The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  ‘Have you seen him?’ Ann asked.

  Sam shook his head and walked hurriedly towards her. He reached out for her hand and she allowed him to take it, hold it. ‘Come back.’

  ‘No, Sam,’ Ann said, a firmness to her voice that told him that it would be futile to persist. ‘Let me go.’

  Sam allowed her hand to drop. She turned and walked the remainder of the path to the road and was quickly gone. As he pulled in a long breath and took in his surroundings, he realised that he was standing in the sunlit space between the two tall yew trees. He looked to the side and there, in the upper window of the house, was Hester.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Morton said, as the display screen on his car dashboard revealed who was calling him. ‘It’s Arthur—again.’

  ‘Maybe it’s important?’ Jack suggested from beside him on the passenger seat.

  They were just pulling into Rye, having finished for the day at the National Archives. Perhaps Jack was right; Arthur Fothergill had tried calling multiple times on the journey home, quite what the urgency could be, however, Morton had no idea.

  He hit the hands-free answer-button. ‘Hello?’ he said, trying to conceal his annoyance.

  ‘Is that you, Morton Farrier?’ Arthur’s soft voice asked.

  Morton flashed a quick look at Jack, then answered, ‘Yes, that’s me. What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s Arthur Fothergill here. I don’t mean to pester, but how is the work on my great-grandmother coming along?’

  ‘Great,’ Morton said, ‘I think. I’ve been working on her today at the National Archives.’

  ‘Oh, right. So, it’s close to finishing, then?’ Arthur said.

  Morton wondered how Arthur had reached that conclusion based on what he had just told him. ‘Well… there’s still work to do—if you want it doing thoroughly.’

  There was just enough suggestion hanging in Morton’s words that the case could be ended prematurely at any moment for Arthur to quickly say, ‘Yes, yes—I want it done thoroughly…’ The line went quiet. Seconds passed and Morton glanced at the display to see if the signal had failed, leaving poor Arthur chatting in an unheard soliloquy. But, he spoke again. ‘And, with regard to Ann’s places of residence during this time, have you… identified anything?’

  Morton looked again at Jack, both of them believing that Arthur’s nephew had clearly pushed him into making the phone call. Given what had happened at the Bourne Tap the responsibility for what might happen if he told Arthur about Braemar Cottage momentarily skewed Morton’s thinking. But he couldn’t not tell him. As he turned the car onto Mermaid Street, an idea struck him. ‘Just one place,’ he lied. ‘Somewhere called Braemar Cottage, next to Aldington Church.’

  ‘Braemar Cottage,’ Arthur said, taking his time to enunciate the words.

  Jack mouthed the words, ‘Writing it down.’

  ‘Near Aldington Church, you say?’ Arthur repeated.

  ‘That’s right,’ Morton answered, a hollow sense of disappointment settling on him, as he realised that for Arthur and his family the main focus of the case was on a ludicrous treasure hunt, not anything which he might find out about Ann and her life. This was confirmed when Arthur said ‘Right, I’ll let you go,’ without asking any further details of his research. Morton said goodbye somewhat curtly and ended the call.

  ‘Wow. Do you think the nephew was there with him?’ Jack asked.

  ‘That would be my guess, yes,’ Morton said, parking the car behind his house.

  ‘Do you think that was the right thing to do, giving him the name of the cottage?’ Jack asked, voicing Morton’s own fears.

  Morton nodded slowly and uncertainly. ‘I hope so. I’ve got an idea,’ he said, leading the way around the house to the front door.

  ‘I hope it’s a good one,’ Jack said.

  ‘We shall see,’ Morton replied, as they reached the front door. ‘Hello,’ he called into the house, placing his bag down.

  Laura responded with a greeting from upstairs, Juliette from the kitchen.

  ‘Dadda!’ Grace greeted the moment that Morton stepped inside. She crawled from the kitchen doorway towards him with remarkable speed, then grappled with his leg to hoist herself up.

  Morton picked her up with a wide smile and kissed her. ‘Hello, Grace. Have you had a nice day?’

