Hiding the Past (23 page)

Read Hiding the Past Online

Authors: Nathan Dylan Goodwin

‘What did you
have to tell me?’ Morton asked softly.  He glanced over at the nurse, who
was either oblivious to him, or she was acting as though she was.  She
must see this kind of thing all the time, Morton reasoned. 
Just talk,
he told himself, but the words wouldn’t come.  If he was going to talk to
an inert object, then there was no point in asking questions and waiting for a
reply; he just had to speak.

He chose to
talk to his lifeless father about when his mother died, which he thought, from
a psychological point of view, was very revealing.  Of all the subjects,
in all the world that he could have chosen to talk about, he chose what he
considered to be the defining moment of his life.  The point where it all
changed.  When everything he had known was turned upside down.  A
moment in history that had never been discussed.

After his
father had told him that he was adopted, Morton shrank inside a cocooned
version of himself, perfunctorily carrying on with life as if nothing had ever
happened.  Over the years he had wondered at the timing of the
revelation.  Had his father deliberately dropped the hit-and-run statement
into the emotional turmoil of his mother’s death, knowing that it would provide
a convenient smokescreen?  He thought he could remember his father
muttering something about wanting to tell him before, but the hours that
followed boiled down to a handful of crystal-clear words; the rest a
blur.  There followed brief empty conversations with his father, where the
topic was skirted around like a decaying animal in the road.  That
slowly-rotting carcass was his relationship with his father and his mother’s
tarnished memory.  It took him two years to summon the courage to ask his
father
the
question.  It was on his return home from the first term
at university and Morton had found that his father had, for the first time
since his wife’s death, lavished the house in Christmas decorations and was
bounding around it with renewed zeal.  Morton had barely set down his bags
when he decided to snatch the presented opportunity of festive cheer and pose
the question as to who his real parents were.  He should have anticipated
his father’s reaction.  A long agonising silence, in which Morton hoped
that his father’s clenching jaw was simply concentration, was followed by the
single longest diatribe Morton had ever heard from his father’s lips. 
Morton’s scheduled two-week break came to a sharp end after a record hour and a
quarter before he caught the train to Jon’s house and spent a peaceful happy
Christmas with his family.  When he had returned home the following
summer, Morton found that his bedroom had been stripped of
everything
and turned into a guest-room.  ‘Well, after you absconded at Christmas, we
didn’t think you were coming home again,’ his father said.  And so he
resided in the guest-room for the duration of the summer, spending as little
time as possible there.  His father ended the summer holidays by informing
him that, in his opinion, university had turned him into a sulky introvert and
maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to go there after all.  Morton’s
response, which he knew retrospectively to have been spiteful, was to ask who
his real father was.  Jeremy then waded into the argument and informed
Morton that he’d broken his father’s heart and the subject was never to be
raised again.  And it wasn’t.

But now his
father had had his heart repaired.

Maybe it was
time to ask the question again.

 

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

 

Tuesday

 

For the first time since he had been
attacked, Morton wasn’t woken by the pain from the lump on his head.  This
morning he was woken by the welcome aroma of coffee.  Good quality strong
filter coffee, wafting up to his bedroom.  Juliette was already up. 
He heard her laughing at something downstairs and he sat up in bed to listen. 
Was she on the phone?
  No, she was talking to Jeremy and Guy, who’d
evidently stayed the night again.  Christ, Morton thought, he really was
turning into his father, casting judgements on his brother’s relationship.
 

A round of
goodbyes downstairs was followed by the closing of the front door.  Morton
looked at the alarm clock: nine fifty-five.  There was just enough time to
grab a bite to eat, take a shower and catch up with Juliette before she went
off to work.  He was curious to know how her first day had gone yesterday. 
He suspected either brilliantly or terribly.  There was rarely a grey
middle-ground where Juliette was concerned.  She’d been sound asleep by
the time he’d returned from the hospital last night; once he’d begun pouring
out thirty-nine years of angst at his father, it was hard to stop.  It
flowed out of him like an unstoppable reservoir of anguish, whose dam had been
unceremoniously ruptured.  He’d quickly become oblivious to the nursing
staff, the outpouring continuing until he was entirely emotionally
drained.  His reservoir was empty and he felt utter relief at having said
everything he’d ever wanted to say to his unconscious father.  Then he
left the hospital.

