Hiding the Past (10 page)

Authors: Nathan Dylan Goodwin

BOOK: Hiding the Past

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‘Investigate
it,’ Morton implored, before ending the call. He reached across to the
passenger seat and picked up the photocopies that he had just made at Ashford
Library. He wondered if he should share the information with Soraya but
decided against it. He wanted more evidence first. He filed the
papers away in his briefcase and decided to make a run for it. The rain
was never going to ease up. Morton grabbed the briefcase and ran towards
the house, hammering histrionically on the front door.

Soraya appeared
with the artificial smile of a bereaved woman. ‘Come in.’ Morton stepped
inside and she took his drenched coat from him. ‘Thanks for coming.’

‘That’s okay,’
he said, following her into the lounge. She looked like she needed a hug
but he wasn’t the type to just embrace a relative stranger. He blamed his
conservative upbringing for such arrant unsentimentality; he couldn’t recall a
single childhood embrace from either parent.

‘Take a seat,’
Soraya said quietly, raising a finger to her bloodshot eyes.

‘Thanks,’ he
said, eying an A4 white envelope that she was clutching tightly.

‘Here,’ Soraya
said, passing it to him.

Morton opened
the envelope and withdrew two sheets of paper. The first, headed with the
Kent County coat of arms was a short and succinct letter from the coroner,
offering his condolences with the accompanying post mortem results. He
turned the page, passing over Peter Coldrick’s personal details.

External
Examination…the body was that of an underweight male of approximately the age
stated. Height 5 ft. 8 inches, Weight 56kg. Rigor mortis was present
in the limbs and there was hypostatic staining of the posterior body
surfaces. There were no external marks of violence. Natural teeth
were present in the mouth. No scars were identified. Trace soot and
propellant staining to both hands…concentric seared circular wound of 5.4cm to
left temple.

With an
increasing sense of nausea, Morton scanned his eyes down the page, unable to
take in the gruesome level of detail.
Internal Examination, brain
1637g …Cardio-Vascular System…Respiratory System…Gastro-Intestinal
System…Genito-Urinary System…Endocrine System…Conclusion…The necropsy
appearances indicate that death is the result of a self-inflicted single
gunshot wound to the head….Cause of Death: Suicide.

‘Suicide,’
Soraya said flatly when Morton met her gaze. She sat herself down beside
him. ‘Not even an open verdict or the
possibility
of murder.
I mean, not even a mention of the suicide note being typed with no
signature. I phoned the coroner as soon as it arrived but she just
regurgitated everything she said there.’ A lone tear rolled down over her
right cheek. ‘At least the body’s been released for a funeral now.’
She said ‘the body’ carelessly, as if referring to a dead gerbil or stick
insect. Morton reminded himself that death affected everyone in different
ways. After his mother died it was his father’s way to repeatedly
deep-clean the oven; it was Jeremy’s way to entirely stop talking for the best
part of three months.

Morton
abandoned his fear and put his arm around Soraya’s shoulder. For a brief
moment she froze and he thought that he had overstepped the mark, lecherously
taking advantage of a grieving woman, but she buried her head in his chest and
burst into tears. The words forming in his mouth all sounded trite or
clichéd, so he said nothing and just held her closely.

Soraya released
herself and semi-circled her thumb under each eye before taking a deep
breath. ‘They’ve finished at his house, too,’ she said. ‘Will you
come with me while I look through his personal effects? I’ve no idea at
all of his...
wishes.
It’s just not the sort of thing you ask
someone in their thirties.’

‘Yeah, of
course I will,’ Morton said.

‘I was thinking
about going over there today if you’re free?’

‘Yeah, sure,’
Morton answered. Maybe he would find whatever it was that Peter was so
desperate to show him the night he died. ‘We can go now if you like?’

Soraya nodded,
wiped her face and stood. ‘It would be good to get it out of the way.’

