Hiding the Past (The Forensic Genealogist series Book 1)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  It took Morton a few moments of staring at the name Windsor-Sackville to recall its familiarity to him: it was the name of the current, widely ridiculed Secretary of State for Defence. With a surname like that, he had to be related to the founders of St George's.

  Morton’s eyes moved from the plaque back to the building. This was the place where James Coldrick had spent many of his younger years. He wondered what had gone on behind the huge oak door that needed to remain secret all these years. Did it really warrant Peter Coldrick’s death, covered up as a suicide, the removal of the 1944 admissions register for St George's Children’s Home and the theft of his laptop?

  A thought struck him. What if St George’s had kept a record of the archives transferred to Lewes? It was a long shot. A very long shot but worth a try.

  Morton headed up the stone path and felt a cold shudder pass over him. He wasn’t a believer in auras, ghosts or ghouls but the building had some intrinsic negativity hanging over it. Some unseen darkness. Maybe he was just being paranoid.

  He pulled open the heavy door and entered an immaculately clean, white-washed lobby, filled with a copious quantity of pungent white lilies, their stench trapped in the arid lobby. Not really the kind of flowers that Morton felt were appropriate for the entrance hall of a nursing home. A bit too funereal for his liking.

  He opened another door that led into an air-conditioned reception area adorned with yet more perfumed flowers. It occurred to him then that maybe these were funeral flowers. He was pleased to see a mauve-rinsed lady single-finger-typing at a computer like a timid hen, pecking for grain. She couldn’t possibly be the eloquent KC Fellows that he’d spoken to. She raised a hand with ridged veins and liver spots to her temple. Morton guessed her to be the wrong side of seventy. He might have mistaken her for a resident but for her white coat.

  ‘Be with you in one second, love.’

  Morton nodded and looked around the high-ceilinged room. He could just catch a glimpse of a large open room where a group of idle residents sat chatting, sleeping and reading. It was difficult to picture how the building would have looked in James Coldrick’s time here.

  ‘Right, how can I help you, love?’ she asked, her Mancunian accent revealing her to be Linda, with whom he had spoken yesterday.

  ‘Hi, I spoke to you yesterday about the records dating back to when this place was a children’s home,’ Morton said, offering his best smile.

  ‘Oh yes, did you try the archives?’

  ‘Yes, I did but unfortunately the file I wanted has gone adrift.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, a large frown set on her forehead. ‘Not sure what else you can do then, love. As I said to you on the phone, we’ve not got anything here at all.’

  ‘You said you were here when the records were transferred?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I was just wondering if the archives gave you any kind of receipt or anything which said exactly what they took?’ Morton asked, hopefully.

  Linda screwed her wrinkly face. ‘It’s possible but I can’t remember back that far, love. I wouldn’t even know where to lay my hands on something like that if we did keep it. Have you got a fax?’

  Morton nodded.

  ‘I tell you what I’ll do, give me your fax number and I’ll have a dig around and see what I can find. How’s that sound?’ she asked. ‘We’ve got folders and filing cabinets full of old junk upstairs.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Morton answered, scribbling down his fax number on a proffered piece of scrap paper, which he was sure Linda would lose within half an hour. ‘Thanks very much, I appreciate it,’ he added, hoping that a bit of sincerity might encourage her to go rummaging. Morton thanked her again and left St George's.

  With so much of Morton’s work involving being shut in confined spaces with little or no natural light, he took a great deal of pleasure in being outdoors and greatly appreciated the hot sun warming the nape of his neck. He trundled through the archaic village, nodding respectfully to a gaggle of old ladies on their way to the post office, consciously absorbing the detail of the village. He scanned the village, dismissing houses or street furniture erected since the forties. He began to feel and understand the place in which James Coldrick was raised.

