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Authors: Nathan Dylan Goodwin

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‘He’s just
dropped back.  A black BMW X6.  He’s speeding up a bit now, see him?’
 

Morton angled
his head and caught sight of a black car – was that a BMW?  He had no
idea, but the car was gaining ground. ‘How do you know he’s following us,
though?  We’ve pretty much stayed on the same road since leaving
Brighton.’

‘He’s trying
not to be seen, speeding up, slowing down, taking odd decisions.’

‘Are you sure
you’re not just being paranoid?’ Morton asked.

‘Hold tight,’
Juliette said, ‘and get the plates.’
 

Morton was
about to ask what she meant when she yanked up the handbrake and hard-locked
the steering wheel.  The tyres squealed like dying pigs as the car spun
round one hundred and eighty degrees.  A split-second later and the black
BMW sailed past at top-speed.  Morton forgot the plates as soon as he saw
the driver and recognised him; the question he had posed to Juliette about her
paranoia had been answered.

 

There could be no mistake, the man who had
followed them out of Brighton in the BMW was the same man who had dropped his
cigarettes on the steps of the Brighton District Probate Registry.  As
Morton sat at the desk in his study with his research notes spread out in front
of him, it crystallised in his mind that Peter’s death, the mugging and the
car-trailing were anything but coincidences.  Even Juliette was beginning
to understand his reticence in reporting the robbery.  The first thing
that Morton did when they returned home was to jot down all that he could
recall typing into the notes about the case so far.  When he finished, he
sifted through the folder until he came to Soraya Benton’s address and phone
number. 
Should he call her or visit?
  He would usually phone
first and explain who he was and why he was making contact, but he didn’t want
to take a chance that she wouldn’t be willing to meet in person.  He
decided to pay her a visit.

 

When Morton parked outside the address
that the electoral register search had provided, he was relieved not to have
his fears confirmed that he would arrive to find Soraya’s bludgeoned corpse
being stretchered out by paramedics.  The quiet tree-lined road was close
to Peter Coldrick’s house, but on the more affluent side of town.  The
house was a chunky Victorian semi with a carefully trained yellow-flowered
honeysuckle enveloping much of the façade.
 

He
double-checked the rear-view mirror and was as certain as he could be that he
hadn’t been followed.  With a final glance in the mirror, Morton
approached the house and pressed the doorbell.

A moment later
a woman in her early forties appeared at the door in jeans and an over-sized
cream jumper, with tousled brown hair tied back in a loose
ponytail.   Could
she
be Soraya Benton?  If so, then Morton
was both impressed and astonished that Coldrick had managed to pull someone
so... well, someone so
way
out of his league.  She was not at all
the frump he’d conjured up in his imagination on the journey over here.

‘Hi there,’
Morton began, ‘are you Soraya Benton?’
 

She looked
baffled, her eyes narrowing as if she were struggling to recognise an old
school friend.  ‘Yes,’ she said warily.

‘My name’s
Morton Farrier, I hope you don’t mind me dropping by like this-’

‘-Ah, I
wondered when you might make an appearance,’ Soraya interjected with a shy
grin.  ‘Come in.’  She stepped aside, showing Morton into a bright
hallway.  He was puzzled by her cryptic greeting.  He’d anticipated a
long and protracted doorstep discussion, especially if Soraya and Coldrick had
separated acrimoniously.  This was quite baffling to him.  Soraya
moved past him and he followed her into a large and comfortable lounge.

‘What did you
mean,
you wondered when I might make an appearance
?’ Morton asked. 
Soraya smiled and invited him to sit down.

‘I was
expecting you – I knew that if you were as good a forensic genealogist as your
website claimed that you’d find me somehow.  You see, I was the one who
suggested Peter employed you.’  Morton was still perplexed –
he
might never have found her, were it not for Juliette mentioning her very
existence, but he wasn’t about to reveal
that
snippet of news; he was
enjoying the view from the pedestal she had placed him on.  She spoke so
calmly and confidently that it unnerved him slightly.

