‘Hm… I’m sure it is. What did your Aunty Margaret say about Jack coming to the birthday party?’
‘I haven’t managed to get hold of her yet,’ he lied.
‘Morton,’ Juliette scolded. ‘That’s ridiculous—stop dithering and get on with it.’
‘I’ve been too busy,’ he mumbled.
‘Well, find the time—it’s not fair on her. The party’s in six days, for goodness’ sake.’
‘I’ll do it,’ he promised.
‘Right, I’d better go, Grace’s eating stones. Love you.’
‘Love you, too. See you in a couple of days.’
‘Phone her,’ Juliette said, swiftly ending the call before he could speak again. He stared at his phone, thinking that he could do it now. He took a swig from his wine, still focused on his mobile. What was stopping him from phoning her? Fear of losing what little relationship they had? Another mother-figure gone from his life?
‘Everything alright?’ the barmaid called over.
The imbalance of his quandary polarised and he pocketed his phone. ‘Yes, fine, thank you.’
He picked up his knife and fork and began to tuck into his food.
Phil stood in the queue at the Post Office, fidgeting nervously. He rolled the small package over in his hands several times checking that the address was clear and the edges taped down sufficiently. When it was his turn at the counter, he sent the package Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed and with a grand’s insurance, even though it cost him all the cash that he had on him. But there was more money coming. £1,120, to be precise. And hopefully that would just be the start of it. It needed to be, he was up to his eyes in serious debt.
He slung his hands into his grey tracksuit bottoms and walked out of the Post Office. He strode for a short distance before arriving at the bungalow. He pressed the bell several times repeatedly. The old man hardly ever heard the first two or three rings. He was probably asleep.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ Arthur Fothergill said emotionlessly. ‘You coming in?’
Phil shrugged. ‘Ain’t really got the time. Has he been in touch yet?’
‘Who?’ Arthur quizzed.
‘That genealogist bloke. Farrier.’
‘No, but it’s only been a few days. I’m just making a cup of tea. Would you like one?’ Arthur asked, pulling the door wider open.
Phil shook his head. ‘Let me know as soon as he phones.’ He turned back down the path towards the road.
‘You haven’t seen that guinea anywhere, have you? I can’t seem to find it,’ Arthur called after him.
Without turning back, Phil shook his head again and continued walking.
Morton wrote SMUGGLING in large letters on a piece of blank paper, looping a circle around the word for good measure. He stared at it, then added a question mark to the end. It was still just a possibility that Ann had somehow been involved in smuggling; the link was tenuous to say the least.
He slid his chair out from under his desk and stood up with a yawn. He carried the piece of paper to the investigation wall and fixed it up in prime position.
He looked over his afternoon’s findings, having researched the three pubs of which Ann had ended up as the proprietor. According to the internet, all three—the Packet Boat Inn, the Palm Tree and the Bell Inn—had links to smuggling at some point in the 1820s. Most had been used as a muster point for the hundreds of men pulled from the surrounding countryside, a place to converge before heading to the beaches and retrieving the illicit goods. The problem was trying to link the three pubs with Ann; he had no idea when she had taken ownership of them. His research had confirmed, though, what the landlord had said: that a smuggling group by the name of the Aldington Gang had been active in the area in the 1820s under the leadership of a man named George Ransley; a man whose two cousins had been hanged in 1800 for the same crime. Even if Ann herself had not been involved in smuggling, she had certainly surrounded herself by the people embroiled in it.
He yawned again. It was time to stop for the day.
He turned to collect his mobile from the desk and, as he did so, caught sight of the photograph of his Aunty Margaret and his father, Jack, together. He had to ring her. Now.
Taking a deep breath, he pulled up her name in his contact list and hit the call button.
It was answered almost instantly. ‘Hello?’ It was her voice.
‘Hi, Aunty Margaret, it’s Morton,’ he said.
‘Oh, hello, love. How are you?’ she asked.
‘Good thanks. Erm… I’ve got something that I need to talk to you about.’
‘Go on,’ she said.
Chapter Seven
Morton felt like he couldn’t suck enough air into his lungs to get the next sentence out of his mouth. ‘Do you remember what we spoke about on Christmas Day in 2014 when Juliette and I came down to stay?’
