Hiding the Past (The Forensic Genealogist series Book 1)

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  ‘Well, not really a random guy.’

  ‘What?’ she asked, lowering the fork and giving him her full attention.

  ‘I recognised the voice, but it wasn’t until about five o’clock this morning that I realised who it was.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Daniel Dunk.’

  ‘The guy who lives at Dungeness with the car registered to Olivia Walker? Why would he do that?’

  ‘God knows. It might have been a Mafia-style attack – a final warning to keep away from the Coldrick Case. If he’d actually wanted me dead, then I would be. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the day we make the link between Daniel Dunk, the Coldricks, the Windsor-Sackvilles and the Chief Constable of Kent Police our house turns to rubble, do you?’

  ‘No,’ she answered definitively.

  ‘At least we’ve got somewhere to stay for the time being. Every cloud, and all that.’

  ‘Morton, that’s a terrible thing to say. I hardly think your dad suffering a heart attack is our silver lining.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said, as he carried his plate over to the sink. Eighteen years in this house had taught him that he had to wash the dishes before he did anything, no matter how life or death it was. His mother would turn in her grave if she knew he had taken the decision to leave the washing up for later. It was somewhat churlish to act rebelliously towards his long-dead mother and near-dead father, but he did it anyway.

  This time, Morton duly paid the parking fee at the Conquest Hospital, though he very much resented having to pay at all. It was disgusting to be charged to park in a hospital, he thought, paying for the privilege of visiting a dying relative. He’d read somewhere a few weeks ago that some NHS trusts were now offering discounts for regular visitors and terminal patients were even lucky enough to be given a free parking permit. How generous.

  Juliette took his hand and they made their way to the Atkinson Ward, where his father had been transferred. They found him once again cordoned off by a plastic curtain, sitting up reading The Daily Mail. He looked a different man to the one Morton had last seen, life seemingly returning to his fragile body.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ Juliette said, sounding oddly comfortable labelling Morton’s adoptive father ‘Dad’. Certainly more comfortable than he did. His father looked up with a smile and set down the paper.

  ‘Hello,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Lovely weather, isn’t it?’

  Morton was curious at what went on inside his father’s head for him to be screened off from the world, rigged up to more machines than your average robot and the first thing he has to say is a comment about the weather. ‘Shall I open the curtain, so you can enjoy the sunshine?’ Morton asked.

  ‘No, thank you,’ his father answered, waving a finger vaguely towards the curtain. Morton assumed it was something to do with the other patients. He never had been a great socialiser.

  ‘How are you?’ Juliette asked.

  ‘Been better. They tell me I have severe atheromatous in the something or other proximal artery and something in the other one. Furring of the arteries in layman’s terms. They’ve put me on warfarin tablets,’ his father said. He pronounced ‘warfarin’ as ‘Wolverine’ and Morton imagined his father as the new addition to the X-Men.

  ‘So it’s definitely your heart then?’ Juliette said.

  ‘Yes, it was a heart attack. I’ve got to see a specialist dietician and I’ve been told by at least two dozen doctors that a ‘lifestyle’ change is in order. Ha! A lifestyle change, at my age. I ask you. What do they think I’m going to do, start drinking carrot juice and pumping iron at the gym? Not on your Nellie!’

  Juliette smiled. ‘Maybe just cut back on some of your…’

  ‘Pleasures?’ his father interjected.

  ‘Extravagances,’ Morton corrected. His father raised his eyebrows. ‘I brought you in the bits you asked for from home.’ He lifted the bag and placed it on the bed, then instantly fretted about the assortment of bacteria and germs he had inadvertently transferred from the floor.

  ‘Thank you, at least now I can get out of this awful gown they’ve stuck me in. Would you be able to pop back home again later and get my slippers?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Morton said. He hadn’t wanted to broach the whole explosion thing and the fact that they had, to all intents and purposes, now moved into his house. He reasoned that it would only add more stress to his ailing heart if he knew that there was a stack of washing up festering on the worktop at home.

