Homage and Honour (20 page)

“I understand.
How do I get the information to you?”

“Same time and
place a tenday from now.”

Artur began his
hunt with the records of year ten, with the Duchesne influx into
Vadath. He found nothing in any of the three giant books. There was
nobody with the surnames Howard, Baker or Murdoch. He then moved on
to the third decade. There were Ruth’s aplenty but none of the
right age. However, it was in these birth records that he found the
first hint that he might be on the right track at last the day
before he was about to meet his employer and he worked into the
night following up the clue.

The entry
occurred in AL26 and it was an entry pertaining to the birth of a
boy, name of Joseph born to a Xavier and Ruth Kushner at a
farmstead in the North. Three of the names on the list! A trawl
through the records and he noted another child, this time a girl
named Jessica born four years later then another boy, Xavier, six
years after that, in AL36. Moving to the marriage records Artur
found the marriage lines of the daughter Jessica who married a
farmer called James Westbury in AL54. The third child Xavier
appeared to have married a Sally Westbury, cousin of the James
Westbury. He found no trace of the marriage of their eldest,
Joseph.

Interestingly,
Ruth Kushner’s date and place of birth was marked as unknown. This
was strange in itself.

The death entry
of Ruth when he eventually found it should have told him what he
needed, but it was not to be so, however, the maiden name was
Russell, another of the names on the list. Artur was sure he was on
the right track.

The following
evening Tom was more than pleased with the information Artur gave
him and passed over a jangling bag of coins. It jingled in Artur’s
hand. He would pay back the missing funds in the morning.

“The bonus is
still up for grabs,” offered Tom, an unpleasant gleam in his eyes,
“and I will double what I have given you already if you can trace
where the family is now.”

Artur realised
that there was something happening here he didn’t understand but he
was in too deep. He was beginning to feel frightened but the
prospect of so much more money was too much to resist.

“Remember,”
warned Tom, no-one must suspect what you are doing.”

“I am always
searching up the Land Registry and the others, the census records
too, they should tell us something,” was Artur’s blithe response,
no need to tell this man that he intended to ask one of the junior
clerks to continue the trawl. The boy, not the brightest, would not
ask the reason why.

“You have
another tenday,” said Tom.

For Tom the
next tendays were filled with impatience. He was close, he knew it
and a tenday to the day and at the eleventh bell he sat down again
at the scratched table.

Artur was on
time; he handed over the sealed envelope with the information and
accepted another large bag of money.

“These are the
original documents, not copies?”

“The original
copy documents,” Artur corrected, “the actual documents are in the
hands of the family concerned, but there is no way of knowing if
they still exist or not.”

“Did you manage
to find the family?” Tom pressed.

“The family are
no longer in Argyll.”

“Why is that?
Tom asked the question with care, “and when?”

“The Land
Registry records the farm as being sold and with the stock intact
in AL114.”

“You have the
document?”

“I do. The
sellers were Jessica Russell (nee Kushner, born in AL60) and her
husband, James Russell (born in AL54). Interestingly, although
Jessica was born in Argyll, James is noted as his birthplace being
in Vadath. She was the daughter of Xavier Kushner and Sally
Westbury. From the birth records I found that they, Jessica and
James Russell, had two children, a daughter, named after her mother
(born AL80) and a son named after his father (born AL84) and before
you ask, all the relevant birth, marriage and death certificates
are in the envelope. More importantly, I found out where the family
went.”

Tom leant
forward.

“Their
destination was Vadath and the reason they went was to join their
family. I presume the two children had left for Vadath in earlier
years. They might well have bonded with one of the Lind. Their
father would be sixty years old by then and perhaps was finding the
farm too much for him. There are a large number of hectares
mentioned in the land registry records.”

“Never mind
that, what else do you know?”

“I found
nothing more. The census records told me nothing I didn’t already
know. I’ve copied out the relevant entries though, thought it might
help.”

“You’ve given
me all I need Artur. I am well pleased. Now, while I look through
the papers, take a sip of that beer before you. It’s the Landlord’s
best brew. It would be a pity to let it go to waste.”

Tom took a sip
from his own glass and his informant did the same, savouring the
sharp tangy taste.

Artur did not
take another.

His body
slumped back into the chair.

Tom had access
to a myriad number of fast-acting poisons.

Tom rose to his
feet and took one last dismissive look at the body before he
slipped out of the room. Passing the Landlord he gave him the large
bag of coins that he had taken from Artur Bernardson’s lifeless
hand.

He then made
his way to the local office of the ‘Express’. There he would
complete the next stage of his investigations and at the same time
send a progress report to his employer.

Two days later
Artur’s young wife notified the authorities that her husband had
gone missing.

* * * * *

Crisis (4)

Enquiries were
set in motion.

No-one had seen
Artur since the Tenth Bell two nights previously when he had been
seen leaving his offices with a sheaf of papers under his arm.

Completely
baffled, the local police sergeant passed the case over to his
superiors.

John Branling,
the Police Superintendent of the City of Stewarton was a plain man
with a plain name. His office, to which Junior Clerk Dafid
Charleston had been summoned, was devoid of embellishment.

Dafid looked
round the office with quiet disinterest; imaginative reasoning had
never been one of his strong points.

In front of his
interviewee sat John Branling himself and his deputy, the Inspector
of Police in charge of capital offences.

“Now Dafid,”
John began in a conversational voice, “what exactly did Artur
Bernardson ask you to do? Take your time boy, we’re in no
hurry.”

Dafid was happy
to oblige. This was the most exciting thing that had happened to
him during his short life and, little imagination or not, he saw
himself dining out on this experience for many a tenday to
come.

