by M J Lee
'The DF of the inscription in the book?'
Jayne nodded. 'At one point, his active service unit captured a British officer called John Clavell. They executed him two days before a truce was called in Ireland.' Jayne realised her words were becoming blunter.
'Clavell? But that's the surname of my mother on the birth certificate.'
Jayne fought with the pain that stabbed though her head. She touched the bandage above her eye. 'He was her brother.'
'My father shot him?'
'I don't think he did. The actual killing was carried out by Declan Fitzgerald. But your father was certainly involved.'
John Hughes was silent now staring at her. Richard Hughes was hovering behind him.
'I think your father, Michael Dowling, had become sickened by the killing and the war. After the truce in July 1921 and probably during the Civil War in late 1922, he travelled to England. He seems to have assumed the identity of a man who had been killed in France in 1918.'
'Charles Trichot.'
'That's correct.' Jayne could feel herself getting stronger now as if the telling of her tale had somehow infused her with a new energy. 'He met the sister of the officer who had been killed...'
'Emily Clavell. My mother.'
'Perhaps he assumed this identity to return some personal effects of her brother to Emily. We'll never know. Anyway, they fell in love and married in 1923.'
'The marriage certificate with the name of a man who died in 1918. I was born in 1925, the year after the wedding. That explains it all.'
'Not quite, Mr Hughes. Apparently, Emily Clavell found out the real identity of her husband...'
'When was that?'
Jayne reached down and pulled the letters from her bag. 'In late 1927. These letters make it obvious she couldn't stand to be with him anymore. They separated in early 1928 when you were two and a half years old.' Jayne opened the book given to her by the old man a week ago. It felt much longer than a week.
John Hughes was silent. A single tear dropped from his eye and rolled over the brown wrinkle on his face. 'I don't remember anything,' he whispered.
'You were too young, Mr Hughes.'
'What happened to my father?'
Before she could answer, Jayne heard the rap of something metallic and hard against a wooden table. 'Well done, Mrs Sinclair. You have solved the mystery.' Richard Hughes was standing behind his uncle, a dark steel-blue pistol nestling in his hand. In front of him on the table was a long knife. 'I knew some of the details, but I hadn't worked out all of them.'
John Hughes slowly turned his head towards his nephew. 'Richard, what are you doing?'
'What I should have done years ago, Uncle.'
'Put the bloody gun down. Don't be more of an idiot than you already are.'
Richard Hughes began to laugh. 'Uncle, I've put up with your insults all my life. Do this Richard. Do that Richard. You're a fucking idiot, Richard. Don't waste my time, Richard.' Then the laughter stopped and the man bared his teeth. 'NOT. ANY. MORE,' he screamed at the top of his voice.
The old man shrank back into his wheelchair.
Then the smile appeared again. The voice was calm and measured. 'This time, Richard is going to do what he wants.' He picked up the knife with his left hand. 'You see, Mrs Sinclair pulled out a knife here and stabbed you through the heart, Uncle. You were arguing about money after you refused to pay her for her work. She was angry and the accident had created an imbalance in her mind. I was forced to shoot her. Otherwise, I would have been stabbed too. I'm distraught because I have taken a human life.'
'You won't get away with it, Richard.'
'Oh, I will Uncle. This time, I will. You're very quiet Mrs Sinclair.'
Jayne lifted her head. 'I'm listening to you. You seem to have it all planned out.'
'You can answer a couple of questions for me before I shoot you.'
'And if I don't?'
'I shoot you anyway. At least, you live for a couple of minutes longer.'
'Ask away.'
'What happened to David Turner?'
'So that's his name. I never did know. He's lying in Bradford Royal Infirmary, in a coma. When he wakes up, he's going to tell the police everything.'
'Everything? I doubt it. He'll be paid well to keep quiet. Uncle's money will see to that.'
'You seem to have forgotten his phone. The police will check the last calls on that phone. I'm sure your number will be there.'
For the first time, Richard was not looking so confident. The smile painted on his face, began to look less smug.
'By the time they do that, I'll be in Costa Rica enjoying a life of wine, women and song, wasting all your hard-earned money, Uncle.'
Jayne glanced towards the door.
'Nobody is coming to rescue you, Mrs Sinclair. There's just you and me and Uncle here. In five minutes, of course, the place will be swarming with hotel security when I call down to tell them what I've been forced to do.'
Jayne glanced again towards the door. 'You had one other question, Richard?'
Richard thought for a moment. 'What happened to Michael Dowling? I never found out. Did he vanish? Become a drunk? Another victim of the Great Crash of 1929?'
Jayne shook her head. 'I don't think so.' She turned to the old man. He was sitting in his wheelchair, his face pale and uncertain, looking for the first time a very old and very tired man. 'Mr Hughes, or I should say, Mr Dowling, you told me you had a picture of your family when you graduated in 1949?'
'What's that got to do with anything?' said Richard Hughes.
