The America Ground (The Forensic Genealogist Series Book 3)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  Juliette smirked as she opened a bottle of wine and poured out two large glasses. ‘You need to be serious about this, Mr Farrier.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, taking a glass from the table.

  Juliette took a seat beside him. ‘Right. First things first. Any preference for timescale? I was thinking next year sometime.’

  Morton nodded. ‘Next year sometime sounds good.’

  ‘Summer?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Summer sounds good.’

  ‘Okay. That was easy enough. Tick. Right, venue.’

  ‘Venue sounds good.’ He knew that he was over-compensating for the shock of his afternoon and needed to rein it in or else she might become suspicious.

  Juliette pulled a scorned look and slapped his arm. ‘Be serious. Do you have any ideas for a venue?’

  ‘Not really, but I’m guessing by the gargantuan file in front of us, that you have,’ he said, taking a large gulp of wine. This was going to be a long night. He eyed the certificates on the table again, but knew that they would have to wait now until tomorrow.

  ‘Just open them,’ Juliette said with a sigh.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know what.’

  ‘Nope, no more work today. Venues.’

  She raised a sceptical eyebrow but dragged the folder over nonetheless. ‘So. I was thinking that, given your interests, maybe somewhere with a bit of history?’

  ‘That would be nice,’ he answered. He opened the first page of the folder and shot her a perplexed look. ‘Bodiam Castle?’ he questioned. ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘No, what’s wrong with that? I thought you liked Bodiam Castle.’

  ‘I do, for a quiet afternoon out,’ he answered, guzzling on his wine. ‘How many people are you thinking of inviting?’

  ‘Well,’ she replied, removing a sleeve from the back of the folder. ‘That’s a separate job, but I have made a provisional list. With all the usual family politics taken into account—about a hundred and fifty.’

  ‘Do I even know a hundred and fifty people?’ Morton asked incredulously, running a finger down the list of names. ‘Well he’s not being invited, that’s for sure and I doubt very much they’d bother…’ He abandoned the list part-way through when Juliette huffed her exasperation. ‘Okay, what other venues have you got in mind?’

  ‘The Powder Mills in Battle? Leeford Place Hotel?’ she ventured.

  ‘They’re all pretty big, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘I kind of thought it would be a small thing—you know, just close family and friends—so that it’s more about us than…’—he looked down at the prospective invite list—‘Dave and Sandra. I mean, you really want my dad’s next door neighbours seeing us getting married?’

  Juliette sipped her wine and became subdued.

  Morton sensed her disappointment. ‘Look, why don’t we go through the guest list first and whittle it down to the people we really want there? Forget politics. Then, when we’ve got that list finalised we can find a suitable venue.’

  Juliette agreed and they spent the next two hours working on the guest list for their wedding. The final list ran to sixty-two people, which Morton found infinitely more bearable than a hundred and fifty.

  ‘We’ll do venues another evening,’ Juliette said, finishing the last dregs of her wine. ‘I’m on an early tomorrow, so I’m off to bed. You coming?’

  ‘Won’t be a moment,’ Morton answered, his eyes falling to the two certificates on the table. He cleared the glasses and empty wine bottle away and then tore open the first envelope. It was for Ann Lovekin’s marriage. She had married Walter Sellens on the 18th November 1839 in St Leonards Church—just on the outskirts of Hastings. Ann was recorded as a twenty-two-year-old spinster, whose father, Joseph Lovekin, was deceased. Her abode was listed rather vaguely as Hollington. Her husband, Walter was noted as a twenty-five-year-old farmer and also from Hollington. The witnesses to the wedding were Keziah Lovekin and Harriet Elphick.

  Elphick? The name was familiar to Morton. It took a moment then it came to him: a Christopher Elphick was noted in the Sussex Weekly Advertiser as having discovered Eliza Lovekin’s dead body. Was the Harriet Elphick, who had witnessed the marriage, Ann’s sister, who had married Christopher? Morton wondered.