Morton climbed
out of bed, unable to ignore the coffee aroma any longer.  Juliette was in
the kitchen in her work uniform, sipping a drink.  ‘Morning,’ she said
cheerfully.  ‘You were late at the hospital last night.’

‘I decided to
make use of the fact the old man couldn’t answer me back, so I told him
everything I’ve ever felt. 
Ever
,’ he replied, pouring himself a
coffee.  ‘He obviously agreed with me because he didn’t argue back.’

Juliette
smiled.  ‘How is he?  How did the operation go?’

‘Fine, as well
as can be expected.  He’ll be in ITU for a while then he’ll move to a
regular ward,’ Morton said.  He couldn’t quite bring himself to say the
next part, ‘and then home’, because that would mean he and Juliette would have
to face up to the reality of being homeless.  It was funny, they’d not
once talked about getting a new place, they’d just replaced some clothes and
moved in to his father’s house, as if that was the most natural thing to do in
the world.  It was like they were flying the nest but in reverse.  He
changed the subject.  ‘How was your first day back at work?’

Juliette raised
her eyebrows in a ‘there’s a story’ kind of way.  ‘Suspiciously
fantastic,’ she said.  ‘Usually the Chief doesn’t have much time for the
PCSOs, but he was totally OTT with me, asking me how I was and actually
listening to my answer, rather than nodding and wandering off in his own little
world.  Oh, and they split me and Dan, my usual partner up, and paired me
with straight-laced Roger who does
everything
exactly by the book. 
The bosses hate him, but they know he wouldn’t dare put a foot wrong.’

‘Unless you
corrupt him’ Morton said.

‘Believe me,
straight-laced Roger is incorruptible.’

‘So nothing new
with the
Coldrick Case
then?’

‘Not that I’ve
been told, no, but I’ll keep my ear to the ground.  I could hardly log on
and start fishing on my first day back.  Hopefully I’ll see someone
involved in the investigation later on.  What have you got planned for
today, then?  Anymore illegal activities?’

‘Hopefully
not.  I’m meeting Dr Baumgartner for
the
results.’

Juliette nodded
but Morton could tell she didn’t have the foggiest which results he was talking
about.

 

The train from Hastings station took an
hour and thirty-two minutes to reach Charing Cross.  Morton had spent the
journey on his iPhone, re-examining photos and documents from the
Coldrick
Case,
seeing if there was anything he had missed or overlooked.  If Dr
Baumgartner had nothing with the DNA or copper box, he was well and truly
stumped.  No further leads to pursue.  The outcome of the case
depended on this meeting.  Morton marched purposefully along
Northumberland Street, the gold lettering of the pub name coming into
view.  As he approached the pub, he began to worry. 
What if Dr
Baumgartner had been mugged?  Or had his hotel room ransacked?  Or
worse?
  The people working for the Windsor-Sackvilles had proven that
they would stop at nothing to prevent him from discovering the truth.  He
opened the door and glanced around.  There was no sign of him. 
Morton looked at his watch: they were due to have met five minutes ago. 
Should
he be worried?
  It was only five minutes, after all.

The barman
looked across at him.  ‘Can I help you, mate?’

‘There haven’t
been any messages left for Morton Farrier, have there?’

