Morton shrugged. ‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon.’
Madge sat down opposite Morton and placed her manicured hands in her lap. Despite his misgivings about her, Morton had to admire the elegance and grace that she exuded. She had a neat white perm and always wore subtle make-up that accentuated her blue eyes. She had aged well and, had he not known any better, he would have thought her to be a good few years his father’s junior. In fact, there were only a couple of months between them. Madge pursed her lips together. ‘Well, while we’re waiting, I’ve got something to talk to you about.’
This is it, Morton thought. My dad’s out of the way and she’s going to use this opportunity to reveal something about my biological father. ‘Oh, right,’ Morton said coolly.
Madge leant over the side of her armchair and hauled out a dark wooden frame. She held it so that the contents—whether photographic or painted—were facing towards her. From the back, Morton could see that the frame was old and the backing frail and crumbling. ‘It’s this curious little thing,’ she said, turning it so that the painted image of a lady faced him. It was a bust-length portrait of a woman whom Morton guessed to be in her early forties and whose striking young features had been captured on canvas before the cruelties of age had set in.
He looked at the painting uncertainly. Was he supposed to know this woman? Did she have something to do with his past? He couldn’t quite see how—his immediate assessment of her hair and clothing suggested that the painting dated to the early 1800s.
‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ Madge admired.
It was Juliette who asked the question that Morton also wanted answering. ‘Is she anyone we should know? An old Farrier maid, perhaps?’
Madge’s face lit up. ‘Well, that’s what I’d like Morton to find out.’ She turned to him with a smile. ‘You said you weren’t busy at the moment—here’s a little project for you.’ She thrust the painting towards him. ‘Meet Eliza Lovekin.’
He took the painting, internal interest and annoyance vying for dominance. The annoyance stemmed from having genealogical work forced upon him at a time when he had deliberately cleared his diary to concentrate on finding his father. He looked again at Madge and the interest rose to the fore. ‘So, you already know who she is, then?’
Madge nodded. ‘It says as much on the bottom of the portrait – Eliza Lovekin, Hastings, 1825.’
The confusion began to lift, like a curtain on a stage. Madge worked at Bunny’s Emporium in Hastings Old Town. This painting had obviously come in and she wanted to know more about it. He hated this kind of work. Since taking on exhilarating genealogical cases that had made the headlines, he found much less interest in standard ancestral trails such as was being presented right now. ‘Right,’ was all the enthusiasm he could muster.
Madge went on to confirm his worst fears. ‘The short and tall of it is this: Bunny Llewellyn—my delightful but very eccentric boss—found this painting on one of her regular jaunts to London and because it had the word Hastings on it, thought it might well sell in her shop…’
‘And with a clear provenance, it will be worth much more,’ Morton interjected.
‘Exactly,’ Madge responded with a large grin. ‘She’s willing to pay you for Eliza’s history, knowing that the painting will sell for a lot more if it has a story attached to it.’
‘I charge a lot these days,’ Morton warned, hoping that that would be enough to put her off.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. She’s very well off. Her father died a few months ago and left her a tidy sum. Plus she’s done well from her two husbands along the way.’
Morton glanced sideways at Juliette and knew from her expression that she understood his predicament. He redirected his attention to Madge. ‘What is it Bunny wants to know, exactly?’
‘Her life. A basic family, who she was, where she came from—that sort of thing.’
Morton nodded.
‘One thing she does know is this,’ Madge said, handing over a piece of paper. It was a scanned copy from a burial register.
Morton ran his eyes down the page until he found a familiar name:
Name: Eliza Lovekin
Abode: The Priory Ground
When buried: 1st May 1827
Age: 41
By whom the Ceremony was performed: G. Matthews
Just below the ‘When buried’ column, each entry had the welcome additional information of cause of death—not entirely uncommon in Morton’s experience.
‘Murdered?’ Morton read.
‘Oh, yes,’ Madge said, clearly unable to contain the excitement in her voice.
‘What?’ Juliette said, craning her neck to see. ‘Why?’
‘That’s what we need Morton to discover!’ Madge chirped. ‘Do you think you can?’
There was a question. It was asked in such a blasé fashion, as if it were that simple. Just find a killer one hundred and eighty years after the murder had occurred. Easy. If—and it was a big if—it could be achieved, then the key would be to know everything about Eliza and her family’s life.
‘We’ll have to see,’ he answered noncommittally.
‘There’s one other thing. Turn it around,’ Madge instructed.
Morton flipped the painting around and noticed a large tear in one side of the backing material.
‘Open it up,’ Madge enthused.
Morton looked quizzically at the frame then gently delved his fingers behind the thin backing paper. His fingertips brushed against the
