Skye gingerly fingered the pendant around her neck.
“It’s the same one isn’t it?” Fergal said triumphantly.
“This was Audrey’s,” Skye said very deliberately. “I found it in her box of treasures. It was wrapped in a piece of paper.”
“And where did she get it from?” Carl probed.
“Rowan gave it to her. It said so on the paper. Rowan gave this to me and a date, I can’t remember what it was.”
“And where would Rowan have got it?”
“Her mother could have given it to her?”
“And who would have given it to Rose?”
“Henry?”
“And where could Henry have got it from?”
“His mother? Catherine? Bernard’s wife?”
“I can’t see Catherine giving anything to the son she threw out of the house.”
“Well he got it somehow because it really looks as though it is the same one, doesn’t it?”
“And where would Bernard or Catherine have got it from but from his mother, Josephine?”
“Skye. Hand it over,” Carl instructed.
“Everyone calls it a locket but it’s just a small pendant really, it doesn’t open,” Skye said as she pulled the chain over her head.
“It looks like it ought to be a locket.”
“See if you can open it.” Skye handed it to Fergal who looked at it carefully and pressed what looked like snaps, but nothing moved.
“Fergal. Hand it over. I’ve heard about these trick lockets, they were very popular in the early Victorian era so that would fit in with its belonging to Josephine.” Carl sounded confident that he could solve the puzzle but after several minutes of pressing and twisting the tiny fragile pieces of gold he gave up. “There’s got to be something on your all-seeing internet.”
“Perhaps there’s someone on YouTube filmed opening one,” Skye added hopefully. “You never know.”
Fergal rummaged in his bag and pulled out a handheld three-dimensional scanner which he ran around and over the locket. “There is a rather neat search engine that doesn’t use words, it uses shapes. It was developed for facial recognition, then for finding stolen goods. And recently it’s been used by museums to log their exhibits. I got this one from—”
“How long will it take?” Carl interrupted.
“I’m not sure, a few minutes probably. Have you always worn it?” he asked Skye.
“No, only since I found it in Audrey’s treasures box. It was after she’d died so I couldn’t ask her anything about it or any of the other things I found in there.”
“Such as?”
“Photos, that sort of thing.”
“Have you got the box?”
Skye went to one of the large drawers in the kitchen dresser and took out the old cigar box. “Here. I’ve not touched it.”
“My Treasures Box, Audrey Catherine Lacey, Aged 11 years and 7 months, December 25 1940” Carl read in, to Skye, a touchingly gentle way. “Do you mind if I open it?”
She nodded in reply.
Carl pulled out the old photographs.
“That’s Audrey, and that’s Uncle Henry with Aunt Rose. And that’ll be Rowan in her uniform,” Skye told them as he handed the photos to Fergal. “I don’t know whose hair it is.”
“Anything else?”
“Only these.” Carl picked out a few singed scraps of paper that had gathered in a corner of the box and laid them one by one on the table so they could all see the writing. ‘e Oliv’ ‘e Jon’ ‘ril 181’ ‘lyn L’ ‘eone Bu’ ‘ivie’ ‘acci’.
“Get the Bible please Skye,” Carl asked gently, “it’s still on the table in the library.”
Neither Carl nor Fergal spoke in the minute it took for Skye to fetch the Bible. They had both spotted that each of the fragments fitted with names and dates that would have been written on those torn pages.
Carl opened the Bible and gently felt the quality of the paper.
“It’s the same isn’t it?”
“Yes, Skye, it’s the same.”
“Audrey must have kept some of the bits.”
“It would appear so.”
“e Oliv’ could be Claude Olivierre, couldn’t it?”
“e Jon must be Rose Jones.”
“And ‘ril 181’ will be April, what year did they marry? That’s it 1816.” Skye answered her own question.
“‘yn L the end of Henry Oliver Llewellyn Lacey?”
“Or William Bernard Llewellyn Lacey.”
