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

used her platform to decry the current state of the police force and to reveal that she was pregnant again; his Uncle Jim had then risen and had spoken in such a strong Cornish accent that nobody had understood him, yet they had pretended that they had by raising their glasses encouragingly at moments where they felt it to have been appropriate; his half-brother, George, whom he had yet to meet, was played in the dream by a television actor whom Morton could now not name, and he had spent some time declaring to the table how wondrous his upbringing had been as an only child before taking his seat; Laura, Morton’s biological father’s wife, chose to speak about a moment in her career as an obstetrician when she had delivered a multiple-pregnancy of eighteen healthy babies; his Aunty Margaret and his father, Jack had then risen together and spoken jointly, telling the guests that they had always loved each other and were going to spend the rest of their lives together, before fleeing the room; finally, Morton had stood and begun to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ until the horror of the situation forced his eyes open, leaving him with absolutely no desire to return to sleep whatsoever.

He had been up for over two hours now, yet still elements of the dream plagued him. As he had cleaned the kitchen, he had given serious consideration to the possibility of his biological parents’ rekindling their love after more than forty years of having been estranged. He instantly castigated himself, remembering that it hadn’t been love at all. It had been a week-long holiday fling between two teenagers from two different continents that had resulted in—facing facts—an unwanted pregnancy.

Juliette’s cocooned voice asked, ‘What time is it?’

‘9.27,’ he said in a tone nuanced with the suggestion that her stretch in bed ought now to be over.

Her face poked out from the duvet, tortoise-like, her eyes tightly shut. ‘What time’s everyone getting here?’

‘Lunchtime.’

How she took that information, it was hard for Morton to know, for her head retracted sharply back under the duvet. ‘Right,’ he said, leaving the room.

Downstairs in the lounge he began to tidy away the abundance of Grace’s toys, which were strewn liberally all over the floor.

A low nonsensical babble began to erupt from the baby monitor, informing Morton that his time preparing the house was over; a swell of mild panic quickened his heart-rate as his mind flicked through the catalogue of jobs which still needed to be done before anybody arrived. Grace’s gibberish became suddenly clearer: ‘Dadda! Dadda! Dadda!’

Switching off the monitor, he bounded up the stairs to her bedroom, where he found Juliette picking her out from her cot bed. ‘Happy birthday, darling! Now say Mummy!’ Juliette said, a little exasperatedly. ‘Mummy!’

‘Dadda,’ Grace replied, opening her arms towards Morton.

‘Here you go,’ she said, handing Grace over to him. ‘I’m going to shower and try and wake up a bit, then we’ll give her her presents.’

‘I’ll make you some breakfast,’ Morton called after her. ‘Happy birthday, Grace!’

He carried Grace downstairs, sat her on the kitchen floor and watched with exasperation as she crawled over to her box of wooden blocks and promptly tipped them all over the floor. She began to select individual blocks, setting them on top of each other until the tower collapsed.

Morton watched her proudly and felt the tight anxiety from worry about the state of the house slowly dissipating. And with more new toys about to be added to the mix, the visitors would have to accept the house the way they found it.

‘See,’ Juliette said, two hours later. She was sitting beside Grace on the lounge floor, setting up a zoo with Grace’s new plastic animals. ‘You needn’t have worried. The house is tidy, the bathroom’s clean and the beds are made. We’re ready.’

‘Hmm,’ Morton agreed, slightly absentmindedly, as he gazed out of the window onto Mermaid Street. All he saw, however, were the first vestiges of the year’s many tourists, taking advantage of the unusually warm March day.

From his pocket, his phone beeped with the arrival of a text message. He quickly pulled his phone out and read it aloud. ‘Hi. Traffic awful – be a couple of hours late – sorry.’

‘Which parent is that from?’ Juliette asked with a wry smile.

‘Aunty Margaret,’ he answered, pocketing his mobile and checking outside once more.

‘They’re not going to get here any sooner because you’re constantly curtain-twitching,’ Juliette said, holding a small Dalmatian in front of Grace. ‘Doggy. Doggy.’

Grace glanced briefly to Morton, as if to check that what Juliette had said was correct, then said in a crystal-clear voice, ‘Dadda—doggy.’

‘Good girl!’ Morton exclaimed, bending down to kiss her.

‘Great—she says ‘doggy’ before ‘mummy,’ Juliette complained. ‘That’s just brilliant.’

Morton returned to the window, his chuckle swiftly morphing into a minor gasp. ‘Oh, God, they’re here!’

Juliette jumped to her feet just as the doorbell rang. ‘Go and open it, then.’

‘How do I look?’ he asked, his breathing suddenly becoming shallow.

‘What are you? A teenage girl? Go and open the door.’

Morton moved into the hallway and took a deep breath, wishing that his heart would slow down. Then, with Juliette at his side and Grace at his feet, he opened the front door.

Five animated, excitedly spoken greetings tangled in the air, before Jack, who was standing directly in front of the door, pulled Morton into an embrace. ‘How you doing, son?’ he asked, slapping him on the back, before bending down and planting a kiss on the top of Grace’s head. ‘Hi! How are you?’

‘Doggy,’ Grace said, removing the Dalmatian’s front paws from her mouth and offering it to him.

‘Yeah, that’s right—doggy!’ Jack said. ‘Happy birthday!’ He kissed her again, then stood back and moved to hug Juliette. ‘Lovely to see you again. Okay, introductions…’ he stood to