A Set of Lies

by Carolyn McCrae

  Skye saw an opportunity to contribute. “Don’t forget about Henry.”

  “Henry?”

  “William’s brother, Arthur and Audrey’s uncle. I do get fed up with family histories when they always seem to ignore anyone but the eldest son, it’s as if younger sons and all the daughters don’t matter.”

  “Point taken. But I’ve been concentrating on the baronetcy, which tends also to ignore everyone but the oldest son.” Fergal justified himself with what he intended to be a joke, but Skye was not going to let the point go.

  “Audrey looked after Uncle Henry for years. That’s how I know all about him.”

  “Delightful as the man must have been, we must move back through the generations. Who was Sir William’s father?”

  Skye seethed with indignation as Fergal continued his summary. “That was Sir Bernard. He was born in 1852, inherited the baronetcy in 1917 and died in 1919.”

  “Only two years with the title. Was it Spanish influenza? The timing would be right.”

  “Yes it was,” Skye confirmed, determined not to be sidelined. “Audrey told me.”

  Fergal continued, referring to his notes. “This is where it becomes quite interesting because the generations get a bit mixed up. Sir Bernard was the fifth baronet but he was actually the grandson, not as you would expect, the great-great-grandson, of the first.”

  “How come?” Skye asked, aware that she was undoubtedly showing off her ignorance.

  “It’s easier if I go back to the beginning. The baronetcy was created in 1815. Sir Bernard Lacey, the first baronet, died in 1832 and his elder son, Henry, then inherited the title. Henry died in 1878 and the title passed to his son Augustus. Sir Augustus died in 1882 and the title passed to his son, also named Augustus, who was, therefore, the fourth baronet. This Augustus died in 1917 without issue so the title passed to his nearest relative, his great-grandfather’s younger son’s son, Sir Bernard the Fifth. So you see, Skye, younger sons do come into the story.”

  “Eventually,” Skye rather grudgingly allowed.

  Fergal turned his iPad around so Skye could see her family tree. Carl had made his own notes.

  “I only knew back to Henry’s father. I’d love to know what their stories are.” Skye allowed her enthusiasm to overcome her resentment. “Wouldn’t you? Aren’t you at all curious about who these people really were? I mean, they all seemed to have died pretty young, well, the Augustuses anyway.”

  “Let us go back to the beginning. Do we know why Sir Bernard’s baronetcy was created?” Carl asked, ignoring Skye.

  “Not yet. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out.”

  “Well, do. It might be important.”

  “And who came before Sir Bernard the First, as you call him? And how does the man called Claude Olivierre fit into it all?” Carl began to list the questions that needed answers.

  “I haven’t found anything about an Olivierre family but then I haven’t been looking, I only saw his name for the first time today. And as to the first baronet of Oakridge, he appears to have come from nowhere. None of the usual reference websites tell us much. His parents aren’t named, nor are his place of birth or his education, there’s nothing in the way of detail at all. He is definitely a bit of a mystery.”

  “There are no mysteries, Fergal, at the very most there is information yet to be unearthed.”

  “Fair enough.” Fergal took the criticism without ill-feeling. He knew there were many sources yet to be investigated.

  “And Oakridge? Where does that come into it?” Carl asked before adding, “I’ve never heard of the place.”

  “I’ve no idea,” Fergal said. “How about you Skye?”

  “There’s no place to hear of. It used to be the name of the estate next door.”

  “Next door? To The Lodge?” Fergal smiled. “I didn’t think there was a house within miles.”

  “Well Oakridge Court was about a mile away, its land adjoins ours.”

  “Was?” Carl prompted.

  “What used to be the Oakridge Estate has been broken up and the old house demolished. Nothing has been called Oakridge since the First World War when there was some sort of convalescent home there.”

  “The Laceys must have lived there at some time for the baronetcy to have that geographical,” Carl said firmly. “You say the old house was demolished?”

  “A couple from the Midlands bought it ten years or so ago and knocked it down so they could build some modern monstrosity. There was a lot of talk about how they got permission. No one thought they should have been able to knock the old building down.”

  “So there’s no history left there then?”

  “None. They even changed its name.”

  Fergal closed the cover on his iPad. “Anyway, that’s the family tree so far.”

  “I can’t think that you’ve done very well for a week’s work, Fergal,” Carl said critically.

  “It’s been more like three days and it’s not been easy. I’ve had to try to fit in with Sir Arthur’s way of doing things and then I had to source a decent computer and get it set up and then meet with the people who could get me access to the sources I needed. Give me a chance! I thought I’d done quite well.”

  “Well there’s obviously far more to the Lacey family than you have been able to find, Fergal. We must find hard evidence that Claude Olivierre was who we believe he might have been. Hard evidence, Fergal, evidence that will stand up to intense scrutiny, and the Laceys are, as is said in modern detective stories, ‘our only lead’. We must begin by discovering everything possible about them. Once we have achieved that I feel certain that we will know more of Claude, his accoutrements were, after all is said and done, found in a Lacey house.”

