Hiding the Past (12 page)

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Authors: Nathan Dylan Goodwin

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His mobile
ringing jarred him from his wandering thoughts.  He hoped that it was
Juliette calling with the name of the car owner, but it was Soraya’s name that
flashed onscreen.

‘Hi, Soraya.’

‘Thursday, two
p.m.,’ she said, as if he should know what that meant.

‘Sorry?’

‘Peter’s
funeral.  Thursday, two p.m.’

‘Oh. 
Okay.’

‘Morton, could
you do me a favour?’

‘Sure.’

‘Would you do a
reading?’ she asked, in such a light-hearted way that it sounded like she was organising
a wedding or asking him to grab some bread from the supermarket on his way
home.  A reading at Peter Coldrick’s funeral?  He hadn’t even made up
his mind about whether or not he was even
going
to the funeral. 
He’d only known the guy two minutes.  Soraya must have sensed his
reluctance.  ‘It’s just that I’m having trouble rounding people up. 
He wasn’t the most sociable of people and I don’t need to tell you about the
situation on the family front.’

‘Er…well, I
hardly knew him really.  It was just –’

‘Just a short
piece will be fine,’ Soraya interjected. ‘It doesn’t need to be anything too
fancy.’

‘What do you
want me to read?’ he answered, hoping that his lack of enthusiasm might make
her change her mind.

‘I’ll leave
that up to you.  Can I count you in?’

‘Yes,’ he heard
himself saying.
 

‘Brilliant,
thank you,’ Soraya said, ending the call.

Marvellous. 
An unknown reading at the funeral of a murdered man he met one week ago. 
Life just couldn’t get any better.

 

Morton had been adding more string pathways
to his
Coldrick Case Incident Wall
when he heard Juliette’s car pull up
outside.  He hurried down to the kitchen and poured two generous glasses
of red wine and sat patiently in the lounge, anticipating her arrival with news
of the registration plate.  He heard her kick off her boots and trudge
steadily up the stairs.

‘What a day,’
Juliette groaned, pecking Morton on the lips and reaching for the proffered
wine.  She collapsed into the sofa and sighed heavily.  ‘Sometimes
you know, I just hate the police.  Do you know what I had to do today?’

Morton shook
his head, hoping that it would be a very short story.

She took a gulp
of red wine.  ‘I was only sent out - on foot - on a three-mile walk to see
an old man who called in a suspected burglary.  Fine, whatever.  So,
I get my notebook out and start writing it all down – he arrived home ten
o’clock yesterday morning having been into town to collect his pension, pay the
bills, blah blah blah and when he gets home, he finds his house smelling of excrement
– his word – and since he’d only urinated the whole day, somebody must have
broken in and used his toilet.’
 

Morton laughed,
much to Juliette’s consternation.  ‘Come on, it is pretty funny.’

‘So I asked if
anything was taken.  No.  Was anything damaged?  No.  Any
sign of forced entry?  No.  Anything else that would indicate a
burglary?  No.  Just that his house smelt of excrement.’

‘And did it?’

‘Uh-huh, big
time.’  Morton laughed again.  ‘Anyway, I walk the three-mile trek
back to find half the station doubled over in hysterics.  Apparently, Mr
Pepperdene is a frequent waster of police time.  So, now I know. 
It’s
really
not that funny, Morton.’

‘Oh, I beg to
differ.’

‘So anyway,
investigating the case of the phantom crapper meant I didn’t get time to look
up that number plate for you, I’m afraid.’

‘Really?’
Morton said, suddenly losing his grin.

‘I’ll do it
tomorrow but it isn’t easy, you know; I shouldn’t even be accessing those
records.’

‘I wouldn’t ask
if it wasn’t important,’ Morton said, deliberately not attempting to disguise
his disappointment.

‘What about
you, how was your day?’ Juliette asked, seemingly oblivious to his
displeasure.  She tucked herself into a foetal position beside him.

Morton rolled
his eyes as the memory of the day flashed before him.  ‘After I got back
from Dungeness I had a call from Soraya – she only bloody wants me to do a
reading at Coldrick’s funeral on Thursday.  Can you imagine?  I don’t
even want to go, never mind read at it.’

‘Now it’s my
turn to laugh,’ she said with a grin.  ‘What have you got to read?’

‘That’s part of
the problem: she said it was up to me and I haven’t got a clue.’

