Stone Cold Red Hot - [40]

I got the folder for 1958. There was no Jennifer Pickering born in Manchester that year. There was no Jennifer Pickering born anywhere else either. I double checked. This was crazy.

“Yes!” The man to my left exclaimed, “There’s a marriage in York.” A couple of others stopped and smiled at his success.

I returned to the shelves and looked through the years either side, maybe Roger had got the year wrong. No luck. I was stumped. I sat and thought for a while. Go back a step, I told myself. Find the Pickerings’ marriage. I didn’t know Barbara’s maiden name so I had to look for Frank. There was no entry for a marriage between a Frank Pickering and anyone in the three years before Jennifer was, supposedly, born. What was it with this family, where the hell were all their records? It was like the X-files or something.

I sat and tried to think it through. I drew spirals on my notepad surrounded by question marks. I waited a while, thought some more. Where was Jennifer? Where was the marriage? Slowly, the penny chugged along the slope, lingered on the brink and then dropped. Was I right? I went through the microfiches. Yes! Pickering, Frank, married a woman, maiden name Carter, in Manchester in 1961. Jennifer would have been just over three years old at the time. I’d got it.

I felt a buzz of excitement as the new information raised fresh possibilities. Jennifer Pickering was illegitimate, born before the marriage. Well before. In all likelihood she wasn’t Frank’s child. But how come he had deigned to marry Barbara? She’d have been a fallen woman in his eyes, surely? Jennifer had called him a hypocrite. Had she known about the details of her birth? Had she expected them to understand? Not according to her friends. Or had the fact of her illegitimacy only come out in the heat of the row which followed her announcement of her pregnancy, and then she’d rung Lisa, full of fury at the double standard. Her mother could be forgiven but she could not. But hang on, according to Lisa, Jennifer said her father’s hypocrisy wasn’t about her pregnancy. Was it about her mother’s then? Had she needed papers for university and found out then that she was not Frank Pickering’s child? Had she remembered all the sermons he had preached about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of purity, of fallen women and hellfires?

No wonder Barbara Pickering found it hard to talk about Jennifer; her daughter’s pregnancy must have re-awakened all her buried feelings of disgrace and shame and revealed a secret that the family had jealously guarded. Had Jennifer demanded to know who her real father was? Whose blood ran in her veins? Could she have gone to him? Run away to find him cutting herself off from the family who had lied to her? My mind cartwheeled round the possible scenarios.

I pulled myself back to the task in hand, carefully noted the record and then went back to the birth records to find Jennifer Carter. When had they changed her name? Had they done it formally or was it just Pickering by usage? Would she have needed her birth certificate for anything? College? Passport? She had to be there. What would I do if she wasn’t? My hand trembled a little as I slid the acetates into the glass holders. I peered at the screen, scrolled down to the surnames beginning with C. Oh, yes. There she was Carter, Jennifer. In the spring of 1958. Mother’s maiden surname; Carter.

I didn’t call out like my neighbour but I felt a glow of delight at unravelling the tangle. Then, because I pride myself on being thorough, I looked through all the records again to see if Jennifer had given birth, died or married using her original name of Jennifer Carter. Zilch.

It was way past lunch time and my stomach was growling. The rain had stopped and I wandered about until I found a little curry house in the town centre and wolfed down a vegetable dansak and two chapattis. New questions about the case sprang up in my mind like cress on cotton wool. Had they ever told Jennifer that she wasn’t Frank’s biological daughter? Had she discovered the truth herself, coming upon the birth certificate, cheeks burning and guts revolving as the truth slapped her in the face? Wouldn’t she have run to Lisa, though? Confided in her best friend? Around all my speculation circled the question that really mattered: where was Jennifer Pickering and was she dead or alive?

I tried to focus on the last few days before her disappearance. She had spoken to Lisa and she had been very upset; she’d called her father a hypocrite but when Lisa asked her if she’d told them about the baby, Jennifer said not. She’d been low at Frances’s, (had that come sooner or later?) and then she had become distressed as she made to go home. Pushing her friend away, leave me alone. Sudden, it had been, as though she’d had a shock.

Then nothing. No-one had seen her, heard from her. And I’d talked to everyone I possibly could. I pulled out my original list. All except Mrs Shuttle who had slammed the phone down on me. Next door neighbour, moved to Bradford. Why so violent a reaction? What was behind it? It was only a few miles from Huddersfield to Bradford. I could pay an unexpected visit. What had I got to lose? An hour or so? I flipped back through my notebook looking for the phone number. I knew I’d written it down early on in my enquiries. Found it. I rang the number and a woman answered.