Morton glanced back at the wall. The next official record for the family came in the Massachusetts Death Index 1901-1980, where he found his grandfather’s death. In 1976. The same year the letters were sent to Aunty Margaret. The same year that Alice had last heard from her brother Harley. It all happened in 1976.
The US Social Security Death Index added snippets of further detail to Roscoe’s life, but nothing to the conundrum of his death and what had occurred that year.
Name: Roscoe Joseph Jacklin
SSN: 033-30-3245
Last Residence: 2239 Iyanough Avenue, Hyannis Port, Barnstable, Massachusetts, USA
Born: 3rd April 1928
Died: 24th December 1976
State (year) SSN issued: Massachusetts (1957-1959)
And there, Morton’s research had come to a crashing halt. Long, long searches that ran into the night, on every family history website to which Morton had access, had drawn a blank. His father and his grandmother had, for forty years, escaped public record and his aunt Alice clearly wanted nothing to do with him.
Morton added his father’s and grandparents’ visit to England in January 1974 to the timeline. Then he added his own birth, 25th September 1974. The timeline continued into 1976 with the addition of Roscoe’s death and then, suddenly, it ended; the story of his past tumbled over a cliff edge into the abyss. There was, of course, something to add: the letters.
They were on his desk, exactly where he had left them. He walked over to them and picked them up. As he had done several times already, he held them up to the light of the window, but their contents remained resolutely hidden inside. The envelopes smelt sour and were covered with small rashes of sepia circles. The recipient’s address was the same on each, written in identical handwriting. Margaret Farrier, 163 Canterbury Road, Folkestone, Kent. The letters were in date order; the first was date-stamped 19th March 1976, the second 8th July 1976, the last 30th December 1976. In smaller letters on the back of the first two envelopes was written Jack Jacklin, 2239 Iyanough Avenue, Hyannis Port, Barnstable, Massachusetts. On the third envelope was written Jack Jacklin c/o 256 Ocean Avenue, Hyannis Port, Barnstable, Massachusetts.
For a long time, Morton stood holding the letters, taking the first and placing it to the back in an endless shuffle. He had to open them, he knew that, but only because the alternative ideas were more horrific. Destroying them was not an option. Sending them to Aunty Margaret without first checking to see if the content was appropriate was not an option. Filing them away and deferring the decision would send him into an asylum with the persistent pondering about their contents. No, he had no real choice. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to actually tear the envelopes, to break that confidential seal that existed between his father and mother.
He set them down with a sigh, dismayed at his own weakness, and opened up his laptop. He dragged himself through the afternoon, half-heartedly pursuing the Finch Case. He printed the WAAF disclosure forms ready to give to Barbara to sign, then continued his research into the work of the Y-service.
Finally, he heard the sound of the front door being slammed shut, heralding his salvation: Juliette was home. He couldn’t open the letters, but she could.
He picked them up, taking one last look at them in their unblemished, sealed condition and carried them downstairs.
‘Hi,’ Morton greeted when he found her drinking a glass of water in the kitchen. ‘Good day?’
Juliette kissed him on the lips then sneered as she thought about his question. ‘More wonderful government cutbacks in the offing. I think we’ll be restructured, pared back and streamlined until there’s just one police force left covering the entire country.’ She shrugged. ‘How was yours?’
Morton presented her with the letters. ‘I’ve decided to open them. Well, I’d like you to do it, actually.’
The letters hung between them, he trying to offer them, she refusing to take them.
‘Why me?’ she asked.
‘I just can’t do it.’
‘Come on, you’re not a teenager opening your exam results. Just do it,’ she said. ‘Besides which, I don’t want to be blamed if you decide afterwards that it wasn’t such a good idea after all.’
Morton lowered the letters and stared at them, unsure if they were a blessing or a curse to his investigations into his own family.
Juliette sat herself down at the table and folded her arms, waiting, as if for the commencement of some grand performance.
Morton turned the first letter over in his hands. It would be so easy to open it, yet still the doubts persisted.
Mentally, he closed off his pernicious misgivings, imagining them to be behind a crematorium’s closing curtain, on the verge of being permanently eradicated.
With his mind cleared, he dug his index finger into the corner of the gummed flap and teased it to the other side.
He had done it.
As he withdrew the single cream sheet, he realised that his breathing had become laboured and shallow. He unfolded the letter, catching glimpses of intriguing but arbitrary words. He tried to breathe normally but couldn’t. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to read the letter aloud, as Juliette was obviously willing him to do.
‘Well?’ Juliette said.
He met her eyes, still trying to normalise his breathing, as he opened his mouth to speak.
But the words wouldn’t come.
Chapter Ten
15th August 1940, Hawkinge, Kent
Elsie finally left Maypole Cottage—thirteen hours after her shift had officially ended—and she was exhausted. It had been the busiest day of the war so far,
