Sight Unseen (37 page)

It has always been believed in my family that he chose to live at Strand-under-Green because of its proximity to the royal residences of Kew Palace and Richmond Lodge. He had heard the rumour that Princess Augusta had murdered his father. He had heard another rumour concerning his half-brother, King George III, who had succeeded to the throne in 1760. This was that George, while still Prince of Wales, had secretly married Hannah Lightfoot, a Quaker, and had a son by her, known as George Rex. Once on the throne, George had put Hannah aside and contracted a politically more expedient though technically bigamous marriage to Princess Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Frederick Griffin was appalled by such conduct and the deleterious effect he believed it to be having on the moral fibre of the nation. Thus he began his letter-writing campaign under the name of Junius, protesting at corruption in the high offices of government. Princess Augusta, the 'odious hypocrite', as Junius called her, came in for particularly harsh criticism. The King, a 'consummate hypocrite', fared little better. The letters appeared in the pages of the
Public Advertiser
for a little over three years. They came to an abrupt end early in 1772, when Princess Augusta's death deprived Junius of his principal target.

Frederick Griffin lived on at Strand-under-Green and at some point befriended the young George Rex. Very little seems to be widely known of the life of George Rex prior to the year 1797, when he was appointed Notary Public to the Governor of Cape Colony in South Africa. This lucrative appointment was subject to two unusual conditions: firstly that he should never return to England; secondly that he should never marry. The intention was obviously to ensure that his legally irrefutable claim to the throne died with him. He abided by these conditions to the extent that he remained in South Africa until his death in 1839 and left no legitimate issue there.

We must now move forward to the famous theft of the parish records from the robing room of St Anne's Church, Kew, during the night of 22/23 February 1845. This has never been satisfactorily explained, although it has often been alleged that the Royal Family required the removal of the record of a marriage or baptism which they found embarrassing. George Ill's marriage to Hannah Lightfoot and the birth of George Rex predate the records stolen (marriages after 1783, burials after 1785, baptisms after 1791) by many years and cannot have been the reason.

It has always been believed in my family that the theft was actually organized at the behest of Prince Albert to nullify a potential threat to the legitimacy of Queen Victoria's claim to the throne. The threat was posed by the fact that George Rex married a local woman called Mary Ann Leavers at St Anne's Church on 30 December 1796. Frederick Griffin was one of the witnesses. The officiating priest was Dr James Wilmot, who had also officiated at George Ill's marriage to Hannah Lightfoot more than thirty years previously.

When George Rex's marriage became known to the King, he took steps to have the couple separated and banished his son to South Africa. What George Rex did not know when he took ship for Capetown in the summer of 1797, however, was that his wife was pregnant. A son, John, was born on 3 January 1798. His mother did not survive the birth. Honouring a promise given to her with such an eventuality in mind, Frederick Griffin became the boy's guardian and sought to protect his identity by conferring his own surname upon him.

Frederick Griffin died on 25 August 1815, aged 83. This information was recorded on his gravestone (now removed) in the churchyard of St Anne's, Kew. The written record of the burial was among those stolen from the church in 1845, along with the record of his ward's baptism and the marriage of his ward's parents.

John Griffin, rightful heir to the throne of England and, following his father's death in 1839, rightful King, led a quiet and private life. He died on 8 October 1870, aged 72.

John Griffin was my great-great-grandfather.

Philip Griffin had brought in the promised tea by the time Umber had finished reading the article. 'What do you think of it?' he asked. 'As a historian, I mean.'

'Like the editor said. There's no evidence.'

'Could any of it be true?'

'It could
all
be true. The Hannah Lightfoot-George Rex story is semi-official history these days. But it can't explain the theft of the registers, because George Rex was already dead by then, supposedly without an heir to take his place as a threat to Victoria. Your family legend, on the other hand, accounts for it perfectly. Unfortunately, without supporting evidence that's all it is: a legend.'

'Could the special edition Junius have changed that?'

'It depends on the inscription. "Illuminating and more than somewhat surprising". That's how your brother described it. I only wish I'd seen it for myself. I only wish I'd met your brother.'

'Me too.'

'I suppose he was hoping my work on Junius would beef up his case into something the likes of
History Today
would have to take seriously. And maybe it would have. The Chesterfield connection certainly ties in with some leads I was following.'

'Father always said something called the Royal Marriages Act meant the Griffins' claim to the throne failed on technical grounds.'

'It's a good point. Since the act was passed -- in 1772, I think -- members of the Royal Family have needed the monarch's consent before they can marry. Without such consent, their marriage isn't valid. George the Third obviously learned something from his youthful indiscretion. The effect is that either George Rex wasn't a member of the Royal Family, in which case his marriage to Mary Ann Leavers doesn't matter, or he was, in which case it doesn't count.'

'Something and nothing, then?'

'I wouldn't say that. It's a humdinger of a story. If I'd been able to dig up some hard evidence, it might have turned my file-and-forget thesis on Junius into a bestselling book. With your brother as co-author.'

Griffin smiled. 'Henry would have liked that.'

'So would I.' A thought suddenly struck Umber. 'What sort of car did your brother drive, Mr Griffin?'

'Sorry?'

'Your brother's car. The one he was travelling in to Avebury. What type was it?'

'I don't know. He used to run a...' Griffin struggled with his memory for a moment. 'Triumph Herald estate. Yes, that's right. Phenomenal lock -- it could turn on a sixpence -- but a bit of a rust-wagon. Whether it was still on the road in 'eighty-one...' He shrugged. 'Henry wouldn't have traded it in unless he had to, that's for sure.'

