The Caverel Claim

by Peter Rawlinson

  ‘If he thinks that, then he’s off his head,’ said Nicholas.

  Mordecai swivelled round in his chair to face him.

  ‘Is he? Have you any idea what you and the family will undergo when the campaign gets under way? Public hostility, hounding by reporters and photographers, your private lives put under a microscope? Are you ready for that?’

  ‘You know perfectly well, Mordecai,’ Oliver intervened, ‘there is no question of the family surrendering to this fraudulent claim.’

  Mordecai pushed the newspapers on his desk to one side. ‘Very well. But have any of you considered the possibility that this young woman is genuine? That she is Julian Caverel’s daughter?’

  ‘She’s not,’ Nicholas replied. ‘She’s a fraud.’

  Mordecai looked up at the ceiling, then down at his hands folded on the desk. ‘So you say.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Oliver, ‘that is what Nicholas has said and it is what you will say in court, Mordecai, and you will say it loud and clear.’

  For a time no one spoke. Mr Rogers was watching Mordecai from the corner of his sharp little eye. Eventually Mordecai broke the silence. ‘Has there been any DNA testing?’

  ‘There’s no purpose. Julian died twenty years ago in San Francisco,’ Oliver said. ‘He was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Bay. The alleged mother died more than twenty years ago and was buried in a cemetery which was flooded in the hurricane of 1989. Her corpse cannot be identified.’

  ‘The grandmother? The child? What about them?’

  ‘Any DNA testing on them would be inconclusive.’

  ‘It would, I venture to suggest, be more than inconclusive,’ Mr Rogers said, his fingers pressed together across his chest. ‘In the absence of any remains of the father and mother, DNA could not establish whether the young woman is their daughter, even were the remains of the half-brother, Robin Caverel, in existence, which I gather they also are not, and despite the existence of young Francis.’

  Mordecai stared at him balefully. ‘You know what you are talking about?’

  Mr Rogers bowed gravely. ‘I do. I have some knowledge, some experience of this.’

  There was a long pause. Then Mordecai went on, ‘The claimant certainly appears to be of mixed blood.’

  ‘She does,’ said Oliver. ‘But she could be anybody. We say first, she is not Julian’s daughter. Second, if they prove she is, she was a bastard. Third we say that Julian was not the son of Walter, the 15th Baron Caverel who never acknowledged him during his lifetime.’

  There was another long silence. Mordecai again examined the ceiling. He said at last, ‘The alternative is what you think is the unthinkable. That she is the rightful heiress.’

  Nicholas uncrossed and crossed his legs, staring straight ahead of him as though he were on parade. Mr Rogers settled himself more comfortably in his chair, the tips of his fingers now together under his chin. He closed his eyes and looked like an observer to whom the discussion afforded merely some wry amusement. Mordecai was watching him. ‘Well, Mr Rogers,’ he said, irritated, ‘can we provoke you into saying something, apart from giving us a lesson on DNA? It was you who provoked the old woman at the press conference.’

  Mr Rogers smiled and shrugged. He folded his small white hands over his tight-fitting waistcoat. ‘I don’t think that at this stage there is anything more I can usefully contribute. At the press conference I acted on instructions.’

  Mordecai shrugged. ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘So if she is not Julian’s daughter, who is she and where has she come from?’

  ‘She could be anyone and she could have come from anywhere,’ Nicholas broke in. ‘Someone has put her up to it.’

  Mordecai turned to him. ‘You may be right, Major Lawton. It is true that Julian was the improbable father of any child, but if he did not conceive this child, who did?’

  ‘It could have been anyone. If any of the story is true.’

  ‘I am examining the possibilities, Major Lawton,’ Mordecai growled. ‘We are here to review the case we shall have to meet in court.’

  Nicholas shifted in his chair. ‘Of course,’ he said.

  ‘So who was the white man who seduced this girl’s mother twenty-five years ago and induced her to believe he was Lord Caverel’s heir?’ Mordecai looked at Nicholas. ‘If, of course, he did.’ He turned back to Oliver. ‘But if he did, why should he do that if he were not Julian Caverel?’