They travelled in near silence for the
duration of the ten-minute journey to the other side of Tenterden. Soraya
had asked him for a progress update and he responded vaguely, never liking to
reveal too much to clients mid-way through a job. Normal family histories
were littered with unpredictable twists and turns; this case was anything but
usual, so to reveal what little he actually knew would be a futile
exercise. When they arrived at the quiet estate, Morton parked as close
to Peter’s house as he could. All the drama from Wednesday was totally
over. The house now resembled all the others in the street.

Soraya fumbled
in her handbag, pulled out a large bunch of keys and opened the door, stepping
wet footprints onto the worn doormat. The house was deathly silent and
dark, all the curtains having been pulled to keep out prying eyes. She
flicked the light switch in the hallway but nothing happened. ‘Bloody
hell, they’ve turned the power off already. Can you believe it?’

‘They don’t
waste time, do they?’ he replied, inexplicably feeling the need to whisper.

Soraya entered
the lounge and opened the sun-bleached, ruby curtains. ‘That’s better.’

Morton followed
her into the lounge, an uneasy feeling unsettling his stomach. He wanted
to leave before he had even begun. ‘Do you know where his personal papers
would be?’

Soraya shook
her head. ‘Bedroom maybe? It’s the front bedroom upstairs.
I’ll take a look in here.’ The bedroom was the one place he
didn’t
want
to look – Juliette had informed him that it was in this room that Peter had
died.

Morton entered
the dim hallway, placed his foot on the bottom stair and looked up, wondering
if he really wanted to see upstairs. He thought of Juliette and what she
would do – bound up the stairs, two at a time, like a curious puppy – then
began the ascent. With slow deliberate footsteps, Morton climbed the
shadowed stairs.

At the top, he
was confronted by three closed doors. He gently pushed open the first
door, revealing a surprisingly clean and modern bathroom. Coldrick had
seemed much more of a grimy avocado suite man, he thought. He moved
across the landing to the second door and turned the handle: he found a small
box room with
Dr
Who
curtains and matching duvet set on a child’s
bed. Morton cast his eyes over an open-fronted bookshelf crammed with
children’s books, toys and stuffed toys; Fin’s room was an unlikely location
for the copper box.

He backed out
onto the landing and then opened the remaining door: Peter Coldrick’s
bedroom. The scene of the crime. Instantly, he was struck by the
smell. Six days on and a potent acrid mix of rusting iron and fresh sea
salt rushed into his nostrils. He covered his mouth to stop himself from
being sick. He couldn’t imagine it being something that the SOCO guys
could ever get used to. He guessed that was why they were always suited
up like Michelin men whenever they were called to crime scenes. Like the
rest of the house, the room was filled with a muted darkness. Keeping his
mouth covered, Morton cautiously entered the room. As he moved to open
the curtains something in his peripheral vision caught his attention. The
bed. Whoever had their finger on the trigger Tuesday night, had pulled it
right here. A shallow indentation in the smooth, cream duvet betrayed
where Coldrick had sat; confirmed by the disgusting quantity of dark – almost
black – blood which splayed out in a perfect formation across the pillows and
headboard. No Bodily Fluid Removal Team had swept through, changing bed
linen, vaxing the carpet or touching up the magnolia walls: everything was just
as it had been the day a cold metal bullet passed through Peter Coldrick’s left
temple into his brain.

Morton pulled
open the curtains and tentatively inhaled, filling his nostrils with the stale
air that smelt like a stagnant pond. With a little stretch of his
imagination he could attribute it to the house having been closed up for
several days and
not
from the spilling of several pints of Peter
Coldrick’s blood. He supposed that everyone involved in the death
industry passed their way through the various stages of desensitisation.
How else could a coroner slice open Coldrick’s head like it was a boiled egg to
determine that his brain weighed 1637kg? It must be a fine line between
coroner and psychopathic killer, he reasoned.

