‘And was Roman alone each time, or did he meet or talk to anyone else inside?’
‘No. He was alone both times. And the only person he spoke to apart from me was the girl.’
Michel ran a hand through his hair and eased a shallow, deflated sigh. Nothing of any real value, except maybe the mood swing. He thanked Azy for the call. ‘Anything new comes up, let me know.’
He felt tired and ragged from the day’s events; after the news of Roman’s sighting, he’d been slow getting to sleep and had grabbed barely forty minutes before Azy’s call. He hoped to fall back asleep quickly. But with his mind now active, it was almost another two hours, rapid changing thoughts and images merging with the gentle thrum and hiss of the first street-sweeping trucks, before he was finally able to get to sleep.
TEN
Two days into her quest, and finally Elena felt she was getting somewhere.
‘I think we could get to the stage of seeing if there’s a match on the name you’re searching on the adoption contact register within three or four days.’ A hoarse, nasal, female voice from the other end of the phone. Obviously a heavy smoker or suffering from laryngitis from spending her day talking, she sounded like a croaky southern blues singer, except that she was Welsh: Megan Ellis. ‘But the first stage will still be tracking down the birth registration.’
‘Well, that’s a lot better than the four to six weeks I was quoted by the ACR* themselves.’ A faint sigh of relief muffled by a hasty sip of gin and tonic. She’d hit the bottle heavy through the first frustrating day of searching, but she was doing better today: 2.30 pm and only her first shot of the day, and this time more because of a possible breakthrough than to drown out the mounting sense of hopelessness of her quest. She’d been told about a small agency in Wales who boasted tracing adoption-seperated parties in days rather than the normal weeks; it warranted a minor celebration. Or was it just Dutch courage in case it turned out to be another let-down? ‘I’m glad, I’m ecstatic — but why the big time difference?’
‘First of all pure workload at the ACR. They probably wouldn’t even get to your application for four or five weeks. The match itself, if there is one, would only take days. Then they write to the child and simply make it known that contact has been made. It’s up to the adopted child to say, “Yes, I’d like to make personal contact with my natural parents.” If the child says no or simply doesn’t reply, the door’s pretty well closed, I’m afraid. The law’s very strict on protecting the rights of children given up for adoption.’
‘I know.’ Pretty much what she knew from her own work and heard the day before from the *(Adoption Contact Register)
ACR and NORCAP. A hard, bitter pill — if he said at the end that he didn’t want to see her — that she’d just have to swallow. At least the first daunting obstacle of the long wait was now out of the way. ‘But if a child has listed with the register — surely there’s a high chance they would want contact.’
‘True.’ Heavy nasal sigh from Megan. ‘But don’t hold your breath, because that also limits the number of successful matches made. The hit rate is no more than three or four percent. It relies on both parties registering, you see.’
Elena’s stomach sank. One thing nobody else so far had mentioned. Perhaps with her vented exasperation at a seven week wait, they’d thought that telling her the dismal success rate would pile on the disappointment too much. ‘Any chance of increasing those odds?’
‘Not with the ACR. It’s a fixed register, and we go through exactly the same process as them. What you save is the four or five week wait at the front end, and we tell you within days if there’s a match. But it’s still left to them to notify the child — we never get the actual name. That’s the straightforward, official way.’ Megan took a quick pull of the cigarette she’d left half forgotten in the ashtray. ‘The other way’s not so straightforward, it’ll take anything from two days to two weeks, depending how lucky we are — and it costs a bit of money. But the odds are a lot higher: fifty-six percent is our strike rate so far.’
‘How much would it cost?’ The money wasn’t the concern, just the worry of how to pay anything significant without Gordon finding out.
‘Hundred and sixty pounds a day — but he’s good, one of the best searchers in the business.’
‘I see.’ Her income from the aid agency was small and nearly all their main expenses ran through Gordon’s account. She could spare six or seven hundred without running short; after that she’d have to think of a crafty way of getting it from Gordon. ‘What would he do for that?’
‘First of all he’d sit himself in the family records centre, trawling birth certificates and then adoption records. If we’re lucky, he’ll find something in only a few days. If not, for instance if he finds the placement agency but they’ve no longer got records, or the final adopted family he traces have since moved from the address on record, which is often the case, his trawling starts to get more involved and time consuming: electoral rolls and telephone directories, deed-pole registrations and death certificates. The time can add up, and the money. But the compensation with this method is that if he finds a name and contact address, we put it straight in your hand. You don’t have to wait on the child approving contact. You can phone straightaway and say hello.’
A chill ran through Elena at the thought of a voice at the other end of the phone suddenly saying ‘hello’ after twenty-nine years. But in her mind’s eye it wasn’t the adult voice that she knew it must now be, it was that of a small child, and tears welled with the sharp pang of all those lost years. ‘Well… I suppose it’ll have to be your search man.’ Her voice was tremulous and close to breaking, and she cleared her throat, forcing a nervous chuckle. ‘Until I run out of money.’
‘The other thing you should be aware of is that the large time gap, tracing back to the late sixties, will make things more difficult. The law changed dramatically in 1975. Until then, all records relating to a child’s placement for adoption were closed by the Courts once the adoption order was made. Then too, we’ve got the problem that pre ’75, a placement agency wasn’t necessarily required, and adoption could have been arranged by third parties such as doctors, clergymen or even family members.’
‘I understand.’ Her stomach sank a bit. Something else to worry about: her father could easily have arranged everything without a placement agency or anywhere she might now find a record.
‘So… the first stage would be tracking down the birth registration.’ Faint rustle of papers from the other end. ‘Now you say that you don’t know the actual registration place, you only have the surname and likely Christian name and, of course, the date of birth. So if you can give those to me…’
‘Yes, of course, the…’ Elena was distracted. Faint sound of footsteps straining through the door of her studio. When she’d last checked on Gordon, he’d been deep into a chain of business calls. Now it sounded like he was starting up the stairs towards her. She’d felt uneasy from the outset doing all this from home, but where else could she have gone? She couldn’t realistically have done it either from the London agency office; Shelley too knew nothing — nobody knew anything except her mother and Uncle Christos — and someone who’d given up their own child wasn’t exactly the best qualified to deal with orphaned children. The footsteps receded, Gordon was heading across the downstairs hallway towards the kitchen rather than up the stairs, and her breathing relaxed. ‘Sorry… just someone I thought wanted me. The surname’s Georgallis, or possibly the anglicised version of our family name: George. And the original Christian name chosen was Christos — though as I say I don’t know if that’s what was finally put on the birth certificate. And he was born April fifteenth, nineteen-sixty-nine.’