Hiding the Past (26 page)

Read Hiding the Past Online

Authors: Nathan Dylan Goodwin

‘Oh, brilliant,
that’s fantastic,’ Morton answered, wondering what the email could contain that
required a follow-up phone call.  He moved into the kitchen and switched
on his laptop.

‘It’s fairly
run-of-the-mill stuff,’ he quantified, instantly deflating Morton’s
expectations of a grand discovery.  ‘The usual name of parents and
address.’

‘Okay,’ Morton
said, hearing in the Professor’s intonation that there was a caveat
looming.  ‘I’m just looking at my emails now.’
 

There was a
pregnant pause as he clicked on his emails and, at the top of the email inbox,
found the tantalising gold unopened envelope beside the name Geoffrey
Daniels.  He opened the message and read the brief contents: 
Morton,
still on trail, but found this which you might be interested in.  Regards,
Geoffrey.
  Below his email was a translation of Marlene’s birth
certificate.

 

Marlene, the daughter of Eberhard and
Gaelle Koldrich, born 18 November
1913, Markgrafenstrasse 5, Berlin

 

‘Eberhard and Gaelle Koldrich,’ Morton
said, more for his own benefit than the Professor’s.
 

‘Yes, which is
why I’m calling.  Eberhard Koldrich – ever heard of him?’

Morton said the
name repeatedly in his mind: definitely no entries in his brain under that
name.  ‘No, should I have heard of him then?’

‘Depends on
your knowledge of World War Two; I understood from Gerald Baumgartner that you
were a first class student.’

‘Apparently
not.’

The Professor
dropped his oblique indictment and continued.  ‘Eberhard Koldrich was a
high-ranking member of the
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei. 
One of his main wartime tasks was the conversion of
influential British aristocrats who might be sympathetic to a peace treaty with
Germany, effectively allowing the Nazis free rein in occupied Europe.’

 
‘Kind of
like the Duke of Hamilton meeting Rudolf Hess in 1941?’ Morton said, if only to
prove that he did actually have some depth of historical knowledge.

‘Something like
that, yes, only more discreet and more organised.  I've done a lot of
research into him and his group over the years.  Eberhard Koldrich was
responsible for sending over a surprising number of young men and women to make
political unions with important British families.’

Finlay’s great,
great grandfather was a top Nazi.  Morton wondered when the best time
would be to break that particular piece of news to Soraya.  ‘And Marlene
was one of those women?  Sent to link up with the Windsor-Sackvilles?’

‘I've always
presumed Eberhard's daughter was involved but she disappeared without trace.
Looks like you might have found her.  The fact that the Regional Advisory
Committee released her a week after being deemed internable suggests that some
higher authority pulled some strings.’

‘Frederick
Windsor-Sackville?’

‘
That
would need evidence, my dear boy.’

‘Hmm,’ Morton
concurred.  He thought about the copper box being created for a marriage
between David Windsor-Sackville and an unknown person. ‘Do you know if the
Koldrichs had a family crest?’

‘Yes, they
did.’

‘Any chance you
could email me a copy of it?’

‘Of course.’

‘Thank
you.  Do you know what happened to Eberhard and Gaelle?’

‘He was
executed at Nuremberg in 1945, Gaelle died in 1962.  Marlene was their
only child, so the family line has ended.’

Morton was
about to explain that the family name lived on in a new, anglicised form but at
that moment the front door banged shut and Juliette casually strolled into the
kitchen.  She had that characteristic look in her eyes that spoke of
having something to say.  Everyone had something to say to Morton at the
moment, yet nothing that seemed to make any sense.  He tried to recall a
single moment in his life that was as confusing, personally and professionally,
as the last two weeks.  Nothing even came close.  Morton thanked the
Professor and hung up.  He would send a follow-up email to him once the
case was closed.

‘Good day?’ he
asked Juliette.

She leant on
the worktop and stared out into the garden.  ‘Curious,’ she answered
cryptically.  He hoped that her curious day had something to do with his
parentage.  Perhaps she had the name of his father.  ‘Just after I
spoke to you on the phone, the door opened in the basement and in walked Olivia
Walker.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah, that’s
what I thought.  According to the schedule, I was telling eight-year-olds
not to wander off with strangers and there I was actually rooting around in
semi-darkness among closed case files.  But Miss Walker didn’t say a word
about it.  She said she’d looked at my application for the police force
last year and couldn’t fathom why I’d been turned down.’