  ‘No,’ Grace answered, looking over his shoulder. ‘Gandpa!’

  Jack held his hands apart as though he were holding an imaginary child, and Morton passed Grace over to him, then moved into the kitchen. Juliette, wearing slim jeans and a loose-fitting denim shirt, was busy chopping a slab of white fish into small chunks.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Good day?’

  ‘Very good, thanks,’ Morton said, pushing himself to her side to kiss her. ‘Yours?’

  ‘Lovely—very relaxing. We went to Tenterden, did some shopping, had lunch, went on the old steam railway to Bodiam, then came back here and watched Frozen. Laura’s just having a bath. Oh! Oh! And guess what?’ she said, hurrying to the sink to wash her hands. ‘Follow me!’

  Morton trailed her into the lounge, where Grace was on the floor, playing cars with Jack.

  ‘Grace,’ Juliette said. ‘Say mummy.’

  Grace looked up and, for a brief moment, Morton thought that she was not going to oblige. ‘Mumma,’ she said.

  ‘Good girl,’ Juliette praised, bending down and kissing her on the forehead.

  ‘Great stuff,’ Jack said. ‘You just wait, though, there’ll be moments in the future when you’ll be sick of hearing that word.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Morton agreed.

  Juliette laughed, then headed back into the kitchen, with Morton close behind her.

  ‘Listen, before I forget—there’s something you need to do workwise.’

  ‘Well,’ Juliette said, picking the knife and brandishing it in his direction, ‘it might have escaped your attention, but I’m actually not at work; I’m at home, making dinner for you and your family.’

  ‘It’s kind of important…’ he persisted.

  ‘Isn’t it always?’

  ‘Basically,’ he began, not giving her much choice but to listen, ‘I think Phillip Garrow might try breaking into Braemar Cottage in Aldington tonight.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’ve just told him about it—via his uncle.’

  ‘Of course you have,’ she said, her knife slicing through the fish with renewed ferocity. ‘Start from the beginning.’

  Leaning on the worktop beside Juliette, Morton relayed his conversation with Arthur, expecting a sarcastic response along the lines of bringing in armed response officers and putting the ports on high alert, but actually she said, ‘I’ll phone it in and we’ll see what the boss thinks. They might send a car out if there’s the manpower available.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, feeling a sense of release from the burden of his knowledge. ‘Where’s George?’

  Juliette shrugged. ‘Out somewhere—think he’s sulking because Lucy dumped him.’

  ‘Oh, did she? Why?’

  Juliette looked at him, as though the answer should be obvious. She lowered her voice and said, ‘There’s something up with him, isn’t there?’

  Morton nodded. ‘I’ll speak to Jack about it tomorrow. He wants to go over to Folkestone and see the house he stayed at in 1974. He wants to show it to Laura.’

  Juliette scrunched up her nose. ‘Really?’ she whispered.

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘I’m just going to sort my stuff out from today,’ Morton said, leaving the kitchen, collecting his bag from the hallway, and bounding up the stairs to his study. His first job was to start up his laptop and transfer the hundreds of photographs, which they had taken today at the National Archives. Whilst the pictures were transferring, Morton opened his notepad, where he had written any special points of interest. The first was that Samuel Banister had been a key witness in the
trial of the Aldington Gang, which he noted in red capital letters under Samuel’s name on the investigation wall. Then, he wrote a new name on a fresh piece of paper: Jonas Blackwood. He stuck the paper to the wall and ran a string line from it to Samuel’s name. Below Jonas’s name, Morton wrote the words, ‘Principal Officer, Bow Street.’

  The following morning, Morton drove to Folkestone. Jack sat beside him in the passenger seat, with Laura, George and Grace in the back. Morton took the scenic route through the villages on the Kent and Sussex border, arriving fifty minutes later at Canterbury Road in Folkestone. Morton drew the car up on the opposite side of the street from the house and switched off the engine.

  ‘Is that it?’ George said, making no effort whatsoever to disguise his lack of enthusiasm for the house.