‘About your roots, do you mean?’ she asked.
‘Yes. You made me promise that I wouldn’t tell you anything about it,’ Morton said. ‘I’m afraid I am going to need to break that promise.’
The line went quiet and all that Morton could hear was her soft exhalation at the other end. It was her turn to speak, to say something. To grant him permission to break his promise or to refuse it and put down the phone. Not to stay silent.
‘I’ve met him. Jack, I mean,’ Morton blurted.
‘I know,’ Margaret finally said.
‘You know? How?’ he begged, his brain presenting and rejecting various connections which could have led such a crucial piece of information to wind its way down to his Aunty Margaret in Cornwall. ‘Jeremy,’ he spat. It had to be him.
‘Does it matter that I know already?’ she asked with a light chuckle. ‘I was just about to find out, anyway.’
It didn’t matter, he supposed. It had just caught him off-guard.
‘I take it there’s a reason behind you telling me now?’ she probed.
‘He’s planning on coming to Grace’s birthday party. I did try and explain that…’
‘And do you need me not to come up?’ she interjected.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I mean no, not at all—I do want you there—that’s why I’m phoning.’
There was another short pause in the conversation before she spoke again. ‘Well, I don’t think it’s a problem but it’s something I haven’t given any thought to. Given that more than forty years have passed since I last clapped eyes on him, I didn’t think the day would ever come when I’d have to consider how I’d feel if I were to see him again.’
‘I understand,’ Morton said.
‘I’d love to be at Grace’s party, Morton, really I would. I just don’t know…’
‘You don’t have to decide now. Have a think about it. We’d love to have you there, obviously, but I understand that it could be a little awkward.’
Margaret sighed. ‘I’ll have a chat with Jim and…we’ll see. Anyway, how is my little great-niece getting on?’
‘She’s good, thank you. She and Juliette have gone to stay at Juliette’s mum’s for a couple of days.’
Morton shared some recent anecdotes of what Grace had been up to, before winding up the phone call. She said goodbye, telling him that she would be in touch with her decision.
Morton blew out a puff of air as he strode down the stairs from his study. He was relieved that the conversation was over, but the relief was tarnished by a sense of aggravation that had washed over him. He was irked that Jeremy had told her about having found Jack and questioned his motivations in doing so, imagining Jeremy’s gleeful face as he spilled the beans down the phone.
Morton poured himself a large glass of red wine, sensing that his glumness did not just stem from Jeremy’s gossiping; something else about the conversation had bothered him. He sat at the kitchen table with his head propped in his hands, gazing at his wine as he replayed their discussion. His spooling thoughts settled on the problem: she had asked him how her great-niece was getting on. Great-niece. Why didn’t she just
prefix it with the word ‘adoptive’ to demonstrate clearly her steadfastness to their established relationship? Could she really not bring herself to say granddaughter? Since Margaret’s own two daughters had yet to produce any offspring, Grace was her first grandchild. Christ, but his family was complicated. When the truth that his Aunty Margaret was actually his biological mother had first been revealed to him, he hadn’t expected any shift in their relationship, largely out of respect to his adoptive father. But, following his death three years ago, Morton had hoped for some subtle change, particularly since Grace had been born. But no, she was the same Aunty Margaret as she had always been. It saddened him immensely to think of the physical and emotional distance that might always be manifested between Grace and her biological grandparents.
He downed his wine and stood up, wanting to shake off his morose mood. It was time for bed.
