Elsie re-read the letter, staggered that Agnes had discovered her secret. Her plan to have the baby adopted before anyone could find out was crushed.
She felt that her future was once again shrouded in doubt and uncertainty.
Chapter Sixteen
Morton didn’t have a clue where he was. The man sitting behind him in the car had just told him to drive, barking instructions until they had reached some kind of deserted woodland car park. They were surrounded on all sides by walls of black, silhouetted trees.
‘Switch off the engine,’ the man instructed. ‘Then put your hands on the steering wheel.’
Morton obeyed, trying to get a good look at the man in the rear-view mirror. It was now totally dark, but earlier, when they had passed underneath a streetlamp, Morton had caught a brief view of him. He was of Asian appearance, in his late forties or early fifties with light hair—possibly grey or white. His eyes, Morton thought, had looked dark. He was guessing that this was Shaohao Chen—the man who had emailed Tamara Forsdyke telling her to destroy The Spyglass File.
‘What do you want?’ Morton asked calmly.
‘I want you to be quiet,’ he replied.
Morton held his tongue and gripped the steering wheel.
The silence sat heavily in the car, making Morton all the more tense. He supposed that was the idea.
Minutes passed.
‘Tell me what you were just doing in the office at Cliff House,’ the man said finally. His voice was soft, almost pleasant.
‘I was searching for information on The Spyglass File,’ Morton answered truthfully.
‘And what did you find?’
‘Lots of empty folders.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing else—the folders were empty.’
The man grunted.
More silence.
‘Why are you so interested in this Spyglass File, exactly?’
‘I believe it may have something to do with a genealogical case that I’m working on at the moment.’
‘Why?’
‘A baby that I’m interested in was born in 1941—I think The Spyglass File might have held information on her.’
‘What sort of information?’
‘I don’t know.’
More silence.
‘Can I give you some advice, please?’ the man asked.
Morton nodded. ‘Yes.’
The man cleared his throat. ‘Steer clear of anything to do with The Spyglass File; your searches will be in vain, and it may end up being very dangerous for you. I can assure you that if this person you say you are interested in was ever mentioned in the file, then that information is now gone. Forever.’
‘Right, okay,’ Morton murmured.
Silence.
‘So I can assume that you’re going to take that advice?’ the man asked.
‘Yes.’
The man let out a grunt, opened the back door to the car and sprinted into the woods. Morton turned to the side, scouring the black line of trees, but could see nothing. He was gone. Morton quickly leant behind him, pulled the door closed and sped from the car park.
The following morning, Morton awoke to see Juliette changing into her police uniform.
‘You were late last night,’ she commented.
‘I took a trip to the woods,’ Morton mumbled. He’d arrived home to find Juliette asleep and hadn’t liked to wake her. She would only have gone into full police mode and spent the night interrogating him at great length about his ordeal. Waiting until now, when she was half-way out the door, was infinitely more preferable.
‘Trip to the woods?’ she repeated, eying him suspiciously.
Morton sat up, waiting for his addled brain to begin functioning fully. It took a while. ‘Would you believe me if I said I’d been threatened again?’ Morton asked her.
Juliette shut her eyes and drew in a preparatory long, deep breath then blew out the air. ‘Give me strength,’ she groaned. ‘What now?’
Morton explained.
‘Your job’s more dangerous than mine!’ she exclaimed when he had finished his story. ‘Honest to God—how do you it? Is this normal in genealogy?’
Morton shook his head. ‘Not really, no. I just seem to annoy people.’
‘Ain’t that a fact,’ Juliette quipped.
Morton grabbed his mobile phone from his bedside and showed her the photograph that he had taken of the email on Tamara’s computer. ‘I don’t suppose you can take this into work and see what you can find on this man for me?’ he asked, splaying his fingers apart on the screen, revealing Shaohao Chen’s name.
Juliette frowned. ‘You think this is the man you took for a nice visit to the woods last night?’
‘Yes.’
Another sigh. ‘Send it to my phone and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thanks!’ he said.
