She too had had a baby . . . During the past year Loveday Morgan had had a baby. If Loveday Morgan was Louise Sampson, Louise had had that baby. A good reason, added to the other good reasons, for not letting her mother see her until Christmas when she might have been fully recovered from the child’s birth. Now that birth must have been registered, but not, apparently to a mother called Morgan. Surely Louise wouldn’t have dared register the child in a false name? The penalties for making false registrations were stated clearly enough, Wexford knew, in every registrar’s office. They were more than sufficient to daunt a young girl. She would have registered it in her own name. This, then, was what he just had to check on before he went any further. This might mean he need go no further. But his plan was doomed to postponement, for he was no sooner in his own office when Howard phoned through to request his presence at a house in Copeland Road. ‘Mrs Kirby?’ Wexford said. ‘Who’s she?’ ‘Gregson was mending her television at lunchtime on February 25th.