  ‘That assumes’, Oliver replied, ‘that there’s any truth in any of the story.’

  ‘Isn’t it fanciful to imagine that it is all invention? Lies by the foster mother, lies from the real mother?’

  Oliver leaned forward in his chair. ‘No, it is not. We don’t know what the mother or the foster mother actually said or wrote. All we know is what the girl says they said and wrote. There may or may not have been a white man who fathered the child. But whoever it was, it was not Julian Caverel. The story is invention, with the girl telling lies she’s been taught to tell by the conspirators who see a chance to get their hands on a great estate and a great fortune.’

  Mordecai looked down at his hands folded on the desk. ‘Assume the girl is telling the truth at least as far as this part of the story is concerned. Assume the mother had an affair with some man, some Englishman who was not Julian but who held himself out to be Julian Caverel and convinced the mother that he was. If that is so, then there has to be an Englishman in Beaufort County twenty-five years ago who seduced the black woman and conceived a child after telling her a story about a wealthy family and a lord in England.’

  He paused, looking at the other three in turn. ‘But why in heaven’s name should he want to tell such a story?’

  Oliver answered. ‘I knew Julian. I tell you he never fathered any child.’

  Mordecai grunted. ‘That the man was homosexual doesn’t mean he couldn’t conceive a child.’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t, but throughout his life Julian was never known to have shown any interest in any woman. Why then should there suddenly appear a woman from South Carolina – or rather the ghost of a woman because she is conveniently dead – on whose behalf it is claimed that the homosexual Julian fathered on her a child? And what is the corroboration of this story? The foster mother who took in the child? Where is she? Also dead.’

  ‘There is a letter.’

  ‘No one has seen that letter. It was not produced at the press conference. I doubt if it exists. Who is to say who wrote that letter, if there ever was a letter?’

  ‘The lawyer in Charleston?’

  ‘Perhaps, but at the moment we have only the young woman’s word for any of it, and when it comes to court, it will be for her to prove she is who she claims she is, namely the legitimate daughter of the legitimate elder son of the then Lord Caverel. And when she seeks to do that, your task, Mordecai, will be to challenge that story, probe her background, her previous life, her backers and financiers and expose where they came from and why. I’ve briefed you, Mordecai, because the story is a pack of lies and because you are the best qualified counsel practising at the bar to expose what is nothing less than a conspiracy.’

  When Oliver had finished, Mordecai lowered his head. ‘Then you’ll have to supply me with documents and facts and witnesses,’ he said quietly. ‘I cannot cross-examine on your unsubstantiated suspicions.’

  ‘That is why I have retained Mr Rogers.’

  Mr Rogers bowed. Mordecai looked at him and grunted; then turned back to Oliver. ‘They will produce records of Julian’s marriage and the birth of the daughter.’

  ‘No doubt,’ Oliver replied. ‘But how genuine they’ll be is another matter. I don’t imagine it’s very difficult to manufacture such documents in Beaufort County.’

  Mordecai turned back to Mr Rogers. ‘Then it’s up to you, Mr Rogers,’ he growled. ‘Without facts, without witnesses, we shall fail. The fate of this family is in your hands.’

  ‘So it appears.’

  ‘Have you sufficient…’ Mordecai was
going to say ‘experience’ but paused. ‘Have you sufficient resources to undertake these enquiries?’

  ‘If he hasn’t, we shall see that he has,’ Oliver replied.

  ‘The estate’, Nicholas began, ‘is not –’

  Oliver interrupted. ‘I know. The estate, despite its intrinsic value and wealth, has not much ready cash. Sales will have to be made, land, pictures. A very large sum will have to be raised.’

  ‘What will the court make of trustees’, Mordecai said almost to himself, ‘who sell the family silver to finance resistance to the claim of a lady whom the court eventually declares to be the genuine heir?’

  ‘You keep suggesting she’s the genuine heir,’ Nicholas broke in. ‘She’s an adventuress, an impostor.’ He bent forward, his face suddenly red and angry. ‘I don’t understand why you can’t see that she is. I thought you were hired on behalf of the family to be on the side of the family.’

  ‘That is offensive, Major Lawton,’ Mordecai snarled.