‘What did you
say?’

Juliette
shrugged.  ‘Not a lot I could say really.  She implied that if I were
to apply again it’d pretty well be guaranteed.  The whole time she was
eyeballing the files I was looking at.’

‘Could she have
known what you were looking at?’

‘No, no
way.  I didn’t find anything.  I’m sorry, Morton, but we’re going to
need more to go on to find out who your dad is.’

‘I’m still not
sure that I
need
to know anything beyond that he was a rapist.’

Juliette filled
the kettle and turned to face him.  ‘So, are you going to tell me where
you disappeared off to in the early hours this morning?’

So he told
her.  Everything.

‘That was quite
possibly the most stupid thing you’ve done since – oh, let me see, you broke
into Charingsby,’ she said.  ‘What’s got into you lately?  You’ve
broken the law more times in the last two weeks than in the entire time I’ve
known you.’

She had a
point.  But his crimes were fairly pathetic and piffling, all things
considered.  It barely even registered as a felony to walk into an open
house and scrape some dandruff into a bag.  In Juliette’s eyes, though, a
crime was a crime.
 

He suddenly
remembered the memory of the lipstick mark on the wineglass in Dunk’s house and
what Guy had said about Daniel Dunk having a wife or girlfriend who had once
worked at Charingsby.  He turned back to his laptop, ignoring Juliette’s
admonishing glare.

He opened up
Ancestry and ran an online marriage search for Daniel Dunk.  There was
only one possibility:

 

Daniel Dunk. May 2005. Hastings and
Rother. Vol. 456. Page 100.  Ent. C22.

 

Morton clicked the ‘Find Spouse’ button.

 

‘Shit,’ Morton said.

 

Chapter Nineteen

 

Thursday

 

It was the endgame.  Morton couldn’t
help but lie in bed, conjuring up grandiose descriptions for how the day would
pan out.  He’d had so little sleep and when his eyes did finally succumb
to the acute tiredness weighing down his body, he dreamt of today.  This
time tomorrow it would all be over, he hoped, as he stared fixedly at the stain
on the ceiling, as if it might generate further inspiration for the conclusion
to the
Coldrick Case.
  Not that he needed inspiration; he had a
plan and it was almost time to put it into effect.  He glanced over at the
red digital clock display: 2.04 a.m.  There seemed hardly any point trying
to go back to sleep for fifty-six minutes.

 

There was a noise.  A repetitive
sound that Morton couldn’t place in his dream. 
What was it?  A
plague of killer bees?
  No.  He sat up in bed and opened his
eyes.  It was the heart-stopping shriek of the alarm.  He stumbled
out of bed like a new-born giraffe and whacked the stop button.

‘You’re really
going through with this…’ Juliette’s croaky voice mumbled from under the duvet.

‘Absolutely,’
Morton answered, surprising himself at just how agile he felt on so little
sleep.  It had to be the adrenalin which had begun circulating his veins
the moment the alarm sounded.

‘Go and wake
the boys, then,’ Juliette said, barely managing to lift her head from the
pillow.

Morton went to
wake
the boys
, as they were now regularly being called.  It was an
appellation that rendered them permanently youthful, which he supposed they
still were.  Unlike him.  Old and crotchety.

He gently
knocked, then pushed open the door.  ‘Morning!’ he said brightly, as
though he was waking a pair of six-year-olds.  Jeremy and Guy were spooned
tightly together, sleeping soundly.  His topless brother and his topless
brother’s topless boyfriend.  It almost seemed a shame to wake
the boys
. 
The sight of them evoked a strange, envy-tinged parental pride in him.  It
was good to see Jeremy so comfortable with himself.  Morton would be
mortified if his father walked in to see him and Juliette
spooning
. 
Was he uptight
?  He was fairly sure that he was.  He needed to
relax.  ‘It’s time to get up,
boys
,’ he said a little louder.

Finally Jeremy
stirred.  ‘Oh crap,’ he muttered, as the reality of the day dawned on
him.  His return to Cyprus was looming.  He leaned over and planted a
tender kiss on Guy’s forehead.  ‘Time to get up.’

‘I’ll see you
downstairs,’ Morton said, making a hasty retreat on the basis that if they were
topless they were probably also bottomless, and that wasn’t a sight he wanted
to see at three in the morning.