Morton dropped his empty take-away coffee cup into a bin outside the Dover Discovery Centre and strode through the automatic doors. He recalled from previous visits the layout of the building and marched confidently through the Adult Lending Library to the Local Studies section tucked, as they often were, at the rear of the building. The area, comprised of several tables and two microfilm readers, was deserted. Morton paused to take in the various sections of shelving which lined the walls of the open-plan room. Family Research. Local Studies. Dover Collection. Oversize. He spotted that for which he was searching: Directories of Kent. He headed over to the shelving and scanned across the various titles until he found a run of several volumes of Pigot’s Directory of Kent. He needed to be methodical, to check every year of the period in question, until he had identified exactly when Ann Fothergill had taken ownership of the three pubs. Selecting the chunky red book, dated 1820, Morton sat at the nearest table and carefully pulled it open. It was arranged alphabetically, featuring the county’s larger towns and cities. Skipping through several pages, he settled on Dover, then ran his finger down the various services offered in the town at that time. Academies. Agents. Attorneys. Bakers. Bankers. Basket-makers. Baths. Book-binders. Braziers. Brewers. Bricklayers. He turned the page and continued checking until his finger came to rest on Inns. Packet Boat, Josh. Hoad, Strond Street. Palm Tree, Robert Griggs, Elham. Moving on to Hythe, the town in which the Bell Inn was situated, he found its proprietor to be one Henry Marshall. As Morton had expected, Ann had owned none of the pubs in 1820. Having made a note on his pad, he placed the tome back onto the shelf and selected the edition for 1827. The Packet Boat Inn had changed ownership to a John Finnis, while the Palm Tree had remained in the care of Robert Griggs. The Bell Inn, however, was now owned by Ann Fothergill. Morton smiled as he photographed the entry and scribbled the information onto his pad.
‘The Bell,’ someone said beside him with a Southern American voice.
He looked up, seeing the inquisitive face of a young lady with a staff lanyard around her neck, which read Amber Henderson. ‘They do a scrumptious bacon and onion suet pudding—making me hungry just thinking about it.’
Morton smiled politely.
‘Ever been there?’ she asked, squinting at him.
‘No,’ he answered. Time was ticking and he had wanted to make some progress on this case before Juliette and Grace returned home.
‘What’s your interest in it—if I may ask?’ Amber said. Keeping the page with one finger, she flipped the book shut and looked at the title: ‘Pigot’s. 1827.’
‘Yes,’ Morton confirmed, starting to lose patience.
She flicked the book open again and folded her arms, oblivious to Morton’s growing exasperation. ‘You know all about the bodies, don’t you?’ Amber asked cryptically.
‘Bodies?’ he repeated.
Amber’s eyes opened with delight and she hurried off to the bookshelves in the Local Studies cabinet. She plucked out a book with an inaudible mumble and brought it to Morton’s desk, laying it on top of the Pigot’s directory.
‘Kent Smugglers’ Pubs,’ Morton read, watching as Amber turned back and forth between several pages.
‘Here we are,’ she began. ‘In 1963, a builder made a gruesome discovery of two skeletons when he uncovered the back of the old inglenook fireplace. They were identified as being Revenue Officers because their boots, belts, hats and badges had survived. All were taken to the local coroners.’
‘Oh, right,’ Morton said, his demeanour towards her softening. ‘Does it say what happened to the bodies? Or when they were put in there?’
Amber turned up her nose. ‘No, that’s all. I’m not an expert on smuggling, but I guess that puts it to around the early nineteenth century.’
‘Smuggling?’ Morton questioned.
‘Revenue Officers,’ Amber clarified. ‘They were employed by the Admiralty to prevent smuggling.’
‘Of course,’ Morton said, feeling a little foolish for not having made that connection for himself. ‘Do you have any more information on the discovery of the bodies?’
‘The Folkestone, Hythe and District Herald would be your best bet—see if it made the local paper.’
‘Do you have them here?’ Morton asked.
Amber shook her head. ‘No, we’ve got a few old local papers, like The Cinque Ports Herald, but not for this period—you’ll need to visit Folkestone Library for that. Do you know where it is?’
‘Yes, I’ve been there a few times,’ he answered, wondering how an American came to know so much about Kent local history. He knew Folkestone Library well. Among several visits for genealogical cases, on which he had worked in the past, it had also been the place in which he had made his first big strides in locating his biological father, when Morton had learned of his stay in Folkestone in January 1974.
‘Good luck with it,’ Amber said, sliding off into the lending library.
‘Thanks,’ Morton muttered, as he returned the directory to the shelf and selected the previous year, 1826. He found Ann there, proprietor of the Bell Inn, the place in which, he had just learned, the bodies of two Revenue Officers had been discovered in 1963. He photographed the page, then swapped the volume for the previous year. Ann was there again. He then checked the years 1821-1824, but the pub had still been in the ownership of Henry Marshall, meaning that Ann had taken it on in the year of her son’s birth, 1825.
