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

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘Edward Horne doesn’t have a guinea to his name.’

‘I can’t tell you why I’m here,’ Jonas answered, walking the gap between honesty and dishonesty.

‘No,’ Ann agreed, ‘I don’t suppose you can.’

‘Is this place really yours, Ann?’ he asked.

‘Yes, it’s mine!’

‘And is the baby yours, too?’ he pressed.

‘No, it’s not mine and therefore not yours neither,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to leave, Jonas.’

Jonas nodded, turned and walked back around to where he had been sitting to find that Edward Horne—his best possibility of a witness—had gone. Jonas raced out to the street, looking frantically among the passers-by. Then, he spotted him, sloping off in the direction of Folkestone. He ran the short distance to catch him up, placing his hand on Edward’s shoulder as he reached him.

Edward spun around in defensive fear, which changed to a confused annoyance at seeing Jonas. ‘What do you be a-wanting from me?’

Jonas straightened up, paused a moment to catch his breath, then spoke in his own voice. ‘I’m a Principal Officer from Bow Street Magistrate’s Court.’

‘I bain’t not done nothing wrong,’ Edward pleaded.

‘I know that, but you do know who shot Richard Morgan,’ Jonas said. ‘There is a reward on offer—five hundred pounds—for information that leads to the conviction of the Aldington Gang.’ He could not tell whether Edward had been unaware of the reward before now, or if he suddenly realised that it might be accessible to him, but there was something which had caught in him. ‘Five hundred pounds,’ Jonas repeated. ‘You would never have to do another day’s work in your life.’

‘But… what if, say, the person who claims the reward, telling all about the gang… what if he actually been doing the same hisself?’

‘Smuggling, or murder?’ Jonas asked.

‘Smuggling,’ Edward clarified.

Jonas shrugged. ‘Turning King’s evidence would give him immunity.’

‘I don’t be a-knowing…’

‘Five hundred pounds. We can even help the person to disappear after the trial—a new life somewhere.’

Edward fiddled with his beard, his eyes darting around the ground, as if following the course of some indecisive creature. ‘I can’t be a-giving up all those names. They be friends, neighbours...’

‘Do you know the name of the man who killed Richard Morgan?’

‘Yes.’

‘And is he a friend or neighbour?’

‘No.’

‘Maybe, then, a portion of the reward could be yours if you just give up his name; a short testimony of what happened, Sunday night,’ Jonas said.

Edward looked up and sighed.

Chapter Thirty

Phil had a good feeling about this. No—much better than a good feeling—a fantastic feeling. He had learned his lesson from last time and had parked Katie’s car more than two miles away and trekked across the farmland, entering the rear garden of Braemar Cottage over a low fence. The outbuilding was right there, close to the back fence, and bigger than it had appeared on Google Maps. To Phil’s mind, it looked old enough to have been here in the 1820s: the bricks and roof tiles looked the same as on the cottage itself. There was a bloody good chance that this crappy little outhouse held the solution to all of his problems. As he stood in the cold darkness beside the building, he thought of all the things that he and Clara would be able to do. They could clear all their debts, get a new car, buy a house, have unlimited holidays—never work again! But they needed to be cautious. He had a vague memory of hearing about some bank robbers—or something similar, possibly stealing from the Royal Mint—who were only caught because of their sudden shift in lifestyle. It would have to be gradual, not too obvious.

There was no door fixed to the outbuilding, making Phil’s life a lot easier. He ducked down under the low sill and switched on the torch of his mobile phone. Logs. Tons of logs. Luckily for him, they were stacked neatly against the far wall, keeping the majority of the floor exposed. It was a wooden floor, good solid oak planks and he found, banging his heel, that it was hollow beneath.

Phil grinned, pocketed his mobile and switched on the metal detector. He began hurriedly to swing it along the floor, flinching as it beeped the discovery of each and every nail pinning down the floorboards.

It took under three minutes to complete a full sweep of the room. Nothing but nails. But, he wondered, what if the void was deeper than the range of the detector? He got down onto his hands and knees, trying to see if there were any gaps between the boards, but there were none. He had no choice but to lift them up.

Taking a long crowbar from a bag of tools which he had brought with him, Phil checked the floor and spotted a short board right in the centre of the room. Perfect, at least to get a look at what was below.

Balancing his mobile on its side with the light shining towards him, he hammered the thin edge of the crowbar down between two boards, then began to apply downward pressure. An immediate sweat broke out on his forehead at the exertion. The board creaked and groaned and slowly began to yield. Phil pushed and pulled on the crowbar, giving it all of his energy.

The board gave up with a sharp snap, sending Phil tumbling backwards into the wood pile, dislodging a handful of logs. ‘Shit!’ he said, rather too loudly. He sat up, grabbed the mobile and saw that the floorboard had lifted, but only from one end: he would need to do the same again at the other. What he could do, though, was to lift the board sufficiently high to get a look below. He placed his fingers under the board and lifted it