The America Ground (The Forensic Genealogist Series Book 3) Read online

  Praise for The America Ground

  ‘As in the earlier novels, each chapter slips smoothly from past to present, revealing murderous events as the likeable Morton uncovers evidence in the present, while trying to solve the mystery of his own paternity. Packed once more with glorious detail of records familiar to family historians, The America Ground is a delightfully pacey read’ Family Tree

  ‘Like most genealogical mysteries this book has several threads, cleverly woven together by the author - and there are plenty of surprises for the reader as the story approaches its conclusion. A jolly good read!’ Lost Cousins

  ‘Goodwin’s stories have been good reads, engaging the interest of the genealogist with references to records…Readers will welcome this new book as a welcome distraction from the intensity of research to reading about someone else’s work, with murder thrown in’ Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter

  ‘Great reading - a real page-turner! Good solid genealogy research – highly recommended’ Genealogy Happy Hour

  ‘It’s just a terrific book! It’s great stuff, I’ve read it, and you’re going to enjoy it’ Extreme Genes

  ‘The writing is pin-sharp and there is plenty of suspense in an excellent novel which makes me want to return to the first books in the series’ The Norfolk Ancestor

  ‘This is a good crime novel with links to family history and in it you have the best of both worlds…the twisting story will keep you guessing to the last page’ The Wakefield Kinsman

  About the Author

  Nathan Dylan Goodwin was born and raised in Hastings, East Sussex. Schooled in the town, he then completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Radio, Film and Television, followed by a Master of Arts Degree in Creative Writing at Canterbury Christ Church University. A member of the Society of Authors, he has completed a number of successful local history books about Hastings, as well as other works of fiction in this series; other interests include reading, photography, running, skiing, travelling and of course, genealogy. He is a member of the Guild of One-Name Studies and the Society of Genealogists, as well as being a member of the Sussex Family History Group, the Norfolk Family History Society, the Kent Family History Society and the Hastings and Rother Family History Society. He lives in Kent with his partner and young son.

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  nonfiction:

  Hastings at War 1939-1945 (2005)

  Hastings Wartime Memories and Photographs (2008)

  Hastings & St Leonards Through Time (2010)

  Around Battle Through Time (2012)

  fiction

  (The Forensic Genealogist series):

  Hiding the Past (2013)

  The Lost Ancestor (2014)

  The Orange Lilies (2014) – A Morton Farrier novella

  The America Ground (2015)

  The Spyglass File (2016)

  The Missing Man (2017) – A Morton Farrier novella

  The America Ground

  by

  Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  Copyright © Nathan Dylan Goodwin 2015

  Nathan Dylan Goodwin has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Where the names of real people have been used, they appear only as the author imagined them to be.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author. This story is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding, cover or other eformat, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover design: Patrick Dengate

  www.patrickdengate.com

  This book is dedicated to the mothers:

  Jane Goodwin, Anita Bristow and Christine Archer

  Contents:

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  Historical Information

  Acknowledgments

  The Spyglass File - Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Further Information

  Author’s Note

  This novel is set against the backdrop of a real moment in history and a real place, The America Ground; a piece of land outside Hastings, Sussex in the 1820s.

  I have used some key events surrounding this unusual piece of Hastings’ history, however, this book is largely a work of fiction.

  I have also taken the opportunity of reviving some colourful nouns, verbs and phrases from the wonderful old Sussex dialect—sadly now largely forgotten.

  Prologue

  27th April 1827, The America Ground, outside Hastings, Sussex

  It was the perfect night to kill her: a flat, overcast sky with only the barest sliver of a moon. The whole of the Sussex coast had been supressed into the shadows; he would be able to slip in and out undetected.

  In his black buckskin trousers and tailcoat, he melded seamlessly into the absolute darkness of the cottage. His progress up the stairs had been slow, having tested each step before fully applying his weight to ensure that his approach was silent.

  He reached a short corridor with two doors.

  He stopped and listened.

  A soft feminine wheeze emanated from behind the first door. Eliza Lovekin’s bedroom.

  Slowly and carefully, he lifted the latch and gently pushed, recoiling momentarily at the low sigh it emitted, as it swung open.

  He paused.

  Her rhythmical breathing remained unaltered.

  From the thin shard of light that defied the window shutters, he could see that she was lying prone with her back to him, the edge of her shape brushed in a soft pallid blue. It was a warm night and the blankets were peeled back, leaving her white nightdress exposed perfectly, making his job all the easier.

  Without a trace of apprehension, his hand glided to his waist and withdrew the sheathed knife. Silently, he pulled the blade from the leather casing and moved closer to her.

