A Set of Lies

by Carolyn McCrae

  “Hear hear.” Margaret put her hands together in silent applause. “You should have been a politician Carl.”

  “We have our politician. Fergal’s mother. She will help us.”

  “Why involve her?” Fergal asked. “All we have to do is get everything onto the internet. WikiLeaks showed us how that works, once into the public domain no one will be able to stop it.”

  “We could get Carl to talk about it and put the film on YouTube.” Skye suggested.

  “And we can tweet all we know about Sir Arthur’s background.”

  “It would end his career.”

  “It would go viral.”

  “I beg your pardons?” Carl asked as if Skye and Fergal were talking another language. “What you say is all very well but it’s hardly a serious academic approach is it? Use those methods to sell records or whatever medium musicians use these days, but not world-changing information such as we have. No. What we must do is bide our time. We must get everything right, everything must be documented, everyone who needs to be fully briefed must be fully aware of all the facts, and have accepted them as the truth. I suppose we’ll even have to involve lawyers. Then we must go for maximum impact and we would not get that by putting any part of our story out into the public domain until we are good and ready. We must use it just at the moment when it will hurt Sir Arthur the most. I suggest we will not be ready until the spring and that will be just as Sir Arthur’s arguments are getting most publicity.”

  “You’re right, of course.” Fergal had been persuaded. “We will need that time to make sure everything we have will hold up in the face of the most intense scrutiny. Every newspaper, every university, every government will be trying to prove us wrong, just one slightly wrong conclusion, one small inconsistency, one minute error of fact, one unsubstantiated proposition, one airy assumption and they will consider our entire argument to be wrong.”

  “Absolutely. We must be patient,” Margaret agreed.

  “Yes, we must be patient,” Carl agreed. “We must use the time we have well as six months is hardly long enough to do everything that will be necessary. We have a few more days here at The Lodge before Skye has to leave and we simply must leave everything pristine so Sir Arthur cannot complain about anything we have done.” He smiled briefly but with some fondness at Skye before continuing. “By the way, I’ve set something in motion that might, just might, put the kybosh on Sir Arthur’s plans for The Lodge. I can’t promise anything. Just say I’ve let a few people know just what is here and just what his plans are.”

  Skye looked at him questioningly but he shook his head as if to say he would add nothing more.

  “We need time to analyse everything we have found again and again, to be completely sure of our facts. Fergal, stay in that job of yours and keep an eye on Sir Arthur, at least for a few months until we’re happy he doesn’t suspect anything about his true ancestry. And you Skye, would you like to come to Cambridge as my assistant.”

  “Me?” Skye asked incredulously.

  “Yes, you. I could trust no other.”

  “A proper job?”

  “Yes. You have done more than enough to prove your worth. You will help me document everything. Then next year, unless you have been snapped up by the media and if it is what you want to do, we can get you on a proper course.”

  “Really?” Skye seemed stunned. “But what about exams? A Levels? I haven’t got any.”

  “There are ways and means my dear, ways and means.”

  “Brilliant!”

  “But in the meantime we have a great deal of work to do. The next few weeks and months are going to be very busy indeed.”

  Chapter 23

  April 2015

  “Good afternoon.”

  Jilly Bouldnor had hosted the Sunday lunchtime political discussion programme Truth on Sunday for a little more than three months and had known that she would not last much longer if she failed to come up with something good soon. She was young for such an anchor role and there were many, influential, voices who said she should be replaced by a man, preferably one with a bit of gravitas.

  Knowing that she was on borrowed time she had been very grateful when Fergal Shepherd, an old boyfriend from their university days, had contacted her saying he had a suggestion for a programme which would either make her name or finish her career for good. She had been intrigued.

  They had met up at a Christmas party when Fergal had been, Jilly thought, infuriatingly vague. Through January, sworn to secrecy, she had learned something of what was planned. At the time she had thought that chairing a head-to-head discussion between Sir Arthur Lacey and Gayle Shepherd, during which Sir Arthur would be asked some very pertinent questions about his expenses and his claims regarding his ancestry, might be enough to allow her to keep her job but she always had the feeling that there had to be more to the story.

  In the week before the programme was to be aired the programme’s editorial and production team met with the station’s lawyers who pored over the evidence they were shown. Details were discussed of how the programme would cover Sir Arthur’s illegal claims for expenses; how it would introduce his illegitimate daughter and how his family tree, disproving his claims to be thoroughly English, would be illustrated. But even as the outline script was given the go ahead Jilly still felt there had to be more to it.

  She only learned exactly what her programme was to reveal an hour before going live when, with Skye, the professor and his mother in make-up, Fergal took her into an empty office and explained everything. She barely had time to read the notes he sent to her tablet before she had to leave for the set.

  *

  It had been difficult for Fergal to engineer his mother’s lunch meeting with Carl as there were so many demands on her time. “It’ll be worth it Mum,” he had said, “really worth it.” When she had pressed him for details he had said nothing. “Trust me, just an hour or so out of your schedule. You’re in Cambridge in any case, surely your aides won’t begrudge you having a private lunch with an old friend, will they?”

