The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  ‘Brilliant,’ Morton mumbled, as he approached the front door. The website had expounded its range of wonderful menu options, yet had failed to mention anywhere the crucial fact that the pub was shut. Closed down. Empty. They had just driven all this way with a screaming child for nothing. Excellent.

  ‘Oh, you’re joking,’ Juliette sighed, when she too realised that they had wasted their journey here.

  ‘No lemon sole goujons for us, then,’ Morton lamented, pressing his nose to the grimy window. Inside was completely devoid of furniture. At the back of the room he could just make out the open fireplace where the bodies had been discovered in 1963. Zooming in on his mobile, he took a picture of the fireplace for the case file.

  ‘I was just thinking,’ he said.

  ‘Dangerous,’ Juliette quipped.

  ‘Do you fancy popping to Maidstone for lunch?’

  Juliette shot him a dubious look. ‘No, I don’t. I’m guessing you don’t, either. You actually want to visit the Kent History and Library Centre. Right?’

  ‘Er…’

  ‘Look, if you need to go there then just drop us home and go—as long as you’re back before half past two when I need to leave for work.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Very—I just want to go home now and sulk,’ she answered, putting Grace back into her car seat.

  Morton smiled and collapsed the pushchair, appreciating his normal little family unit. Over the next few days, if his Aunty Margaret did arrive, all that normality might well go flying into the wind with the conjoining of his biological and adoptive families. It was something that he absolutely craved and dreaded in equal measure.

  He slowly pulled away from the pub and Grace began to wail.

  The glass doors to the Kent History and Library Centre parted in an automatic welcome; Morton stepped inside and headed to the main reception desk, where he received an access card on a lanyard from the smiling young librarian. Walking with a purposeful gait, Morton headed into the far-left corner of the building and swiped his access card to gain entry to the archive reading room. Aside from the man single-finger typing at a computer keyboard behind the helpdesk, there were just two other researchers occupying spaces at one of the three large tables in the centre of the room. Morton placed his laptop, notepad and pencil on one of the spaces and headed over to a bank of colourful folders, which provided indexes to all of the archive holdings. From a run of blue files, Morton selected Parish Records Addington-Bearsted and carried it over to his desk, where he flipped through until he reached the parochial records pertaining to Aldington. Hopefully somewhere in here he would find documents which might shed some light on Ann Fothergill’s time in the village.

  The records covered a range of topics and a range of dates. He slowly ran his finger down the lists, past the baptisms, marriages and burials to the other documents relating to the organisation of the village. Workhouse registers. Rates. Minutes of the Parochial Church Council. Bastardy Bonds. Settlement & Removal Orders.

  Under the heading of ‘Overseers—Miscellaneous’ his finger stopped on a particular record dated 1824. Survey of the Parish by William Stiles giving name of occupiers, acreages and land use. Probably compiled for tithe and rating purposes. This paper is complete.

  Morton filled in the white document request slip and carried it over to the man who was still single-finger typing behind the desk. ‘Hi. I’d like to order this, please,’ he said, handing over the slip of paper.

  The man took it with a near-smile. ‘It’s on microfilm. Is that okay?’

  ‘I might need to get copies. Is it alright to photograph the screen?’

  The man grimaced. ‘Afraid not—the Church of the Latter-Day Saints owns the copyright—you’ll need to print out any copies you need.’

  Morton held back from his desire to argue the absurdities of the Mormons begrudging his photographing a document on-screen compared to printing it out. Clearly this couldn’t be the case. ‘Right.’

  ‘It’ll be a few minutes,’ the man said, carrying the slip out through a door behind him.

  Returning to his seat, Morton continued scanning the list of parish records, identifying several more documents for the relevant period which might be of interest. Some, he realised, would be contained on the microfilm that he had just ordered. He reached the end of the parish of Aldington. Only a few further documents were to be found in the small window of time in which he was searching. He completed two further request slips and walked them over to the helpdesk, just as the single-finger typist reappeared carrying the small black box of microfilm.

