The Caverel Claim

by Peter Rawlinson

  ‘There’ll be a crowd at the entrance. I’ll see you to the car.’

  ‘Very well, but then I want to be alone.’

  At Hyde Park Corner she told the car to stop and took a taxi. Ten minutes later Greg let her into his apartment. Without a word he seized her in his arms.

  31

  It was mid-morning when Mordecai Ledbury began his cross-examination. He clambered to his feet more slowly, more elaborately and more noisily than usual and stood leaning against the bench, his head lowered, taking his time, one hand on a stick, the other playing with the papers on the desk in front of him.

  For a moment Murray was tempted to order him to get on with it, but he remembered his vow to keep quiet. Instead he began to rehearse in his mind what he would say in his judgement about the conduct of the respondent’s counsel; and it wouldn’t be complimentary.

  Fleur was paler, looking more tired than she had the day before. She was dressed in the same outfit because she had not been back to the hotel. Her pallor, Robert Murray decided, suited her.

  Without needing to look, she knew Greg was sitting in the same place at the back of the court and the knowledge of his presence comforted her even more than the sight of him had on the day before. ‘However much he tries to provoke you, all you have to do is to stay calm and tell the truth,’ Greg had said as they lay in bed. ‘He can’t harm you.’

  When late that night there had been no sign of her, Willoughby had telephoned Stevens who told him where he thought she was. ‘Leave them alone,’ Stevens had said. ‘Tomorrow is too important.’

  Mordecai raised his head and stared at the witness.

  ‘What is your name?’ he began.

  She had not expected that. ‘My name?’ she said hesitantly.

  ‘Yes, your name. What is your name?’

  ‘Fleur Caverel, of course.’

  ‘Why of course?’

  ‘Because it is. You know it is.’

  ‘Do I? When did you first call yourself by that name?’

  ‘When I learnt that it was my true name.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘When I’d seen Mr Walker and he gave me my mother’s letter.’

  ‘Where is that letter?’

  ‘I don’t know. I said, I’ve mislaid it.’

  ‘Mislaid it! You’ve mislaid the letter which, if what you say is true, would change the whole of your life, the important letter which told you of your parentage – and of your expectations?’

  ‘I didn’t then know what to expect. All I know is that I don’t know where the letter is now.’

  ‘So, you’re telling us that the letter has gone. And the lady who wrote it has gone; and the lady who kept it and brought you up has gone; and the lawyer is gone. All dead. Doesn’t that sound very convenient?’

  ‘I am not inventing it.’

  ‘We have only your word that the letter ever existed, isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes, only my word.’

  ‘And the integrity of your word, madam, I’m going to challenge. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course. It’s your job.’

  A titter ran around the court which Murray made no attempt to quiet. He even allowed himself a nod and a faint smile.

  ‘And your job, madam, or rather your duty under the oath you’ve taken,’ Mordecai said savagely, ‘is to tell the truth.’ Murray was about to intervene but Mordecai did not give him the chance as he went on rapidly, ‘Were you calling yourself Fleur Caverel when you first returned to Paris from Charleston and your interview with the lawyer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I didn’t until I had talked to my friend, Paul Valerian.’

  ‘You wanted his advice?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What were you calling yourself when you returned to Paris from seeing Mr Walker?’

  ‘Sarah, Sarah Wilson.’

  ‘And was that the name Paul Valerian knew you by?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Always?’

  ‘Yes, always.’

  ‘From the first moment you and he had met?’

  ‘Yes. When we met I thought Wilson was my name.’

  ‘All the time you knew him he never called you anything else?’

  ‘Never, always Sarah.’

  ‘And he called you Sarah Wilson when you were alone together and when you met his friends and he introduced you to them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you and Paul Valerian lovers?’

  She looked at Murray. ‘Is this relevant, Mr Ledbury?’ Murray asked coldly.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then you must answer,’ said Murray gently.

  ‘We were, years ago, for a very short time. Later we were just friends, very good friends.’

  ‘The love affair was over when you worked for him at his club?’

  ‘Yes. That was many months later.’

  ‘After the end of the love affair, he helped you to get engagements in Berlin and then gave you work himself?’

  ‘Yes. I told you, we were friends.’

  ‘And from first to last he called you Sarah, Sarah Wilson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even when you were lovers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mordecai paused. ‘You’ve been called by other names, haven’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Was the question so difficult? What other names have you been known by?’

  There was a silence. ‘Stage names,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Please speak up,’ Mordecai said, his cane thumping on the floor. At the noise, Murray looked up angrily from his notebook but said nothing. ‘What was your answer?’

  ‘I said stage names, sometimes I’ve used stage names.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We all did. Sometimes we called ourselves different names when we were in different countries.’

  ‘Who are we?’

  ‘My friends, the other dancers.’

  ‘Tell the court what were these other names that you have used.’ There was a pause. He waited. ‘Perhaps I can help you,’ he went on. ‘Ella Moreau. Is that a name you remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I believe it is.’

