The America Ground (The Forensic Genealogist Series Book 3)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  ‘Where do you be a-going?’ Joe called.

  ‘Outside,’ Eliza replied.

  Joe sat up. ‘What for?’

  ‘To sleep.’

  ‘Why do you not be sleeping in here?’ he asked.

  Eliza took a moment to respond. ‘It ain’t right, the two of us. Man and woman strangers sleeping side by side.’

  ‘Then I be the one to sleep outside,’ he said, jumping up. ‘Here.’

  ‘No, Joe, you be needing the rest,’ Eliza insisted, warmed again by his kindness.

  ‘Eliza, who be seeing us? At first light I be gone. Lie down here.’

  She stood illuminated by the pale moonlight filtering in through the open side of the barn, deliberating on what to do. She knew that it was naïve of her, having been in his company for such a short while, but she felt a strange feeling towards Joe that she had never felt towards anyone else besides Lydia and Amelia: trust. She would be safer sleeping in a barn with him than she would be sleeping in the workhouse. One night of adventure, where she could be Eliza Winter.

  She crouched down beside Joe and began to flatten the hay. ‘Goodnight, Joe.’

  ‘Goodnight, Eliza,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you for your kindness.’

  Inside, she thanked him for his, but said nothing.

  Minutes passed as Eliza thought on her predicament. In the light of the trouble that she would face, she was comforted by Joe’s soft, rhythmical breathing beside her. She turned to face him, the soft moonlight finding its way through, but barely lifting his features from the shadows. He was a handsome man—striking and masculine but with a soft edge, she having sensed his vulnerability back in the woods. She looked at his muscular torso and saw more cuts and scars.

  Something inside compelled her to gently touch the scar that snaked across his left bicep. Joe flinched and a wash of cold embarrassment and shame suddenly surged over her. ‘Sorry. Night.’

  ‘It don’t be hurting,’ he whispered.

  ‘Did you get it fighting?’ she asked. ‘In the French wars?’

  ‘Yes,’ Joe answered.

  ‘Do you be running away?’ Eliza ventured.

  ‘Yes. It ain’t for me—I be heading back home to Hollington. What about you? What do you be running from?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Eliza retorted, a little too sharply.

  ‘The workhouse?’

  ‘How do you be knowing that?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because if you be having a nice family or a decent husband, then certain sure you wouldn’t be leading no strange men across the countryside. Do I be right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then we both be runaways together,’ Joe said, taking her hand in his. After a time he asked, ‘What do it be like—the workhouse?’

  Eliza took a moment to respond, despite the answer being simple. ‘Awful. We don’t be treated good. We get woke at five, breakfast at six, then pass the morning cleaning, weaving, laundering until dinner at twelve, then we work until six and then in bed by eight. Sundays we do nothing. It be the same week after week. Nothing changes in the workhouse except deaths and new arrivals.’

  ‘That be sounding ernful,’ Joe whispered, gently squeezing her hand.

  ‘Better than war, I suppose,’ Eliza said.

  Joe murmured his agreement then fell silent.

  In the quietness that followed, Joe’s hand grew limp and his breathing deepened, leaving Eliza mulling over the bizarre direction that her day had taken.

  Eventually, her thoughts became fragmented and interspersed with dark spells until sleep consumed her.

  ‘Get up, now!’ an angry voice yelled.

  Eliza stirred. There were men talking nearby. Where was she?

  ‘Get up!’ he repeated. She knew the voice and, in a dawning of recognition, knew where she was. Last night’s events flashed into her mind. She sat up and opened her eyes. Joe was still asleep beside her.

  ‘Well, what have we here?’ It was the voice of Mr Beresford, the workhouse governor.

  Eliza turned to face him. Standing arrogantly beside Farmer Willis, he was shaking his head but smiling inanely. ‘Little innocent Eliza who does no wrong and gets an honest man sent away, lying here with a shirtless vagrant.’

  Joe began to stir and sat up sharply.

  ‘Please, Mr Beresford,’ Eliza pleaded, ‘I ain’t done no wrong. I showed him to the road then it got dark so we slept in Farmer Willis’s barn. We ain’t done harm. Please.’