  ‘Here you go.’

  Morton thanked him and carried it over to the reader, where he loaded the film and buzzed through to the correct section—Aldington P4/18/1. The records had a preamble, handwritten by the compiler in 1824. An account of the admeasurement of the Parish of Aldington in the County of Kent, giving an account of the quantity of land in the occupation of each person whose names are hereafter inserted where the plough and scythe goes, including woodland and orchard, taken in the respective months of March, April and May in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Four by me, William Styles.

  The first section of the document was arranged according to the land and building holdings of each owner. Morton wound his way through the property owners of the village, thankful that Aldington was a relatively small parish. Mr Thomas Carpenter. Mr Edward Epps. Mr Foord. Mr Mills. Mr Rogers. Mr Edward Marshall. Mr Bridger. Mr Thomas Pilcher. Widow Sealy. Mr Robert Scott. The valuations spanned several pages, but there was no mention of either Ann Fothergill or anyone by the name of Sam. Although Morton was not surprised that Ann—a street vagrant just three years prior—was not among the land-owning villagers, she had already confounded his expectations by owning the Bell Inn just a year later, in 1825, so he was keeping an open mind as he searched.

  Morton wound through a long trail of black film, which was sandwiched between the ending of one record set and the commencement of the next. A stirring of optimism rose inside him when he saw what appeared on-screen before him: a complete break-down of each owner’s holdings and a valuation for each. Crucially, house names were stated, as were the names of the main occupier. If Ann hadn’t owned a property in Aldington, perhaps she had been listed in one as a tenant.

  His methodical search took him just over half an hour. Ann had not been listed, but Morton did find mention of one Samuel Banister on a record of ‘Cottages belonging to Court Lodge Farm’. He was stated to be the tenant of Braemar Cottage and garden, valued at £1 and 10 shillings.

  Morton studied the printout. At this stage, there was no evidence that Samuel Banister had anything to do with Ann, other than the fact that he shared the same Christian name as a man to whom she had written in 1827.

  Wary of the fact that time was slipping from him, Morton fast-forwarded the roll of film through several records, which pertained to a much later period of time, stopping at Overseers Accounts – Assessments & Disbursements, which spanned much of the nineteenth century. Not knowing when Ann had arrived in the village, Morton began searching the accounts from 1820. Among the initial records were two which gave an indication of why and when the Aldington Gang had been created.

  15 April 1820

  Two bushels of barley for Cephas Quested. 9 shillings

  Paid Mrs Fagg for attendance on Cephas Quested’s wife. 5 shillings 6 pence

  Then, later that month:

  Paid Cephas Quested in need. 5 shillings

  It was clear to Morton that Cephas Quested had started the smuggling gang owing to his apparent poverty. Tellingly, there were no further mentions of the Quested family in the file. He hit the print button, then continued his trawl.

  Just a few minutes later, he found something.

  28th February 1821

  Paid doctor’s attendance to Hester Banister. 6 shillings

  2nd March 1821

  Paid for coal and candles for Braemar Cottage, requested by Ann Fo
thergill, lodging there. 8 shillings 4 pence

  Morton now had documentary evidence that Ann had been residing with the Banister family at Braemar Cottage from at least the end of February 1821, implying that the ‘Sam’, to whom she had written in 1827, was indeed Samuel Banister.

  ‘Here’s your other film,’ the single-finger typist said, placing another black box beside the microfilm reader.

  ‘Thank you,’ Morton said, briefly taking his eyes from the screen. He printed the entry, not quite satisfied to move on, and yet unable to give himself a reason as to why. He zoomed in to isolate the entry and read it several times more. Hester had obviously been sick enough to require a doctor and for Ann to have been the person to make an appeal for coal and candles. Why had Sam not been the one to have made the claim? Or to be providing for Hester, whom Morton presumed to be his sick wife? Knowing the parsimonious reputation shared by Parish Overseers throughout the land, they would not have paid out a single penny had Sam been sitting idle; he would have to have been either absent from his home or himself incapacitated.

