Blood Atonement

6

Nigel had often wondered how many people had lived and died since the first man stood upright thousands and thousands of years ago. He'd seen a few estimates: the most learned and reasoned ones putting the figure between around 70 and 120 billion. Creationists -- who think the human race began in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve six thousand years ago, and believe that an Almighty flood wiped out what there was of mankind apart from Noah and his next of kin a few thousand years before Christ was born -- are more conservative and pitch their estimates around the 50 billion mark. Of those dead billions, very few left any trace of their existence. Only those born since around 1500 or 1600 are even likely to have been recorded as they passed across the earth, which means tens of billions of people are, in the eyes of the Mormon Church, 'lost souls', unable to receive the Gospel because we can never know their names and therefore never baptize them by proxy.

Yet, as Nigel knew, that still left billions of men and women and children whose brief time on the planet did go recorded. It was the task of saving those souls that the ample resources of the Mormon Church were concentrated upon. Missionaries and representatives of the Church had fanned out across the globe, filming and copying the estimated six or seven billion names stored in archives and repositories in countries worldwide. More than one and a half billion of these names had been captured on roll after roll of microfilm and stored in climate-controlled conditions in a secure granite mountain lair near Salt Lake City: a catalogue of the dead.

These names were searchable on an online database. Yet Nigel knew that was no use. It could be searched by name only and he had no names. His only option was to visit the Hyde Park family history centre, the unassuming modern building alongside the chapel Foster had visited the day before. To be able to target his search, he needed more information, and he guessed the family history centre, run by Latter-day Saints, would be the best and quickest way.

It was Monday and the centre was sparsely populated.

He found a free computer and called up the i860 US

Federal Census, the first to contain the biographical information he was seeking. A quick scan of Mormon history told him that Mormons had made their great trek west to Salt Lake City by that time, escaping persecution from other sectors of American society who believed them to be a weird cult. So he narrowed his search to Utah. He knew that the enumerators had noted down whether the person was white, black or mulatto. He knew they entered other ethnicities, too. In the keyword field, he typed 'Indian'

and hit search.

112 results.

He scanned down the list. Most of the names were children, few of them older than eighteen and rarely more than one per household. They had taken on the surname of the head of the house, all of which suggested to Nigel that they were domestic servants, or farm labourers if they were males. However, there were a handful of Indian women who were married to white men, several of them based in Green River, which another Internet search revealed to be a trading post and river crossing through which the Mormons passed on their great western hike to their haven in the desert.

Nigel jotted down all the female names, their husbands and children if they were married. Then he called up the 1870 census. Made a note of the new additions, both to the families he was aware of and any new female names of interest. Numbers had swelled, mainly because of the inclusion of an Indian settlement at Corn Creek, led by a Chief named Kanosh who lived in Teepee Number One and whose wife, under the column outlining her relationship to the head, was described as 'Squaw 1'.

He moved to the 1880 census. Again, the number had grown. The first name on the list caught his eye immediately.

Temperance, Utah. Annaleah Walker. He clicked the link and there was a screenshot of the original census page. Annaleah was twenty-four. Her occupation was listed as 'Keeping house'. Despite her age, she already had three children: John aged seven, Nathaniel aged five, Sarah aged four. The last name made his heart beat a little faster. Could it be? It would mean she was fifteen when she married, and had lied about her age. A possibility. He ploughed on.

Annaleah's relationship to the head of the household was described as 'wife'. Yet there was no mention of a husband anywhere on the page. There was another family listed below with the same surname: Clara Walker, aged twenty, a wife, also keeping house, who had one child and a domestic servant. Sisters? Widows? But the census would say that, surely? Next door was another family, with a head this time and his wife and numerous children. Nigel clicked a link to the previous page.

All became clear. There was one man, Orson Walker, aged fifty-two. He had seven wives, of which Annaleah was the sixth, and twenty-five children, with the promise of more to come seeing as four of his wives were under thirty. His mouth gaping, Nigel continued to scroll through the pages. The same seemed to be the case throughout the town of Temperance. A man aged between forty and seventy living in a house with several wives and a whole brood of children. Temperance? Nigel could see there was one activity from which they did not abstain.

He went through the whole town. There must have been around 500 people. Many women, lots of children, a number of middle-aged men but few aged between twenty and forty. He scrolled through all the pages for the town.

There were some conventionally married couples but they were in the minority. In the last house in Temperance, yet another farm, he saw another name. Horton Taylor. He was six. He had three sisters and a brother, and his father, John, had just one wife, Nancy. He scrolled back to look at Sarah's entry. Surely no coincidence? Perhaps Horton had lied about his age, too?

He checked the 1890 census. As he suspected, no Sarah, no Horton. It was all piecing together. By mid June they were in London. The Walker clan, like the rest of Temperance, seemed diminished and fractured. Orson Walker was there, though he lived in a new address with only one wife. Two of the other wives, including Annaleah, lived at separate addresses with a handful of children between them. The others had gone. He knew why: the Mormons officially renounced polygamy in 1890. The hierarchy had claimed God had spoken, though the US

government had also done so, threatening to outlaw the Church if it didn't abolish the practice outright. It appeared to have had a quick effect, Nigel noted dryly; the Walker clan was not the only one to have become more diffuse. Meanwhile, the Taylor clan had gone and Nigel was unable to trace them to another town.