  ‘How’s work?’ his father asked.

  ‘Usual,’ Morton said, not really considering that ‘usual’ couldn’t have been more of a contradictory way of describing his current employment status.

  ‘Has anyone told Jeremy?’ his father asked. ‘About my health, I mean.’

  ‘I phoned him last night,’ Morton said. ‘He’s on his way home.’ He couldn’t gauge from his father’s voice whether or not he had done the right thing in informing him. It would be just like his father to snap, ‘You can’t just recall a member of Her Majesty’s armed forces because of a little thing like this. I’m fine.’

  ‘You did, oh good,’ his father said, evidently pleased that The Miracle would soon return. ‘You’re looking very summery, Juliette,’ his father said.

  ‘Thanks, I bought it this morning,’ she answered. ‘It was this or the PCSO uniform.’ His father laughed, not realising that she literally now owned two outfits. Morton was actually amazed that she hadn’t made more of a fuss about the loss of her colossal clothing and shoe collection, but she simply shrugged and said she’d get some new ones on the insurance. Very un-Juliette. It was probably shock or something. Pretty soon it would hit her. Then she’d hit him.

  After twenty minutes, the three of them had exhausted their supply of polite conversation and Morton told his father that they needed to go.

  ‘Make sure Jeremy knows where to find me.’

  ‘We will,’ Juliette said, pecking him on the cheek. ‘Take care.’

  ‘It’s not me you should worry about, it’s the others!’ Another of his father’s great quips.

  ‘He looks okay,’ Juliette said, as they left the hospital. ‘I thought from what you’d said he was going to be much worse than that.’

  ‘I think flat-lining is medically considered pretty bad, as things go,’ he answered, still convinced of the inevitability of his father’s demise.

  Morton wondered whether or not you could be fashionably late to a funeral. They were late, fashionably or otherwise. They’d left in good time and with every intention of attending the final service of the man they barely knew (or didn’t know at all in Juliette’s case), but Morton had suggested that they take a detour to see the destruction the explosion had wrought. Police tape sealed off their house, although it could no longer be described as a house; it was simply a pile of unidentifiable, smouldering rubble. If Morton hadn’t known better, he would never have believed that an entire house and all its contents could be squashed and compacted down into the heap of nothingness in front of him. He then understood the term ‘razed to the ground’. Juliette had recognised the PSCO standing guard behind the cordon, shepherding away inquisitive neighbours and nosey rubberneckers. The PCSO had been surprised to see Juliette among the curious crowds, until she had told him that the pile of wreckage used to be her home. He told her that the murmurings among the fire department were that Semtex might have caused the explosion.

  ‘At least it might make them investigate it if they suspect Semtex,’ Morton had said, as they hurried to the church. He had fully expected another cover-up and anticipated ‘Gas Explosion Shock!’ as the headline in next week’s Rye Observer.

  Morton found a parking spot on Tenterden High Street, just in front of the town hall and they hurried along past the Woolpack Hotel into the side of St Mildred’s Church. Morton couldn’t imagine a saint being named Mildred somehow. She sounded like an aged, plump, wartime housewife with too many kids on her hands rather than the patron s
aint of something meaningful. Maybe she was the patron saint of aged, plump wartime women.

  The standard exterior of the church belied the vastness that Morton and Juliette found inside, as they snuck in a few rows from the back. The size of the building amplified the indisputable fact that only eight people had turned up for Peter Coldrick’s funeral (and that included the vicar and Peter himself), his plain wooden coffin carefully balanced on a trestle in the centre of the aisle. Soraya was at the front with another woman who had exactly the same hair style, whom Morton presumed to be her sister. Two rows behind them was an elderly couple. Morton suddenly felt a pang of guilt for attempting to squirm out of attending. Then there would only have been five living people here. He had a sudden, unwelcome flash of his own mother’s funeral, much of which was a blur to him. The lasting image that he had was of the open casket, her waxy face plastered in foundation and eye-liner by someone who had evidently never known her in life and her abhorrence of make-up. At least her funeral had been well-attended. Standing room only.

