Gaynor nodded, unsurprised. “The internet is an invaluable tool, but the algorithms used by search engines like Google are a nightmare for researchers. It’s just not really built for searching antiquated documents and newspapers, even if they’ve been digitized.” She went back to the computer’s desktop and clicked on a new icon that brought up the British Newspaper Archive. “Okay,” she said, turning to me. “Let’s give it a go. This will search every line of text in most British newspapers for the last few hundred years. If there’s an article about the apothecary, it will be here, but the trick is searching the right keywords. What did you try earlier?”

“Something along the lines of 1800s, apothecary killer, London.”

“Perfect.” Gaynor typed in the keywords and hit Enter. A moment later, the page displayed zero results. “Okay, let’s remove the date,” she said.

Yet again, no results.

“Could there be something wrong with the search function?” I asked.

She laughed. “This is the fun of it—the longer and harder we search, the more rewarding it is at the end.” As she continued to try new keywords, I considered the dual meaning of her statement. I was searching for a lost apothecary, yes, but a sense of sadness came over me as I acknowledged what else I sought: resolution to my unstable marriage, my desire to be a mother, my choice of career. Surrounded by a thousand broken pieces, a long and hard search stretched ahead of me, one that would require sifting through the pieces I wanted to keep and the ones I didn’t.

Gaynor cursed under her breath, frustration clear on her face. “Okay, well, so far nothing has come up. It’s no wonder your online search was unsuccessful. Let’s try this another way.” She typed one word into the search bar, apothecary, and then manually refined the search results on the left-hand side of the screen. She set the date to 1800 to 1850 and the region to London, England.

A few results appeared, and my heart jumped as I caught the headline of one newspaper article: “Offences of Deception and Murder, Middlesex.” But the article, dated 1825, seemed too late—and it turned out to be about a male apothecary who’d been killed after stealing a horse.

My shoulders slumped. “What else could we try?”

Gaynor pursed her lips to one side. “Well, we can’t give up on the newspaper search just yet. Maybe we need to nix the word apothecary and try some others, like Bear Alley. But there are countless other resources to search, too. For example, our manuscript database...” She trailed off as she flicked to a new webpage. “By definition, manuscripts include handwritten documents like journals, diaries, even family estate papers. It’s often very personal information. But our manuscript collection also includes some printed material—typescripts, printed logs and so on.”

I nodded, recalling this from my schooling.