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0:48

Matt

0:54

was silent the whole way back to London. Marcus

0:57

Byron had checked him over before we got in the car

1:00

and seemed confident that he wasn't injured in any

1:02

way. We figured he was in

1:04

shock. Marcus

1:06

kept to a steady 150 miles an hour

1:09

along most of the A12 back into London. I

1:12

have no idea how we weren't stopped or why not

1:14

a single speed camera flashed us. But

1:16

I guess that's a perk of being an ex-member of the Department

1:19

of Works.

1:21

An hour and 20 minutes later, we

1:24

were at the Whittington Hospital in North London. Marcus

1:27

drove us straight to an old Victorian wing of the

1:29

building to a unit that is not listed on

1:31

any of the hospital's directories. Apparently,

1:33

this unit deals with what Marcus described as esoteric

1:36

ailments and is therefore off the books.

1:41

Sorry, you're going to have to wait here.

1:45

I hadn't expected to ever see Matt again. And

1:48

then the whole trip down from Suffolk, I was panicked that there was something

1:50

wrong with him. He seemed almost catatonic.

1:54

I had no idea what the last two years had done to him

1:56

mentally, where he'd been, what

1:59

he'd experienced.

3:25

not

4:00

doing this. But I'm

4:02

also aware that the last time we sat

4:05

down and talked, you were thinking

4:07

about quitting.

4:08

I was, yeah. And then

4:10

that stopped being an option when you vanished.

4:12

And then it became an option again when it looked like you weren't

4:14

coming back. But a

4:16

lot has happened in three years. The last few

4:18

weeks, I'd finally resigned myself to doing something else, but I

4:20

hadn't really figured out what. And then Marcus

4:23

Byron came along and said Parker was looking for

4:25

the Blake notebook, so... Kennedy has called me

4:27

up on the ins and outs of the Robert Blake notebook

4:29

and the tie-in through Philip Gibson to the whole

4:31

Joseph Kerwin business. I'd

4:33

also listened to the rough cuts of the two episodes

4:35

she'd made about it so far. Oh, they're kind

4:38

of a mess. No, no, I like them.

4:39

I'm not as good at the editorial side as you

4:41

are. And I really hate the software.

4:44

Also, I don't know if it goes anywhere.

4:46

You heard it. We'd pretty much hit

4:49

a brick wall just at the point where you reappeared. But

4:51

I think there's something there. Okay,

4:54

here's my thinking. Someone is trying to get hold of that

4:56

notebook. And it looks like they already killed

4:59

poor Theo Martin because they thought he had it. We

5:01

don't know what's in the notebook or why they want it.

5:04

But over the last few years, these people have

5:06

cropped up over and over again. The

5:09

killing gasses, the marshes, all these establishment

5:12

figures who are clearly up to no good. And as

5:14

Eleanor has said, they're trying to gain

5:17

power and influence. And they

5:19

seem to either not know or not care about the

5:21

consequences of their actions. Now they've

5:23

managed to shut down a department of works. And that means

5:25

that basically no one is standing against them anymore.

5:28

Are you about to launch into a Braveheart speech?

5:31

We have an audience now had.

5:34

I mean, it's been three years, and I

5:36

think they're still there. And I think

5:38

we can build it back up. We've

5:41

both been through some stuff. And so walking away

5:43

is definitely something to be considered. We could absolutely

5:46

just pack it all up and do something else. Or

5:48

I think I want to start

5:50

naming some names. I want

5:53

to figure out what is happening and why and who

5:55

these people are lurking in the shadows.

5:57

I want to shine a really bright light

5:59

on the

5:59

Okay, but naming names is a legal nightmare,

6:02

isn't it? Especially if this thing ends up going out on

6:04

Radio 4 as well. I just lost three years of my life.

