Free Hiding the Past by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

headstones, the names of the
deceased occupants having been weathered into obscurity.
    Three pristine
white graves stood side by side in commemoration of the village’s fallen war
heroes.  Three brothers taken within weeks of each other in 1943.  He
thought of his own brother fighting in a war-zone and a feeling of dread dragged
inside him as he remembered that tonight was his leaving party.  He turned
his head from the graves and tried to shake his despondency.  
    Morton
refocused his attention to the task in hand: he needed to find James and Mary
Coldrick’s grave.  When told by Peter where his parents were buried,
Morton found it very curious that a man with such unsettled beginnings in the
village should want to be forever entombed within its parish boundaries. 
Given all that he had discovered since Tuesday, he now thought it absolutely
inexplicable that they were here.  
    Ordinarily, he
would have conducted a meticulous, thorough search of the churchyard, using a
range of techniques to decipher even the most worn inscriptions.  Today,
however, he knew exactly where he was headed.  Peter had told him that his
parents’ grave was to be found in the shadow of a yew tree in the south-west
corner of the churchyard.  Morton spotted the ancient yew, with its
gnarled and contorted trunk pushing into a thick green canopy above, and made
his way towards it.  The Coldrick headstone - polished black granite with
gold, engraved lettering - stood innocuously among other modern graves under
the protective shade of the yew.  In Loving Memory of Mary Coldrick
1946-1987.  A much loved mother and wife.  Also, James Coldrick
1944-2012.  A much loved father.  
    ‘Forever
trapped in the place of your unhappy childhood,’ Morton remarked to himself, as
he took a couple of shots of the grave on his iPhone.
    ‘Pardon?’ a
sprightly voice piped up, startling him.  Morton was jarred from his
daydream and turned to see an old-timer with a grey handle-bar moustache,
expensive olive-green suit and maroon neckerchief limping towards him.  He
looked to Morton like a retired colonel.
    ‘Sorry, just
talking to myself,’ Morton replied.  
    ‘Lovely day.’
    ‘It is rather,’
Morton said.
    ‘I’m just going
to open the church if you wanted to have a peek around.’  
    ‘That would be
lovely, thank you.’  
    Morton followed
the old man inside the church.  The temperature suddenly plunged to the
same arctic conditions as at East Sussex Archives.  In the vestibule he
noticed a burial plan of the churchyard.  It was a crude, hand-drawn piece
of paper that someone had helpfully laminated.  Morton quickly verified
that there were no other Coldricks buried in the church then wandered along the
nave, stepping on worn marble tombstones dedicated to ancient clergy.  
      ‘I haven’t
seen you around here before, are you on holiday?’ the man asked, tidying a
stack of dishevelled hymn books.
    ‘Well, I’m
actually researching a family tree - Coldrick – do you know the name at all?’
Morton asked.  
    The old man
frowned, his preposterously lengthy eyebrows eclipsing his vision, as if he
were trying to recall a private members' club in Islington.  ‘Doesn’t ring
any bells.  How do you spell it?’
    Morton took
care to enunciate each letter carefully.
    ‘No, I don’t
think so, old boy,’ he replied eventually.  ‘Queer sort of name, wouldn’t
you say?  Doesn’t sound very Sussex to me.’
    ‘No, I don’t suppose
it does,’ Morton replied, not really sure what a ‘Sussex’ name was.
    ‘When did they
live in the village?’
    ‘Around 1944 –
possibly earlier.’
    ‘Sorry, I can’t
help you there – I was on active service in Egypt at the time.  There aren’t
many of us left who can recall much from that period with any clarity.  It
certainly isn’t a name I’ve seen in the parish records in my time as church
warden.’
    ‘Not to worry –
thank you anyway,’ Morton said.  He took one last