Page 67 of All Our Missing Pieces

‘Correct.’ The woman smiled. ‘And hopefully you’ll find an Aisling with your birthday and unmarried parents.’

‘It’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack,’ Neil said. ‘But we’ll get there.’

‘The pages are only printed on one side,’ the woman pointed out encouragingly, ‘so there’s only half as much to go through as it looks like. You’ll be grand. Call me if I can be of any more help.’

She bustled away and Beatrice watched as she pushed the door open and resumed her wait behind the reception window.

Neil picked up the first of the 1983 volumes. ‘Right. Let’s do this thing.’

He carried the book over to a table and set it down, pulling over a chair for Beatrice. They sat and Beatrice laid her hand on the red cover, feeling the slight roughness of the cloth beneath her fingers.

‘Shall we skip straight to C and look for Clifford?’ she found herself whispering even more quietly than she normally would in a library – almost as if she was suggesting cheating on an exam.

‘Your landlady’s last name?’ Luke asked.

Beatrice nodded.

‘But if we didn’t find anything there, we’d only have to go back to the beginning,’ Neil pointed out.

‘Okay,’ she agreed. ‘Let’s start together on this volume, then we won’t miss anything. Once we’ve got the hang of it we can divide them up.’

‘Deal,’ he said. ‘Ready when you are.’

Beatrice opened the book to the first page of names and dates.

Aadair, Mary P. 1983. 24/07/1983. F. Ryan. Dublin North. 1983/Q3, she read.

‘What’s the last column?’ she asked Neil, terrified that they’d missed something vital.

‘I guess it’s the year and quarter when the birth was registered.’ Neil touched the column header with his forefinger. ‘It mustn’t matter. She’d have told us if it did.’

‘I guess so.’

Beatrice forced herself to keep her eyes on the third column, scanning it rapidly but – she hoped – thoroughly. None of the birth dates matched her own.

‘Done?’ Neil asked.

Beatrice nodded reluctantly, and he turned the page. Again, there were no babies born on 27 February – nor on the next page, nor the one after that.

It was about ten pages in when Beatrice heard Neil’s voice say, ‘Got one!’

Beatrice’s heart leapt and her eyes jumped automatically to the right. But the letter in the ‘Sex’ column was ‘M’.

‘Sorry, Abberneaty, Padraig R,’ Neil said, ‘you’re no good.’

‘Poor Padraig.’ Beatrice couldn’t help giggling. ‘Hope you have nice birthdays, anyway.’

They carried on. Beatrice tried to stop her attention wandering, but she couldn’t help it. Occasionally an unusual name would catch her eye – a Zeta amid all the Christines and Pamelas, or two babies with the same date of birth, surname and mother’s maiden name.

‘Look.’ She pointed to the entry. ‘Twins.’

Neil nodded. ‘Concentrate.’

It was twenty pages more before Beatrice spotted an entry that made her heart jump in her chest. When she looked at it again, she realised that the date was July, not February – the 7 and the 2 similar enough to confuse her already tiring eyes. But Neil’s finger was pointing at the same name.

‘Full name, Ackroyd, Elaine M. Mother’s maiden name, Ackroyd,’ he murmured. ‘Elaine’s mother wasn’t married. She must have been adopted.’

Beatrice stared at the page. She wondered where Elaine was now; whether her adoptive parents loved her as much as Beatrice’s own; whether she’d ever sat in this room, searching this book for her truth.