The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7), Nathan Goodwin [little red riding hood ebook TXT] 📗

landlord. He leant in closer to Sam and spoke softly: ‘What do you be thinking about the Aldington Gang?’

Sam shrugged, uncertain of the meaning behind Ransley’s question. ‘A good thing for some it be done and a bad thing for others,’ he said, gesturing to the working folk around the room, who had relied on the extra income which they had derived from smuggling.

‘And what if we don’t be letting it be over?’ Ransley whispered, taking a glug from his beer.

‘Same answer,’ Sam said. ‘Good for some, not so good for some. And, it be needing someone with money to be leader.’

Ransley drank more beer and grinned. He drew his mouth close to Sam’s ear. ‘I got the means but I be needing a deputy. What say you, Sam Banister?’

Sam was taken aback. ‘Me?’ Whatever the fortunes of others, his days smuggling were over. As a demonstration, he attempted to lift his right arm past chest height, but it was impossible. ‘My last tub were dumped in the Pig’s Creek Sewer a few week ago and I don’t be wanting no more of it.’

He tapped Sam on the head. ‘That still be working alright?’

Sam nodded his head. ‘Yes.’ He thought of Hester, John and the new baby and the fact that he had almost died in the last smuggling run. It was too dangerous and Hester, having lost two brothers to the trade, would never forgive him.

‘I be needing a right-hand man. Someone to help organise.’

‘That right?’ Sam responded doubtfully. ‘Why me?’

‘You be almost family… I be needing a fellow what can be trusted and I be thinking Sam Banister be that fellow.’ Ransley sank the last of his beer, belched loudly and drew in a long breath. ‘What say you?’

‘No, that be what I say,’ Sam said. ‘Hester—you know what she be like.’

‘Aye—not keen on me—but I be offering three guinea a week, no matter what runs be happening,’ Ransley offered, folding his arms. ‘Another two after each successful run. Even my dear Hester not be minding that.’

Sam ran his fingers through his hair. The offer of so much money suddenly flipped the firmness of his decision into the void where thoughts of what he could do for his family and the possibility of keeping them out of the poorhouse vied with thoughts of remaining alive for them. ‘And no tub-running?’ he clarified.

Ransley shook his head. ‘No tub-running.’

‘I be offering you this,’ he found himself saying, ‘one month, then we see what be happening. I be walking away, if that be what I choose.’

Ransley smiled a big toothy grin and thrust his thick hand at Sam. ‘Good man. The Aldington Gang be back in business.’

Sam shook the extended hand, uncertain if he was doing the right thing.

Time alone would tell.

Chapter Six

Morton’s satnav announced that he had arrived at his destination: Aldington Church. He slowed his red Mini to a crawl, then pulled over onto a stretch of gravel which ran beside a none-too-high boundary wall topped with ivy. Switching off the engine, he climbed out of the car and stretched, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face as he took in the peaceful surroundings.

Opposite the church was a well-trimmed hawthorn hedgerow, over which Morton could see a vast tract of open grassy farmland. Adjacent to the church was a miscellaneous assortment of farm buildings and small cottages, whence came the only sound to be heard: the low rumble of a piece of farming machinery.

Morton pushed open the lych-gate and ventured into the churchyard. It was typical of a rural Kentish parish church: a twelfth-century stone building with later additions, set amongst a turfed graveyard, with headstones of varying conditions and legibility dating from the 1600s.

He meandered slowly towards the church, taking in the unobtrusive setting of the place. As he walked, he pictured Ann Fothergill on this very path in 1825, holding her baby, ready to present him at the font for baptism. He saw her as tough, hardened by life on the streets with an unkempt physical appearance to match, an opinion formed following his limited research into her early life. As he had expected, he had found very little. According to the later census records, she had been born in 1803 in Ramsgate. The entry, for St Mary the Virgin Church, Ramsgate, which he had located in the FindmyPast Kent parish record collection, had been brief and not particularly illuminating: 19th July 1803, Ann, baseborn daughter of Sophia Fothergill. By digging still a little further into the records for St Mary’s, Morton had then discovered that her mother, Sophia Fothergill, had married an Isaac Bull there in 1816, she dying just two years later and being interred there in June 1817. This he had noticed, when he had added the information to Ann’s timeline, was just one month prior to her first conviction for theft. Little wonder, he mused, imagining that any sense of a childhood had come crashing to an end with the death of her mother.

Whilst conducting his research this morning, Morton had received a link to download Ann’s will. It was short and to the point: her ownership of three public houses—the Packet Boat Inn, the Palm Tree and the Bell Inn—along with all of her household goods and chattels were bestowed upon her son, William.

Morton reached the church door and was disappointed to find that it was locked. He touched the very wooden door, imagining Ann’s splayed fingers as she would have pushed the same door open and stepped inside the cool building. Would anyone else have attended the baptism? he wondered. Presumably, the father had not been present, given that his name had been omitted from William’s baptism entry.

Letting his imagined fantasy fade, Morton slowly ambled around the grounds of the churchyard, catching glimpses of the names of villagers who had resided