Hiding the Past (19 page)

Authors: Nathan Dylan Goodwin

BOOK: Hiding the Past

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Juliette gave
him a doubtful look. ‘That’s what the internet’s for.’ She stopped
to study the blurb of a well-worn Maeve Binchy novel. He knew that her
mind was working overtime trying to establish an ulterior motive. She put
the book down and the three of them walked on, passing motley tables of plants,
ornaments, homemade jams and preserves, antique furniture and secondhand
toys. A swarm of wasps besieged an open-sided gazebo where traditional
apple-pressing was taking place. The hive of industry, of which the wasps
seemed an integral part, resulted in a copious quantity of cloudy amber liquid
oozing from a thick wooden press before being sold to a queuing public for one
pound per plastic cup.

‘Fancy some?’
Morton asked.

‘Maybe later,’
Jeremy said, scrunching his nose up.

Morton led them
past a long line of cakes and biscuits that might have looked remotely tempting
if they weren’t slowly wilting under the high heat of the day, much to the
chagrin of their creators behind the tables. They moved further down the
field, past a bouncy castle and face-painting tent towards a temporary stage on
what was the only flat part of the field. An empty podium and microphone
stood in the centre of the stage in anticipation of Sir David and Lady
Windsor-Sackville. In front of the staging was a long thick red ribbon
tied off between two wooden stakes at either side of the stage. Morton
guessed that this was the symbolic ribbon that would be ceremonially cut in
order to declare the fete open. It seemed to him like closing the gate
after the horse had bolted, since the field was already heaving with
visitors. In just a few minutes Morton would come face to face with his
adversaries standing on that very stage. He wondered if they would know
who he was. Probably not, the problem was much more likely being dealt
with by the lower ranks of the family and staff.

Running his
eyes over the crowds, Morton’s attention was taken by something moving
strangely in the distance. It was some kind of customised golfing buggy,
speeding down the hill far too fast, scattering people left and right from its
path. Heads, too many than can have fitted comfortably inside, bobbed
about like Muppets, as the buggy jutted over ruts and fissures in the ground.

‘If only I’d
brought my speed trap radar,’ Juliette commented, her attention having been
drawn by the commotion of disgruntled families, heaving themselves out of the
buggy’s way.

It came to an
abrupt halt in front of the stage, all the bobbing heads being flung sharply
forwards then back. From Morton’s perspective, it looked as though the
front window had nudged into the ceremonial red ribbon. Morton
immediately recognised the driver as Sir David James Peregrine
Windsor-Sackville: born 1913, yet still able to terrify the living daylights
out of people with his bullish driving.

‘Come on, you
buggers,’ Sir David said, referring to his legs, hoisting one and then the
other out of the buggy, as if he had two lead weights attached to his pelvis.

One of his entourage
jumped from the rear of the buggy and readied a pair of walking sticks in front
of him. With the sticks firmly in his hands, he stood upright, a tall,
formidable and blackguard figure. He certainly seemed like a man used to
getting his own way.

An equally
wizened woman appeared from the passenger side, waving off the offer of
assistance from a deferent aide. Lady Maria Charlotte Windsor-Sackville,
née Spencer, born 1915. A fearsome beast, if ever Morton saw one.
She was dressed in an all-in-one lemon-coloured outfit with matching hat that
wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Queen. With one sweep of her
hand, an aide came dashing over.

‘Is that them?’
Juliette whispered, an edge of disappointment in her voice. Morton
wondered what she’d been expecting. Younger, more agile opponents maybe.

‘Yeah, that’s
them,’ he answered.

The redoubtable
duo, armed with their walking sticks, ambled up the temporary steps onto the
staging, closely followed by five attentive aides. Morton gazed at the
scene in front of him; it was like some garish wedding rehearsal and he
couldn’t help but feel something akin to respect for their vigour.
Could
that decrepit old pair really be responsible for murder? Was he now
looking at James Coldrick’s parents?
He wasn’t sure, but the more
that he observed them, the more obvious it became to him that the distinguished
pair, despite their age, continued to wield and exert an incredible power over
those around them.