  Still she slept, oblivious to the fact that she had just seconds more left to live.

  Time seemed to congeal mulishly as he reached the side of her bed, now gripping the blade more tightly. Thoughts from his past flitted in and out of his mind.

  Finally, after a long while visualising this very moment, it had arrived.


  His knuckles whitened as he took a deep breath and plunged the knife into her back.

  She offered no words and no resistance, just a barely audible gasp as the knife penetrated through the back of her ribcage.

  Without pausing, he slid the knife out and stabbed her again.

  Her rhythmical breathing faltered as the knife thrust inside her again and again.

  Then her breathing stopped.

  He stood over her, listening. Eliza Lovekin was dead.

  Lydia Bloom was dead.

  Amelia Odden was next.

  Chapter One

  21st March 1988, Shepherd Street, St Leonards, Sussex

  She knocked on the faded red door of number 2 Shepherd Street, with her usual three taps, slid the key into the Yale lock and pushed the door open. She stepped into the lounge, which was unusually dark and set down her hessian jute bag. The flowery curtains—one of the few remnants from her grandmother’s time—were still drawn and the house was as cold inside as it was out.

  She knew that something was wrong. She’d been coming to see her grandfather pretty well every other day since she could remember. Well, she had to—her brothers and sister were next to useless. Not that she minded. She’d been as close to him—if not closer—than to her own father. Some of her earliest and fondest memories were with him in this house.

  She closed the door and shivered. ‘Grandpa?’ she called out, but the silent house offered no reply.

  Something was definitely wrong.

  She looked at the staircase with its pale green carpet, thinned back to the matting from countless years’ wear. A cold fear came over her and she suddenly didn’t want to climb them. ‘Grandpa?’ she shouted again, trying to keep her voice from quivering.

  She turned and pulled open the curtains. Then she switched on the light. It was better, but it still failed to remove the eeriness that was hanging in the room.

  ‘Grandpa?’ she repeated, as she approached the stairs.

  Maybe just a couple of stairs, she thought, tentatively placing her left foot on the bottom step. Upstairs, the thin hallway curtain battled against the daylight, letting in a peculiar, veiled shade of blue that made it appear all the more unnerving.

  Don’t be so stupid, she told herself. You’ve climbed these stairs thousands and thousands of times.

  ‘Right, I’m coming up, Grandpa—so I hope you’re decent,’ she said in as normal a voice as she could muster.

  She took another step. Then another. Then stopped.

  Come on!

  She stood at an angle so that she could see both the bottom and top of the stairs simultaneously.

  Another step. Just one more and she would be halfway.

  She exhaled sharply, annoyed at herself and took another two steps.

  A realisation dawned on her. What if Grandpa needs help and I’m dithering on the stairs?

  With a sudden burst of confidence, she marched to the top and pushed open her grandfather’s bedroom door. She stood poised in the doorway, unable to enter. He was still in bed. She could see his left foot just poking out from under the white blankets. ‘Grandpa?’ she cried, desperately hoping that he was in a very deep sleep. His hearing had begun to deteriorate when she had been just a girl, but as much as she tried to convince herself that maybe he hadn’t heard her, she knew from the loudness of her voice that that simply could not be true.

  She edged forward, his still body slowly revealing itself as she moved from behind the door. His thin torso, wearing navy blue pyjamas, was slightly twisted to one side. Then his face finally came into view, ashen and drawn, with his mouth agape.

  She gasped and flung her hands to her face. Her grandpa, her precious grandpa was dead.

  On the other side of the bed—where she had a vague and hazy memory of her grandmother once sleeping—were empty bottles and dozens of empty packets of paracetamol.

  She wiped the tears from her eyes and just stood, staring at the sorrowful sight in front of her. ‘Goodbye, Grandpa,’ she murmured, placing a kiss on his forehead. She left the room and descended the stairs, her initial irrational fear of the place having completely abated.

  She knew what she had to do.

  Entering the old-fashioned kitchen that had last been updated in the 1960s, she selected the backdoor key from a rack beside the fridge, then ventured outside.

  The garden was shamefully overgrown—her father had promised to come and sort it out, but settled instead on rolling up once every few months with a lawnmower and removing anything and everything that wasn’t grass. She remembered the pond and the intricate carefully nurtured flowerbeds that her grandpa had so loved. Now there was just a knee-high lawn and a wild medley of aggressive weeds.

  She shivered and pulled her multi-coloured cardigan tight, as she made her way slowly towards the greenhouse.

  Most of the glass panes had been victim to last year’s hurricane that had swept along the south of England, lying smashed and discarded in the brambles that were beginning to consume the pitiful structure.