  With just over one hour until he had to leave, Morton persisted with the Overseers’ records until he reached the end of the roll of film. There were no further mentions of Ann, Hester or Samuel.

  Morton rewound the film and then loaded the next one, which began with parish registers for the village. Knowing that they were already online, Morton buzzed past them, intent on finding more about Hester and Samuel Banister when he would have time at home. He slowed the film down, pausing at intervals to check which records were currently on screen. Following a band of black film, P4/12/3, a ledger recording work and wages of unemployed labourers on the parish farm appeared. At the top of the page was written Ruffians Hill Farm. Running down the left in a long column was a list of men’s names, beside which were the number of days worked in the week, followed by pay received. The volume commenced in 1820 and Morton began to scan down the list of names. The year ended without mention of a single Banister. In the first quarter of 1821, however, Morton discovered a baffling entry.

  Week commencing Monday 5th March

  Saml Banister ½ day £0.0s.0d

  His was the only name which had zero financial reward. Morton hurriedly printed the page then carried on through the ledger, deliberately checking both names and pay. The register ended in December 1825. In that period there were no further mentions of Samuel Banister, nor did anyone else not receive pay for their efforts on Ruffians Hill Farm.

  He had no time left in which to ponder—he had to leave.

  Having rewound the film and handed the two boxes back to the single-finger typist, Morton gathered up his belongings and carried the printouts to the main reception desk then left.

  ‘Jesus, Morton,’ Juliette greeted him when he arrived back home. ‘I’ve literally got to leave in thirty seconds.’

  Morton looked at his watch and shrugged: ‘You said be home by 2.30. It’s 2.29.’

  ‘Heaven forbid you’d want to sit down and have a drink with me before I go,’ she snapped, pulling her work shoes from the cupboard beside the front door.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t think…’

  ‘Hmm,’ she responded, bending down to tie her laces.

  ‘Where’s Grace?’ he asked.

  ‘Afternoon sleep. You’ve got a good hour to get the house cleaned and tidied before she wakes up.’ Juliette stood up and tugged at various parts of her tight uniform, which had gathered up in unsightly places. ‘Right, bye.’

  Morton kissed her on the lips, then pulled her tight to him. ‘It will all be fine,’ he whispered.

  He felt her body relax in his grip, as she began to breathe more deeply. ‘I hope so.’ She broke away, pecked him on the lips again and said, ‘See you in the morning.’

  With a moody sigh, she turned, opened the front door and was gone.

  Morton plodded into the kitchen, made himself a coffee, then carried it, along with his bag, up to his study. He sipped at the drink and studied the investigation wall. His eyes roamed from one record to another, whilst his brain tried to join the dots together. From his bag, he pulled out the printouts and his notebook and began to add the new information to the wall and timeline. Ann Fothergill, lodging at Braemar Cottage, had, at the end of February 1821, applied to the parish for a doctor to see Hester. Days later, she had received coal and candles. Shortly after that, Samuel Banister had undertaken half a day’s work on the parish farm, for which he had received no payment. Morton’s current assumption was that Samuel was himself ill at the time when Ann had sought help from the overseers and had then attempted half a day’s labouring. The implication for receiving no pay was that his work was unsatisfactory or uncompleted: perhaps he had been too ill to work, Morton mused. And then, the family had needed no further financial support from the parish—ever again. Why? The answer—smuggling—was obvious; the documentary evidence to substantiate this, however, was paper-thin. As Morton re-read his notes on the Aldington Gang, he was drawn to the transition period between the two leaders. The pivotal moment had been the Battle of Brookland on the 11th February 1821. Was it too much to consider that perhaps Samuel Banister had been injured in the battle, thus unable to provide for his family?

  One thing was certain to Morton: Samuel Banister’s connection to Ann Fothergill was proving to be a crucial one and he needed much more detailed research.