6:06

I'm pretty sure, wherever I was, it was a lot worse than

6:09

being in a courtroom. You

6:12

want to cause some trouble. I really want

6:14

to cause some trouble. Thanks

6:23

so

6:29

much for coming in. I'm sorry to change the venue

6:31

at the last minute, but we have a big presentation

6:33

later on today and I didn't want to leave the office

6:35

while we're still getting stuff ready. This is Caroline

6:38

Morse. She runs something called

6:40

the Corinius Institute, which is a kind

6:42

of policy unit slash think tank

6:44

slash lobbying firm in the city of London.

7:01

To

7:10

understand why we're meeting with Caroline,

7:13

you have to crawl along the branches of yet another

7:15

family tree. Okay, so this guy,

7:17

Ernest Gladwin. Kennedy and I had left

7:20

the studio and headed across the road for coffee,

7:22

my first latte in three years. Gladwin's

7:25

the head of this church of story wisdom in the 1930s. The

7:28

Nazis. Well, yeah, British fascists. I

7:31

don't know if they'd have called themselves Nazis at this point, but

7:33

they were definitely Hitler fanboys. Gladwin

7:36

is one of the guys Robert Blake was trying to expose after the

7:38

war, when the Vicious were supposed to have been dealing

7:40

with. But just went back into the shadows.

7:43

Right. So Ernest Gladwin has two daughters, Emily

7:46

and Elizabeth. Emily gets

7:47

mixed up with Joseph Kerwin ends up having

7:50

his child and that child is Philip Gibson. Right.

7:53

Gibson is dead or missing. Everyone else on that

7:55

side of the family seems to have gone the same way. Destiny

7:58

Fenner, Theo Martin, obviously his mom.

7:59

His Aunt Laura is still around, but she

8:02

doesn't seem to be connected to anything. But

8:04

if we go back up the tree and then across,

8:07

there's Ernest Gladwin's other daughter, Emily

8:09

Gladwin's sister. Elizabeth. Yeah.

8:12

Now, Elizabeth Gladwin married a guy called Roderick Ashton

8:14

Heath. Of course she did.

8:16

Wait. Ashton Heath, as in? Yes.

8:19

As in Wilberforce Ashton Heath, the right-wing Tory MP,

8:22

the anti-immigration, anti-vax,

8:25

rabid Brexiteer guy. And

8:27

this is Elizabeth Gladwin's son and Emily Gladwin's

8:29

nephew. Oh. So, Wilberforce

8:33

Ashton Heath, who seems reasonably likely to

8:35

be the next leader of the party, has a grandad... Who

8:37

was a Nazi wizard, yeah. How is that not

8:39

common knowledge? Well, I guess Robert

8:41

Blake would have had an answer for that. He seems to have

8:44

spent his whole life trying to expose these people, and

8:46

they still manage to remain in the shadows.

8:48

If someone is after Robert Blake's notebook,

8:50

maybe it's because Blake had the dirt on

8:52

Ernest Gladwin. And someone like Wilberforce Ashton

8:55

Heath doesn't need any skeletons falling out of the closet,

8:57

just as he's being tipped for leadership. Exactly.

9:00

And I checked in with Marcus Byron, and he told me

9:02

that Wilberforce Ashton Heath was the one putting pressure

9:04

on the government to shut down the Department of Works. So,

9:07

if we're looking for an establishment figure who's pulling

9:09

all the strings... Our man Wilberforce fits

9:11

the bill. Okay. So, how

9:14

do we get to him? We don't. But

9:17

his sister is happy to talk to us. What does she

9:19

do? Run the Ku Klux

9:20

Klan? Actually she runs something called the Coronaeus

9:23

or Coronaeus Institute, whatever, some kind

9:25

of financial think tank. And she

9:27

famously hates her brother's guts.

9:30

Oh, Billy's a dickhead. Oh, it has

9:32

been.

9:33

Do you believe families can be cursed?

9:35

Of course you do, making a show

9:37

like yours. I suppose you have to believe six impossible

9:39

things before breakfast.

