Almost Love (44 page)

“From what I’ve read, groups like this often take years to raise the money they need to carry out their plans,” said Tim.

“I don’t think that The Ymir was an exception. Andreas Jensen was appointed political leader in 1994 and worked hard to obtain funds. Although we know that some wealthy individuals were attracted to The Ymir, in Norway, as in other European states, political donations over a certain amount have to be made public. This may have dissuaded donors. Whatever the reason, The Ymir was still struggling for funds in 1998 when he hit on the idea of offering his services as an occasional lecturer on right-wing politics at universities in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. I think that his aim was not just to raise the profile of The Ymir, but to interest potential funders who were perhaps less sensitive about being identified in Norway than his fellow countrymen were.

“Lincoln was one of the universities at which he gave his series of lectures. He was invited by a young female academic who became an immediate convert.”

“Jane Halliwell?”

“Yes. My guess is that Jane was a very bright young woman searching for a cause. She was also an assiduous researcher. It wasn’t easy to research the history of The Ymir – it still isn’t, because so much of it hasn’t been openly published – but somehow she managed to establish that Claudia McRae’s writings about the McRae Stone had brought her into contact with right-wing groups, including The Ymir. She was already interested in Claudia because of what she had read of her theories about the super-race. She’d also – and as far as I know this really was a coincidence, though many of the encounters and friendships between individuals in this story were, I’m sure, engineered – recently enrolled a mature student on one of her courses whom she discovered to be related to Claudia.”

“Guy Maichment?”

“Yes. Guy was in his thirties at the time. He’d studied several subjects at college and university – he’d never completed a course – and spent brief periods of time in various dead-end jobs. Claudia had been his main source of income since he’d left school. He’d managed to persuade her to let him enrol on the Politics course, with the intention of eventually himself becoming a lecturer. I don’t know how she viewed this – whether he presented it as being what he really wanted to do this time or whether she said that it would be his final chance. He could have had some kind of hold over her.”

“It seems odd that she was so indulgent. You’d think that long before she’d have told him to knuckle down and support himself. From what you say, she wasn’t famous for her philanthropy.”

“I’m coming to that. This time, Guy
did
knuckle down. He proved himself to be not just an adequate, but a brilliant, student of Politics. You’re right, however. People who know them – and I’ve talked to several people, local farmers, and others, who’ve been with Guy and Claudia together – say that he was often quite disparaging about her; that on occasions he treated her almost with disdain. They say that she either seemed to be afraid of him or to feel that she owed him some debt. If this is true, it would explain why she spent so many years supporting him financially. Something I also wonder about, though even if we carry out blood tests we probably won’t get conclusive proof, is whether Claudia is his aunt at all.”

“Do you think that he may be her son?”

“No. No, I don’t. It was one of the first ideas that I had, but Claudia quite liked flouting convention and she wasn’t afraid of gossip. If she’d had an illegitimate child, I don’t think she’d have taken the trouble to try to disguise the fact. Guy’s name, Maichment, was Claudia’s stepmother’s surname. The stepmother was not much older than Claudia herself and her marriage to Claudia’s father didn’t last long. She reverted to her maiden name after she was divorced from him. Some time after this, she gave birth to a daughter who was baptised Abigail. The mother died – probably of alcoholism – in the early 1950s, when Abigail was a very young child. Claudia, of course, was away a lot on digs. She paid for Abigail to be cared for and go to boarding school when she was old enough. She was obliged to do so because of some complication in her father’s will. Apparently the girl mostly stayed at the school even during the holidays, unless she was invited to friends’ houses. She had little contact with Claudia until she was in her teens, when Claudia allowed her to attend various digs. Oliver Sparham remembered Abigail. He said that she made a complete nuisance of herself. Eventually Claudia got fed up with her and sent her back to England, where she had enrolled her on a secretarial course.”

“So Abigail Maichment wasn’t a blood relative of Claudia’s at all?”

“I don’t think so; but Claudia seems to have accepted her as a sister, in public at any rate.”

“Do you think that Abigail was Guy’s mother?”

