The morning was grey, the kind of grey that doesn’t threaten rain but promises little else. I arrived at Somerset House just after eight, the corridors of the General Register Office still quiet.

I carried the names in my notebook — written carefully, deliberately, as if the act of writing them might anchor them to reality.

James Thomas Reeve. Arthur Melrose. Clara Fenwick. Percival Kerr.

I began at Somerset House with the birth registers: Nothing.

I checked the death indexes, the burial notices: Nothing.

When Somerset House yielded nothing, I went further afield, chasing the trail through every archive I could reach.

To Chancery Lane, through the police rosters, the pension ledgers, the disciplinary logs: Nothing.

Finally, to the British Museum Reading Room, where the bound volumes of The Gazette, The Standard, The Illustrated London News lay in dust: Nothing.

Even Kerr — a man who should have left a trail of promotions, commendations, transfers — was absent. Not redacted. Not misfiled. Absent.

It wasn’t just missing. It was as if someone had gone through the ledgers with a scalpel.

That evening, I returned to Harvey’s house. “I searched everything,” I said. “Every register. Every roll. Every archive.”

“There’s nothing,” I said. “No birth records. No employment history. No death certificates. No press mentions. No police files. Even Kerr. He’s gone too.”

I paused. “I think it means… it wasn’t just the report they buried. It was the people. The names. The lives.”

Harvey leaned back, the chair creaking beneath him. “You think someone erased them?”

I nodded. “Not just hidden. Not just redacted. Erased. As if they never existed.”

“If Kerr erased them from history… maybe he left something behind,” Harvey said slowly. “Not in the records. Not in the papers. But in the places. In the objects. In the people who were never meant to remember.”

“There was a letter. The one that got me the job. Someone contacted the firm. Arranged it. I never saw who.”

“Do you think it’s still there?”

Harvey shrugged. “If it is, it’ll be in the archives. Personnel files. Correspondence. But not in plain sight.”

I closed the notebook. “Then we’ll look.”

Harvey raised an eyebrow. “They won’t let you in.”

“Not during the day,” I said. “But after dark…”

He didn’t smile. But he didn’t say no.