Hiding the Past (The Forensic Genealogist series Book 1)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  Morton passed into a quieter part of the city where the shops gave way to café bars and restaurants, outside of which sat half-dressed youths on metal chairs. If Morton had been more six-pack and less family-pack he might have removed his own shirt, such was the heat of the day.

  As he turned into a side street, Morton heard the heavy thud of footsteps behind him, quickly becoming louder. He turned at the last second, just as his bag was brutally ripped from his shoulder, spinning him round from the force of the theft.

  He stood dumbstruck, his brain frozen.

  A flash of grey and denim disappeared out of sight, carrying his bag.

  ‘Damn it! Stop! He’s got my bag!’ Morton yelled, as soon as he was able to assimilate his thoughts into the understanding that he’d been robbed. By then the thief was long gone.

  A group of middle-aged men wearing identical yellow t-shirts with a red fish logo on the breast pocket were sitting outside the nearest café, just metres away from where Morton stood. Christians. They were bound to help. The Good Samaritan and all that. They must have seen the perpetrator. ‘Excuse me, I’ve just had my bag stolen,’ Morton said shakily. ‘Did anyone see the bloke who did it?’ Most looked away. One or two shook their heads.

  ‘All I heard was you shouting and swearing,’ one of them said.

  Morton ignored him and looked at the rest of the crowd, all ardently avoiding his gaze. ‘I think he was about five-ten, grey hoody,’ Morton persevered. ‘Did anyone see him?’

  ‘No. We didn’t see him,’ another said. ‘Now, if you would kindly leave us alone.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Morton muttered, walking away. He headed in the general direction taken by the mugger in the vain hope that he might find the bag discarded in a shop doorway. Not that it mattered: the important, valuable things like his laptop and wallet were bound to be long gone.

  Just as Morton was taking a long breath in, trying to stop himself shaking, a hand fell onto his shoulders. He whirled around, ready to hit whomever was touching him. Juliette. His body went limp.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve just been mugged. Had my laptop bag stolen.’

  ‘What? When? What happened?’ Juliette probed, taking his hand and staring him in the eyes.

  ‘Just some bloke came out of nowhere and wrenched it from my shoulder. Five-ten with a grey hoody – that’s about the only description.’

  Juliette pulled her phone from her pocket. ‘Right.’

  ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘Finding out where the nearest police station is.’

  Morton put his hand over hers. ‘No. I don’t want to report it,’ he said firmly.

  Juliette looked incredulous. ‘Why on earth not? At the very least you can report it, get a crime number and claim for it on the insurance.’

  ‘I’m just not feeling much confidence in the police at the moment. Come on, let’s go home. I’ve had enough of this place.’

  With a disbelieving shake of her head, Juliette pocketed her mobile and the pair walked silently back to the car park.

  The drive out of Brighton was a welcome one for Morton. A whole ugly, shadowy underworld faded into the hills behind him like a bad dream. A den of iniquity, his father had once called the city. Maybe he was right. Christians, robbers and weirdoes. Juliette had been uncharacteristically quiet for some time, which he guessed was the after-effects of his refusal to report the mugging. He knew that when he told her that, she’d never be able to detach herself from her job and see it from his perspective. All she would see was that a crime had been committed which needed reporting. It was as simple as that in her world. That might have been what was bugging Juliette initially but there was something else wrong now. She was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that the sinews rose defiantly on the backs of her hands. Morton’s suspicions were confirmed when the speedometer crept over seventy. On a sixty road. Very un-Juliette.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ she answered half-heartedly. ‘Just a car behaving strangely behind us.’

  ‘Behaving strangely how?’ Morton began to crane his head.

  ‘Don’t look round! Jesus, Morton!’ Juliette snapped. ‘It’s been following us for the last six miles.’

  Morton inched back into his chair, trying to catch a glimpse of the car in the wing mirror. He couldn’t see any car behaving strangely. ‘Which one?’

  ‘He’s just dropped back. A black BMW X6. He’s speeding up a bit now, see him?’