He began the
uncomfortable task of rooting around a stranger’s belongings, tugging open
doors and drawers around the room, casting his eyes over the contents for
either the copper box or anything else which might help the case. He
opened the cheap, flat-pack bedside cabinet and rifled through a lifetime’s
worth of junk. He found nothing. The only two other items of
furniture were a large oak wardrobe and a chest of drawers, which he quickly
discovered was filled with clothes, towels and an abundance of hot water bottle
covers. He pulled open the wardrobe. Inside were rows of
multi-coloured jumpers, all carefully ironed. Morton didn’t think that
Coldrick was the type to even own an iron, much less use one, judging by the
state of his clothing the day that he had met him. A solitary black suit
book-ended the run of clothing, which Morton guessed would be the final piece
of clothing Coldrick would ever wear. He’d never understood the idea of
dressing a dead person in a perfectly good suit and he made a mental note to
tell Juliette his last wishes when he got home: cardboard coffin; woodland
burial; naked; no flowers. At the base of the wardrobe were a pile of
ancient blankets and three tatty suitcases. Morton pulled the cases out
and, at the back of the wardrobe, noticed a small copper box the size of a
paperback. Was this
the
copper box Coldrick had mentioned in the
answerphone message? It had to be. He lunged at it and pulled it
out of the wardrobe. The lid was emblazoned with an intricately decorated
coat of arms. He carefully prised open the lid. Empty.
Completely empty. Whatever Coldrick had found inside was long gone.

‘Morton,’
Soraya yelled from downstairs. It was an ‘I’ve found something’ kind of a
call, as opposed to ‘I’m about to be shot’ kind of call, so he took his time
replacing the cases in the wardrobe before making his way back downstairs.

‘I found this
on the shelf,’ Soraya said, handing him a hardback book. Morton read the
title and his heart rate began a new, thumping rhythm.
All About
Sedlescombe.
‘Look inside.’

Morton opened
the book and withdrew a fragile letter with a photograph attached by a rusty
paperclip. He instantly recognised the crudely cut headshot as being the
woman holding James Coldrick as a baby. Even though he guessed that
Soraya had already read the letter, he felt compelled to read it aloud.

‘Fifth of June
1944. My Dear Baby, I am placed in an abominable situation and one which
I prayed would never occur. The war has taken many deviations and wrought
much destruction but nothing to what I fear will happen to you, my precious
boy, whom I have loved more than any other. There is so much to say and
yet so little time; I pray that you will be spared any involvement in the
injustices of this war and that you may live a quiet, protected life when
justice, peace and all that makes life sweet will reign over the earth.
Your ever loving mother, M.’

‘So that’s
Fin’s great grandmother writing that?’ Soraya asked, leaning over to get
another look at the letter.

‘That’s the way
it looks,’ Morton said. He remembered his analysis of the photograph of
James as a baby. The letter added weight to his belief that James
Coldrick was born sometime in April or May 1944, not June. He re-read the
letter and spoke out loud those parts that most troubled him. ‘…what I
fear will happen to you… so much to say and yet so little time…’ He looked
across at Soraya. ‘Does it sound to you like a goodbye letter?’ She
nodded in doleful agreement. Morton looked back at the decapitated
photo. A body-less arm to her left suggested at least one other person
was present at the time the picture was taken. He looked at the
signature,
M
.

‘History isn’t
my best subject; do you know what was going on in the war at that point that
might mean she has to leave him?’ Soraya asked.

‘Well, D-Day
had just started over the Channel, but there wasn’t much going on locally to my
knowledge. I think the air raids had all but ceased and the doodlebugs
hadn’t yet started…’ Morton shrugged, having nothing to suggest that made
any kind of sense.

‘Well, I think
James certainly lived a quiet and protected life but I’m not sure about justice
and peace.’

‘Maybe the
price of peace was that he lived a quiet life and didn’t ask questions – unlike
Peter.’

‘Maybe.’

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