The Missing Man Read online

  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 husband and son.

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  nonfiction:

  Hastings at War 1939-1945

  Hastings Wartime Memories and Photographs

  Hastings & St Leonards Through Time

  Around Battle Through Time

  fiction:

  (The Forensic Genealogist series)

  Hiding the Past

  The Lost Ancestor

  The Orange Lilies – A Morton Farrier novella

  The America Ground

  The Spyglass File

  The Missing Man – A Morton Farrier novella

  The Suffragette’s Secret – A Morton Farrier short story

  The Wicked Trade

  The Missing Man

  by

  Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  Copyright © Nathan Dylan Goodwin 2017

  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 format, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover design: Patrick Dengate

  www.patrickdengate.com

  For my dad, Dennis Leslie Goodwin

  One of the good ones, taken too soon

  Table of Contents

  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

  Acknowledgments

  Further information:

  Prologue

  24th December 1976, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, USA

  Velda was numb. The blanket over her shoulders, now heavy from the falling snow, did nothing to stop the acute quivering that rattled through her body. The police tape barricade, vibrating in the icy wind against her hands, had confined her to the street. The swelling congregation behind her—a motley mixture of prying and anxious neighbours and the whole gamut of emergency service personnel—were rendered faceless by the darkness of the night.

  Velda’s eyes followed the thick snakes of white hose that crossed her lawn from the hydrant, into the hands of the firefighters, who were battling the great rasping flames that projected from every window of the house. Her house.

  One of the firefighters—the chief, she assumed—approached her. He was sweating and his face was marked with black blotches. ‘Ma’am—are you sure your husband and daughter are still inside?’

  ‘Yes,’ she heard herself say.

  ‘They couldn’t have slipped out to get something from the grocery store or…?’

  ‘No,’ Velda sobbed. ‘They’re inside. Please find them.’

  The fire chief nodded and turned back towards the house.

  A moment later, without fanfare or warning, the house collapsed. The shocked gasps of her neighbours and the stricken cries of the firefighters on the lawn were lost to the appalling cacophony of metal, brick, wood and glass crumbling together, crescendo-ing into the night sky. A funnel of dense black smoke, peppered with flecks of bright red and orange, clashed in mid-air with the flurrying of falling snow.

  Then, an odd stillness.

  That her house—her home—could be reduced to this pile of indescribable burning debris in front of her shocked her anew.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

  The hermetic seal that had neatly separated past and present had just ruptured spectacularly.

  And now it was all over.

  Somebody touched her shoulder and said something. She turned. It was her son, Jack. Either Velda’s ears were still ringing with the sound of the house disintegrating, or Jack was speaking soundlessly. There was an urgency to his voice.

  Velda tried to reply but a sagging sensation in her heart emanated out under her skin and down into her quivering limbs. Her legs buckled from beneath her and she crumpled helplessly into the snow.

  Chapter One

  14th August 2016, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

  Morton Farrier was shattered. He looked at his watch: just gone ten in the morning. He and his new wife, Juliette, had arrived at Logan International Airport late last night, following their marriage yesterday in their home town of Rye, England. He yawned. He’d had very little sleep and yet here he was sitting at a digital microfilm reader in Boston Public Library. He stretched and glanced around him. Having managed to navigate his way through busy and noisy corridors, courtyards and vast swathes of uninterrupted bookshelves, Morton now found himself in the genealogy section, tucked behind a partition at the rear of a palatial hall, where only fragmented whispers from the researchers working under green-shaded desk lamps reached the high ceiling above.

  An almost tangible restlessness burrowed into Morton’s insides, rendering him tense and apprehensive. He and Juliette were here on a three-week honeymoon, during which time he had the challenging task of locating his biological father. ‘Come on, hurry up…’ he muttered, looking behind him to the help desk where he had just requested a microfilm copy of the Cape Cod Times for December 1976. The year that was pivotal to his quest. The year that his paternal grandfather had died in a fire. The year that Morton’s father had disappeared, aged twenty, from the face of the earth.

  His notepad was open to a blank page, poised ready. Beneath it were the three letters that had spun his already complicated family tree onto a whole other level. His biological father, having no knowledge that his brief holiday romance in England in January 1974 had resulted in a child, had written to Morton’s biological mother, telling her that he had discovered something from his own father’s past. Something bad. Morton had found the three letters just as they had been when they had left the shores of Massachusetts in 1976; unopened and unread.