  He placed the certificate on the table and opened the next: Keziah Lovekin’s death certificate. She had died on the 19th August 1892 at The Forester’s Arms public house, St Leonards, aged eighty, of senile decay. Morton’s previous theory was borne out when he read the name and description of the informant: Harriet Elphick, sister. Present at the death.

  His shoulder ached. His cut neck throbbed. His pumping adrenalin, that he had kept hidden from Juliette, was finally abating.

  As much as he wanted—needed—to continue his research, it was time for bed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Morton was once again waiting for the Hastings Reference Library doors to open. He had slept terribly—a spiteful blend of the pain in his shoulder and neck and the images of being bundled off to a desolate farm playing over and over in his mind on a never-ending loop.

  He finished his take-out latte and turned to place the cup in the bin, looking over at the run of shops opposite as he did so. Sure enough, the man who had followed him on foot from the car park was there, innocently propped up against the wall eating a sausage roll. He had made, and continued to make, no attempt at discretion. He couldn’t have looked more like a stereotypical villain: jeans, bomber jacket and tattoos creeping up his neck. Where do they find these people? Rent-a-thug?

  Morton waved and the man nodded his response.

  ‘You’re keen!’ a thin wiry man declared, as he unlocked the doors and peered outside. ‘Do come in.’

  Morton thanked him and hurried upstairs, bee-lining directly for the parish registers. They were duplicates of those held at The Keep, but the library was much closer to home and, with the sleepless night that Morton had suffered, he wasn’t sure that he could cope with another day of Miss Latimer’s vitriol. He might have ended up hurling a permanent-ban amount of abuse at her.

  ‘Good morning to you, too!’ a female voice called across to him.

  Morton looked up. It was Sally. ‘Oh, sorry. Hello. I’m back again.’

  ‘Has the case got any better yet?’ she enquired.

  ‘It’s taken a few dramatic turns,’ Morton answered wryly, as he switched on the microfilm reader.

  ‘Fascinating,’ Sally said with a grin. ‘If ever you need an assistant, you know where to look. I’d make a good Robin to your Batman.’

  Morton laughed. ‘Yeah, I’ll let you know about that one.’

  Sally turned to help another customer, leaving Morton to his work. Having located the film for St Leonards Church, Morton buzzed through to the marriage entry of Ann Lovekin and Walter Sellens and printed it out. It bore no difference to the copy that he had received in the post yesterday, except that all signatures, including the witnesses, were original. Knowing that Harriet Lovekin had been married sometime before her sister, Morton began to work backwards in time, hoping that she had married in the same church as her younger sister.

  He only needed to work back twelve years until he found it: Harriet Lovekin had married Christopher Elphick on the 25th May 1827. Owing to the period, the certificate gave little information about the two parties except that they were both unmarried. Morton looked again at the date of the wedding—it was just under a month after the girls had been thrown out of the parish of Westwell. A very hasty wedding, by all accounts. Just enough time for three weeks’ banns to be read.

  He clicked to print the entry, then wound the film on to baptisms for the same church.

  After just a short while, Morton’s index finger came to rest on the surname Elphick. Daniel Joseph Elphick, baptised 10th April 1828, son of Christopher and Harriet Elphick, publican, The Forester’s Arms. He looked at the entry, and pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. Having been forcibly removed from the America Ground fol
lowing her mother’s murder, Harriet had, just a few short weeks later, married Christopher Elphick and they had set up their own pub, The Forester’s Arms, presumably acting as guardians to her two younger sisters. As hinted at by the two certificates that Morton had received yesterday, the sisters had maintained a closeness their whole lives.

  He continued his searches, finding the baptisms of two further children to Christopher and Harriet: Eliza, baptised in 1832 and Maria, baptised in 1833. He could find no record of any children to Ann and Walter Sellens and, when he searched the burial register, he discovered the reason: at the age of twenty-three, Ann Sellens had died. She was buried on the 2nd September 1840, just under a year after she had married. Morton made a note on his pad to order her death certificate, then added Ann’s death to the Lovekin family tree. It appeared that both Ann and Keziah had died childless, leaving just Harriet’s three children for whom Morton to trace the descendants.