'What colour was it?' Umber asked, replaying in his mind's eye the glimpse he had had of the car that had followed the van out of Avebury that day in July 1981, past the small, broken body of Miranda Hall.

'Dark green.'

'Of course.' Dark green it was. Dark green it had to be.

* * *

Dusk was coming on when Umber left Strand-on-the-Green and wandered back towards Kew. He was more or less at the halfway point of the three days he had been given to find Chantelle and hand her over. But his search for her and for ammunition to use against those who wished her ill had so far yielded nothing.

That was not strictly true, of course. He had traced Henry Griffin. He had learned what Griffin had meant to tell him at Avebury. And he had established Griffin's murder by Tamsin Hall's abductors as a virtual certainty. But none of that made any difference. In a sense, it only made it worse. Twenty-three years ago, David Umber the budding historian had been cheated of an encounter that might have changed his life. Yet his life had changed anyway. It had taken the course leading to the evening of solitude and despair that was opening out before him. It had led inexorably to where he was. And where it would lead next he preferred not to imagine.

But imagine he had to. The strange tale of the Griffins of Kew, which would once have delighted and fascinated him, was no help in his predicament. It left him as powerless to obey as to defy those who required an answer of him by noon on Friday. Yet an answer of some kind he would have to give.

Alcohol put Umber to sleep that night. It was more like oblivion than slumber. He woke, dry-throated and gritty-eyed, with the stitches in his head tugging sharply at his scalp. Dawn was edging its grey fingers between the curtains of his room at the Travel Inn and the traffic on Euston Road was only just beginning to thicken. He stared out at it through the tinted glass of the window as he sipped a two-sachet black coffee, wondering not so much what he should do as what, almost independently of his own reasoning, he was going to do.

The answer came to him in the shower, as cold water sluiced over him. Chantelle had said she could not go on alone and there was no reason to disbelieve her. Failing to contact Claire, she would have sought some other way out of the waking nightmare her life had become. It was quite possible she had flown to England on the same plane as her dead brother and the mother who thought she was dead too. Even if she had not, their destination must have drawn her as well. Home. The place where it all began. The unremembered start of her journey. There was nowhere else she was likelier to have gone. And there was nowhere else for Umber to go in search of her.

* * *

He had to do his best by others before setting off, however. He tried Claire's mobile again as soon as he was out of the shower. And this time there was an answer.

'Hello.' Her voice sounded husky and slightly slurred, as if she had just woken up.

'Claire. It's me. David.'

'David. Where are you?'

'London. Sorry if I woke you. I thought you'd already be up. You're an hour on in Monaco, aren't you?'

'You must have been out to Hampstead, if you know where we are.'

'I thought you were going to wait until you'd heard from me, Claire.'

'For a few days. That's what we agreed. And that's as long as I
could
wait. Alice would have come without me otherwise. And I didn't reckon that was a good idea.'

'Have you spoken to Tinaud?'

'Not yet. His PA's blocking us. I haven't pushed it. I've been hoping you'd call and say there was no need.
Is
that what you're going to say?'

'In a sense.'

'Care to explain?'

'Can't. I'm in over my head, Claire. I know too much. I don't want to put you in the same position. Don't speak to Tinaud. And don't come back to London until you've heard from me again.'

'What?'

'Now would be a good time for that girls' jaunt to South America. It really would. Talk Alice into it. Talk yourself into it.'

'What's happening, David?'

'I don't know. But, whatever it is, I
will
know. All too soon.'

'You're not making any sense.'

'If only that was true. If you never trust me in anything, trust me in this. You'll learn nothing from Tinaud I don't already know. But speaking to him may get you the attention of some very dangerous people. Don't do it. And don't come back here. At least for a few days.'

'We're back to a few days, are we? A few
more
days for you to go it alone.'

'The last few. I can promise you that.'

'You're going to have to --'

'Goodbye, Claire.' He put the phone down, certain, because he had withheld his number, that she would not be able to call him back.

He skipped the Travel Inn breakfast, checked out, took a cab to Liverpool Street station and boarded a train for Ilford. The only place he could think of to store his box of Junius Papers was 45 Bengal Road. He planned to leave a note for Larter, then head west.

But his plan had taken no account of the pressure on beds in the National Health Service. Larter had been patched up and sent home, with stitched lip, reinflated lung and slowly healing ribs. He was moving gingerly around the kitchen, preparing a bacon-and-egg start to the day, when Umber let himself in.

'Where have you been hiding yourself?' was the old man's wheezily barbed greeting. 'And what's in that bloody box?'

'Some old research papers of mine. I was hoping you could hold on to them for me.'

'Till when?'

'Not sure.'

'You've got a nerve.'

'I boarded up the window for you, Bill.' Umber glanced at the back door. 'I see you've had it re-glazed.'

'Yeah, well, that was a kindness, I suppose. But this box...'

'No-one's going to come after it. I promise.'

'Better hadn't.' Larter hoiked an old cricket bat out from beside the fridge. 'I'll be ready for them this time.'

'Remember the one you called a smug-looking geezer?'

'What about him?'

'He won't be coming. Here or anywhere else. I can tell you that for a fact.'

Larter eyed Umber suspiciously. 'Do I want to know how you can be so sure?'

'No, Bill. You don't.'

'Spoke to George yesterday. Said he'd had a... message from you. "It isn't over." Right?'

'Right.'

'How long before it is?'

'Not long at all. One way or the other.'