Morton shook his head. ‘Not really, no. I just seem to annoy people.’
‘Ain’t that a fact,’ Juliette quipped.
Morton grabbed his mobile phone from his bedside and showed her the photograph that he had taken of the email on Tamara’s computer. ‘I don’t suppose you can take this into work and see what you can find on this man for me?’ he asked, splaying his fingers apart on the screen, revealing Shaohao Chen’s name.
Juliette frowned. ‘You think this is the man you took for a nice visit to the woods last night?’
‘Yes.’
Another sigh. ‘Send it to my phone and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thanks!’ he said.
She leant in and kissed him. ‘I’m going to go to my nice safe job catching murderers, burglars and rapists, whilst you get on with your highly dangerous job ordering birth certificates and leafing through tired old documents.’
Morton laughed.
‘Stay out of trouble—please!’ she implored, as she left the room.
‘I’ll try…’ he answered, sliding back into bed. He closed his eyes and thought about the next steps that he would take with the case. Finding out about Mrs Potter seemed like it should be pretty high on his list of things to do. It intrigued Morton that she was a regular visitor to Cliff House during Elsie’s time there.
His meandering thoughts were cut abruptly short as his mobile began ringing beside him. It was an unknown number. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello—is that Mr Farrier? My name’s Susan Stubbs—you wrote to me about my wartime exploits,’ an elderly voice said.
‘Ah, yes—did I get the correct person?’ Morton asked hopefully.
‘You did indeed! I was based at Hawkinge for most of the war and knew Elsie Finch…well, briefly at least.’
‘Fantastic. Would it be all right if I came to see you?’ Morton asked.
‘Yes, I should think so. When would you like to come?’
‘How about this afternoon?’
‘Yes, okay. Any time after two o’clock would be suitable,’ she said. ‘You know where to find me—I’m in a village just outside Tunbridge Wells.’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Morton said, grateful that she had clarified to which one of the four Susan Stubbses he was speaking. He thanked her again and hung up.
He climbed out of bed, dived through the shower and wolfed down some toast, before making a coffee and heading up to his study.
The 1939 Identity Card Register produced one result for Potter living in Capel-le-Ferne. He clicked to see the original entry. Ada Potter, a spinster born in 1896, was recorded as living alone at Spring Cottage, employed as a social worker.
Morton printed out the page, recalling as he did so Barbara’s case notes regarding her birth. He was sure that mention had been made of a social worker. He reached down for the yellow file and began flicking through until he found the relevant page. Yes, mention had been made of a social worker, although she had not been named specifically. Your birth mother is Elsie Finch (née Danby) and, at the time that she was involved with the social worker… It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine that Ada Potter had handled Elsie’s case.
He conducted more research into her. He found that she had died in 1965, having never married. The Ancestry website provided an interesting snapshot of the main content of her will: Potter, Ada of Spring Cottage, Capel-le-Ferne, Kent, died 24 August 1965. Probate London 20 October to Kath Forsdyke widow. £43,540
Morton printed the entry, drank some coffee and considered what he now knew about Ada Potter. His eyes fixed on the amount that Ada had bequeathed to Kath in her will; forty-three thousand pounds sounded quite a lot of money to him—especially since last night Kath had claimed little recollection of the woman.
He was intrigued.
Morton left his house in Rye shortly after one o’clock, under a typically cloudy English sky. A faint headache was threatening behind his left eye. As he drove, he thought about his morning’s work and the progress generally on the Finch Case. William Smith’s birth certificate had arrived in the morning’s post, along with that of his parents’ marriage. Neither had added anything particularly useful to the case but would provide Barbara with concrete names, dates and places for the paternal side of her family. He arrived at Susan Stubbs’s house at one minute past two. Perfect.
‘Glory—that’s punctual timing,’ Susan quipped when she opened the door to her small bungalow. She was an age-shrunken woman with curly grey hair but bright, alert eyes. ‘Come in.’
‘Thank you very much,’ Morton said, stepping inside the tropical, lavender-scented hallway.
He followed in her shuffled footsteps to a compact lounge, stuffed with furniture, ornaments and photographs on the walls. She switched off the blaring television. ‘Tea? Coffee?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’
‘You want to get straight on, do you? Rightio, take a seat.’ She sunk down into a high-backed chair beside Morton. ‘So, you’re interested in dear old Elsie—is that right?’
‘Yes, that’s correct,’ Morton replied, opening his notepad.
Susan’s brow furrowed. ‘I’ll see what I can recall!’ She indicated vaguely to the room around her. ‘As you can see, I’m a bit of a hoarder and when I got your letter I had a rummage around. Found one or two bits that might be of interest for you to see,’ she said, pointing to a plastic container on the floor beside her chair. ‘Is there anything specific you want to know about her?’
‘Anything at all that you can remember.’
Susan chuckled. ‘Right. Well, Elsie arrived at Hawkinge with some other new WAAF recruits around July 1940. Like the rest of us, she spoke German very well—I think I’m right in saying she had a German relation. Anyway, she was a very good worker and really put in the hours. During
