Mortoncarefully placed the copper box and the book containing the letter andphotograph into his briefcase and led the way out of the macabre house into thepounding rain.
Morton pulled up outside his house, theimpacting rain relentlessly hammering the car. He switched off the engineand stared out into the grey gloominess. He hoped that Soraya would be okayby herself after she had insisted she wanted to be alone when they left Peter'shouse. ‘I’ve got some bits to do before I collect Fin from school,’ she’dsaid, so he sat and watched as she ran from the car with her coat pulled upover her head. Seconds later she was gone inside and he made his wayhome.
Morton pickedup his briefcase from the back seat of the car and dashed inside his house. He slammed the door on the foul weather and picked up the collection ofdamp post squashed against the wall. He set down his briefcase andflicked through the pile of dreary bills and correspondence; at the bottom wasa white envelope with the familiar red stamp of the General Register Officeemblazoned on the front: William Dunk’s death certificate. Morton tore itopen and scanned the content.
Date and place of death: Eighteenth July2002, Conquest Hospital, Hastings
Name and surname: William Charles Dunk
Sex: Male
Date and place of birth: 1 April 1913,Stepney, London
Occupation and usual address: Handyman (retired),Smuggler’s Keep,
Dungeness Road, Dungeness, Kent
Name and surname of informant: Daniel Dunk
Qualification: Son
Usual address: Smuggler’s Keep, DungenessRoad, Dungeness, Kent
Cause of death:
I(a) Myocardial infarction
(b) Left ventricular hypertrophy andcoronary atherosclerosis
(c) Diabetes mellitus
It was correct; it had to be the rightWilliam Dunk. Morton read the certificate three times and wondered what a‘handyman’ - a euphemism if ever there was one - born in London and living inDungeness, was doing coercing Max Fairbrother into stealing the 1944 admissionfile for St George's.
He scooped upthe rest of the day’s post and made his way upstairs. Juliette was on alate shift, so the house was deserted. Still feeling paranoid about thehouse being watched, Morton tentatively checked that each room was definitelyempty, even going as far as looking in the wardrobe and under the bed. Outside, Church Square stood deserted, the inclement weather deterring touristsand nefarious visitors alike. Satisfied that he was completely alone, hemade himself a coffee and a cheese sandwich and sat down at his desk with thedeath certificate, the copper box, the headshot photo and letter. Nomatter how many times he studied each item, he could find no common link thatmade any logical sense. He had two new leads: firstly to locate WilliamDunk’s son, Daniel, and politely enquire as to his father’s ‘handyman’ dealingsin the late 1980s and secondly, to research the coat of arms on the box which,he realised, might well not have any connection to the Coldrick Case atall. James Coldrick could just as easily have picked it up from a junkshop as inherited it. Was it the box itself that Peter wanted to showhim, or the contents, which were now missing?
Morton openedup Juliette’s laptop and ran an online electoral register search for DanielDunk. Two minutes later, the results unequivocally confirmed that Danielstill resided at Smuggler’s Keep, Dungeness. Perfect.
Chapter Eight
7thMay 1944
A vociferous skylark rose hastily from thenoiseless orchard, piercing the calm skies which had, for the past four years,been filled with turbulence and anger. For almost two months now, theskies had been empty of the German Luftwaffe planes, which Emily hadwatched droning over in their hundreds, day and night for what seemed like alifetime. The current tranquillity alarmed her.
‘Emily, smile!’a voice belonging to William Dunk called fondly behind her, snapping her fromher reveries. Smile. That’s what she needed to do – it wasno use fretting. It was always going to be a long game.
‘Wait!’ Emilysaid. ‘I want a photo with the baby.’
Williamplayfully rolled his eyes and waited as she passed through the white-blossomedplum trees to her home, where the baby was resting in his cot. Inside waspleasantly cool, the flagstone flooring providing a welcome barrier to theoppressive heat outside. She pushed open the door to the bedroom that sheshared with the baby and found him wide awake, contentedly staring through thewindow at the dense woodlands in the distance. Emily smiled and watched,wondering what the darling child could be thinking about. Maybe he hadsome innate sense of the foreboding she felt. Maybe he knew that thingswere changing.
The baby turnedhis head and noticed Emily, the faint flicker of a smile erupting on his tiny,precious face. His first smile had appeared just four days ago, an eventEmily now wanted to try and capture on camera. She picked the baby up andcarried him out into the calmness of the afternoon.
‘How do Ilook?’ Emily asked her companion.
‘Stunning – asalways,’ William replied, holding the Box Brownie camera up to his face.
‘Try and gethim smiling,’ she said, ignoring his flirtatious comment. She carefullyangled the baby towards the camera, avoiding the direct glare from the sun.
A clunk and aflash and the day was forever captured.
William set thecamera down in the long orchard grass. He walked the short distance toher and leant in to kiss her on the lips but she turned at the last moment.
‘No, wecan’t. I’ve told you – it’s over. Now that I’ve got the baby…’ Hervoice trailed off.
‘We can go fromhere. Disappear – it’s easy in wartime. I’ll pretend he’s mine,I’ve told you.’
Emily shook herhead indignantly. ‘I need to feed him. Goodbye, William. Youshouldn't come here again - for all our sakes.’
She pulled thebaby tight to her chest and strode through the orchard into the house.
William, usedto her brashness by now, watched and wondered.
Chapter Nine
Tuesday
Dungeness really was a bleak craphole whenit was raining, Morton thought. It was also a bleak craphole when itwasn’t raining. Craphole was the wrong word; it was just weird,all those wooden and tin shacks, dilapidated buildings and all that endlessshingle. They even had tumbleweed. If anything told you that aplace was uninhabitable then it was tumbleweed. A paradise for artists,though, apparently.
Morton sloweddown to ten miles an hour as he drove along Dungeness Road, the monstrousnuclear power station looming large in front of him. He’d once
