The America Ground (The Forensic Genealogist Series Book 3)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  Morton shrugged. ‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon.’

  Madge sat down opposite Morton and placed her manicured hands in her lap. Despite his misgivings about her, Morton had to admire the elegance and grace that she exuded. She had a neat white perm and always wore subtle make-up that accentuated her blue eyes. She had aged well and, had he not known any better, he would have thought her to be a good few years his father’s junior. In fact, there were only a couple of months between them. Madge pursed her lips together. ‘Well, while we’re waiting, I’ve got something to talk to you about.’

  This is it, Morton thought. My dad’s out of the way and she’s going to use this opportunity to reveal something about my biological father. ‘Oh, right,’ Morton said coolly.

  Madge leant over the side of her armchair and hauled out a dark wooden frame. She held it so that the contents—whether photographic or painted—were facing towards her. From the back, Morton could see that the frame was old and the backing frail and crumbling. ‘It’s this curious little thing,’ she said, turning it so that the painted image of a lady faced him. It was a bust-length portrait of a woman whom Morton guessed to be in her early forties and whose striking young features had been captured on canvas before the cruelties of age had set in.

  He looked at the painting uncertainly. Was he supposed to know this woman? Did she have something to do with his past? He couldn’t quite see how—his immediate assessment of her hair and clothing suggested that the painting dated to the early 1800s.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ Madge admired.

  It was Juliette who asked the question that Morton also wanted answering. ‘Is she anyone we should know? An old Farrier maid, perhaps?’

  Madge’s face lit up. ‘Well, that’s what I’d like Morton to find out.’ She turned to him with a smile. ‘You said you weren’t busy at the moment—here’s a little project for you.’ She thrust the painting towards him. ‘Meet Eliza Lovekin.’

  He took the painting, internal interest and annoyance vying for dominance. The annoyance stemmed from having genealogical work forced upon him at a time when he had deliberately cleared his diary to concentrate on finding his father. He looked again at Madge and the interest rose to the fore. ‘So, you already know who she is, then?’

  Madge nodded. ‘It says as much on the bottom of the portrait – Eliza Lovekin, Hastings, 1825.’

  The confusion began to lift, like a curtain on a stage. Madge worked at Bunny’s Emporium in Hastings Old Town. This painting had obviously come in and she wanted to know more about it. He hated this kind of work. Since taking on exhilarating genealogical cases that had made the headlines, he found much less interest in standard ancestral trails such as was being presented right now. ‘Right,’ was all the enthusiasm he could muster.

  Madge went on to confirm his worst fears. ‘The short and tall of it is this: Bunny Llewellyn—my delightful but very eccentric boss—found this painting on one of her regular jaunts to London and because it had the word Hastings on it, thought it might well sell in her shop…’

  ‘And with a clear provenance, it will be worth much more,’ Morton interjected.

  ‘Exactly,’ Madge responded with a large grin. ‘She’s willing to pay you for Eliza’s history, knowing that the painting will sell for a lot more if it has a story attached to it.’

  ‘I charge a lot these days,’ Morton warned, hoping that that would be enough to put her off.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. She’s very well off. Her father died a few months ago and left her a tidy sum. Plus she’s done well from her two husbands along the way.’

  Morton glanced sideways at Juliette and knew from her expression that she understood his predicament. He redirected his attention to Madge. ‘What is it Bunny wants to know, exactly?’

  ‘Her life. A basic family, who she was, where she came from—that sort of thing.’

  Morton nodded.

  ‘One thing she does know is this,’ Madge said, handing over a piece of paper. It was a scanned copy from a burial register.

  Morton ran his eyes down the page until he found a familiar name:

  Name: Eliza Lovekin

  Abode: The Priory Ground

  When buried: 1st May 1827

  Age: 41

  By whom the Ceremony was performed: G. Matthews

  Just below the ‘When buried’ column, each entry had the welcome additional information of cause of death—not entirely uncommon in Morton’s experience.

  ‘Murdered?’ Morton read.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Madge said, clearly unable to contain the excitement in her voice.

  ‘What?’ Juliette said, craning her neck to see. ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s what we need Morton to discover!’ Madge chirped. ‘Do you think you can?’

  There was a question. It was asked in such a blasé fashion, as if it were that simple. Just find a killer one hundred and eighty years after the murder had occurred. Easy. If—and it was a big if—it could be achieved, then the key would be to know everything about Eliza and her family’s life.

  ‘We’ll have to see,’ he answered noncommittally.

  ‘There’s one other thing. Turn it around,’ Madge instructed.

  Morton flipped the painting around and noticed a large tear in one side of the backing material.

  ‘Open it up,’ Madge enthused.

  Morton looked quizzically at the frame then gently delved his fingers behind the thin backing paper. His fingertips brushed against the edge of something slightly thicker than paper. Pushing his fingers to either side and carefully taking the object, he slowly withdrew it through the yawning gap in the frame.

  ‘What is it?’ Juliette asked, leaning over to get a better look.