‘Well, here I
am,’ Morton said, adding after a pause, ‘I’m very sorry about Peter’s death.’

‘Me too,’
Soraya said, her expression suggesting that such simple words couldn’t even
begin to express what she was feeling.  He could see entrenched sadness
and sorrow implicit in her eyes and couldn’t imagine what she must be going
through.  ‘I’ve just opened a bottle of red – can I persuade you to help
me out with it?’

Morton
nodded.  ‘That would be lovely, thanks.’
 

Soraya left the
room then returned with a glass.  ‘Can I ask what you think about Peter’s
death,’ she asked.

‘Well, he only
hired me on Tuesday, but…’ Morton’s voice trailed off.  He didn’t know how
much he wanted to say, how much he could say.

‘But?’

‘But he didn’t
seem the suicide type,’ Morton answered, hoping that his answer was diplomatic
and pointed enough without cutting a fresh wound in her grief.

Soraya set her
glass down on the table between them.  ‘No, he wasn’t the suicide type at
all.  Even if he had wanted to kill himself, he never in a million years
would have used a gun.  I mean, he didn’t even
own
a gun.  Why
go to all that bother when there was enough paracetamol in his bathroom cabinet
to fell a large horse?  Or a kitchen full of knives?’

‘It doesn’t
really add up,’ he agreed.

‘Well, I
know
for certain he didn’t do it.’  The way that she emphasised the word
know
suggested to Morton that she must be sitting on some kind of irrefutable
evidence, which surely she had shared with the police?

‘How can you
know?  The police seem fairly convinced it was suicide.’

‘I know they
are, but they’ve got it wrong.  Very wrong.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘No,
really
wrong.  Follow me.’

Morton put down
his glass and followed Soraya down the hallway where she gently pushed open a
door and stood back, allowing Morton to stick his head inside.  The
tightly drawn Incredible Hulk curtains should have been sufficient enough clue
for him, but it wasn’t until his eyes fell upon a sleeping child, right leg
dangling precariously from a messy cabin bed that it registered in his brain:
Peter had a son.  An heir.

‘Finlay
Coldrick,’ Soraya said in a whisper, confirming his assumption.  Morton
was stunned.  He hadn’t seen
that
one coming.  He still
couldn’t imagine Soraya and Coldrick sharing the same house, much less a
child.  Soraya pulled the door shut and they returned to the lounge.

‘Peter would
have gone to the ends of the earth for that boy,’ Soraya said quietly, tucking
her legs up under herself.  ‘They had such a close relationship – there’s no
way he would have done anything like this.  Fin spent the day with him on
Tuesday.  He wasn’t feeling well and Peter looked after him while I was at
work.  He’s supposed to have shot himself around seven thirty – half an
hour after I left to bring Fin home.  The police were like a dog with a
bone about our separation – like he was some Fathers for Justice martyr or
something,’ she said, a mild undertone of anger in her voice.  ‘But that
couldn’t be any further from the truth.  We never saw the need to sort out
custody arrangements or make anything official, we’ve always been perfectly
amicable and put Fin first.’

‘I guess it’s
just the police looking for a motive,’ he said, surprising himself by sounding
like Juliette.

‘Well, they’re
wrong: he didn’t commit suicide.  It’s got something to do with his
family, I know it,’ she said resolutely, as if that was her final word on the
subject, regardless of any investigation.

‘It’ll be the
coroner’s decision, I guess.’

Soraya
scoffed.  There was a slight pause before she said tentatively, ‘Do you
think you can find out what’s going on, Morton?  For Finlay's sake?’

‘That’s what
I’m here for.’  The new knowledge of Peter's son only reaffirmed Morton’s
commitment to finding out the truth about the Coldrick’s family history.

‘So, what do we
do now?’ she asked.

‘I’m going to
need to know
everything
about James and Peter – their hobbies, friends,
political views, jobs - the lot.’

Soraya took a
mouthful of wine.  ‘Okay,’ she said with an uncertain laugh.  ‘Where
to begin?’