  Morton angled his head and caught sight of a black car – was that a BMW? He had no idea, but the car was gaining ground. ‘How do you know he’s following us, though? We’ve pretty much stayed on the same road since leaving Brighton.’

  ‘He’s trying not to be seen, speeding up, slowing down, taking odd decisions.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not just being paranoid?’ Morton asked.

  ‘Hold tight,’ Juliette said, ‘and get the plates.’

  Morton was about to ask what she meant when she yanked up the handbrake and hard-locked the steering wheel. The tyres squealed like dying pigs as the car spun round one hundred and eighty degrees. A split-second later and the black BMW sailed past at top-speed. Morton forgot the plates as soon as he saw the driver and recognised him; the question he had posed to Juliette about her paranoia had been answered.

  There could be no mistake, the man who had followed them out of Brighton in the BMW was the same man who had dropped his cigarettes on the steps of the Brighton District Probate Registry. As Morton sat at the desk in his study with his research notes spread out in front of him, it crystallised in his mind that Peter’s death, the mugging and the car-trailing were anything but coincidences. Even Juliette was beginning to understand his reticence in reporting the robbery. The first thing that Morton did when they returned home was to jot down all that he could recall typing into the notes about the case so far. When he finished, he sifted through the folder until he came to Soraya Benton’s address and phone number. Should he call her or visit? He would usually phone first and explain who he was and why he was making contact, but he didn’t want to take a chance that she wouldn’t be willing to meet in person. He decided to pay her a visit.

  When Morton parked outside the address that the electoral register search had provided, he was relieved not to have his fears confirmed that he would arrive to find Soraya’s bludgeoned corpse being stretchered out by paramedics. The quiet tree-lined road was close to Peter Coldrick’s house, but on the more affluent side of town. The house was a chunky Victorian semi with a carefully trained yellow-flowered honeysuckle enveloping much of the façade.

  He double-checked the rear-view mirror and was as certain as he could be that he hadn’t been followed. With a final glance in the mirror, Morton approached the house and pressed the doorbell.

  A moment later a woman in her early forties appeared at the door in jeans and an over-sized cream jumper, with tousled brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail. Could she be Soraya Benton? If so, then Morton was both impressed and astonished that Coldrick had managed to pull someone so... well, someone so way out of his league. She was not at all the frump he’d conjured up in his imagination on the journey over here.

  ‘Hi there,’ Morton began, ‘are you Soraya Benton?’

  She looked baffled, her eyes narrowing as if she were struggling to recognise an old school friend. ‘Yes,’ she said warily.

  ‘My name’s Morton Farrier, I hope you don’t mind me dropping by like this-’

  ‘-Ah, I wondered when you might make an appearance,’ Soraya interjected with a shy grin. ‘Come in.’ She stepped aside, showing Morton into a bright hallway. He was puzzled by her cryptic greeting. He’d anticipated a long and protracted doorstep discussion, especially if Soraya and Coldrick had separated acrimoniously. This was quite baffling to him. Soraya moved past him and he followed her into a large and comfortable lounge.

  ‘What did you mean, you wondered when I might make
an appearance?’ Morton asked. Soraya smiled and invited him to sit down.

  ‘I was expecting you – I knew that if you were as good a forensic genealogist as your website claimed that you’d find me somehow. You see, I was the one who suggested Peter employed you.’ Morton was still perplexed – he might never have found her, were it not for Juliette mentioning her very existence, but he wasn’t about to reveal that snippet of news; he was enjoying the view from the pedestal she had placed him on. She spoke so calmly and confidently that it unnerved him slightly.

  ‘Well, here I am,’ Morton said, adding after a pause, ‘I’m very sorry about Peter’s death.’

  ‘Me too,’ Soraya said, her expression suggesting that such simple words couldn’t even begin to express what she was feeling. He could see entrenched sadness and sorrow implicit in her eyes and couldn’t imagine what she must be going through. ‘I’ve just opened a bottle of red – can I persuade you to help me out with it?’

  Morton nodded. ‘That would be lovely, thanks.’

