“Good afternoon.”
Jilly Bouldnor had hosted the Sunday lunchtime political discussion programme Truth on Sunday for a little more than three months and had known that she would not last much longer if she failed to come up with something good soon. She was young for such an anchor role and there were many, influential, voices who said she should be replaced by a man, preferably one with a bit of gravitas.
Knowing that she was on borrowed time she had been very grateful when Fergal Shepherd, an old boyfriend from their university days, had contacted her saying he had a suggestion for a programme which would either make her name or finish her career for good. She had been intrigued.
They had met up at a Christmas party when Fergal had been, Jilly thought, infuriatingly vague. Through January, sworn to secrecy, she had learned something of what was planned. At the time she had thought that chairing a head-to-head discussion between Sir Arthur Lacey and Gayle Shepherd, during which Sir Arthur would be asked some very pertinent questions about his expenses and his claims regarding his ancestry, might be enough to allow her to keep her job but she always had the feeling that there had to be more to the story.
In the week before the programme was to be aired the programme’s editorial and production team met with the station’s lawyers who pored over the evidence they were shown. Details were discussed of how the programme would cover Sir Arthur’s illegal claims for expenses; how it would introduce his illegitimate daughter and how his family tree, disproving his claims to be thoroughly English, would be illustrated. But even as the outline script was given the go ahead Jilly still felt there had to be more to it.
She only learned exactly what her programme was to reveal an hour before going live when, with Skye, the professor and his mother in make-up, Fergal took her into an empty office and explained everything. She barely had time to read the notes he sent to her tablet before she had to leave for the set.
*
It had been difficult for Fergal to engineer his mother’s lunch meeting with Carl as there were so many demands on her time. “It’ll be worth it Mum,” he had said, “really worth it.” When she had pressed him for details he had said nothing. “Trust me, just an hour or so out of your schedule. You’re in Cambridge in any case, surely your aides won’t begrudge you having a private lunch with an old friend, will they?”
Carl had been at his most charming as he welcomed Gayle to a private dining room in one of the better restaurants in Cambridge. Nothing was said about the reason he had asked to see her until they had ordered and their first course had been served. They had filled that time with small talk. It was Gayle who turned the subject away from the weather and England’s performance in the cricket World Cup to the reason for their meeting.
“Fergal really wanted me to meet you. Are you going to tell me why?”
“I wanted to talk to you about your interview next Sunday.”
“With Jilly whatshername?”
“Yes, Jilly Bouldnor, and of course Sir Arthur.”
“Doesn’t my son think I can cope without his help?”
“He thinks you should have some idea, he called it a ‘heads up’, of what is planned.”
“He did hint that there was more to it than just embarrassing the old man with the somewhat old stories of his highly probably illegal expenses claims and the existence of his daughter.”
“There is a lot more. And we need your help.”
“You need my help? What with?”
“With demolishing Sir Arthur and bringing an ignominious end to his career.”
“Shoot.”
Carl had planned his approach in detail and began carefully.
“Your father, Robert Savager, was the great-grandson of a man called Lewis Frensham? Is that correct?”
“Yes, I know that. I was on that lovely programme a while back when they investigated my family history. They didn’t go farther back than Lewis on the programme, ‘constraints on time’ they said, I thought it must just be because the family was boring. Anyway, even though they didn’t cover it, they did explain that the researchers had found Lewis’ mother and father, a Lady Frances and Sir Robert Frensham.”
“Well, yes and no,” Carl answered, hoping that his voice conveyed a mystery.
“Yes what and no what?” Gayle asked pointedly.
“Yes Lewis’ mother was Lady Frances Frensham but no, his father wasn’t Sir Robert.”
“Not her husband’s child? Lewis was a bastard? That was hardly unique at the time,” she answered before carefully spreading some pâté on a slice of melba toast. “Though it is interesting that the programme’s researchers didn’t pick up on it.”
“Sir Robert acknowledged Lewis as his son and heir and no whiff of scandal appeared anywhere at the time.”
“That was good of him.”
“Very.”
“Are you going to tell me who Lewis’ father really was? You seem to have quite an interest in the subject of my family’s history.”
Carl was in no hurry to explain everything. He rather enjoyed having lunch with an attractive and intelligent woman. He took several spoons of his soup before carefully dabbing his lips with his napkin and placing it back on his lap.
“Are you going to tell me it was the King? We are descended from royalty?” Gayle seemed less than overwhelmed by the prospect.
“Royalty, yes, the King no, I think George the Third was well past that sort of activity by 1814.”
“Royalty? The Prince Regent then?”
“When did I say British royalty?” Carl was enjoying the game he was playing.
“Foreign royalty? The Tsar perhaps? They did tell me that Lady Frances travelled in Europe a great deal.”
“I won’t keep you guessing. Lewis’ father was Emperor Napoleon the First.”
Without looking at Gayle’s reaction Carl concentrated his attention on his soup.
“Napoleon?”
“Yes.”
“Bonaparte?”
“As I said, Emperor Napoleon the First.”
“And you can prove this?”
“Oh yes. I can prove it.” Carl found it interesting that her first question was about proof, not about how Lady Frances Frensham came to meet Napoleon Bonaparte.
“DNA?”
“Yes.”
“That might do something for my reputation as a Europhile!” Gayle laughed. “Is this what you want to come out in my duel with Sir Arthur next week?”
“Amongst other revelations.”
“Others? You have other revelations? Surely nothing will top that.”
Carl nodded slowly, smiling.
“Do tell.”
Carl, knowing he had Gayle Shepherd’s undivided attention, told her about the Bernards, the Augustuses, the Williams and the Henrys of Sir Arthur Lacey’s family, and about Claude.
“You can prove all this?”
“We can.”
“Good grief.” It seemed, to both of them, an inadequate response. “Jilly Bouldnor knows all this?”