“‘ivie and acci could be anything.”
“But eone Bu can only be one person can’t it? Napoleone Buonaparte.”
They sat back, trying to take in the full significance of their find.
Their silence was broken by Fergal. “Give me the locket, Skye, please, I think we’ve found the match.”
He took it and, after he had gently clicked it in the right places in the right sequence, it opened.
“It’s empty. There’s nothing in it.” Skye almost cried with the disappointment. “After all that.”
“Let me look.”
Fergal handed the locket to Carl.
“There’s something engraved here.” He read the two tiny words. “Mary Lettice. Mary Lettice?” he repeated.
“She was one of Claude’s children, wasn’t she? She died when she was a baby didn’t she?” Skye reminded them.
“This is Claude’s ball of string. We have to find Mary Lettice.”
“Her grave?” Skye asked tentatively.
Fergal had turned to Skye. “She was christened so she would have been buried. Yes, there will be a grave somewhere. Where would that be?”
“There’s the old family chapel, in the woods. It was used as a mausoleum until the 1830s or 40s. Then there was the family grave in Newport.”
“There’s a grave?” Carl interrupted. “Why haven’t you said this before, you silly girl? Graves, bodies, DNA!”
Skye replied calmly, “I didn’t say anything because the graveyard isn’t there anymore. It was flattened back in the 1960s, not even the headstones were kept. It’s a supermarket car park now.”
“Unbelievable stupidity!” Carl shook his head.
“Perhaps Mary Lettice, being so young, was kept close to home. In the old chapel in the woods?” Skye suggested.
“The chapel in the woods?” Carl repeated, wondering what else Skye had not told him.
“Well it’s the original hunting lodge really. When this house was built some of the stones were used to build a chapel. It’s a bit creepy but there are some stone coffins.”
“Big coffins?”
“No, small.”
“Then let us hope she is there. Something may have survived in a stone mausoleum, kept dry, above the ground, whereas even if we had been able to find a grave anything made of paper would be long gone.”
“Do you really think it’s possible Mary Lettice is there?”
*
As she led Carl and Fergal in single file along the overgrown path through the woods Skye thought about Claude and whether he had really wanted the diaries to be found. If he had, she thought, he would have given them to William who would have given them to Bernard and Bernard would have opened them in July 1915. But if he hadn’t wanted them to be found he would have destroyed them. Skye decided that Claude hadn’t been sure what he wanted to do and that was why he had left his ball of thread.
By the time they reached the chapel she had made a silent promise to Bernard and Claude, to William and Josephine, and to Henry and Audrey that whatever was found would be used well.
She sat down on the stone bench while Carl and Fergal went into the chapel to see if Mary Lettice was, indeed, there. She could not know that she sat in the spot where the first William had awaited the birth of his son and had been told by Claude of the existence of the diaries, where William had sat many times wondering why he had been cursed with his son Bernard, where Henry had spoken to Wiggins before leaving for Wales and then again before going
to war. She could not know these things as she waited alone but she felt the presence of others.
“She’s here,” Fergal whispered.
She could not know that her ancestor William’s thoughts, as he had sat on that same stone bench, had been identical to hers. Should the stone coffin be opened? Should the young child’s resting place be disturbed? Would the contents reveal that Claude Olivierre was who they both, separated by four generations and more than a century and a half, believed him to be?
“Are you sure we want to do this?” Fergal asked. “I mean Claude went to great lengths to keep it all hidden didn’t he?” He took Skye’s hand and made her look at him. “We won’t do it if you don’t want to.”
“There’ll be no going back once they’re found,” Carl added.
“I know.”
“It’s your decision, Skye,” Fergal said gently, still holding her hand. “Your world may never be the same again.”
“It’s not what I want, though, is it?” she replied firmly. “It’s what Claude wanted, and what William wanted because I bet he knew who Claude really was. I don’t think Bernard ever had a clue, I think the secret was lost with William. And I don’t think the original Henry or either of the Gussies ever had a clue either.”
