Butchers and Other Stories of Crime

How Mr Smith Traced His Ancestors

Most of the passengers were looking right, treating themselves to the breath-catching view of San Francisco Bay that the captain of the 747 had invited them to enjoy. Not Eva. Her eyes were locked on the lighted no-smoking symbol and the order to fasten seat belts. Until that was switched off she could not think of relaxing. She knew that the take-off was the most dangerous part of the flight, and it was a delusion to think you were safe the moment the plane was airborne-. She refused to be distracted. She would wait for the proof that the take-off had been safely accomplished: the switching off of that small, lighted sign.

‘Your first time?’ The man on her left spoke with a West Coast accent. She had sensed that he had been waiting to speak since they took their seats, darting glances her way. Probably he was just friendly like most San Franciscans she had met on the trip, but she could not possibly start a conversation now.

Without turning, she mouthed a negative.

‘I mean your first time to England,’ he went on. ‘Anyone can see you’ve flown before, the way you put your hand luggage under the seat before they even asked us, and fixed your belt. I just wondered if this is your first trip to England.’

She didn’t want to seem ungracious. He was obviously trying to put her at ease. She smiled at the no-smoking sign and nodded. It was, after all, her first flight in this direction. The fact that she was English and had just been on a business trip to California was too much to explain.

‘Mine, too,’ he said. ‘Promised myself this for years. My people came from England, you see, forty, fifty years back. All dead now, the old folk. I’m the only one of my family left, and I ain’t so fit myself.’ He planted his hand on his chest. ‘Heart condition.’

Eva gave a slight start as an electronic signal sounded and the light went off on the panel she was watching. A stewardess’s voice announced that it was now permissible to smoke in the seats reserved for smoking, to the back of the cabin. Seat belts could also be unfastened. Eva closed her eyes a moment and felt the tension ease.

‘The doc says I could go any time,’ her companion continued. ‘I could have six months or six years. You know how old I am? Forty-two. When you hear something like that at my age it kinda changes your priorities. I figured I should do what I always promised myself — go to England and see if I had any people left over there. So here I am, and I feel like a kid again. Terrific.’

She smiled, mainly from the sense of release from her anxiety at the take-off, but also at the discovery that the man she was seated beside was as generous and open in expression as he was in conversation. In no way was he a predatory male. She warmed to him — his shining blue eyes in a round, tanned face topped with a patch of hair like cropped corn, his small hands holding tight to the armrests, his check Levi shirt bulging over the seat belt he had not troubled to unclasp. ‘You on a vacation too?’ he asked.

She felt able to respond now. ‘Actually I live in England.’

‘You’re English? How about that!’ He made it sound like one of the more momentous discoveries of his life, oblivious that there must have been at least a hundred Britons on the flight. ‘You’ve been on vacation in California, and now you’re travelling home?’

There was a ten-hour flight ahead of them, and Eva’s innately shy personality flinched at the prospect of an extended conversation, but the man’s candour deserved an honest reply. ‘Not exactly a vacation. I work in the electronics industry. My company wants to make a big push in the production of microcomputers. They sent me to see the latest developments in your country.’

‘Around Santa Clara?’

‘That’s right,’ said Eva, surprised that he should know. ‘Are you by any chance in electronics?’

He laughed. ‘No, I’m just one of the locals. The place is known as Silicon Valley, did you know that? I’m in farming, and I take an interest in the way the land is used. Excuse me for saying this: you’re pretty young to be representing your company on a trip like this.’

‘Not so young really. I’m twenty-eight.’ But she understood his reaction. She herself had been amazed when the Director of Research had called her into his office and asked her to make the trip. Some of her colleagues were equally astonished. The most incredulous was her flat-mate, Janet, suave, sophisticated Janet, who was on the editorial side at the Sunday Telegraph, and had been on assignments to Dublin, Paris and Geneva, and was always telling Eva how deadly dull it was to be confined to an electronics lab.

‘Wish I were twenty-eight,’ said her fellow traveller. ‘That was the year I was married. Patty was a wonderful wife to me. We had some great times.’

He paused in a way that begged Eva’s next question. ‘Something went wrong?’