  ‘Nicholas! Mordecai!’ Oliver interjected, but Mordecai was not to be stopped.

  ‘I hoped that Major Lawton had the wits to appreciate that the purpose of this consultation is to examine the case that will be brought against us and that if we aren’t prepared and ready to meet it, then Lady Caverel and her child will be thrown on to the street and the black girl, with Blake and the drunken grandmother, will be in possession.’

  There came a loud scrape of a chair being pushed back. Mr Rogers was on his feet. Mordecai swung round and bent forward to look at him. ‘What the devil do you want?’

  ‘I must be on my way.’ To Oliver he said, ‘I shall be in touch, Mr Goodbody.’

  ‘You know where to find me,’ said Oliver.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘If you are leaving us, let me give you some advice,’ said Mordecai.

  Mr Rogers looked at him steadily. ‘I’m always very ready to listen to advice,’ he said coolly.

  ‘If this is a conspiracy,’ Mordecai growled, ‘as Mr Goodbody believes it is, and if these conspirators catch up with you, you’d better take care.’

  ‘I shall,’ Rogers replied gravely.

  ‘Do you know anything about any of them?’

  ‘I know of Blake and I have come across some of his associates. One of his henchmen especially is not…’ He paused and sought for the appropriate word. ‘… is not the most respectable of citizens. So I shall be careful.’ He bowed to Oliver and across the room to Nicholas. ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ he said.

  ‘Anything you need, get in touch with me either at the office or at home, in London or the country. You know where to find me,’ repeated Oliver.

  ‘And if there’s trouble,’ added Nicholas, ‘you know where to find me.’

  Mr Rogers liked the military so he did not smile at Nicholas’ offer. He bowed gravely. ‘Thank you, Major Lawton. I have had experience of what you call trouble and I have some expertise in avoiding it.’

  ‘If these gentlemen are right,’ growled Mordecai, ‘you’ll need all the expertise you’ve got.’

  Mr Rogers stared at him as coolly as before and it was Mordecai who dropped his eyes. Mr Rogers swung round on his heel and began to walk to the door. Then he stopped and turned again. ‘If you will forgive me, perhaps you gentlemen ought to be considering not so much whose daughter she may be but whether she is who she says she is.’

  He left the room, moving deftly, almost like a cat, balanced perfectly on his small, well-shod feet. When the door had closed behind him, Mordecai turned to Oliver. ‘Who the devil is he?’

  ‘He’s the best,’ Oliver replied, using the same words Stevens had used some weeks ago to Dukie Brown about Willoughby Blake.

  * * *

  On leaving the Temple, Oliver and Nicholas shared a taxi.

  ‘I didn’t like that fellow,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘Many don’t.’

  ‘Why did you brief him?’

  ‘Because he’s the best for what needs to be done. If you think he’s offensive to us whose side he’s paid to be on, wait until you see him with the enemy.’

  ‘Was he right when he implied you should never have sent that little man to the press conference?’

  ‘That’s his opinion, given after the event. I wanted those criminals to understand what they’re up against.’

  ‘He was bloody rude to me.’

  ‘He is to many. That’s the risk we take in briefing him.’

  ‘And the little man? You said he was the best. Best at what?’

  ‘At finding out.’

  ‘Where was he going when he left?’

  ‘I leave that to him. Europe, the Americas, wherever he has to.’

  ‘I suppose he charges a fortune.’

  ‘He does, and so does Mordecai. To defend this claim will cost the estate a great deal of money. So you’d better start selecting the treasures you’ll have to sell.’

  Nicholas looked out of the window of the cab. They sat in silence. Then Oliver asked, ‘How is Andrea?’

  ‘Calmer now.’

  ‘She’ll need to be strong,’ said Oliver. ‘It’ll get much rougher, for her and for all of us. Especially when Blake really gets going and really whips up the media.’ He stared out of the window of the cab. ‘Ravenscourt is part of my life. It has been ever since I first went there when I was a boy. For you, it probably means even more, since you are attached to it by ties of blood. But I tell you, I shall do everything, everything that is needed, everything in my power, to make sure it remains in the family.’

