Carl sat back, his mind racing at the prospect of learning the contents of the folders spread over the bleached wood of the table.
“What now?” Fergal eventually broke the silence.
“We set up our office. We systematically photograph the pages, we scan each page, we cannot be handling the original, we read them, we transcribe them. Then we begin to extract the important from the trivial and the relevant from the irrelevant. We then assess the implications of our findings.”
“We’ll need a specialist for the codes, Carl,” Fergal said firmly. “They’re going to have been professionally constructed even if they are nearly two hundred years old.”
“I know, I know,” Carl answered with some irritation.
“And we don’t have unlimited time,” Skye pointed out. “It’s Friday the thirteenth tomorrow so I’ve only got two more weeks before I have to leave. And there are, believe it or not, things I have to do other than this. I’ve got Audrey’s stuff to sort out, my stuff to sort out, and I’ve got to find somewhere to live and—”
“Don’t worry.” Fergal rested his arm on her shoulders then rapidly removed it. “We’ll sort something out. You mustn’t worry,” he tried to reassure her.
“We could go now,” Carl suggested. “We can take everything we need away with us and leave young Skye in peace. We can’t keep extending our stay at The George.”
“Absolutely no way! I’m not leaving here until the last possible minute and those folders don’t go without me! Also, if my father discovered we’d taken anything out of that library he’d have his lawyers on us before we had time to think.”
“She’s right, Carl, what we do we have to do here, until the moment Skye has to leave. I’ll sort the hotel out.”
Carl appeared to reluctantly agree. “Well, the first run-through, the recording, the transcribing, all that shouldn’t take more than a week if we all work together. It is the extraction of the relevant and important from the irrelevant and the trivial that will take the time and we can do that anywhere.”
“Anywhere as long as I’m there too,” Skye added firmly.
“So we stay here a while longer. Is that OK with you Skye?” Carl said as if it had been his idea.
“I’d probably bar the gates to stop you leaving,” she replied, only half-joking.
“We do need an expert for the decoding,” Fergal reminded them.
“Ciphers haven’t changed all that much, certainly non-computerised ones haven’t,” argued Carl “And I am reluctant to accept that another person should be involved.”
“But I do think we need someone who knows what they’re doing. It would take us forever to work out how to do it, even with the cipher book. We need someone who understands deciphering procedures,” Fergal pressed.
Eventually Carl nodded reluctantly. “Can I borrow your phone? My battery is dead.”
After a short conversation he turned to Fergal and Skye. “Margaret will be here on Sunday. Unfortunately she can’t get over here sooner but we do have plenty to get on with in the meantime. Fergal, you help me make a start on the diaries.”
“And me?” Skye asked, “What am I to do?”
“You, my dear, have a choice. You can carry on searching through the library for anything you may have missed or you can go back up to your attic. I have to reluctantly admit that you were absolutely correct about its importance. It’s up to you.”
“Can’t I read though the diaries with you?”
Both Carl and Fergal could hear the disappointment in her voice. They glanced at each other and smiled.
“I suppose that would be acceptable. If that’s what you really want to do.” Carl spoke with a false lack of enthusiasm.
Skye noticed the two men were grinning at each other. “You were going to let me do that all along weren’t you?” She felt foolish for having been taken in but somehow, because of their teasing, she felt they had accepted her as their helper, if not their equal, in the project.
Fergal looked from one to the other, the elderly professor and the young girl, one at the end of his career the other not yet started out, united in their enthusiasm. “Shall I make us some coffee before we start?”
“Don’t you dare put any mugs anywhere near these,” Carl barked.
Fergal felt unreasonably happy.
*
Carl organised them as they knew he would.
Fergal was to take still and moving pictures of each folder in its entirety, then sheet by sheet. He would then scan each page and print it before returning the sheets to their folder in their original order.
Carl would then read through each newly printed page, making his own notes, noting all the references to any people and places named so details could be checked. He looked for any activity or event that was out of place and any person who was out of context. He looked for anything that was incongruous or anomalous. He identified everything that required further research. He could allow nothing past him that might be used to destroy his argument. When he was done with each sheet he handed it to Skye, who typed the original text onto her computer along with Carl’s annotations..
For most of the time they worked in a silence broken only by the light artificial tapping of the keys on Skye’s laptop and the regular striking of the hall clock. From time to time Carl could not resist making a comment.
“Our writer seems to have been a very troubled man. These are not the easy memoirs of someone proud of his career, these are the confessions of a man deeply ashamed of much that he had to do to achieve the objectives he set himself.
“He seems to have started writing because he became aware of his place in a wider history. Until his sons were born he was only concerned for himself. Suddenly others depended on him. He also feels guilt. Constance nearly died giving birth to his sons and he vows never to put her through that again.”
“Well that didn’t work out did it?” Skye’s flippant comment was rewarded with a frown from both men.
“He seems to be torn between the traditional understanding that the title, the fortune and the property must go to the elder son and his disappointment that the younger boy, younger by less than an hour, would get nothing.”
“I think this proves what we thought about his liking William much more than Henry,” Skye commented.