‘She went missing three years back. Just disappeared. No note. Nothing. I came home one night and she was gone.’

‘That’s terrible.’

‘It broke me up. There was no accounting for it. We were very happily married.’

‘Did you tell the police?’

‘Yes, but they have hundreds of missing persons on their files. They got nowhere. I have to presume she is dead. Patty was happy with me. We had a beautiful home and more money than we could spend. I own two vineyards, big ones. We had grapes in California before silicon chips, you know.’

She smiled, and as it seemed that he didn’t want to speak any more about his wife, she said, ‘People try to grow grapes in England, but you wouldn’t think too much of them. When I left London the temperature was in the low fifties, and that’s our so-called summer.’

‘I’m not too interested in the weather. I just want to find the place where all the records of births, marriages and deaths are stored, so I can find if I have any family left.’

Eva understood now. This was not just the trip to England to acquire a few generations of ancestors and a family coat of arms. Here was a desperately lonely man. He had lost his wife and abandoned hope of finding her. But he was still searching for someone he could call his own.

‘Would that be Somerset House?’

His question broke through her thoughts.

‘Yes. That is to say, I think the records are kept now in a building in Kings way, just a few minutes’ walk from there. If you asked at Somerset House, they’d tell you.’

‘And is it easy to look someone up?’

‘It should be, if you have names and dates.’

‘I figured I would start with my grandfather. He was born in a village called Edgecombe in Dorset in 1868, and he had three older brothers. Their names were Matthew, Mark and Luke, and I’m offering no prize for guessing what Grandfather was called. My pa was given the same name and so was I. Each of us was an only child. I’d like to find out if any of Grandfather’s brothers got married and had families. If they did, it’s possible that I have some second cousins alive somewhere. Do you think I could get this information?’

‘Well, it’s all there somewhere,’ said Eva.

‘Does it take long?’

‘That’s up to you. You have to find the names in the index first. That can take some time, depending how common the name is. Unfortunately they’re not computerised. You just have to work through the lists.’

‘You’re serious?’

‘Absolutely. There are hundreds of enormous books full of names.’

For the first time in the flight, his brow creased into a frown.

‘Is something wrong?’ asked Eva.

‘Just that my name happens to be Smith.’

Janet thought it was hilarious when Eva told her. ‘All those Smiths! How long has he got, for God’s sake?’

‘In England? Three weeks, I think.’

‘He could spend the whole time working through the index and still get nowhere. Darling, have you ever been there? The scale of the thing beggars description. I bet he gives up on the first day.’

‘Oh, I don’t think he will. This was very important to him.’

‘Whatever for? Does he hope to get a title out of it? Lord Smith of San Francisco?’

‘I told you. He’s alone in the world. His wife disappeared. And he has a weak heart. He expects to die soon.’

‘Probably when he tries to lift one of those index volumes off the shelf,’ said Janet. ‘He must be out of his mind.’ She could never fathom why other people didn’t conform to her ideas of the way life should be conducted.

‘He’s no fool,’ said Eva. ‘He owns two vineyards, and in California that’s big business.’

‘A rich man?’ There was a note of respect in Janet’s voice.

‘Very.’

‘That begins to make sense. He wants his fortune to stay in the family — if he has one.’

‘He didn’t say that, exactly.’

‘Darling, it’s obvious. He’s over here to find his people and see if he likes them enough to make them his beneficiaries.’ Her lower lip pouted in a way that was meant to be amusing, but might have been involuntary. ‘Two vineyards in California! Someone stands to inherit all that, and doesn’t know a thing about it!’

‘If he finds them,’ said Eva. ‘From what you say, the chance is quite remote.’

‘Just about impossible, the way he’s going about it. You say he’s starting with the grandfather and his three brothers, and hoping to draw up a family tree. It sounds beautiful in theory, but it’s a lost cause. I happen to know a little about this sort of thing. When I was at Oxford I got involved in organising an exhibition to commemorate Thomas Hughes — Tom Brown’s Schooldays, right? I volunteered to try and find his descendants, just to see if they had any unpublished correspondence or photographs in the family. It seemed a marvellous idea at the time, but it was hopeless. I did the General Register Office bit, just like your American, and I discovered you simply cannot trace people that way. You can work backwards if you know the names and ages of the present generation, but it’s practically impossible to do it in reverse. That was with a name like Hughes. Imagine the problems with Smiths.’