  Soraya left the room then returned with a glass. ‘Can I ask what you think about Peter’s death,’ she asked.

  ‘Well, he only hired me on Tuesday, but…’ Morton’s voice trailed off. He didn’t know how much he wanted to say, how much he could say.

  ‘But?’

  ‘But he didn’t seem the suicide type,’ Morton answered, hoping that his answer was diplomatic and pointed enough without cutting a fresh wound in her grief.

  Soraya set her glass down on the table between them. ‘No, he wasn’t the suicide type at all. Even if he had wanted to kill himself, he never in a million years would have used a gun. I mean, he didn’t even own a gun. Why go to all that bother when there was enough paracetamol in his bathroom cabinet to fell a large horse? Or a kitchen full of knives?’

  ‘It doesn’t really add up,’ he agreed.

  ‘Well, I know for certain he didn’t do it.’ The way that she emphasised the word know suggested to Morton that she must be sitting on some kind of irrefutable evidence, which surely she had shared with the police?

  ‘How can you know? The police seem fairly convinced it was suicide.’

  ‘I know they are, but they’ve got it wrong. Very wrong.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘No, really wrong. Follow me.’

  Morton put down his glass and followed Soraya down the hallway where she gently pushed open a door and stood back, allowing Morton to stick his head inside. The tightly drawn Incredible Hulk curtains should have been sufficient enough clue for him, but it wasn’t until his eyes fell upon a sleeping child, right leg dangling precariously from a messy cabin bed that it registered in his brain: Peter had a son. An heir.

  ‘Finlay Coldrick,’ Soraya said in a whisper, confirming his assumption. Morton was stunned. He hadn’t seen that one coming. He still couldn’t imagine Soraya and Coldrick sharing the same house, much less a child. Soraya pulled the door shut and they returned to the lounge.

  ‘Peter would have gone to the ends of the earth for that boy,’ Soraya said quietly, tucking her legs up under herself. ‘They had such a close relationship – there’s no way he would have done anything like this. Fin spent the day with him on Tuesday. He wasn’t feeling well and Peter looked after him while I was at work. He’s supposed to have shot himself around seven thirty – half an hour after I left to bring Fin home. The police were like a dog with a bone about our separation – like he was some Fathers for Justice martyr or something,’ she said, a mild undertone of anger in her voice. ‘But that couldn’t be any further from the truth. We never saw the need to sort out custody arrangements or make anything official, we’ve always been perfectly amicable and put Fin first.’

  ‘I guess it’s just the police looking for a motive,’ he said, surprising himself by sounding like Juliette.

  ‘Well, they’re wrong: he didn’t commit suicide. It’s got something to do with his family, I know it,’ she said resolutely, as if that was her final word on the subject, regardless of any investigation.

  ‘It’ll be the coroner’s decision, I guess.’

  Soraya scoffed. There was a slight pause before she said tentatively, ‘Do you think you can find out what’s going on, Morton? For Finlay's sake?’

  ‘That’s what I’m here for.’ The new knowledge of Peter's son only reaffirmed Morton’s commitment to finding out the truth about the Coldrick’s family history.

  ‘So, what do we do now?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to need to know everything about James and Peter – their hobbies, friends, political views, jobs - the lot.’

  Soraya took a mouthful of wine. ‘Okay,’ she said with an uncertain laugh. ‘Where to begin?’

  ‘The beginning.’

  Morton had been taking scribbled notes for more than three hours. His hand ached from the writing and his brain ached from the sheer monotony of the father and son’s lives. He felt like he knew their frankly dull existences inside out, including James’ preponderance for The Shipping News and The Archers and his fear of flying but love of caravan holidays in Rhyl. Scintillating stuff indeed. ‘James sounds…’ Morton racked his brain for the correct word. A polite word. ‘Well, ordinary.’