  Whilst the diminutive vicar, sporting an obvious hairpiece, waffled through a generic funeral prayer, Morton speculated at how many people his funeral would attract. More than eight, he hoped. Was fifty a good number to aim for? It would depend on when he finally died, since it was natural for your circle of friends to dwindle down to your own armchair if you hung on for long enough. Still, the way things were going with the Coldrick Case, he might not need to worry about longevity.

  As the congregation pathetically, and almost inaudibly, stood to sing The Lord’s My Shepherd Morton made a guest list for his funeral. He started with immediate family - his father (assuming that he could cling to life himself), Jeremy, Aunty Margaret, Uncle Jim, cousins Jess and Danielle - then moved on to his friends and former work colleagues. By the end of the lamentable song he reckoned he could scrape forty attendees. Maybe a few extra with partners, husbands and wives. Juliette, on the other hand, would fill this church twice over. Her funeral would be like the ones you read about in the papers where it’s necessary to erect a screen outside for the wailing mourners to observe the service. The papers never reported tragic funerals like this one which comprised only those who felt obliged to turn up.

  With the song over, the vicar returned to the pulpit and read monotonously verbatim, and without once looking up from his script, a chronology of Peter Coldrick’s life. There was nothing new or noteworthy in the eulogy, just a concentration on his skills and dedication as a father. Then he called on Soraya.

  Morton noticed Juliette suddenly sit up and take an interest and he wondered if she’d just nodded off or if it was due to a twinge of jealousy. He was convinced that the only reason Juliette had agreed to come to the funeral was to see if Soraya posed any threat to their relationship. She didn’t, of course. There was something about Soraya which meant he would never have gone for her even if he were single. She was attractive enough, maybe even slightly out of his league in that regard, but there was something about her that made him not be attracted to her at all. Something he couldn’t actually put his finger on or name.

  Juliette seemed satisfied that Soraya posed them no danger and resumed looking around the church, as if she were on a nice day out and happened upon an unlocked, ancient church and was glad of a moment’s respite from the midday sun.

  Soraya’s tribute to Peter was remarkably composed, reiterating his devotion and commitment to Finlay. She ended her speech by asking the congregation to sing Peter’s favourite hymn, All things Bright and Beautiful. Morton wondered how Soraya knew what Peter’s favourite hymn was, since, by all accounts, he had no history of religion in his life. It seemed a curious thing to have been discussed in a relationship that had barely developed beyond the conception of a child. What would Juliette say his favourite hymn had been if he were suddenly to be shot in the head? He didn’t know what his favourite hymn was. After three verses of All Things Bright and Beautiful all Morton could come up with was Morning Has Broken – was that what it was called? And it was hardly a favourite; he’d last sung it when he was ten years old. He really was going to have to tell Juliette what he wanted at his funeral. Definitely no hymns. Or religion.

  ‘What’s my favourite hymn?’ Morton whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s my favourite hymn?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’

  Fair enough, Morton thought. It was hardly something that he could hold against her. What was her favourite hymn? His mother’s was Abide With Me and Morton could still hear the haunting organ music in his head as her body disappeared behind the red velvet curtains for cremation. He’d wished then, as he wished now, that they’d buried her. The idea of his mother on fire appalled him. At least if she’d been buried he’d have a grave to visit. Two days after her funeral he and Jeremy were parcelled off to Aunty Margaret’s for a week so that their father could scatter the ashes in the New Forest, apparently as per her request, something he still questioned to this day.

  The vicar approached the pulpit. ‘And now I’d like to ask Peter’s best friend, Norton Farrier, to say a few words.’ Norton? His heart began to race as he made his way to the front of the church, though he couldn’t fathom what actually there was to be nervous about since he would be speaking to a near-as-damn-it empty building. Had Soraya told the vicar that Morton was Peter’s best friend, or had the vicar embellished the pitiable truth to create a more sociable, affable and incorrect Peter Coldrick?

