With her meal only half-eaten, Juliette set down her knife and fork.
‘Shall I pay?’ Morton asked.
Juliette nodded and pulled on her coat.
‘Was there something wrong with your meal?’ the waiter asked, as he took Morton’s credit card.
‘No, it was lovely, thank you; we’re just not very hungry at the moment. Sorry.’
The silence that had dominated their meal followed them out of the restaurant and up the cobbles of Mermaid Street. They were within a few feet of their home when Juliette finally spoke.
‘Oh God,’ she uttered, standing still.
Morton stopped and followed her line of vision. ‘Shit.’
The second front door—the one which was not used—was wide open. Definitely not how they had left it.
Cautiously, the pair walked up the steps. Juliette entered the house first and switched on the hall light. ‘We’ve been burgled.’
Chapter Ten
The burglars had taken nothing, that was what Morton and Juliette had told the police last night when they had arrived home from an awful evening out and discovered that their house had been turned upside down. More specifically, Morton’s study had been turned upside down; the rest of the house was largely unaffected. The television, laptops, cameras, jewellery and cash—all left untouched.
‘Maybe they were disturbed,’ Steve, one of the police officers, had suggested at the sight of all the valuables having been left.
‘Disturbed in the mind,’ Morton had mumbled.
‘Looks like they got in through that other front door,’ Steve had added. ‘You might want to consider bricking it up.’
Morton had looked at him incredulously and realised that he was actually being serious. ‘Yeah, maybe we’ll get both front doors bricked up while we’re there,’ he had responded sarcastically.
Steve had nodded and continued with his investigation. Then a young woman from CSI had turned up and Morton and Juliette had been asked to wait outside.
‘But nothing was taken,’ Morton had said.
‘Burglary is entering with the intent to steal or commit other offences,’ Juliette had clarified, as she pulled on her coat. ‘Besides which, we still want to catch them, whether they took anything or not.’
‘Maybe they didn’t find what they were looking for,’ Steve had warned ominously.
‘Come on, let’s get a drink from the Mermaid, while they get on in here,’ Juliette had suggested.
Just before midnight the police and CSI had wrapped up their investigations, leaving Morton and Juliette to begin the tidy-up operation.
‘It’s weird that they targeted your study and yet took nothing. Are you sure?’ Juliette had asked, as they began to clear the only mess in the lounge—a raked-out bureau.
‘Yeah, think so. My camera and laptop were the main things of value and they’re still there, thankfully.’
‘Just stop a minute and look around—the person, or people, weren’t after electronics or money. What if Steve was right—what if they didn’t find what they were looking for? Do you have anything non-electronic that’s of value up there?’
Then the picture had crystallised and Morton felt stupid for not having thought of it before: the only thing of potential value in his office were the indentures.
Morton had dashed up to his study and pulled open his bag.
The indentures were, rather predictably, gone.
It was the morning following the break in. Morton had done a little research into the village of Westwell and where the records for the parish were kept, but he wasn’t in the right frame of mind.
He finished his coffee—his third of the day already—and exhaled sharply, slumping down into his study chair. His mood was low and everything that entered his mind—his own family history research, what had occurred last night with Juliette, the burglary and the loss of the indentures—was negative.
The pictures, certificates and scraps of paper affixed to Morton’s study wall suddenly shivered as a draught blew in from outside. He stood up and closed the window, remembering then the strange man that had yesterday stared up at him, raising his glass in a provocative manner. That night they had been burgled and the indentures had been stolen. It wasn’t too much a stretch of the imagination to think that the two were connected. What could that man have wanted with the indentures? And how did he know that they were here? Morton wondered, now even more annoyed with himself for not having taken a photo of the odd man. He knew, of course, that Jonathan Greenwood had taken copies of the indentures, so they were not entirely lost, but the theft had now ruled out Morton finding living descendants to trace; there was no way photocopies would ever stand up in court.
He should make a trip to the Kent History and Library Centre at Maidstone. He should apologise to Juliette. He should phone Bunny and tell her that the most valuable part of the items that she had entrusted to him had been stolen. But his pessimism pinned him to the chair.
A while later, his mind in a heavy fog, an alert sounded from his phone and, hoping that it was something from Roy Dyche, Morton opened his emails. It was from Ancestry. Great news! Your AncestryDNA results are in. The moment you’ve been waiting for is here. The AncestryDNA results are ready for: Morton Farrier. With a sudden burst of energy, Morton clicked the button to see his results. A web browser pinged open and there they were. Below a title of Ethnicity Estimate for Morton Farrier, was a geographical breakdown of his DNA. According to the results, he was 100% European. His eyes darting and flicking up and down the results, he couldn’t quite believe what he was reading. His European heritage broke down as approximately 66% Western Europe, 13% Irish, 10% Scandinavian, 7% Iberian