  Morton picked up his printouts and took them over to Sally. ‘I’d like to pay for these, please—five copies.’

  ‘That’ll be the grand sum of one pound, please.’

  Morton handed over the money. ‘Thank you. Also, you don’t happen to know anything about either the Black Horse or The Forester’s Arms, do you?’

  Sally smiled and handed him a receipt. ‘If you’re referring to the Black Horse that was once on the America Ground, then they’re one and the same place.’

  Morton shot a quizzical look across the counter.

  ‘The Black Horse was the gin palace on the America Ground—funnily enough it was located just opposite here, where the big church is now, then when the land was cleared, lots of properties—I think it was around twenty-eight in total—were taken apart brick by brick and moved to new ground in St Leonards.’

  ‘Really?’ Morton said disbelievingly.

  Sally nodded emphatically. ‘The Black Horse was dismantled and rebuilt on Shepherd Street and renamed The Forester’s Arms.’

  ‘Wow. Then what happened to it?’

  ‘It became an art gallery at one time then a private residence. I haven’t been up that way for a while, but I assume the building is still there.’

  ‘Thank you very much—very useful,’ Morton said.

  ‘See—I could easily be your glamorous assistant!’ Sally grinned.

  Morton smiled and headed back to the microfilm reader. He looked at his watch: it was only mid-morning and if he left now, then he would have time to walk to Shepherd Street to find The Forester’s Arms and still have time to pay a well overdue visit to a certain character in the Old Town.

  Morton packed up and darted towards the door.

  ‘Bye, then,’ Sally called after him.

  ‘Sorry—bye!’ he replied, making his way outside.

  Basking in the sunshine, like an obedient dog tied to a lamppost waiting for its master, was to be found his shadow drinking from a can of coke. Morton waved then switched his attention to Holy Trinity Church, which loomed large in front of him. It was impossible to imagine his surroundings as they would have been one hundred and eighty years ago; not a single building around him would have existed and yet there, just in front of him was where crucial elements of the Lovekins’ lives had played out. It was also the site where Eliza’s life had been taken from her, killed on this spot by a murderer now lost to history.

  Except, it wasn’t all gone. The very building in which the family had worked had been moved to a different location—just over a mile up the road—and Morton was keen to see it. He crossed to the wide promenade, which ran the entire length of the beach, and strode contentedly in the morning sunshine, his pursuer trailing a few feet behind him.

  Shepherd Street sat in an obviously deprived area, book-ended by dreary houses with peeling paint. A stretch of box-shaped properties ran the length of the narrow road, interspersed with the odd house whose irregular shape hinted at a past more interesting than the residential function that they now served. One such building was The Forester’s Arms, or number 2 Shepherd Street, as it had now become, in front of which Morton now stood. A simple oblong shape, the property was painted spearmint green with decorative white cornicing and five arched windows, its remarkable past safely locked behind the modern front door. Only the name The Forester’s Arms emblazoned in white letters hinted at the nature of its former life.

  Morton removed his phone to take a photograph of the house and noticed that he had a text message from Jonathan Greenwood. Morton, found a chap! Drop off the lease & release at your leisure. J. Short and to the point. Morton tapped out a response to say he would drop them off later today then raised the phone to take a picture.

  ‘Oi, what you doing taking photos of my house?’ a fiery female voice demanded.

  Morton lowered his mobile and found the source of the outcry—an open door adjacent to The Forester’s Arms, where a large woman wearing a pink track suit and holding a cigarette glowered out.

  ‘I wasn’t photographing your house,’ Morton answered defensively and gestured towards the former pub. ‘I was photographing that one.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, taking a long drag on the cigarette then blowing the smoke in the air above her.

  Morton hated moments like this. To try and whittle down the Lovekin Case to a synopsis that she could understand was almost impossible. ‘I’m interested in it,’ he answered simply.

  ‘You the new owner? What you doing with it? More bedsits, I suppose?’

  ‘No, I’m not the new owner. Is it for sale, then?’

