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

‘Does it really? I don’t hear it, myself.’ Margaret said. ‘Gosh… When did I move down there? December 1976. I just had to get away from Folkestone. Stayed there ever since.’

‘And what did you do down there—before you retired?’ Jack enquired.

‘What didn’t I do?’ Margaret answered. ‘When I first moved down there I had visions of starting up my own little tearoom. My granny, Nellie,’ she said with a nod to Morton, ‘taught me to bake and it was all I thought I was good at.’ She paused to bite from a chunk of garlic bread, then laughed: ‘Of course, I didn’t take into account all the finances and what-have-you of running a business and ended up working in someone else’s tearoom. Two months into the job and that lump over there—’ she aimed her fork at Jim, ‘—walks in declaring his love, we get married and I stop working to raise two little girls.’

Jack grinned. ‘So, you deprived the good folk of Cornwall of Farrier’s Tearoom, then, huh?’

‘Probably not a bad thing,’ Margaret responded. ‘When the girls were growing up I did some volunteering in school, which led to a temporary job as a teaching assistant that lasted nigh-on twenty years.’

‘Wow. What about starting up that tearoom now?’ Jack asked.

‘Oh, my goodness gracious, no. I make enough scones, jam, and cakes as it is for various fetes and charity sales.’ She cut a portion of her lasagne, then suddenly seemed to notice that by comparison with the rest of the table, she had barely touched her food. ‘I must stop talking. It looks like I’ve hardly eaten a thing. What about you, Jack? What line of work did you get into? Was I right in thinking you were into archaeology or some such thing?’

Morton’s pulse quickened as he looked to Jack in anticipation. This was the first time that any hint of their previous relationship had been alluded to; up until now they might as well have been strangers forced into conversation at the dinner party of a mutual acquaintance.

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Jack confirmed. ‘Well, kinda. I flunked out of Boston University and moved to San Francisco where I studied forensic archaeology. Laura and I moved to Alberta, Canada, where I now lecture in the subject, undertaking the odd investigation here and there.’

‘Sounds like you’ve done alright. And you’ve got a nice boy, too,’ Margaret said, nodding towards George at the other end of the table.

‘Two, actually,’ Jack corrected.

‘Oh,’ Margaret said, ‘you’ve got another one at home. He didn’t fancy a holiday, then?’

‘Not at home,’ Jack said. ‘Right here.’ He turned and patted Morton on his shoulder.

It was a moment so unexpectedly touching for Morton that he was forced to tip his head down, as if inspecting something in his dinner, to avoid anybody seeing the moisture rising in his lower eyelids. Margaret’s facial expressions suggested that his words had somehow embarrassed her.

Jack, seeming not to have noticed either reaction, held forth, ‘Yeah, George is into computer programming. Something to do with software creation.’

‘Oh, I know just what you mean,’ Margaret joked. ‘And is he with anyone?’

‘There’s a question, jeez,’ Jack said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. ‘He got married young—in his early twenties—but that didn’t work out. After that he had a string of girlfriends. The ones Laura and I approved of he dumped, the ones we didn’t approve of he moved in with or got engaged to.’ Jack smiled and raised his hands dismissively. ‘Now he’s doing the dating online thing.’

Morton listened to the pair of them intently as they continued to speak about their lives. He was like an unseen observer, hungrily snatching at new titbits of information which added to that which he knew of his biological parents. It was interesting to scrutinise their conversation, both of them having relayed some key events from their lives, without once referring back to their meeting in Folkestone in January 1974. The hiatus created by Margaret and Jack’s being mid-mouthful gave Morton a window to broach the subject. ‘It’s funny,’ he began, looking at Jack, ‘that you packed up and left home in December 1976 and went to the other side of the country—’ then he faced Margaret, ‘—and you left home in December 1976 and went to the other side of this country.’

‘Oh my God,’ Jack said, while Margaret just raised her eyebrows.

Morton knew that she was uncomfortable but he had one more thing to say. ‘Which was when you, Jack, wrote your last letter to Aunty Margaret.’

Jack nodded in agreement. ‘That’s right.’

‘I only received one letter from you,’ Margaret said, ‘a couple of weeks after you left Folkestone. I can’t recall exactly what it said now, but I think it was full of teenage gushing. I thought I must have put you off.’

‘No, not at all. I thought you’d lost interest.’

Morton stood up and went to the chest of drawers behind him, where he had put the three letters in the eventuality that the subject might be discussed. He sat back down with the letters stacked on the table in front of him. ‘I don’t know what to do with them. You wrote them,’ he said to Jack. ‘But you posted them and someone intervened before they got to you, Aunty Margaret. So, I don’t know who they belong to now.’

Jack picked them up decisively. ‘They’re mine.’ Then he passed them over to Margaret. ‘And I give them—forty-four years late—to you, Margaret. Don’t worry, I’m not expecting a reply.’ He laughed.

She blushed, set down her cutlery, and took the proffered letters, holding them uncertainly, as though they might contain an incendiary device. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, staring for some time at the name and address: Margaret Farrier, 163 Canterbury Road, Folkestone, Kent. ‘I presume my father got to them first…’ Her words petered out and her eyes glazed slightly.

In that moment