  She slid the door to one side and carefully stepped inside.

  It had been a long time since her grandpa had brought her in here, but just last month he had assured her that the hiding place had remained intact.

  The concrete slabs that created a central walkway were uneven and strewn with broken glass. Nettles, bindweed and bramble thrived on either side, where once the plumpest tastiest tomatoes and cucumbers had grown.

  Looking towards the other end of the greenhouse, she knew that someone had gotten here first.

  The neat towers of stacked empty flowerpots of every conceivable size had been toppled and the concrete slab, above which they had been placed, lifted and discarded to one side.

  The hole was empty.

  Someone had found the documents although, judging by the complex web laced over the hole, not recently. Certainly not today.

  She moved back inside the house and dialled 999. ‘Ambulance, please,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s my grandfather—he’s killed himself.’

  Once she had placed the call, she sat calmly on the worn armchair—his armchair—and waited for the ambulance and police to arrive.

  Of course he hadn’t killed himself, she knew that. He was surrounded by packets and packets of brand new Tesco paracetamol. He didn’t—couldn’t—shop in Tesco, it was on the other side of town and he was housebound. Besides, it was she who did his shopping every week.

  She knew with certainty that they had come for him.

  Just as he had warned her they might.

  They might have gotten to her beloved grandpa, but they didn’t have the documents.

  Chapter Two

  2015

  Morton Farrier was excited. Having just parked his Mini in Bouverie Place car park in Folkestone town centre, he was zipping down the high street, dodging and weaving past slow-moving pedestrian traffic. A stretch of warm sunny weather had magnetised a swarm of day-trippers and holidaymakers to the coastal town, as it had done since Victorian times. Morton, dressed in jeans and a light shirt, marched through the crowds with a smile on his face. For the first time in his career as a forensic genealogist, he had cleared his diary for two whole weeks in order to concentrate fully on his own family history.

  He turned off the main thoroughfare and took a side street, where the crowds thinned, continuing on until a large red brick building came into view. It was a plain-looking edifice, which from a distance could have housed any number of businesses or services; only a small white sign, fixed to the wall, announcing Folkestone Library & History Resource Centre revealed its purpose. As he approached the main entrance, the glass doors parted and allowed him to enter. Once inside, he followed the signs up the stairs to a pair of Edwardian-era green double-doors. He stepped into a spacious rectangular room with wood-block flooring and, having never been to this particular repository, quickly surveyed the room. The walls were lined with the juxtaposing mixture of old and new genealogy and local history: old-fashioned wooden
bookcases and cabinets interspersed with half-a-dozen computer terminals. In the right-hand corner a help desk was staffed by a young man with a shaved head and a disproportionately thick black beard, which he unconsciously twiddled around one finger. When Morton approached the desk, he flicked his head up and smiled broadly.

  ‘Good morning, sir. How can I help?’

  ‘Morning,’ Morton replied. ‘I’d like to see electoral registers for Folkestone in 1974, please.’

  ‘Okay,’ the man said, swinging his chair ninety degrees then leaping up dramatically. ‘They’re just here.’ He indicated to the nearest cabinet and pulled open the glass-fronted door.

  On the shelf Morton could see a run of chronologically ordered volumes, each crudely bound with a cloth-taped spine, on which was handwritten Register of Electors and the relevant year.

  The archivist ran his finger along the spines until he reached the register for 1974. ‘Here we are,’ he said, drawing it out and placing it into Morton’s hands.

  ‘Thank you.’ Morton carried the book to one of the empty tables in the centre of the room and sat down, clutching it in his hands. He stared at the volume for a few seconds, unable to bring himself to open it, as a fear of the contents gripped his insides. He was about to place a foot on the first step of a staircase that led into the unknown, but which might one day see him reunited with his biological father.

  Seventeen years had lapsed since being told that he had been adopted when a baby. It was only last Christmas, however, that he had discovered the tiniest snippet of information pertaining to his biological father. He knew that his name was Jack and that he had originated from America—possibly the East Coast and that he had been studying for a degree in Archaeology. He had holidayed in Folkestone in early 1974, staying in a guesthouse next-door to where Morton’s biological mother had lived. That she had been a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl at the time had sparked the lie that had lasted more than forty years: that she had been raped. Her age and inability to provide for a child had prompted her older brother, Peter and his wife, Maureen to raise Morton as their own child. He had enjoyed and endured a tumultuous relationship with his adoptive parents, although, if he peeled back the complex layers of dejection and bitterness that had grown around him like a thick skin, Morton knew that they were fundamentally decent people and had done a good job raising him.