  ‘Believe!’ Mordecai leaned forward, wagging his head. ‘Don’t you know? Don’t you recognise the name, Ella Moreau?’

  ‘Yes. That was a name I sometimes used on the stage.’

  ‘Only on the stage?’

  ‘No, not always. When we were in some countries we used different names. Sometimes we didn’t want people to know our real names.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She shrugged. ‘There were men who tried to get off with us, who pestered us.’

  ‘Does the name Lila or Leila Houseman mean anything to you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s a name I used.’

  ‘Anna St Martin, was that another of the names you went under?’

  ‘Yes, it was another stage name.’

  Mordecai paused. ‘Who chose the name, St Martin?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘How did you pronounce it? In the English way or in the French?’

  ‘The French way.’

  ‘Why did you choose that name?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was just a name, a made-up name for the stage.’

  ‘But St Martin is a place. Have you not heard of St Martin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is an island in the Caribbean, is it not, in the group of islands known as the Lesser Antilles, near to Guadeloupe? Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘No, why should it?’

  ‘Have you ever been to St Martin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you any family there?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  There was a long pause, Mordecai standing very still, looking at Fleur.

  ‘Yes, Mr Ledbury,’ said Murray at last. ‘Continue.’

  Mordecai switched his gaze from Fleur to Murray. ‘Very well,’
he said menacingly, ‘very well. I shall return to that name St Martin, and that place St Martin, a little later.’ He turned to face Fleur. ‘These names you used, can you remember which name you used in which city?’

  She thought. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Let me see if I can jog your memory. You performed at a club called the Amigo in Venice. What name did you use there?’

  ‘Ella, I think, Ella Moreau.’

  ‘And at Jack’s Club in Antibes in the South of France?’

  ‘The same, I think.’

  ‘And at the Vie en Rose in the Campo dei Fiore in Rome?’

  She thought. ‘St Martin, I think Anna St Martin.’

  ‘The Kleine Nachtrevue in Berlin?’

  She paused. ‘Anna St Martin,’ she said at last. ‘Anna St Martin.’

  ‘Both on stage and off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And in your friend’s club in Paris, Valerian’s club, what name did you go under there?’

  ‘Leila Houseman.’

  ‘On stage and off?’

  ‘On stage, although I used that name off stage for some people. Not for all.’

  ‘But not for your old friend, Paul Valerian?’

  ‘No, as I said, he called me Sarah, always Sarah.’

  ‘Even when you were performing at his club under the name of Leila Houseman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You first met the Pole when you were performing what you call your poses at the Minaret Club in Istanbul?’

  ‘By the Pole, I presume you mean Mr Valerian?’ said Murray acidly.

  Mordecai was looking towards Fleur. He didn’t turn to the judge. ‘Of course,’ he said curtly and continued, still facing Fleur, ‘We needn’t be shy about the nature of your poses or act on stage, need we?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘It involved you stripping off your clothes and standing or strutting about the stage under a spotlight stark naked?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Please speak. The shorthand writer has to take a note. Yes or no?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were a stripper?’

  ‘Yes.’ Then she said fiercely, ‘I said yesterday that I had no money and when management didn’t pay the dancers the money they owed us, I had to take any job that was going.’

  ‘Dancers? What dancing had you done?’

  ‘I started in the chorus. Then I did solos.’

  ‘Posing without any clothes on?’

  She was silent. Then she said softly, ‘I haven’t pretended.’

  ‘No. I accept you have not pretended about that.’ There was a pause before Mordecai repeated, ‘I fully accept you haven’t pretended about that.’

  Percy rose to his feet. ‘I’m always reluctant to intervene during a cross-examination –’

  ‘Then don’t,’ snarled Mordecai.

  Percy looked at him icily and went on to the judge, ‘That was a statement by counsel, not a question.’

  ‘Do not make statements, Mr Ledbury,’ said Murray shortly. ‘Ask questions.’

  Mordecai stared at the judge under his black eyebrows. He took a deep breath and said slowly, ‘Oh, I shall. I shall be asking many questions.’

  ‘Then ask them,’ said the judge.

  Mordecai bent his head, his mouth twisted. Oliver turned and caught his eye, appealing. Mordecai turned back to Fleur. ‘I’ll put it to you in the form of a question. You have not told the court the truth, have you?’

  At the back of the court Willoughby, smiling at the reporters’ bench, shrugged his shoulders and sighed elaborately. Earlier he had turned to stare at Greg sitting behind him. Greg had his head now between his hands, his elbows on the desk in front of him. Please God, he prayed, she keeps her cool.

  ‘I have told the truth.’

  ‘Some of what you’ve told us is, I suggest, a lie?’

  ‘About what?’

  Mordecai stared at her. She had been answering his questions with her head turned away, speaking directly to the judge. Now she half turned and faced him. Suddenly he said very loudly, ‘About who you are.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ A flush had come to her face. ‘I am Fleur Caverel.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘Are you? Or is Fleur Caverel just another of the names you have adopted, like Leila or Lila Houseman and Anna St Martin – and Sarah Wilson?’