  ‘Yep, that’s it,’ Morton replied, feeling oddly defensive, despite agreeing about the uninspiring appearance of the semi-detached house. He glanced back in his rear-view mirror and caught George snarling, as he stared out of the window.

  Jack grinned, craning his neck forwards to see through Morton’s window. ‘It’s exactly how I remember it.’

  ‘Is it the one on the left, or right?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Right,’ Morton answered, leaving out the crucial information that Margaret lived in the adjacent house.

  ‘Let’s go, then,’ Jack said.

  Morton was taken aback, not quite sure where they were going to go next, when he realised that Jack was unbuckling his seat belt. He copied and stepped from the car, hurrying around to release Grace from her seat, as Jack paused for a moment for a break in the traffic, then trotted across the road.

  ‘Ready?’ Jack called from the opposite pavement.

  ‘For what?’ Morton asked.

  ‘Go see the house.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘See if anyone’s home,’ Jack said.

  Reluctantly, Morton followed, carrying Grace in his arms, with Laura and then George not far behind.

  It was with some degree of mortification that Morton watched Jack stride confidently up the fissured concrete drive and press the doorbell. It was something which he never had the audacity to do in his research and, despite harbouring a deep curiosity to know what memories might be evoked by Jack’s seeing the inside of this house, found himself actually hoping that nobody would be home. He drew in an anxious breath as a short middle-aged woman opened the door and peered out. She had the look of a retired secretary with thick-rimmed glasses and pinched features.

  ‘Hi,’ Jack greeted. ‘This is going to sound a little crazy but I once stayed in this house…back in January 1974, when this place was a guesthouse. I’m over with my family on vacation and I sure would like to show them the place. Would that be possible?’

  Morton’s eyes fell to the floor in amazement at Jack’s self-assurance, clearly displaying a trait which he had not inherited.

  The lady frowned, then glanced quickly at the strange group of people assembled on her drive. ‘What is it you want to do, exactly?’

  ‘Just take a look inside—real quick. My room was right there,’ Jack said, stepping back and pointing up at a window directly above them.

  The lady seemed to soften. ‘Well, it won’t be the same as it was in the seventies, I can tell you that much.’

  Jack laughed. ‘We’ll be two minutes and it’ll make this American a very happy man.’

  The lady raised her eyebrows, bewildered at how seeing the inside of her house, with forty years’ worth of changes and redecoration, could make anybody happy. She took one last fleeting glance at the group, evidently satisfied by something—perhaps the presence of a baby or lady of her own age—then stepped back and allowed them to enter.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Jack said, leading the way inside.

  A sharp tang of frying oil hit Morton as soon as he entered, then he detected other cooking smells—bacon, possibly and onions.

  Jack peered around the corner of the first open door. ‘This was Mr and Mrs Dyche’s lounge. We could only use it until nine in the evening, then we had to go to our rooms,’ Jack said with a grin.

  The owner smiled slightly, although Morton perceived no genuine interest in her house’s previous incarnation as a guesthouse.

  ‘Yup, the kitchen is just the same,’ Jack said at the next door. ‘Mrs Dyche would make us breakfast every day—some kind of gritty porridge.’

  ‘Well,’ the lady said, crossing her arms, ‘it’s not exactly the same; we had a new one fitted in 1994.’

  ‘Is it okay to go upstairs and see my old room?’ Jack asked, ignoring her rebuttal.

  ‘I suppose so,’ the lady muttered.

  As Morton began to climb the stairs behind Jack, Grace started to wriggle. ‘Down!’ she said, declaring the latest addition to her growing vocabulary. ‘Down!’

  ‘You can’t get down, Grace. We’re just going upstairs.’

  ‘No!’ Grace responded, bursting into tears and wriggling more frantically.

  ‘Do you want me to take her outside?’ Laura offered, lowering her voice and adding, ‘I don’t really need to see the room.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Morton asked, wondering whether her reluctance to see the room was because of the implications of what had occurred—possibly there—with Margaret, or whether it was the simpler reason of its not being remotely interesting to see a bedroom where her husband had spent six or seven nights forty years ago.

  ‘Absolutely,’ she insisted, reaching out.

