Dan Waddell - The Blood Detective

As he reached the edge of the market, where it met Myddelton Street, he could see Heather, hands on hips, standing by the steps and ramp that led to the entrance of the building. He increased his pace even further, his satchel bouncing rhythmically on his hip so that, by the time he reached her, he could feel his clammy shirt sticking to his back. He was struggling for breath.

'Sorry,' he gasped.

Her look was one of amusement. Her gaze was not directed at his sweating brow, however. It was below that.

'You're wearing tweed,' she said simply.

He was. Grey herringbone jacket over an open necked striped shirt, navy-blue cords. He thought it best to make an effort, even though the jacket was second-hand, and leave behind the jumpers, jeans and duffel coat.

'Is that OK?'

She nodded and shot him a smile. 'It suits you. You've got that bookish, floppy-haired thing happening.'

She was wearing a short black skirt, black tights and a pair of black knee-length boots. Nigel was worried a few of the older gentlemen who used the records centre might keel over.

'Have you two finished swapping fashion tips?' A young confident-looking Asian man in a suit, his hair gelled back, had joined them.

'Nigel, this is DC Khan,' Heather said.

The men shook hands. Despite her reassurance, Heather's look and comment had made him feel self-conscious. Given that he had yet to cool down, he wondered if his face had reddened.

'After you,' he said, and pointed his hand towards the door.

Once inside, security checked Nigel's bags and they made their way into the main area. The place was already filling up.

'I never thought this place would be so busy,'

Khan said, surveying the bustling interior. 'It's like Piccadilly Circus.'

Nigel nodded. 'You should see it at a weekend.

Fights break out over files.'

'They don't look like the sort of people who get in a ruck,' Khan said. 'More likely to bore you into submission.'

Nigel smiled, yet felt mildly insulted. Yes, he was often scathing about the sorts of people who pursued their ancestors fanatically; the type more comfortable retreating into the silent, quiescent world of the dead, rather than dwelling in the awkward, insolent present. But the world today was awash with information about the wealthy, the famous and the tawdry. Somebody has to help remember the anonymous ordinary men and women, who make the world turn.

'So what's the brief?' Khan asked, rubbing his hands together.

They moved across to one of the enclaves housing around twenty years of bound, red birth-certificate indexes, arranged chronologically on solid wooden shelves.

'I'm going to go through the birth indexes; you'll do marriage and, Heather, you're going to do death.'

'Very appropriate,' Khan muttered darkly.

'The method for searching the files is the same,'

Nigel said, eager to get started: he knew he could rattle through the birth files in a few hours.

He pulled a bulky file off the top shelf, its leather cover battered and torn by use, and put it down on an upturned V-shaped wooden desk with a lip at the bottom to prevent the volume slipping off.

'This is the birth index file for 1879, the first quarter, January to April,' he said, pointing to the print on the spine.

He opened the first page. Both Heather and Khan leaned in for a closer look. The page was smudged and grey from thousands of fingertips tracing down it in search of an elusive name, the bottom right-hand corner stiff and brittle from where people had wet their fingers to be better able to turn the page.

'Luckily for us, the entries for 1879 have been typed so they all fit in one volume.'

'There are loads of names on that page,' Khan said, without relish.

Nigel shrugged. 'The entries are listed alphabetically: first the surname, then the Christian names. But the columns we are interested in are the district and page number, 1 a 1 3 7 in this case. Whenever you see that number, jot down the details and make a note of which quarter it's in. Is that clear enough?'

'Think so,' Heather said. 'Does that apply to them all?'

'More or less. Your death indexes have an extra bit of information: age at death. Write that down, too. DC Khan, your marriage index will be the same as this index.'

'Hopefully with fewer names,' Khan replied.

Three hours later, Nigel went downstairs to the canteen.

Heather and Khan were waiting for him. Both seemed animated.

'How did it go?' he said, sitting down.

'Heather's in shock,' Khan explained.

'Why?'

'I can't believe how many kids died at birth,' she said, eyes wide. 'On every page, there must have been at least one where it said zero under "age at death".

Unbelievable. God, we have it easy. I mean, my mate Claire had a kid six months ago, and she was in labour for more than forty hours. Forty! Eventually she had an emergency Caesarean. If that had been a hundred or so years ago then the baby would have died.'

'She probably would have, too.'

Heather nodded and bit her lip. 'Shocking. And while I was facing up to the horrific reality of infant mortality in Victorian England, Simon Schama here was jotting down all the silly names he came across.'

Khan picked up his notebook. 'Listen to this: Smallpiece, ShufTlebottom, Daft . . . Daft! Come on, if your name was Daft, you'd change it, wouldn't you? But this is the best one: Fuchs. For Fuchs sake!'

He started to laugh. Nigel smiled. Heather's face remained stern.

'You're a big bloody kid, you know that?' she said, though a smile was playing on her lips. She turned once again to Nigel. 'He's like this now after less than a year as a detective. You just wait: in ten years' time he'll be as jaded and cynical as Foster.'

'But I'll have more hair.'

'Have you finished your searches?' Nigel asked.

Heather shook her head. 'I'm up to September, but that's only because the April to June file is missing.'

'Being repaired?'

'Yes, I asked at the information desk and they checked. It'll be back next Monday, all being well.

Let's hope what we need isn't in there.'

'That's quite common,' Nigel said. 'They get touched by a lot of grubby hands every day.'

'So does . . .'

'Don't even think of cracking that joke, Maj,'

Heather interrupted, raising a finger in warning.

Khan adopted a mock-angelic look. 'Would I?'

Heather ignored him.

'I've nearly finished,' he added.

'Well, I have finished so I can give you both a hand,' Nigel said.

Heather looked at him, eyebrows raised. 'That was quick.'

He shrugged. Nigel did not want to tell her that he had once searched through 163 years of indexes in 5 hours; or that he had once traced a bloodline back to 1837 in a single day, relying on his speed and a few hunches.

'Who's going to phone them through to Southport when we're done?' he asked.

'I'm going to fax them from the office here,'

Heather explained. 'I'll do them all together, so we'll hang on till we're all done.'

'Hello, Nigel.'

The voice was behind his right shoulder, out of his sight, but he recognized it instantly.

'Hi, Dave,' he said, before even looking around.

Sure enough, it was Dave Duckworth. Overweight, perennially sweaty, monobrowed Dave Duckworth.

He had worked with Nigel at the agency before the old man died.

'So, Nigel, I hear Branches Agency, like Lazarus, has risen from the dead.'

Their paths had not crossed in the three weeks since Nigel had returned.

'You hear right, Dave.'

Dave wore a look of fake surprise. 'So am I to infer that the wisdom of a certain N. Barnes failed to take the world of academia by storm?'

'Something like that.'

Dave smiled broadly, then nodded at Khan and Heather. 'But, it appears that you have been sufficiently remunerated as to actually hire some staff.'