Heirs of the Body Read Online Free PDF Page A

doesn’t arise that far back. The letter from Julian found in the muniments room declared his intention of taking ship for Jamaica if his wife wasn’t welcomed into the family.”
    “Which she wasn’t? I gather that’s another family legend come true.”
    “So it seems.”
    “What about the travellers’ tales of their having a large, barely respectable family?”
    “Just that: travellers’ tales. Rumours, hints, but no details, and certainly nothing that could be described as evidence. Even if it’s true, my correspondent in Kingston hasn’t been able to discover records of the births of Julian’s children. There was a halfhearted attempt to set up a national registry in 1843—”
    “Twelve years after they left England. Time enough to have any number of children.”
    “Exactly. And in any case, that law was pretty much neglected. It wasn’t till 1880 that the civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths was really put into effect. Besides, the islands had all sorts of upheavals: earthquakes, tidal waves, slave revolts and the freeing of slaves, sugar tariffs—”
    “I don’t want to hear about sugar tariffs,” Daisy said firmly. “Just tell me about the earliest records of the family you’ve discovered. If any. Just a minute, I want to write this down.” She took out her notebook.
    “The earliest official record is a ship’s crew list of 1882: James Dalrymple, aged seventeen; then his marriage in Kingston in 1891; James, aged twenty-six, son of Alfred Dalrymple, who may have been Julian’s son. Alfred died in 1900, age unknown. James was lost at sea in 1917, his ship sunk. Torpedoed. His son—” A knock on the door interrupted. “Come in. Yes, what is it, Miss Watt?”
    “It’s twelve o’clock, Mr. Pearson. You have an appointment with Mr. and Mrs. Liston and they have arrived.”
    “Thank you. I’ll be with them in just a moment,” said Tommy. Miss Watt withdrew.
    The sound of church clocks far and near chiming the hour wafted in through the window, a multitude of different tones, unsynchronised so that the ringing seemed to go on and on.
    Daisy asked, “James’s son?”
    “Samuel. Also a sailor.” Tommy looked and sounded evasive. “He’s at sea, his present whereabouts uncertain. Sorry, I can’t give you any further information now, but I’ll be in touch.” He stood up.
    Daisy wrote down Samuel and regarded with dissatisfaction her very sketchy family tree:
    Julian Dalrymple m. Marie-Claire Vallier
                      ?
             Alfred d. 1900
             James d. 1917
                  Samuel
    Putting away her notebook and gathering her gloves and handbag, she said, “Just one more thing, Tommy. Geraldine’s house party. She said—or implied, I can’t remember exactly—that she’s going to invite all the claimants. She’s not thinking of gathering them together and then revealing the heir, is she?”
    “Good lord no. If we have an heir by then, prospective guests will be told who he is beforehand. Then they can attend or not, as they choose. If we still haven’t confirmed the heir, it’ll be a further opportunity to sound them out.” As he spoke, he came round the desk and opened the door.
    “And about…?”
    “I’ll let you know in due course, Mrs. Fletcher.”
    Too well brought up to stay put and insist on an answer when people were waiting, Daisy meekly let herself be shepherded through to the outer office.
    Miss Watt gave her a cool, professional smile and a nod that could have meant anything. “The Liston file, Mr. Pearson?” Laden with a deed box, efficiently ready to hand on her desk, she followed the elderly, expensively dressed Mr. and Mrs. Liston and Tommy into his office. The door closed.
    Daisy, thwarted, thought furiously. Tommy said it would be “most irregular” for any member of the family other than its head to be present at his interviews. What if she posed as his secretary, sitting in a corner