Hiding the Past (28 page)

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Authors: Nathan Dylan Goodwin

BOOK: Hiding the Past
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There was
talking nearby.  Men.  That was it; the reason why he needed to get
out.  The men mustn’t get their hands on the rucksack.

He tugged
furiously at it but it wouldn’t budge.  Besides which, he couldn’t
actually move.  Was it his injuries?  Was he really so badly
hurt?  He tentatively felt around his torso, tapping his fingers over his
jacket.  No, he wasn’t so damaged to prevent escape.  Then his turbid
brain realised: it was the seatbelt; that was what was pinning him in.  He
fumbled for the release button and slumped forward as the belt pinged back over
his shoulder.  He spat out a mouthful of blood and held his stomach to
prevent him from being sick.

The men were
talking more loudly, moving towards him.
 

He pulled at
the rucksack but it was stuck fast.  He couldn’t remember quite why but he
knew that he couldn’t let them get their hands on it.  Then he caught
sight of something glinting at his feet – it was the rucksack buckle.
 

Another flash
of clarity and he realised that he’d been pulling on the flaccid airbag.

Morton lunged
at the rucksack, wincing at the pain in his hands, and wriggled out of the open
window, flopping heavily down onto something prickly.

The
merry-go-rounding inside his head and the surging waves of nausea were too much
– he vomited beside the car.

His frangible,
addled brain was able to decipher some of the men’s voices.  ‘He has to be
dead,’ one of them said.  He recognised the voice, then recalled the last
two faces he had seen.  It belonged to one of them but he couldn’t
remember which.

‘About bloody
time, you kept him alive too long,’ the other said.  ‘I told you to get
rid of him days ago.  You didn't have this much trouble with Peter.’

As Morton lay
on the prickly plant beside a pool of his own vomit, he knew, with certain
lucidity, what he had to do.  He dipped his painful right hand inside the
rucksack and rummaged until he found the box of matches.

The men had
fallen silent but for their heavy breathing.  They had almost reached him;
Morton was out of time.  He struck a match and threw it towards the car’s
underbelly.  For a moment the match laid on the ground, the flame
flickering, as if deciding whether or not it was up to the task.  A second
later a growing lozenge of flame flowed like a river towards his car.  His
brand new car.

Morton knew
that he had to move.  He began to drag himself and the rucksack along the
woodland floor, just as a massive explosion ripped open the carcass of the
Mini.

From the torn
fabric of his mind, Morton thought that it sounded like some of his attackers
had been caught in the blast.  One thing he knew, they were making a hasty
retreat back up the bank.  Morton dragged himself further and further into
the enveloping woods.

Then he vomited
again.

Then everything
went dark.

 

Morton Farrier left the Conquest Hospital
shortly after one o’clock in the afternoon with the assistance of Juliette, who
was dressed in full superhero PCSO uniform.  He climbed into the police
van holding his bandaged hands awkwardly out in front of him, partly to elicit
sympathy from Juliette and partly because they were hurting like hell. 
That dastardly Paul from the Mini showroom had failed to warn him during his
spiel about the car’s many features that, by clinging onto the steering wheel
at the moment of any possible collision, he would end up in a hospital with
first-degree burns to his hands and wrists from the firing of the airbag. 
Aside from the burns, he had also suffered concussion and a three-inch gash to
the left side of his head, which required five stitches to seal the gap. 
As the nurse meticulously wove the black thread through his gaping skin, Morton
hoped that the cut would scar nice and visibly, giving him something of the
hard edge of Daniel Dunk.  The doctor wanted to make sure that Morton was
fully
compos mentis
and asked him the day of the week, which he was
unable to give and he was unable to satisfy the doctor that this had nothing to
do with the head injury.  He was finally released after correctly
answering the ironic question as to who the Secretary of Defence was.  It
would have taken a full lobotomy for him to forget the name of Philip
Windsor-Sackville.

‘Right, to the
station, then,’ Juliette said rather fatalistically as she brought the throaty
police van to life, the same van that she had used to storm Charingsby a few
hours previously.  Morton noticed that she had parked in a disabled bay
and
not paid for parking.  Oh the joys of being above the law.

‘We just need
to do a quick detour first,’ Morton said.

‘Oh, for Christ’s
sake, what now?’

Morton went to
explain when his mobile rang.
 

Dr
Baumgartner’s name flashed up onscreen.

The results.

 

Morton carefully carried the chunky red
box file towards the house.  He had told Juliette to keep the van running
– what he had to do would only take a moment.  He banged loudly on the
front door of the imposing townhouse.

A rattling of
bolts then Soraya Benton appeared before him.  She was dressed just the
same as the first day he’d met her in an oversized cream jumper and baggy
jeans.  Lacking now, however, was the sparkle in her eyes and the
welcoming smile.  ‘Hi,’ Soraya said, ‘come in.’

Morton followed
her into the lounge and sat himself down.

‘So what have
you been up to, then?’ she asked, taking a seat opposite him.  He could
see her eyeing up the box file on his lap.  ‘You look a bit worse for
wear.’  She even managed a stinted, cracked attempt at laughter.

Morton
smiled.  ‘It’s over, Soraya,’ he said quietly.

‘What do you
mean?  Did you find what you needed?’

He paused to
consider the question.  ‘Yes, I did. I also found a lot more than I
bargained for. Like your marriage to Daniel Dunk.’

‘What?’ she
gasped, a look of terror flicking across her face.  ‘I don't know what
you're talking-’

‘It's
over.  Stop pretending,’ he interjected.

Soraya's eyes
fell as she waited for Morton to continue.

He tapped the
red file with his knuckles and revealed the handwritten title, ‘Misc.
Charingsby’ emblazoned on the spine.  It sent shockwaves of pain through
him but it was worth every moment to see the look of sheer horror on her face.

