The Hard Way

of them are called Taylor. It’s a fairly common name. I told him that without better information I couldn’t really help him.”
    “Can you help us?”
    “That depends on what extra information you have.”
    “We have photographs.”
    “They might help eventually. But not at the outset. How long was Mr. Taylor in America?”
    “Many years, I think.”
    “So he has no base here? No home?”
    “I’m sure he doesn’t.”
    “Then it’s hopeless,” the guy said. “Don’t you see? I work with databases. Surely you do the same in New York? Bills, electoral registers, council tax, court records, credit reports, insurance policies, things like that. If your Mr. Taylor hasn’t lived here for many years he simply won’t show up anywhere.”
    Pauling said nothing.
    “I’m very sorry,” the guy said. “But surely you understand?”
    Pauling shot Reacher a look that said:
Great plan.
    Reacher said, “I’ve got a phone number for his closest relative.”

CHAPTER 58
    REACHER SAID, “WE searched Taylor’s apartment in New York and we found a desk phone that had ten speed-dials programmed. The only British number was labeled with the letter
S.
I’m guessing it’s for his mother or father or his brother or sister. More likely a brother or sister because I think a guy like him would have used
M
or
D
for his mom or his dad. It’ll be Sam, Sally, Sarah, Sean, something like that. And the sibling relationship will probably be fairly close, or else why bother to program a speed dial? And if the relationship is fairly close, then Taylor won’t have come back to Britain without at least letting them know. Because they’ve probably got him on speed dial too, and they would worry if he wasn’t answering his phone at home. So I’m guessing they’ll have the information we need.”
    “What was the number?” the guy asked.
    Reacher closed his eyes and recited the 01144 number he had memorized back on Hudson Street. The guy at the desk wrote it down on a pad of paper with a blunt pencil.
    “OK,” he said. “We delete the international prefix, and we add a zero in its place.” He did exactly that, manually, with his pencil. “Then we fire up the old computer and we look in the reverse directory.” He spun his chair one-eighty to a computer table behind him and tapped the space bar and unlocked the screen with a password Reacher didn’t catch. Then he pointed and clicked his way to a dialog box, where he entered the number. “This will give us the address only, you understand. We’ll have to go elsewhere to discover the exact identity of the person who lives there.” He hit
submit
and a second later the screen redrew and came up with an address.
    “Grange Farm,” he said. “In Bishops Pargeter. Sounds rural.”
    Reacher asked, “How rural?”
    “Not far from Norwich, judging by the postcode.”
    “Bishops Pargeter is the name of a town?”
    The guy nodded. “It’ll be a small village, probably. Or a hamlet, possibly. Perhaps a dozen buildings and a thirteenth-century Norman church. That would be typical. In the county of Norfolk, in East Anglia. Farming country, very flat, windy, the Fens, that kind of thing, north and east of here, about a hundred and twenty miles away.”
    “Find the name.”
    “Hang on, hang on, I’m getting there.” The guy dragged and dropped the address to a temporary location elsewhere on the screen and opened up a different database. “The electoral register,” he said. “That’s always my preference. It’s in the public domain, quite legal, and it’s usually fairly comprehensive and reliable. If people take the trouble to vote, that is, which they don’t always do, of course.” He dragged the address back to a new dialog box and hit another
submit
command. There was a long, long wait. Then the screen changed. “Here we are,” the guy said. “Two voters at that address. Jackson. That’s the name. Mr. Anthony Jackson, and let’s see, yes, Mrs. Susan Jackson. So there’s your S.
S
for Susan.”
    “A sister,” Pauling said. “Married. This is like Hobart all over again.”
    “Now then,” the guy said. “Let’s do a little something else. Not quite legal this time, but since I’m among friends and colleagues, I might as well push the boat out.” He opened a new database that came up in old-fashioned plain DOS script. “Hacked, basically,” he said. “That’s why we don’t get the fancy graphics. But we get the information. The Department of