The barman
shook his head.  ‘No, mate, sorry.’  Morton’s mind went into
overdrive, recreating all manner of possible fates that could have consumed his
former university lecturer.
 How could he have been so stupid as to
drag him into all this mess? 
It was bad enough that Jeremy and
Juliette were involved.  He looked at his watch again – another two
minutes had passed.  A month ago Morton wouldn’t have thought twice about
ordering the drinks, grabbing a table and waiting patiently.  Now his
heart was racing faster than if he’d just sprinted to the pub.  It was
ridiculous, but this was what the
Coldrick Case
had done to him; reduced
him to a nervous wreck.  He thought back over his previous jobs, scanning
for a single hint of danger among them.  He came up with nothing more than
a heated row with a parking attendant after over-running at Eastbourne Library
by three minutes.  Perilous indeed.
 

‘Morton!’ 
It was Dr Baumgartner, standing in the doorway looking completely unfazed,
unmugged, and undead.  ‘Not late am I?’ his chirpy voiced boomed across
the room as he extended his hand to Morton.

‘No, you’re not
late,’ Morton said with a wry smile, shaking the extended hand.  ‘Beer?’

‘Oh yes, that
would be smashing.  Same as last time.’

Morton carried
two pints over to the table that Dr Baumgartner had chosen.  They
exchanged pleasantries about Dr Baumgartner’s hotel and Morton’s now
marble-sized lump before Dr Baumgartner cut straight down to business. 
‘Right, the DNA test,’ he said, with a gentle tug of his grey beard.  ‘It
came back this morning and the chances of your boy Finlay and old
Windsor-Sackville sharing a common ancestor within the last forty-thousand
years are somewhere in the region of a billion to one.’

Morton
nodded.  The firm, concrete news that the Windsor-Sackvilles and the
Coldricks were completely unrelated hit him hard, knocking him back to square
one.  Yet deep down, he had known it all along; his gut reaction, his
‘natural genealogical instinct’ had told him so.

 
‘In layman’s
terms,’ Dr Baumgartner simplified, ‘not that a forensic genealogist is in
any
way
a layman, but they are quite frankly genetic chalk and cheese. 
All forty-three markers we tested came back negative.’  He must have seen
something like disappointment on Morton’s face as he felt the need to add,
‘sorry.’
 

‘No, it’s
fine,’ Morton said, trying his damndest to stop his mind going into
free-fall.  All of that work for nothing.  It was too late; his
thoughts exploded in a hundred directions as he considered all that he’d done
and had done to him was in vain.  ‘Well, that’s it then.  I’ve nowhere
else to take it.’

‘Morton, that’s
not what I expect from a first-class student like you,’ Dr Baumgartner said,
his scraggy eyebrows pulled tight into a grimace.  He was being deadly
serious.

‘But that’s it,
there’s nowhere else to go.’

‘Don’t you want
to know about these before you throw in the towel so hastily?’ Dr Baumgartner
said, placing the copper box on the table.  ‘Very interesting indeed.’
 

Morton sat up,
ready to listen.

Dr Baumgartner
placed the headshot photograph of James Coldrick’s mother on the table between
them and pulled out a large, heavyweight magnifying glass.  The exact same
one he’d used during his time lecturing at university.  He placed the
magnifying glass on the photo and raised his eyebrows suggestively to Morton, just
like he used to at university.  Dr Baumgartner had never been a fan of
spoon-feeding his students.  If they didn’t have the skills to find the
answers for themselves then they were in the wrong field.  Simple as
that.  Morton leant forwards and studied the image.  He’d looked at
it over and over again – the last time just twenty minutes ago on the train
here.  There was nothing new to see, no reflection in her eyes, nothing at
all in the background.  It simply was a photograph of her head and
shoulders.  She wore small gold studs in her ears and some kind of
necklace.  What had he missed?  Maybe nothing, maybe this was a
bizarre lesson in learning when to admit defeat.  No, that really wasn’t
Dr Baumgartner’s style at all.  There was no such thing as defeat in his book. 
Plus, his smug face made it clear that he knew something.  Morton looked
up for further guidance, another clue.

