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

Amber had left the copy of Kent Smugglers’ Pubs on the desk, so Morton copied down the text that she had just read to him, wondering if a link could be made to Ann and her ownership of the pub. He looked at the time; just approaching midday. He still had plenty of time to finish his research here before heading over to Folkestone Library.

He spent some time checking the directories for the subsequent years, discovering that Ann’s ownership of the Packet Boat Inn had occurred in 1831 and the Palm Tree Inn around 1836.

Shortly after two o’clock, Morton headed back to his car, satisfied with the day’s progress so far. As he started his Mini, ready to leave the car park and drive to Folkestone, he remembered that Ann had lived for the last thirty-plus years of her life in a house close to the town centre, and decided to pay it a quick visit. He flipped the pages in his notebook, struggling to remember the name of the property. He found the address: Honey Pot House, Castle Avenue.

It took him three minutes to reach Castle Avenue and a further two minutes of crawling along the kerbside to locate the house. The road was lined with a motley collection of practically every type of house: handsome Edwardian dwellings sat beside ugly 1980s bungalows. As far as he had seen, there were no pre-Victorian properties on the road apart from Honey Pot House.

‘Impressive,’ he said to himself, taking several shots on his mobile.

The three-storeyed brick house, set behind wrought iron gates and fencing, was situated in a sprawling plot that now boasted tennis courts and what looked from the road to be an outdoor swimming pool. Ann Fothergill had undergone a Dickensian transformation from illiterate street vagrant in 1820 to the owner of a pub in 1825, followed years later by a large house and two further pubs. Impressive.

Morton rubbed his chin as he looked at the house, deliberating his research so far, before climbing back into his Mini and driving along the coast to Folkestone.

The dull beige, hardback binding that held together every edition of The Folkestone, Hythe & District Herald for 1963 flopped onto the desk with a thump. Morton turned the first large page over with a smile. When so many newspapers had been transferred to microfilm or fiche, or digitalised to computer, it was always a pleasure to handle original ones such as these. Having no idea when the two bodies had been discovered that year, he knew it was necessary to search each and every edition until he had found it. As he needed it to be, his search was thorough and methodical; he checked every story on every page, despite suspecting that the unearthing of two Revenue Officers’ corpses would actually be headline news for this quiet seaside town. Sure enough, it was. On the 10th July 1963, the story had made the front page. MURDER? the headline shouted above a grainy black and white image of an inglenook fireplace, at the base of which, surrounded by piles of bricks, were two skulls protruding from dark clothing. The picture looked almost comical to Morton, like a bad pub Halloween display. Yet, the story confirmed what Amber Henderson at Dover Library had said to him: ‘Whilst knocking down a dividing wall in the central fireplace of the Bell Inn on Wednesday, a builder unearthed two human skeletons fully dressed in the outfits of Coastguard Officers. Local man, Paul Major, was the person who made the gruesome discovery, thinking at first that the bodies were a pile of old rags. The remains were conveyed to the Coroner’s Office by Mr F.W. Smith, who told reporters that the skeletons dated from the early nineteenth century, therefore an inquest into the deaths was unnecessary. Although the two bodies showed no visible signs of how they met with their deaths, owing to the mere fact of their concealment, the circumstances are highly suspicious. ‘Looks like they were murdered,’ Ian Austen, the forty-seven-year-old owner of the pub said yesterday. ‘Why else would they have been bricked up in a fireplace?’ One local historian and maritime expert, Clive Baintree, who saw the skeletons shortly after their discovery believes that the two men would have been part of the Coastal Blockade set up to prevent smuggling in Kent and Sussex. Having remained closed while the police concluded their investigations, the Bell Inn is once again open to the public.’

Morton photographed the report, made a note of it on his pad, then continued searching through the newspaper for further mention of the two bodies. Despite the likelihood dwindling with each passing edition of the paper, he persevered but reached the end of the year finding nothing more. Evidently, whatever discoveries had been made by the Coroner had not warranted the column inches.

He handed the volume back and returned to his desk, removing his laptop from his bag.

Opening a web browser, he found the details for the Central and South-East Kent Coroner’s Office and sent them an email requesting any information which they might have had on the two skeletons. Next, he emailed various local cemeteries and churches, spelling out the case and requesting a search be made in their registers for the burial of the two men. Finally, he ran various searches for Clive Baintree, figuring that being both an expert in maritime history, and having seen the two bodies, he would be a good person to whom to talk. Having found an address and phone number for him in Hythe in an online electoral register, Morton was able to identify him correctly on Facebook. Without revealing the finer details of the case, he sent Clive a message regarding the discovery of the skeletons.

Morton closed his laptop lid and packed away his things before walking back to his car