Eva could see that Janet was right. She pictured John Smith III at his impossible task, and she was touched with pity. ‘There must be some other way he could do this.’

Janet grinned. ‘Like working through the phone book, ringing up all the Smiths?’

‘I feel really bad about this. I encouraged him.’

‘Darling, you couldn’t have done anything else. If this was the guy’s only reason for making the trip, you couldn’t tell him to abandon it before the plane touched down at Heathrow. Who knows — he might have incredible luck and actually chance on the right name.’

‘That would be incredible.’

Janet took a sip of the Californian wine Eva had brought back as duty-free. ‘Actually, there is another way.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Through parish records. He told you his grandfather was born somewhere in Dorset.’

‘Edgecombe.’

‘And the four brothers were named after the gospel writers, so it’s a good bet they were Church of England. Did all the brothers live in Edgecombe?’

‘I think so.’

‘Then it’s easy! Start with the baptisms. When was his grandfather born?’

‘1868.’

‘Right. Look up the Edgecombe baptisms for 1868. There can’t be so many John Smiths in a small Dorset village. You’ll get the father’s name in the register — he signs it, you see — and then you can start looking through other years for the brothers’ entries. That’s only the beginning. There are the marriage registers and the banns. If the Edgecombe register doesn’t have them, they could be in an adjoining parish.’

‘Hold on, Janet. You’re talking as if I’m going off to Dorset myself.’

Janet’s eyes shone. ‘Eva, you don’t need to go there. The Society of Genealogists in Kensington has copies of thousands of parish registers. Anyone can go there and pay a fee for a few hours in the library. I’ve got the address somewhere.’ She got up and went to her bookshelf.

‘Don’t bother,’ said Eva. ‘It’s John Smith who needs the information, not me, and I wouldn’t know how to find him now. He didn’t tell me where he’s staying. Even if I knew, I’d feel embarrassed getting in contact again. It was just a conversation on a plane.’

‘Eva, I despair of you. When it comes to the point, you’re so deplorably shy. I can tell you exactly where to find him: in the General Register Office in Kingsway, working through the Smiths. He’ll be there for the next three weeks if someone doesn’t help him out.’

‘Meaning me?’

‘No, I can see it’s not your scene. Let’s handle this another way. Tomorrow I’ll take a long lunch break and pop along to the Society of Genealogists to see if they have a copy of the parish registers for Edgecombe. If they haven’t, or there’s no mention of the Smith family, we’ll forget the whole thing.’

‘But if you do find something?’

‘Then we’ll consider what to do next.’ Casually, Janet added, ‘You know, I wouldn’t mind telling him myself.’

‘But you don’t know him.’

‘You could tell me what he looks like.’

‘How would you introduce yourself?’

‘Eva, you’re so stuffy! It’s easy in a place like that, where everyone is shoulder to shoulder at the indexes.’

‘You make it sound like a cocktail bar.’

‘Better.’

Eva couldn’t help smiling.

‘Besides,’ said Janet. ‘I do have something in common with him. My mother’s maiden name was Smith.’

The search rooms of the General Register Office were filled with the steady sound of index volumes being lifted from the shelves, deposited on the reading tables and then returned. There was an intense air of industry as the searchers worked up and down the columns of names, stopping only to note some discovery that usually was marked by a moment of reflection, followed by redoubled activity.

Janet had no trouble recognising John Smith. He was where she expected to find him: at the indexes of births for 1868. He was the reader with one volume open in front of him that he had not exchanged in ten minutes. Probably not all morning. His stumpy right hand, wearing three gold rings, checked the rows of Victorian copperplate at a rate appropriate to a marathon effort. But when he turned a page he shook his head and sighed.

Eva had described him accurately enough without really conveying the total impression he made on Janet. Yes, he was short and slightly overweight and his hair was cut to within a half-inch of his scalp, yet he had a teddy-bear quality that would definitely help Janet to be warm towards him. Her worry had been that he would be too pitiable.

