The America Ground (The Forensic Genealogist Series Book 3)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  Sensing a flash of uncertainty and fear in the eyes of the constables, the women pushed forward with greater force and confidence, banging their empty pails, heckling and taunting the men.

  Gaps began to appear in Harriet’s protective circle, as the men thronged together with the women, filling a growing chasm that had opened up between the gentleman and his constables.

  ‘How dare you!’ the gentleman from the corporation yelled. ‘Constables, make your arrests!’ He turned to see his men peeling away from the crowd, one by one galloping off over the Priory Bridge. ‘Come back, cowards!’

  The men and women of the Priory Ground swelled onwards over the bridge, continuing to gibe at the fleeing constables.

  Lost under the women’s din and clamour and the echo of retreating horses’ hooves on the stone bridge behind him, the gentleman’s horse let out a loud snort and held his head high as his body tensed. Only his rider knew what was about to happen next and he was entirely powerless to stop it. With a loud squeal and a desire to rejoin his herd, the horse reared up onto its hind legs, violently tossing the gentleman down onto the ground below. His black clerical hat tumbled away, as his head struck a piece of sandstone and his lantern smashed beside him, the light immediately extinguished.

  Harriet watched, slightly stunned as the gentleman’s horse bolted, disappearing into the gloom of the Priory Ground. Judging by the jubilant crowds cheering on the other side of the bridge, only she seemed to be aware that the dark shape lying motionless on the ground in front of her was the man from the corporation, deserted by his horse and his men, humiliated and stinking of sewerage.

  Cautiously, she stepped forward towards him and crouched down at his side.

  He appeared to be entirely dead.

  She placed a hand lightly on his chest and was relieved to feel it rising and falling softly; despite all that had occurred, she was strangely thankful that he had held onto his life.

  Harriet glanced up and went to call out to her mother or father, who were lost somewhere among the triumphant crowd. I’ll fetch them in a moment, she thought, finding a surprising pleasure in her closeness to the gentleman. Her hand moved up his chest and she gently cupped the side of his cheek. It was warm and startlingly smooth—a stark contrast to her father’s scratchy whiskers. As she began to caress his face from temple to chin, she touched on something unexpected. Straining her eyes to see, she discovered a ribbon of hot sticky blood running from scalp to chin. Her forefinger traced the trickle to a gash on the back of his head. She quickly removed her shawl and pressed it tightly to his wound.

  ‘Hattie! Hattie! Where do you be?’ her mother called from the distance.

  Harriet looked up and saw the group of marauding silhouettes heading back across the bridge towards the Priory Ground. She lifted her hand and hastily slapped the gentleman’s face. He instantly awoke with a gasp, as if thrown from a nightmare.

  ‘Constables…’ he began to croak feebly, but Harriet stifled his words with her hand.

  There was something about him that drew her in, that wanted him to survive. ‘You be listening here, Mister. If you want to be living past this night, then you need to be a-leaving right now—without thems seeing you,’ she whispered, nodding her head in the direction of the nearing crowd.

  ‘Hattie?’ her father called.

  ‘If me Pa be a-catching you, you be a dead man,’ Harriet said, sincerely. ‘I can be helping you escape if you be wanting to.’

  The gentleman nodded.

  ‘Come with me,’ Harriet said, picking up his hat then tucking her hand under his elbow, encouraging him up.

  The man flinched, holding Harriet’s shawl to the back of his head as he stumbled to his feet. ‘Where are we going?’ he whispered.

  ‘You have to be a-hiding in Mister Breeds’s rope yard until every pair of eyes on the Priory Ground be shut tight for the night,’ Harriet replied, leading him down the hill as quickly as she could.

  After a short distance, he stopped and faced her. ‘How do I know I can trust you? This rope yard might be a lion’s den for all I know—a cage for you to trap me.’

  Harriet shrugged. ‘That be up to you what you believe and what you don’t.’ She continued to walk down the hill.

  The gentleman exhaled, said nothing and caught up with her. They continued walking in silence until they reached a pair of tall wooden gates set into a long brick wall.

