Name To a Face

EIGHTEEN

Lincoln was a step further back into winter compared even with London. A pall of gunmetal-grey hung over the city and an east wind chilled Harding to the bone as he climbed the hill towards the cathedral. A guilty conscience about his failure to contact Barney or Carol, especially Carol, was also gnawing at him, but there was little he could do to ward that off either. He had phoned Luc before leaving London to tell him his return would be delayed, news the young man had greeted with his customary sangfroid, un-dented even by an instruction to deny he had heard from Harding if questioned by Barney. Luc’s casual “D’accord, d’accord” had made such tactics sound so trivial and reasonable that Harding could almost believe they were. But only almost.

Harding had time for a sandwich and a pint in a pub before his appointment. The Herbert Shelkin Genealogical Research and Advice Service was housed in a first-floor room above a gift shop. The threadbare stair carpet and damp-stained wallpaper suggested running costs were kept to a minimum. The office itself was chilly, cramped and cheaply furnished, the air laden with stale cigarette smoke.

Shelkin was a concavely thin man of seventy or so, his skin matching the grey of his shabby clothes and improbably luxuriant hair. His features had a bloodhound look to them, thanks to oversized nose and ears and frown-lines heavily entrenched around his mouth. Even his eyes were those of a lugubrious tracker. He was sitting at his desk, tapping at a computer, when Harding entered, though stacks of files and papers ranged across the floor and a phalanx of filing cabinets along one wall suggested he made as much use of old technology as new.

“Mr. Harding,” he said, removing a nearly expired cigarette from between his lips as his gaze swung up from the screen. “Come in.” He stubbed out the cigarette in a butt-filled ashtray and half rose. They shook hands. “Take a seat.”

Harding sat down on the rickety chair facing Shelkin across the desk. “Thanks for seeing me,” he said, with what he hoped was an ingratiating smile.

“No problem. I do most of my business through this thing these days.” Shelkin waggled a bony finger at the computer. “Personal consultations have become a rarity.”

“Well, thanks anyway.”

“Now, you said you aren’t enquiring about your own family.”

“Correct.”

“Pity. Harding’s an Old English name. Literally, son of a herdsman. Solid yeoman stock. You wouldn’t have Huguenot blood on your mother’s side, would you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Only, Huguenot lineage is my speciality.”

“So I believe.”

“Ah yes. You also said I came recommended. Who by, may I ask?”

“A friend of a friend. The thing is-”

“Ann Gashry” Herbert Shelkin smiled thinly in the silence that followed, then reached for the pack of cigarettes at his elbow, flipped up the lid and proffered it to Harding. “Smoke?”

“No, thanks,” Harding murmured, as his mind raced to cope with the realization that somehow Shelkin had rumbled him.

“I was lucky enough to get out of the Civil Service before the healthier-than-thou brigade forced the likes of me to skulk on the street.” Shelkin lit up and waved the match until it was extinguished, then snapped it between his fingers and dropped it into the ashtray. “I find tobacco helps me think. People don’t travel hundreds of miles to see me, Mr. Harding. I’m good at what I do. It’s given me a purpose in life since I retired. But I don’t have clients flocking to my door from all corners of the country. It just doesn’t happen. So, your visit has to have some deeper purpose than an idle interest in your family tree.”

“Yes, well… it does.”

“Indeed. And since it comes in the same week as the theft of an emerald-and-diamond ring from the late Gabriel Tozer’s house in Penzance, I thought I knew what it was even before you arrived. Your reaction to my mention of Miss Gashry’s name confirms it.”

“How did you… hear about the theft?”

“There are no secrets in cyberspace. Isbisters’ catalogues are accessible online. The abrupt withdrawal of Lot 641 from yesterday’s auction didn’t go unnoticed.”

“I can’t believe they broadcast the reason for its withdrawal over the Internet.”

“They didn’t. But I have my sources. One of them tells me a man called Harding was due to buy the ring on behalf of Barney Tozer, Gabriel’s expatriate nephew.”

Harding could not suppress a sigh of resignation. The game appeared to be up. “I see.”

“I’m glad you do.”