  She shrugged indifferently. ‘It was. Been empty for a few months now.’

  ‘Oh, right. Did you know the previous owner?’

  The woman sniffed, took another drag and shifted her weight to one side. ‘What if I did?’

  ‘I’m just interested in old pubs,’ Morton lied. ‘I’d like to speak to the people who lived there.’

  ‘Yeah, well he’s dead, so good luck with that,’ she laughed, flicking the remnants of her cigarette into the road then slamming the door shut behind her.

  Lovely lady, Morton thought, crossing the road and pressing his face up against the grimy windows. Thick netted curtains prevented him from seeing anything inside; taking one last look at the exterior of the building, he set back off along the seafront, his pursuer safely in tow.

  He walked briskly along the promenade, enjoying the salty breeze blowing up over the sea. He continued past the former America Ground site, taking in the rows of houses, hotels and shops that now stood where once more than a thousand people had lived, declaring themselves to be an independent state of America.

  He tried to imagine the scene before him when the inquiry had gone against the American Ground residents and they had been faced with the prospect of abandoning their homes, shops and businesses or literally taking them apart, brick by brick and moving them to a new location. It couldn’t have been an easy task, Morton realised, especially as Harriet was pregnant with her own child whilst also looking after her two younger sisters.

  With his mind picking over the pieces of the Lovekin Case, Morton soon found himself in George Street—the heart of the Old Town—a pedestrianized road bounded by quaint, quirky shops and trendy coffee houses. In the centre of it was Bunny’s Emporium. Morton slowed his pace as the shop came into view, slightly dreading this visit. At this moment in time, he wasn’t sure whom he feared seeing more, Bunny or Madge.

  From the displays he could see through the huge plate glass windows, Bunny’s Emporium sold an assortment of odd and eccentric antiques. Morton’s eyes glided over a bizarre collection of items, each with their own hefty price tag. Did people really pay seventy-five pounds for a crate of empty brown bottles? Or ninety pounds for a vintage milking stool?

  A grating, high-pitched laughter suddenly shattered the calmness of the street, causing several passers-by to seek out the cause of the shrill racket. Morton looked up, although it wasn’t necessary in order for him to identify the source. It had to have been Bunny.

&nb
sp; ‘Morton!’ she shrieked. ‘How absolutely delightful!’

  He smiled and offered his hand, which was promptly crushed as she flung her arms around him, embracing him like a long-lost relative. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he managed to say.

  She took his hands in hers and beamed at him. ‘Have you come with more news of my dear Eliza? Please don’t tell me there are more horrid stories to tell, I’m not sure I could stand it.’

  ‘Well, I just wanted to give you a quick update,’ he stammered uncomfortably. She was just as he’d imagined her to be; a buxom bohemian in her fifties, covered in beads, bracelets and elaborate swathes of oriental clothing. Her eye make-up was heavy and the attempt at containing her wild dyed red hair in the headband had failed miserably.

  ‘Come inside—you’re just in time for a peppermint tea—grown and nurtured in my own humble garden, I must add,’ Bunny chirped, turning dramatically and swishing her colourful kaftan behind her.

  Morton smiled politely. Peppermint tea with a grandiose hippy was not a prospect which thrilled him, but he followed her into the shop nonetheless.

  Inside, there were no customers and thankfully no sign of Madge.

  ‘I won’t be a jiffy,’ Bunny said. ‘Take a seat.’ She motioned towards a stool situated beside the counter, then disappeared through a bead curtain behind the till.

  Morton sat down transfixed, wondering how on earth anyone made a living by selling such strange wares. Whatever he thought, she was evidently doing well for herself; behind the counter was an award for the Old Town Independent Retailer of the Year 2014. Morton cast his eyes over a range of old flags that hung limply from the ceiling above his head.

  ‘Do you like my little flag collection?’ Bunny beamed, thrusting a mug of peppermint tea at him. Reaching up, she straightened one of the flags, which was an old Stars and Stripes. ‘This is a replica of the America Ground flag—do you like it?’

  ‘A replica?’ Morton said. ‘It’s very good.’