  Just as he opened his laptop to begin searching the Aldington parish registers online, Grace announced that she was awake with a glass-shattering cry.

  For a day which had started out so badly, it was ending in a much more constructive way, Morton ruminated, as he sipped from a mercifully large glass of wine. He was back up in his study, having fed Grace, played with her, bathed her, then put her to bed. He had run a series of searches in the Aldington parish registers and had found, in 1795, Samuel Banister’s baptism record, meaning that he had been around six years older than Ann. Morton had been unable to locate a marriage, but did find the baptism of two children: John and Ellen. The burial register had revealed only Hester’s death in 1852. There having been no sign of Samuel, Morton ran a search in the civil death registers from 1837 onwards, but to no avail. He had not been unduly surprised. He believed that Ann’s letter of 1827 had been written to Samuel and that he was not living in England at that point, a fact confirmed by both the 1841 and 1851 censuses, which stated Hester to have been married, yet with no sign of her husband.

  Morton’s phone beeped an announcement of a text message. It was from Juliette: ‘Hi. How’s it going? Did Grace go down okay? You did remember to give her dinner?! Grim here. Sent out alone to pull a suicide attempter off a bridge. Told off for not letting the station know I was okay. Want to come home xx’

  He stared at the message for sufficiently long enough for the screen to go black. He did not know how to respond. Sarcasm and suicide attempts were not exactly great bedfellows. And she never took well to being pandered to. Simple and neutral was best, he decided. ‘Hi. All good here. Grace ate her dinner and went to bed nicely. Sorry the first shift isn’t great. See you later. Love you. Xxx’ He re-read the message and found it to be sufficiently simple and neutral, then clicked send.

  His gaze seemed to gravitate of its own volition towards their wedding photograph on his desk. People often spoke about their wedding day as having been the happiest of their lives, which Morton had always found an odd thing to say; the implication being that nothing thereafter could ever match up to those precious few hours. The truth, for him, was that the wedding had been a pinnacle moment—he could see that now. It was the closing of a chapter of his life. The years, which had followed his being told that he had been adopted, had been marred by anger, frustration and an insatiable search for the truth, and which, until Juliette had entered his life, had left him restless, with the desire to marry or have children repressed. The day that he had married Juliette would certainly be among the best of his life, but its significance went way beyond a handful of hazy fleeting
moments in the company of friends and family.

  He drank some more wine, sighed thoughtfully, then turned back to his laptop.

  Logging in to The Genealogist website, Morton ran a search in the Tithe & Land Owner record collection for Braemar Cottage, Aldington. Receiving just one result, he clicked it and a large-scale map of the village loaded before him. Dated 1842, the map carved the village up into its composite parcels of land, with houses and buildings marked and annotated with the owner and occupiers’ names. Braemar Cottage was, by 1842, occupied by one Thomas Tutt.

  Zooming in closely, Morton could see that Braemar Cottage was one of several tied to the estate of Court Lodge Farm. Directly beside the farm was the parish church, and it dawned on Morton then, that he had seen the farm and some of the small tied cottages when he had made the trip to the village three days ago. From what he could remember, they were small and modest affairs.

  Before printing the map, Morton spent some time moving his cursor around the village, zooming in to various areas of interests. He found Hester Banister living in what appeared to be sizable cottage close to the Walnut Tree Inn. Crucial to his theory that her husband, Samuel was no longer in the country was the fact that Hester was among only a handful of women without the prefix of ‘widow’; those other women being the wives of transported smugglers.

  Morton was startled by the house phone ringing beside him. The area code—01326—told him exactly who was calling him. He paused, staring at the phone. He might not have answered it but for the fear of the continual ringing waking Grace making his decision for him. ‘Hello?’ he said, in way which suggested he had no knowledge of the caller’s identity.

  ‘Hello, Morton, it’s your Aunty Margaret, here,’ she said brightly.