  “I’m interested in how the Laceys came to live here,” Skye said when Carl had finished.

  “What do you mean?” Fergal asked.

  “Well, Claude Olivierre must have lived here, because his stuff is in the wall and the Laceys must have lived at Oakridge Court because of the title, so how come the Laceys moved to The Lodge? And when? Was Claude actually a Lacey?” Skye looked from Fergal to Carl and back to Fergal. Seeing their doubts in their faces she added, “I’m only asking.”

  Carl did not give Skye a direct answer. “All will be revealed by studying that wonderful library. I am certain it will provide the answers to all our questions and that is where I will concentrate my efforts.”

  “I’ve hardly touched the top of the internet iceberg,” Fergal added.

  “I want to look through the attics.”

  “The attics?” Carl asked suspiciously.

  “There’s two rooms and they’re both full of boxes of papers and stuff.”

  “Papers and stuff?” Carl quoted back, disliking the imprecision of Skye’s description.

  “I told you, household accounts, diaries, old pictures, that sort of stuff.”

  “Stuff?” Fergal joined Carl in wondering what further material may be stored in a house where the same family had lived for nearly two hundred years.

  Skye explained. “Audrey never wanted me to go up to the attics. She said the floor was dangerous. Apparently Uncle Henry went up when he was a boy and had an accident. I don’t know exactly what but it was serious and he put the fear of God into her about it. She said it was unsafe and I was not to go up there. I did, of course, but only once and then I didn’t stay up there long. I didn’t like disobeying her and there’s no way I could have spent any time up there without her knowing.”

  “Did you see anything when you were up there? Can you remember anything?”

  “As I said, there were boxes of what looked like household accounts and diaries, pictures that haven’t hung on the walls for years, that sort of thing. It would have taken ages to go through everything and there’s never been any reason to.”

  “Up until now, that is. However, we have to search the library first.”

  “It’ll take some time to get it all done properly,” Fergal said, more
to Skye than to Carl.

  “And, don’t forget, I’ve got to leave at the end of the month.”

  “We have only three weeks before that philistine has control of the library?”

  “And everything else in the house.”

  “Three weeks and two days to be precise,” Skye said. “We did tell you.”

  When Carl eventually spoke it was almost as if to himself.

  “If we can prove what we now suspect to be the truth we must understand that the ripples will spread very wide. The defeat and exile of Napoleon form a crucial part of our history, it is part of what makes us what and who we are as a nation. Do we want to prove this was all a lie?”

  It was meant as a rhetorical question and neither Skye nor Fergal gave any answer before the professor continued.

  “Do we want to do this? If we do then we have so little time to exhaust the resources in the house. So little time,” he repeated.

  “We’ve got to do it.” Fergal turned to Skye. “That is if it’s OK with you.”

  “It might be a way to really stuff my dad, mightn’t it?”

  “It might be the only way,” Fergal agreed.

  Carl hadn’t been listening. “If I am right, which I believe I may well be, we will be exposing Englishmen far more important than your father as being as devious and duplicitous as, throughout history, we have accused every other nation of being. At the very least we will make enemies of the French, who will feel we have made fools of them. We could also destroy the reputations of men such as Wellington and Liverpool and all the others who must have known the truth and who kept quiet.” He paused, aware that he would also be condemning much of his own life’s work. “But we cannot hold back, can we? This information is too important to sweep under the carpet. We must investigate. We must learn exactly what happened in those months and years after Waterloo.”

  “But it would really screw my dad, wouldn’t it? I mean if there was a link to, well, who we think there might be a link to?” There were people coming into the bar.

  Carl leant forward and spoke more quietly than he had all afternoon. “We must find the evidence. We must be prepared to answer any and every question that might be thrown our way. No one must be able to find the slightest flaw in our argument.”

  “The trail of history, you used to call it. We students used to call it the trial of history because you were so exacting. But you were right,” Fergal continued enthusiastically. “It’s like having an antique, like that locket you wear around your neck, Skye. You know from the hallmark when and where it was made and you know you wear it now, but to truly understand it you need to know who has owned it in all those intervening years, whose necks it has been around, who has given it to whom, what it contains and how it came to be where it is now.”

  Skye put her fingers up to the chain around her neck. She would have loved to have been able to ask Audrey many of the same questions.

  “I found it in Audrey’s box of special things after she died. I think her cousin Rowan gave it to her. It’s a pendant really, it can’t be a locket because it doesn’t seem to open.”

  The bar was filling up and there was no further opportunity for private conversation. “It’s been a very long day and I for one could do with another drink and something to eat. There are exciting times ahead but for now Fergal, what have you been up to since I last saw you? Off you go, Skye, we’ll see you in the morning.”

  *

  Driving back to The Lodge Skye’s emotions were confused. She was resentful that she had not been asked to stay for supper at The George. She was excited at the prospect of discovering the story of how the bag and the chest came to be hidden in the chimney of the Lodge. And she was worried by the prospect of having to spend any time with Carl who, she decided, she did not like at all, even if he was going to help her find a way for her to get back at her father.