  Carl had been at his most charming as he welcomed Gayle to a private dining room in one of the better restaurants in Cambridge. Nothing was said about the reason he had asked to see her until they had ordered and their first course had been served. They had filled that time with small talk. It was Gayle who turned the subject away from the weather and England’s performance in the cricket World Cup to the reason for their meeting.

  “Fergal really wanted me to meet you. Are you going to tell me why?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about your interview next Sunday.”

  “With Jilly whatshername?”

  “Yes, Jilly Bouldnor, and of course Sir Arthur.”

  “Doesn’t my son think I can cope without his help?”

  “He thinks you should have some idea, he called it a ‘heads up’, of what is planned.”

  “He did hint that there was more to it than just embarrassing the old man with the somewhat old stories of his highly probably illegal expenses claims and the existence of his daughter.”

  “There is a lot more. And we need your help.”

  “You need my help? What with?”

  “With demolishing Sir Arthur and bringing an ignominious end to his career.”

  “Shoot.”

  Carl had planned his approach in detail and began carefully.

  “Your father, Robert Savager, was the great-grandson of a man called Lewis Frensham? Is that correct?”

  “Yes, I know that. I was on that lovely programme a while back when they investigated my family history. They didn’t go farther back than Lewis on the programme, ‘constraints on time’ they said, I thought it must just be because the family was boring. Anyway, even though they didn’t cover it, they did explain that the researchers had found Lewis’ mother and father, a Lady Frances and Sir Robert Frensham.”

  “Well, yes and no,” Carl answered, hoping that his voice conveyed a mystery.

  “Yes what a
nd no what?” Gayle asked pointedly.

  “Yes Lewis’ mother was Lady Frances Frensham but no, his father wasn’t Sir Robert.”

  “Not her husband’s child? Lewis was a bastard? That was hardly unique at the time,” she answered before carefully spreading some pâté on a slice of melba toast. “Though it is interesting that the programme’s researchers didn’t pick up on it.”

  “Sir Robert acknowledged Lewis as his son and heir and no whiff of scandal appeared anywhere at the time.”

  “That was good of him.”

  “Very.”

  “Are you going to tell me who Lewis’ father really was? You seem to have quite an interest in the subject of my family’s history.”

  Carl was in no hurry to explain everything. He rather enjoyed having lunch with an attractive and intelligent woman. He took several spoons of his soup before carefully dabbing his lips with his napkin and placing it back on his lap.

  “Are you going to tell me it was the King? We are descended from royalty?” Gayle seemed less than overwhelmed by the prospect.

  “Royalty, yes, the King no, I think George the Third was well past that sort of activity by 1814.”

  “Royalty? The Prince Regent then?”

  “When did I say British royalty?” Carl was enjoying the game he was playing.

  “Foreign royalty? The Tsar perhaps? They did tell me that Lady Frances travelled in Europe a great deal.”

  “I won’t keep you guessing. Lewis’ father was Emperor Napoleon the First.”

  Without looking at Gayle’s reaction Carl concentrated his attention on his soup.

  “Napoleon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bonaparte?”

  “As I said, Emperor Napoleon the First.”

  “And you can prove this?”

  “Oh yes. I can prove it.” Carl found it interesting that her first question was about proof, not about how Lady Frances Frensham came to meet Napoleon Bonaparte.

  “DNA?”

  “Yes.”

  “That might do something for my reputation as a Europhile!” Gayle laughed. “Is this what you want to come out in my duel with Sir Arthur next week?”

  “Amongst other revelations.”

  “Others? You have other revelations? Surely nothing will top that.”

  Carl nodded slowly, smiling.

  “Do tell.”

  Carl, knowing he had Gayle Shepherd’s undivided attention, told her about the Bernards, the Augustuses, the Williams and the Henrys of Sir Arthur Lacey’s family, and about Claude.

  “You can prove all this?”

  “We can.”

  “Good grief.” It seemed, to both of them, an inadequate response. “Jilly Bouldnor knows all this?”

  “Certainly not everything. She has been given a lot of ammunition on the expenses side of things, and she knows about Skye who is, as I’m sure you agree, a delightful young lady who will cope very well with being exposed. And Jilly has also been given many other details of the Lacey family tree.”

  “But all this other stuff? Sir Bernard, the American secret agent? Claude, the man supposedly from Jersey? The Cornish doppelganger? The box in the chimney? The locket and the codebook and the diaries? Surely she doesn’t know any of that?”

  “No. Certainly not.”

  “So who does know?”

  “I do, of course, also your son, Skye and Margaret Hart.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A code-breaker and a very old friend of mine.”

  “So there’s just the five of us?”

  “Yes, and that’s how it must stay until Sunday.”

  “Can’t I have my lawyers run over it? I mean, I don’t mind Lady Frensham’s reputation being dragged through the mud but if you’re wrong about any of this I can see writs flying about all over the place.”

  “I understand your worries but you must trust me on this. No lawyer can see the proof we have until after the broadcast. Lawyers’ offices leak like sieves I’m afraid.”

  “You’d better be right about it all.”