  ‘This is the Breeds’s yard,’ Harriet said. She turned the iron latch and the right-hand gate swung open with a low groan. ‘Find some place to be hiding under them there sacks and don’t be a-coming out until you hear not a thing at all.’

  The man paused for a moment then reached out for her hand. ‘Thank you.’

  Harriet smiled, a tingling sensation filtering from the hand held within his, warming her whole body. ‘What be your name, sir?’

  ‘Richard.’

  ‘Farewell, Richard,’ she said, closing the gate and making her way back towards the Priory Bridge.

  The crowds were descending the hill, filtering off in different directions towards their houses. Harriet’s parents were at the helm of the small group heading towards her and she caught the final flurry of their conversation before they neared her.

  ‘I be certain sure it were him, Joe, on one of them horses. What do Mr Honeysett be wanting here? I be scared.’

  And then they were upon Harriet.

  ‘Blame me, where do you be getting to?’ her father asked. ‘We be shouting and hollering loud enough to wake all of Sussex.’

  ‘Sorry, Pa, I ran off and hid. Do they be gone now?’

  Joseph seemed satisfied with the answer and nodded his head solemnly. ‘They be gone, but I don’t be surprised if they be a-coming back.’

  ‘What you got there?’ her father asked, pointing to Harriet’s side.

  Harriet flushed as she realised that she was still holding Richard’s clerical hat. She raised it and placed it on her head. ‘A souvenir,’ she answered.

  Her father smiled. ‘It ain’t a nice hattie, Hattie.’

  Harriet grinned, relieved to have protected her secret. She removed the hat from her head and ran her fingers over the fine felt edge. It felt exciting that she had a piece of Richard and he—holding her shawl to his head—had a piece of her.

  Her mother was staring back in the direction of the Priory Bridge, a vacant look in her eyes. Whoever Mr Honeysett was, he had alarmed her.

  ‘I found him! Stop, everyone, I found him!’ shouted Edward Picknell, the carpenter.

  Harriet muffled a gasp and felt her stomach constrict. He’d been found. Some hiding place, she rebuked herself. And he’ll think that it was a trap all along—a lion’s den, as he’d called it. She cursed herself over and over and wondered if there was anything she could still do to help Richard. But she knew she could do nothing.

  Edward finally reached her parents. ‘I found him—and he still got it!’ He passed something—a bundle of some kind—to Eliza. ‘He were given it by a mariner mate.’

  The threads of the conversation taking place made no sense to Harriet. One thing that she was growing certain of, however, was that the he being referred to was not Richard at all. She watched her mother unfold the bundle—a long sheet of material—and shake it out. She held it out proudly to the small crowd gathered around her. ‘The American flag—our flag!’ Eliza said.

  The following day, under a turquoise cloudless sky, a gathering of several hundred watched as William Vine the mast-maker attached the American flag to a tall pole, which he had fashioned from a disused mast.

  Harriet Lovekin, standing on the shore between her two sisters and in front of her parents, watched as William hoisted the flag to the top of the pole, where a timely wind unfurled it to reveal the twenty-fifth star, stitched on last night by her mother.

  ‘From now on, this be known as the America Ground—the twenty-fifth state of America,’ William Vine declared.

  A victorious cheer rang into the air
and the words The America Ground passed with positivity and hope through the lips of those same cowmen, wheelwrights, bakers, brewers, fishermen and lodging-house-keepers who had yesterday feared the loss of home and business; this newfound sense of identity instilled optimism in all of the America Ground residents.

  ‘The America Ground,’ Harriet whispered, glancing around at all those that called it their home.

  Then she thought of Richard and wondered when he would come back, for she knew with certainty that he would return.

  Chapter Nine

  Kevin Addison had been the head of security at Riccards-Maloney for twenty-nine years and was paid very well for his work there. Being in his late fifties and not as fit and agile as he had once been, Kevin knew that his continuation in their employ was largely down to his aptitude in one particular area: he used whatever legal or illegal methods that he deemed necessary to get his job done. Since the company’s bank balance had swollen substantially over the years, so too had Kevin’s responsibility to ensure that they always appeared clean and above the law. For his part, two expensive divorces and three children whom he rarely saw but whose lives he continued to fund, guaranteed his continuing commitment to the company.