 
‘It’s funny
really,’ he said, ‘there I was, flailing around in the archives of Charingsby,
not a hope in hell of pulling all the records I needed out before being caught,
then I discover this little red box which someone had painstakingly already put
together.’

Soraya bit her
lip and stared at him, the epitome of the rabbit trapped in the
headlights.  Morton, with a good deal of concentration and pain, managed
to prise open the box file.  ‘Everything I needed, everything I’ve been
searching for these last two weeks is in here.’  He withdrew a pile of
paper and provided a running commentary for each item.  ‘The 1944
admission register for St George’s Children’s Home, bank statements confirming
payments to James Coldrick totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds, documents
unequivocally confirming Frederick and David Windsor-Sackville’s involvement
with the Nazis in the first half of World War Two, including vast,
multi-million pound payments made to the family from Berlin …’ Morton put the
papers down.  ‘I don’t really need to tell you about the rest of the
folder, do I, Soraya?’

She shook her
head.

‘I’d suspected
something was amiss for a while now.  I became suspicious that day at
Peter’s house when we went there together to search for his will and you
miraculously found the
All About Sedlescombe
book, which I knew hadn’t
been there at the time of his death.  You put it there, didn’t you?’

Soraya nodded.

‘Having first
filtered the contents to suit your own needs?’

Another nod.

‘The day that I
met Peter he warned me not to trust anyone.  He meant you.  He knew
you were up to something.’  Morton held up the box file and pointed to the
word on the spine.  ‘Do you know what gave you away?’ Morton asked rhetorically. 
‘It was the letter
a.
  As soon as I spotted this on the shelf I
knew.’  He paused, allowing her the opportunity to say something in
defence, but nothing was forthcoming.  ‘
You
compiled this
file.’  Another pause.  ‘Which didn’t make sense to me.  Why, I
thought, would she need me to research everything that she already knew? 
Then it clicked – the stuff in here might well bring down the
Windsor-Sackvilles, but to what end?  What would you gain from that? 
Then it came to me - you don't want to bring them down at all - you want to be
part of them, but you needed me to find something concrete to prove that your
son is heir to the vast Windsor-Sackville empire.  You needed the
genealogical link that’s missing from this file.  Well, I found you the
link to Finlay's family.  A will arrived in the post this morning; I guess
you could call it Finlay’s inheritance.  Here,’ Morton said, handing over
a single sheet of paper.

Soraya cast her
eyes down the paper then looked up, perplexed.

‘It’s a search
for the estate of William Dunk,’ Morton said cryptically.

‘I don’t
understand,’ Soraya mumbled.

‘William Dunk,
your father-in-law - he left nothing behind other than the delightful house in
which your
husband
now resides,’ Morton said with a large grin.

‘What’s
Daniel’s dad got to do with anything?’ Soraya asked.

‘Oh yes, sorry,
I forgot that bit.  William Dunk was James Coldrick’s father.’

‘No,’ Soraya exclaimed
incredulously.  ‘Absolutely impossible.’

‘I’m afraid
not, William Dunk is undoubtedly the biological father of James Coldrick.’

‘How could that
be?’

‘William was
the estate handyman – Marlene obviously fell in love with him, unbeknownst to
the Windsor-Sackvilles.  The result was James Coldrick.  Marlene
wasn’t silly enough to declare the truth.  In short, your son has no
relationship whatever with the Windsor-Sackvilles.’

‘You’re making
all this up,’ Soraya protested.

‘Why would I do
that?’

‘To stop Fin
from getting what he’s entitled to.’

‘He’s entitled
to nothing, Soraya.  Absolutely nothing.’

‘Then why have
they been buying James Coldrick’s silence all these years, then? Why go to such
lengths to protect the truth?’ she demanded, anger rising in her voice. 
‘If James was William’s son then why have the Windsor-Sackvilles spent all
these years covering up the truth?’

‘They didn’t
know.  They believed James was the son of David Windsor-Sackville. 
Simple as that.’
 

Morton briefly
summarised what he had learnt from Professor Geoffrey Daniels about the plans
to unite the Koldrichs and the Windsor-Sackvilles.  ‘Ultimately, they
believed that James had been created as part of that union, but D-Day marked a
change of direction in the war.  The last thing a prominent English family
wanted in mid-1944 was a link to Nazi Germany.  As you know from these
documents in my lap, a wedding was even planned.  They went as far as to
draw up a new coat of arms for the pair, which they had emblazoned on a copper
box,’ he said.  Professor Daniels had emailed Morton a copy of the Koldrich
family crest, which was a confirmed match for the other half on the copper box.

‘How are you so
damn sure that William Dunk was James’ father?’ she demanded.

‘DNA.  I
borrowed a sample from your husband
.
  It’s ironic really that he’s
done so much damage to James Coldrick’s family.  I wonder if he would have
done the Windsor-Sackville’s bidding if he’d known that James Coldrick was his
half-brother.’

Soraya stared
in disbelief, taking in the news.

‘One thing I'm
still not sure of, though.  You married Dunk in 2005, yet had Finlay with
Peter in 2008.  Was your relationship with Peter purely because you'd
discovered in the archives that the Windsor-Sackvilles were paying off an
illegitimate son?  Did you go out looking for Peter in order to procure a
child with him?’

Soraya sat
dumbstruck, her silence speaking for her.

Morton let
Soraya's guilt hang quietly between them before saying, ‘I’m on my way to the
police station right now.  Your husband, your deceased father-in-law, the
Windsor-Sackvilles, Olivia Walker, will all be implicated.  I’m giving you
a chance.’

‘What do you
mean?’

‘I mean, I’ll
do what I can to save your back but you need to disappear.  Now.’

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