‘And you’re paying cash, is that right?’
‘That’s right,’ Morton said, scrabbling in his pockets then handing over the money.
‘Thank you. You’re in room twenty-two, which is a lovely premier first-floor seafront room complete with king-size beds, French windows and Juliet balcony overlooking the sea.’
Morton grinned, taking the key card for the room. ‘You like Juliet balconies, don’t you, Juliette?’
‘Why are you calling me Juliette? My name’s Agatha Schmidt,’ she stated seriously.
They turned away from the mystified receptionist and headed to the lifts.
‘You do realise how weird we just looked?’ Juliette whispered.
‘Uh-huh.’
The lift doors suddenly opened with a ping. ‘Why are we going under false names and paying cash?’ Juliette demanded. ‘What’s going on, Morton?’
They entered the lift and the doors closed. He was now trapped with her interrogations. ‘You’ll see,’ he assured her, hoping that a vague hint of an upcoming mystery might be enough to stop her cross-examination.
The lift doors parted and they walked along the short corridor until they reached room twenty-two. Juliette slid the card into the door and pushed it open, heading straight to the French windows. ‘Wow.’
Morton followed her in, briefly taking in the pastel blue walls, giant bed with fresh white linen and silver-framed nautical paintings dotted around the room, before placing the portrait on the bed and wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her tight to him. ‘What do you think, Agatha?’
‘Lovely, Mr Schmidt, very lovely. But still very strange.’
‘And that’s why you love me,’ he said, kissing her neck.
The sun, seemingly radiating every conceivable shade of yellow and orange, hung haughtily above the horizon, illuminating the waking town. The roads below were growing steadily busy as shops and businesses began to open for another ordinary day. For Morton, the day—as well he anticipated—was going to be anything but ordinary.
They had enjoyed a full English breakfast in the café-bar and Morton had spent the entire time feeling like a pinball machine, constantly deflecting her questions about the Lovekin Case or why they were here or how they had managed to gain entry to their room at such an unusual hour and have breakfast included. He didn’t tell her that he’d reserved the room from yesterday, instead he had steered the conversation onto her job. Then Juliette had showered and gone to work. He knew that he had done little to allay her suspicions and couldn’t wait for the moment that he could finally unload and tell her everything. He hated keeping secrets from her and he was so terribly bad at it.
With his bag slung over his shoulder, Morton was now striding confidently along the hot pavement toward his first destination of the day. He had the addresses of three of the Strickland siblings: John, Norman and Lawrence. The women, both having married, had proved much trickier to find. He was hopeful yet cautious of the outcome; he very rarely cold-called someone in connection with his cases, much preferring to write a letter and give the recipient time to fully comprehend his enquiry. Plus, he loathed doing it. He could never seem to offer the succinct, polite purpose that his visit necessitated. What was he going to say when he arrived at—he looked down at his notepad—74a Cornwallis Gardens? He had no clue and was simply hoping that the appropriate words would tumble out of his mouth when the time came.
He was leaving the crowded town centre behind and heading out into the residential periphery. The once-grand houses in Cornwallis Gardens stood in pairs around a triangle of grass and tall horse-chestnut trees. The houses, five storeys high from basement to attic rooms, had long since lost their Victorian prestige, most having been sliced up into countless bedsits and small flats; the poverty of the area was tangible.
Number 74 was painted an innocuous shade of cream with white edging around the windows and bright red front door. Morton studied the entry pad fixed to the wall, but could only see numbers 74b-e.
He glanced over the side and noticed another door down in the basement. He jumped the stairs, two at a time, then more calmly walked down the extra steps below pavement level. Sure enough, on the door in brass numbers, was 74a.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed the doorbell, hearing a fancy tune playing at length inside. Behind the two vertical obscure glass panels, he saw movement.
A man weltering in his late fifties pulled the door wide. He was gaunt and unshaven, wearing a dirty grey tracksuit with a roll-up dangling from the side of his mouth. ‘What?’
This wasn’t going to go well. He knew it before he even spoke. ‘Good morning,’ Morton hailed. ‘I’m looking for a Norman Strickland?’
His thick, unkempt eyebrows furrowed. ‘Who’s asking for him? If it’s about God, he don’t believe; if it’s about insurance, he ain’t got nothing to insure; if it’s about double-glazing, it ain’t his house; if it’s about charity, he ain’t got nothing to give.’
Morton smiled. ‘No, none of those things. I’m a forensic genealogist, Morton Farrier,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘You might have seen me in the papers?’ He heard the words as they toppled from his mouth and cringed inside. Had he actually just said that?
‘Ain’t heard of you,’ Norman said, tentatively shaking Morton’s hand.
‘I research family trees,’ he continued. ‘I’m interested in your grandfather, Horace Strickland, and what might have happened to his effects when he died in 1988?’ He hoped that by dropping in the man’s grandfather’s name and date of death that it might reinforce his credibility.
Norman snorted. ‘Stick your head in there, go on,’ he encouraged, stepping back and reaching for Morton’s arm, pulling him inside the house.
The smell of must and body odour hit his senses first, then, when