Morton withdrew
his iPhone and pulled the scanned copy of James Coldrick’s mother from his
online cloud storage space, holding it aloft beside Maria Charlotte
Windsor-Sackville.

‘What do you
think?’ Morton asked. ‘One and the same?’

Jeremy and
Juliette leaned in either side of him.

‘No way, look
at the nose,’ Juliette said emphatically.

‘It could be
the same person,’ Jeremy said. ‘Look at the shape of her jawline. I think
it could be the same woman.’

‘I’m not sure,’
Morton said, as his view of Lady Maria was supplanted by a humungous backside
in black leggings.

A dishevelled
mother, with far more children than can possibly have been healthy for her
womb, parked herself and her family directly in front of them, marking their
territory by pulling a picnic blanket from one of three large Primark
bags. Ordinarily, Morton would have taken exception to losing front row
seats but the more he thought about it, the more he considered that being
slightly camouflaged was no bad thing.

Morton craned
his neck around a greasy-haired girl and watched as one of the Windsor-Sackville
attendants, a young, slender woman sweltering in a tight pinstripe suit ushered
them towards two gold-trimmed, red-velvet chairs in the centre of the
stage. It was such a cliché as to be laughable. Morton, half
expecting a pair of court jesters to leap out onto the stage, could see that
the chairs were cheap fabrications. It was all about image, he realised
as he studied them, bolt upright in their thrones, issuing orders to their
minions. The image of the Windsor-Sackville family needed to be preserved
at all costs. At any cost. Yes, Morton was starting to believe that
they would consider murder an acceptable method to protect the family name.

A man, who
screamed of self-importance, marched with his clipboard onto the stage and
thrust his hand towards Sir David, who greeted him with a vague head gesture,
large scowl and reluctant shake of the hand. A narrow, pathetic excuse of
a smile passed across the scarlet-painted lips of Lady Maria, before her eyes
surveyed the slowly gathering crowds with what looked to Morton like
thinly-veiled contempt. The man continued to speak to the pair,
gesticulating his clipboard in large circles as he spoke. The racket made
by the growing number of people prevented Morton from catching what was being
said on stage, but his interpretation was that his jokes and officiousness
weren’t going down too well with the knight and his good lady wife, who sat
staring at the crowd indifferently.

A few minutes
later, with a sufficiently large crowd assembled, the man with the clipboard
stepped up to the podium and tapped the microphone. The volume of the
crowd fell to a low murmur. ‘Can everyone hear me okay?’ he said with a
large grin. A smattering of people in the crowd weakly replied that could
hear him and so he carried on. ‘Good, that’s marvellous. I’m so
glad to see the sun shining for us here today and I’m delighted that so many of
you have turned out to enjoy all we’ve got on offer at the Sedlescombe Fete,
including a marvellous falconry display with seven different species of owl, a
Tai Kwan Do display and what I’m particularly looking forward to is Tractors
Through the Ages – I noticed a fine Massey-Ferguson similar to the one I used
to plough this very field as a youth, but that’s another story! Before I
hand you over to our very special guests to open the fete, I would just like to
use this opportunity of thanking Sir David and Lady Maria for their kind loan
of this field to host the event.’ He paused, anticipating some great
reaction from the crowd, but what he actually got was a half-hearted, staggered
clap, like a pitiable Mexican wave. He spoke over the last dregs of
applause, ‘Well, I’m sure none of you paid to hear me droning on, so, without
further ado, would you please give a hearty Sedlescombe welcome to Sir David
and Lady Maria Windsor-Sackville.’

The crowd gave
a unanimous round of applause as Sir David and Lady Maria rose from their
thrones. Morton felt something akin to admiration for the pair as they
approached the podium without the aid of their walking sticks. Sir David
pulled the microphone closer and spoke with clean, crisp grandiloquence; a
voice that seemed entirely ageless to Morton. He hoped that he would be
so active at their age, but who knew what terrible hereditary illnesses and
causes of premature deaths lurked in his unknown genes? For all that he
knew, his mother and father could both have been dead by the time they were
forty from some godawful disease.