‘If it’s up to
you then just stick your finger in the Bible and plump for the nearest moral
tale.  Nobody listens at a funeral anyway, they’re all too wrapped up in
grief to care.’

‘We don’t even
own a Bible,’ Morton answered, taking a swig from his wine.  He considered
himself to be a born-again atheist, having been raised by devout Methodists,
then, having toyed with all manner of religions at university, he realised that
they were equally unappealing.  He’d reached the conclusion that religion
and oil were responsible for at least ninety percent of the world’s wars. 
If he were forced to accept a religion, he thought that he would be a
pagan.  Earth, nature and all that.

‘Isn’t
Yea
though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death
a funeral reading?’
Juliette asked. ‘Or is that for the last rights?  The last funeral I went
to was a Buddhist’s: Gregorian chanting, swinging incense and shaven-headed
women in monk’s robes.  Very odd.’

‘Well thanks
for that, that’s really helpful.’

‘Don’t get so
het up about it, Morton.’  Juliette sat up to face him.  ‘Just Google
‘funeral readings.’  There must be something like funeralreadingsonline.com.’

‘Hmm,’ Morton
answered doubtfully.  Two days to plan a reading.  Great.  He
reached for the remote control, ready to switch on the television and switch
off from the
Coldrick Case
.
 

Chapter Ten

 

Wednesday

 

Morton woke midway through a
nightmare.  Dr Garlick was offering him the copper box, telling him that
it was a ‘most unexpected and exciting story,’ but, just as Morton went to take
it, Dr Garlick inexplicably morphed into Daniel Dunk who cackled maniacally
like The Joker from
Batman
.  Then he disappeared.  Just like
that.

He opened his
eyes and it took a good few seconds for his brain to register that he was
slumped in a hard plastic chair in the waiting room of the Conquest Hospital in
Hastings.  Nurses, doctors and visitors were milling about, ignoring him,
as if he were just another part of the complexities of the A&E
department.  He supposed he was really.  He felt awful and craved a
hefty dose of caffeine.  The small waiting room comprised a dozen similar
blue plastic chairs, an out-of-order pay-phone and an ancient-looking hot
drinks vending machine.  There was no option for an extra shot of
caffeine, so Morton chose a coffee with two sugars and stared at the posters on
the wall, whilst the machine proceeded to fill a plastic cup with cheap instant
coffee.

He wondered how
his father was getting on with the plethora of tests the doctors were running
on him.  Morton had taken the phone call at four a.m. and, like all
middle-of-the-night calls, it had set his heart pounding before the person at
the other end had even spoken the words ‘suspected heart attack’. 
Juliette immediately offered to drive them both straight to the hospital but
Morton, despite his estranged relationship with his father, knew that he needed
to get there quickly –
not
at Juliette’s law-abiding speed.  He’d
hurriedly pulled on whatever clothes first came to hand and dashed to the
hospital, triggering enough speed cameras
en route
to lose his
licence.  He was sure, though, that if it ever reached court, he could
cite mitigating circumstances.  He’d arrived at the hospital and ignored
the pay-and-display car park signs, running into A&E where he found his
father’s washed-out body rigged up to more machines, drips and monitors than
Morton thought his clogged veins could possibly cope with.

The coffee was
beginning to have an effect, beginning to bring Morton back to some semblance
of life.  If only it were that simple for his father. 
What time
was it? 
Morton looked around for a clock, or even a window to give
some indication of the time of day, but couldn’t find either.  He pulled
out his iPhone.  Almost nine thirty.  Surely there would be an update
on his father now.  He carried the drink over to the nurses' station, where
two young women were in mid-conversation about last night’s
Coronation
Street
.  He waited for them to notice him and when they didn’t, he
interrupted.  ‘I’m sure it was a
really
life-changing episode for
you both, but could you kindly deal with the more trivial matter of my
almost-dead father,
if
you don’t mind.’  It was too harsh and he
regretted saying it straight away.  The nurses gave each other an
exasperated look.

‘Your father is
far
from dead,’ one of them said reproachfully.  ‘Do you honestly
think we would have left you snoring away in the waiting room if there was
anything that warranted disturbing you?  You looked like you could do with
the rest.’

‘Sorry,’ Morton
said flatly, not about to be drawn into the finer points of his sleeping
habits.  He was sure, though, that he didn’t snore.  ‘Can I see him?’