  ‘I thought Sarah Wilson was my name until I found out my real name. The others were stage names I sometimes used.’

  ‘Are you saying, swearing, that Ella Moreau was not your real name, that it was a false name, an invented name?’

  ‘I am.’

  Mordecai, his head lowered, limped a few paces up and down the bench before suddenly he changed tack. ‘Tell me about your friend, Mr Blake. He’s what they call a publicist, isn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know. Mr Stevens introduced me to him.’

  ‘But you know now, don’t you? Doesn’t Mr Blake manage would-be pop stars, young actors and actresses, and promote them and get their names into the press?’

  ‘I told you, I don’t know.’

  ‘What exactly is Mr Blake’s role in this case, this claim made by the lady’ – here he looked hard at Murray – ‘calling herself Fleur Caverel?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I think you do. Hasn’t Mr Blake taken you on in order to publicise you and promote your claim in the hope of getting money – for you and for him?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Why do you say you don’t understand? Didn’t you attend a press conference he staged last year?’

  ‘He arranged it. He said it was all right because no legal claim had begun.’

  ‘Did he? But what was the point of holding a press conference?’

  ‘To put my side of it, he said.’

  ‘Your side of what?’

  ‘Of the story.’

  ‘The story you’ve invented – or the true story?’

  ‘The true story. I’ve invented nothing.’

  ‘I suggest that the purpose of Mr Blake’s press conference, as you know perfectly well, was to promote you and to put pressure on the family by stirring up public opinion in the hope they’d buy you off and there’d be money for you and your friends. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Mr Ledbury,’ said Murray. ‘The witness said that it was Mr Blake who arranged the press conference.’

  ‘I know perfectly well what the witness said,’ Mordecai replied. ‘But she took part in it. She knew why it was being staged.’

  ‘I did not,’ Fleur said.

  ‘Are you telling the court you had no idea what was the purpose of the press conference in which you played a part?’

  ‘I thought it was to put before the public my side of the story. The family’s rich and powerful and…’

  ‘And you and Mr Blake are weak and poor? Is that what you are saying?’

  ‘I’m saying the press conference was to give my side of the story but I never spoke because there was a scene.’

  ‘There certainly was. The lady who calls herself’ – he looked again at Murray – ‘your grandmother, the one-time Lady Caverel born Lucy Bull, got drunk and threw glasses at the audience. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘She is my grandmother and she’s not well.’

  ‘To put it bluntly, what you and Willoughby Blake are after, are you not, is money?’

  ‘No. I want my rights.’

  ‘Your rights! Your rights to what? The barony of Caverel? If you win this case, do you intend to petition the Crown and become the Baroness Caverel?’

  She paused. ‘I’m not sure. I…’

  ‘No, you’re not sure, are you, because what you and those backing you are after is money?’

  ‘No, it’s because I’m not interested in titles. I don’t know anything about that sort of thing. I just want my rights, the rights that are mine as the daughter of
my father.’

  ‘The son of the lady born Lucy Bull in Clapham?’

  ‘What’s wrong with being called Bull or coming from Clapham? Why do you keep sneering at that?’

  Mordecai saw his mistake and went on rapidly, ‘Who are the friends who are contributing to the costs of this claim?’

  ‘I don’t know. Mr Blake arranged it.’

  ‘And what do these friends expect to get out of it if you succeed?’

  ‘They’ll be paid back.’

  ‘What they’ve loaned?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Only paid back what they’ve loaned? Is that all?’

  She hesitated and he saw her hesitation. ‘No profit on their investment, no cut from the proceeds? They’re just putting up cash out of a chivalrous desire to help a young maiden in distress?’

  ‘Really!’ Percy said, half rising from his seat.

  Once again Mordecai hurried on. ‘Let’s return to your friend, Paul Valerian. Tell us again what name you were using when you first met him?’

  ‘I’ve told you time and time again, Sarah Wilson, the name I was raised with.’

  ‘Sarah, the name he called you by?’

  ‘Yes, I told you.’

  ‘Always?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On every occasion and to everyone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mordecai stared at her in silence. ‘Sarah Wilson,’ he repeated almost to himself. Suddenly he swung round, his back to the judge, facing the door of the court, and flicked his fingers.

  ‘What are you doing, Mr Ledbury?’ Murray said icily. ‘Is this a part of your cross-examination?’

  Mordecai swung back. ‘It is. I am calling for a certain person to come into court and be identified by the witness. This person will be the first of many.’

  A noise arose in the court-room like the branches of trees rustling in the wind. People turned to each other, whispering. The swing-door opened slowly, and Mr Rogers ushered in a small, elderly woman, shabbily dressed with a tired, worn face. She stood a few feet inside looking confused and bewildered. Mr Rogers gently took her by the arm and gestured for her to go further inside. She took a few more steps and Mr Rogers pointed in the direction of the judge and then at Fleur in the witness box.

  Mordecai turned back to face Fleur. ‘Do you recognise this lady?’

  Fleur stared down at the woman, one hand to her throat in the same gesture she’d used when she’d been telling the judge she felt more white than black.