The strange man in the street below had bothered Morton. It wasn’t the fact that he had looked up, or even the raising of his glass that troubled him—not a week in summer went by when somebody didn’t wave at him or knock on his front door asking for permission to photograph the house—there was just something unsettling and offensive in his behaviour and body language. It just wasn’t normal. In hindsight, Morton should have grabbed his phone or camera and taken a picture of him to give to Juliette. He could just imagine telling her about the weird man lurking outside their house. The first thing she’d ask for would be a description. Short hair. Grey suit. Fat or muscular, he couldn’t tell which. Odd. Very odd. He could just picture Juliette now, with her eyes rolling heavenward.
Morton sat back down at his desk, trying to forget about the bizarre beer-drinker in the ill-fitting suit. Prior to going to the window for some fresh air, he had been on the website of The Keep—the repository for all of East Sussex’s archives—searching for their workhouse records. After studying the Lovekin tree in further detail, it had occurred to him that Joseph and Eliza Lovekin’s death had left three girls alone in a pub, probably all under the age of eighteen. Whether the America Ground fell under the jurisdiction of Hastings or not was unlikely to impact on their ability to remain there as orphans. The problem that he had found was that most of the records which would be of any use to him, including admission and discharge registers, only began after the overhaul of the Poor Law in 1834. For the period in which he was interested, The Keep stored records of a mainly administrative and financial nature. Still, he could not sit back and simply ignore them; they may contain the smallest snippet of information that may help his case. He added all the relevant records to his online wishlist, pre-ordered the first three documents then closed his laptop and slid it inside his bag ready to go to the archive. In reaching for his notepad and pencil he noticed the vellum indentures: some feeling about them bothered him. They were such crucial documents to the Lovekin Case, yet he didn’t fully understand their contents. Unravelling the larger one carefully, he began to re-read it. The more he read of the complex legal language, the more his understanding of the entirety of the document was eroded; he realised then that his lack of expertise in this area meant that he had been neglecting its potential importance. He needed an expert in conveyancing to study it.
Skimming through the contact list on his mobile, Morton searched for someone whom he hoped might be able to help: Jenny Greenwood, an old friend, with whom he had worked on a previous case. He recalled from their discussions that her husband, Jonathan, worked as a solicitor specialising in conveyancing. It was worth a shot. He dialled their home number and waited. After several rings it went to answerphone. ‘Hello, Jenny. It’s Morton Farrier here. Hope you’re well. I was just wondering if your husband might be able to take a look at an interesting indenture I’ve got from 1827—it’s for a case I’m working on. Perhaps you or he could give me a ring? Thanks.’
He ended the call, filed the vellums in his bag and headed out to The Keep.
Morton parked his Mini, then marched in through the automatic doors to the cloakroom. Having removed his laptop, the indentures, notepad and pencil, he pushed his bag inside a vacant locker and made his way directly to the Reference Room. A large smile spread across his face when he saw that, behind the glass wall, was a new member of staff at the help desk—a large (in every direction) man with a trimmed black beard and a pleasant face. As Morton held his reader’s card up to the slender silver pillar and watched the red light switch to green, he desperately hoped that the new man might be Deidre Latimer’s replacement. Maybe, just maybe, the old dragon had finally retired. The glass door slid back gracefully, allowing him to enter.
‘Hi,’ Morton greeted, as he approached the desk.
‘Hello,’ the man replied warmly. ‘What can I do for you today, sir?’
Morton was momentarily stunned to be welcomed with such courteousness that he didn’t quite know what to say in reply. ‘Erm…I’ve pre-ordered some documents,’ he finally managed.
The man—whose name badge revealed him to be called Oliver Wheatley—smiled. ‘Okay, can I have your reader’s ticket, please?’
‘Oh yes, sorry,’ Morton said, sliding his card across the desk.
‘Any preference for which one first?’ Oliver enquired, scanning the card into the computer.
‘No, surprise me.’
Oliver smiled and ventured into the holding room out the back, returning moments later with a small beige ledger, which he handed to Morton. ‘Happy hunting.’
‘Thank you,’ Morton answered, carrying the book over to his usual desk on the far side of the room. He plugged in his laptop and made a record in his notepad of the document reference number, before placing the ledger in front of him. It was the size of a paperback and on the front was written Minutes of the Board.
Morton gently opened the book to the first handwritten pages, which began in 1825. As he began to trawl through the densely packed volume, he developed a picture of day-to-day life in the workhouse. He learnt that prayers were said twice a day, that a ‘Disinfection Officer’ called at the house on a regular basis to clear it of bug infestations, that the inmates washed in the sea and that they existed on a diet consisting mainly of bread, cheese and home-brewed beer. It was all very interesting to Morton but very few names of inmates cropped up in the minutes, except where a serious misdemeanour