“Who is your source?”

“That would be telling. And I think it’s your turn to tell. Why are you here?”

“I’m trying to find out why the ring was stolen, Mr. Shelkin. And who stole it.”

“Did Miss Gashry accuse me, perhaps?”

“Certainly not.”

“You’re a poor liar, Mr. Harding.” Shelkin drew deeply on his cigarette. “But that’s no bad thing. Let me see if I’ve understood your predicament. You’re in hock in some way to Barney Tozer.”

“No.”

“You owe him a favour, then. Something of the sort, at any rate. The favour was to represent him at the auction and buy the ring. But the ring’s been taken from under your nose. You’ve heard the sad tale of Kerry Foxton and you think there’s a connection. You’ve gone to see Ann Gashry and she’s told you… what? All about her ancestor, Francis Gashry?”

“Yes.”

“All she knows, anyway. I should never have shown her the report. She convinced Miss Foxton I had the missing pages. Perhaps she’s convinced you too. It isn’t true. They were missing when I found the document, forty-two years ago, lying neglected in the Admiralty archives. My curiosity was aroused at once. There’s nothing like a gap in the record to whet the appetite.”

“And has your curiosity ever been satisfied?”

“No. It hasn’t.”

“Who could’ve taken the pages?”

“Anyone with access to the archives, in theory. But it seems more likely to me that the pages were removed when the report was submitted-or shortly after.”

“Who’d have done that?”

“The man it was submitted to is the most obvious candidate. Sir Charles Wager, First Lord of the Admiralty. A Cornishman, as it happens. Born West Looe, 1666. Acquired a large estate nearby in later life, Kilmenath, bought with some of the colossal fortune he obtained in prize-money from the capture of a Spanish treasure fleet. Also the local MP. A man of substance. A man of few words. A man of mystery.”

“Why should he have removed part of the report?”

“Who can say? But Francis Gashry’s career started to take off straight after his mission to Penzance. He was Assistant Secretary to the Admiralty within two years. Within five he was Commissioner of the Navy MP for East Looe and husband of the wealthy young widow of Wager’s nephew, through whom he ultimately inherited Kilmenath. Not bad for the son of a penniless Huguenot refugee. Not bad at all.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Wager all but adopted Gashry as his son and heir, buying his lifelong loyalty-and silence-on whatever subject it was required.”

“Why should it be required where Godfrey Shillingstone’s Scillonian researches were concerned?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Harding. But if Gashry’s theory was correct, the theft of the ring from Castle Horneck was intended to disguise the theft of something else. Something Shillingstone had brought back with him from the Scillies. Something more than geological specimens.”

“What could that have been?”

“I can only repeat myself: I don’t know. As I told Miss Gashry and Miss Foxton when they came to see me seven years ago.”

“But that’s not all you told them. You warned Kerry off. You described the subject as ‘dangerous ground’.”

“Did I?” Shelkin frowned. “I don’t recall.”

“Come off it. You recall everything.” Harding leant across the desk. He sensed he might be able to gain the upper hand after all. “What makes it dangerous ground?”

Shelkin’s lips tightened into a pout. He played for time by flicking ash off his cigarette and taking a long drag on it. Then his expression softened appeasingly. “There’s no danger that I know of. My warning was a clumsy attempt to discourage Miss Foxton from prying further into a puzzle I still had high hopes of solving. She was a journalist. I didn’t want all my painstaking work scooped by her.” He shrugged. “It’s a bitter irony that she subsequently died in circumstances Miss Gashry interpreted as proving there was substance to my warning. But there wasn’t. How could there be?”

“You tell me.”

“It can’t possibly matter to anyone today what Shilling-stone was up to, Mr. Harding. It’s interesting, but inconsequential. Historically speaking, it’s a byway of a byway.”

“How come your ‘painstaking work’ has never got to the bottom of it?”

“Simple lack of evidence. I’ve explored every avenue. They’ve all turned out to be cul-de-sacs.”

“Tell me about some of them.”

“To what purpose?”

“To convince me they really were cul-de-sacs.”

