Chapter Twenty-Two
Gabe left the hotel foyer and crossed the courtyard into a large single-storey brick building. It had clearly been constructed in the seventies and owed all its charms to that decade. When the convent had been renovated into a hotel, the architects had done all they could to improve it by surrounding it with high hedges, so that no one outside would have to look at it, and those inside would hopefully be too preoccupied to have noticed the loss of any view. Inside it was basically a large reading room with long desks with microfiche readers set up, and rows of shelves lined with bound newspapers lying spine down. There was a smaller section for books, but the majority of the shelves were lined with box files.
There was a reception desk but there was no one at it. Gabe wandered in and heard voices as he passed the vacant tables. Apart from the voices coming from the shelves the room seemed empty. As he got closer, he could hear Letta’s voice murmuring softly, then pausing to listen to the reply. He walked down a corridor flanked by tall shelves and saw an open door at the end. Walking through, he found himself in a large room of map drawers and filing cabinets.
‘Hello, Gabe,’ said Letta with a smile, ‘isn’t this place incredible? Talk about off the grid.’
‘One day we’ll get it all digitised but we’re starting with the oldest stuff first to avoid further wear,’ Mrs Devaney said, shrugging her shoulders apologetically. ‘In the meantime, if you are after recent records then you have to use the CD-ROMs and fiches. You also have access to the online national database, which speeds it up a bit, but not much as you are looking through modern records and lots of that is restricted.’
She held up a birth certificate and looked at it. From her brief glance it was clear to Gabe that she had already examined it.
‘You’ve your father’s mother on here and his place and date of birth. Given that he was a local, so to speak, you may get lucky. He may have been one of the children that passed through the convent. If so, you might find some clues in their records.’ She turned to Gabe. ‘Come on then, make yourself useful.’
Heading towards one of the shelving units she pulled off a large ledger and handed it to Gabe, grinning as he sagged under the unexpected weight of it.
‘You’ve got the place to yourselves today so you can set up anywhere.’ She grabbed a second book and headed back to the main room. Letta followed carrying a collection of small microfiche boxes. She shooed him in front of her, laughing at the look on his face when Mrs Devaney handed him a ledger.
‘Reckon she could have you in an arm wrestle.’
Gabe wanted to protest but he wasn’t convinced she couldn’t, so he made a joke about Weetabix that made Nick laughed. Cheered, he followed the two ladies into the reading room where Mrs Devaney was setting up a microfiche and laying out some more books.
‘You may as well have the whole table. Don’t forget to stop for lunch. No eating or drinking in here mind. And don’t worry about Ohana, she’s having a whale of a time annoying her cousins. ’
Gabe remembered the tedium of poring over old ledgers and court cases as a law student, trying to find kernels of information. This was no different, although this time he was looking for a single name, Michael John O’Callaghan. As he studied the records, he wished that Letta’s father had been called Algernon or Caruthers or anything equally unusual. From time to time they would stumble across a Michael O’Callaghan or a John O’Callaghan, born in the right year but in the wrong county, or in the right county but in the wrong year. On each occasion, Letta wrote them down in her notebook with the source they had found them in and then they returned to the hunt.
Eventually, Gabe’s stomach rumbles became so loud that Letta looked up in alarm.
‘Was that you!’
‘I was going to blame Ohana, but I don’t think that will wash.’ He grinned apologetically and looked at his watch. ‘It’s half one, shall we stop for lunch?’
Letta looked back at the screen, slowly scrolling the dials and moving the text on the microfiche projector forward.
‘Hang on.’ She paused, read something and looked over her shoulder to the archives. He could see from her expression that she was on to something and was debating how much she needed to eat.
‘No, you go on. I think I have something.’
He left, promising to take Ohana for a walk. Letta was already heading off into the back archive. It had been a long time since he had been that focussed on a piece of work and he envied her her dedication. The way the tedium of the research could suddenly spark into joy, as a lead finally revealed itself. As a boy he’d loved puzzles and it was something that had stayed with him as an adult. It was what made him so good at his job.
In truth, he felt he would have been a better investigator or researcher than a barrister, but his father had had other ideas. His mother would have supported him whatever he chose but he felt he had a duty to his father. Looking back, he knew his father had manipulated both boys. Every time he wanted them to do something he would make some oblique or often blatant comment about the pain they had caused by taking their mother’s name. One silence, one brief pause and Gabriel and Raphael would both instantly comply with what he wanted. By the time they realised his game, they were already on the path to their new futures.
And as much as Gabe enjoyed his job, nothing, as they say, sparked joy. Saving millions of pounds for corporations was fairly dull. There was the satisfaction of a job well done, a puzzle unknotted, an opponent thwarted. But over the past twenty-four hours he had suddenly remembered the silly in life. He also found himself wanting to brag and show off. Quite frankly Letta had turned him back into a teenager.
Whistling, he retrieved Ohana and took her for a walk around the island.