  Mr Beresford laughed and tugged on his long grey beard.

  Joe stood up to face the men. ‘It be right, what she just said. It were all my fault, so please be showing her some leniency.’

  ‘This common prostitute?’ Mr Beresford snarled. ‘Show her leniency? If only you knew what she’d done.’

  ‘I don’t be caring what she done, she showed me great charity.’

  Mr Beresford snorted. ‘I bet she did. Get over here, you filthy wench.’

  Eliza solemnly stepped towards Mr Beresford, but Joe reached out and grabbed her arm. ‘Don’t do it,’ he instructed.

  She stopped and looked him in the eyes, resigned to her fate.

  Mr Beresford huffed, marched into the barn and grabbed Eliza by the hair.

  ‘Stop!’ Joe shouted.

  Eliza screamed, as pain pierced through her scalp. She grappled and reached behind her, but his grasp—as she knew only too well—was strong.

  They had almost reached the entrance to the barn when Eliza suddenly dropped to the floor. Looking up, she could see why: Joe was pounding his fists into Mr Beresford.

  ‘I’ll fetch help!’ Farmer Willis declared, scarpering away.

  Mr Beresford tumbled to the floor, defeated and Joe stood over him, sweating and breathless.

  ‘We be needing to leave,’ he said quietly to Eliza.

  ‘Me?’ she said.

  Joe nodded. ‘If you want.’

  Eliza thought of what awaited her at the workhouse. Then she thought of her punishment. Without doubt, she would be publically whipped at the common stocks—just like last time—and all the men, women and children from the workhouse would be ordered to watch.

  She took Joe’s hand and they hastened from the barn.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  27th April 1827, The America Ground, outside Hastings, Sussex

  A raging fire burnt inside Richard’s heart, sending a feverish virulence pumping through his body. Just as his carefully conceived and meticulously executed plans were starting to come together, he had discovered the foolish and nonsensical decision to issue Eliza Lovekin with a lease—and a freehold one at that—bearing the signature of none other than Alderman Thomas Honeysett. When Richard had confronted him, he had admitted to a moment of folly and Richard knew that Eliza had once again taken advantage of the old man. ‘But it really is not such a problem,’ he had croaked when Richard had challenged him.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Richard had demanded disbelievingly.

  ‘What I mean is, you can’t make a claim on a parcel of land if you’re not actually alive.’

  Richard sighed at the recollection of the conversation. Such a reckless thing to have done at a time when the Priory Ground was just beginning to implode. He couldn’t have been happier with the outcome from the inquest. It mattered not to him who the final owner transpired to be, just that the illegal settlement would come to an end.

  He looked at the clock: it was almost midnight and time to execute the final stages of his plan that had been a very long time coming.

  Opening the top drawer of his carved walnut bureau, he removed a long leather sheaf knife and tucked it below his belt.

  Upon extinguishing the tallow candles that lit the parlour of his modest cottage, Richard vanished into the dark obscurity of the room.

  He gently lifted the door latch and peered out. Just as he had expected, the street was deserted.

  Without making a sound, he closed the door behind him and, carefully monitoring his footfall, padded along the road to the f
ield on the corner where his horse, Apollo, was tethered.

  ‘Hello, boy,’ Richard whispered, gently stroking his head. He despised what Eliza and the rest of the Priory Ground criminals had done to his relationship with his horse; the absolute trust that he had once had in Apollo was irreparably destroyed.

  Placing his foot in the stirrup, Richard mounted then clipped the horse with his ankles to begin his journey to the Priory Ground. As had been the case ever since his fall, he asked nothing more than a moderate canter from the horse, taking a route along the shoreline, which avoided witnessing eyes. But he need not have worried. By the time that he dismounted at the priory bridge, he had not seen another living soul.

  Moments later, Richard found himself once again outside the blacksmith’s workshop, just a short distance from the Lovekin house. Both the house and the Black Horse were in darkness. He made towards the house but suddenly stopped. There was movement. The street door to the Lovekin house opened.