  “Trust me. I am.”

  For a few minutes they turned their attention to their meal. Gayle thought of the implications of all that she had learned while Carl was thinking of the other beautiful and intelligent women he had known in his life. His memories of one, Susannah, were interrupted as Gayle broke the silence.

  “But, tell me, what has happened to The Lodge? I know Skye left because she’s been living with my son now for a while. Have Sir Arthur and his ghastly wife taken over?”

  Carl did not answer the question directly. “Skye left when she had to, at the end of June.”

  “And?”

  “I had to get involved.”

  “You? How?”

  “I knew from my first visit that The Lodge was far too important for Sir Arthur’s disastrous clearance plans to be allowed so I contacted the bods who have control over historic properties and they put a stop on any work being done until the building and its contents had been surveyed and fully documented.”

  “Have you told Skye?”

  “No. I haven’t. I have let her believe that The Lodge is lost.”

  “That’s a little cruel don’t you think?”

  “I don’t want her hopes to be raised.”

  “Hopes? You have plans for The Lodge?”

  “I do.”

  “And for your library?”

  “Of course it isn’t ‘my library’ though I will always think of it that way. It must be made available to everyone. It is a unique collection.”

  “But you have plans?”

  “I do.”

  “Are you going to let me in on that secret too?”

  Carl sipped at his glass of wine while he decided whether or not to tell her. He had not planned to say anything but he had found that he liked Gayle rather more than he had expected to and, he concluded, maybe she might be able to help.

  “You may disapprove.”

  “Try me.

  “After the programme there is going to be a tremendous media storm around Skye. Do you agree?”

  “Probably.”

  “And do you also agree that television programmes, radio phone-ins, newspaper opinion pieces and the social media can all be manipulated to focus a great deal of attention on the way she has been treated by her father?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “And can you imagine a situation in which a suggestion might, somehow, somewhere, be made that the only right thing that Sir Arthur can do is to gift her The Lodge?”

  “I’m sure someone, somewhere might just allow that suggestion to be made.” Gayle smiled knowingly as she raised her glass toward the professor, enjoying the game they were playing. “And I’m sure that someone, somewhere may just venture to suggest to Sir Arthur that, if he is to ensure his long career of public service is not forgotten, he should donate any and all of the contents that Skye does not wish to be kept at The Lodge to some academic institution or other?”

  Carl raised his glass to hers. “And I may just happen to know one that would be more than happy to undertake that responsibility.”

  *

  Jilly Bouldnor was very nervous as she took her seat on the set. She was well aware that the rehearsal and much of the preparation that had been done had been a waste of time. No one, least of all the producer and his team, knew what was really planned. She wished she had had, at the very least, a few minutes to read the information Fergal had sent to her tablet. She had loved how live television was always risky but this, she felt as the studio lights focussed on her, was as risky as she ever wanted it to be.

  She swallowed hard, turned to her camera and smiled.

  “Good Afternoon. In today’s Truth on Sunday my first guest is Sir Arthur Lacey, a man on the brink of pulling off the most amazing coup of his long career in politics. Soon we are going to the polls in perhaps the most important votes in our history. The results of the upcoming General Election and the referendum which will follow
will determine whether Great Britain is to stay in the European Union or go it alone. Sir Arthur, once the face of Euroscepticism in his party, has defected to a more extreme position, demanding our immediate withdrawal. He is forcefully putting his case that his English ancestors did not fight against European enemies over a period of more than one thousand years to have those enemies win by default.”

  Sir Arthur walked from the wings. Standing still for a few seconds he graciously nodded his recognition of the studio audience’s ripple of applause and, finding the camera that was trained on him, focussed on the lens and smiled.

  He was a large man, both tall and rotund. He held himself fiercely upright, as though his background was military, despite it being many years since he had spent eighteen unhappy months in the Army. He had a full head of white hair cut in an austere short back and sides. His eyes were penetrating, his gaze always stern, and his lips set in a pursed, supercilious half-smile even when he was speaking. He projected an absolute belief in his own importance, in his own ability and in the inferiority of others.

  To his many supporters he embodied everything that was archetypically English. To others he was an embarrassing anachronism.

  Jilly looked down at the script on her tablet, turned towards her guest, tilted her head slightly and began.

  “Sir Arthur, it is five years since the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority asked you to repay fifty-three thousand pounds of incorrectly and unjustifiably claimed expenses yet you are still fighting that decision. Do you have anything to say in your defence?”

  Sir Arthur was prepared. He had asked to be told the questions he would face and had been unsurprised to see the issue of his expenses heading the list.

  “I welcome this opportunity to clear up the overabundance of misinformation that has been printed in some of the more scurrilous of our newspapers.” He turned to the camera, addressing his comments to the viewers and ignoring Jilly. “The points of contention have been related to expenses incurred with the upkeep of my home on the Isle of Wight. It may not be in my constituency but this old house has been in the Lacey family since before the Civil War, it was where I grew up and it has been my home from home since before I was first elected to Parliament. I find it impossible to understand how anyone can say it is not appropriate for me to claim for its upkeep.”