 
‘Why do you
think the photo is cut like that?’ Dr Baumgartner asked.  ‘The sides and
top are neatly trimmed equidistanced around the woman’s head, yet the bottom
slopes sharply from left to right.  What has the person who cut this photo
tried to remove?’

God, it really
was like being back in his classroom.  ‘Her clothes?’

‘Exactly! 
She was wearing something that would identify her immediately, but whoever cut
this picture left us one very large clue around her neck.’

Morton studied
the photograph.  What was he not getting?  A simple gold chain
culminated in a pendant of some kind, ninety per cent of which was not in the
photo.  Only three narrow bars with rounded edges stacked one above the
other, slightly offset remained.  ‘A bird’s wingtip?’ Morton ventured
uncertainly.

‘Yes!’ Dr
Baumgartner screeched loudly.  ‘Any particular bird?’

‘Eagle?’ Morton
guessed, still not getting Dr Baumgartner’s excitement.

It all became
clear when Dr Baumgartner slid a piece of paper across the table.  Morton
unfolded it and was stunned.

‘Christ.’

‘Still want to
give in?’

‘No.’

 

It felt like he’d undergone a
transformation, like he was a fully-subscribed, born-again genealogist. 
Make that a born-again
forensic
genealogist.  The distinction was
important.  ‘
Deidre
, how are
you today?’ Morton had greeted
brashly as he burst whirlwind-like into East Sussex Archives.  ‘These are
literally
flying
from your shelves,’ he said emphatically, shoving a
great stack of his business cards into the holder made vacant since his
previous visit.  Evidently Morton’s greeting was like a tranquilliser to
her cold black heart because she stared, dumbstruck at him, unable to lance him
with an icy jab.  He scribbled a high-speed entry in the admissions book
and bounced up the stairs into the search room.  He had wondered what he
would say if he were confronted by Max Fairbrother.  He still held a great
mistrust for the man and was sure that he hadn’t told him everything he
knew.  As it turned out, it didn’t matter; Max was, according to Quiet
Brian, currently enjoying two weeks' leave in Florence.  A fortnight in
southern Italy sounded like the most perfect post-
Coldrick Case
antidote
Morton could think of.  He’d reclassified the Coldrick job back up to the
Coldrick
Case
in light of the evidence found dangling around James Coldrick’s
mother’s neck.  ‘The
Reichsadler
,’ Dr Baumgartner had told him,
having handed him an A4 printout of the full pendant.  The bird’s wingtip,
the only part visible in the photograph, belonged to an eagle clutching a
wreath of oak leaves, inside of which was a large, unequivocal swastika. 
James Coldrick’s mother was wearing the Nazi party emblem around her
neck.  In Britain.  During the peak of World War Two.  The
Coldrick
Case
had suddenly taken a giant step forward into the unknown.  Dr
Baumgartner had passed Morton the phone number of one Professor Geoffrey
Daniels, who worked at the National Archives of Berlin and whose field of
expertise was Germany and the Second World War, just in case he needed it.

Quiet Brian
told Morton where to find the files containing information on enemy aliens, as
Germans and Austrians had been called during the war, as if they had all
arrived via a UFO from Mars rather than on a boat from mainland Europe.

Morton withdrew
a chunky folder from the shelf and took a seat in the crowded search
room.  He read, with a sudden and unexpected twinge of sympathy, through
the countless and increasingly aggressive directives and instructions from the
Home Office to the local County Council regarding what to do with anyone of
German or Austrian descent.  Was James Coldrick’s mother one of the thousands
of aliens rounded up within forty-eight hours of Churchill coming to power in
1940?  It seemed so unlikely, somehow.  He flicked past various
letters and pieces of correspondence marked ‘confidential’ or ‘secret’ until he
reached the files that he had come to see: ‘Home Office: Aliens Department:
Aliens Personal Files HO 382.’  He quickly scribbled down the reference
number, located the relevant (and alarmingly bulky) film and hurried over to
the bank of microfilm readers, only one of which was vacant – the rest having
been commandeered by family historians.

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