Frederickentered the fastidiously tidy study and sat at his desk, pensively tapping hisfingers. ‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered to himself, despising tardinessand dilly-dallying. Of course, he knew where his son would be: in theorchard.
A light tap atthe door. ‘Father?’ David said, breathlessly.
‘Come in andsit down. Shut the door.’
David obeyedhis father and sat down, knowing that his father had something significant tosay.
‘How is she?’Frederick asked, his eyebrows furrowed.
David’s eyeslit up. ‘Very well. The nurse thinks the baby will be here withinthe hour.’
Frederickclenched his jaw. Not the news he wanted to hear. ‘Look, I won’tbeat around the bush, David. The war is changing direction. Plansare afoot for something big. Something which will turn the tide of war.’
David’s facefell. ‘What does this mean?’
‘I think youknow what it means. Over the next few weeks we need to sever all tieswith Emily’s family. File everything you have in the archivesready to be destroyed.’
‘And the baby?’David asked, unable to look his father in the eyes any longer.
Frederickwaited until his son glanced up then shook his head solemnly.
‘A boy!’ thenurse called, bundling the baby up and placing it on Emily’s naked breast.
Emily, tiredand exhausted, smiled and held the baby tightly to her. A boy! Exactly what she wanted. What they wanted. Needed. Aboy to continue the family name. A gentle breeze fluttered in fromthe orchard outside, cooling the sweat on Emily’s forehead. She looked atthe boy, tenderly squirming and writhing in her arms. Just like her, hehad bright blue eyes and chestnut-brown hair. He was perfection.
‘Any ideas ofnames yet?’ the nurse asked.
‘His fatherwants him to be called James,’ Emily replied.
‘Lovely name!’the nurse exclaimed.
Chapter Thirteen
Friday
Morton was sitting outside The ClockhouseTearoom in Sedlescombe in a t-shirt and jeans, with a pair of binocularsdangling from his neck, rubbing his tired eyes. He had barely slept lastnight, having spent much of the night mulling over the Coldrick Case. Hehad countless more questions than he had answers, yet the involvement of theWindsor-Sackvilles was becoming impossible to doubt. As a forensicgenealogist, he needed firm, concrete proof – the type to be found in archivesand record offices. He had spent most of the previous evening using hisfather’s prehistoric PC to search www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/ - the portalused for locating government and private documents in England and Wales fromthe eighth century to the present day. He began by searching general keywords, leaving the date, repository, place and region fields blank, thengradually began to narrow and refine his search. As the evening wore on,he had gained a better understanding of the political roles of theWindsor-Saville family, but crucially, there were no private records pertainingto the family in any repository. All the documents he found links to,even those recently released under various closure and secrecy rules, wereinnocuous ones relating to the business of government – nothing which wouldgive him the evidence he needed to find a link from James Coldrick to theWindsor-Sackvilles. Whilst he was online Morton had searched the birthindex for a James Windsor-Sackville born circa 1944. He wasn’t surprisedto read that ‘No matches found’ was the answer. If James Coldrick wasindeed the illegitimate son of Sir David James Peregrine and Maria CharlotteWindsor-Sackville then he doubted that they would be so blatant to haveregistered his birth for the entire world to see.
A young, blondewaitress set a tray down in front of Morton with a flirtatious smile. Hethanked her and couldn’t resist a glance at her svelte figure as she totteredback inside the tearoom. Rather inexplicably, he felt quite relaxed, asif he was on a jaunt in the countryside and had happened upon a twee, genteeltearoom, replete with floral crockery and lace doilies. Maybe it wassitting on the patio on a hot, still day that was having a calming influence onhim.
As he pouredhimself a filter coffee, Morton looked across at the pair of tall, grand, irongates, which barred entry to Charingsby. If answers to the questions hesought existed, then they would be found behind those gates. All thatcould be seen of Charingsby was a gravel, beech-lined drive cutting through abilliard-table lawn. Nothing of the house could be glimpsed from outside– probably just the way the Windsor-Sackvilles liked it. Morton was herefor one very simple reason: he wanted to gain entry into the estate. Lastnight he had spotted an anomaly and potential lead, which he needed toexplore. According to the Ordinance Survey map, the sprawling estate ofCharingsby incorporated a gatehouse cottage, a run of tied workers’ cottages,various out-buildings and a stable complex - something which corresponded withGoogle Maps. However, whilst carefully examining the whole estate usingthe aerial satellite function on Google Maps, Morton spotted a small,pale-coloured building set in the middle of what, according to the map, shouldhave been solid, ancient woodland. He cross-referenced the location onwww.old-maps.co.uk/, where he pulled up images of the estate from 1841, 1873,1908 and 1949. The building appeared on the first three maps, yet wasabsent by 1949. A missing building on a map would not usually havewarranted the plan he was about to execute. However, the fact that in thebackground of the photograph of James Coldrick as a baby was a small,pale-coloured building rang alarm bells in Morton’s head. The fact thatthere was a tall chimney to the west of the building was impossible to ignore.
Morton drank amouthful of coffee. Gaining entry was going to be difficult and illegal,much to Juliette’s dismay when he had told her of his plans. She haddecided that she could no longer wait for the insurance money to come through,so she called her best friend, Rita and the two of them went to Tunbridge Wellsto buy some clothes. ‘A lot of clothes, Morton’ she had warned him. He could hardly protest. He was happy enough for the time being helpinghimself to Jeremy’s wardrobe and all that he had asked Juliette to buy for himwas a new laptop, since he’d inadvertently lost two in just over a week. Given all that had happened, he would rather be wandering aimlessly betweenNext, Top Man, River Island and H&M, trying on new clothes than