  With sweat beginning to bead on his forehead, Morton walked from the village centre up a long, straight road with a gradual incline towards the parish church. The road, unimaginatively named The Street, was dotted with expensive, substantial homes with high fences and security gates. Of some luxurious houses Morton could only catch a glimpse through gaps in the dense shrubbery and carefully maintained trees.

  The pavement rose and eventually veered to the right, terminating at St John’s Church, a typical sandstone-coloured building with a chancel, nave and tower. Without any serious attempt at studying the architecture, he guessed the earliest parts dated back to the fourteenth-century with other additions being added in the latter centuries. He cast his eyes across the churchyard at the range of memorials in front of him. Very recent, polished marble graves stood adjacent to ancient, lichen-covered headstones, the names of the deceased occupants having been weathered into obscurity.

  Three pristine white graves stood side by side in commemoration of the village’s fallen war heroes. Three brothers taken within weeks of each other in 1943. He thought of his own brother fighting in a war-zone and a feeling of dread dragged inside him as he remembered that tonight was his leaving party. He turned his head from the graves and tried to shake his despondency.

  Morton refocused his attention to the task in hand: he needed to find James and Mary Coldrick’s grave. When told by Peter where his parents were buried, Morton found it very curious that a man with such unsettled beginnings in the village should want to be forever entombed within its parish boundaries. Given all that he had discovered since Tuesday, he now thought it absolutely inexplicable that they were here.

  Ordinarily, he would have conducted a meticulous, thorough search of the churchyard, using a range of techniques to decipher even the most worn inscriptions. Today, however, he knew exactly where he was headed. Peter had told him that his parents’ grave was to be found in the shadow of a yew tree in the south-west corner of the churchyard. Morton spotted the ancient yew, with its gnarled and contorted trunk pushing into a thick green canopy above, and made his way towards it. The Coldrick headstone - polished black granite with gold, engraved lettering - stood innocuously among other modern graves under the protective shade of the yew. In Loving Memory of Mary Coldrick 1946-1987. A much loved mother and wife. Also, James Coldrick 1944-2012. A much loved father.

  ‘Forever trapped in the place of your unhappy childhood,’ Morton remarked to himself, as he took a couple of shots of the grave on his iPhone.

  ‘Pardon?’ a sprightly voice piped up, startling him. Morton was jarred from his daydream and turned to see an old-timer with a grey handle-bar moustache, expensive olive-green suit and maroon neckerchief limping towards him. He looked to Morton like a retired colonel.

  ‘Sorry, just talking to myself,’ Morton replied.

  ‘Lovely day.’

  ‘It is rather,’ Morton said.

  ‘I’m just going to open the church if you wanted to have a peek around.’

  ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

  Morton followed the old man inside the church. The temperature suddenly plunged to the same arctic conditions as at East Sussex Archives. In the vestibule he noticed a burial plan of the churchyard. It was a crude, hand-drawn piece of paper that someone had helpfully laminated. Morton quickly verified that there were no other Coldricks buried in the church then wandered along the nave, stepping on worn marble tombstones dedicated to ancient clergy.

  ‘I haven’t seen you around here before, are you on holiday?’ the man asked, tidying a stack of dishevelled hymn books.

  ‘Well, I’m actually researching a family tree - Coldrick – do you know the name at all?’ Morton asked.

  The old man frowned, his pr
eposterously lengthy eyebrows eclipsing his vision, as if he were trying to recall a private members' club in Islington. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells. How do you spell it?’

  Morton took care to enunciate each letter carefully.

  ‘No, I don’t think so, old boy,’ he replied eventually. ‘Queer sort of name, wouldn’t you say? Doesn’t sound very Sussex to me.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it does,’ Morton replied, not really sure what a ‘Sussex’ name was.

  ‘When did they live in the village?’

  ‘Around 1944 – possibly earlier.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t help you there – I was on active service in Egypt at the time. There aren’t many of us left who can recall much from that period with any clarity. It certainly isn’t a name I’ve seen in the parish records in my time as church warden.’