  Richard quickly stepped backwards, pressing himself to the blacksmith’s wall and not daring to move. He held his breath as he observed Harriet step out, holding the hand of a young man whom Richard had seen before in the gin palace.

  Richard cocked an eyebrow curiously as Harriet, leading her giggling friend by the hand, headed off in the direction of the beach. He fumbled at his hip to check that the knife was still there, then walked guardedly to the house.

  Taking one last glance around him, Richard lifted the latch and entered the dark parlour. The only sound above the beating of his own heart was the soft ticking of the clock. In his black buckskin trousers and tailcoat, he melded seamlessly into the absolute darkness of the cottage. His progress up the stairs was slow, testing each step before fully applying his weight to ensure his approach was silent.

  He reached a short corridor with two doors.

  He stopped and listened.

  A soft, feminine wheeze emanated from behind the first door. Her bedroom.

  Slowly and carefully, he lifted the latch and gently pushed, recoiling at the low sigh it emitted, as it swung open.

  He paused.

  Her rhythmical breathing remained unaltered.

  From the thin splinter of light that defied the window shutters, he could see that she was lying prone with her back to him, the edge of her shape brushed in a soft pallid blue. It was a warm night and the blankets were peeled back, leaving her white nightdress exposed perfectly, making his job all the easier.

  Without a trace of apprehension, his hand glided to his waist and withdrew the sheathed knife. Silently, he pulled the blade from the leather casing and moved closer to her.

  Still she slept, oblivious to the fact that she had just seconds more left to live.

  Time seemed to congeal mulishly, as he reached the side of her bed, now gripping the blade more tightly. Thoughts from his past flitted in and out of his mind.

  Finally, after a long while visualising this very moment, it was time.

  His knuckles whitened as he took a deep breath and plunged the knife into her back.

  She offered no words and no resistance, just a barely audible gasp as the knife penetrated through the back of her ribcage.

  Without pausing, he slid the knife out and stabbed her again.

  Her rhythmical breathing faltered as the knife thrust inside her again and again.

  Then her breathing stopped.

  He stood over her, listening. Eliza Lovekin was dead.

  Lydia Bloom was dead. Amelia Odden was next.

  Richard wiped the blade clean on the blanket which covered her lifeless body then hastened from the room. He paused, wondering if he should search for the documents. They had to be here somewhere. But, more than anything, he needed not to get caught. Harriet might arrive back at any moment. Besides, as he was told, you can’t make a claim on a parcel of land if you’re not alive.

  He descended the stairs quickly, not worrying about the creaks and groans under his feet.

  Just a few short minutes later, Richard was back at the priory bridge, untethering Apollo. His breathing was fitful and the adrenalin in his body was making the muscles in his arms and legs quiver.

  It was time to leave.

  His work here was finally over.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was with a great deal of apprehension that Morton parked his Mini in exactly the same parking bay in Maidstone as the last time that he had been here. For several minutes he just sat, with the central locking engaged, staring through the windscreen and waiting for something to happen. He stared unblinking, counting the seconds between each sweep back and forth of the windscreen wiper. Ten seconds exactly and the fine drizzle that gradually obscured his view was swished away. But nothing untoward happened. There was nobody suspicious around and, to the best of his knowledge, he hadn’t been followed here. It was strange, but it unnerved him more that he hadn’t been trailed. But then again, they had admitted to putting a tracker on his car, so he was fairly sure that they knew fully well where he was at every moment of the day. Tomorrow was the deadline. When tomorrow? he wondered. Did the three-day countdown start from the moment that the words had left Kevin’s mouth? Or was it midnight that night? Or first thing in the morning? Those few extra hours could prove invaluable.

  ‘You’re wasting time,’ he mumbled to himself, fretfully tapping the steering wheel.

  Taking a final glance around him, he grabbed his bag from the passenger seat and ran—fast—into the Kent History and Library Centre, receiving strange, uncertain looks from the motley group of smokers loitering in front of the main entrance.

  He slowed down with just a split second to allow the automatic doors to slide apart, giving him just enough time to enter the building.