“I’ve thought about this a lot, too, as well as collecting as much evidence as I can, and I don’t think that she can have been Guy’s mother. She never started the secretarial course. She was admitted to University College Hospital on the day after she arrived back in England and died there the same day. She’d contracted West Nile Virus.”

“That doesn’t necessarily rule her out as Guy’s mother.”

“No; but the dates don’t fit. Guy was born in 1960. Abigail was thirteen or fourteen then. I realise that she was therefore old enough – just – to have been his mother, but her school attendance record is unbroken between the years 1956 and 1964, the year that she left. She went on the digs in 1964 and 1965 and died in 1965. Schools in those days didn’t allow pregnant pupils to stay on; they were usually expelled, or just required to go away discreetly. But even if Claudia had somehow persuaded the school to keep Abigail, I can think of no reason why she would then have agreed to support the baby. The babies of young unmarried mothers were routinely put up for adoption in those days, and Claudia wasn’t maternal. Besides, there is the coroner’s report to consider.”

“Which coroner’s report?”

“Because Abigail died of a virulent infectious disease, there had to be a full post mortem and inquest. I’ve seen the coroner’s report, and there is no evidence of her having given birth. The post mortem would have picked this up and would have mentioned it.”

“So who do you think Guy’s mother was – or is?”

“Again I can’t say for certain, but I think that it’s likely that his mother was one of the academics who went into hiding with Elida Berg after the children’s home near Oslo was burnt down. The Norwegian authorities are trying to help me to locate a birth certificate for Berg. I don’t know her date of birth, but judging from the photographs I’ve seen of her and Claudia together she was about ten years the elder, which would mean that she was born in about 1907. It could have been a few years after this, but, even so, it seems unlikely that she would have borne a child in 1960.”

“And she was gay.” Andy presented the comment as a statement, not a question.

“In all probability, though again I can’t be certain. If she was gay and had a partner who had a child, that could explain why Claudia took the child on. Guy has a British passport but I can find no record of his birth certificate or early years. He first surfaces as a boarding pupil at Stamford School in 1971.”

“You’ve said that Guy was often offhand with Claudia. How does that fit in?” It was Andy again.

“Again I don’t have an answer. It’s possible that he spent his early years with hard-core members of The Ymir who felt that Claudia had taken the soft option by dissociating herself from them.”

“Yet both Claudia and Guy seem to have got on with Jane Halliwell, and Jane Halliwell and Guy also seem to have worked closely together?”

“I think that Jane cast herself as the peace-maker. She had to tread a fine line in order to insinuate herself into the activities of The Ymir. They don’t trust easily and Claudia McRae probably didn’t trust them, although her respect for Elida Berg may have remained undiminished. Jane demonstrated the extent of her commitment by giving up her academic career, but she still had to earn her spurs. In order to do this, I think that she almost pulled off a brilliantly-conceived coup that she’d thought up herself. The Ymir wanted a full-length work on Claudia McRae’s semantic theory, with the emphasis to be placed on the super-race angle and conclusions drawn about the importance of maintaining linguistic, and therefore racial, purity. Jane undertook to act as Claudia’s secretary and amanuensis, and at the same time persuaded Claudia that she was herself a sort of latter day Elida Berg who could help her to create a magnum opus that would both bring acclaim at the end of her life and an assured place in academic history. Claudia was tremendously flattered and completely taken in. Arguably, Jane could have pulled off this feat and given both Claudia and The Ymir what they wanted – I’ve been told by her former dean that her academic prowess is formidable – if it hadn’t been for Guy’s fundamentalism.

“Guy didn’t just want the book to expound the Claudia-Elida arguments in such a way that they would have to be accepted as watertight and irrefutable; he wanted to demonstrate that the atrocities committed in 1947 and on subsequent occasions by The Ymir, which they believed were justified by their reading of the theories, should be recreated to be cited as modern-day examples.