“Certainly not everything. She has been given a lot of ammunition on the expenses side of things, and she knows about Skye who is, as I’m sure you agree, a delightful young lady who will cope very well with being exposed. And Jilly has also been given many other details of the Lacey family tree.”
“But all this other stuff? Sir Bernard, the American secret agent? Claude, the man supposedly from Jersey? The Cornish doppelganger? The box in the chimney? The locket and the codebook and the diaries? Surely she doesn’t know any of that?”
“No. Certainly not.”
“So who does know?”
“I do, of course, also your son, Skye and Margaret Hart.”
“Who is she?”
“A code-breaker and a very old friend of mine.”
“So there’s just the five of us?”
“Yes, and that’s how it must stay until Sunday.”
“Can’t I have my lawyers run over it? I mean, I don’t mind Lady Frensham’s reputation being dragged through the mud but if you’re wrong about any of this I can see writs flying about all over the place.”
“I understand your worries but you must trust me on this. No lawyer can see the proof we have until after the broadcast. Lawyers’ offices leak like sieves I’m afraid.”
“You’d better be right about it all.”
“Trust me. I am.”
For a few minutes they turned their attention to their meal. Gayle thought of the implications of all that she had learned while Carl was thinking of the other beautiful and intelligent women he had known in his life. His memories of one, Susannah, were interrupted as Gayle broke the silence.
“But, tell me, what has happened to The Lodge? I know Skye left because she’s been living with my son now for a while. Have Sir Arthur and his ghastly wife taken over?”
Carl did not answer the question directly. “Skye left when she had to, at the end of June.”
“And?”
“I had to get involved.”
“You? How?”
“I knew from my first visit that The Lodge was far too important for Sir Arthur’s disastrous clearance plans to be allowed so I contacted the bods who have control over historic properties and they put a stop on any work being done until the building and its contents had been surveyed and fully documented.”
“Have you told Skye?”
“No. I haven’t. I have let her believe that The Lodge is lost.”
“That’s a little cruel don’t you think?”
“I don’t want her hopes to be raised.”
“Hopes? You have plans for The Lodge?”
“I do.”
“And for your library?”
“Of course it isn’t ‘my library’ though I will always think of it that way. It must be made available to everyone. It is a unique collection.”
“But you have plans?”
“I do.”
“Are you going to let me in on that secret too?”
Carl sipped at his glass of wine while he decided whether or not to tell her. He had not planned to say anything but he had found that he liked Gayle rather more than he had expected to and, he concluded, maybe she might be able to help.
“You may disapprove.”
“Try me.
“After the programme there is going to be a tremendous media storm around Skye. Do you agree?”
“Probably.”
“And do you also agree that television programmes, radio phone-ins, newspaper opinion pieces and the social media can all be manipulated to focus a great deal of attention on the way she has been treated by her father?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“And can you imagine a situation in which a suggestion might, somehow, somewhere, be made that the only right thing that Sir Arthur can do is to gift her The Lodge?”
“I’m sure someone, somewhere might just allow that suggestion to be made.” Gayle smiled knowingly as she raised her glass toward the professor, enjoying the game they were playing. “And I’m sure that someone, somewhere may just venture to suggest to Sir Arthur that, if he is to ensure his long career of public service is not forgotten, he should donate any and all of the contents that Skye does not wish to be kept at The Lodge to some academic institution or other?”
Carl raised his glass to hers. “And I may just happen to know one that would be more than happy to undertake that responsibility.”
*
Jilly Bouldnor was very nervous as she took her seat on the set. She was well aware that the rehearsal and much of the preparation that had been done had been a waste of time. No one, least of all the producer and his team, knew what was really planned. She wished she had had, at the very least, a few minutes to read the information Fergal had sent to her tablet. She had loved how live television was always risky but this, she felt as the studio lights focussed on her, was as risky as she ever wanted it to be.
She swallowed hard, turned to her camera and smiled.
“Good Afternoon. In today’s Truth on Sunday my first guest is Sir Arthur Lacey, a man on the brink of pulling off the most amazing coup of his long career in politics. Soon we are going to the polls in perhaps the most important votes in our history. The results of the upcoming General Election and the referendum which will follow will determine whether Great Britain is to stay in the European Union or go it alone. Sir Arthur, once the face of Euroscepticism in his party, has defected to a more extreme position, demanding our immediate withdrawal. He is forcefully putting his case that his English ancestors did not fight against European enemies over a period of more than one thousand years to have those enemies win by default.”
Sir Arthur walked from the wings. Standing still for a few seconds he graciously nodded his recognition of the studio audience’s ripple of applause and, finding the camera that was trained on him, focussed on the lens and smiled.
He was a large man, both tall and rotund. He held himself fiercely upright, as though his background was military, despite it being many years since he had spent eighteen unhappy months in the Army. He had a full head of white hair cut in an austere short back and sides. His eyes were penetrating, his gaze always stern, and his lips set in a pursed, supercilious half-smile even when he was speaking. He projected an absolute belief in his own importance, in his own ability and in the inferiority of others.
To his many supporters he embodied everything that was archetypically English. To others he was an embarrassing anachronism.
Jilly looked down at the script on her tablet, turned towards her guest, tilted her head slightly and began.
“Sir Arthur, it is five years since the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority asked you to repay fifty-three thousand pounds of incorrectly and unjustifiably claimed expenses yet you are still fighting that decision. Do you have anything to say in your defence?”
Sir Arthur was prepared. He had asked to be told the questions he would face and had been unsurprised to see the issue of his expenses heading the list.
“I welcome this opportunity to clear up the overabundance of misinformation that has been printed in some of the more scurrilous of our newspapers.” He turned to the camera, addressing his comments to the viewers and ignoring Jilly. “The points of contention have been related to expenses incurred with the upkeep of my home on the Isle of Wight. It may not be in my constituency but this old house has been in the Lacey family since before the Civil War, it was where I grew up and it has been my home from home since before I was first elected to Parliament. I find it impossible to understand how anyone can say it is not appropriate for me to claim for its upkeep.”
