Morton needed copies of the entries and of course he glanced through the glass wall to determine what Brenda Buxton was doing; she was looking at him, unflinching. He acknowledged her with a wave then carried the papers to the help desk.
‘Could I get these copied, please?’ he asked a pleasant-looking lady with a round face and short bleached hair.
She smiled. ‘Sure. Have you got more to do here today?’
‘Yes,’ Morton answered, with a nod towards the run of microfilm readers on the other side of the glass. ‘I’ve got some things to do out there.’
‘Okay, well you carry on and I’ll get these copied and you can pick them up at the end.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, heading back to his seat at the microfilm. He pulled the chair back and recoiled slightly. There was a note. Morton, time’s running out. Don’t try anything silly. He quickly scanned the room but could see nobody who looked out of the ordinary. Certainly nobody like the thugs who had been following him of late. He picked up the note. ‘Excuse me, did you happen to see who left this on my chair?’ he called to Brenda Buxton, who was watching him intently.
She shook her head, but still said nothing.
‘Thanks,’ came his sarcastic response, as he screwed the note up, hoping that whoever had delivered it was still watching. He tossed the paper to one side and returned to the task in hand: locating the baptisms for the three girls’ children. He buzzed the film onto 1803 and found them on the same page:
January 12, Richard Winter, baseborn son of Eliza Winter
March 24, Jane Odden, baseborn daughter of Amelia Odden
July 4, Charles Booth, baseborn son of Lydia Booth
Richard Winter, Morton wrote on his notepad, drawing a large circle around the name. What had happened to him? In all of his research so far, there had been no mention of him. Perhaps he had died young? Morton wondered, fixated by what was onscreen.
Seeing the names like that, so casually written by the vicar who had performed the ceremonies, carrying with it the oblique judgement on their situation, Morton felt a pang of sympathy.
He sat back and looked at the names. If his initial hunch that perhaps Eliza had been murdered by Thomas Honeysett was correct, then surely the other two girls would also have suffered the same fate? He looked at the clock and wondered if he could justify spending time trawling through workhouse and parish registers to determine what had happened to Amelia and Lydia; he reasoned that their lives were so entwined with Eliza’s that it would be irresponsible to not. Plus, there was now a new person to add to Eliza’s family tree: Richard Winter.
The front door resisted as Morton pushed against it and, for a moment, he felt the wrench of anxiety about who or what might be behind it. He recoiled, stepping back as a creep of panic began to set in. Then he caught sight of the edge of an envelope. Several envelopes, in fact. He pushed the door, harder this time, forcing it over the huge stack of post, which Morton was very pleased to see largely comprised the brown A5 envelopes from the General Register Office. It always perplexed him that no matter how large the certificate order, they would always be posted individually.
He wasn’t expecting Juliette home for several hours, so Morton made himself a large cup of coffee—the largest cup that he could find in the cupboard—and carried the certificates upstairs to his study. The afternoon at the Kent History and Library Centre had not been as profitable as the morning had been. He had slowly picked through every workhouse record that existed for the period and checked the Westwell parish registers for traces of the three girls and their families. He had left at closing time, having not finished his work.
Morton set his coffee down on his desk and began to stick his new research onto the wall. Among the key findings this afternoon was the confirmation that Thomas Honeysett, the guardian of the Westwell Workhouse, was definitely the same man who had signed Eliza Lovekin’s indenture. From reading official correspondence to and from the workhouse, Morton had also learned that Eliza had suddenly abandoned Richard one day in 1803, leaving him to the care of the workhouse until he was old enough to fend for himself. Except the day when he could leave the workhouse of his own volition had never occurred: in late 1803, Richard had been removed from the workhouse. The name of the person who had taken him had surprised Morton greatly: it was Richard’s father, Thomas Honeysett.
Staring at the wall in front of him, which now had precious little space available, Morton was convinced that it was indeed Thomas Honeysett who had murdered Eliza. But he had yet to find out what had become of the other two girls to see if they had suffered the same fate. He had found no trace of their marriages or burials in the Westwell registers and he was hoping to have found them on the census or perhaps found a marriage or their deaths during the period of civil registration, but he had run out of time at the archive; and right now there were more pressing problems to deal with.
Morton began sifting through the abundance of certificates that had arrived. Most he had ordered to tie up loose ends and to corroborate his findings, providing a demonstrable lineage for the Lovekin family.
He reached Horace Strickland’s death certificate. He had died on the 21st March 1988 at The Forester’s Arms. The cause of his
