tripping over a gravestone in thechurchyard. A bit hapless and bungling really. Even so, be careful,because he’s not been caught yet and, if you’re right, then he could still beafter you.’
‘Will do,’ he muttered. All thewhile he was ensconced in the archives he felt safe enough. He was moreworried about her, but he knew that she couldn’t be safer anywhere else thansurrounded by dozens of police officers.
‘The other reason I was ringing wasbecause, whilst I was in the station today, I had a chance to speak to SusanCatt. I caught her quickly as she was leaving following anotherinterview.’
‘Did you ask her why her husband was sodesperate for me to stop my work?’ Morton asked.
‘Well, in a bit more of a diplomatic,pillar of the community kind of way, yes. She wouldn’t reveal anything tome but she wants to meet you. I’ll text you her mobile number in aminute.’
Could be interesting, Morton thought.
‘Just be careful,’ Juliette warned. ‘Meet her somewhere public. I don’t trust her at all.’
‘You don’t think she killed Douglas, doyou?’ Morton asked incredulously.
Juliette laughed in a mocking way. ‘No chance. I said the killer was hapless, not a dappy wet fish. Plus, she’s got a very good alibi for the evening of the murder.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Got to go—about to go off on patrolnow. See you later. Love you.’
‘Love you too—see you tonight.’
‘Be careful!’ she warned.
‘I will. Bye.’ Morton endedthe call and sat for a moment thinking about the next steps that he needed totake. He should go online and find Martha’s parents in 1911. If thecensus enumerator had done his job properly, and they had told the truth, thentheir entry on the 1911 census should show that they had lost a child. Itwould be worth checking if passport applications existed and disembarkationrecords for the period, too. Could Mary have escaped Blackfriars,leaving her child behind and run off to Canada under a false name? Asmuch as he had initially doubted the theory, more and more evidence was risingto the surface to prove, rather than to disprove it, at least the latter partof that theory.
Morton made his way back to the ReferenceRoom, swanning past Miss Latimer just like the good old days where their mutualhatred needed no disguise.
‘Right,’ Morton said when he reached Jennyat his workstation. ‘I’m going to see if historic passport applicationsare available online—I’m fairly sure that the National Archives has some ontheir website. If so, would you mind trawling them to see if you can findanything for Martha Stone or Mary Mercer in 1911?’
‘I’d be delighted,’ Jenny said, rubbingher hands with glee.
Morton opened up a web browser andnavigated to the National Archives website. He used their search facilityto look up passport applications and quickly found what he was lookingfor. ‘Here,’ he said to Jenny. ‘FO—for Foreign Office—611. Then go to file 21, which covers the period 1909-1912. It’s a freedocument but pretty large by the looks of it,’ he said as he clicked todownload the file. ‘Three hundred and sixty-three hand-writtenpages.’ Morton turned to Jenny with a grin then began scrolling downthrough the file.
‘Shouldn’t take long—it’s in alphabeticalorder,’ Jenny noted.
‘Hmm, but only by first letter. Youthen need to search through pages and pages of haphazard surnames beginningwith M and S. Is that okay?’
‘Oh yes, absolutely!’ Jenny said. ‘I’ll get right to it.’
‘Great,’ Morton said, watching Jenny headback into the Reading Room. Normally, he liked to research everythingfor himself, but with this slightly outlandish theory and the approachingclosure of the archives for the day, he was happy to delegate some of the lessimportant work to someone else.
Morton used the Ancestry website to gainthe necessary reference to order Martha Stone’s death certificate; he thenplaced the order on a priority service. The certificate would be unlikelyto give him any new information, but he wanted to really make sure that therewas only one Martha Stone and that she had died and was buried in Winchelsea,thus making the Martha Stone living in Nova Scotia someone living under a falsename.
Next, Morton turned his attention to the1911 census. Within seconds he had the record of Martha Stone’sparents. They were still living in Peace Cottage, Friar’s Road. Thecensus return showed that they had been married for twenty-three years. One child had been born alive. One child had died. There were nosurviving children to James and Flora Stone.
Morton saved the image of the censusreturn, now having sufficient evidence to show that Martha Stone had died andthat somebody was living under a false name in Canada. Somebodythat Edith Leyden visited in 1925.
Opening up a fresh web browser, Morton ransome generic Google searches into gaining false passports for the period aroundMary’s disappearance. He discovered that photographs of the passportholder were only added in 1914, so Mary could easily have passed as someoneelse born within just a few years of her. Morton knew, as manygenealogists knew, that it was only until very recently that anyonecould gain an original birth certificate if they could provide enough of thebackground family details included on them. One hundred years ago, itwould have been even easier. Mary would have known the Stone family wellenough to have been able to answer the basic questions asked in order to gain abirth certificate and then a passport.
A while later, Jenny returned. ‘Nothing under Mercer, but I found this,’ she said with a telling grin. She held up her digital camera with the rear-viewer facing Morton. Hestrained his eyes to see. November 26th 1911, Stone, MissMartha. It was brief, but firm proof that
