Free Murder by Mistake by M.J. Trow Page A

on as normal, with the children living with her, but in 1977, she had a nervous breakdown. George, when he reached 14 and was boarding at his father’s old school, Eton, stated officially that he wanted to live permanently with the Shand Kydds, which, of course, had been Lucan’s wish all along.
    It was not until 1992 that Lucan’s financial affairs were at last sorted out. His estate was valued at a measly £14,709 ($24,800 at the exchange rate of the time, value today approximately $40,000). Seven years later, the High Court ruled that Lucan was officially dead, but the ruling was complicated. Only in Britain could there be a situation where a man can be declared dead to all intents and purposes, but his son and heir was not allowed to claim his father’s title and inheritance because there was no actual death certificate!
    Veronica Lucan, occasionally calling herself “Dowager” Lady Lucan today, never remarried and largely avoids the world. She occasionally gave interviews to journalists and crime writers, but all that stopped in 2003 when she set up a website with the title “Setting the record straight.” In it, along with unpublished family photographs, she attempted to answer the sort of questions that journalists asked or to correct errors she had found in books. The website is rather sad—her breakdown is a conspiracy; her children have abandoned her; the “dream of paranoia” has become reality.
    The Lucan children are all academically brilliant and highly successful. Frances, who has the clearest memories of November 7, 1974, went to St. Swithun’s School, Winchester, like her mother and then to Bristol University. Today she is a successful lawyer and keeps out of the limelight. Camilla, only three at the time, also went to St. Swithun’s, then to Balliol College, Oxford, and is also a lawyer. She is married to Michael Block, QC (Queen’s Counsel), and the couple has four children.
    From time to time, there is a flurry of interest in the Lucan case—a new book, a new sighting or odd knee-jerk reaction from the police to use new techniques such as DNA testing on the old bones of the case. The children are then duly pestered for their views. When Barry Halpin was put forward as a possible Lucan in 2003, Frances said, “That isn’t my father. He has been dead for decades.” Camilla has told reporters, “Any desire I may have had to ascertain the truth about the events of November 1974 has long since dwindled.”
    The same cannot be said of George, mercifully asleep as a 7-year-old boy on the night in question. Like his father, he went to Eton; unlike his father, he went to Trinity Hall College, Cambridge. Then, like his father, he went into a London merchant bank. Not actually able to sit in the House of Lords, George Bingham can nevertheless call himself the 8th Earl of Lucan. When Duncan Maclaughlin’s book on Barry Halpin was published, George said to the
Daily Telegraph
, “I get a little tired when former Scotland Yard detectives at the end of their careers get commissions to write books which happen to send them to sunny destinations around the world.”
    George remains convinced that his father did not kill Sandra Rivett. The media, he says, say his father was “a racist, snob, gambler, coward, dimwit and murderer. And yet I can’t find a single person who ever knew the man who was prepared to say anything but that he was the most wonderful company, incredibly generous and the nicest person to be with.” Clearly George had not spoken with his mother on the subject!
    On the question of Lucan’s survival, George has a dry sense of humor. “Oh, it’s just another letter from daddy,” or “God, I’ve got my father on the line again.” “Last I heard he was in Botswana. But it was a very bad line, so I can’t be sure.”
    So now there is a new mystery to deal with—not only whether Lucan killed Sandra Rivett, but where is he now? If he is alive, he would be 77. Perhaps Lady Lucan is