  In his hand, Morton held a folded vellum indenture, which he proceeded to carefully unravel; as he did so, another smaller one fell out. Setting the smaller one to the side, his eyes scanned quickly over the larger document. The extra-large words ‘This indenture’ preceded a lengthy handwritten legal document, which concluded with two red wax seals and a signature by Alderman Thomas Honeysett. He noticed that the other signature was unmistakably that of Eliza Lovekin and that it was dated 20th April 1827. Just a few days before her murder.

  ‘So exciting,’ Madge chirped. ‘I was the one to discover it just as I went to put it on display in the shop.’ She scrunched up her face and waved her hand dismissively. ‘All written in legal nonsense, and barely legible at that, but from what Bunny and I can work out, it’s an entitlement to a part of the America Ground in Hastings—have you heard of it, Morton?’

  ‘The America Ground? Can’t say I have.’

  ‘Fascinating, really,’ Madge began, then stopped abruptly at the sound of the front door banging shut.

  The three of them sat silently for several seconds until Morton’s adopted father finally entered the room and nodded brusquely towards Juliette and Madge.

  ‘Finally!’ Madge said, standing up. ‘Let’s get eating.’

  ‘I’ve already eaten—had something at the club.’

  ‘Oh, Peter! I told you I’d invited Morton and Juliette to dinner-’

  ‘Find your American, did you?’ Morton’s father asked, cutting through the conversation.

  Morton flushed. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘Not yet.’

  His father sniffed. ‘You told them yet, Madge?’

  Madge shook her head. ‘I was waiting for you, but now’s not the right time, Peter. Let’s wait.’

  ‘Now’s as good a time as any,’ his father insisted. ‘Madge and I are getting married.’

  Chapter Three

  Its doors having only been only open for ten minutes, Hastings Reference Library was quiet: the microfilm readers were still cold from the night before; the map drawers were tightly locked; the abundance of local history books were neatly shelved and the research desks were empty. There was just one customer in the room: Morton Farrier.

  ‘Another case?’ Sally Vaughan, an old acquaintance of
Morton’s, asked from behind the help desk.

  ‘Yeah,’ Morton answered, somewhat flatly.

  ‘Not an exciting one, though, by the sounds of it,’ she remarked with a smile.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Here you go,’ she said, handing over two blue folders, both with Area 8: America Ground typed neatly on a white strip in the top left corner. ‘That’s all we have, I’m afraid,’ she added somewhat apologetically.

  Morton thanked her, carried the folders over to the large grey tables dedicated to family and local history research and took the seat closest to the large windows. Not that it afforded him a particularly pleasant view; just a few feet away was a large derelict building whose sole occupants were numerous generations of pigeons, gulls, vermin and pests, but he preferred working by natural light.

  He took out his notepad and pencil. On the most recent page was written the limited information that he had gathered about his biological father, which in genealogical terms amounted to almost nothing. On his way to the library this morning he had posted the letter to Roy Dyche, sending with it every hope of ever finding his father. All of the millions of genealogical records available online and in record offices, repositories and libraries around the world were entirely useless without his father’s full name.

  Flipping the notepad to a blank sheet, Morton scribbled Eliza Lovekin at the top of the page and born c.1786. Besides the fact that she had signed a legal land indenture in 1827 and was then promptly murdered, he knew nothing of her. A general internet sweep and open searches on various family history websites had yielded a total blank. He had conducted an investigation into the portrait painting of her, his assessment of her approximate date of birth tying with that on her burial record. He was an expert at photo analysis, using shadow positions, clothing and a detailed examination of everything and anything in the background to help to deduce a conclusion on the date, content or nature of the photograph. In some previous cases, he had been able to pinpoint the exact time, day, month and year that a photograph had been taken. Paintings, however, were an entirely different matter and much harder from which to draw firm conclusions. The portrait was a well-executed glossy oil, the artist having deployed most skill on Eliza’s head. Her beautiful green almond eyes, slightly exaggerated, stared out, pleading for the observer’s attention. She wore long, thin gold earrings and her lips were rouged and plump. Typical of the period, she wore her mousey brown hair in elaborate chignons, which fell elegantly around her ears. Other than her physical appearance, the painting offered little else of use.

  Morton picked up the initial folder, withdrew the contents and placed them on the desk in front of him. The first few items, which appeared to originate from a variety of sources—maps, newspaper clippings, print-outs from the internet and photocopies from journals—were explanations of the origins of the so-called America Ground. He read through the papers, making pertinent notes as he went, and steadily built up a picture of this place, which he had to admit fascinated him. Fierce and devastating storms in the thirteenth century had silted up the old Hastings harbour, creating a new area of land close to the priory, which had earned it the name, the Priory Ground. It had remained desolate until the early nineteenth century, when the long tracts of flat land had begun to be used by rope-makers, who during inclement weather would take shelter in the upturned hulks of severed fishing boats. As time went on people, attracted by the advantages of land free of tax and rent, began to erect an assortment of ramshackle and permanent buildings on the site which, by the 1820s, had turned into an independent community. When officials from Hastings Corporation had tried to exert some control over the lawlessness of the Priory Ground, the occupants rebelled, raising the American flag in defiance and claiming themselves to be an independent state of America: thus, the Priory Ground became the America Ground.