9:41

Well, my family's curse is history.

9:43

How so? Fascism.

9:45

I mean, let's not

9:46

sugarcoat it. You're not here because you're interested

9:48

in the finer workings of the Coronaeus Institute. Well,

9:50

we're not interested. That's

9:52

only because you don't know what we do. It's

9:55

economics, cultural ethics, international

9:58

relations, dull stuff to an outside.

9:59

or to an insider. Space

10:01

the bills, but no human sacrifices

10:04

or aliens, I'm afraid. We are here to

10:06

talk about your grandfather. Bingo.

10:09

And a good shout on your part. I

10:11

mean, actual loony tunes.

10:13

I can't shed a lot of light personally because he

10:15

died when I was nine years old, but I've heard the

10:17

family's stories. He was friends with Oswald

10:20

Mosley. He was.

10:21

All that crowd. And from what I gather,

10:23

Mosley was far from the worst.

10:25

William Joyce, Henry Hamilton Beamish,

10:27

Arnold Leese, Archibald Mall Ramsey, AK

10:30

Chester. You're okay to talk

10:31

about this, Auntie? I mean, I don't love

10:33

talking about it. Just because of your position. My grandfather

10:35

was a fascist, Miss Fisher.

10:37

Can I call you Kennedy? Of course.

10:39

So, Grandpa was a fascist. There's one

10:41

entire branch of my family that was into prancing

10:44

around in the

10:44

woods, worshiping whatever.

10:45

And I have a brother who apparently

10:48

thinks Covid was some kind of libtard hoax. The

10:50

only way I get to distance myself from all

10:52

of that nonsense is to talk openly about it. As

10:56

I see it, the second

10:57

I get cagey, it starts to look like the apple

10:59

didn't fall far from the tree after all. Well,

11:01

it sounds like it did.

11:02

Thank

11:04

you. God, I hope so. I'll

11:06

tell you anything you

11:07

want to know, but as I say, I was nine

11:09

years old when Ernest Gladwin died, so. But

11:11

you knew his daughter, your Aunt Emily. I

11:13

did. Not during her hippie

11:15

witch phase. I wasn't born

11:16

then. By the time I was aware

11:17

of her, she was actually pretty ordinary. And her

11:20

son, Philip Gibson? I mean,

11:21

vague memories of him as a kid. I

11:23

was five years younger than him. And then later

11:25

I saw him at weddings and funerals, but he

11:28

seemed odd. Odd how?

11:30

I suppose you'd say he was in the family business

11:32

by then. Not the Nazi stuff, but the

11:34

whole occult

11:35

thing. And it's just a catalogue

11:37

of misfortune on that

11:38

side of the family. There's

11:39

not a lot of people dying of old age. And you've

11:41

heard about Theo Martin. Who's that?

11:44

That would be Philip's grandson. Right.

11:47

Ooh, I'm confused. It's my family. Can

11:49

only imagine how bewildering all this must be to your poor

11:51

listeners.

11:53

I think I knew that Philip had a daughter. I never

11:55

met her. This is her son?

11:56

Yeah, he died recently. Oh,

11:59

OK. That's sad.

12:02

You know how to feel about that. Well,

12:05

it's a different branch of a big family. Yes,

12:07

and for obvious reasons, I don't tend

12:09

to go to too many family get-togethers. So

12:12

going back to your grandfather, Ernest Gladwin.

12:14

The Grand Wizard. Is that an official

12:16

type of... No, I don't know. I

12:18

don't think so. I don't know.

12:20

He went to Hitler's birthday parade. Did

12:22

you know that? Your grandfather? Yeah, Hitler's

12:24

fiftieth. Both my grandparents. And this guy,

12:27

Major General J.F.C. Fuller, who

12:29

is another one of the big Nazi sympathizers.

12:31

My grandparents loved

12:33

Berlin. They honeymooned there in 1931.