 

It wasn’t too long before Morton was
joined in the kitchen by his three weary accomplices.  He wondered how he
managed to look so damn rough in the mornings when Guy and Jeremy managed to
effortlessly appear like they’d just stepped out of the Next catalogue; ripped
jeans, fashionable cardigans and ruffled, out-of-bed hair.  But their
attire didn’t manage to disguise their deep-seated reservations about the plan
that he’d cooked up last night.  They were quite right: of course there
were far too many
ifs
,
buts
and
maybes
attached to his
plan but he had to give it a go.  He was wearing suitably dark clothing
and had repacked the breaking-and-entering rucksack that he’d almost used to
get into Dunk’s house yesterday.

Juliette,
Jeremy and Guy stared blankly in various directions around the kitchen while
Morton rehearsed, with military precision, exactly how things were going to
happen.

‘Since I’ll be
thirty thousand feet in the air when this ridiculous thing unfolds, can I skip
this part and make a drink, please?’ Jeremy asked.

Morton acceded
with a nod of his head and continued explaining the plan.  He asked if
they had any questions but there were none.  For Morton and Guy, it was
time to say goodbye to Jeremy until he was next granted leave to come home.

‘Right,’ Morton
said, breaking a silence that was close to becoming uncomfortable.  It was
weird, in the last few days Morton had learned so much about so many things,
yet what he most cherished was discovering that he actually liked, no
loved
his brother/cousin, and now here he was about to disappear off with the
possibility of not returning for at least six months and an even greater
possibility of being posted to Afghanistan.  How could Morton put
everything he felt into something that even attempted to summarise his
feelings?  He couldn’t.
 

The silence in
the pre-dawn kitchen tipped over into the realm of discomfort as Juliette and
Guy began to shift awkwardly.  Juliette even resorted to a close
inspection of her fingernails, which was something in itself.  Morton had
never known her give a crap about her nails a single day that he’d known
her.  It was just too fussy, too girly.  He knew that he needed to be
the one to break the stalemate but the words wouldn’t come, they were stuck
somewhere in his larynx, refusing to accept the fact that all was well between
the two brothers.  Instead of speaking, Morton opened his arms and drew
Jeremy into a long embrace that he hoped would impart everything he needed to
say.  As he held Jeremy, a tear escaped down his cheek.
 

‘Take care,’
the pair of them said simultaneously.

 

The car radio blasted out a dull
documentary about women in Uganda when Morton switched on the ignition,
producing enough decibels to wake the whole street.  Just what was needed
at four in the morning.  He switched it off and drove in silence, his car
mimicking the movements of Juliette’s black Ford Ka in front.  Juliette
had once suggested that he buy a Ka, a proposal at which he took great
offence.  It was times like that that he wondered if he was the marrying
kind.  One person forever, even when they suggest things like buying a
Ka.  He knew that now the final bastion to their nuptials had been
unceremoniously crushed he had no reason not to marry her.  But then, was
that a good reason
to
marry someone?  Just because you’ve run out
of reasons not to?  It seemed a little thin.  At least upon marriage
Juliette would be taking a name that kind of belonged to him, it was his
mother’s maiden name after all.  Née Farrier.  He recalled the – what
would it be now, thousands? – of marriage certificates that he’d seen in his
career.  Would he do as many illegitimates had done before him on marriage
certificates and leave his father’s name and occupation blank, or should he
write ‘rapist’ under occupation?  He was fairly sure that hadn’t been done
before and might raise the registrar’s eyebrows.
 

The village
streets that he passed through were unsurprisingly silent; just the Mini and
the Ka playing pre-dawn cat and mouse.
 

The Ka slowed
as it entered Sedlescombe village then pulled in beside the Clockhouse Tearoom,
close to where Morton had woken with urine-soaked boxers and a large pair of
pendulous breasts staring him in the face.  Such a fond memory. 
Morton tucked the Mini neatly behind the Ka and climbed out.  The village
was, as he expected, completely dead.  Not a single light but for the
sporadic sodium street lamps dotted along the road and not a single noise but
for Guy, climbing out of the driver’s side and unlocking the Ka boot.

‘Ready?’ Guy
whispered.

Morton
nodded.  Ready as he ever would be, he thought, acknowledging for the
first time the prickling in his intestines.

‘It’s not too
late to go back, you know,’ Guy said.  ‘Call this whole thing off?’