She waited for the person next to him to return a volume, then moved to his side, put down the notebook she had brought, and asked him, ‘Would you be so kind as to keep my place while I look for a missing volume? I think someone must have put it back in the wrong place.’

He looked up, quite startled to be addressed. ‘Why, sure.’ Janet thanked him and walked round to the next row of shelves.

In a few minutes she was back. ‘I can’t find it. I must have spent twenty minutes looking for it, and my lunch-hour will be over soon.’

He kept his finger against the place of birth he had reached and said, ‘Maybe I could help. Which one are you looking for, miss?’

‘Could you? It’s P to S for the second quarter of 1868.

‘Really? I happen to have it right here.’

‘Oh, I didn’t realise...’ Janet managed to blush a little.

‘Please.’ He slid the book in front of her. ‘Go ahead; I have all day for this. Your time is more valuable than mine.’

‘Well, thank you.’ She turned a couple of pages. ‘Oh dear, this is going to be much more difficult than I imagined. Why did my mother have to be born with a name as common as Smith?’

‘Your name is Smith?’ He beamed at the discovery, then nodded. ‘I guess it’s not such a coincidence.’

‘My mother’s name, actually. I’m Janet Murdoch.’

‘John Smith.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m a stranger here myself, but if I can help in any way...’

Janet said, ‘I’m interested in tracing my ancestors, but looking at this, I think I’d better give up. My great-grandfather’s name was Matthew Smith, and there are pages and pages of them. I’m not even sure of the year he was born. It was either 1868 or 1869.’

‘Do you know the place he was born?’

‘Somewhere in Dorset. Wait, I’ve got it written here.’ She opened the notebook to the page where she had made her notes at the Society of Genealogists. ‘Edgecombe.’

‘May I see that?’ John Smith held it and his hand shook. ‘Janet, I’m going to tell you something that you’ll find hard to believe.’

He took her to lunch at Rules. It tested her nerve as he questioned her about Matthew Smith of Edgecombe, but she was well prepared. She said she knew there had been four brothers, only she was deliberately vague about their names. Two, she said, had married, and she was the solitary survivor of Matthew’s line.

John Smith ate very little lunch. Most of the time, he sat staring at Janet and grinning. He was very like a teddy bear. She found it pleasing at first, because it seemed to show he was a little light-headed at the surprise she had served him. As the meal went on, it made her feel slightly uneasy, as if he had something in mind that she had not foreseen.

‘I have an idea,’ he said, just before they got up to leave, ‘only I hope you won’t get me wrong, Janet. What I would like is to go out to Dorset at the weekend and find Edgecombe, and have you come with me. Maybe we could locate the church and see if they still have a record of our people. Would you come with me?’

It suited her perfectly. The parish records would confirm everything she had copied at the Society of Genealogists. Any doubts John Smith might have of her integrity would be removed. And if her information on the Smiths of Edgecombe was shown to be correct, no suspicion need arise that she was not related to them at all. John Smith would accept her as his sole surviving relative. He would return to California in three weeks with his quest accomplished. Sooner or later Janet would inherit two vineyards and a fortune.

‘It’s a wonderful idea! I’ll be delighted to come.’

Nearly a fortnight passed before Eva started to be anxious about Janet’s absence. Once or twice before, she had gone away on assignments for the newspaper without saying that she was going: secretly Eva suspected she did it to make her work seem more glamorous — the sudden flight to an undisclosed destination on a mission so delicate that it could not be whispered to a friend. But this time the Sunday Telegraph called to ask why Janet had not been seen at the office for over a week.

When they called again a day or two later, and Eva still had no news, she decided she had no choice but to make a search of Janet’s room for some clues as to her whereabouts. At least she would see which clothes Janet had taken — whether she had packed for a fortnight’s absence. With luck she might find a note of the flight number.

The room was in its usual disorder, as if Janet had just gone for a shower and would sweep in at any moment in her white Dior bathrobe. By the phone, Eva found the calendar Janet used to jot down appointments. There was no entry for the last fortnight. On the dressing table was her passport. The suitcase she always took on trips of a week or more was still on top of the wardrobe.

