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

‘You do seem to get a lot of those!’

Morton nodded his agreement. ‘I seem to attract cases which are more complicated and—’

‘Dangerous?’

‘Yes, exactly.’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I interrupted you telling me all about the case you’re working on at the moment. I’ll keep my big trap shut this time.’

And so, Morton spelt out the fundamentals of the Fothergill Case.

‘My goodness!’ Margaret declared when he had finished. ‘I don’t know how you do it. And you’re thinking you’ll be able to solve it?’

Morton shrugged. ‘I can’t always. Sometimes the records simply don’t exist and I have to give the client my supposition based on what I’ve found. Most times, though, the answer is out there.’

‘Golly.’

They spoke more about his past cases and Morton enjoyed the feeling that she was understanding more of his life, more of him. Sometimes, as he was speaking, the realisation that she was his biological mother would pulsate through him anew, causing his words to falter and reddening his cheeks. He knew, though, with a pang of sadness, that however close they might become, she would forever see herself first and foremost as his Aunty Margaret. Perhaps that was for the best; he could never himself foresee a day when he would address her as Mum. Maybe after this weekend, where his, Jack’s and Margaret’s interlocked pasts had been confronted, they could all move to a new different relationship; what that might look like, though, he could not imagine.

Their conversation segued into Margaret’s speaking about her brother, Morton’s adoptive father. He had been proud of Morton, she told him, using actual detail which rendered it more than a banal remark, which he considered that she might have felt obliged to make.

‘He was very proud of both of you,’ she repeated.

Morton picked up his wine, took a sip and then clutched it in one hand. His facial expressions must have betrayed his anger towards Jeremy for telling Margaret about Jack, for she said, ‘You mustn’t blame him. Jeremy, I mean.’

Morton wordlessly fixed a half-smile on his glass, which he hoped said the words which he felt unable—or unwilling—to express.

‘I asked him,’ Margaret revealed.

‘Pardon?’

‘On your wedding day. I was standing beside him on the steps of Rye Town Hall, waving you off on honeymoon, and I just asked him if you were going to Boston to look for Jack, and he said yes, you were.’

‘Oh…’ was all that Morton could say. His annoyance towards Jeremy lessened somewhat, but there remained a lingering indignation that they had shared this information for more than eighteen months. Somehow, it highlighted and underlined the fact that he was adopted.

‘At first it made me quite uncomfortable—’ she went on, ‘—and the next day I was relieved to scuttle off back to Cornwall and not to have to think about it anymore… But, of course, that’s not how the brain works, is it? At least, not my brain! Then I thought, “Don’t be so silly, Margaret. Why shouldn’t he go and find him and tell you all about it?”. I was the first one to suggest that my friend, Sue, search out her birth family when she found out she was adopted… A bit different when it’s close to home, I suppose.’

‘It doesn’t change anything,’ Morton said, not really sure what he meant by his own words. Of course, it changed things.

‘No, I know,’ she agreed. ‘I must admit, I was nervous as all hell when I saw him again, but, actually, the past is in the past. Speaking to him at the dinner table made me realise; we’ve all got our own lives, homes, jobs, kids, spouses. It’s okay. But—’ she set down her drink and picked up the three letters, ‘—then there are these. When you arrived, you caught me wondering.’

She looked at him with a smile and expression that dared him to ask, ‘Wondering what?’

‘Wondering what would have happened if my father hadn’t intercepted them.’

‘And?’

Margaret drew in a breath and seemed to hold it for an age. ‘And… I don’t know. I was quite a flighty little thing in my youth. I could well imagine me hopping on a plane and heading over to Boston just to see what happened.’

‘Do you think so?’

Another long breath and contemplation time. ‘Possibly. I’m almost certain that if things had been different with you, I would have gone. Or if I’d known how he felt at the time…’

Morton assumed that she meant that if she had kept him as a baby, then she would have gladly taken him off for a new life in America.

She sipped from her glass, then passed the three letters towards him. ‘I think—with everything taken into account—you should have these.’

Morton reached out uncertainly and took them. Even though, yes, it did make sense that he should have them, it still did not feel right.

He allowed the conversation to ebb into a thoughtful silence, certain that they were sharing in the same alternative fantasy realm, where their lives had been very different.

‘A whole world of what-ifs,’ she muttered after some time.

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

Chapter Nineteen

‘Keep still, for God’s sake,’ Katie said, impatiently dropping her hands to her side.

‘I’m trying!’ Phil shouted through gritted teeth. He was lying face-down on the sofa of her small lounge, whilst she was attempting to sew up the holes in his ankle flesh.

‘I’m not going to say it again. I don’t have the right equipment: you need to go to hospital. This is the needle and thread I use to sew Kyle’s name tags into his school uniform.’

‘And I’m not going to say it again. You’re supposed to be a nurse and you’re supposed to be a friend. I can’t go to hospital, so bloody well get on with it.’

Katie huffed noisily, then returned to sewing up