‘What is it?’ Juliette asked, leaning over to get a better look.
In his hand, Morton held a folded vellum indenture, which he proceeded to carefully unravel; as he did so, another smaller one fell out. Setting the smaller one to the side, his eyes scanned quickly over the larger document. The extra-large words ‘This indenture’ preceded a lengthy handwritten legal document, which concluded with two red wax seals and a signature by Alderman Thomas Honeysett. He noticed that the other signature was unmistakably that of Eliza Lovekin and that it was dated 20th April 1827. Just a few days before her murder.
‘So exciting,’ Madge chirped. ‘I was the one to discover it just as I went to put it on display in the shop.’ She scrunched up her face and waved her hand dismissively. ‘All written in legal nonsense, and barely legible at that, but from what Bunny and I can work out, it’s an entitlement to a part of the America Ground in Hastings—have you heard of it, Morton?’
‘The America Ground? Can’t say I have.’
‘Fascinating, really,’ Madge began, then stopped abruptly at the sound of the front door banging shut.
The three of them sat silently for several seconds until Morton’s adopted father finally entered the room and nodded brusquely towards Juliette and Madge.
‘Finally!’ Madge said, standing up. ‘Let’s get eating.’
‘I’ve already eaten—had something at the club.’
‘Oh, Peter! I told you I’d invited Morton and Juliette to dinner-’
‘Find your American, did you?’ Morton’s father asked, cutting through the conversation.
Morton flushed. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘Not yet.’
His father sniffed. ‘You told them yet, Madge?’
Madge shook her head. ‘I was waiting for you, but now’s not the right time, Peter. Let’s wait.’
‘Now’s as good a time as any,’ his father insisted. ‘Madge and I are getting married.’
Chapter Three
Its doors having only been only open for ten minutes, Hastings Reference Library was quiet: the microfilm readers were still cold from the night before; the map drawers were tightly locked; the abundance of local history books were neatly shelved and the research desks were empty. There was just one customer in the room: Morton Farrier.
‘Another case?’ Sally Vaughan, an old acquaintance of Morton’s, asked from behind the help desk.
‘Yeah,’ Morton answered, somewhat flatly.
‘Not an exciting one, though, by the sounds of it,’ she remarked with a smile.
‘We’ll see.’
‘Here you go,’ she said, handing over two blue folders, both with Area 8: America Ground typed neatly on a white strip in the top left corner. ‘That’s all we have, I’m afraid,’ she added somewhat apologetically.
Morton thanked her, carried the folders over to the large grey tables dedicated to family and local history research and took the seat closest to the large windows. Not that it afforded him a particularly pleasant view; just a few feet away was a large derelict building whose sole occupants were numerous generations of pigeons, gulls, vermin and pests, but he preferred working by natural light.
He took out his notepad and pencil. On the most recent page was written the limited information that he had gathered about his biological father, which in genealogical terms amounted to almost nothing. On his way to the library this morning he had posted the letter to Roy Dyche, sending with it every hope of ever finding his father. All of the millions of genealogical records available online and in record offices, repositories and libraries around the world were entirely useless without his father’s full name.
Flipping the notepad to a blank sheet, Morton scribbled Eliza Lovekin at the top of the page and born c.1786. Besides the fact that she had signed a legal land indenture in 1827 and was then promptly murdered, he knew nothing of her. A general internet sweep and open searches on various family history websites had yielded a total blank. He had conducted an investigation into the portrait painting of her, his assessment of her approximate date of birth tying with that on her burial record. He was an expert at photo analysis, using shadow positions, clothing and a detailed examination of everything and anything in the background to help to deduce a conclusion on the date, content or nature of the photograph. In some previous cases, he had been able to pinpoint the exact time, day, month and year that a photograph had been taken. Paintings, however, were an entirely different matter and much harder from which to draw firm conclusions. The portrait was a well-executed glossy oil, the artist having deployed most skill on Eliza’s head. Her beautiful green almond eyes, slightly exaggerated, stared out, pleading for the observer’s attention. She wore long, thin gold earrings and her lips were rouged and plump. Typical of the period, she wore her mousey brown hair in elaborate chignons, which fell elegantly around her ears. Other than her physical appearance, the painting offered little else of use.
Morton picked up the initial folder, withdrew the contents and placed them on the desk in front of him. The first few items, which appeared to originate from a variety of sources—maps, newspaper clippings, print-outs from the internet and photocopies from journals—were explanations of the origins of the so-called America Ground. He read through the papers, making pertinent notes as he went, and steadily built up a picture of this place, which he had to admit fascinated him. Fierce and devastating storms in the thirteenth century had silted up the old Hastings harbour, creating a new area of land close to the priory, which had earned it the name, the Priory Ground. It had remained desolate until the early nineteenth century, when the long tracts of flat land had begun to be used by rope-makers, who during inclement weather would take
