‘Yes, he checks out. It’s the one you gave me as his twin brother who doesn’t.’
The registrar returned to the tome and looked down the page. ‘Frederick Roger Jones?’ he read out. ‘Mother Eleanor Jones, born at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, 7 September 1964 at four o five a.m. Also subsequently adopted.’ He looked up. ‘That’s your twin. Frederick Roger Jones.’
‘Are you sure? You couldn’t be mistaken?’
The registrar turned the book around, so that Grace could see for himself. There were five entries.
‘That birth certificate you have, it’s actually a copy of the original – the original is this entry in here, in this book. Do you understand that?’ the registrar asked.
‘Yes,’ Grace replied.
‘It’s an exact copy. This is the original entry. Five entries to a page – see – the bottom two are your chaps, Desmond William Jones and Frederick Roger Jones.’
As if to demonstrate his veracity, Ravensbourne turned over the page. ‘You see, there are another five on this—’
He stopped in mid-sentence and turned back a page, then turned it forward again. And then he said, ‘Oh. Oh dear. Oh, my God, it never occurred to me! I was in a hurry when you came to see me, I remember. I saw the twin – you were looking for a twin. It never occurred to me—’
There on the next page, the top entry, in neat, slanted black handwriting, was:
Grace looked at the man. ‘Does this mean what I think it means?’
The registrar was nodding furiously, half out of embarrassment, half from excitement. ‘Yes. Born nineteen minutes later. The same mother. Absolutely!’
122
Back-issue after back-issue of the
He stopped the machine halfway through the 4 September 1964 pages, then slowly cranked forwards. Then he stopped again when he reached the front page of the 7 September edition. But there was nothing of significance. He read through each of the following news pages carefully, but still could find nothing.
The splash of 8 September was a local planning scandal. But then, two pages on, a photograph leapt out at him.
It was of three tiny babies, lying asleep in a row inside the glass casing of an incubator. Inset next to this was a photograph of a small, mangled car. Above was the caption:
Police were investigating why the Ford Anglia veered across the A23, in heavy rain early on the evening of 6 September into the path of a lorry . . . Eleanor Jones, single mother, science teacher . . . thought she was carrying twins . . . had been undergoing treatment for depression . . . Eight and a half months pregnant . . . kept on life support in intensive care after they were delivered prematurely by Caesarean section . . . mother died during the operation . . .
He stopped the machine, removed the microfiche, replaced it in its container and handed it to the librarian. Then he almost ran to the exit.
Grace could barely contain his excitement as he drove back to Sussex House. He was longing to see everyone’s faces in the briefing meeting this evening, but most of all he was looking forward to telling Cleo. Telling her that they had got the right man, for sure.
But first he wanted speak to the helpful post-adoption counsellor, Loretta Leberknight, and ask her one question, just as a double-check. He was dialling her number on the hands free when his phone rang.
It was Roger Pole, the SIO for the attempted murder of Cleo, thanking him for the information about the discovery of the MG TF workshop manual in Norman Jecks’s garage and informing him they were now making Jecks the prime suspect.
‘You won’t be needing to look any further,’ Grace told him, pulling over and stopping. ‘Out of interest, how’s the poor scumbag who tried to steal the car?’
‘He’s still in intensive care at East Grinstead, with 55 per cent burns, but they are expecting him to live.’
‘Maybe I should send him some flowers for saving Cleo’s life,’ he said.
‘From what I hear, a bag or two of heroin would be more appreciated.’
Grace grinned. ‘How’s the officer from the Car Crime Unit?’