“Claude may have hidden them but he wouldn’t have left the clues if he hadn’t wanted them found eventually, would he?” Fergal asked reasonably. “And once we had the note in the codebook and found Josephine’s locket it really wasn’t that difficult.”
“But look at the route those clues have taken,” Carl said slowly. “There are so many times the book or the locket could have been lost.”
“And the clues have lasted ninety-nine years longer than they were meant to,” added Fergal.
“So fate really does want them to be found,” Skye said firmly.
“I think you are most likely right.” Fergal squeezed her hand before letting go.
“Here we go then.” And Skye pushed open the old door and the three went into the dark, cold stone building.
“Here she is. Mary Lettice.” Fergal stood by a stone coffin on which the carving Mary Lettice 22.12.1818 – 15.1.1820 could just be made out.
“I’ve never seen that,” Skye said quietly. “I’ve been in here quite a lot of times over the years but I don’t remember ever seeing that.”
“It’s very worn, as if someone had rubbed their fingers over the words many, many times,” Carl said reassuringly. “There’s no reason why you should have seen it.”
“There’s no surname,” Fergal whispered.
“Perhaps Claude couldn’t bring himself to put the wrong one on his daughter’s coffin,” Carl suggested, quickly correcting himself. “But we can’t know that. Not really.”
“But we can’t afford to be squeamish now.” Fergal was anxious to do what they had come to do and leave the dark forbidding mausoleum as soon as possible, but all three seemed to be putting off the moment when the stone slab would be moved. “It seems a surprisingly large memorial for a baby,” he added.
“There’ll be an inner coffin,” Carl said as if he knew what he was saying was true.
“That’s something anyway.” Fergal had been afraid of pushing the stone lid aside if it was to reveal a linen bag of bones, or worse, a still-recognisable but decayed body of a three-week-old baby.
“Come on. If we’re going to do it at all we must do it now. You pull, I’ll push,” Carl urged.
The stone slab gave way remarkably easily and as it did Skye was grateful that Fergal was between her and the coffin so she could not see the contents.
“They’re here.” Fergal’s words were not as firmly spoken as he would have wished.
“The diaries?” Skye asked.
“At any rate there’s a bundle wrapped in waxed cloth. What else could it be but the diaries?”
“Now is your last chance Skye.” Carl spoke with some seriousness. “Shall we pull the stone back and pretend we never found them?”
“We’ve come this far. We must go on. William would want us to, I know he would. So would Claude.”
Carl reached in the stone outer coffin and pulled out the package and handed it to Fergal, who put it in the plastic bag he took from his pocket. The incongruity of the cheap carrier and the priceless diaries struck them all.
Carl spoke quietly as he and Fergal pushed the stone back over the memorial. “Thank you, Mary Lettice, for guarding your secrets so well. They are in our keeping now. May you rest in peace.”
“Well done Skye.” As they left the mausoleum and pulled the heavy wooden door shut behind them Fergal leant towards Skye and kissed her, a gentle, caring brush of his mouth on her forehead.
There was no romance in his action, simply a promise for another time.
Chapter 20
Thursday afternoon to Sunday
Fergal carefully took the bundle wrapped in the waxed cloth from the plastic bag and laid it on the kitchen table. He unwrapped it to reveal four card folders, each tied shut with pink ribbon which looked to be the same as that which had held the letter to the codebook.
“Well,” he said slowly, “what now?”
Carl, who had taken control all through the week, said nothing. He looked at the folders and he wondered what world-changing information they might contain. Somehow, unopened, they promised great things but perhaps, after everything, they would turn out to be some elaborate hoax.
“Carl?” Fergal prompted after a few long moments of silence had passed. “What now?”