Sir Arthur felt confident that he would run rings around such a lightweight and inexperienced interviewer as Jilly Bouldnor whose hand, he noticed, was shaking slightly as she leafed through the pages of her notes on the iPad on her knee.
“You say it is your family home but weren’t you born in London?” Jilly asked, knowing the answer.
“Indeed I was. My parents lived in town and I had to be born where my mother was at the time.” He turned towards the camera and smiled, hoping that his small, if unoriginal, joke would charm his audience.
“So your parents didn’t live in their house on the Isle of Wight?”
“My uncle and aunt lived there. My Uncle Henry had been horribly injured in the First World War so the very least my parents could do for him was to give him, his wife and his daughter a home.” Sir Arthur knew that would win him the sympathy of the more traditional viewers and it was something he had played to his advantage many times.
“But you say this was your family home?”
“In some circles one’s family home is sometimes occasionally occupied by junior members of one’s family. It makes the property no less one’s home.”
Jilly Bouldnor glanced meaningfully at her camera. Sir Arthur did not realise that he had scored an own goal with his answer. Not many people in his audience would recognise a family that had properties to spare so that a sizeable house, pictures of which were being displayed on the monitors in the studio and on every screen around the country, could be lent to a member of the family. Even less would that audience recognise that a close relative could be referred to as a ‘junior member’ of the family.
Jilly looked over her rimless glasses at Sir Arthur and then down at her notes. She knew she had no need to say anything for a few seconds as the sheer arrogance of her interviewee sank in with her viewers. She just repeated, as if making notes for herself, but just loud enough to be picked up by her microphone, “Occupied by junior family member.”
She looked up and spoke clearly and directly, as if changing the subject. “You inherited the property from your father on his death in 1961?”
“That is correct.”
“And you have lived there since then?”
Sir Arthur recognised a trick question when he saw one.
“I have lived in London.”
“Yes, we have found that your residence on the electoral roll has always been in Chelsea.”
“The Lodge is my second home.”
“Ah yes, your second home, although it is further from your constituency than Westminster is. Anyway, we can come back to that. Could you just clarify for our audience whether your uncle and aunt still live in your house on the Isle of Wight?” Both interviewer and interviewee knew the answer to that question.
“I’m afraid my aunt died many years ago and my uncle also.”
“Your sister then? I understand your sister lived with her uncle, caring for him after his wife died.”
“Yes, my sister Audrey lived there until her death last year. She kept the place going for me as I have had to spend so much of my life in London fulfilling my parliamentary responsibilities.”
“Your sister acted as your housekeeper then?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that.”
“Then it was her home and you stayed there when you had to?”
“It is, and always has been, my home,” Sir Arthur said, again looking at the camera, as if Jilly was an inconvenient participant in his conversation with the viewers.
“But your wife has never lived there. In fact she is on record as saying she has visited the house only once and that was the day after your sister’s funeral.”
“Well, yes, no. My wife… No. Well, yes…” Sir Arthur came close to bluster. Perhaps, he was thinking, this slip of a girl knows how little time I have actually spent there. “I cannot see why you are focussing our conversation, limited as we are for time, on the peripheral issue of my second home when we should be discussing the future of government in this country, a topic of real interest to the electorate as the campaigns for the General Election and the subsequent European referendum gather pace.” Again he looked directly into the camera lens, rather than at Jilly.
“Oh, I think the issue of The Lodge and your expenses claims are of very real interest to our viewers,” Jilly persisted. “You have claimed expenses despite the house being nowhere near your constituency and your never having lived there—”
“I have no intention of discussing my personal finances with you on national television,” Sir Arthur interrupted.
“But will you be discussing them further with the Standards Authority?”
“Look, Jilly,” Sir Arthur changed his tone to one of weary condescension, “I think your viewers will be bored with this topic and, quite understandably, will be waiting for you to concentrate your questions on the serious issues before them in the election and the referendum.”
Sir Arthur looked directly into the camera. He had been in politics for over forty years and had long ago learnt how to twist conversations to his own advantage. “My last word on the matter is that The Lodge is my home. I moved into that beautiful house when I was evacuated as a very young boy in the early days of the war. I spent all my early years there. It is, quite simply, my family home.”
“Unfortunately it cannot be your last word on the matter, Sir Arthur. You say you grew up there?” Jilly asked innocently, though Sir Arthur expected her to know that from the age of eleven he had spent most of his time at his respectable, if second-tier, public school.
“I went away to school, as many of my class do, therefore my time at the house was necessarily limited.”
Jilly smiled at his unthinking snobbery before continuing, in a more forceful voice than she had so far used, “I suggest, Sir Arthur, that you have never lived at The Lodge and that you have spent next to no time there since you left in September 1946 at the age of eleven.”
Sir Arthur said nothing, shrugging wearily towards a camera as Jilly continued.
“You have never spent any time there yet you have regularly made substantial claims relating to the property.” She looked very deliberately at her notes. “Including, just in the past ten years, over seventy-two thousand pounds for maintenance and upkeep, at least sixty-five thousand pounds for remodelling improvements and a further fifteen thousand pounds for security cameras.” Jilly offered up a small prayer of thanks to Fergal who had been so very helpful, even to the point of providing her with the un-redacted photocopies of Sir Arthur’s expenses claims which were being displayed to the studio audience and to viewers.
“How did you get hold of those?” Sir Arthur barked before he realised that dignified silence would have been more helpful to his cause. “Where did you get those?” he asked again. “They were redacted.”
“Where I got them is immaterial, the fact is I have them.”
The microphones picked up the murmur of surprise and disapproval that spread through the studio audience.