  ‘I suppose he was. He was certainly a very reserved man. He’d sit quietly in the corner of the room – always on the periphery of what was going on – just observing with a gentle smile on his face. I never once heard him raise his voice or become embroiled in an argument or complain about his cancer. Just a very, very kind and placid man who liked the simple things in life.’ Morton nodded. James Coldrick sounded like a plain and simple man; but for one thing. It was time to bring up the bank balance.

  ‘Something’s bothering me,’ he ventured.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘James lived in a run-down council house for most of his adult life, having worked as an agricultural labourer, yet he was sitting on a sizeable amount of money when he died last year,’ Morton said.

  Soraya laughed. ‘You have been digging, haven’t you? Well, neither of us could fathom it when he died and the solicitor told Peter about it. It came as quite a shock, I can tell you. As far as Peter was concerned, there was no inheritance for him. As it turned out, he left it all to Finlay for when he reaches twenty-one.’ She paused momentarily for breath. Morton thought that he detected an undercurrent of resentment in her voice. She continued, ‘James didn’t have a car, didn’t have any expensive habits or luxuries and he only upgraded to a colour telly about ten years ago and that was going halves with Peter. He was forever scratching around for loose change to walk up the shop with.’ Soraya paused again. ‘He even bought a bloody lottery ticket every week! Can you imagine! What would he have done with the winnings, for God’s sake?’

  ‘That’s bizarre. Where did Peter think the money came from?’

  Soraya shrugged. ‘He hadn’t got a single clue. At first he thought that maybe his dad was unaware he had the money until Peter asked at the bank. They wouldn’t say much, data protection and all that rubbish, but they did say that he’d had the money in a high-interest account for a long time and received regular statements, so he certainly knew he had it. I think Peter suspected that his dad had inherited the money or that it was somehow connected with his family. Again, it all comes down to genealogy and you.’

  ‘If only it were that simple,’ Morton muttered.

  ‘I've got every faith in you.’ Soraya smiled.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Is there anything else you want to know?’

  ‘I think that’ll do for the time being,’ Morton said. ‘I’ll leave you my mobile number. If you think of anything else, give me a call.’ He handed over one of his business cards and Soraya scribbled her own mobile number on a scrap of paper. Above it she scrawled what looked like her name, though the letter a bore more resemblance to the number nine.

  ‘I’ll be in touch when I’ve got something to report.’

  Morton drove into the blood-orange sunset, the overwhelm
ing heat finally abating. It was a curious and unforeseen end to the day. He had in no way anticipated leaving Soraya’s house under the employ of a young child that he had not known existed four hours ago. How old was Finlay Coldrick? From the restricted view he had, he estimated him to have been about six, but then what did he know? His only experience of children was when he was a child himself and that didn’t really count. And yet he felt an odd affinity with Finlay Coldrick, both of them having a similar rupture in their parentage. Although he had to admit that being told your father’s head was blown off at close range won the title of potentially most messed up childhood. Whoever had killed Coldrick must have been waiting, watching the house until Soraya had collected Finlay at seven o’clock, before persuading him to open the door. It had to have been meticulously planned, not some arbitrary burglary that had gone horribly wrong.

  Morton was moments away from home when it hit him – if Soraya had only collected Finlay at seven o’clock then he had been with Peter when he’d made the phone call at six twenty, practically begging Morton to see him. What if Finlay had seen what was in the copper box?

  He slammed on the brakes, being half-tempted to mimic Juliette’s impressive handbrake turn but he just knew that it would all go wrong and he’d end up upside down in the hedge, so he settled for the more acceptable three-point turn and sped back the way he’d come.

  He banged his fist on Soraya’s front door. Four hard thumps later he realised that Finlay was asleep, but by then it was too late. The damage was done. Soraya opened the door with a deep-set frown, about to lay into the idiot hammering on her door late on a Friday night, when she realised who it was.

  ‘That was quick.’

  ‘Sorry for the racket. I just got all the way home and realised that Finlay would have been with Peter when he phoned me Tuesday night and I think he might know what Peter wanted to show me. I know it’s not ideal but can you wake him up so I can talk to him?’ Soraya looked uncomfortable and Morton knew he’d made a mistake in coming back.