  ‘Not to worry – thank you anyway,’ Morton said. He took one last look around the church and made his way out into the stark heat, where he was convinced that the temperature had risen by at least five degrees. Morton slowly walked back to his car, allowing his mind to mull over the case. As he fired up the car, Morton took one last look at the quiet, unassuming village. It looked so normal, so harmless. But that indefinable gut reaction, upon which he so heavily relied, told him that for James Coldrick, this village hadn’t always been as normal and harmless as it now seemed.

  Morton was lying prone on the bed, telling Juliette about his day whilst she transformed herself from Police Community Support Officer 8084 to Miss Juliette Meade, social butterfly. He was happy with either incarnation but, as she stood straightening her hair in a curvaceous, low-cut black dress, subtle make-up and killer heels, he was forced to admit that she looked more stunningly beautiful than the drab black, monochromatic uniform of the police force would ever allow. He’d not bothered getting dressed up for the occasion and was content in jeans and t-shirt. Sending your adopted brother off to his death hardly seemed an occasion that required one's best clothes.

  ‘It’s certainly an intriguing one, isn’t it,’ Juliette said in response to his discoveries with the Coldrick Case.

  ‘That’s an understatement.’

  ‘Doesn’t it make you wonder about your own family?’

  Morton’s insides tightly recoiled at the prospect of having a conversation about his own veiled past, a subject which he categorically avoided at the best of times. He sauntered over to the bedroom window and caught her reflection. Her eyes were narrowed and one hand rested defiantly on her hip. She wasn’t about to let this one go.

  ‘It must make you wonder, though,’ she persisted. ‘Your real parents could be walking past our house right now for all we know.’ Morton glanced out of the window at the passersby. He felt sure that he would recognise someone in whom he had once lived. ‘I mean, doesn’t it strike you as odd that you know more about Norman Lamont’s family or any of the other celebrities on Celebri-Trees, than you do your own family?’

  ‘Hadn’t thought about it and don’t care,’ he said, quickly regretting the virulence of his response. Of course he’d thought about it; the question of his parentage was like a plastic bottle forever bobbing on the open seas, occasionally far enough away so as not to warrant attention but always having the possibility of being washed back to the forefront of his mind. And, yes, it was absurd that he knew more of the former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer’s family history than he did of his own because of his employment two years ago as resident genealogist for a television company. It just wasn’t as simple as that.

  ‘Why don’t you just go for the counselling, then see how you feel? You don’t even have to find out who they are if you don’t want to.’

  ‘I don’t see why I should,’ Morton answered indignantly. It was the seemingly random quirk of law that anyone born before 12 November 1975 must seek counselling before discovering their birth parents that most irked Morton.

  Counselling. It all sounded so American and unnecessary.

  Juliette sighed, checked herself in the full-length mirror and waltzed from the bedroom, the transformation complete, leaving Morton with an unpleasant burning inside. Just how he needed to feel moments before seeing his father and brother again.

  Morton and Juliette arrived at his father’s smart 1930s semi in Hastings; the same respectable house and neighbourhood in which Morton had spent his first eighteen years of life, apart from those first few memory-less hours as a new-born baby in the arms of his real mother (presuming, of course, that she had even held him at birth). Seeing the house again filled his heart with the familiar yet uncomfortable fusion of emotions he had always felt coming back: nostalgia, disappointment and hopelessness. It was the same on each and every occasion that he returned home, the feelings only swelling and deepening with time. His hopes of a last-minute cancellation were quashed by the din spilling out from the open windows.

  Juliette sensed his apprehension and grasped his hand in hers as they neared the front door, giving it a tender, reassuring squeeze.

  Morton pressed the doorbell and waited. He had his own key in his pocket but the last time he’d used it – more than two years ago now - his father had reacted with such shock that he had just tottered in off the streets without prior warning that Morton had never dared to use it ever since.

  A figure moved behind the obscure glass.