‘By all
means.  He’s in Bay C, second bed on the right.’

‘Thank you.’
 He moved away from the nurses' station and heard mutterings about his
rudeness.  He had been rude, he knew that and quite frankly he didn’t care. 
Another instance of mitigating circumstances.

Morton headed
towards Bay C, which sounded like he would find his father in the corner of a
warehouse or a busy dockyard.  The sunlit room was at full occupation,
being filled with a variety of sick and injured men of similar age to his
father.  His bed was screened off from the rest of the ward by a floral
curtain.  
Typically antisocial
, Morton thought.  He cautiously
pulled back the screen and was momentarily shocked: his father, eyes closed,
pitifully thin and frail in a hospital-issue gown, showed no signs of
life.  Were it not for the host of machines he was wired up to confirming
life, Morton would have believed him dead.  He edged towards the bed and
sat down beside him.  A large part of him wanted to squeeze his father’s
bony white hand and tell him that he loved him and that everything would be
okay, but he just couldn’t.  Thirty-nine years without physical contact
prevented their hands from uniting. 
Surely his father had held him as
a baby, or picked him up if he fell over as a toddler?
  Maybe, but
there was nothing in Morton’s memory store to substantiate it. Instead, he
rested his hand at the edge of the bed and stared at the pathetic sight before
him.  Moments later, as if sensing Morton’s feelings, his father’s hand
twitched, seeming to reach and search for his.

‘Jeremy?’ his
throaty voice asked, lifting his head dolefully from the pillow, his eyes
opening to a narrow squint.

‘No, it’s
Morton,’ he replied.

His father
issued a sound resembling a sigh and collapsed back into the bed. 
Fantastic
,
Morton thought.  Even on death’s door his father couldn’t hide his
disappointment in him and his preference for The Miracle Child.  He
realised that he probably should get word to Jeremy about their father.  Maybe
the Army would give him compassionate leave.  He thought that he would
wait for some of the test results first – it was still only a
suspected
heart attack – but it didn’t take Einstein to figure out that a cooked
breakfast each day since his wife died, no exercise, plus a copious quantity of
whiskey and a cigar each night might eventually lead to a clogging of the
arteries.  The funeral flowers on Morton’s mother’s grave were still fresh
when his father made the announcement that he would be living his life how
he
wanted to live it and exercise, temperance and healthy eating were not
included.  To all intents and purposes, he became a reckless
teenager.  At the time it sounded to Morton like his father was somehow
blaming his wife’s death on the fact that she tried to feed them wholesome food
and encouraged the odd gentle stroll in the park.  Stupid man.

‘Are you still
there?’ his father asked, almost inaudibly after a few minutes silence.

‘Yes, Morton’s
here,’ he said, just to clarify that it wasn’t his natural son keeping the
bedside vigil. 
What did that make him?  The
unnatural
son?

‘Is Jeremy
coming?’ his father rasped.

‘Yes,’ Morton
said.  He reasoned that telling his father that Jeremy was on his way would
either be a comfort in his final hours or would be a temporary
reassurance.  It was a lie which immediately served its purpose: his
father visibly relaxed and closed his eyes.

Morton sat back
in his chair and watched his father’s chest rise and fall in short, shallow
breaths, allowing the rhythmic sounds emanating from the machines to gently
lull him into sleep.

Sometime later,
Morton’s iPhone sounded loudly in his pocket.  His father opened his eyes
with alarm, huffed when he realised the sources of the noise, and slumped back
into the bed.  Morton withdrew the phone and flicked the switch to
mute.  It was the Institute for Heraldic and Genealogical Studies
calling.  Morton slid the screen to answer the call and quickly stepped
out of the ward.  It was the receptionist telling him that Dr Garlick
wanted to see him.  Morton made an appointment for the afternoon, ended
the call and returned to his father.

 

Three and a half hours later, Morton
sauntered along the inside of the Northgate Canterbury city wall, his thoughts
harassed by his father’s knife-edge condition.  Before Morton had left the
Conquest Hospital, the doctors had confirmed that his father had suffered a
heart attack and that further tests were needed.
 

Morton reached
the Institute for Heraldic and Genealogical Studies and entered the cool lobby
area where he asked the smiley receptionist for Dr Garlick.  She picked up
her telephone and summoned Dr Garlick.

‘Mr Farrier!’
he greeted moments later, as if they were old friends, extending his hand
warmly.  ‘Good to see you again.’
 

