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

George shook his head. ‘I tried…’

‘Right, drinks,’ Juliette murmured to herself.

‘Oh, Morton,’ George said, briefly glancing in his direction, before looking back at the television. Morton smiled inquisitively, wondering what his half-brother was about to say to him. ‘Some guy called for you. He works with you—wanted to drop something off.’

‘Works with me? What did he drop off?’

George shrugged. ‘I don’t think he said—he went up and left it in your office.’

‘Okay,’ Morton answered, not having the faintest of clues to whom George was referring, trying not to be aggravated that he had allowed a stranger into the house. He bounded up the stairs, casually glancing in his bedroom on the way up. In the study he found nothing. Everything seemed to be how he had left it. He wiggled the laptop mouse and the password-protected screen came to life, showing no signs of having been tampered with. He scanned across the bookshelves but could not see anything different. He looked around the floor and in the bin. He thumbed through the stack of paperwork on his desk pertaining to the Fothergill Case. When he found nothing, paranoia pushed him to check under his desk. Check the lampshade. Check the plug sockets. Nothing. He stood in front of the investigation wall and methodically ran his eyes across it, looking for signs of change or anything having been removed or added. Only one thing looked amiss, but he couldn’t be certain that it hadn’t happened before today. One piece of paper had a ripped corner and the tape had been reattached slightly lower down, as though someone had torn it hastily from the wall, then reaffixed it. But why? The paper, in his scribbled handwriting read: ‘The Bourne Tap, Aldington – gold guineas found by George Ransley???’

Morton stared at the paper for some time, mulling over his thoughts. He could very well have ripped the paper—he just had no recollection of it. Juliette could have ripped it, though why, when she rarely stepped foot inside his study, he couldn’t fathom. George could have done it but this, too, seemed highly implausible. Or, it was this man who had visited the house?

Carefully removing the piece of paper from the wall, Morton carried it downstairs to the kitchen, where he found Juliette preparing the dinner. ‘You didn’t tear this, did you?’ he asked.

‘What is it?’ Juliette asked, scrunching her eyes to read his scribbled handwriting.

‘Probably nothing. It was on my investigation wall.’

‘Does it matter that it’s ripped? You can rewrite it, can’t you?’

‘That doesn’t matter at all—I just can’t recall having ripped it.’

Juliette said dismissively, ‘Well, I can safely say it wasn’t me. Can you see if they want anything to drink, please?’

Morton ventured into the lounge, finding Jack and Laura playing on the floor with Grace. George was watching them from the sofa, his head resting on a cushion and his legs tucked up beside him, appearing very much on the verge of sleep. ‘Anyone want a drink?’ Morton asked, then, when nobody said that they did, he asked, ‘George—that man that arrived earlier—did he give his name?’

‘No, he didn’t. I assumed from the way he was talking that you were kind of expecting him. Should I not have let him in?’

Morton wanted to respond with, ‘No, you definitely shouldn’t have let him in’ but said, ‘Well, I have no idea who he was. What did he look like?’

George sighed and sat up. ‘I only really saw him for a minute. Erm…about forty to fifty, very thin, grey tracksuit, bald or shaved head. Stubble. I think he might have had a mole here–’ he pointed to beside his right eye, ‘—white sneakers… That’s about all I can remember.’

Jack looked up. ‘So, you don’t know this guy?’

Morton shook his head. A niggling worry caused by what was written on the paper that the man might have been Arthur Fothergill’s greedy nephew was rejected. The nephew was overweight, had a full head of hair and certainly no facial moles.

‘George—you really shouldn’t have let him in,’ Jack castigated.

‘He could have been anyone,’ Laura added.

George flushed red with embarrassment, mumbling a quiet apology.

‘How long was he upstairs for?’ Morton pushed, now not choosing his tone or words with eggshell consideration.

‘Erm…no more than like…five minutes. Probably two or three.’

‘And he definitely went to my study—on the top floor?’

George nodded. ‘I heard the floorboards creaking up there and I was coming out of my room when he came down the stairs.’

‘And did you go into the study at all?’ Morton asked. ‘It doesn’t matter—I just need to know.’

‘No, I haven’t been up to the top floor at all. I’m sorry—I guess tiredness and the way he seemed to know you…I’m sure he said your full name, too.’

‘Not to worry,’ Morton said, trying to sound as though he meant it. He left the room and began to walk back up to his study, perplexed by who the man could have been. He reasoned that there must be something else in his study that he had somehow missed that might reveal his identity. He got a third of the way up the stairs when the doorbell rang.

His blood suddenly ran cold.

This was it.

He turned back on himself, descended to the front door and took a deep breath.

He pulled it open and there stood his Aunty Margaret and Uncle Jim.

Chapter Fifteen

‘Come in,’ Morton said, nervously.

Margaret stepped inside with a broad smile. Morton could tell that she had made a special effort; her white, curly hair had been recently cut and, for the first time that he could recall, she was even wearing some subtle lipstick and eyeshadow. She reached out and grabbed him, throwing her arms around him. He wasn’t completely sure, but he thought that he felt a light tremble in her hands