  At the family history help desk he found the delightful Brenda Buxton but, judging by the narrow dutiful smile on her lips when she saw him, she evidently didn’t recognise him from their previous encounter. Thank goodness.

  ‘Good morning,’ Morton greeted, hoping for a fresh start.

  ‘Hello,’ she replied.

  ‘Do you have a microfilm and table free today, please?’ he asked politely. ‘One of the PC ones, if possible.’

  Brenda’s excessively long red fingernails tapped at the keyboard on the desk in front of her. She looked up from the computer screen to Morton. ‘Are you going to buy a photography licence today, or try and take illicit pictures behind my back?’ she asked sourly.

  Morton’s cheeks flushed. No fresh start today, then. ‘I’ll see how I get on.’

  Brenda turned back to the computer and typed something. ‘In that case, I’ll put you on number one so I can keep an eye on you.’ Something resembling a look of pain, but which Morton suspected to be a scornful smile, erupted on Brenda’s face as she handed over his card and locker key. ‘Do I need to remind you of any of our other rules? Like no bags or pens in the search rooms?’

  ‘No need,’ Morton answered, scurrying off towards the bank of lockers, certain that she must share the same severely mutated gene responsible for acerbic wit as Deidre Latimer.

  Ignoring Brenda’s monitoring gaze, Morton stowed his belongings in the locker, then carried his laptop and notebook to the microfilm reader. He wasted no time in retrieving the film containing Westwell baptisms from the cabinet, winding it on until he reached the 1760s.

  The parish registers in this period contained none of the neat orderly boxes that began in 1813 and made searches all the easier; the faded ink scrawls now on the screen in front of Morton required great concentration to decipher.

  Even though he was twenty years away from Eliza’s likely date of baptism, Morton took his time, reading each and every entry carefully, wanting to build up a picture of Westwell at that time and hopefully extracting any of Eliza’s wider family. The village being quite small, there was approximately one year’s worth of baptisms per page.

  In twenty minutes, Morton had reached the 1780s—the likely decade of Eliza’s baptism. He continued his
search through the register and found her in 1786—exactly where he had expected to find her.

  June 16, Eliza Winter, baseborn daughter of Eliza Winter

  Like almost all baptism entries of the period, it provided only scant information. No occupation. No address. No additional or quirky comments.

  Morton printed out the entry, satisfied to have found the first real clue as to Eliza’s early life. Did Eliza senior have more illegitimate children? Or did she marry, then have a family? Morton continued his search, making a note of every baptism where the mother was named Eliza, irrespective of their surname.

  His searches continued until it was impossible for there to have been more children. There were several baptisms on his notepad where the mother’s Christian name had been Eliza, but there were no more to Eliza Winter.

  Morton flipped open his laptop lid and, opening two web browsers, ran a general search at Ancestry and FindmyPast for Eliza Winter. Thousands of results, in every category of their holdings. Flicking between the two, he added the keyword Westwell. On Ancestry there were no results. On FindmyPast there was one result: in ‘Newspapers and Periodicals’.

  Morton clicked the entry and waited a moment for it to load. It was a scan of an 1802 edition of the Morning Chronicle, titled Assize Intelligence. Home Circuit—Maidstone, 29 November. He zoomed in and began to read the article.

  Before Mr Baron Alderson.

  Thomas Honeysett, 40, was indicted for feloniously administering a certain drug to Eliza Winter, with intent to procure a miscarriage. Mr Phillips and Mr Holmes prosecuted. The prisoner was defended by Mr Horne. It appeared that the prisoner, who had formerly been in the army, and who at one time bore a very good character, had been appointed to fill the situation of governor of the Westwell Union Workhouse, and he resided in that establishment with his wife. The prosecutrix was a pauper girl, and it would seem that the prisoner, soon after his wife’s death, had taken advantage of the influence of his position, persuading her to consent to his solicitations and the result was that she became in the family way, and in order to avoid the consequences of his misconduct, the prisoner had induced her to take a quantity of savin. It likewise appeared, in the course of the case, that the prisoner had had an improper connection with two other pauper girls, Lydia Booth and Amelia Odden who were likewise in the family way by him, and to whom he had also administered some unwholesome drugs.