‘The
beginning.’

 

Morton had been taking scribbled notes for
more than three hours.  His hand ached from the writing and his brain
ached from the sheer monotony of the father and son’s lives.  He felt like
he knew their frankly dull existences inside out, including James’
preponderance for
The Shipping News
and
The Archers
and his fear
of flying but love of caravan holidays in Rhyl.  Scintillating stuff
indeed.  ‘James sounds…’ Morton racked his brain for the correct
word.  A polite word.  ‘Well,
ordinary
.’

‘I suppose he
was.  He was certainly a very reserved man.  He’d sit quietly in the
corner of the room – always on the periphery of what was going on – just
observing with a gentle smile on his face.  I never once heard him raise
his voice or become embroiled in an argument or complain about his
cancer.  Just a very, very kind and placid man who liked the simple things
in life.’  Morton nodded.  James Coldrick
sounded
like a plain
and simple man; but for one thing.  It was time to bring up the bank
balance.

‘Something’s
bothering me,’ he ventured.

‘Go on.’

‘James lived in
a run-down council house for most of his adult life, having worked as an
agricultural labourer, yet he was sitting on a sizeable amount of money when he
died last year,’ Morton said.

Soraya
laughed.  ‘You have been digging, haven’t you?  Well, neither of us
could fathom it when he died and the solicitor told Peter about it.  It
came as quite a shock, I can tell you.  As far as Peter was concerned,
there was no inheritance for him.  As it turned out, he left it all to
Finlay for when he reaches twenty-one.’  She paused momentarily for
breath.  Morton thought that he detected an undercurrent of resentment in
her voice.  She continued, ‘James didn’t have a car, didn’t have any
expensive habits or luxuries and he only upgraded to a colour telly about ten
years ago and that was going halves with Peter.  He was forever scratching
around for loose change to walk up the shop with.’  Soraya paused
again.  ‘He even bought a bloody lottery ticket every week!  Can you
imagine!  What would he have done with the winnings, for God’s sake?’

‘That’s
bizarre.  Where did Peter think the money came from?’

Soraya
shrugged.  ‘He hadn’t got a single clue.  At first he thought that
maybe his dad was unaware he had the money until Peter asked at the bank. 
They wouldn’t say much, data protection and all that rubbish, but they did say
that he’d had the money in a high-interest account for a long time and received
regular statements, so he certainly knew he had it.  I think Peter
suspected that his dad had inherited the money or that it was somehow connected
with his family.  Again, it all comes down to genealogy and
you
.’

‘If only it
were that simple,’ Morton muttered.

‘I've got every
faith in you.’  Soraya smiled.

‘Thanks.’

‘Is there
anything else you want to know?’

‘I think
that’ll do for the time being,’ Morton said.  ‘I’ll leave you my mobile
number.  If you think of anything else, give me a call.’  He handed
over one of his business cards and Soraya scribbled her own mobile number on a
scrap of paper.  Above it she scrawled what looked like her name, though
the letter
a
bore more resemblance to the number nine.

‘I’ll be in
touch when I’ve got something to report.’

 

Morton drove into the blood-orange sunset,
the overwhelming heat finally abating.  It was a curious and unforeseen
end to the day.  He had in no way anticipated leaving Soraya’s house under
the employ of a young child that he had not known existed four hours ago. 
How old was Finlay Coldrick?
  From the restricted view he had, he
estimated him to have been about six, but then what did he know?  His only
experience of children was when he was a child himself and that didn’t really
count.  And yet he felt an odd affinity with Finlay Coldrick, both of them
having a similar rupture in their parentage.  Although he had to admit
that being told your father’s head was blown off at close range won the title
of potentially most messed up childhood.  Whoever had killed Coldrick must
have been waiting, watching the house until Soraya had collected Finlay at
seven o’clock, before persuading him to open the door.  It had to have
been meticulously planned, not some arbitrary burglary that had gone horribly
wrong.

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