“My guess is that Jane was uncomfortable with this at first. Her analytical mind will not have wanted to mix principles with practice in such a way. However, in the years between his enrolment as a Politics student and the time at which he began to plot the attack on the children’s home, Guy had probably become a leading light in The Ymir. It is conceivable that he had been groomed for a terrorist role since childhood. Whatever the truth of that, Jane either persuaded herself or was persuaded by members of The Ymir that Herrick Old House should be burnt in emulation of the burning of the children’s home in Oslo. That Herrick Old House is home to children from many different national backgrounds will have lent weight to Guy’s plan. He is an emotional character and no doubt believed that it was ‘meant to happen’.”

“I’d forgotten that you said that Guy originally enrolled in Politics,” said Tim. “What on earth made him change to landscape gardening?”

“I think that this may have been Jane’s idea, too. She must have known fairly early on in their relationship that Guy intended to spend his life working for The Ymir and, although she probably thought that it was his intention to set up a new political arm in the UK, rather than engage directly in militant activities, she may have advised him to keep a low profile. I don’t know why they hit on landscape gardening. Guy must be competent at it, because he has attracted some eminent clients; but there is no evidence that he is passionate about gardening. It may be that Jane hoped that some of his aristocratic clients might be enthusiastic enough about The Ymir and what it stands for to want to offer donations.”

“Is there evidence that Lord Herrick is a supporter?”

“None at all. On the contrary, Lord Herrick is rather self-consciously philanthropic. Not only does he help to fund Herrick Old House, but he’s set up a foundation to train young people from the home in trades and craft skills. Some of them seem to have got tangled up with the drugs gang that’s been funding The Ymir’s activities here. Tom Tarrant, Alex Tarrant’s husband, was involved in disciplining them. But I think that the kids brought with them an unexpected complication. The drugs gang was using them and other local tearaways, like LeRoy Padgett and his brother, as couriers.”

“Explain the drugs gang,” said Tim. “Obviously you must be right when you say that they were involved; we know that they were in it up to their necks. They were responsible for Alex Tarrant’s abduction, Oliver Sparham’s murder and for most of what happened two nights ago at Herrick Old House. They were certainly the ones with the weapons. But why did they bother to get involved at all, let alone provide the funds? I just don’t see what was in it for them. And I certainly don’t think that someone like Endrit Grigoryen would suddenly turn evangelical and embrace the right-wing ideology of a half-crazed Norwegian political group.”

Juliet looked nervous again.

“Thank you for more or less accepting what I have said so far. This is where I really do need a bit of willing suspension of disbelief,” she said. “Endrit Grigoryen does want something from The Ymir; and interestingly enough, although it has nothing to do with right-wing politics, it is related to a belief system.

“May I just take you back to the 1960s on my timeline?” Juliet touched a point about a third of the way along the line that she had drawn. Against it, she had affixed photographs of Oliver Sparham and Edmund Baker. “You will remember that I said that once someone has belonged to The Ymir, they cannot escape from it afterwards. They may back away from its activities and lead a perfectly ordinary life in every other respect, but The Ymir still regards them as members and keeps a distant watch on their activities. To a certain extent I believe this was what happened to Claudia McRae, although she was probably willingly in touch with Elida Berg until her death, which I guess from the documentary evidence – I mean of the articles that Claudia published – happened at some point in the late sixties or early seventies. After that, I think it likely that Claudia tried to dissociate herself somewhat from them, at least until Jane Halliwell appeared on the scene. Of course, for much of that time Guy was around to keep tabs on her anyway.

“Oliver Sparham was persuaded to join The Ymir in the late sixties, probably by Claudia herself, during one of Claudia’s digs in the Middle East. Another of her young protégés, Edmund Baker, was also on that dig. Oliver was much closer to Claudia than Edmund, who had left-wing tendencies and no time for the political ‘truths’ that Claudia attempted to draw from her archaeological writings. If someone mentioned The Ymir and its ideology to him, which may or may not have happened, he will either have regarded it as nonsense or something to be shunned as totally alien to his own beliefs. I am quite certain that Edmund was never a member. Edmund’s role in the whole of this story has been that of outsider. He has been protected from danger only by something that he came to know about during that dig, when he met Oliver for the first time. In fact, he seems to have got on well with Oliver then, though the friendship cooled quickly when they ceased to be students.