16
Plymouth was a bustling historical city still in full swing when Slim got off the bus just after 5 p.m. He walked quickly through the shopping district and reached the town hall just half an hour before closing. A rather disgruntled clerk led him to the marriage registration department, where another clerk seemed just as frustrated at his late request.
‘Tell me once again,’ said the clerk, a stone-faced middle aged woman with a habit of tugging at the left horn of her old-fashioned spectacles, something which had over time left her glasses sitting slightly lopsided on the bridge of her nose.
‘I’m trying to track down an old friend,’ Slim said. ‘I believe she might have married since I knew her.’
‘What are the last details you have?’
‘Celia Birch, of Worth Farm, Trelee, Bodmin, Corn