“I suppose we open them. Fergal, can you please get that wretched phone thingie and film me?” he replied, not taking his eyes off the folders. He left a few seconds while he heard Fergal do as he had asked and then reached for the folder nearest to him. He carefully untied the tape and opened the folder to reveal loose sheets of paper.
Carl spoke carefully for the benefit of the recording. “These appear to be in plain text, it isn’t in code.”
“Can you read it?” Fergal asked tentatively. From what he could see the writing was minute.
It was some moments before Carl answered. “Yes. Is that wretched thing recording sound?”
Fergal nodded and Carl lifted the first sheet and began to read.
“Twenty-fourth day of May in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Two. Because of me my beloved wife Constance has been taken from me. I am repaid for the unnamed men I have killed with my own hands. I am repaid for Ennor Jolliffe and those many men who I have used and who I caused to die. I have no belief in an afterlife. I shall not meet again with my Constance or my daughter-with-no-name who died with her. There is no higher being to whom I shall have to answer for my crimes. The end has come for the man who was, and who was not, Bernard Lacey.”
“How sad,” Skye whispered.
“I’m so pleased we know something about him,” Fergal said, rather more loudly than he had meant to. “We can understand something of what he’s saying. I mean, we know from the records that Constance died in childbirth. We can assume he would feel guilty because she could not have been in that situation without him.”
“And it’s obvious he didn’t die in a shooting accident isn’t it?” Skye added.
“It is a suicide note, you’re right about that,” Carl said slowly. “And what I feel is strange is that after his wife and his daughter he names just the one person. He says he killed many and many died because of him so why did he single out this Ennor Jolliffe? To have mentioned him means he had more than a bit part in the story. Fergal, what do you think?”
Skye answered before Fergal could. “I think we’ve heard of this man before. He was mentioned in those notes William made of his conversation with Claude. Where are they?” She returned a few moments later with the paper in her hand. “Here we are. He spoke of a dog mourning his dead master on a battlefield and of a Cornishman called Jolliffe who had sacrificed everything. When we found this, was it only the day before yesterday, it seems like an age ago. Anyway w
hen we found it we concentrated on the dog story. We should have thought more about who this man Jolliffe was.”
“Fergal, that is something you can do.”
“I’ll get onto it this evening.”
“There’s something else,” Skye added before she forgot. “What does he mean by ‘the man who was, and who was not, Bernard Lacey’?”
“No doubt we shall discover that his name was as fabricated as was that of the man they called Claude Olivierre.”
*
For an hour or more Skye watched and Fergal filmed as Carl made a careful preliminary examination of the contents of the folders.
Every time Carl spoke Fergal switched on the voice recording function on his phone but for long periods the only sounds in the room were the periodic striking of the hall clock and the slight rustle of fragile sheets of paper as they were turned.
“I don’t think we can call these ‘diaries’ as such. Each volume is unbound, made up of loose sheets of different cuts of different paper.
“In all of the pages in this first folder the writing is tiny, almost illegibly so, and the lines packed very close together. It’s as if he’s tried to get everything into as small a packet as possible.
“It appears to detail a home life, the management of a family, his wife and his sons, his wife’s sister and her husband and their daughter who were their neighbours. They were, as we know, the Olivierres.
“This second folder, of maybe forty sheets, is also written in plain text. It appears to describe an early life and wartime exploits. There are references to fighting in America as well as in Europe. The Low Countries, the Peninsula.
“The colour of the ink keeps changing, red here, green here, brown here, black here, blue here. The ink fades very quickly as he writes, each dip of his pen lasts only two or three lines.
“This third folder, the thinnest of the four, perhaps only twenty sheets, is written in code. As is this final one, somewhat longer at thirty or more sheets.
“The handwriting changes frequently though all appears to have been written by the same man. That would indicate that the pages were written over a considerable period of time. I suspect that the pages were re-read, rewritten, then, perhaps, thought better of and revisited and rewritten over and over again.”
A Set of Lies Page 35