Morton shook
the proffered hand and was relieved to see that he was carrying the precious
copper box.  With all that had occurred recently it wouldn’t have
surprised him to find Dr Garlick dead and the box stolen.  ‘Can I get you
a coffee or tea?’

‘A coffee would
be great, thanks,’ Morton answered, hoping it would taste better than the awful
stuff from the hospital vending machine.

‘Julie, a
coffee for Mr Farrier and a peppermint tea for me, please,’ he called across to
the receptionist, who suddenly lost her smile.  ‘Would you like to take a
seat over there?’ he said, indicating an area with a coconut plant and four
comfy chairs.  ‘Very interesting one, this,’ he said, holding up the
box.  Morton had a moment’s fear that his nightmare might have been
déjà
vu
and he was about to witness Dr Garlick’s sudden mutation into Daniel
Dunk.

‘So you’ve
identified the arms then?’ Morton asked, being slightly perturbed by the fact
that Dr Garlick’s stomach was resting on his thighs.  It seemed so odd
that his thin and pasty father was lying in a hospital bed after a heart attack
while a giant bulb of garlic waddled around Canterbury without a care in the
world.  If Morton had been closer to his father he might have thought it
unfair.  Instead he just thought it odd.

‘Yes,’ Dr
Garlick said, but there was a tentative edge to his voice.  ‘Though there
is some confusion.’ 
Isn’t there always?
  It seemed that
nothing was straightforward with the
Coldrick Case.
  He struggled
to remember what a normal genealogy job was like anymore.  Certainly not
this one.  ‘It belongs to the Windsor-Sackville family,’ Dr Garlick said,
pausing for Morton’s reaction.

‘Really?’ was
all Morton could think to say, as he processed the information.  He
remembered that the Windsor-Sackvilles were the patrons of St George’s
Children’s Home, where James Coldrick had lived as a child.  Was James
given
the copper box?  Did he
steal
it?  Did all the children
receive one as some kind of leaving gift?

‘It was
produced circa nineteen forty-five and belongs to the current Sir David James
Peregrine Windsor-Sackville,’ he said, before clarifying, ‘the father of our
Secretary of Defence.’

‘Current? 
He’s still alive?’

‘As far as I
know.  He must be in his nineties by now, though.’

‘Is this
something that could’ve been mass-produced?’

Dr Garlick
shook his head vehemently.  ‘No.  Perhaps two or three were made, but
more than likely just this one.  Worth a pretty penny, too, I shouldn’t
wonder.  If you are thinking of selling it, though, don’t just stick it on
that eBay place for goodness’ sake.’  Dr Garlick laughed, but at what
Morton wasn’t sure.

The
receptionist returned carrying a metal tray with Dr Garlick’s peppermint tea, a
black coffee, bowl of mixed sugar lumps and a small pot of milk.  She set
the tray down wordlessly and flounced back over to her desk.

‘Help
yourself,’ Dr Garlick said.

‘Thanks.’ He
stirred in two sugars and some milk and took a sip.  Filtered. 
Much
better than the Conquest Hospital. ‘You said there was some confusion?’

‘Yes. 
Look,’ Dr Garlick said, moving the box between them.  ‘This half of the
armorial achievement, with all the expected brisures and what have you, is pure
Windsor-Sackville, dating back many generations.  We know that it has to
belong to Sir David because it bears his mother’s arms within it.  What we
don’t know, none of us here knows, is who the
other
half belongs
to.  Are you up on your Windsor-Sackville history?’

‘Er, no, not
really.’

‘Well, David
Windsor-Sackville married Maria Charlotte Spencer, distant relative of Lady
Diana Spencer in 1945, yet this isn’t her family arms,’ Dr Garlick said,
handing Morton a sheet of paper.  ‘
That
is the coat of arms of
David and Maria Windsor-Sackville, registered with the College of Arms soon
after their marriage.’  Morton compared the two coats of arms.  Only
half of each shield matched the other.

‘What does it
mean?’ Morton asked, repeating a question that had haunted him for the past
week. 
Nothing
made sense.

Dr Garlick
shrugged.  ‘I’m afraid my colleagues and I are at a loss over it. 
Taking an educated guess, it’s possible that it was produced for Sir David’s
marriage to someone else but who that is, we’ve no idea.  He certainly did
only marry the once – I’ve double-checked the official records.’

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