  Morton returned Juliette’s squeeze as the door opened, revealing Jeremy with a large grin on his face. In full military uniform. He looked like Action Man’s child, Action Boy; all dressed up and ready to play. Morton wondered if Jeremy really knew the difference between a weekend in the New Forest paint-balling with his mates and live warfare. Probably not. But then again, did half the teenagers serving out there really understand or care about anything beyond the fact that they’d been given a real gun with real bullets and carte blanche to kill real people?

  ‘Hi, Jeremy,’ Juliette said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek.

  ‘Hi, guys, so glad you could make it,’ Jeremy said cheerfully, irking Morton. How could anyone be so happy about going to Afghanistan? Morton extended his hand to his brother but Jeremy pulled him into a bear hug, squashing Morton’s right hand between them. As far as Morton could recall, it was the first time he had ever embraced his brother. He wondered if that was normal for two thirty-something-year-old brothers. Finally Jeremy pulled away and stepped back to allow them into the busy house.

  ‘All set then, Jeremy?’ Morton asked.

  ‘Think so, yeah,’ Jeremy answered, leading them through the crowded hallway. Morton hardly recognised the place. The house was teeming with macho men throwing Stellas down their thick tattooed necks and laughing raucously. Morton couldn’t imagine for a single second what his dad thought about his house being turned into an army barracks’ outpost. He’d probably gone next door to David and Sandra’s for wine, cheese and a few games of Scrabble.

  Apparently not.

  His father appeared from the crowd clutching a cup of tea in his favourite mug emblazoned with a watercolour kingfisher. ‘Morton, Juliette,’ he said, as if he was taking a register and simply confirming their presence, rather than welcoming them into his home. He looked so much older to Morton than the last time he’d seen him. He noticed that the last flecks of his naturally coal-black hair had been completely drowned by a solid sea of dove-grey. He greeted Juliette with a smile when she leant in to peck him on the cheek. Morton shook his hand. None of that namby-pamby hugging business with Mr Farrier, thank you very much.

  ‘So, how’s work these days?’ his father asked him. Morton felt that he had to physically prevent his eyes from rolling and his lungs from exhaling dramatically. His father always opened conversation with questions about his work, seeming to never believe Morton could actually make money from researching people’s family trees.

  Juliette stepped in. ‘Oh my goodness, the work’s been flooding in for him,’ she said. ‘It took a lot to drag him away from it tonight, I can tell you.’ She laughed. She was a good liar.
It must have been the rigorous police training. If Morton hadn’t known the truth, he might have believed it himself. ‘Just this week he landed a really good deal, didn’t you, babe?’

  Babe? When had he suddenly become a babe? It wasn’t a name he particularly felt comfortable with. Morton Farrier: babe.

  ‘Yeah, a real killer, this one,’ he said sardonically.

  ‘Good show, that’s what I like to hear. Doesn’t do a chap good to be out of work these days.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Morton agreed.

  ‘Here you go,’ Jeremy said, thrusting a can of beer into Morton’s hand. Morton took a large gulp. He was going to need something strong to help him get through this evening. ‘What did you want to drink, Juliette?’

  ‘Just water’ll be great, thanks,’ she said, before qualifying, ‘...driving.’

  ‘You’ve decorated, I see,’ Morton said, vaguely directing his statement towards his father.

  He frowned. ‘You must have been here since then. Must have been a good eighteen months ago.’

  ‘It looks nice. Very modern,’ Morton said, ignoring the oblique undertones to his father’s statement.

  ‘Jeremy and I decided it was about time we gave it a lick of paint. I’ve still got one or two mates down at B&Q who I used to work with, so I got my ten percent staff discount. And that was on top of the discount given to pensioners on a Tuesday.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ Morton said, making no effort at all to sound genuine. He just couldn’t be bothered. And nor, it seemed, could his father who had spotted someone more interesting to converse with across the room and silently wandered off.