“Did Artur
Bernardson often ask you to look up things?” queried John
Branling.

Dafid
nodded.

“Quite a lot,
yes he did sir.”

“And was this
last time in keeping with what he had asked you to look up
before?”

Dafid stared at
him, not sure what exactly the Superintendent meant.

John Branling
was a patient man. He tried a different tack.

“You’re good at
looking up things are you not?”

“Yes sir. I
take my time you see, get it right. Not like some of the
others.”

“So what did
you look up?”

“I had to go
through the census records of the Kushner farm and write down the
information; all the people that were there at the different census
times.”

“What did you
find?”

His face
screwed up in concentration, Dafid told him what he could remember,
which wasn’t much, but it was enough.

John Branling
turned to the stolid duty sergeant sitting at the door.

The sergeant
rose to his feet.

“Go get them,”
he ordered and turned again to Dafid. “Wait a moment though, Dafid,
these censuses, what years?”

Dafid thought
hard.

“AL120 I
think,” he said at last, “the first three volumes.”

“What else did
you look up?”

“Land
Registry.”

“Same farm,
same years?”

“Yes.”

“Them as well
sergeant,” John Branling instructed, “and if any of the office
officials try to make things difficult, mention my name.”

“Yes
Superintendent,” and the Sergeant was away.

John Branling
turned back to Dafid. “When the Sergeant returns, I want you to
again find for me these entries you looked up. Can you do
that?”

“Yes sir,”
grinned back Dafid. He was feeling like a real police officer.

“You’re very
important to the case, so I’m going to ask the desk to get you
something decent to eat. What do you fancy?”

Dafid was in
seventh heaven. Not only did he feel like a real live detective but
the Police Superintendent was falling over himself to be nice to
him. He would be able to dine out on this, not for tendays but
months!

While Dafid was
waiting for his meal the Superintendent and the Inspector discussed
the situation. Dafid heard nothing, lost in the land of
daydreams.

“What do you
think all this is about?” asked the Superintendent.

“It might be
related to Artur Bernardson’s disappearance,” offered the
Inspector, “might not.”

“My gut feeling
says it is,” John Branling answered, “and it’s the only lead we’ve
got. Bernardson is a clerk, deals with births, deaths and
marriages. It is definitely odd that he was interested in the
censuses, especially those of so long ago. We know he was desperate
for money, anomalies in the department’s accounts have been found
and I believe he was searching the records on behalf of someone or
someones unknown and was being paid for the information.”

“Who I
wonder?”

“If we knew
that I think we’d be much farther along with our investigation.
However, I feel sure that his employer is long departed from
Stewarton.”

It took Dafid
the rest of that day and most of the next to replicate his
findings.

The detectives
then spent the next tenday and a half tracing the names on Dafid’s
list to the indexes recording the births, deaths and marriages.

The
investigators made the not so pleasing discovery that all the copy
documents pertaining to these individuals were missing. It took
time to work this out, the checking difficulties compounded by the
fact that careless clerks over the years had replaced some copies
in the wrong places in the files. The original documents in the
land registry files relating to the Kushner farm had also
vanished.

“What is so
important about this family that he needed the original documents?”
asked a perplexed John Branling.

“I have no
idea,” said the Inspector.

“I do,
however,” answered his superior, “know a man who might be able to
help. The Kushner farm, it rang a bell from somewhere within the
depths of my memory when it first came up and now I realise where I
heard the name before and from whom.”

* * * * *

Lokthed (Third Month of Winter) –
AL156

Crisis (5)

“My man found
nothing of a Ruth Murdoch but he extended his search and, using
information I provided, he did manage to find something that
warranted further investigation.” William Duchesne picked up a
scrap of parchment, “here it is. He found the marriage lines
between one Xavier Kushner and not a Ruth Howard as I might have
expected but a Ruth Russell.” William Duchesne smiled with
satisfaction at a job well done. “I was right in thinking she would
use an assumed name but she shouldn’t have used Russell.”

“She married
the man who rescued her,” breathed Charles.

“What more?”
asked Henri.

“He traced them
all and my man is on his way here with the proof. He sent word
ahead with the salient points but thought it best to bring the
documents himself.” He waved an envelope in front them. “This
summarises the salient points.”

“Where is the
family?” asked Henri Cocteau, “in Argyll? And these proofs, can
they be verified?”

“Undeniable
proof,” affirmed William Duchesne, “birth, marriage and death
records and other back-up information.”

“And the
Argyllians gave it to him, just like that?” asked a sceptical
Charles.

William
Duchesne shook his head in denial, “they cost a fair bit,” he
admitted, “I told you that my man had bribed an official? He got
the lot, births, marriages and deaths.”

“You said that
already. You are sure that there is no way your man’s activities
can be traced back to us?”

“Absolutely not
and don’t ask any questions about how he got the information. Let
me just say that the official is no longer with us. It appears that
a drink disagreed with him. Unfortunate but necessary. My spy had
to cover his tracks because I might need him again. He also
acquired the land tenure documents, land registry records, even a
copy of the census record for the farm the family hid in.”

“How did he
discover their location?”

“It is the law
in the North,” replied William, “if selling land or property you
have to state where you are moving to. I believe it is a form of
security for the buyer. The sale document clearly said that they
were moving to Vadath and also noted the specific area and name of
the farm within Vadath.”

“Vadath? Where
exactly in Vadath?”

“My man struck
lucky. He didn’t especially want to venture into Vadath itself so,
I told you he was good, he went to that Lind messaging service of
theirs, the Express and they, all unsuspecting, sent a message to
Port Lutterell …”

“I’ve used the
service myself,” admitted Charles.