Morton looked
across at Jeremy, who was doing what could only be described as eye-flirting
with one of the Windsor-Sackville aides, a slick Hollywood-handsome young man
with perfect white teeth and bleached blond hair. At least Jeremy knew
that there was a risk of cancer in his gene pool and could do something about
it. And now heart disease needed to be added to the list. He
wondered how his father was progressing today. Jeremy had called the ward
this morning to be told the standard mantra that he’d had a ‘comfortable
night.’
Would they tell him if he’d had an uncomfortable night?

Jeremy’s
relationship with the man on stage had progressed to the next level; they were
now sharing in a silent, body-language-dependent conversation about Sir David’s
speech – eye rolling, smiling and frowning at each other like they were a pair
of teenagers. Morton wondered if he would be more confident if he were
gay. He couldn’t imagine ever being so self-assured as a part of any
gender combination to be doing what they were doing now.

Morton studied
Sir David closely as he perorated. Was there an atavistic resemblance
between him and Peter or Finlay? It was hard to picture Sir David’s
ancient, papery face as a young person to be able to make a comparison.

As Sir David
finished, his wife, with considerable grace and elegance, made her way down to
the red ribbon. Her trusty aides had a watchful eye over her, ready to
lurch out should she take a tumble.

‘It gives me
enormous pleasure to be able to declare the Sedlescombe Fete…open!’ the lady
exclaimed loudly.

The gathering,
now fully versed in crowd etiquette, clapped raucously.

Moments later
everyone had dispersed in a hundred directions, many heading towards the burger
and ice cream vans. Jeremy blithely bounced over to his new-found friend
on the stage for the next phase in their relationship, whilst two of the
entourage hurried walking sticks to the fragile Windsor-Sackvilles.

‘Come on,’
Morton said to Juliette, ‘let’s wait for Lothario’s gay twin over here.’

‘You’ve got to
admit it, he’s got a good taste in men,’ Juliette remarked.

‘Hmm,’ Morton
mumbled absent-mindedly. It wasn’t something he felt in any way qualified
to comment on other than that the aide was handsome. Men were either
handsome or ugly as far as Morton was concerned; there was no grey area
in-between. They watched with veneration as a clear display of
number-swapping took place, before the handsome aide was reabsorbed into the
train of attendants following Sir David and Lady Maria back into the buggy
where they were whisked off at high speed up the hill. Angry red brake
lights flashed abruptly next to the apple-pressing tent and the party
disembarked the vehicle once more.

‘Come on,’
Morton said, urging Juliette up the slope, just as Jeremy rejoined them.

‘Guy,’ Jeremy
said, proudly wafting a piece of paper in the air. ‘Australian.’

Curious name
, Morton thought. Guy. Gay
Guy. Very peculiar. ‘Guy what?’

‘Disney,’
Jeremy answered. And he wasn’t joking. Guy Disney.

‘He looks fit,’
Juliette said.

‘I know!’

By the time
they had reached the apple-pressing marquee, a number of people had gathered
around Sir David and Lady Maria, as if they were some kind of celebrity
couple. Juliette returned to rummaging through a stall of
paperbacks. Jeremy made a beeline for Guy and their relationship, which
seemed to all intents and purposes to be on hyper-drive, progressed to the
level of Guy placing his hand in the small of Jeremy’s back while they spoke
animatedly to each other.

He turned his
attentions to the Windsor-Sackvilles, who were sipping apple juice from plastic
beakers whilst speaking to the wasp-besieged proprietor about the need to
maintain traditional agricultural practices. Sir David took a final swig
of juice and tossed the cup into a large barrel then turned, his watery, aged
eyes momentarily passing over Morton before flicking back in a brusque
double-take.

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