12:36

With Crowley. Aleister

12:39

Crowley. I

12:41

thought you'd like that. Yeah.

12:44

With Aleister Crowley.

12:45

I don't know if Crowley was a Nazi or not. No

12:48

one seems very clear on that. I think he was working for

12:50

MI6 for a while. Well, then maybe he was informing

12:52

on my grandparents.

12:53

My grandfather was an acolyte

12:55

of his for a while.

12:56

They were in Paris together in the twenties. When

12:58

in the twenties? I don't know.

13:01

Is it important? I'm not sure.

13:04

Maybe it's a coincidence.

13:06

Did he know a guy called Obed Marsh? Obed

13:08

Marsh? As in...

13:10

Is Obed Marsh a real person? He

13:12

is. Oh, okay. I

13:14

assume that...

13:16

I suppose I'm not

13:18

really clear on the line between fact and fiction

13:20

on your show. Anyway, no.

13:23

I don't know if he knew Obed Marsh.

13:25

There was some big hoo-ha. I remember

13:28

my grandma talking about it. A big falling out

13:30

between the acolytes in Paris. Specifically

13:33

my grandfather and chap called Edwin.

13:35

Lilybridge?

13:37

Lilybridge. Yeah, that's it.

13:40

Funny name, isn't it? Is this the name I should know? He

13:42

came up while you were

13:43

away. I'll catch you up. Well, they had

13:46

some massive argument in Paris. My grandfather

13:48

and this Lilybridge chap. They seem to

13:50

be mortal enemies from then on.

13:53

Lilybridge became a Fleet Street hack of some

13:55

kind in the 1930s. Rumour

13:57

has it he was continually writing hit pieces

13:59

about ground.

13:59

and his mad cult. It was

14:02

all grandpa could do to get the things spiked before

14:04

they saw the light of day.

14:04

And so too the mad cult. Ah,

14:07

yes. The church of starry

14:09

wisdom.

14:09

Two lunatic ideas

14:12

somehow jammed together in a failed attempt

14:14

at coherence. Two ideas. Well,

14:16

yeah.

14:17

The whole woo or cult nonsense on the

14:19

one hand. And then the anti-Semitic fascist

14:21

thing on the other.

14:22

I suspect this was the source of Lillibridge

14:24

falling out with grandpa. They

14:26

both adored Crowley. So

14:28

one assumes Lillibridge was on board with all the drugs

14:30

and the sex magic. So I suppose

14:32

he must have been less keen on grandpa's anti-Semitism.

14:35

And how were these two ideas combined?

14:38

Well, it's a bit like the Nazis

14:40

being into their Norse mythology, isn't it?

14:42

Grandpa apparently had this notion. There

14:44

was some kind of Arthurian spirit of old

14:47

England, some sort of

14:48

nationalist mythological nightmare,

14:50

all to do with purity and being a true Briton

14:53

and all that stuff. I mean, horribly

14:55

racist, even by the standards of the time. It

14:57

was blood and thunder, blighty stuff

14:59

about repelling invaders and England

15:02

for

15:02

the English and all that bollocks.

15:04

The church of starry wisdom codified

15:06

it all. It

15:07

was a new religion based on nationalist

15:09

ideals. Luckily it didn't catch on.

15:12

Grandpa got locked up with all the others during the

15:14

war and they only let him out again when he

15:16

promised to be a good boy. And was he a good

15:18

boy after that? Oh, God,

15:20

no. He started right up where

15:22

he left off.

15:23

In and out of all those fascist groups that sprang

15:26

back up in the fifties,

15:27

he was active in the movement all the way through to when he

15:29

died in 1977. Perfectly

15:31

pleasant man, as I recall, loved

15:34

gardening, loved animals, deranged

15:36

fascists.