“What I do with my own property is none of your business,” he added, looking past the cameras towards the audience.
“I must beg to differ, Sir Arthur. I think the electorate has every right to be interested in your property, indeed, over the years we have probably paid enough through your expenses claims to own it.”
Sir Arthur wondered how much research had really been done by this apparently inconsequential young woman.
“And who might have informed you on such issues?” Sir Arthur counterattacked.
“You accept that they are true?”
“Of course I don’t. I want to know who has told you this pack of lies. You cannot have obtained those bills from legitimate sources.”
“As a journalist—”
“Journalist?” Sir Arthur interrupted. “You aren’t a journalist, you are someone who has recently graduated, no doubt from some ex-polytechnic that now thinks to call itself a university, with a third class degree in some worthless subject such as media studies. You got this job just because you look presentable in front of a camera and can read an autocue.”
Jilly looked down at her iPad and smiled. She knew that when Sir Arthur resorted to personal insult he was beaten, or at least if not beaten then on the defensive.
The voice in her earpiece that had been giving her encouragement throughout the interview told her to glance at her camera for a short second, then look down again. As she did the voice in her earpiece continued calmly, “That’s good, good girl, you’ve got him by the fucking balls, don’t fucking let him go now.”
She was beginning to enjoy herself.
“I have done nothing wrong,” Sir Arthur repeated. “It is not my main home, I have never said it was. My wife and I have a flat in Chelsea, and have had for many years, but I only live there because I have to. My heart lives in that house on the Isle of Wight.”
“So you keep saying, Sir Arthur. We are, as you say, limited on time so let us move on. But rather than leave the subject of The Lodge completely I would like to pick up on something that you said at the beginning of this interview. You said, and I quote, ‘My home, on the Isle of Wight, has been in the Lacey family since before the Civil War.’ What makes you say that when it cannot possibly be true?”
“Of course it’s true.”
“I don’t think so, Sir Arthur.” Jilly looked down at her notes before continuing. “The ownership of The Lodge was first transferred to a member of the Lacey family, your great-great-grandfather Sir Bernard Lacey, in the year 1815. Eleven years prior to that the property had been purchased from a family by the name of Caul who had owned it since Tudor times. There is no connection whatsoever between the Cauls and the Laceys and I’m sure we haven’t had a Civil War since the early nineteenth century.” She looked up at her guest, smiling innocently as she waited for an answer. When none came she persisted. “Sir Arthur, may I ask why you claim your family has lived in that house since the Civil War? I believe that ended in 1651, some hundred and fifty years before the first Lacey was in residence. Sir Arthur?”
Jilly again prompted her guest for an answer but Sir Arthur had frozen. The moment had passed when he could tear off his microphone and storm out of the studio, as he had watched others do in the past. He was staring past Jilly and the cameras to a group of people who were waiting in the wings, all of whom he recognised. What, he wondered to himself, is Skye doing talking to that infernal woman Gayle Shepherd? And what the fuck is that boy doing with them? He began to realise that he had been wrong-footed and that the interview was about to head into territory for which he was unprepared.
“Sir Arthur? Can you explain why you claim the house has been in your family since the Civil War?”
“It was what I was told; what I have always been led to understand.” It was all he could say.
“I have an interesting story to tell. Would you like to hear it?” Jilly asked innocently.
“Do I have an option?” her guest responded coldly.
“So far so good,” the producer whispered, giving a tentative thumbs up to his team. Everything was going according to the plan carefully worked through in rehearsals that morning. He knew that now things were going to start to get interesting. The expenses scandal had gone on for so long and no longer made headlines. But an extramarital affair of a government minister, albeit twenty-two years in the past, would get the tabloid editors’ juices flowing, especially when that illegitimate daughter was as attractive as Skye. An assistant producer picked up her phone and wrote a short tweet. @TruthonSunday about to get even more interesting. If you’re not watching switch on now! #embarrassment
Jilly turned to the camera to address the viewers, reading from the autocue the introduction that had been approved by the lawyers. “Many of you may not be aware of the fact that Sir Arthur Lacey has a daughter. She was born in 1993 following a hushed-up affair with his then personal assistant. Some of you will recognise that, at that time, Sir Arthur was a government minister. The daughter’s name is Skye and, following the death of her mother when she was little more than one year old, she lived with her Aunt Audrey at The Lodge, the house Sir Arthur has been claiming all those years as his second home. Would you like to join me Skye?”
Showing none of the nerves she felt, Skye walked towards the vacant chair next to Jilly, opposite her father who made no acknowledgement of her entrance. She turned to Jilly with an expression of calm concentration.
“Skye, thank you for coming in today. I know that you don’t want to talk about the home you have lived in all your life,” Jilly made the contrast with Skye’s fact and Sir Arthur’s fiction very obvious, “but would you like to tell us why you believe your father is not being entirely honest?”
Skye looked steadily at Jilly as the producer angled cameras to show her in the best light.
“I would just like to tell everyone that in the twenty years I have lived at The Lodge my father has not spent one night there. I find it rather tragic that he feels he has to lie about it.”
“Tragic? That’s a very powerful word, Skye.”
“It seems to me to be very sad that there is so much that my father says that is simply not the truth. And I’m not just referring to his expenses claims and his never having lived at The Lodge. So much of everything he says about himself is a lie.” Skye continued to speak with an aura of calm confidence.
“That is a very serious accusation. Can you tell us what you mean? We will then give your father the right to reply.”
Skye took a deep breath before continuing. “It is well known that my father portrays himself as English through and through.”
She paused as the monitors and screens around the country cut to the prepared videotape and watched three separate clips of occasions when Sir Arthur had used that exact phrase.
As soon as the clips finished Skye continued. “But that is a total misrepresentation. My father has more foreign blood than British and is, on my calculation, only one eighth an Englishman.”
“This girl is talking nonsense!” Sir Arthur blustered.