  Chapter 5

  Sunday and Monday

  Fergal and Carl left their hotel in Yarmouth the next morning without waiting for breakfast and spent the short journey to The Lodge confirming their decisions about how they were to proceed with their research.

  “We must find out about Claude Olivierre and what his connection might be to the Lacey family. He is our priority and our best source would seem to be the library at The Lodge since he clearly has a connection with the house.” Carl said in a tone that did not invite discussion. “You put your trust in the internet if you must.”

  “I will, but for that I’ll have to go back to Oxford,” Fergal said, surprising himself at how little he wanted to leave the island. “I didn’t come prepared for this and I need stuff that’s on my desktop. I’ll just drop you off and then be on my way. I should be there easily by lunchtime with a bit of luck with the ferries and Sunday traffic.”

  “You’ll look for Claude, of course,” Carl insisted.

  “I thought I’d concentrate first on the detail of the family tree. I’ve got the outline but we need the detail, every date, every relationship, every location that might be involved. I’m thinking that I’ll find Claude somewhere by looking at the Lacey family.”

  “Will no one think it odd that you’re working on a Sunday?”

  “If there’s anyone else in the office, which I doubt, I will say I’m working on Sir Arthur’s project. Which, in a way, I am.”

  “You mustn’t allow anyone to think you’re doing anything you shouldn’t. That would cause no end of trouble. He has some very nasty people in his pocket you know.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “How long will you need?”

  “If everything works first time I won’t be long, I’d say a couple of days. I’ll aim to be back here by Tuesday evening. I should have found enough to at least be able to see where to look next, if you see what I mean.”

  “In my day all that would have taken months,” Carl reluctantly admitted as they turned off the main road and headed up into the forest.

  “But now there’s so much online, especially if you have the right access.”

  “And you have that?”

  “Sir Arthur may be an obsolete old bugger but he does have contacts. I’m set up on various military and government archives I’d never heard of before last week as well as the obvious census and property databases.”

  “You’ll keep in touch, won’t you?”

  “Of course. Will you two be OK? What will you be getting up to?”

  “I’ll be exploring the library. The family have lived there since God knows when so if there is any evidence to connect it to Claude Olivierre and him to our friend the General one would think it must be there.”

  “And Skye?”

  “She will assist me.”

  “Well don’t be too hard on her, she isn’t used to you and I suspect she’s a tad vulnerable at the moment.”

  “I shall be the perfect guest.”

  *

  Carl stood in the library, mug of coffee in hand, looking around, Skye thought, as though he owned the place.

  She had done her best to hide her disappointment when she heard Fergal’s car leaving and saw only the professor standing at the door. She had hidden her disappointment but she could not hide her resentment as the professor said, in a tone that brooked no argument, that they would be beginning their search for evidence in the library.

  Throughout the night she had thought about the attics and the information that must lie in the boxes and tea chests of household documents she knew had to be there. She had been looking forward to her search but the professor took control and insisted she help him. She did not argue, but she showed her annoyance by following him wordlessly and then answering his questions with no enthusiasm.

  “How big do you think this room is?”

  “Almost exactly eight metres square. Fergal measured it yesterday.”

  “Proper money please.”

  “Each wall is about twenty-six feet long.”

  “And how many shelves are there on each wall?”

&
nbsp; “Six,” Skye answered, wondering why Carl wasn’t able to count them for himself.

  “So, since three of the four walls are encased with shelves, how many feet of shelves?”

  “What about the fireplace and the door?”

  “We’ll come to them. So that’s, let’s see, twenty-six feet per wall multiplied by three walls multiplied by six shelves, give or take, how many feet of shelves does that make?”

  As Skye took out her phone to access the calculator Carl asked brusquely whether she could not have done the calculation in her head. “I would have thought that simple calculation would have been possible even for someone who’s had most of her education in this current century.”

  “I could do it with pen and paper but it’s easier by phone. The answer is four hundred and sixty-eight,” Skye replied coldly.

  “Now we allow for the fireplace and the door. Shall we say sixty-eight feet are lost that way, just to make the calculations easier?” Without waiting for an answer he continued. “Now, how many books do you think per foot of shelf?”

  Skye counted a shelf at random. “It varies but I’d say ten.”

  “Fair enough, though chosen, I suspect, for continued ease of calculation. So how many volumes have we to work our way through? That shouldn’t need your infernal phone.”

  “Four thousand. Surely there can’t be that many?”

  “Probably more, I would say, so we’d better get started. We have got to look at every single one.”

  Within half an hour they had established a routine whereby Skye took a handful of books down from the shelf and placed them on the table where Carl photographed their title pages and added their titles, authors, publishers and date of publication to a spreadsheet on Skye’s laptop. She suggested it would be quicker if she input the data but Carl said she would not know what information he needed. “No, you just bring me the volumes and return them to their exact location. Now begin on the top shelf by the window and work round. Be systematic. We don’t want to miss any out. There will be something here that gives the game away,” Carl said firmly.