The article, Morton noted, was very clear in not articulating that the two men were Principal Officers. Returning to the search results, Morton found further appeals for the two men in many other local and regional newspapers, running for several weeks more.
Morton opened the document of notes which would form the basis of his final report into the Fothergill Case, and saw confirmation of one part of his misgivings. Ann Fothergill baptised 19th July 1803, St Mary the Virgin Church, Ramsgate to Sophia Fothergill. Sophia married Isaac Bull in 1816. Sophia buried 1817…
Jonas Blackwood and Thomas Nightingale had disappeared following the commencement of a new case, in Ramsgate, which had been commissioned by a man named Isaac Bull. Around this time—possibly, he had to admit, by coincidence—the bodies of two men were interred in the chimney place of a pub owned by Ann Fothergill. But, the problems with this neat narrative—namely that when the two men had been discovered in 1963, they had been wearing coastguard uniforms—became more troubled when Morton ran a search for the death of Isaac Bull and found that he had been buried just three weeks after Sophia in 1817.
Suddenly, a multitude of possible explanations entered Morton’s mind. He sat staring into space, giving each possibility due consideration, before moving on to the next. His previous belief that Ann had parted company with the smuggling group in 1825 now looked much more doubtful and threw a new uncertain light on his research here.
Picking up his mobile, Morton began to re-read the case files and correspondence, which he had photographed that afternoon, reappraising it with the latest information in mind. He stalled at the letter, which had been incorrectly dated as 1821, which Jonas Blackwood had sent to Bow Street. ‘Memorandum from J. Blackwood, Principal Officer. Aldington, Kent. 18th November 1821. Please pass word to Mr Proctor that I will see him to-morrow—smuggling case here terminated by client. I shall return to Bow Street to-morrow morning by chaise. Your obedient servant, J. Blackwood.’
What if it hadn’t been incorrectly dated?
Morton hastily ordered the case files for the previous period to that which he had already searched, 1818-1824.
And now came a frustrating wait.
He placed the documents back into the box, and handed it in at the counter, half-expecting, but not receiving some pithy remark about keeping it by in case it should be required again.
He strolled down to the ground floor, unable to prevent himself from working to unravel the threads of the case. He took a weak watery coffee from a vending machine and looked at the digital display board, which gave timings in red LED letters for document delivery.
As he sat at a small table and drank the insipid coffee, his thoughts leapfrogged around the case, ending up at what had happened last night at Braemar Cottage. According to Juliette, two police officers had been waiting inside the property, not, as Morton had suggested, in the outbuilding itself. Phillip Garrow had managed to reach the back of the garden without being detected until one of the police officers had spotted movement down the garden, using a pair of the homeowner’s binoculars. They had rushed out to get him, but he had disappeared over the back fence before they had been able to apprehend him. There was still no sign of him.
‘And what was in the outbuilding?’ Morton had pressed Juliette, expecting the answer to be along the lines of nothing at all, or the usual garden junk which people store in such places.
‘Two wooden barrels,’ she had revealed.
Morton had sat up in bed, stunned. ‘What?’
‘Two wooden barrels,’ she had confirmed.
‘No… Full of gold guineas?’ Morton had said. ‘Jesus, they were right.’
‘Not full of gold guineas, no,’ Juliette had said. ‘Full of nothing. They were empty. No, tell a lie, there was one coin, a single gold guinea, found wedged at the bottom of one of them.’
‘Oh…’ Morton had said, entirely flummoxed by her disclosure.
The barrels of gold guineas had existed but did not any longer. When they had been emptied, it was impossible to say. Any number of previous tenants in the past hundred-and-ninety-odd years could have discovered them.
With a small insignificant beeping, the display board changed and documents ordered half an hour previously were now available in the search room.
Morton dropped the half-drunk coffee into a bin and bounded upstairs to the Archive Study Area, where he was relieved to see somebody different sitting behind the desk: a middle-aged brunette with round glasses and a wide smile of welcome. ‘What can I do for you, love?’ this new archivist asked.
Morton handed over his History Card, asking for the Bow Street case files and watched with slight edginess, as she marched up and down the shelving until she reached the place where the documents destined for him were contained.
‘Ah. Here we are,’ she said, reaching for it, then passing it over the counter to him.
‘Thanks,’ Morton said, returning to his desk.
The case files were arranged chronologically in a similar fashion to those which had followed later. The main problem he had was not really knowing for what he was searching.
He looked at the clock. The building would be closing in just over an hour: he needed to navigate the delicate balance between diligence and haste very prudently.