One thing, he realised, which might help him to ascertain a more precise timing of her tenure of the Bell Inn, was the date upon which the Pigot’s guide had been written. He took down the 1825 edition again, and began to thumb through the opening pages until he found the month of publication: August.
Amber had left the copy of Kent Smugglers’ Pubs on the desk, so Morton copied down the text that she had just read to him, wondering if a link could be made to Ann and her ownership of the pub. He looked at the time; just approaching midday. He still had plenty of time to finish his research here before heading over to Folkestone Library.
He spent some time checking the directories for the subsequent years, discovering that Ann’s ownership of the Packet Boat Inn had occurred in 1831 and the Palm Tree Inn around 1836.
Shortly after two o’clock, Morton headed back to his car, satisfied with the day’s progress so far. As he started his Mini, ready to leave the car park and drive to Folkestone, he remembered that Ann had lived for the last thirty-plus years of her life in a house close to the town centre, and decided to pay it a quick visit. He flipped the pages in his notebook, struggling to remember the name of the property. He found the address: Honey Pot House, Castle Avenue.
It took him three minutes to reach Castle Avenue and a further two minutes of crawling along the kerbside to locate the house. The road was lined with a motley collection of practically every type of house: handsome Edwardian dwellings sat beside ugly 1980s bungalows. As far as he had seen, there were no pre-Victorian properties on the road apart from Honey Pot House.
‘Impressive,’ he said to himself, taking several shots on his mobile.
The three-storeyed brick house, set behind wroug
ht iron gates and fencing, was situated in a sprawling plot that now boasted tennis courts and what looked from the road to be an outdoor swimming pool. Ann Fothergill had undergone a Dickensian transformation from illiterate street vagrant in 1820 to the owner of a pub in 1825, followed years later by a large house and two further pubs. Impressive.
Morton rubbed his chin as he looked at the house, deliberating his research so far, before climbing back into his Mini and driving along the coast to Folkestone.
The dull beige, hardback binding that held together every edition of The Folkestone, Hythe & District Herald for 1963 flopped onto the desk with a thump. Morton turned the first large page over with a smile. When so many newspapers had been transferred to microfilm or fiche, or digitalised to computer, it was always a pleasure to handle original ones such as these. Having no idea when the two bodies had been discovered that year, he knew it was necessary to search each and every edition until he had found it. As he needed it to be, his search was thorough and methodical; he checked every story on every page, despite suspecting that the unearthing of two Revenue Officers’ corpses would actually be headline news for this quiet seaside town. Sure enough, it was. On the 10th July 1963, the story had made the front page. MURDER? the headline shouted above a grainy black and white image of an inglenook fireplace, at the base of which, surrounded by piles of bricks, were two skulls protruding from dark clothing. The picture looked almost comical to Morton, like a bad pub Halloween display. Yet, the story confirmed what Amber Henderson at Dover Library had said to him: ‘Whilst knocking down a dividing wall in the central fireplace of the Bell Inn on Wednesday, a builder unearthed two human skeletons fully dressed in the outfits of Coastguard Officers. Local man, Paul Major, was the person who made the gruesome discovery, thinking at first that the bodies were a pile of old rags. The remains were conveyed to the Coroner’s Office by Mr F.W. Smith, who told reporters that the skeletons dated from the early nineteenth century, therefore an inquest into the deaths was unnecessary. Although the two bodies showed no visible signs of how they met with their deaths, owing to the mere fact of their concealment, the circumstances are highly suspicious. ‘Looks like they were murdered,’ Ian Austen, the forty-seven-year-old owner of the pub said yesterday. ‘Why else would they have been bricked up in a fireplace?’ One local historian and maritime expert, Clive Baintree, who saw the skeletons shortly after their discovery believes that the two men would have been part of the Coastal Blockade set up to prevent smuggling in Kent and Sussex. Having remained closed while the police concluded their investigations, the Bell Inn is once again open to the public.’
The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7) Page 8
