personality sparkled with it.
âItâs not one Iâve heard of, love. Have you any more information â a date, first name, location, occupation â something I can cross-reference?â
I felt like an idiot, and I should have known better after all the research I had done.
âMatthew Lynes, possibly around 1900. Location â Iâm not too sure, perhaps South Lincolnshire â Cambridge.â I waved my hands vaguely and the curatorâs eyes followed the path my cast made in the air. I hid it behind my back and she refocused on my face. Instead of looking impatient â which is what I think I would have done â she looked faintly bemused.
âIâll do a search and see whatâll come up on that. Lynes , mmmâ¦â she mused. âIt might take some time; have you got a mo?â
âYe-es, I have, but I didnât expect you to do this immediatelyâ¦â
âNo problem, love; Iâm done here and itâs better than filing this lotâ¦â she brandished the papers, wafting warm air towards me, â⦠or fiddling about with the Neolithic case; those burins and scrapers are so tricky. Follow me, Iâll just get a plaster first, if you donât mind.â She cheerily led me past an image of Daniel Lambert looking smugly replete on the wall.
âResearching your family?â she enquired over her shoulder.
âNo â this is work,â I said, evasively.
âHistorian? Genealogist? We get a lot of those here.â
âUh huh â historian.â
She led me down the stairs and along a corridor where one of the ceiling lights flickered intermittently like a mothâs wings against a bare bulb.
âI wouldnât normally bring the public here â staff only, you see â but since youâre professional, I reckon itâs OK. Where do you come from?â
She shoved a door with her foot and held it open for me with her elbow.
âIâm from Stamford.â
âAre you? You donât sound it. Here⦠sit down; if we canât find anything, itâs not on the web. Weâve got complete access to all the records available, you see. Youâre lucky to find anyone here now. Iâm only on loan from Lincoln doing an audit of the collection before itâs mothballed. The museumâs on the hit-list, see; might get the axe.â
Neither of us commented; we didnât need to, the very thought of closing the museum abhorrent to both of us for different reasons. I remembered coming here with my grandfather countless times. Summer, winter, rain or snow â all those visits were warm in my memory.
She dumped the papers on a desk next to a computer monitor, and pulled the keyboard out from underneath a glossy museum periodical. â Lynes , did you say? L-i-n-e-s?â
âL- y -n-e-s,â I corrected.
Her fingers sped over the keyboard as I sat down next to her, searching the database. She sucked at her cut finger, regarding the monitor through narrowed eyes.
âNothing for Stamford for that date. Iâll widen the search. Hey, can you do this while I grab that plaster?â
She was out of her chair and across the room, hoicking a green First Aid box out of an overhead cupboard. I dragged the keyboard around in front of me and tapped in the next search parameter.
âNo, nothing for South Kesteven either. Iâll try Cambridgeshire next.â
It was a long shot and it, too, drew a blank.
âFancy a tea, love?â
The sound of a plastic kettle being filled from a tap ina tiny adjacent room the size of a cupboard, crammed the space for an instant, almost too loud in the small area.
âThanksâ¦â My eyes remained fixed on the screen. The curator gathered a couple of mugs from beside me, the remains of the last drinks clinging languidly to their interiors, the liquid slopping as she picked them up.
âBiscuit?â she asked.
âI have
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