Page 62 of All Our Missing Pieces

Sounds great! Where?

He suggested a pub on the river, roughly equidistant between Frances and Peter’s flat and Damask Square, and Beatrice – after hastily consulting her A–Z – agreed.

She had no time to change or top up her make-up. Fortunately Frances was home early – just as she was giving the children a goodnight kiss – and she hurried out, walking along the river in the darkness to Limehouse, chiding herself for how nervous she felt.

Neil was already there when she arrived, a pint of beer on the table in front of him.

‘Hey.’ To her pleasure, he looked delighted to see her. ‘How was your day?’

She told him about the unicorn cake and he exclaimed over her preparatory sketches.

‘That looks awesome. I bet Parker will be made up.’

‘We’ll find out tomorrow. The family are going away for a few days for half term and I wanted her to have it before they leave, although her actual birthday’s only on Sunday.’

‘So you’ll get a few days off? Or are you going with them?’

‘Not this time. They’re going to stay with some work colleague of Peter’s in the Cotswolds. Sounds like it’s a massive, fancy house – I’d have liked to see it but at the same time, I could do with a break.’

‘That’s good. Because I’ve had an idea. It’s about finding your birth mother.’

Beatrice sipped her wine, frowning. ‘I mean, what if I’ve already found her? Everything – it all points to it being Orla. But I’ve messed up so badly and anyway I’m just not quite sure enough. I mean – she could have a sister. Or her grandparents could have had other kids. Some Irish families are huge. I could be her niece or her second cousin or something.’

‘Surely even then she’d want to know?’ Neil said.

‘But what if she didn’t? What if I asked her and she didn’t care? Or she thought I was just some scammer after the house? I need to know for sure before I can confront her. And if it’s not her, then I’m wasting my time. It’s my actual mother I need to find.’

‘Well, I think I’ve found a way for you to do that.’

Beatrice looked at him, assessing. All her efforts, all her investigation, all the information her own parents had been able to give her – and somehow Neil had a solution? It didn’t seem possible.

‘Seriously?’ she asked.

‘Sure. I mean, you know your birth date, right? And you know you were born in Dublin?’

Beatrice nodded. ‘The place my mother’s meant to be from – Clonmara – is too small to have a hospital.’

‘Well, then.’ Neil smiled with satisfaction. ‘It should be quite straightforward. I went on a genealogy forum online and I found out.’

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What do I do?’

‘Births – and marriages and deaths – are public records,’ he said. ‘In Ireland, same as here or in the United States or anywhere else. I could go and look up the Taoiseach’s birth record if I wanted to.’

‘The what?’ Beatrice asked.

‘The Irish prime minister,’ he translated.

‘You mean – the information’s there for anyone to find?’

‘Anyone with the time and patience to go to the General Register Office in Dublin and look for it,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Beatrice felt utterly deflated. All her detective work and this solution had been there all along? All she had to do was go through a list of names in a book?

‘Sure. You know where you were born⁠—’

‘The hospital was called St Gerard Majella’s, apparently.’ Somehow, the name emerged from Beatrice’s memory, even though she’d barely thought of it in years.

‘And – I guess your parents told you the name you were given at birth.’