‘It’s still a very long time ago,’ Shaohao dismissed.
‘Yes,’ Tamara confirmed, folding her arms. Despite the circumstances, he detected a hint of admiration in her voice. ‘You’re completely correct. My grandmother, then my mother ran this place as a kind of mother and baby home and yes, they charged money for their services. These women didn’t want their babies and they were given to good parents who couldn’t have children. What’s so wrong?’
‘They weren’t given though, were they? They were sold—it was a baby black market.’
‘Yes,’ Tamara laughed. ‘That’s quite an apt way of describing it.’
‘Even your mother sold her baby, didn’t she? Pretending to everyone that it had died—an awful thing to have done,’ Morton ranted. ‘Was that how she managed to persuade Elsie to give up her baby, too? As some kind of replacement?’
‘You make it sound so sinister,’ Tamara mocked.
‘And then Daniel Winter came along and discovered what was going on, didn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ Tamara confirmed. ‘And he, like you, didn’t get far with his accusations. Tragically killed in an air raid.’
‘Killed by your mother, you mean…’ Morton said. ‘And made to look as though he had been killed in an air raid.’
‘Grandmother, actually,’ she corrected. ‘It’s such a terrible shame that all those files that would corroborate this fact are all gone.’ She threw her arms up into the air. ‘All lost—sadly burnt in a fire and anything you’ve found in the public domain will be of little use. But, just to be safe, we’ll take you out of the picture, too.’
Shaohao laughed a low, grainy, but harsh laugh. He turned to Tamara. ‘I think it’s time for Morton and me to take that walk, don’t you?’
Tamara nodded. ‘I think so, yes.’
Shaohao reached in and grabbed Morton’s bicep, pulling him into the corridor.
‘By the way,’ Tamara said, pointing back inside the bedroom, ‘this was Elsie’s room during the war. That was her bed that you were sleeping on.’
Morton just managed a quick glance backwards before being yanked down the corridor to the top of the stairs.
Shaohao prodded him in the back. ‘Walk.’
Morton obeyed and slowly descended the staircase with Shaohao and Tamara a few paces behind him. At the bottom he turned to face his captors. ‘The thing I didn’t understand was what happened in 1975 to make you stop. I could have kicked myself, really. That pivotal year—1975—I should have known better. That was when local authorities had a statutory duty to provide an adoption service; your little baby factory here couldn’t continue, could it?’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Tamara said.
‘The files stopped in 1975, yes—but your business carried on, didn’t it? That very year the pair of you started up a company that matches prospective English parents with babies from Chinese orphanages.’
‘Our business is approved by The Hague; there is nothing wrong or illegal in matching English parents with the abundance of poor abandoned Chinese babies.’
‘No, but your business is more than that, isn’t it?’ Morton said. ‘The babies in your orphanages aren’t given up voluntarily, are they? That was what the journalist discovered back in 2012, wasn’t it?’
Shaohao suddenly shoved his outstretched palms into Morton’s chest, thrusting him back and making him topple over. ‘What do you know about that?’
Morton grinned. ‘You thought you’d stopped our meeting today, didn’t you?’
A dark look passed between Shaohao and Tamara.
‘I arranged that meeting via email knowing that you would intercept it,’ Morton revealed. ‘But I’d already met him. I know everything and he knows everything.’
‘Yes, well, whatever you think you know will be irrelevant once you’ve been for that walk along the cliffs.’
‘Get up!’ Shaohao ordered. ‘We’re going.’
Morton stood and grinned. ‘Gladly, only, I’m not going for a walk; you’re going to untie me and let me out of the front door.’
Shaohao laughed but Tamara looked anxious. ‘What do you mean?’ she barked.
‘You’ve confessed to everything,’ Morton said, glancing down at the RAF emblem on his shirt. ‘Say hello to Liu Chai—he’s been recording everything ready to publish a major story on your baby black market. Oh, and the police are also on their way.’
Shaohao lurched out and punched Morton hard in the face, the force of the impact felling him to the floor like a feeble sapling. He jumped down on top of him and ripped the badge from Morton’s shirt, tugging behind it a series of wires. He turned to Tamara. ‘We need to get out of here!’
Tamara was momentarily dumbstruck. ‘I…I can’t—I’ve got my mother…’
Shaohao leapt up and ran for the front door.
A hard wind blew in, brushing against Morton’s bleeding face. He looked up at Tamara, who appeared to be locked in a haze of shock, her eyes wide, gazing at the floor. ‘What have I done? What did we do?’
It was all over.
‘Oh my goodness me!’ Barbara exclaimed when Morton arrived at her bungalow the following morning. ‘You’re a mixed bag. Wearing a super smart suit, looking all dapper with your face ripped to shreds. What on earth happened?’
‘Long story—the short version is that I’m on my way to a wedding, hence the suit. So, I don’t have too long.’
‘Come in,’ Barbara said.
‘So sorry for not getting here last night,’ Morton apologised, heading into the house. ‘Did you manage to get Paul and Rose back?’
‘Oh yes, they’re here—eager as anything to hear all you’ve got to say!’
In the lounge, the same baffled questions were fired at him from Paul and Rose.
‘He hasn’t got long, so we’d better listen,’ Barbara instructed. She took a seat beside Rose, leaving Morton facing the three of them.
‘Right, well,’ Morton began, holding up a black folder. ‘It’s all in here for you to digest in your own time, but I’ll outline the basics for you now. As you know, Elsie joined the
