She wriggled frantically, but his grip only tightened.
She tried to kick out, but he pressed his body firmly into hers, so that the odour from his breath was matched by the odour from his unwashed body.
The man wheezed and snorted, mocking her resistance but continued undeterred.
Harriet squirmed and thrashed but knew that she was entirely powerless to stop the inevitable.
Chapter Six
Morton’s study resembled a miniature library; every inch of wall space was occupied with shelves and cabinets supporting books, files and journals on almost every subject. All that is except for one wall, which was used, rather like a police incident room, for the attaching of evidence from his genealogical investigations. Morton had unstuck and shifted the slim research into his biological father, to make an area available to the Lovekin Case. In the centre of the wall was now a copy of Eliza’s painted portrait. On yellow Post-it notes below the picture was written: ‘born c.1786, buried 1 May 1827 St Clements Church. Murdered.’ From Eliza’s picture flowed several pieces of coloured string, the terminus of each being notes and printouts that Morton had so far unearthed. As he looked at the wall he wondered if Eliza being murdered was a good thing or a bad thing to be able to add to her provenance. Did it make the painting more valuable? he pondered. Or more saleable? He wasn’t sure he would want a random painting of a murdered woman hanging in his house.
He looked at the date of Eliza’s burial and returned to the same curious coincidence that he had first spotted yesterday: that just one week after obtaining the freehold entitlement to a tract of land on the America Ground, Eliza was murdered. From past experience, Morton found that such coincidences were rarely the remarkable concurrence of unrelated events that they might have first appeared to have been. His genealogical instinct told him that something was amiss. Perhaps the current owners of the land could shed some light.
Opening up a web browser, Morton typed ‘Riccards-Maloney’ into Google. He clicked on the first result, which linked to the company’s website. Below their name and the location of their offices (London, Sydney, New York) was a revolving picture gallery showing an impressive array of properties and a mission statement which read: Riccards-Maloney is an independent property and land development company, with experience of building and refurbishing properties for the commercial and residential sectors for over thirty-five years. Morton located the ‘Contact us’ button from the drop-down menu and composed an email to them, relaying the basic outline of the case so far and requesting any information that they could offer on the freehold entitlement currently in his possession. Having read it through carefully, he clicked ‘send’.
Since Joseph and Eliza had died just a month apart, Morton wanted to know—assuming that they were a couple—if there were any surviving children who stood to inherit from them. Running a search in the National Archives’ online wills and probate index produced no results.
He looked down at his notepad where the next steps in his research were written, but there seemed little point in pursuing the case if the information that he had already obtained was sufficient for his client. He looked up a phone number for Bunny’s shop and dialled.
‘Hello, Bunny’s Emporium, Madge speaking.’
Morton felt his insides wilt. Madge. Why did she have to be the one to answer? In a fleeting moment of desperation he actually considered disguising his voice or hanging up altogether.
‘Hello? Is there anyone there?’ Madge asked.
‘Oh, hello, Madge,’ he finally answered, in his best attempt at sincerity. ‘It’s Morton here. I was just phoning to speak to Bunny.’
‘Morton—how lovely! How are you today?’ she asked brightly—a little too brightly for his liking. There had been no contact between them since the very uncomfortable meal two nights ago when the wedding bombshell had been detonated.
‘Yes, fine, thank you,’ he answered, wincing as he added, ‘How are you?’
‘Not too bad,’ she said, before lowering her voice. ‘Sorry about the other night—you know, with your father being like he was. You know what he can be like.’
Morton mumbled his agreement; he knew exactly what his father could be like.
‘It’s just…’ Madge began. ‘It’s this American chap…I mean…do you really need to be doing what you are doing? It’s a different time…different people…I don’t understand why you’re…why you would want to do this.’
A sudden flurry of bilious anger swelled inside Morton. How dare she? He knew that he had ambushed his father somewhat, but she had absolutely no place to dictate anything to him. Having taken so long to even consider pursuing his own ancestry, he was now on an unstoppable journey to find his biological father and nobody was going to stand in his way. And definitely not Madge.
‘Are you still there, Morton?’ she pushed.
‘Yes, I’m still here,’ he answered sourly. He breathed deeply, swallowing down the rancour that he felt lining his throat. ‘Is Bunny there? I need to talk to her about Eliza Lovekin.’
‘Have you found the murderer yet?’ Madge asked.
Really? Morton thought. After two days? ‘No, not quite. Is Bunny there? I need to know how much more research she wants me to undertake. Bearing in mind she’s paying for my time.’
‘Well I hope you find him,’ Madge continued. ‘She looked so beautiful in that painting, it doesn’t bear thinking about that someone