Jilly nodded and carefully looked down at her notes. “Sir Arthur, is it true that your mother, Skye’s grandmother, was American?”
“And so was Sir Winston Churchill’s mother, a fact that made him no less an Englishman,” he replied defiantly.
“But I think you have to agree that many generations of Churchill’s father’s family were English, whereas I understand from Skye, who has researched this very thoroughly, yours is most definitely not.
Her statement remained unanswered, though Sir Arthur did not move from his seat. He had been making a quick calculation that if he left in the middle of the programme he would only be hounded further by the press and he knew that they would be less civilised than Jilly Bouldnor would have to be in a live broadcast.
Skye caught Jilly’s eye and began the speech she had practised many times. “As you say, I have been looking into the history of the Lacey family.”
Sir Arthur immediately thought of Fergal Shepherd. He should never have trusted the young man. He should never have allowed his team to employ the Shepherd woman’s son, however good his qualifications might have been and he should, most definitely, never have trusted him to visit The Lodge. And, he thought angrily, it was undoubtedly that bloody boy who had stolen the expenses claims.
The camera trained on his face showed his rising colour as Skye continued her explanation.
“We’re mongrels really, we Laceys. My father, this ‘Englishman through and through’, has an American mother, a Welsh grandmother, an Anglo-Indian great-great-grandmother, one great-great-grandfather who was American and another who was from Corsica.”
“As you say, a bit of a mongrel,” Jilly commented. “Not that there is anything wrong with that, I expect there are very few people who can call themselves ‘English through and through’, Sir Arthur?” After allowing a few seconds of silence to further embarrass her interviewee Jilly prompted Sir Arthur again for an answer. “You have portrayed yourself as being a member of a family whose pedigree goes back to the Conqueror have you not?”
Within seconds the screens cut to clips of three instances where he had said just that. When the clips had finished Skye looked again towards Jilly and on her nod continued. There was no maliciousness in her voice, simply a quiet contradiction of everything her father had stood for.
“You say our family goes back a thousand years and that, for some reason, that makes your opinion worth more than everyone else’s. But everyone’s family goes back a thousand years doesn’t it?” She paused while a brief murmur of laughter from the studio audience died down. “You say that the Lacey family is one born to lead but that is simply not the case. Your claims that the Lacey family has been one of substance for a thousand years are as dishonest as your expenses claims.”
There was a murmur of approval and some applause from the audience, and the producer, in his soundproof box, gave a firm thumbs up sign as his assistant tweeted Arthur Lacey’s illegitimate daughter puts the boot in on @TruthonSunday more to come.
“There is, however, one man in our family tree who was a ruler,” Skye continued in a more serious voice, “though even he had not been born to rule. He was a soldier. He was a very good soldier, but just a soldier.”
Jilly got a message in her earpiece and turned towards Gayle Shepherd who was waiting out of camera shot.
“Before we follow up on that interesting thought may I now introduce my next guest. Gayle Shepherd is the leading light of the pro-Europeans and an outspoken critic of Sir Arthur’s and, some say, a future leader of her party. Welcome Gayle.”
The audience clapped generously as Gayle walked up to the chair next to Sir Arthur. The contrast between Sir Arthur’s increasing discomfort and Gayle Shepherd’s assured confidence was picked up clearly by the cameras.
“Welcome Gayle,” Jilly repeated, flipping her tablet to reveal the page of notes Fergal had given her. “I understand you have an interest in Sir Arthur’s story, apart, that is, from being on opposite sides of the European fence?”
“I do. But first I must thank Skye who, being Sir Arthur’s illegitimate daughter, would have had every reason to stay out of the limelight but who has had the strength of character to go public. Today cannot be easy for her.”
There was a smattering of applause in the audience and Gayle waited until it had died down before continuing. “I have this young lady to thank for introducing me to the most exciting of possibilities. Much work has to be done to elaborate on the evidence she and her friends have unearthed but what they have shown me, and my lawyers, is of historical importance.”
“What the fuck’s going on?” the producer yelled into Jilly’s earpiece. “Get back to the fucking script.” Jilly ignored him.
“DNA evidence has persuaded me of the truth of what Skye has said. Sir Arthur is descended from a soldier. As am I. To the same very successful soldier. It appears that Sir Arthur and I are related, albeit remotely. We are distant cousins, sharing a three times great-grandfather.”
“What the fuck?” the producer shouted at no one in particular. “Who the fuck thinks this crap is interesting? What the fuck are you up to, Jilly?”
“So what?” Sir Arthur seemed relieved that that was all that was going to be said. “Most people are related to most people if you go back far enough. Especially if there is any hint of belonging to the better half of society.”
“I’m pleased you will admit me to that elite.” Gayle smiled. “But it is who that common ancestor was that is so very interesting.”
“Yes?” There was a slight furrowing of his eyebrows. Sir Arthur was not sure where this was discussion was going.
“You had two very interesting ancestors of that generation. The first, and the one I don’t share, was a remarkable man. Born plain Jim Mercer in the American colonies he spent his youth fighting against the English before joining the loyal forces and eventually came to Europe where he worked as intelligence agent for one Arthur Wesley, later, of course, the Duke of Wellington. This Jim Mercer became a very superior spy. He was a very clever and extremely interesting man who took the name of Bernard Lacey.”
“So fucking what?” demanded the producer rhetorically. He rather liked the idea of the American spy in Sir Arthur’s family tree but he felt the discussion was straying too far from the anticipated and rehearsed course.
“We’re getting a lot of traffic,” the production assistant who was monitoring Twitter answered. “Someone’s started using the tag #laceytheliar and it seems to be sort of trending.”
“Bernard Lacey, as I said, was a very superior spy who devised a plan that changed the world,” Gayle continued.
“What are you getting at? You are talking absolute nonsense!” Sir Arthur felt out of control, as did the producer in his soundproof box.