“Good God, this is intolerable.” Shelkin angrily stubbed out his cigarette, the modest effort of which sparked a coughing fit. He braced himself against the edge of the desk as the fit slowly subsided, along with his indignation. There was a long pause as he recovered his breath. Then he started speaking quickly, in a clipped, matter-of-fact tone. “Shillingstone’s exchange of letters with Lord Godolphin, in which he’s given carte blanche to delve where he likes on the Scillies, yields no hint of what he hoped to find there. The second earl was a notoriously incurious man and seems to have granted permission largely because of Shillingstone’s persistence. Shillingstone’s papers were donated after his death to his old college at Oxford, but were destroyed in a clear-out in the nineteenth century. William Borlase’s Cornish Antiquities, published 1754, refers to Shillingstone’s work on the Scillies as ‘unprofitable’ without elaboration. And my extensive explorations of later generations of the Shillingstone family have turned up precisely nothing. Need I say more?”

“Is there any more to be said?”

“Oh, one thing, yes.” Shelkin sighed heavily. “You may as well know. I sense you won’t be satisfied until you do. Miss Foxton came back to see me, on her own, a few days after her visit with Miss Gashry She demanded to know what justification I had for warning her off. I was in no position to give her a satisfactory answer, of course. The post had just arrived that morning and was lying here on my desk, opened but unread. I offered her a cup of coffee in an attempt to lighten the mood. I keep the kettle over there.” He gestured towards the last filing cabinet in the row, on which stood a tray bearing cups and saucers, coffee jar and milk bottle, next to an electric kettle. “While my back was turned, she stole one of the letters. It must have caught her eye while we were talking. And she must have moved very quickly.” He sighed. “Never trust a journalist.”

“How do you know she stole it?”

“Her father returned it to me after her death. He’d found it amongst her possessions. He naturally had no idea how she’d come by it. Borrowed, he assumed. But no. It was stolen. And that morning when she came here has to have been when it happened.”

“Who was the letter from?”

“A man called Norman Buller, whose ancestor the Reverend William Buller was executor of Francis Gashry’s will. Mr. Buller had come across my article in the Huguenot Association journal mentioning Gashry while researching his family tree on the Internet. The Reverend Buller’s brother John was joint MP with Gashry for East Looe-multi-seat constituencies were common in those days-and hence a close political associate. Mr. Buller had a cache of papers left by Gashry at his death and preserved by his executor. He wondered if I wanted to look through them. Obviously, I did. They might conceivably have included a complete version of Gashry’s report on the Shillingstone affair. There would have been two copies, one for Wager’s personal attention, one for the file. Wager’s copy could plausibly have wound up in Gashry’s possession. So, I hastened to Mr. Buller’s door. Miss Foxton had been there before me, as I feared, passing herself off as my assistant. The papers were humdrum stuff: letters from John Buller about constituency management and details of Gashry’s subscriptions to government loans. Hardly anything related to his Admiralty career. There were a great many documents, however, and Mr. Buller didn’t claim to have read all of them. From which followed, of course, the dismal conclusion that he couldn’t be sure Miss Foxton hadn’t removed any during her visit. She’d been left alone with the papers for an hour or more, apparently. He insisted he’d have noticed any attempt on her part to remove some of them, but I wasn’t convinced.”

“If she had taken something, surely it would have been discovered amongst her possessions after her death, like Buller’s letter.”

“My thought exactly. But her father insisted there was nothing else and his distressed condition discouraged me from persisting with my enquiries. I did contact an amateur historian who’d been with Miss Foxton at the time of her accident, but-”

“John Metherell.”

“Yes. You know him?”

“I’ve met him. He’s writing a book about the wreck of the Association.”

“So I believe. Anyway, he couldn’t help me. Miss Foxton’s discussions with him had been limited to the Association story. The friend Miss Foxton had been staying with on St. Mary’s said Mr. Foxton had taken everything of his daughter’s away with him. It was a dead end.”

“You gave up?”

“I had to. Just as you’ll have to give up trying to find the Tozers’ ring. Eventually.” Shelkin lit another cigarette and inhaled cautiously. “When the time comes, you’ll know. Believe me. I speak from experience.”