  Morton smiled and handed Grace over to her. ‘Thank you. We won’t be long.’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ George said.

  Morton watched the three of them troop out of the house, then took the remaining steps two at a time until he reached the top. Jack’s voice guided him to a box room at the front of the house. He was standing with his hands on his hips, slowly taking in the room, under the curious gaze of the owner. It was now evidently used for crafting, there being two sewing machines set up on a table to the left, from one of which dangled a garish paisley piece of fabric. On the wall facing the door, framing the window, were dozens of rolls of material, and on the right-hand wall were cabinets with small plastic drawers fronted with obscure labels ‘wooden embellishments’, ‘hessian jute twine’, ‘rainbow sticky paper’, ‘clear washi tape’.

  ‘So,’ Jack said, stepping fully into the room. ‘The single bed used to be here, running right under the window and over here—’ he pointed to the sewing machines, ‘—there was a wardrobe and chest of drawers. And that was it.’

  The house owner maintained a fixed, yet clearly disinterested smile.

  Morton edged into the room slightly, as if that might help him picture the room better as it would have been forty years ago, when in fact it was so that he could see how Laura was getting on with Grace outside. Grace was in her arms, calmly watching the passing cars, but there was something going on between Laura and George; their body language—hands flicking about and the way they seemed to be interrupting each other—was sufficient without the accompanying dialogue for Morton to interpret it as an argument. Morton shifted his look to Jack to see if he had registered it. He had not, or at least was pretending so.

  ‘Right,’ the woman said, clearly bringing the intrusion to a close.

  ‘Yes,’ Jack agreed. ‘Thank you so much. It’s really brought back a lot of memories for me. Thank you.’

  Morton turned to leave the room and led the way back downstairs, wondering what memories being back here had evoked in Jack. In the hallway, Morton thanked the owner and opened the front door. Jack shook her hand and again expressed his gratitude. The owner smiled in relief and closed the door behind them.

  Jack slapped his arm on Morton’s shoulder, as they ventured down the driveway towards the road. Morton glanced across to his Mini, where George was leaning against the boot, staring at his mobile like a surly teenager. It took him a moment to spot Laura slowly ambling up the road with Grace in her arms, as she pointed at th
ings which they passed.

  At the pavement, with his hand still on Morton’s shoulder, Jack turned, and for a brief moment of mortification, Morton thought that he was being led up the driveway of number 163. Instead, Jack stopped at the symbolic wall between the two properties. ‘And that was Margaret’s room, up there.’ Jack pointed to the window which mirrored the one in which he had stayed. ‘Next to her room was your mom and dad’s room. It was pretty basic, from what I can remember; they were saving up to get their own place. They were good people—we all used to hang out together.’

  ‘Really?’ Morton asked, never having heard that Jack and Margaret had spent any time with his adoptive parents. The idea was entirely bizarre and sat strangely in Morton’s mind, as he tried to imagine the four of them together. He tried to picture them—Jack and Margaret as they looked right now, his adoptive father as he had looked before his death three years ago, and his adoptive mother as she had looked before her death twenty-eight years ago—but the image was strained and somehow false.

  ‘Oh, sure,’ Jack continued. ‘We all went to the movies together… went into town. Your dad, Peter, was old enough to drive and he took us to the White Cliffs for a walk… We all got on real well.’

  ‘Right,’ Morton murmured.

  ‘I guess they took on a kind of parental role,’ Jack added.

  Morton was confused. His grandmother, Anna, had died in childbirth, but his grandfather was still around. ‘Was Alfred not there, then?’

  ‘Not really, no. I only met him once the whole week,’ Jack said.

  ‘Where was he, then?’ This new information seemed somehow more significant than Morton could give reason to.

  Jack shrugged. ‘Away with his job, I think. A regular occurrence, from what I can recall.’

  ‘But he owned a men’s clothing shop in Folkestone…’ Morton said, thinking aloud.

  ‘Well, what I’m very certain of,’ Jack said with a coy smile, ‘is that he only stayed home for one, or maybe two nights the whole while I was in town.’