He went outside, rolled himself a cigarette. He smoked thoughtfully, trying to work out where to go next. He had found them, he was sure. An Indian mother. The same first names, neither appearing on the 1890 census in any state, never mind Utah Territory. The ages did not tally, but they might have lied about those. He shook his head, marvelling at the ability of two teenagers to undertake such an epic journey.

He returned to the centre and continued working through the census. After 1890 there was no sign of Annaleah or any of her family, old or young, in Temperance, the whole of Utah or anywhere else in the United States. The same applied to 1910 and the two censuses thereafter -- the family had been erased from the records.

He entered both Sarah and Horton's names into the Family Search engine. As he expected, only their births were recorded.

He asked at the information counter if there were any other records. There was a database of Mormon pioneers, those who made the trek across the badlands to Utah between 1846 and 1868, or sailed from European shores to join this new faith. In the search field he entered the name of Orson Walker. There he was, born in Hartford, Washington, New York, in 1828. He clicked the name and was immediately presented with a page of biographical information. The son of Jared Walker and Charity Wheeler -- who died shortly after Orson's birth and was only baptized in 1963,13 5 years after her death - Orson became a Mormon at the same time as his father, in 1839, and was endowed -- a sort of initiation ceremony -- six years later in Nauvoo. The date of his death was left blank.

Nigel scrolled down the page. Each of Orson's seven wives were listed, the date of their marriage, together with the date they were 'sealed', united with each other and their children for eternity; unsealed marriages were dissolved at death.

Annaleah was there. She eventually had seven children.

Her date of birth was 1856. Her parents' names were listed as unknown, likewise her date of death. Sarah's date of birth was given and nothing else: 1876. There was more autobiographical information on her siblings, not least their date of death.

All but John, the eldest, were said to have died on the same day: 22 September 1890.

At first Nigel thought it might be a data input error, the wrong button pressed and the same date repeated. He scoured the details of the other 6 wives and 31 children of Orson Walker, the last of whom was born in 1889. Of the 42 members of the family, 18 of them were listed as dying on that autumn day. He asked but was assured the database was usually very accurate. What had happened?

He needed newspaper reports.

Every single issue of the Logan Leader (which became the Utah Journal, then the Logan Journal'and finally just The Journal in 1892) between 1879 and 1899 had been photographed and put online. Once again the energy and manpower the Latter-day Saints expended on making so much of history accessible staggered him. The nation's memory bank was being preserved and made available to all. Whatever their motives, Nigel could only applaud the results.

He went straight to 22 September 1890. By that time the newspaper was being published bi-weekly rather than weekly. He found the page and scrolled down through July and August. There was an edition on September 17th.

Another on the 20th.

The issue for Wednesday 24th was missing. The next edition also. He brought it to the attention of the staff.

Two or three gathered around and looked. Faces were pulled, heads scratched, an air of general bewilderment.

No one could come up with a reason. Nigel went outside, into the early winter gloaming, and called Donna Faugenot in Salt Lake City, a genealogist he'd never met but had often worked with, helping him out with snippets of research in the US and vice versa. He asked if she knew of any databases the Logan leadermight be on. She didn't.

Any chance she could pull the originals? Donna was a lone gun like himself but had a vast network of contacts and researchers she could call on across the USA. Leave it with me, she told him. Nigel went back in, scoured a few other indexes and databases without success. As he smoked another cigarette, by now plunged into darkness, he received a call from America.

Donna had a smoky voice and an unadorned turn of phrase he found highly appealing. From it, and the French surname, he had conjured an exotic image of her as a chain-smoking, straight-talking yet nonchalant blonde.

One day he might even find out.

'Jesus, Nigel,' she said, a whistle in her voice. What is in those damn newspaper reports?'

He laughed hesitantly. 'I have no idea. Why?'

Why? They're only locked away in probably the most secret, inaccessible place outside of Lincoln's tomb, that's why.'

'Really?'

You bet. From what you told me, I figured this was a Mormon thing. So I called the library in Salt Lake City.

They checked and got straight back to me. No, I can't see them. Then I phoned an inside contact at the library. He tells me the originals of those newspapers aren't in the usual place. They're in a vault where the Church keeps a lot of things that it doesn't want the outside world to see.'

Nigel was flummoxed. 'Is there anything I can do from here?'

Donna fell silent. 'I can send a guy up to Logan County to scout around. Ask some questions, I suppose. But as for getting those newspapers, unless you got some kind of official request you can present, and it better be pretty damn official, then you've as much chance of seeing those newspapers as I have of playing the Grand Ole Opry'

Well, I am working for the London Metropolitan Police and the newspapers could help save a fourteenyear-old girl's life and catch a killer.'

There was a pause. 'You're kidding, right?'

'No, actually, I'm being deadly serious.'

'Then you better get your sweet little Limey ass to Salt Lake City.' Another pause. 'And I better start practising the fiddle.'