She leant in and kissed him. ‘I’m going to go to my nice safe job catching murderers, burglars and rapists, whilst you get on with your highly dangerous job ordering birth certificates and leafing through tired old documents.’
Morton laughed.
‘Stay out of trouble—please!’ she implored, as she left the room.
‘I’ll try…’ he answered, sliding back into bed. He closed his eyes and thought about the next steps that he would take with the case. Finding out about Mrs Potter seemed like it should be pretty high on his list of things to do. It intrigued Morton that she was a regular visitor to Cliff House during Elsie’s time there.
His meandering thoughts were cut abruptly short as his mobile began ringing beside him. It was an unknown number. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello—is that Mr Farrier? My name’s Susan Stubbs—you wrote to me about my wartime exploits,’ an elderly voice said.
‘Ah, yes—did I get the correct person?’ Morton asked hopefully.
‘You did indeed! I was based at Hawkinge for most of the war and knew Elsie Finch…well, briefly at least.’
‘Fantastic. Would it be all right if I came to see you?’ Morton asked.
‘Yes, I should think so. When would you like to come?’
‘How about this afternoon?’
‘Yes, okay. Any time after two o’clock would be suitable,’ she said. ‘You know where to find me—I’m in a village just outside Tunbridge Wells.’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Morton said, grateful that she had clarified to which one of the four Susan Stubbses he was speaking. He thanked her again and hung up.
He climbed out of bed, dived through the shower and wolfed down some toast, before making a coffee and heading up to his study.
The 1939 Identity Card Register produced one result for Potter living in Capel-le-Ferne. He clicked to see the original entry. Ada Potter, a spinster born in 1896, was recorded as living alone at Spring Cottage, employed as a social worker.
Morton printed out the page, recalling as he did so Barbara’s case notes regarding her birth. He was sure that mention had been made of a social worker. He reached down for the yellow file and began flicking through until he found the relevant page. Yes, mention had been made of a social worker, although she had not been named specifically. Your birth mother is Elsie Finch (née Danby) and, at the time that she was involved with the social worker… It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine that Ada Potter had handled Elsie’s case.
He conducted more research into her. He found that she had died in 1965, having never married. The Ancestry website provided an interesting snapshot of the main content of her will: Potter, Ada of Spring Cottage, Capel-le-Ferne, Kent, died 24 August 1965. Probate London 20 October to Kath Forsdyke widow. £43,540
Morton printed the entry, drank some coffee and considered what he now knew about Ada Potter. His eyes fixed on the amount that Ada had bequeathed to Kath in her will; forty-three thousand pounds sounded quite a lot of money to him—especially since last night Kath had claimed little recollection of the woman.
He was intrigued.
Morton left his house in Rye
shortly after one o’clock, under a typically cloudy English sky. A faint headache was threatening behind his left eye. As he drove, he thought about his morning’s work and the progress generally on the Finch Case. William Smith’s birth certificate had arrived in the morning’s post, along with that of his parents’ marriage. Neither had added anything particularly useful to the case but would provide Barbara with concrete names, dates and places for the paternal side of her family. He arrived at Susan Stubbs’s house at one minute past two. Perfect.
‘Glory—that’s punctual timing,’ Susan quipped when she opened the door to her small bungalow. She was an age-shrunken woman with curly grey hair but bright, alert eyes. ‘Come in.’
‘Thank you very much,’ Morton said, stepping inside the tropical, lavender-scented hallway.
He followed in her shuffled footsteps to a compact lounge, stuffed with furniture, ornaments and photographs on the walls. She switched off the blaring television. ‘Tea? Coffee?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’
‘You want to get straight on, do you? Rightio, take a seat.’ She sunk down into a high-backed chair beside Morton. ‘So, you’re interested in dear old Elsie—is that right?’
‘Yes, that’s correct,’ Morton replied, opening his notepad.
