Peter James: Not Dead Enough

After only a couple of minutes, the tall, urbane figure of Clive Ravensbourne, the Superintendent Registrar, entered. He shook Grace’s hand, looking very much more at ease than on the previous occasion they had met, a couple of days ago – if a little curious.

‘Detective Superintendent, very nice to see you again. How can I help you?’

‘Thank you for coming in on a Saturday, I appreciate it.’

‘No problem. It’s a working day for me.’

‘It’s in connection with the same murder inquiry I came to see you about on Thursday,’ Grace said. ‘You kindly gave me some information about a twin. I need you to verify it for me – it’s very urgent and important to my inquiry. Certain things are just not adding up.’

‘Of course,’ Ravensbourne said. ‘Whatever I can do – I will try.’

Grace opened the folder and pointed at Brian Bishop’s birth certificate. ‘I gave you the name of this chap, Desmond Jones, and asked if you could establish if he had a twin, and the twin’s birth name. There were twenty-seven possible babies all with the same surname. You suggested you could bypass having to go through each one simply by looking up the records from the index number on the birth certificate.’

Ravensbourne nodded emphatically. ‘Yes, correct.’

‘Could I ask you to double-check for me?’

‘Of course.’

Ravensbourne took the birth certificate and went out of the room. A couple of minutes later he returned with the large dark red, leather-bound registry book, put it down with the birth certificate next to it and leafed through it anxiously. Then he stopped and checked the birth certificate again. ‘Desmond William Jones, mother Eleanor Jones, born at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, 7 September 1964 at three forty-seven a.m. And it says Adopted , right? This is the right chap?’

‘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: Norman John Jones, mother Eleanor Jones, born at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, 7 September 1964 at four twenty-four a.m .

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 Argus newspaper sped past Roy Grace’s eyes. He sat hunched in front of the microfiche unit in the Brighton and Hove Reference Library, scrolling through the film containing the 1964 editions, slowing down occasionally to check the dates. April . . . June . . . July . . . August . . . September.

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: Miracle Babies Survive Horror Death Crash . And there was another photograph, of an attractive, dark-haired woman in her mid-twenties. Grace read every word of the article straight through, twice. His eyes went back to the picture of the babies in the incubator, to the woman’s face, to the car, then he read the words again, cutting through the sensational adjectives, just picking up the facts.

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?’

‘PC Packer? OK. He’s been released from hospital, but he has quite severe burns on his face and hands.’

Grace thanked him for the information, then called Loretta Leberknight. When he told her what had happened she laughed sympathetically. ‘I’ve known that before,’ she said.

‘There’s one thing that’s bothering me, though,’ Grace said. ‘His first two names, Norman John . When we spoke originally, you told me that adoptive parents change their names, or perhaps move the birth name to a middle name. In this instance he has both names. Is there any significance?’

‘None,’ she said. ‘Most parents change but some don’t. Sometimes if a child isn’t adopted for a while they go to a care home – foster parents – and then they’ll probably end up keeping their birth Christian names.’

Grace bumped straight into Glenn Branson as he headed across to his office.

‘What you looking so pleased about, old-timer?’ Branson asked.