Janet was not the sort of person you worried over, but this was becoming a mystery. Eva systematically searched the room, and found no clue. She phoned the Sunday Telegraph and told them she was sorry she could not help. As she put down the phone, her attention was taken by the letters beside it. She had put them there herself, the dozen or so items of mail that had arrived for Janet.

Opening someone else’s private correspondence was a step up from searching their room, and she hesitated. What right had she to do such a thing? She could tell by the envelopes that two were from the Inland Revenue, and she put them back by the phone. Then she noticed one addressed by hand. It was postmarked Edgecombe, Dorset.

Her meeting with the friendly Californian named John Smith had been pushed to the edge of her memory by more immediate matters, and it took a few moments’ thought to recall the significance of Edgecombe. Even then, she was baffled. Janet had told her that Edgecombe was a dead end. She had checked it at the Society of Genealogists. It had no parish register because there was no church there. They had agreed to drop their plan to help John Smith trace his ancestors.

But why should Janet receive a letter from Edgecombe?

Eva decided to open it.

The address on the headed notepaper was The Vicarage, Edgecombe, Dorset.

A dead end? No church in Edgecombe?

Eva decided to go there herself.

The Vicar of Edgecombe had no difficulty in remembering Janet’s visit. ‘Yes, Miss Murdoch called on a Saturday afternoon. At the time, I was conducting a baptism, but they waited until it was over and I took them to the vicarage for a cup of tea.’

‘She had someone with her?’

‘Her cousin.’

‘Cousin?’

‘Well, I gather he was not a first cousin, but they were related in some way. He was from America, and his name was John Smith. He was very appreciative of everything I showed him. You see, his father and his grandfather were born here, so I was able to look up their baptisms and their marriages in the register. It goes back to the sixteenth century. We’re very proud of our register.’

‘I’m sure you must be. Tell me, did Janet — Miss Murdoch — claim to be related to the Smiths of Edgecombe?’

‘Certainly. Her great-grandfather, Matthew Smith, is buried in the churchyard. He was the brother of the American gentleman’s grandfather, if I have it right.’

Eva felt the anger like a kick in the stomach. Not only had Janet Murdoch deceived her. She had committed an appalling fraud on a sweet-natured man. And Eva herself had passed on the information that enabled her to do it. She would never forgive her for this.

‘That’s the only Smith grave we have in the churchyard,’ the Vicar continued. ‘When I first got Miss Murdoch’s letter, I had hopes of locating the stones of the two John Smiths, the father and grandfather of our American visitor, but it was not to be. They were buried elsewhere.’

Something in the Vicar’s tone made Eva ask, ‘Do you know where they were buried?’

‘Yes, indeed. I got it from Mr Harper, the Sexton. He’s been here much longer than I.’

There was a pause.

‘Is it confidential?’ Eva asked.

‘Not really.’ The Vicar eased a finger round his collar, as if it were uncomfortable. ‘It was information that I decided in the circumstances not to volunteer to Miss Murdoch and Mr Smith. You are not one of the family yourself?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Then I might as well tell you. It appears that the first John Smith developed some form of insanity. He was given to fits of violence and became quite dangerous. He was committed to a private asylum in London and died there a year or two later. His only son, the second John Smith, also ended his life in distressing circumstances. He was convicted of murdering two local girls by strangulation, and there was believed to have been a third, but the charge was never brought. He was found guilty but insane, and sent to Broadmoor. To compound the tragedy, he had a wife and baby son. They went to America after the trial.’ The Vicar gave a shrug. ‘Who knows whether the child was ever told the truth about his father, or his grandfather, for that matter? Perhaps you can understand why I was silent on the matter when Mr Smith and Miss Murdoch were here. I may be old-fashioned, but I think the pyschiatrists make too much of heredity, don’t you? If you took it seriously, you’d think no woman was safe with Mr Smith.’

From the vicarage, Eva went straight to the house of the Edgecombe police constable and told her story.

The officer listened patiently. When Eva had finished, he said, ‘Right, miss. I’ll certainly look into it. Just for the record: this American — what did he say his name was?’