15:36

There's remarkably little information,

15:38

I mean, given how prominent Ernest Glabham was in

15:40

the right wing movement. I'm not surprised

15:43

his occult activities haven't

15:45

really come to light, but your brother is

15:47

an MP. His granddad was a notorious

15:49

fascist. He was at Hitler's birthday parade.

15:52

I haven't seen that connection made anywhere. Good

15:55

PR? Exactly right. My

15:57

brother may be a dickhead, but he has some very...

15:59

good people controlling his press. Just

16:02

like my grandfather did. And don't forget that

16:04

Billy isn't obviously a gladwin. Our

16:07

father was Roderick Ashton Heath. That's

16:09

a much more respectable family name, a historical

16:12

family with connections to royalty. That

16:15

provides a lot of cover, just like having a hundred

16:17

million pound war chest and a team of rabid

16:19

libel lawyers does.

16:21

You know who Billy's married to,

16:24

right?

16:24

I've seen photographs

16:26

I think. It's okay.

16:28

That's the point.

16:29

Even you two haven't stumbled onto Billy until now.

16:32

His wife Leslie, remarkably

16:34

nice. But her maiden name is Tillingast.

16:37

Wow. Wow. The

16:41

look on your faces. Yeah.

16:43

She's the Godfrey Tillingast slaughter. Wait.

16:45

So sitting MP,

16:46

a high ranking member

16:49

of the government. Tipped to be the next leader of the party.

16:51

His grandpa was a fascist wizard. And he's married

16:53

into the Tillingast family. For clarity, I'm

16:55

not accusing my brother of anything

16:58

other than being a dickhead, but it's

17:00

an example of hiding in plain sight, right?

17:03

Try writing about that and see what happens.

17:05

I suspect you'll have problems even broadcasting this conversation.

17:07

This

17:08

is what your Edwin Lillibridge in the 1930s

17:10

had to contend with. And then the

17:12

poor guy who came after him.

17:14

What guy? Oh, another hack. Worked

17:16

with Lillibridge and then after the war, he

17:19

picked up the torch on his own. Determined

17:21

to outgrandpa as, you know, an enemy

17:24

of the state and what have you. My

17:26

grandmother couldn't bear him. Blake.

17:29

That's it. Blake. Robert

17:31

Blake. That's the badger.

17:33

Whatever happened to him, I wonder. Has

17:36

your brother mentioned his name recently?

17:38

To me. I shouldn't think so. We really

17:40

don't talk.

17:41

He's not still around, is he? Blake? He

17:43

died in 1987. Oh, okay. Also... What?

17:48

No, it's probably me picking up Fagern's

17:50

gossip. You know, that's the fuel

17:52

that powers this place most of the time. Gossip

17:54

about Robert Blake. Well, I suppose

17:57

sort of. Woman called Diane

17:59

Netley.

17:59

No, I don't think so.

18:01

Well, she's apparently been in touch with my brother's

18:03

people recently because she's some information

18:05

she claims could scupper Billy's career.

18:07

You mean blackmail? She's not

18:09

asking for money, which is what makes it strange.

18:12

What does she want?

18:13

Her husband is ill, as I understand it,

18:16

and Diane Netley has got it into her head that Billy

18:18

can cure

18:19

him. Cure him how? With

18:21

magic, apparently. Which gives

18:23

you some idea of how

18:24

crackers poor Diane must be. With

18:27

the reason I bring it up, this information

18:29

Diane Netley has was apparently given to her by...

18:33

You're the blame. About 2.30

18:51

in

18:53

the morning, and every

18:56

time in that moment's of waking, I

18:58

would see the man standing in the corner.

19:01

It's here, uncanny,

19:04

season three. She was just walking. She

19:07

was bouncing without talking, without blinking.

19:10

It seemed like something had just taken over.

19:13

Terrifying real life encounters with the

19:16

supernatural. What

19:18

I saw in that house frightens

19:20

me, and I wish I'd never seen

19:22

it.

19:22

I wish I had a little baby face out. Maybe you'd

19:24

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