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

leave his bed. The dogs were cut down, and his door forced, when I rushed in and had the satisfaction to seize this man in his bedroom, having handcuffed him to one of the stoutest men in the party. I proceeded to the other houses, and was equally successful in arresting nine others of the gang, whose names I subjoin. On my return to Fort Moncrief at 8am, I immediately embarked the prisoners on board the Industry, for a passage to the Ramillies. Jonas Blackwood.

 

Morton photographed the entry, then turned the page to see the names of the arrested men.

George Ransley, aged 44 years

Samuel Bailey, aged 36 years

Charles Giles, aged 28 years

Thomas Denard, aged 21 years

Robert Bailey, aged 30 years

Thomas Gillham, aged 22 years

William Wire, aged 17 years

Richard Wire, aged 19 years

James Hogben, aged 21 years

Richard Higgins, aged 22 years

Morton read the names several times. It struck him as curious that, even though Samuel Banister had turned King’s evidence, he had not even been arrested, despite being the gang’s second-in-command.

The next page contained an itemisation of the £55 bill, the lion’s share going to Jonas Blackwood, followed by Thomas Nightingale, then the next highest and final amount claimed went to the Packet Boat Inn, Dover—presumably where Jonas had stayed whilst conducting his investigation.

It was an interesting aside to the case but with no mention of Ann Fothergill, it did little to further Morton’s research. From what he could ascertain from the records thus far, Ann had taken ownership of the Bell Inn by this point in time and, quite likely, had little—if anything—to do with the Aldington Gang any longer.

He placed the case notes to one side and continued looking through the box, taking interest in the range of cases which the officers had been called upon to investigate. He checked the rest of the files for anything familiar, pushing through until the end of the box, in 1835. What appeared to be the final surviving case file for Jonas Blackwood and Thomas Nightingale had occurred in October 1826 with their being summoned by one Mr Bull of Ramsgate to investigate a spate of arson attacks. There was no further mention of smuggling, Aldington nor, as he had expected, anything on Ann Fothergill.

Morton slid out from his chair, stretched and then carried the box back over to the desk.

‘All finished with that one?’ the lady with the implausible grey hair asked, standing from her computer terminal.

‘Yes, thank you. Could I have the correspondence file next, please—PS/BOW/B/06.’

She returned to the same spot on the shelving, momentarily checking the reference details of the top box, before handing it over to Morton.

‘Thank you,’ he said, taking it to his desk. He sat down, pulled off the lid and, as he placed it to the side, noticed the screen of his mobile light up with an email from his Aunty Margaret. He unlocked the phone and read the message: ‘Dear Morton. Many thanks for such a wonderful stay in Sussex—it’s always such a pleasure to be back in the area. So pleased that we were able to be there for Grace’s birthday—such a sweetie! In answer to your question, my dad worked in his shop in Folkestone – men’s clothing. Hope that helps. Take care. M xx’

It was an interesting quirk of his Aunty Margaret’s, that since the revelation that she was actually his biological mother, she had taken to signing off text messages and emails with the letter ‘M’—as if she were the character from James Bond. It made Morton wonder if it was as close as her restrained personality would allow her to get to writing the word ‘Mum’.

He re-read the last couple of lines of her email. No, Aunty Margaret, it did not help. He could see that he needed to be more specific, and do what he had been loath to do, which was to paraphrase what Jack had told him about Alfred’s not being home for much of the week of his visit. Morton typed a response, mentioning what Jack had said, then clicked send.

He flipped his attention back to the box of correspondence in front of him. Taking a cursory glance at the loose letters, he could see that there was no definable logic to their arrangement: he was going to have to wade through each and every letter, scanning it for the usual keywords.

After over half an hour of reading, he had got the measure of the box: the letters were largely appraisals of a case in progress, a kind of justification for the Principal Officer’s being out of Bow Street for days or weeks on end at a time. Some were extremely brief, others gave a full itinerary of each day of the investigation. So far, he had found four letters, written by Jonas Blackwood, dating from 1822 to 1825, of decent length to give Morton an optimism about what he might yet find.

It did not take long for Morton to find a letter, featuring the keyword smuggling, signed by Jonas Blackwood. It was short and incorrectly dated. ‘Memorandum from J. Blackwood, Principal Officer. Aldington, Kent. 18th November 1821. Please pass word to Mr Proctor that I will see him to-morrow—smuggling case here terminated by client. I shall return to Bow Street to-morrow morning by chaise. Your obedient servant, J. Blackwood.’

Morton photographed the letter, closely scrutinising the date. It clearly said 1821, but surely that was an error in place of 1826. But then, November was surely wrong, also; the men having been rounded up and arrested in October.

Since the box was haphazardly arranged, Morton placed the letter to one side and continued searching the remaining quarter of correspondence in the box.

Typically, the letter for which he searched was close to the bottom of the pile. He read it once, quickly, then again, taking his time to