Gayle Shepherd continued as if there had been no interruption. “We know all the details of his life and his work because he left a series of diaries.”
“Diaries?” Jilly prompted.
“These diaries were hidden many years ago but have recently been discovered through a mixture of good fortune and clever deduction. We have the diaries, Sir Arthur. I have seen them. I have read the transcripts. Jim Mercer, or Bernard Lacey as he was known once he came to England, was the First Baronet of Oakridge.”
Jilly glanced down at her notes. “And what did these diaries reveal?”
“Apart from describing the thrilling story of his life they show that Sir Bernard held a secret that is of international importance.”
“Utter nonsense.”
“As I said Sir Arthur, we have the diaries. They can be investigated as much as you like but they are absolutely authentic.”
“That was what was said about the Hitler Diaries.”
“These have been authenticated by the very best scholars.”
“So were those attributed to Hitler.”
“I think you will find that these will bear any investigation you choose to name.”
“We shall see.”
In the control room the producer was less than happy. “Where’s this all going? The stupid girl’s lost all the momentum. Who the fuck cares about Sir fucking Bernard fucking Lacey’s fucking diaries? What the fuck has this got to do with anything?”
“It’s still trending,” his assistant said, not taking her eyes from her phone “There are hundreds of guesses at who this soldier-ruler ancestor is though some are more sensible than others.”
Sir Arthur had had enough. “What has this all to do with anything? My great-great-great-grandfather was a spy? So what?”
Jilly could see Carl waiting to join the discussion and since all she was hearing in her earpiece was a cacophony of indistinguishable voices swearing at her she decided to introduce him.
“I think this might be a good time to introduce my final guest, Professor Carl Witherby. He is an academic whose television and radio programmes have educated and entertained many of our viewers, the professor is a scholar whose experience and knowledge in his field, the Napoleonic era, cannot be equalled.”
Carl joined the group around the table, accompanied by the applause of the studio audience.
“Thank you for joining us, Professor. I, and those of us who know what you are going to say, appreciate how difficult this interview is going to be for you.”
“What the fuck is all this about? Who the fuck got hold of that old man?” the producer shouted. He was mystified. They had rehearsed three strands for the interview; the expenses scandal, the illegitimate daughter and Sir Arthur’s less-than-totally-English family background. No one had told him anything about diaries from two hundred years ago. “What the fuck’s all this about?” he shouted into the mic that transmitted to Jilly’s earpiece.
“There’s lots of chatter on Twitter about Carl Witherby. A lot of people seem to think he was dead but by the look of it he’s still got a pretty big fan base out there. #carlhistoryman seems to be quite a popular tag,” his assistant ventured tentatively.
“OK, OK, let it run but that girl had better have a fucking good explanation when it’s all over.”
Jilly smiled at Carl, who looked as if he was going to enjoy the limelight, even if he was about to contradict much of what he had taught and written about through all his career.
“Thank you. Yes, today is possibly the most difficult day of my life. I have to accept that much of what I have always assumed to be true is not. The last few months have not been easy, because what I have learned has gone against all accepted historical thought and against everything I have ever believed to be historical truth.”
“You are putting your reputation on the line?”
“I am.”
“And what is this knowledge that is going to cause such a seismic shift in our understanding of the world?”
“I’m running out of fucking patience Jilly.” The producer twirled his finger by his ear as if to indicate that he thought Jilly was mad. “Get to the fucking point,” he yelled into the mic.
“Yes?” Jilly prompted, ignoring what she was hearing in her earpiece.
“There has been so much interest surrounding the hundredth anniversary of events in the First World War that somehow much of what happened two hundred years ago is being overlooked. Two hundred years ago today Napoleon Bonaparte was an Emperor restored in Paris preparing to do battle again with much of Europe. In less than two months he would meet Wellington and von Blücher on the field of battle near Waterloo.”
“Yes, Professor, Waterloo is part of our history. We have a railway station named after it after all,” Sir Arthur interrupted, wanting the camera on him for the first time in a few minutes.
“Our history has taught us that Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and, within a few weeks of that event, the Emperor gave himself up to the English and was exiled to St Helena, an isolated island in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later,” Carl spoke calmly, aware that most of his audience would know their history.
“Yes? What is the problem? Wellington defeated Napoleon and the worst dictator in European history before Hitler was exiled and then he died.” Sir Arthur looked with an expression of exasperation at the camera.
“Generations of children have been taught about how the French were defeated and the European continent was freed from tyranny.” Carl continued with his explanation as if Sir Arthur had said nothing.
“Yes. Had he not been defeated Bonaparte would have ruled the continent as a despot, imposing his laws and his will. You might say that is exactly what the European Union, its Parliament, the Council and Courts are doing to us today.”
Carl again ignored Sir Arthur’s intervention. “Throughout the past two hundred years the English have called upon their collective institutional memory of the crushing of Napoleon for support in times of dire peril. His defeat has been iconic in the psyche of this country.”
“Yes. Are you saying we didn’t win at Waterloo? That the Duke of Wellington was defeated after all?” Sir Arthur tried to ridicule the professor. “I’ve heard some left-wing historical rubbish in my time but that really is too much.”
“I am not saying that at all, though it was not Wellington alone who won. The forces of the Seventh Coalition won the battle, but only just. Wellington and von Blücher, leading a coalition of forces from several European countries, did win and Napoleon Bonaparte did surrender himself to the English. What I am saying is that he was not exiled to St Helena.”
The members of the studio audience were men and women of all ages and from a variety of backgrounds but they had been carefully selected for their interest in politics and in history. There had been silence as Professor Witherby talked because every individual in the audience was fascinated by what he had to say. The cameras panned across the rows of faces, rapt in concentration at what they were witnessing. Even the producer wanted to know what was going to happen next as his assistant tweeted @TruthonSunday #laceytheliar #carlhistoryman history to be turned on its head????
