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

Ann and her life. This was confirmed when Arthur said ‘Right, I’ll let you go,’ without asking any further details of his research. Morton said goodbye somewhat curtly and ended the call.

‘Wow. Do you think the nephew was there with him?’ Jack asked.

‘That would be my guess, yes,’ Morton said, parking the car behind his house.

‘Do you think that was the right thing to do, giving him the name of the cottage?’ Jack asked, voicing Morton’s own fears.

Morton nodded slowly and uncertainly. ‘I hope so. I’ve got an idea,’ he said, leading the way around the house to the front door.

‘I hope it’s a good one,’ Jack said.

‘We shall see,’ Morton replied, as they reached the front door. ‘Hello,’ he called into the house, placing his bag down.

Laura responded with a greeting from upstairs, Juliette from the kitchen.

‘Dadda!’ Grace greeted the moment that Morton stepped inside. She crawled from the kitchen doorway towards him with remarkable speed, then grappled with his leg to hoist herself up.

Morton picked her up with a wide smile and kissed her. ‘Hello, Grace. Have you had a nice day?’

‘No,’ Grace answered, looking over his shoulder. ‘Gandpa!’

Jack held his hands apart as though he were holding an imaginary child, and Morton passed Grace over to him, then moved into the kitchen. Juliette, wearing slim jeans and a loose-fitting denim shirt, was busy chopping a slab of white fish into small chunks.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Good day?’

‘Very good, thanks,’ Morton said, pushing himself to her side to kiss her. ‘Yours?’

‘Lovely—very relaxing. We went to Tenterden, did some shopping, had lunch, went on the old steam railway to Bodiam, then came back here and watched Frozen. Laura’s just having a bath. Oh! Oh! And guess what?’ she said, hurrying to the sink to wash her hands. ‘Follow me!’

Morton trailed her into the lounge, where Grace was on the floor, playing cars with Jack.

‘Grace,’ Juliette said. ‘Say mummy.’

Grace looked up and, for a brief moment, Morton thought that she was not going to oblige. ‘Mumma,’ she said.

‘Good girl,’ Juliette praised, bending down and kissing her on the forehead.

‘Great stuff,’ Jack said. ‘You just wait, though, there’ll be moments in the future when you’ll be sick of hearing that word.’

‘I’m sure,’ Morton agreed.

Juliette laughed, then headed back into the kitchen, with Morton close behind her.

‘Listen, before I forget—there’s something you need to do workwise.’

‘Well,’ Juliette said, picking the knife and brandishing it in his direction, ‘it might have escaped your attention, but I’m actually not at work; I’m at home, making dinner for you and your family.’

‘It’s kind of important…’ he persisted.

‘Isn’t it always?’

‘Basically,’ he began, not giving her much choice but to listen, ‘I think Phillip Garrow might try breaking into Braemar Cottage in Aldington tonight.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve just told him about it—via his uncle.’

‘Of course you have,’ she said, her knife slicing through the fish with renewed ferocity. ‘Start from the beginning.’

Leaning on the worktop beside Juliette, Morton relayed his conversation with Arthur, expecting a sarcastic response along the lines of bringing in armed response officers and putting the ports on high alert, but actually she said, ‘I’ll phone it in and we’ll see what the boss thinks. They might send a car out if there’s the manpower available.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, feeling a sense of release from the burden of his knowledge. ‘Where’s George?’

Juliette shrugged. ‘Out somewhere—think he’s sulking because Lucy dumped him.’

‘Oh, did she? Why?’

Juliette looked at him, as though the answer should be obvious. She lowered her voice and said, ‘There’s something up with him, isn’t there?’

Morton nodded. ‘I’ll speak to Jack about it tomorrow. He wants to go over to Folkestone and see the house he stayed at in 1974. He wants to show it to Laura.’

Juliette scrunched up her nose. ‘Really?’ she whispered.

‘Apparently.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘I’m just going to sort my stuff out from today,’ Morton said, leaving the kitchen, collecting his bag from the hallway, and bounding up the stairs to his study. His first job was to start up his laptop and transfer the hundreds of photographs, which they had taken today at the National Archives. Whilst the pictures were transferring, Morton opened his notepad, where he had written any special points of interest. The first was that Samuel Banister had been a key witness in the trial of the Aldington Gang, which he noted in red capital letters under Samuel’s name on the investigation wall. Then, he wrote a new name on a fresh piece of paper: Jonas Blackwood. He stuck the paper to the wall and ran a string line from it to Samuel’s name. Below Jonas’s name, Morton wrote the words, ‘Principal Officer, Bow Street.’

The following morning, Morton drove to Folkestone. Jack sat beside him in the passenger seat, with Laura, George and Grace in the back. Morton took the scenic route through the villages on the Kent and Sussex border, arriving fifty minutes later at Canterbury Road in Folkestone. Morton drew the car up on the opposite side of the street from the house and switched off the engine.

‘Is that it?’ George said, making no effort whatsoever to disguise his lack of enthusiasm for the house.

‘Yep, that’s it,’ Morton replied, feeling oddly defensive, despite agreeing about the uninspiring appearance of the semi-detached house. He glanced back in his rear-view mirror and caught George snarling, as he stared out of the window.

Jack grinned, craning his neck forwards to see through Morton’s window. ‘It’s exactly how I remember it.’

‘Is it the one on the left, or right?’ Laura asked.

‘Right,’ Morton answered, leaving out the crucial information that Margaret lived in the adjacent house.

‘Let’s go, then,’ Jack said.

Morton was taken aback, not quite sure where they were going to go next, when he realised that Jack was unbuckling