  ‘Here you go.’ Morton turned to see the young man from the help desk standing beside him. He placed a boxed microfilm down on the desk. ‘Used one of these before?’
r />   ‘Yes—a few times.’

  ‘Okay, cool. Well, good luck—come find me if you need any further help.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He pulled the film from the box, threaded it through the machine, then buzzed on until the first edition of the newspaper appeared onscreen. He briefly took in the front page and established that the Cape Cod Times was published daily. He wound the film on until he reached the edition for the December 26th, 1976. And there it was, the headline story. Devastating House Fire. Below it was a large black and white photograph of a burning building. Morton zoomed into the story.

  HYANNIS PORT-Holiday tragedy struck Velda Jacklin’s family when a fire, apparently begun in a Christmas tree, killed her husband and injured her daughter. “She’ll never smile again,” said a close friend who watched the ambulance take the surviving family members to the hospital. The fire broke out at about 7pm on Christmas Eve in the property at the Jacklin family home of 2239 Iyanough Avenue, causing the death of well-known local businessman, Roscoe Jacklin. Firefighters from Hyannis FD and Yarmouth FD were still trying to smother the flames at 10.30am yesterday. When fire units arrived at the Jacklins’ home, they found the three-story wood-frame house ablaze. “Flames were shooting out from all sides of the house,” said Fire Chief Francis J. Boinski. Mrs. Jacklin’s daughter, Alice, remains hospitalized in a satisfactory condition with first-degree burns, lacerations and possible fractures. Four investigators from the state fire marshal’s office have been sifting through the remains of the home to determine the cause of the blaze. “We’re sure it had something to do with the Christmas tree,” Boinski said. “It had been in the home for two weeks and we believe the baseboard heating had dried it to flash-point.” Mrs. Jacklin is being taken care of by a neighbour.

  Morton stared at the screen. Something didn’t add up. He pulled out the third and final letter that his father had written and scanned through the text. They blame me, so I’m staying with a friend from college. He’s lending me everything—I have nothing left. The truth is out, it’s all over. I don’t know what to do. ‘They blame me…’ Morton muttered. He re-read the newspaper story. There had been no mention of his father, Jack, at all. Had he even been home on the night of the fire?

  Morton printed out the entry, then wound slowly through the rest of the newspaper, not expecting to find further mention of his family. Just four pages from the end, he stopped. There, next to his name in the obituaries section, was a photograph of his grandfather. Morton stifled a gasp. Whatever bad thing Morton’s father had discovered from the past, it couldn’t soften the innate satisfaction of seeing his grandfather for the very first time. Roscoe Joseph Jacklin. Morton’s biological grandfather. He adjusted the photo into a close-up and pushed his face nearer to the screen. It was a formal headshot where his grandfather was looking out past the camera with a fixed pose. Unsmiling and serious. He had a strong jawline and short dark hair. Morton placed both hands over the screen, creating a balaclava over his grandfather’s face; the eyes staring back at him were his own. He printed the photograph then read the accompanying description.

  Roscoe J. Jacklin, 48, of Iyanough Avenue, Hyannis Port, died Dec. 24th. A native of Boston, he was a renowned local businessman and owner of Hyannis Port Cars. Mr. Jacklin was a charter member of Cape Cod Lodge, on the Hyannis Board of Trade, Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce and was a corporation member of Cape Cod Hospital Association. During the Korean conflict, Mr. Jacklin served as a Sergeant First Class with the 2nd Reconnaissance Company of the U.S. Army. He leaves his widow, Velda Jacklin and two children.

  The fact that he had two children had at least been acknowledged in his obituary, Morton thought, as he wound the film on to the next page. His hopes that the following editions of the paper might include further comment on the fire or its causes were in vain; he read every page of the final five editions of the month to no avail. He rewound the film and headed over to the help desk.

  ‘Could I get the following couple of months’ newspapers, please?’ Morton asked.

  ‘Sure thing,’ said the man who had previously helped him.

  Morton returned to his microfilm reader and re-read the printouts while he waited, hoping to find further clues to link the cause of the fire to his father. His father’s sister, Alice, had been injured in the fire. She of all people must know what had occurred that night. He had tried contacting her last year, but her reply had been brutally blunt. I have neither seen nor heard from my brother since 1976. And that had been that. His attempts to establish further contact had been ignored. He knew from searches on the internet that she now worked as an artist in Provincetown, right on the tip of Cape Cod. Juliette was adamant that he should just waltz up to her art studio and introduce himself, but that was the police officer in her talking. He doubted very much that his reception would be as warm and welcoming as she imagined it would be.