Susan’s brow furrowed. ‘I’ll see what I can recall!’ She indicated vaguely to the room around her. ‘As you can see, I’m a bit of a hoarder and when I got your letter I had a rummage around. Found one or two bits that might be of interest for you to see,’ she said, pointing to a plastic container on the floor beside her chair. ‘Is there anything specific you want to know about her?’
‘Anything at all that you can remember.’
Susan chuckled. ‘Right. Well, Elsie arrived at Hawkinge with some other new WAAF recruits around July 1940. Like the rest of us, she spoke German very well—I think I’m right in saying she had a German relation. Anyway, she was a very good worker and really put in the hours. During the Battle of Britain she would be on the machines night and day—even when she didn’t have to be.’ Susan paused and smiled at the recollection. ‘I think secretly she loved the job and the war, if that isn’t an odd thing to say. Anyway, because of the aerodrome, poor old Hawkinge was suffering at the hands of the Luftwaffe, so most of the girls were herded off to a new place at West Kingsdown and Elsie was one of them. They wanted me to go, too, but I asked to stay put.’
‘Didn’t want to move away from home?’ Morton questioned with a smile.
Susan rolled her eyes. ‘A pilot—Daniel Winter. We were engaged and he was quite often sent to the aerodrome at Hawkinge, so the last place I wanted to be living was West Kingsdown! Love did strange things to us WAAF girls during the war,’ she said with a fond chuckle.
‘Daniel Winter?’ Morton repeated, flipping the pages of his notepad. The name was familiar. Then he remembered.
‘Do you know of him?’ Susan questioned.
Morton frowned. ‘Well, he was living up at Cliff House in Capel in 1939—the exact same place that Elsie lived during her time working at Hawkinge.’
Susan stared at him, clearly mystified. ‘Really? Do you know, I had no idea about that? Isn’t that a strange thing?’
Morton wasn’t sure if it was strange or not. He certainly didn’t believe in coincidences. ‘Well, to the best of my knowledge, they never lived there at the same time, so maybe it’s not that strange,’ he ventured, not believing his own words. He wrote this connection on his notepad and then waited for her to continue, but her recollection had stalled.
‘Would you think it stranger if I told you that he was killed in an air raid, just a few hours after I had told him that Elsie had given birth up at Cliff House?’ she asked.
Morton met her watery eyes. ‘Really? You’re sure about that?’
Susan nodded. ‘Of course, he knew she was pregnant—one of the other girls billeted with Elsie up at West Kingsdown wrote to me with her suspicions—and he didn’t seem especially interested at the time. Elsie came back to Capel to give birth and I went to see her shortly afterwards. Daniel came to see me later that day and I told him—you know, just having a catch up as we didn’t see each other that often—and he got quite angry and stormed off.’
‘Then what happened?’
Susan took a deep breath. ‘He died in a bombing raid that night. Ironic, isn’t it? Like all the other pilots, he diced with death every time he got into his plane, but then he goes and gets killed by a stray bomb.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Morton said, seeing the emotion rising in her eyes.
Susan shrugged. ‘It’s one of those things. Everyone lost somebody. I carried on at Hawkinge, then met a local man, we married, settled down and had children and a very long and happy life together.’
‘And do you know what happened to Elsie after you saw her that day?’
‘Well, she obviously couldn’t keep the baby—it was put up for adoption—so she returned to her duties with the WAAF. What with censorship and the Official Secrets Act, I never got to know what exactly she was doing, or where she was posted. After the war we kept in Christmas card contact—the odd letter—I’ve got one here to show you, actually.’ Susan bent over and pulled a small letter from the container on the floor. ‘It’s not wartime, but it might be of interest. I must have kept it because it was her new address.’
Morton took the letter, unfolded it and read. Valletta, School Lane, Nutley, Sussex. May 19th 1968. My dear Susie, I trust that all is well with you & yours. Just a few lines with our new address—a charming little cottage we’ve named Valletta. We are thankfully emerging from an unsettled period; Laurie passed away four weeks ago, so there has been an awful lot of organisation to contend with. The funeral, as you might imagine, was contentious, as was the reading of the will. Everything—every damned last thing in the house that belonged to him—all of it went to his sister in the end. Still, we shall endeavour to be happy in our new home. Hoping to hear your news. With love, Elsie.