“That was Claude,” Fergal corrected her. “I don’t think we ever had any idea what the first Sir Bernard thought about his children.”
It was over an hour before Fergal switched off his phone. “Well that’s the last of the scans. I’ll put the folders in the library and then leave you to it. I’m off to Newport to see if I can get something on this chap, Ennor Jolliffe. When I get back you tell me what I’m missing by not reading every word.”
*
After she and Carl had been working silently for some time Skye broke the companionable silence.
“Did you see this bit?
“What bit do you mean?”
“This bit stuck in the middle of domestic detail.”
“Explain.”
“He’s saying he’s done everything he can to establish and maintain peace in Europe. He refers to actions he put in train because he wanted an end to the perpetual threat of war with England’s historical enemy, France. He hasn’t said what they are, but he says they were daring and that he allowed himself to be proud of the achievement.”
“Yes, I’ve marked that section and his history is pretty spot on.” Carl looked up, rather pleased that Skye had thought the section important enough to mention. “Up until 1815 the two countries had been at war continually since well before 1066. For most of the best part of one thousand years we were at war with France, frequently, every century. Until the last one that is. Oddly enough since 1815 we have been only allies.”
Carl leant back in his chair for some minutes and wondered what could have occurred in or around 1815 to change the dynamics of geopolitical thinking. In a fleeting moment when he could hardly pin down his thoughts he wished he ha
d spent less of his career on the specific movements of armies in the Napoleonic wars and more on the reasons why those armies were not needed for decades afterwards.
“I beg your pardon?” He realised that Skye had been talking to him. “Sorry. What were you saying?”
“I was just saying that in the middle of all this personal stuff about his life with Constance where he writes many things about Claude and Patience, about how close the families were, how convivial the evenings spent together were etcetera etcetera, he launches into talking about international relations with France. It’s almost as if there has to be a link between the two trains of thought.”
Carl didn’t answer immediately. He looked back through the pages he had handed to Skye and re-read sections. “You’re right you know. Good point.”
Skye, gaining in confidence, continued. “Everything up to now has been very organised, hasn’t it? Why would he just slip that in if it didn’t mean something? It’s just a shame he hasn’t said who Claude was or where he came from or how they came to be neighbours.”
“Not yet anyway,” Carl said before giving the pages back to Skye and turning his concentration back to the one he had been reading.
*
“Skye, may I ask you for a coffee or some wine?” Carl asked as the clock in the hall struck six. “Whichever is easier for you,” he added with a smile.
When Skye heard Fergal’s car on the gravel she took the kettle off the Aga, retrieved one of the last bottles of wine from the larder and picked up three glasses from the draining board. Coffee would be OK for Carl but for the three of them together it had to be wine.
“Skye, Fergal, we must raise our glasses to Sir Bernard Lacey,” Carl said portentously after they were all settled in their places around the table. “I now believe that this country has a very great deal to thank the man for.”
“And we should also remember Ennor Jolliffe,” Fergal said as he refilled their glasses.
“You’ve found him?” Skye asked, knowing that she had never doubted he would.
“My friend in Newport really was incredibly helpful even though what I was asking was not really about the island. He saw my enquiry as a worthy challenge to his skills and, honestly, I could have done no better in twice the time.”
“High praise,” Carl said sardonically.
“We were helped by the description ‘Cornishman’. It narrowed our search down a very great deal although Cornwall really isn’t the best-documented county. Our search of the parish records for the 1770s and 1780s came up with nothing, but that wasn’t unexpected since they are apparently always sketchy and there was a strong non-conformist element in Cornwall which meant that many births, marriages and deaths were not recorded in any structured way, even by the church. So we looked at military records. Bearing in mind the times he lived in there was a strong chance Ennor would have fought in the wars at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteen centuries.”
“An obvious approach I would have thought,” Carl commented drily.
“And there we found one man called Ennor Jolliffe. I’ve been trying not to assume that this Ennor Jolliffe is our Ennor Jolliffe but we could find only the one. The man we found was recruited into the Devon Yeomanry in May or June 1793 near Lostwithiel in Cornwall. He served on the subcontinent for some years before his regiment returned to Europe. He was officially discharged along with most of the Army in 1802.”
“1802?” Skye asked, knowing she would regret showing her ignorance.
“The Peace of Amiens,” Fergal explained gently. Skye was pleased that there seemed to be no hint that she should have recognised the date. “Many regiments were disbanded for what was anticipated to be a period of peace. It didn’t last long, the peace I mean. The majority of men re-enlisted or were press-ganged when hostilities resumed in 1803 but we could find no mention of Ennor Jolliffe anywhere after 1802. Now it is entirely possible that he had died or was unwilling to re-join his regiment for any number of reasons. Family, death and drink were the usual factors. He may have married and was not allowed by his wife to leave again, he may have simply drowned his sorrows, and himself, in alcohol. He may, also, have ended up on the wrong side the law and found himself imprisoned, hanged or transported.”
“But those things didn’t happen to Ennor did they?” Skye prompted impatiently.