  Three film boxes were suddenly placed down on the table beside him. ‘I’ve got you January and February,’ he said with a grin. ‘Plus March, just in case.’

  ‘Thank you. Also, where would I find more information about a death in Hyannis Port in 1976?’

  ‘You’d have to go to Barnstable Town Hall in Hyannis for that.’

  Morton smiled, thanked him again and then began to thread up the next film.

  He inched through every page of every edition, searching the stories, the adverts, the family notices—even the sports pages; but there had been nothing more written about the fire. Morton could only assume that the cause had been accidental and, therefore, not newsworthy. It still didn’t explain why his father felt that he had been blamed for it, however. He slumped back in his chair. Should he continue searching? He looked at the clock—he had been here for four hours already and he still had one further place to go before meeting up with Juliette. It was time to leave.

  Morton exited the library onto Boylston Street and jumped on the green T line subway to Government Center. He emerged above ground in the block-paved plaza of City Hall Square, grateful to be out of the stifling underground heat that he had found common to every subway in every country. He side-stepped away from the throng of pedestrians making their way out of the station. In front of him was the building containing the Boston seat of government: City Hall. Not exactly the most beautiful of buildings, Morton noted, as he strode towards it. Imposing and stark, the building was defined by great blocks of cantilevered concrete. He climbed the short flight of steps, entered through the doors and was immediately directed by a police officer to the back of a line winding its way obediently through officious airport-style security.

  ‘Please remove your bags, belts and coats and empty your pockets,’ a short policewoman yelled at the line. ‘Take laptops or other electrical items out of your bags and place them in a separate tray.’

  Morton obeyed, placing a random collection of objects into the grey tray: a leather belt that had seen much better days; a selection of British and American coinage; an old tissue laced with pocket fluff; and his mobile phone and laptop. The tray sailed along the conveyor belt and he passed through the metal detector without issue.

  ‘Where abouts are birth certificates—vital records?’ Morton asked a lady wearing a City of Boston cap and who looked vaguely as though she worked there.

  ‘Next floor down,’ she said robotically, pointing to an escalator behind her. ‘Window two-one-eight.’

  Morton took two escalators down to the basement, a chilliness rising to greet his descent. He stepped off into a quiet room with a distinctly oppressive atmosphere. Low ceilings. No windows. No furniture. Just polished red floor tiles and great hunks of unpainted concrete; he felt as though he had mistakenly walked into a prison waiting room. Between the concrete pillars he spotted numbered windows. 218 Births. He headed over to it and peered over the granite counter to the open-plan office behind. Thick red tomes—presumably the birth records—surrounded tables of workers on every wall.

  A woman with a kindly face smiled and came over to the windo
w. ‘Hi. How can I help?’

  ‘Hello. I’m looking for my grandfather’s birth certificate.’

  The woman’s smile grew. ‘I love your accent—British, right?’

  ‘Yep, that’s right.’

  ‘What happened to your face?’

  Morton touched the bruise on his right cheek—the painful result of his most recent genealogical investigation back in England. ‘I fell over,’ he lied.

  ‘Looks painful. So, was your grandfather born here in Boston?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Morton answered.

  The woman reached below the counter and produced a small slip of white paper. ‘Fill this in with as much detail as you can and I’ll go look for it, then you pay twelve dollars at the next window and collect it from window two-one-six.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Morton said, quickly scanning the form to ascertain what was required. ‘Ah, there might be a problem: I don’t know the names of my grandfather’s parents—that was kind of what I was hoping to find out from the birth certificate.’

  ‘That’s okay—as long as you have the name and date of birth.’

  He knew those details off by heart. Roscoe Joseph Jacklin, born 3rd April 1928 in Boston. He completed the form and handed it back.

  ‘Okay, here’s your payment slip. Take it to the next window and I’ll be right back with the certificate.’

  Morton took the green slip of paper, paid the twelve-dollar fee, then stood waiting patiently by window 216.

  He pulled out his mobile and saw that he had a message from Juliette. Hi Hubby. Hope you’re having fun. Found your dad yet? I’m just entering the Charles River. Wish me luck. Xx

  Entering the Charles River? Swimming? Diving? He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. He clicked reply. ??xx

  ‘Excuse me, sir?’