'Humour me for a minute.'
'It's your last minute, use it as you will.'
'Could you show it to me?'
'Richard, it's in the folder, get it—' He stopped mid-sentence, realising that he was no longer able to give his nephew orders.
Richard Hughes smiled. 'One last service, just for you, my dear uncle.'
Keeping the gun pointing steadily at Jayne, he edged around the table and reached for the folder. 'Is this the one you meant?'
'That's it.'
He slid it across the table to Jayne. She picked it up, opened it and pulled out a black and white photo. She smiled as she looked at it.
'That was taken when I went to college on the GI Bill. My mother and father are on either side. The boy next to me is Richard's father.'
'What's the point of all this, Mrs Sinclair?'
'May I?' She pointed to the bag at her feet.
'Keep your hands where I can see them.'
Slowly she reached into the bag and pulled out her clear folder. She picked out one of the photographs of Michael Dowling and Declan Fitzgerald and the other prisoners taken in Frongoch so long ago when they had been young men. She passed it across to John Hughes.
He looked at it. Old eyes peering into the photograph, bringing it to life with his stare. 'It's him. It can't be him,' he whispered. The photo fell from his old fingers and drifted down to rest next to the wheel of the chair.
Richard rushed over to his uncle's side and picked up the photograph. As he did so, the old man brought his stick down across the back of his head.
Jayne leapt up from her chair and dived over Richard, knocking the gun upwards.
A loud bang.
Smoke filled the air around her head. She tried to breathe through the stench of cordite. Richard's arm was coming down. His knee was beneath her body forcing it on her.
She crushed her body closer to him, knocking his leg away. His right fist came down on her head, right on top of her old wound. A stab of burning pain shot through her skull. She fought to keep conscious. The fist came down again, harder this time.
Must hang on to his arm.
The fist struck down again. She moved her head at the last moment and the elbow hit her shoulder. Her left arm went dead.
He's too strong. Can't do this.
The gun was coming up. Close to her face. She smelt the cordite. Could see the round barrel with its drift of smoke, the scent of
metal shavings from a lathe.
No. No. No.
She twisted the barrel and there was another explosion.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Buxton, Manchester. November 24, 2015.
He saw her reflection in the window first, turning immediately to greet her. 'You look like you've been in the wars, Jayne.'
She had been released from the hospital after two nights under observation. The bandage that had once swathed her head was now reduced to a rather fetching pink plaster above her eyebrow. She still had a headache, though, kept under control by the helpful assistance of a bucketload of aspirin. 'You could say that, Dad.' She sat down beside him. 'How have you been?'
He put out his hand and let it waver. 'Ups and downs, you know how it is.'
'The nurse said that yesterday wasn't good.'
'Was it? I really don't know. Sometimes, I wonder if it would be better to just end it all.'
'Shush, Dad, who would I talk to then? Who would I visit?'
Her father laughed. 'You could try visiting a hairdresser.' A wrinkled hand reached out and mussed her hair.
The doctor had cut a chunk of her hair away as he stitched up the cut on her forehead. 'Is it that bad?'
'A butcher could have done a better job.'
They both laughed. It was good to be here with him, like this, like now, like the old days. 'I solved the case.'
'Of course, you did, I never expected anything else from my daughter. Is that where you got this?'
She nodded. 'Remember the client? Mr Hughes?'
'The one who was looking for his father?'
'That's him. Well, I found the truth for him. Turned out he was a volunteer in the Irish War of Independence. He married the sister of a man who had been shot. They had a son, my client, but then split up. Unfortunately, she died soon afterwards.'
'Of a broken heart?'
'Nobody knows. But she must have been distraught. They both loved each other very much. The boy was put in a home and later adopted by an American couple. Now here's the strange twist to this life.' Jayne paused.
'I'm waiting...'
'The American was my client's real father.'
'What? How?'
Jayne shook her head. 'I don't know. He must have arranged it through the orphanage. I guess we'll never know the real truth since all the records were destroyed in a fire in 1932. I believe he was a resourceful man, though...'
'That means he never told your client who he was...'
'True. John Hughes grew up believing he was adopted. It was one of the things that spurred him on, made him the man he is today.'
'Why didn't his father tell him the truth?'
'I don't know, we'll never know. Guilt perhaps. Or having to explain the truth about the death of John Clavell and the end of his relationship with the boy's mother. I suppose as the years went by, telling the truth became harder and harder until it became insurmountable. And of course, he may have always meant to tell John Hughes, but his death occurred before he revealed his secret. Whatever it was, John Hughes grew up not knowing who he really was.'
'It happens to a lot of us. How'd you get the bump? And don't tell me you hit your head.'
'I hit my head on a car door. Or rather my head was hit for me. John's nephew became worried about my investigation, concerned I would discover new relatives to share his uncle's fortune, he wanted all the money, felt he deserved it after all the years suffering the abuse of his uncle. So he arranged to have me...injured.' The lie came out easily for Jayne. She hoped her father didn't notice.