Fergal smiled before continuing. “In October 1802 a man giving the name Ennor Jolliffe was consigned to prison in Bodmin in Cornwall. He had been detained for vagrancy though he was able, unusually for a vagrant, to sign his name rather than make a mark. He was released after a week. Charges couldn’t have been brought as if they had been he would undoubtedly have been found guilty and transported. He was freed on the last day of October 1802 and then he pretty much disappears off the face of the earth.”
“He may well have died. It couldn’t have been easy living rough in winter,” Skye suggested.
“Nothing else is heard of him again.”
“Apart from that reference made to him by Sir Bernard and the note made some years later by William Lacey after his conversation with Claude,” Skye reminded them.
“Assuming, that is, that this man is the same Ennor Jolliffe.”
Carl began to ask the questions he hoped Fergal could answer. “How old would Jolliffe have been in 1802?”
“Thirty-three.”
“And how old was Napoleon Bonaparte?”
“Thirty-four.”
“Did Jolliffe’s military records say anything about his appearance?” Carl had seen a possible explanation.
“Not that I could see, just a name and the fact that he was recruited in the vicinity of Lostwithiel in Cornwall.”
“What about the prison records from Bodmin? Don’t they make notes about physical characteristics?”
“Some do, but usually only those who are charged. They just made a note of this Ennor Jolliffe’s sex and age.”
“That’s a shame. Something like height or hair colour would have been useful.” Carl was disappointed. “However, you are right, we must not fall into the trap of manufacturing the evidence to suit our hypothesis.”
“We cannot reject this Ennor, though, can we?” Fergal asked. “I feel he is the one.”
“You said ‘pretty much’ earlier on,” Skye said pointedly. “You said he had ‘pretty much’ disappeared. That’s almost as vague as ‘stuff’. Did he disappear or didn’t he?”
“I didn’t want to read too much into this.”
“Into what?”
“Well…”
“Come on, Fergal, out with it,” Carl urged.
“There’s a newspaper report but it may only be a coincidence.”
“There’s no such thing,” quoted Skye with a knowing smile.
“Well in this case I really think it must be.”
“What did the report say?” Carl asked, becoming impatient.
“In one of the earliest editions of the Isle of Wight County Press newspaper there’s a short article reporting the death of a man who worked all his life for a Lewis Frensham and his wife at their country house near Newport.”
“Lewis Frensham? Sir Robert and Lady Frances’ son, do you think?” Carl asked, not expecting any answer.
“This man died in 1884 aged seventy-one.”
“So he was born in 1813.”
“And his name was Edward Jolliffe.”
“A Jolliffe working for a Frensham?” Skye asked meaningfully.
“Coincidence,” Carl said firmly. “Now, we will go back to the diaries. Fergal, you have some catch-up reading to do.”
*
Long into the evening and through the next day they worked as a team and by Friday afternoon Carl and Fergal had completed their work on the first volume.
“Well.” Carl sat back as he handed the final annotated sheet to Skye. “There’s not much we don’t know now about the Lacey household at Oakridge Court or its relationship with the Olivierres at The Lodge.”
“
Don’t you think there’s something odd?” Skye asked as she added the sheet to the pile she had yet to deal with.
“What’s that?”
“Sir Bernard talks of his regular trips away yet he never says where he’s gone. He never takes his wife with him, at least he never said he did. Every other aspect of his household is detailed but not where he went on those regular trips away.”
“Perhaps there’ll be something in the coded books.”
“I think it needs some kind of explanation.”
“I agree. But let’s not worry too much about it now.”
“I’ve been taking a sneak preview through the second volume,” Fergal admitted. “That tells of his early life. Perhaps it won’t get us further along our particular line of enquiry but it tells us where this man Bernard Lacey came from and why he became the man he became and how he came to be doing what he did.”
“Which was?”
“Oh, didn’t I say?” Fergal smiled broadly. “He was an intelligence agent. Most definitely the spy we’ve suspected him of being all along. And you’ll be interested to know that he was not British.”
“Not British?” asked Carl.
“Not strictly speaking. He was born in America, well, the American colonies really.”
“But he was an agent for the British wasn’t he?”
“Oh yes. Definitely a British agent, though hardly a prototype for James Bond. When he was young he fought against the British, only joining the so-called loyal forces later on in the Wars of Independence. Here, listen.”
Fergal found the right pages and began to read aloud. “I came to Europe because I was very skilled at what I did, which was to kill. Not the killing every soldier was required to do, lined up with his fellows, in a square, firing in volleys. I was what, in later years and in another war, came to be called ‘a guerrillero’, a maker of little wars. I was a man who went alone behind the official lines of combat and mingled amongst the enemy. I was the best at what I did because, in those days, I was fearless. To be fearless is different from being brave, and I have come to believe that fearlessness is the inferior quality. There is something ignorant about fearlessness, it is no more than a lack of imagination. It is those times when fear is felt, when all the circumstances of danger are understood, that it is necessary to be brave. Bernard Lacey was never a brave man.”
A Set of Lies Page 36
