The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7) by Nathan Goodwin (types of ebook readers TXT) 📕

placed a small cross beside the meticulous list of local churches and cemeteries, which he had drawn up regarding the burial of the two skeletons. Then, returning to his laptop, he opened an email from Hawkinge Cemetery & Crematorium with a smile. ‘Good afternoon, Morton. I always like to think that there is no such thing as a strange request, but I think this may qualify! I have indeed located the men’s burial, although the information is rather vague, I’m afraid. It is identical for both: Unknown male, estimated 30-40 years of age, found dead 7th July 1963 in the Bell Inn, Hythe. The two men were buried in communal graves in Plot G at Hawkinge Cemetery. There is no further information in the registers. I hope this helps, Irene.’

Morton printed the email and fastened it to the investigation wall. He had found the burial place of the two bodies but, as he had expected, there was little information which would develop the case. And he still did not actually know if the two men had been interred in the fireplace during Ann’s tenure of the pub.

Sitting back at his desk, he took a swig of wine. There were no other emails which warranted his precious time this evening, so he switched his focus to finding out about the Aldington smuggling gang.

Google kindly offered him 79,600 results for his search enquiry. He drank some wine and clicked the first link: a Wikipedia page for the group. Making notes as he went, Morton completed the page and selected the next link.

After some time of reading, the study door was pushed open and there stood a grumpy-looking Juliette in her police uniform.

‘What’s the matter?’ Morton asked.

‘Look at me,’ she answered, lifting her arms up by her side. ‘It’s far too tight.’

‘Is it?’ Morton said, pretending not to have noticed the obvious. ‘I think it looks okay.’

Juliette huffed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I look like a whale in a bikini.’

A discussion of her weight was as easy to negotiate as a freshly laid minefield. If he said that she looked fine—which he thought she did, just about—she would become annoyed at him for lying. If he said that the few extra understandable pounds of baby weight would shift in no time once she was back patrolling the streets, it meant a tacit agreement with her idea of being overweight, which would only make matters worse. Instead, he stupidly said, ‘Maybe your uniform’s shrunk?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Morton,’ she said, turning on her heels and mumbling that she was going to bed.

‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ he whispered after her.

That minute mushroomed into several hours reading on the Aldington Gang. He was several pages into Google’s suggested list of links but was now adding little to his notes. The websites were tending to repeat the same basic information about the gang: active from late 1820 under the leadership of Cephas Quested, a man who was captured at the Battle of Brookland in 1821. He was hanged, after which time a new leader, George Ransley took over. Various websites were in agreement in their assertion that Ransley had somehow acquired the means to continue the group and build a new home for himself called the Bourne Tap in the village of Aldington, from where he orchestrated the gang’s many large-scale runs. In 1826, however, Quartermaster Richard Morgan had been murdered by one of the gang and several of their number had stood trial before being transported to Van Dieman’s Land in 1827, bringing the last major Kent smuggling group to a definitive end.

The gang’s transportation in April 1827 tied in perfectly with Ann’s letter of July of that year, in which she spoke of the renewed quietness of the area.

Morton’s suspicions that Ann’s letter had been written to one of the convicted smugglers had not been borne out in the published lists of those convicted. And yet, he was more certain than ever of Ann’s involvement with the gang.

Pondering where an agricultural labourer had gained the means to build his own house and maintain a smuggling racket, Morton wrote ‘The Bourne Tap, Aldington – gold guineas found by George Ransley???’ on a piece of paper and stuck it to the wall.

Finishing the last dregs of his wine, he stared at the timeline on his investigation wall, thinking. His gut instinct told him that the common link between all of the evidence, which he had so far uncovered for the 1820-1827 period, was smuggling. He now needed to uncover firm documentary evidence to substantiate that link. He knew what his next steps needed to be, but right now, having just gone midnight, it was time to sleep. The morning would be a competition between Juliette and Grace as to which one would wake Morton first. He had a busy day ahead of him, trying to juggle the case, looking after Grace and preparing for the party. In just two days—one, technically, now that it had passed midnight—his biological father would be arriving with his family from America. He had yet to hear from his Aunty Margaret about whether or not she would be attending.

As he pushed his laptop lid down to a close, a tangled sensation began to form inside him at the thought of Jack and Margaret meeting for the first time since 1974.

Chapter Eleven

Morton’s day was not going well. He had been woken several times during the night by Grace screaming, then had been duly summoned by her shouting ‘Dadda’ at the top of her voice at some ungodly moment before five o’clock that morning, refusing to go back to sleep. Then Juliette had risen in a satanic mood on this, her first day back at work in over a year. Morton’s attempt to pacify the situation, by pointing out that she didn’t actually start work until three pm, was met with a