The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7)

a photo which often drew his attention whilst he would sit here at the desk. Sometimes, he fantasised about a different life—one where his biological parents had raised him together. The reverie often played out like a choose-your-own-adventure story, where sometimes his father, Jack—an American—would return to England upon discovering that he was going to be a father and the three of them would live happily ever after in a Kentish seaside cottage. Other times, his pregnant Aunty Margaret would defy the will of those encouraging her to give up the child and instead take herself off to the East Coast of America, where the three of them would live in a house on the shores of Cape Cod.

He smiled at his indulgent sentimentality and looked at the final photograph on his desk: his and Juliette’s wedding day eighteen months ago. The photographer had done his best in trying to Photoshop out the black eye that Morton had received when the genealogical case upon which he had been working had turned violent. The case had made the headlines of the local newspapers after Morton had inadvertently unearthed a seventy-year child-selling racket. The two perpetrators, Shaohao Chen and Tamara Forsdyke were now both serving five-year prison sentences for their parts in the case. The wall in front of Morton, upon which he collated evidence from his genealogical investigations, had been rammed with information pertaining to this difficult case. Now, it was entirely empty.

He threw a handful of chips into his mouth, wiped his greasy fingers onto his jeans, then took a piece of plain paper and wrote ‘Ann Fothergill’ in large letters and stuck it in the centre of the wall.

The Fothergill Case had begun.

Almost an hour later, Morton’s initial investigations ended when a bedraggled Juliette stumbled into the room. ‘I feel like death,’ she said, slumping down dramatically onto the floor.

‘You look like death,’ Morton agreed.

‘Thanks. Is my dinner cold?’

Morton placed his hand on the remaining packet of fish and chips. ‘Yep. Time of death…about an hour ago.’

Juliette groaned. ‘You should have woken me up.’

‘Yeah, that would have gone down well. I’ll go and warm them up for you,’ Morton said, sliding out from behind his desk. ‘Come downstairs with me and I’ll tell you about the case I’ve just started.’ He pointed at the wall. Colourful string now threaded out from Ann Fothergill’s name to a small collection of papers which related to her life.

‘Oh God, please don’t,’ Juliette replied, following him down the stairs. ‘I think it’d more than I can take. Just heat up the food, stick the television on and let me snuggle up next to you.’

‘Okay,’ Morton said with a laugh.

They entered the kitchen and Juliette slumped down at the table, using her arm as a pillow.

With precision timing, Grace began to wail.

Morton looked at Juliette and grinned.

Chapter Three

The day was miserable. The whole of the town of Rye—so heavily reliant on tourism—seemed to sit glumly under the despair of the dismal clouds that lingered overhead. Morton had cranked the central heating right up and had even resorted to pulling on his thick winter cardigan to try and counteract the dreariness of the day. He stared out of his study window through the incessant rain to the wet cobbles below. He hadn’t clapped eyes on a single soul for several minutes.

‘Come on, get back to it,’ he told himself. He needed to make good use of the next three days; Juliette had taken Grace to visit her mum, Margot, leaving a strangely quiet house behind. He strolled over to the investigation wall. Below Ann Fothergill’s name, Morton had added the key dates for his research: 1820-1827. A very small window of time. Pre-census and pre-civil registration, it was a period not exactly renowned for its abundance of genealogical records. However, in order to understand those seven years of Ann’s life, he needed to have as complete a picture as possible of the years which had preceded and succeeded them. Arthur had furnished Morton with copies of the 1841, 1851 and 1861 censuses. In each of them, Ann was described as a publican and living at the same property: Honey Pot House, Castle Avenue, Dover, Kent. Other residents, including an impressive array of domestic servants and her son, William Fothergill, came and went across the three decades.

The last official document of Ann’s life was her death certificate. She had died 2nd December 1869, aged sixty-six years at Honey Pot House. Her cause of death was listed as ‘paralysis and age’. The informant of the death was her son, William, who had been ‘in attendance’. According to the scant reference details of Ann’s will, which Morton had accessed last night on the Ancestry website, William had inherited a substantial sum from his mother: ‘…effects under £12,000’. Morton had then placed an order for a full copy of her will.

About Ann’s early life prior to the period in question, Arthur had given him very little information. Morton logged on to the FindmyPast website and typed ‘Ann Fothergill’ into the search box of their newspaper collection. The top result, dated 10th December 1820, was the report from which Arthur had yesterday quoted significant excerpts: ‘Maidstone Petty Sessions. Saturday—Before the Mayor (R.Haynes, Esq.) and J.L. Lowry, Esq—thirty-sixth appearance of Ann Fothergill, a woman charged with being drunk and disorderly in Strond Street, Dover, on the night of 26th November; also charged with assaulting Police Constable Pennells; also charged with having wilfully, and against the peace of His Majesty the King, very much alarmed the inmates of the Compass Inn, Strond Street, and broken one of the windows of that establishment, to the value of 5s. Mr William Driver, landlord of the Compass Inn, said that on the previous evening the lady, who had so frequently honoured the bench with her presence, came to his house in a happy state