Carl continued using the voice that was familiar to many of his audience and which had always engendered trust and confidence. “We have found evidence that the Duke of Wellington himself connived in a plot whereby Napoleon was not to be humiliated by imprisonment and exile. Instead he was to be used. The English secret service, and no one should make the mistake of imagining that that was an invention of the last century, turned him. That is a modern phrase but the process was the same as is described in so much modern spy fiction. In return for his freedom Napoleon Bonaparte gave Wellington’s spymaster information which helped to change the course of European history. Indeed that was his purpose. Napoleon Bonaparte was not exiled to St Helena. He lived in England until his death, not in 1821, but in 1853.”
Jilly waited for the murmur made by the studio audience died down. “Professor, you are saying that the history we have been taught is all false?”
“Those who knew will have had their reasons for withholding the truth, but yes, that is what I am saying.”
“I suppose it was in no one’s interests to publicise the truth,” Gayle suggested quietly.
“Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted as saying that History is a set of lies agreed upon by the victors. By victors he meant those who would gain most from those lies and I cannot believe that he was wrong. Many people at the time believed that Napoleon, although deposed, had been a legitimate Head of State and was therefore entitled to parole and due respect but it suited the government and the military at the time for the public to see him humiliated. One man saw a way by which both outcomes were possible.
“Really,” Sir Arthur said just loudly enough for his disdainful tone to be picked up by his mic.
“Yes, Sir Arthur, really. It was your ancestor, Sir Bernard Lacey, Wellington’s spymaster, who recognised that Napoleon had unimaginably useful information to pass on and it was he who persuaded Wellington and Prime Minister Liverpool to purchase that information by giving the Emperor a kind of freedom.”
“If, as you are saying, Napoleon didn’t go to St Helena, who did?” Jilly asked, noticing that the studio audience was engrossed in the story as, she hoped and prayed, were her million or so viewers. At least the screaming in her earpiece had stopped.
“He was swapped for a double,” Gayle answered, indicating to all that not only did she know the story but that she believed it.
“A double?”
Gayle continued her explanation, as she and Carl had planned. “A Cornishman by the name of Ennor Jolliffe had been groomed for nearly two decades for the role. It was a far easier proposition in the days before every individual had a camera phone and every famous person was subjected to high-definition television close-ups.”
“And how do you explain the many volumes published by people, his secretary, his doctor, who were close to Napoleon on St Helena?”
“Self-interest for the most part. Many of the exiled entourage had not known Bonaparte well and would not have recognised him. Those who did know the man loved him and were so loyal that they would never betray him. You mention Bonaparte’s secretary and doctor. These were men who had been with him for many years and were content to be exiled as long as their master escaped that fate.”
Jilly again looked down at the notes Fergal had sent her. “But weren’t there visitors to St Helena, members of London society, who knew the real Bonaparte from their visits to Elba?”
“Indeed there were. You are referring to members of London society such as Lady Holland and her set, but they were all Bonapartists and would never betray the man they adored.
Watch @TruthonSunday for info on #laceytheliar and 200yrs of government cover-up #setoflies tweeted the assistant producer. Moments later #setoflies began to trend.
Carl Witherby continued, “We have incontrovertible evidence that Napoleon Bonaparte was not exiled to St Helena. Instead he lived out his life as an English country gentleman in The Lodge, on Isle of Wight, the house Sir Arthur has described as his family home.
“This is all utter and irrelevant nonsense. And why are you wasting this interview telling me all this? We should be talking about the issues. What has this fairy tale to do with me?”
Sir Arthur stared with barely disguised disdain at the professor who answered with a smile. “We will see that it has everything to do with you.”
“Just because some ancestor of mine is supposed to have been involved in some vast conspiracy? This story is farcical fiction.”
“So, Professor Witherby, you say that Bonaparte lived the life of a country gentleman on the Isle of Wight?” Jilly asked, bringing the interview back to the narrative laid out by Fergal.
“Indeed he did. It was the precursor of a thousand modern-day witness protection programmes. The name he was given was Claude Olivierre, he had the cover of a man from Jersey in the Channel Islands. It was very cleverly organised.”
“And what was Sir Bernard Lacey’s role in this plan?” Jilly asked gently.
“Sir Bernard had, as I’ve already mentioned, planned the whole thing. Napoleon Bonaparte was his asset and he was his handler, that is the only way I can describe their relationship in the beginning.”
“In the beginning?”
“The two men lived on adjoining estates, they married sisters and over the years they became friends and their families became closely connected.”
“Families?” Jilly prompted.
“The man who was known as Claude Olivierre had a daughter he named Josephine, and Sir Bernard had twin sons.”
Groups in the studio audience whispered to each other, pointing towards the family tree Fergal had just given to the controllers and which was being hastily displayed on the monitors and on screens around the country.
“In time Sir Bernard’s younger son married Josephine and the families were linked.”
There were more gasps from the audience as more generations of the Lacey family tree were displayed.
“So you are saying that Sir Arthur is a direct descendent of Napoleon Bonaparte?” Jilly confirmed what everyone could see.
“I am saying that, yes.”
The cameras focussed on Sir Arthur who could find nothing to say and was simply shaking his head from side to side.
Gayle Shepherd was smiling as she re-entered what she was realising was an interview that would do her career no harm at all. “Earlier, you will remember Sir Arthur, I mentioned we had a common ancestor. That ‘soldier who ruled’ was Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“You are also related to Napoleon?” Jilly asked.
“Yes. It appears an ancestor of mine, Lady Frances Frensham, spent some months with Napoleon on Elba. She had a son by him and that son was my great-great-grandfather.”
Sir Arthur had now had more than enough. He stood up. Unable to look at Gayle Shepherd, Skye or the professor he glared at Jilly as he removed his microphone and walked from the set with what dignity he could muster.
