Mortonnodded. The firm, concrete news that the Windsor-Sackvilles and theColdricks were completely unrelated hit him hard, knocking him back to squareone. Yet deep down, he had known it all along; his gut reaction, his‘natural genealogical instinct’ had told him so.
‘In layman’sterms,’ Dr Baumgartner simplified, ‘not that a forensic genealogist is in anyway a layman, but they are quite frankly genetic chalk and cheese. All forty-three markers we tested came back negative.’ He must have seensomething like disappointment on Morton’s face as he felt the need to add,‘sorry.’
‘No, it’sfine,’ Morton said, trying his damndest to stop his mind going intofree-fall. All of that work for nothing. It was too late; histhoughts exploded in a hundred directions as he considered all that he’d doneand had done to him was in vain. ‘Well, that’s it then. I’ve nowhereelse to take it.’
‘Morton, that’snot what I expect from a first-class student like you,’ Dr Baumgartner said,his scraggy eyebrows pulled tight into a grimace. He was being deadlyserious.
‘But that’s it,there’s nowhere else to go.’
‘Don’t you wantto know about these before you throw in the towel so hastily?’ Dr Baumgartnersaid, placing the copper box on the table. ‘Very interesting indeed.’
Morton sat up,ready to listen.
Dr Baumgartnerplaced the headshot photograph of James Coldrick’s mother on the table betweenthem and pulled out a large, heavyweight magnifying glass. The exact sameone he’d used during his time lecturing at university. He placed themagnifying glass on the photo and raised his eyebrows suggestively to Morton, justlike he used to at university. Dr Baumgartner had never been a fan ofspoon-feeding his students. If they didn’t have the skills to find theanswers for themselves then they were in the wrong field. Simple asthat. Morton leant forwards and studied the image. He’d looked atit over and over again – the last time just twenty minutes ago on the trainhere. There was nothing new to see, no reflection in her eyes, nothing atall in the background. It simply was a photograph of her head andshoulders. She wore small gold studs in her ears and some kind ofnecklace. What had he missed? Maybe nothing, maybe this was abizarre lesson in learning when to admit defeat. No, that really wasn’tDr Baumgartner’s style at all. There was no such thing as defeat in his book. Plus, his smug face made it clear that he knew something. Morton lookedup for further guidance, another clue.
‘Why do youthink the photo is cut like that?’ Dr Baumgartner asked. ‘The sides andtop are neatly trimmed equidistanced around the woman’s head, yet the bottomslopes sharply from left to right. What has the person who cut this phototried to remove?’
God, it reallywas like being back in his classroom. ‘Her clothes?’
‘Exactly! She was wearing something that would identify her immediately, but whoever cutthis picture left us one very large clue around her neck.’
Morton studiedthe photograph. What was he not getting? A simple gold chainculminated in a pendant of some kind, ninety per cent of which was not in thephoto. Only three narrow bars with rounded edges stacked one above theother, slightly offset remained. ‘A bird’s wingtip?’ Morton ventureduncertainly.
‘Yes!’ DrBaumgartner screeched loudly. ‘Any particular bird?’
‘Eagle?’ Mortonguessed, still not getting Dr Baumgartner’s excitement.
It all becameclear when Dr Baumgartner slid a piece of paper across the table. Mortonunfolded it and was stunned.
‘Christ.’
‘Still want togive in?’
‘No.’
It felt like he’d undergone atransformation, like he was a fully-subscribed, born-again genealogist. Make that a born-again forensic genealogist. The distinction wasimportant. ‘Deidre, how are you today?’ Morton had greetedbrashly as he burst whirlwind-like into East Sussex Archives. ‘These areliterally flying from your shelves,’ he said emphatically, shoving agreat stack of his business cards into the holder made vacant since hisprevious visit. Evidently Morton’s greeting was like a tranquilliser toher cold black heart because she stared, dumbstruck at him, unable to lance himwith an icy jab. He scribbled a high-speed entry in the admissions bookand bounced up the stairs into the search room. He had wondered what hewould say if he were confronted by Max Fairbrother. He still held a greatmistrust for the man and was sure that he hadn’t told him everything heknew. As it turned out, it didn’t matter; Max was, according to QuietBrian, currently enjoying two weeks' leave in Florence. A fortnight insouthern Italy sounded like the most perfect post-Coldrick Case antidoteMorton could think of. He’d reclassified the Coldrick job back up to the ColdrickCase in light of the evidence found dangling around James Coldrick’smother’s neck. ‘The Reichsadler,’ Dr Baumgartner had told him,having handed him an A4 printout of the full pendant. The bird’s wingtip,the only part visible in the photograph, belonged to an eagle clutching awreath of oak leaves, inside of which was a large, unequivocal swastika. James Coldrick’s mother was wearing the Nazi party emblem around herneck. In Britain. During the peak of World War Two. The ColdrickCase had suddenly taken a giant step forward into the unknown. DrBaumgartner had passed Morton the phone number of one Professor GeoffreyDaniels, who worked at the National Archives of Berlin and whose field ofexpertise was Germany and the Second World War, just in case he needed it.
Quiet Briantold Morton where to find the files containing information on enemy aliens, asGermans and Austrians had been called during the war, as if they had allarrived via a UFO from Mars rather than on a boat from mainland Europe.
Morton withdrewa chunky folder from the shelf and took a seat in the crowded searchroom. He read, with a sudden and unexpected twinge of sympathy, throughthe countless and increasingly aggressive directives and instructions from theHome Office to the local County Council regarding what to do with anyone ofGerman or Austrian descent. Was James Coldrick’s mother one of the thousandsof aliens rounded up within forty-eight hours of Churchill coming to power in1940? It seemed so unlikely, somehow. He flicked past variousletters and pieces of correspondence marked ‘confidential’ or ‘secret’ until hereached the files that he had come to see: ‘Home Office: Aliens Department:Aliens Personal Files HO 382.’ He quickly scribbled down the referencenumber, located the relevant (and alarmingly bulky) film and hurried over tothe bank