‘Nope. 
Let’s do it,’ Morton said, bundling himself into the tiny confines of the Ka
boot.  He wasn’t someone who had suffered claustrophobia before but the
split-second that the lid came down and the lock crunched darkness into place,
he felt as though he’d been mummified.  It was a good job this was going
to be a short journey.  He was grateful not to be in pitch darkness; a
muted red glow penetrated in from the rear lights.  Not that there was
anything to see squashed in the foetal position in a car boot at four in the morning
anyway.

As the Ka began
to move off, Morton suddenly had the thought that he could just have walked
into the biggest trap of his life.  What if Guy was double-crossing
him? 
He might be an undercover operative working for the
Windsor-Sackvilles.
  No, that would just be ridiculous, he’d seen the
way that Jeremy and Guy got together at the Sedlescombe Village Fete; that was
so
not pre-planned. 
Unless Jeremy was involved, too.
  No, this
was just hysteria talking.  Either way, it would be just a few seconds
until he found out.

The Ka sped
along for a few seconds then drew to an abrupt halt.  They were at the
front gates of Charingsby.

He heard
talking and strained his ears but couldn’t catch what was being said.  Guy
had mentioned that despite his being well-known on the gate, there would still
be questions when he arrived at such an hour.  Whomever he was talking to
was evidently satisfied with his explanation and the car moved off again. 
They crawled along slowly, the sound of crunched gravel filling the boot space.

The car stopped
and the engine was cut.  Morton took a deep breath as the lights were
switched off and his prison was plunged into total darkness.
 

His heart began
to race when he heard Guy’s heavy footfall on the stones.

Getting closer
and closer.

A key turned in
the boot lock and the lid was tugged open, sending in a waft of clean cold air
but no extra light.

Good
old-fashioned fear and paranoia pinned Morton inside the boot.  He closed
his eyes and regressed back to the childlike mentality that if he kept
perfectly still and didn’t look out, then he couldn’t be seen.

A torch beam
fell on his face.  ‘What’re you doing, you weirdo?’  Guy asked. 
‘Crap, are you dead?’

Morton opened
his eyes and almost blinded himself.  He raised a hand to shield himself
from the brain-frazzling glare.

‘Sorry, mate,’
Guy said, switching the torch off.  ‘Come on, we need to get a move on.’

Guy extended a
hand to Morton and helped him out of the boot, his eyes gradually
adjusting.  The car was parked on a rectangle of shingle surrounded on
three sides by an overabundance of dense foliage - cherry laurel, if his memory
of the lectures on fauna and flora with Dr Baumgartner was correct.  On
the fourth side, the direction in which they were now facing, was the unmistakable
grey stone façade of Charingsby, resembling a sinister country house from a
Bronte novel.  It might have been the cold night air seeping through his
clothing, chilling his core but he had deep misgivings about the place and what
had occurred here all those years ago.

‘Ready?’ Guy
asked.

‘Let’s do it,’
Morton answered and he followed Guy across the car park area to a Gothic
archway in which was set a heavy black-studded, oak door protected by keypad
entry.  Guy tapped in a six-digit code which Morton did his best to
memorise.  Then Morton watched as he pressed his thumb onto a scanning
pad. 
Christ, they really didn’t want intruders getting inside
,
Morton thought.

A small green
LED illuminated and a heavy clunk sounded from the door’s internal mechanisms. 
Guy pushed it open and they stepped into a dim narrow passageway that smacked
of a servants’ rat-run.  Upstairs Downstairs and all that.

Morton’s heart
began to pound even faster, which he hadn’t thought possible without rigorous
exercise.  They had rehearsed the plan over and again into the early
hours; Guy had even drawn a map of the internal layout of Charingsby and, in
true
Mission Impossible
style, fed the paper into Morton’s father’s
shredding machine.  He suspected that Guy was disappointed not to have a
hearty fire to dramatically toss it onto.  They hadn’t managed to resolve
the question of what would actually happen if they were discovered. 
Better not to dwell on that.
     

They moved
silently down the passageway until it terminated at a perpendicular, slightly
wider corridor.  From his memory of Guy’s improvised map, Morton knew that
left would lead them to the servants’ quarters – the direction in which Guy
should be heading if he were going to his room.  Silently, the pair turned
right and followed the corridor until it reached a tightly-closed chunky oak
door.  Guy stopped and placed his ear at the keyhole.  This was the
moment when things could go dangerously wrong.  Beyond the door was the
main downstairs lobby, the heart of the house and the place at which they would
most likely be caught.  Several armed security guards patrolled the house
day and night, and numerous CCTV cameras kept a twenty-four-seven vigil on
unpatrolled areas.

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