Jilly looked up to the control box and saw the producer draw his finger across his throat, indicating it was time for her to draw the programme to a conclusion.
“Well, it appears our time is up. I must thank all my guests and you, viewers and members of the studio audience. I’m certain there is much more on this story to come and I apologise to you all, I know I’m leaving you with more questions than answers. Good afternoon.”
She thought she had done a good job and even if this was to be her last programme with the station or even the last of her career, she felt she had done the story, and herself, justice. She was preparing to face the inevitable arguments when she realised everyone in the control box was applauding. She was unaware that the station’s managers were already fielding requests from news stations around the world for the rights to show excerpts from the interview, and were refusing demands for the contact details of ‘that Lacey girl’.
As the credits rolled the studio audience’s applause was long, loud and genuine.
Everyone knew that Sir Arthur’s political career was over.
*
In his office in Downing Street the Prime Minister had initially been overjoyed as he watched what he recognised to be the very public end to the scandalous career of Sir Arthur Lacey. The man had been a thorn in his side for years and he was glad to see him leave the public stage. He cheerfully began to make notes on how that morning’s interview could be spun to his party’s advantage and what effects it would have on the outcome of the imminent election campaign.
His mood changed when he was informed that there had already been several calls from the aides to the French ambassador demanding an explanation from the Foreign Office and from him directly. This, he understood, would lead to arguments with France and unforeseeable implications for the renegotiations he planned to have with the rest of European community.
His mood deteriorated still further when he received a call from the office of the Prince of Wales asking coldly why no one had had the courtesy to inform His Royal Highness of this historic scandal before it was aired on national television.
He picked up a phone and instructed that someone go immediately to the television studios and escort Professor Witherby and Gayle Shepherd to Downing Street. He tended to agree with the Prince of Wales, someone should have kept him informed.
*
In a smoke-filled room in a club in St James’s five men sat in silence aware that their dreams were as good as dead.
They had supported Sir Arthur with their fortunes in the belief that, after the coup, they would be granted a level of influence over the future of their country unavailable to any man for more than two hundred years.
Their popular figurehead had been ridiculed and they could no longer entertain any hope of taking control of the government and placing political and military power in the hands of men who knew what was right.
Through the course of the programme they had come to accept that there would be no insurrection, no uprising and no coup d’état.
They had not cared that the man they had expected to install as the Lord Protector of England had been a swindler of expenses or even that he had fathered an illegitimate child, but they had been shocked beyond words when it was shown that he was not the thoroughbred Englishman he had always claimed to be.
They could not support a man who was the descendent of the upstart Bonaparte. Nor could they support a man who was related, however distantly, to the Shepherd woman.
And without Sir Arthur they knew their plans would come to nothing.
The five men, who had been proud to call themselves the Cabal, sat back in their heavy armchairs, each with a cigar in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other, wordlessly accepting that it was all over.
*
After Gayle was whisked to another studio for an interview Carl sat with Fergal and Skye in the green room watching a recording of the programme They had been told not to leave as there were a number of people who wanted to talk to them including men from MI5, from the government and, not least, from the worldwide media.
“I think we might have caused something of a stir,” Carl said with a degree of satisfaction.
“But nothing we can’t handle,” Fergal agreed. “Do you think the first Sir Bernard would be pleased his diaries have been found, albeit one hundred years too late, and would Claude be happy that his clues have been unscrambled?”
“I think they would both be very pleased that their secrets are seeing the light of day,” Carl replied.
“Absolutely,” Skye agreed. “And they would be very proud that they have changed the course of history. I can’t believe that Sir Arthur will have any support for his revolution now.”
“I think Bernard and Claude would be inordinately pleased that they still held such influence over the affairs of their adopted country.”
“And do you think they would be happy that they’ve pretty much destroyed my father’s career?” Skye asked, smiling.
“That is the most important result of all and, yes, I think they would be very proud of that. From what we have learned of them I can’t imagine they would either like or agree with the politics of that particular descendant of theirs.”
“You mean you’re seeing them as people, now?” Skye teased.
“You are never too old to learn.” Carl shrugged theatrically and smiled at the two young people as they sat close to each other on the settee.
He had seen the relationship develop in those three heady weeks the previous June. He remembered the unguarded kiss Fergal had given Skye as they had left the old chapel after retrieving the diaries. He had watched their closeness grow through the more routine work of the months that had followed.
Both were generations on from the Emperor and there was little of his blood in their veins but that inheritance existed, those genes were there in both of them. Carl had seen that, for all the distance of their relationship, they were two of a kind. Fourth cousins once removed but alike in so many ways.
Skye put her hand to the locket she always wore around her neck and she wondered whether Audrey would be proud of what they had done.
Her aunt had known all about the family, of that Skye had become increasingly convinced. Audrey had seen every word that had been written on the flyleaves of the family Bible, she had known all the generations and exactly who their forebears were.
And, Skye thought, she had known exactly who had hidden the canvas bag in the chimney at The Lodge. Why, she asked silently, why did you never tell me? Why couldn’t you trust me with the truth? In the last few minutes of peace before they would have to face politicians and the media she imagined how different the past five years would have been if Audrey had told her the truth that morning after the storm. She wouldn’t have withdrawn into herself, she wouldn’t have had her fall, I would have taken my exams and gone to university, just as I’d planned. But, Skye told herself, I wouldn’t have met Fergal, the diaries would never have been found and the country would now be heading for anarchy and repression.
“Do you remember that bit in Bernard’s diary?” she asked squeezing Fergal’s hand.
“Which bit?”
“Here, I kept it.” Skye found the note on her phone and read it aloud. “Some would say it was chance, that these things cannot be ordered, but that morning Fate and Providence were not random, they had conspired to do what was right.”
Fergal and Carl smiled, each thinking they understood what she meant.