  Although he wasn’t initially keen on the idea of taking on this case, he had to admit that reading about the America Ground had piqued his interest.

  The next documents, carefully sealed in plastic wrappings, were postcards featuring sketches of the America Ground from different perspectives. They showed a collection of ordinary-looking houses and buildings nestled between two large rocky hills. Morton took out his mobile phone and photographed the images before setting them to one side and moving on to the stack of paper that formed the remainder of the file.

  He next came to what he thought was a run-of-the-mill account explaining the demise of the America Ground. An inquest into the legal ownership of the land had occurred in 1827, following someone’s attempt to sell their property there; the verdict swiftly handed full ownership to the Crown. However, what he read caused him to stop and carefully run his eyes back over the previous paragraph to check that he hadn’t made a mistake in what he had read. It stated that in 1827 a handful of seven-year leases had been issued to occupants who had wished to remain on the America Ground, before the whole site was cleared entirely in 1835. There was definitely no mention of any freehold entitlements being issued. Morton gazed out of the window, momentarily distracted by a scraggy pigeon balancing on a smashed windowpane. How had Eliza Lovekin procured a freehold parcel of land when the other deeds issued were short-term leases? Morton wondered.

  The pigeon disappeared into the gloom of the adjacent building and Morton snapped back into the present, feeling the unexpected but welcome pull of intrigue that Eliza Lovekin and the America Ground looked set to offer.

  Carefully placing the paperwork and postcards back inside the first wallet, he pulled open the second folder. At the top of the pile was a laminated map entitled Plan of the Derelict Lands of Hastings, on which was plotted all the homes and businesses of the America Ground prior to clearance. Morton studied it with interest, wondering which of the small pink-coloured parcels of land had been occupied by Eliza Lovekin. Below this plan was a map showing the area once occupied by the America Ground after it had been levelled and then redeveloped in the 1850s with fine Victorian houses and shops. With a wry smile on his face, Morton realised that the very building in which he was currently sitting was located right in the middle of the former America Ground and that the roads that he had taken to get here almost exactly followed the routes they had done when walked by Eliza in the 1820s.

  The next document made Morton sit up with interest: it was the official report made by the Commissioners of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues into the America Ground, following the inquest. Morton read the preamble, which explained how the Crown had come to receive the land. The lands adjoin to the town of Hastings, under the Western Cliff, and occupy a space of nearly a quarter of a mile in length and 500 yards in width, which from its situation and appearance was, without doubt, formerly part of the sea shore…the land was found to have been in former times covered with sea, and to be wasteland not within the bounds of any manor or manors, and unoccupied until within 60 years, within which period many buildings have been erected thereon without any licence, lease or grant of any description from the Crown, and that therefore the inquest had caused the same to be seized into the hands of His Majesty…

  Turning the page, Morton was pleased to see a list of occupants and their occupations. He scanned down the list. There was only one person with the surname Lovekin:

  Eliza Lovekin, publican, one timber cottage with yard and brick built public house, annual value of the property £27.

  Morton copied the entry onto his notepad then sat back in his chair and looked around the room, his mind wandering as he did so; his absorption in his task had been such that he had not noticed that all sections of the Reference Library were now quietly bustling with people undertaking their own research.

  His attention returned to the remaining stack of papers in front of him. There were further accounts, much along the same lines as the others, which explained the advent and ending of the America Ground. A photocopy of a torn page from the local newspaper, dated 8 July 2011, showed Independence Day celebrations occurring on the former site
of the America Ground. Pictures showed keen locals dressed in stars and stripes and the town’s mayor raising what the newspaper had dubbed ‘the America Ground flag’. Morton smiled as he photographed the report, finding it a strange gesture to celebrate this curious occurrence in the town’s history.

  Morton looked at the final document in the pile: another photocopy from the local paper. He read the report, dated 11 March 1988, with interest. It stated that the entire four acres had been sold from the Crown Estates to Riccards-Maloney, a London property development company for over £4.8 million. The new owners, taking control of houses, hotels, flats, guesthouses and thirty-five shops, promised their numerous tenants and leaseholders that this run-down area of the town would now see regeneration and improvement. He photographed the page and noted down the details of the transaction.

  A gentle fluttering in his stomach caused Morton to look at the time: it was just gone one o’clock. Definitely time for coffee and something to eat, he thought. He placed the documents back inside the wallet, then stowed his notepad and pencil. Standing from the table, he caught sight of a run of black-bound volumes, the spines of which revealed them to be parish registers for local churches. He hesitated, knowing that they may very well contain details of Eliza’s baptism, marriage or burial, but continued towards the help desk.

  ‘Thank you—they were very useful,’ Morton told Sally, as he handed over the wallets. ‘What time do you shut today?’