  18

  Unlike Richard Jameson some weeks earlier, Mr Rogers on his arrival at Charleston in South Carolina did not check into the Four Seasons Hotel; nor was he met by anyone resembling a Southern senator who was addressed as Judge. He had exchanged his black suit for a crumpled light fawn one which fitted so tightly across his frame that the middle button was seriously strained. On arrival he was met by no one, and from the airport he took a taxi to a modest hotel in a side street. Before retiring for the night, he sat at the bar drinking tall glasses of Jack Daniels on the rocks while engaging in friendly chat with the barman.

  The next morning he spent much time on the telephone and at noon received his first visitor, a grey-haired black man who drove up to the hotel in a battered 1985 Chevrolet. The visitor, Clover Harrison, was soon sitting with Mr Rogers in the bar eating a sandwich and drinking beer served by the same friendly and chatty barman. After an hour, Mr Rogers and Clover Harrison left in the ancient car. In the afternoon they paid a visit to a shack with a corrugated tin roof outside which they sat at a wooden table sipping a mixture of lemonade and sarsparilla with two elderly women and a very ancient man who spoke little. They then drove on to visit the local Baptist chapel and drank tea at the home of its pastor. Back in the city, they passed the evening going from piano bar to jazz club, Mr Rogers consuming a prodigious quantity of bourbon without it apparently affecting him in the slightest. Clover Harrison did the talking; Mr Rogers the paying.

  It was at the last of the jazz clubs that they received some information which took them the following morning to a small, neat house in the city’s western suburbs where they spent several hours drinking coffee on the front porch with a middle-aged black woman. She was a widow and lived alone. They then retraced their steps to the hospital in Charleston and a doctor’s office, and after more visits in the afternoon and early evening to other houses Mr Rogers was delivered back to his hotel where once more he began telephoning. For the next seventy-two hours this was the pattern of his days and nights, and he never once ventured outside the hotel except in the company of Clover Harrison. Twice again they visited the middle-aged woman with whom they had drunk coffee, and with whom at their last meeting Mr Rogers left several pages of manuscript written in his neat handwriting. But one place they did not visit was the office of a Mr Jerome Walker, attorney-at-law, the frail and elderly black lawyer who had placed the advertisement for Sarah Wilson in the Paris edition of the Herald T
ribune. Mr Walker was ill, and according to Clover Harrison failing fast. But that did not prevent Mr Walker from hearing of the presence in town of an inquisitive gentleman from London; and Judge Jed Blaker, as he was called although he had retired from the bench, was duly informed.

  On the fourth day after Mr Rogers’ arrival, Clover Harrison picked him up at the hotel and drove him to the airport and bade him farewell. From Charleston Mr Rogers flew west to San Francisco, missing by only a few hours the arrival of another visitor from London, Richard Jameson, who checked into the Four Seasons Hotel and who spent the rest of that evening and several days thereafter in the company of Judge Jed Blaker.

  At San Francisco airport Mr Rogers was met by a lean, craggy-faced woman with cropped black hair speckled with grey, dressed in a check shirt and ill-fitting pants. ‘Jules,’ she said, thrusting out a hand and snatching his bag from him. She marched him to a cab which delivered them to an open air car-park some way from the airport. In her bottle-green XJS soft-top convertible Jaguar, Jules lit a cheroot and they sat talking for the best part of an hour.

  As she started the engine before moving off, she handed him a card. ‘Eleven o’clock,’ she said, looking him over. He was still in his fawn suit which stretched so tightly over his stomach. ‘Shirt and pants,’ she added.

  At the Sheraton Palace, a far more up-market hotel than Mr Rogers had frequented in Charleston, she sat in the car and watched as his stout figure stepped lightly up the steps and disappeared into the hotel, accompanied by a porter carrying his bag.

  Shortly after eleven o’clock that evening, Mr Rogers, now more comfortably but somewhat incongruously dressed in a flowered shirt and white trousers, took a taxi to the address on the card. At the door of the club he presented it to the doorman and was admitted. The place was dark and very crowded, lit almost solely by the coloured lights flickering on and off on the dance-floor. He pushed his way to the bar, ordered bourbon, and observed the dancers.