  It was just gone ten o’clock in the morning and Kevin took his first glug from a pint of beer that he had just purchased from the Ship Inn in Rye. He didn’t usually drink so early in the day, but he wasn’t one for tea or coffee and, as far as he could tell, that was all Rye had to offer. Wandering slowly to the bottom of Mermaid Street, he stepped his heavy boots onto the cobbles and started up the street.

  He saw the house straight away—up the hill and on the right—exactly as it appeared in Google Street View. The House with Two Front Doors, he thought with a derisory sneer. What a ridiculous name for a house.

  Taking another swig of beer, he slowly walked up the street, ignoring the strange looks and double-takes that he was receiving from passers-by who correctly identified him as an atypical visitor. He wore a tight-fitting grey suit, which looked incompatible with his bulky frame, built from years of steroid injections and intense weight-lifting. Despite still having a thick head of dark hair, he had for many years chosen to keep it closely cropped.

  Kevin stopped in the centre of the pedestrianized street and looked up at the head poking out of the upstairs window of The House with Two Front Doors. It was him. Morton Farrier. Gawking out blankly, looking dumb. Kevin stared, unblinking. When finally Morton met his eyes, Kevin raised his glass to him and sank the entire contents. Then he turned and headed back the way he had come.

  The strange man in the street below had bothered Morton. It wasn’t the fact that he had looked up, or even the raising of his glass that troubled him—not a week in summer went by when somebody didn’t wave at him or knock on his front door asking for permission to photograph the house—there was just something unsettling and offensive in his behaviour and body language. It just wasn’t normal. In hindsight, Morton should have grabbed his phone or camera and taken a picture of him to give to Juliette. He could just imagine telling her about the weird man lurking outside their house. The first thing she’d ask for would be a description. Short hair. Grey suit. Fat or muscular, he couldn’t tell which. Odd. Very odd. He could just picture Juliette now, with her eyes rolling heavenward.

  Morton sat back down at his desk, trying to forget about the bizarre beer-drinker in the ill-fitting suit. Prior to going to the window for some fresh air, he had been on the website of The Keep—the repository for all of East Sussex’s archives—searching for their workhouse records. After studying the Lovekin tree in further detail, it had occurred to him that Joseph and Eliza Lovekin’s death had left three girls alone in a pub, probably all under the age of eighteen. Whether the America Ground fell under the jurisdiction of Hastings or not was unlikely to impact on their ability to remain there as orphans. The problem that he had found was that most of the records which would be of any use to him, including admission and discharge registers, only began after the overhaul of the Poor Law in 1834. For the period in which he was interested, The Keep stored records of a mainly administrative and financial nature. Still, he could not sit back and simply ignore them; they may contain the smallest snippet of information that may help his case. He added all the relevant records to his online wishlist, pre-ordered the first three documents then closed his laptop and slid it inside his bag ready to go to the archive. In reaching for his notepad and pencil he noticed the vellum indentures: some feeling about them bothered him. They were such crucial documents to the Lovekin Case, yet he didn’t fully understand their contents. Unravelling the larger one carefully, he began to re-read it. The more he read of the complex legal language, the more his understanding of the entirety of the document was eroded; he realised then that his lack of expertise in this area meant that he had been neglecting its potential importance. He needed an expert in conveyancing to study it.

  Skimming through the contact list on his mobile, Morton searched for someone whom he hoped might be able to help: Jenny Greenwood, an old friend, with whom he had worked on a previous case. He recalled from their discussions that her husband, Jonathan, worked as a solicitor specialising in conveyancing. It was worth a shot. He dialled their home number and waited. After several rings it went to answerphone. ‘Hello, Jenny. It’s Morton Farrier here. Hope you’re well. I was just wondering if your husband might be able to take a look at an interesting indenture I’ve got from 1827—it’s for a case I’m working on. Perhaps you or he could give me a ring? Thanks.’