‘Peculiar,’ Morton said. There were so many parts of the letter that interested him.
Susan smiled. ‘Theirs was not exactly a happy marriage. Hence the contentious funeral and the will.’
Morton nodded, as a few things began to fall into place. It explained Elsie’s subsequent remarriage, just a few months following the death of her first husband. It also clarified that the division between the two sides of the family was via a diagonal slice with Lawrence, Kath and their mother Agnes on one side and Elsie and her children on the other.
‘She was happy, I think,’ Susan added, staring at the floor, recalling. ‘Once she’d escaped her husband’s tyrannical family.’
‘Did you meet any of her family at any point?’ Morton asked.
‘Only Elsie’s mother-in-law—old dragon she was,’ Susan said with a chortle. ‘It was brief—she threw me out of the house.’
‘Oh, right.’
Another laugh from Susan. ‘Horrible woman. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. She died not long after. Suicide, if I remember rightly.’
Morton looked up quickly. ‘Suicide? Do you know why?’
Susan shook her head. ‘No idea, again, it was one of those consequences of war. More births, more deaths.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure what else I can remember. Oh—tell you what I do have,’ she said, rummaging in the container again. She handed Morton a number of small black and white photographs. ‘Daniel’s—he had a Box Brownie camera.’
Morton thumbed through the collection, examining each photo briefly and reading the handwritten captions on the backs. They needed further in-depth research. ‘Is it okay if I take pictures of them and also the letter that you received from Elsie?’ he asked.
‘By all means—go ahead.’
Morton thanked her, then began carefully to photograph the images and the letter, intending to conduct a more detailed analysis later. Once he had finished he handed them back, asking, ‘Have you ever heard of a lady by the name of Ada Po
tter?’
Susan thought for a moment then shook her head. ‘No, never. Should I have done?’
‘No, not necessarily. I believe she was the social worker involved with Elsie’s baby.’
Susan’s eyes suddenly became illuminated. ‘Ah, well I wasn’t formally introduced, but I met her at Cliff House the day I went to see Elsie. Horrible woman she was, too—don’t I sound awful? She didn’t want to even let me in the house. I got a bit shirty with her and that was when she said she was a social worker.’
‘Maybe she was just being protective over Elsie?’ Morton ventured.
‘Maybe, but she certainly wasn’t very nice, and I don’t think Elsie liked her much either.’
Morton quickly scanned his notepad, ensuring that he had covered everything. One thing still bothered him. ‘One last question before I leave you in peace—earlier on you said that Daniel had stormed off when you told him that Elsie had had a baby—do you know why?’
Susan looked up towards the ceiling, taking an inordinate amount of time to answer his question. ‘He was angry.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it was being claimed that another pilot, William Smith was the baby’s father.’
‘He was though, wasn’t he?’ Morton asked.
Susan shook her head. ‘No. No, he wasn’t.’
Chapter Seventeen
It was a cold and wet summer’s day. Having woken Morton in the early hours of the morning, the incessant barrage of rain continued to pour from the pewter sky, pelting his study window. He sat at his desk and started up the laptop. It was definitely a day for indoor research; the fact that he wasn’t planning on going out, coupled with his desire to pursue Susan Stubbs’s disclosure, had meant that Morton hadn’t even yet bothered to get out of his pyjamas. He opened his pad to the notes that he had made yesterday. He had been surprised by Susan’s revelation that Daniel Winter had not believed that William Smith was the father of Elsie’s baby. ‘I don’t know who the father was,’ Susan had said when Morton had probed further. ‘At the time—with his fiery outburst, and storming out like that—I wondered if it might have been Daniel himself who was the father—how else could he have known for sure?’
The Spyglass File (The Forensic Genealogist Book 5) Page 20