THIRTY-ONE
Umber's use of the indefinite article proved prescient. He had found a Mr
Griffin, not the Mr Griffin. But nonetheless he had found more than he could
ever have hoped. The irony was that back in 1981 he would have
approached the problem more systematically. He would never have ambled
through Kew expecting the answer to leap out at him. And consequently he
might never have found his way to the cottage with the griffin lampholder.
He sat in the small bachelor-spruce drawing room and explained himself as
best he could. He had got no further than the bizarre truth that he had come
in search of someone he had been due to meet twenty-three years previously,
when his host, who had introduced himself as Philip Griffin, interrupted.
'Sounds as if you're talking about my brother Henry, Mr Umber. Before we
go any further, I ought to tell you that 1981 was the last year anyone ever
saw or heard of him. I was out of the country at the time. I didn't find out
Henry had gone missing till I got back here thirteen years later. So, when
and where did you have this appointment with him? And what was it about?'
'Avebury. Twenty-seventh of July, 1981.'
'Avebury? 1981?' Griffin's brow furrowed. 'Haven't I read something
recently about a murder at Avebury in 1981?' He snapped his fingers. 'That's
right. The bloke they got for it was murdered in prison a couple of weeks
ago. And somebody connected to the case committed —'
'Suicide. I know. You could say that's what brought me here.'
'I don't understand. What's Henry got to do with all this?'
Umber answered the question as fully as he could allow himself to. He
summarized the events of 27 July 1981 accurately enough and emphasized
that his theory about what had happened to Henry Griffin was just that: a
theory. He said nothing about Chantelle, however. He did not even suggest
he subscribed to Sally's belief in Tamsin's survival. Not that Tamsin — or
Sally — much interested Philip Griffin. His attention was focused on the fate
of his long-missing brother.
'I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Mr Griffin. I suppose you must have
hoped he was still alive somewhere. And that is possible, of course. I —'
'It's OK. I wrote Henry off a long time ago. He and I didn't really see eye to
eye. That was one of the reasons I left Father and him to it after Mother died
and took myself off round the world. I lost touch with them completely. And
I didn't come back for nearly twenty years. When I did, I found Father going
gaga with this house collapsing around his ears — and no trace of Henry.
They'd fallen out long since, according to the old man, though he was too far
gone to remember why — or so he pretended. Henry had left on account of
their disagreement, whatever it was about, and good riddance was the gist of
his ramblings. Not a warm-hearted man, my father. He's dead and gone
himself now. The neighbours said it was the summer of 'eighty-one when
Henry vanished from the radar. So, it sounds as if your theory fits the facts,
doesn't it?'
'Yes. I suppose it does.'
'And it also sounds as if Henry died trying to be a good citizen, which is
some consolation. But there's one thing you still haven't mentioned, Mr
Umber. The reason for your appointment with Henry.'
'Ah. Well, I was at Oxford in 1981, studying for a Ph.D. Your brother
phoned me out of the blue, saying he had a book — technically, a pair of
books — relevant to the subject of my thesis which he was sure would
interest me. We agreed to meet at the pub in Avebury — the Red Lion —
that Monday, the twenty-seventh of July, so that I could take a look at them.'
'What books were these?'
'A special edition of the letters of Junius.'
'Junius?' Griffin's expression suggested surprise rather than
incomprehension. 'Well, well, well.'
'You've heard of him?'
'Oh yes. Growing up in this house, you could hardly fail to, even if you were
a duffer at history. Which I was. Unlike Henry.'
'Is there some connection, then, between your family… and Junius?'
'You could say so. The Griffin family legend, we'd better call it. Junius…
and our claim to the throne.'
'What?'
'Laughable, isn't it? But Henry believed it. So did Father. And his father
before him.'
'Your… claim to the throne?'
Griffin smiled ruefully. 'Don't worry. I'm not about to serve a writ on the
Queen and demand the keys to Buckingham Palace. But it's entertaining
stuff in its way. Want me to fill you in on it?'