  He ended the call, filed the vellums in his bag and headed out to The Keep.

  Morton parked his Mini, then marched in through the automatic doors to the cloakroom. Having removed his laptop, the indentures, notepad and pencil, he pushed his bag inside a vacant locker and made his way directly to the Reference Room. A large smile spread across his face when he saw that, behind the glass wall, was a new member of staff at the help desk—a large (in every direction) man with a trimmed black beard and a pleasant face. As Morton held his reader’s card up to the slender silver pillar and watched the red light switch to green, he desperately hoped that the new man might be Deidre Latimer’s replacement. Maybe, just maybe, the old dragon had finally retired. The glass door slid back gracefully, allowing him to enter.

  ‘Hi,’ Morton greeted, as he approached the desk.

  ‘Hello,’ the man replied warmly. ‘What can I do for you today, sir?’

  Morton was momentarily stunned to be welcomed with such courteousness that he didn’t quite know what to say in reply. ‘Erm…I’ve pre-ordered some documents,’ he finally managed.

  The man—whose name badge revealed him to be called Oliver Wheatley—smiled. ‘Okay, can I have your reader’s ticket, please?’

  ‘Oh yes, sorry,’ Morton said, sliding his card across the desk.

  ‘Any preference for which one first?’ Oliver enquired, scanning the card into the computer.

  ‘No, surprise me.’

  Oliver smiled and ventured into the holding room out the back, returning moments later with a small beige ledger, which he handed to Morton. ‘Happy hunting.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Morton answered, carrying the book over to his usual desk on the far side of the room. He plugged in his laptop and made a record in his notepad of the document reference number, before placing the ledger in front of him. It was the size of a paperback and on the front was written Minutes of the Board.

  Morton gently opened the book to the first handwritten pages, which began in 1825. As he began to trawl through the densely packed volume, he developed a picture of day-to-day life in the workhouse. He learnt that prayers were said twice a day, that a ‘Disinfection Officer’ called at the house on a regular basis to clear it of bug infestations, that the inmates washed in the sea and that they existed on a diet consisting mainly of bread, cheese and home-brewed beer. It was all very interesting to Morton but very few names of inmates cropped up in the minutes, except where a seriou
s misdemeanour had occurred.

  After almost an hour and a half of diligent reading, Morton reached 1834 when the register terminated. As he had suspected, there was no mention of the three Lovekin sisters. From his earlier research, he knew that the workhouse was closed at this point under the Poor Law Amendment Act and a new Hastings Union Workhouse built, opening its doors in 1836.

  Morton closed the ledger and carried it back to the help desk.

  ‘Ready for the next one?’ Oliver asked, standing to receive the document from him.

  ‘Yes please,’ Morton said, watching Oliver go to the holding room. ‘Think it’s going to be a long one today.’

  ‘Sounds exciting,’ Oliver called from out of sight.

  ‘Yeah, kind of,’ Morton answered vaguely. Having heard, on numerous occasions, researchers recounting what seemed like their entire family history to the poor archivists behind the desk, he summarised the case to its most succinct points: ‘Woman murdered in 1827. Husband drowned month before. Three orphans left—trying to find out what happened to them.’

  Oliver’s head suddenly popped up in the doorway. ‘Gruesomely fascinating,’ he said then disappeared from view again. Moments later he returned and handed Morton another ledger. ‘Not sure they’re going to turn up here, though,’ he said with a grimace.

  Morton took the book and looked at the accompanying reference paper. ‘Workhouse financial records. Yeah, I am clutching at straws, but you never know.’

  ‘Well, good luck.’

  Morton thanked him, returned to his desk and began to wade through the first pages. It quickly became apparent to him that there was almost zero chance of the Lovekin girls’ being mentioned: it simply served as a record of the workhouse expenditure and, where spending occurred on inmates, it was only noted in the most general terms. Despite not a single inmate’s name appearing in the volume, Morton continued reading until the very end; it was that kind of diligence that so often had paid off in the past. He then returned the document in exchange for the next in his wishlist: a packet of workhouse correspondence, which spanned the years of the girls’ potential incarceration.