'What happened to him?'
'He's in a hospital now. Gunshot wound to the shoulder. He'll be charged with attempted murder.'
Her father's eyes narrowed. 'Attempted murder of whom?'
Jayne pointed to herself.
He shook his head. 'I thought when you left the police...'
Jayne laughed trying to defuse the situation. 'You know me, Dad, I attract trouble like honey attracts bees. The irony is I never found any other relatives, not close ones anyway. An aunt and a few cousins. Richard Hughes would have inherited everything anyway according to my client's will.'
'He just got too greedy. And now he's got a hole in his shoulder and a prison sentence to serve.'
'And John Hughes is changing his will. He's forming a trust to help other people, orphans and adoptees, find their parents.'
'So some good has come of having a daughter with a head as hard as a rock.' Her father went silent for a moment. 'How's Paul?'
'Still in Brussels.'
He sighed. 'You know what I mean, Jayne.'
She looked down at her bag. 'If I'm honest, not good, Dad. He wants us to move to live there. He's got a new job.'
'And you, what do you want?'
'You know, Dad, he's never asked me that.'
A large hand, freckled with the dark spots of age, touched her shoulder and ruffled her hair. 'What do you want, Jayne?'
Chapter Fifty-Three
Didsbury, Manchester. November 24, 2015.
She turned on the light in the kitchen, throwing the new mail on the kitchen top. Outside was a typical Manchester day in November. Dark. Dreary. And wet. Very wet.
She opened the fridge and took out a bottle of Rioja. She needed something deep and earthy this evening. She checked her collection of chocolate, it was getting smaller, time to be replenished. She took out a bar of the Valrhona and put it beside the wine,
Who was she? What did she want?
Questions her father had asked and she knew needed answers. She and Paul were dead. They had been dead for a long time and both knew it, but pride and a sense of duty to each other kept them together, despite the fights and the bickering. He would never have the courage to break up, she knew that. This move to Brussels was just his way of forcing her to decide, to make a decision.
She opened the wine, pouring herself a large glass. It was exactly what she needed; the sweet sun of Spain mingled with the fruit and tannins of the grape in her mouth. She snapped off a chunk of the chocolate. The two together, sheer bliss. For a moment, she was transported back to Madrid. A happier time for her and Paul, eating and drinking one evening in the Mercado, loving the noise and bustle of the place, enjoying their closeness.
She put down the glass and reached for her wallet, taking out a slim sheet of paper. There was the name of an obscure English bank at the top followed by the By Appointment logo. Beneath it lay her name and a figure repeated in words. 50,000 pounds. Fifty Thousand Pounds. Her client had been generous. John Hughes, or John Dowling as he now called himself said she deserved every penny.
'Freedom,' she said out loud to the kitchen. The money gave her freedom to be who she wanted. To live where she wanted. To do what she wanted. She would call Paul later and tell him she wasn't going to move to Brussels. He would be unhappy but he would accept her decision. It was what he wanted too, he just wasn't able to make the call.
She put the cheque down on the counter top. She would have to sort out the house with him, of course. She knew he wouldn't mind her staying here. Eventually, when they got divorced, they would have to sell it and divide the proceeds but until then it would be hers.
She opened the letters in front of her. Most were bills; water, electricity, gas, another demand from the BBC to pay the licence fee. She couldn't remember the last time she watched TV.
She picked up the last letter. Her name was handwritten in a lovely shade of mauve ink on the cover, Jayne Sinclair. No title. No Mrs. She liked it. A harbinger of the future.
The letter smelt vaguely of lilacs. She opened it, taking out the expensive writing paper inside.
Dear Jayne,
My name is Carroll Gordon. You don’t know me but I obtained your name from a mutual friend.
I have rather a strange request for you. I would like you to trace an object not a person. An object with a history and a meaning to both me and my family. An object stolen from us last year which had been in my family’s possession si
nce the expedition to sack Peking in China in 1860.
If you would like to hear more, please call me on 0275 657 4398 at your convenience.
I do look forward to working with you to find the thief.
And the object?
It was a chicken. One of the animals from the Astronomical Calendar at the Imperial Palace, removed from Peking in 1860 by my ancestor.
regards
Carroll
Jayne reached out to open her computer, realising that nothing was there. She would have to buy a new one with John Hughes' money. A top of the range MacBook Pro perhaps. Treat herself.
She looked back at the letter. It intrigued her. She would definitely take this case on.
In that moment, Jayne Sinclair knew who she was with startling clarity.
She was a Genealogical Detective, solving mysteries from the past, helping people in the present.
The thought brought a smile to her face. The cat rubbed its body against her legs and miaowed. He must be hungry again.
She raised the glass of wine to toast herself. 'Here's to a brighter future, coming from a bright past,' she said out loud.
The cat ignored her and miaowed again.
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