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

Morton turned to leave the room and led the way back downstairs, wondering what memories being back here had evoked in Jack. In the hallway, Morton thanked the owner and opened the front door. Jack shook her hand and again expressed his gratitude. The owner smiled in relief and closed the door behind them.

Jack slapped his arm on Morton’s shoulder, as they ventured down the driveway towards the road. Morton glanced across to his Mini, where George was leaning against the boot, staring at his mobile like a surly teenager. It took him a moment to spot Laura slowly ambling up the road with Grace in her arms, as she pointed at things which they passed.

At the pavement, with his hand still on Morton’s shoulder, Jack turned, and for a brief moment of mortification, Morton thought that he was being led up the driveway of number 163. Instead, Jack stopped at the symbolic wall between the two properties. ‘And that was Margaret’s room, up there.’ Jack pointed to the window which mirrored the one in which he had stayed. ‘Next to her room was your mom and dad’s room. It was pretty basic, from what I can remember; they were saving up to get their own place. They were good people—we all used to hang out together.’

‘Really?’ Morton asked, never having heard that Jack and Margaret had spent any time with his adoptive parents. The idea was entirely bizarre and sat strangely in Morton’s mind, as he tried to imagine the four of them together. He tried to picture them—Jack and Margaret as they looked right now, his adoptive father as he had looked before his death three years ago, and his adoptive mother as she had looked before her death twenty-eight years ago—but the image was strained and somehow false.

‘Oh, sure,’ Jack continued. ‘We all went to the movies together… went into town. Your dad, Peter, was old enough to drive and he took us to the White Cliffs for a walk… We all got on real well.’

‘Right,’ Morton murmured.

‘I guess they took on a kind of parental role,’ Jack added.

Morton was confused. His grandmother, Anna, had died in childbirth, but his grandfather was still around. ‘Was Alfred not there, then?’

‘Not really, no. I only met him once the whole week,’ Jack said.

‘Where was he, then?’ This new information seemed somehow more significant than Morton could give reason to.

Jack shrugged. ‘Away with his job, I think. A regular occurrence, from what I can recall.’

‘But he owned a men’s clothing shop in Folkestone…’ Morton said, thinking aloud.

‘Well, what I’m very certain of,’ Jack said with a coy smile, ‘is that he only stayed home for one, or maybe two nights the whole while I was in town.’

‘Oh,’ Morton said, realising the implication of what Jack had just told him.

‘A long time ago…’

‘Yes,’ Morton agreed and then, when he saw that Jack was turning back towards the car, added, ‘can I ask something?’

‘Sure—fire away.’

‘What’s up with George?’ Morton said.

Jack smiled, seemingly not needing further explanation. He sighed and bit his lower lip, as though wondering how to impart whatever the problem was.

‘It’s fine if it’s because he just doesn’t like me,’ Morton said, not quite truthfully.

‘No, it’s not that. I don’t imagine he’s even given you the chance to know if he likes you or not. Last year, after we met up for the first time, Laura and I sat down and had a very long talk, which culminated in us changing our wills to benefit the both of you equally.’

‘Oh…’ Morton said. Suddenly George’s conduct towards him made sense. ‘And he’s unhappy about it… I get it.’

‘Yeah, that’s why we kind of insisted he came on this trip—so that he could see what a great guy you are.’

‘That’s very generous of you to do that,’ Morton said. ‘You shouldn’t have…’

‘Yeah, I did,’ Jack countered. ‘It’s in no way trying to make up for the lost years, it’s simply that you’re as much my son as he is.’

The words meant more—so much more—to Morton than the gesture and his eyes welled. ‘Thank you,’ he said, pulling Jack into a hug.

‘You’re welcome, Son.’ When they broke away, Jack said, ‘The best thing you can do is to ignore it; he’ll come around in his own good time.’

Morton nodded uncertainly at the advice, fairly confident that if it had not happened whilst they had been living under the same roof, the intervening four thousand miles between their homes would give little opportunity for George to ‘come around’.

‘Shall we go get something to eat?’ Jack suggested.

‘Yes, let’s do that,’ Morton said, as they crossed back over to his car. While they waited for Laura and Grace to return, Morton pulled out his mobile, intending to send a message to Juliette about what he had just learned, seeing then that he already had a message from her. ‘Two officers being sent to B cottage tonight. You’d better be right!’ she had written, followed by a grimacing emoji and pair of kisses.

Phil Garrow was sitting on the sofa in his grey tracksuit, with Katie’s laptop perched on his legs. A teatime gameshow was playing on the television in front of him, causing him to shout random words at the screen to the questions to which he knew—or thought that he knew—the answers.

‘Jesus, hurry up,’ he said to the laptop, as a pixelated map began to load on-screen. He had typed ‘Aldington Church’ into Google Maps and the computer was now struggling with his latest request to switch to satellite mode. ‘Japan!’ he shouted at the television.

‘And the answer is North Korea,’ the gameshow host announced, to a rapturous applause from the audience.

‘Pretty sure it wasn’t North Korea,’ Phil replied. The map