'Yes, please.'
'Well, before I do, let's get back to these books. How special were they?'
'Very. A uniquely bound copy of the letters printed for Junius's own use.'
'I see.'
'Which means —'
'No need to spell it out, Mr Umber. I know what it means and it ties in with
something Father said a couple of times, now I think back. He called Henry
a thief. But he never said what he was supposed to have stolen. I think I
understand now. Father must have kept the books hidden away. And Henry
must have found them.' Griffin rose to his feet. 'Wait here, would you?
There's something I want to show you. But it might take me a few minutes to
lay my hands on it.'
* * *
Umber was happy to wait. He needed a few minutes alone to settle in his
mind the limits of what he could or should tell Philip Griffin. He had learnt
nothing so far that amounted to the proof he needed of Marilyn's complicity
in Henry Griffin's murder. And the crackpot details of the Griffins' claim to
the throne, however entertaining, were unlikely to supply it.
* * *
Close to ten minutes passed, during which the sounds of drawers being
opened and closed in an upper room reached Umber's ears intermittently.
Then Griffin returned, clutching a stapled sheaf of papers.
'There was a lot of Henry's stuff left here when Father died. I chucked most
of it out. But I kept this, if only because it's as handy an account of the
family legend as you could ask for. As you'll see, Henry hoped to get it
published. But it wasn't to be.' He passed the papers to Umber. 'Take your
time. I'll make some tea.'
So, almost immediately, Umber was alone again. He looked at the papers in
his hand. The top sheet was a letter to Henry from the editor of History
Today, dated 16 April 1980. It was a rejection letter for an article Henry had
submitted, entitled Junius, the Royal Family and the Griffins of Kew. The
editor described the piece as 'diverting', but crushingly added, ' I am sorry to
say that you provide no supporting evidence for any of your extraordinary
assertions.' He returned the article therewith. And it was still attached, typed
out by Henry on double spaced, generously margined pages. The poor chap
could not be faulted for presentation, however unsubstantiated the contents.
Umber settled down to read it.
My family has lived in Kew for nearly two hundred years. Strangely, the
founder of our family was a man none of us is related to. This man,
Frederick Lewis Griffin, is historically very important, though history has
nothing to say about him. The time has come to put that right.
Frederick Griffin was born in Covent Garden, London, on 29 June 1732. He
was an illegitimate son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, by the actress Sarah
Webster. His mother gave him the surname Griffin because the Prince had
been known in his childhood in Hanover as 'Der Grief — the Griffin, a beast
he was supposed to resemble.
By the time of the boy's birth, Sarah Webster had already been supplanted as
the Prince's mistress, but the Prince paid her a generous allowance for his
son's upbringing. He continued to do so after his marriage to Princess
Augusta of Saxe-Gotha in 1736. When Sarah Webster died, in 1740, the
Prince arranged for his friend the Earl of Chesterfield to look after the boy,
who was given an excellent education.
Frederick Griffin was an undergraduate at Oxford when the Prince died
suddenly on 20 March 1751, aged 44. Some said his death was caused by the
after-effects of a blow from a cricket ball. Others said he had caught a fatal
chill while working in his beloved gardens at Kew in wet weather. Still
others whispered that he had been poisoned by his wife because he had
discovered her long-standing affair with his Lord of the Bedchamber, the
Earl of Bute.
Princess Augusta immediately cancelled the allowance paid to Frederick
Griffin, who was forced to leave Oxford. Lord Chesterfield obtained a
position for him in the East India Company and he spent the next ten or
twelve years in India. He returned to England at some point in the mid1760s a moderately wealthy man. He bought a small house at Strand-underGreen (now Strand-on-the-Green) on the north bank of the Thames, opposite
Kew, and lived there for the rest of his life.
It has always been believed in my family that he chose to live at Strandunder-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 halfbrother, 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.