  Morton tugged at the flexi-arm of the microphone so that it was level with his mouth. He took a deep breath and surveyed the congregation, who looked as emotionless as if they were at a dreary matinee performance of an am-dram play. Given the congregation in front of him, he wondered if the reading he had chosen was either wholly inappropriate or had hit the nail smack on the proverbial head. He was about to speak when he noticed a stocky man with a crew cut silently sneak into the back of the church and sit in the row directly behind Juliette. Definitely not a friend of Peter Coldrick’s. Morton didn’t know what to do. People were starting to stare at him. He had to do the reading. He cleared his throat and began. If you Should Forget Me for a While by Christina Rossetti. If you should forget me for a while, and afterwards remember, do not grieve, for if the darkness and the shadows leave a vestige of the thoughts that once I had, better by far that you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad.’

  He stared out into the congregation but the man with the crew cut had vanished. He ignored his hastily prepared, woolly notes that he had intended to read about ‘the wonderful man’ that was Peter Coldrick. He was more interested in finding this menacing visitor. He searched the shadows at the back and sides of the church but couldn’t see him.

  ‘Okay,’ the vicar said uncertainly, advancing towards the pulpit, ‘thank you very much for that, Norton. I’m sure nobody in this room will forget our dear brother, Peter anytime soon.’ Morton left the platform and returned to his seat.

  ‘Where did that man go?’ Morton whispered.

  ‘What man?’ Juliette said.

  ‘He just crept in and sat behind you.’ He wasn’t sure why but she turned just to be sure there was nobody there. It wasn’t like PCSO Juliette Meade 8084 to miss something like that. Morton began to wonder if he’d imagined it. After all, it was a long distance from the back of the church to the front. No, there had definitely been somebody there.

  ‘Did you get a good look at him?’

  ‘Average looking with short hair.’

  ‘That’ll make a memorable e-fit,’ Juliette whispered. ‘Not Daniel Dunk, then?’

  ‘No,’ Morton said with certainty.

  The congregation stood for the final benediction.

  ‘Lord our God, You are the source of life. In You we live and move and have our being. Keep us in life and death in Your love, and, by Your grace, lead us to Your kingdom, through Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.’

  ‘Amen’ Morton and Juliette said, sli
ghtly out of kilter with one another.

  ‘There now follows a private service at the crematorium,’ the vicar hastily leapt up to announce. Morton wondered if it were actually possible to have a more private service than this. He hoped that since Soraya hadn’t mentioned it, Peter Coldrick’s best friend, Norton might be excused from the cremation. The old couple shuffled along the aisle towards them and out the back of the church.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ Juliette said, and they made their way out into the late afternoon sunshine.

  ‘I need to talk to you about my funeral,’ Morton said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Morton, hang on,’ a voice called from inside the church. It was Soraya. She burst out onto the steps. ‘I just wanted to say thank you for doing the reading, it was lovely, really. Peter would have been very touched.’ She looked at Juliette and smiled. ‘You must be Juliette?’

  Juliette offered her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, despite the circumstances.’

  ‘Likewise. I took his advice,’ she said, nodding her head to Morton, ‘and moved in with my sister but I think he’s being a teeny bit overdramatic. Oh, which reminds me, here’s her address. It’s only the other side of town.’

  Morton shook his head, taking a small yellow Post-It note with a scribbled address on it. ‘I wish I were being overdramatic, Soraya. They blew up our house yesterday.’ He realised how theatrical that had sounded but there was no way of playing it down.

  The smile dropped from Soraya’s lips. ‘Surely not?’ She looked at Juliette for confirmation. ‘My God. I mean, you’re alright, aren’t you?’

  ‘Apart from being dispossessed and having nothing other than the clothes we stand in, we’re fine,’ Juliette said.

  ‘Oh golly, I’m so sorry. At least you’re alive, though.’

  ‘There is always that.’

  ‘And you think it’s because of Peter?’ Soraya asked.

  ‘I can’t think of any other reason why someone would plant enough Semtex under my house to destroy a small town.’