"I do," she says, a big smile on her face.

"Oh!" I say.

"He's right here in Santa Claus House," says Cerys.

"Oh?" I say, looking around. "Where?"

"He's right on that chair over there," says Cerys.

She points at the new Santa.

"That's Kris Kringle," says Cerys. "That's Santa. They're one and the same. OK?"

"I understand," I say.

She introduces me to the new Santa. "Do you remember Jon when he was a little boy?" she asks him.

"Oh yes," Santa says. "I remember Jon. He took a little convincing that I was real."

"That's true!" I say. "Very early on, when I was four, I told the rest of my cla.s.s that you didn't exist."

Santa gasps. "Come here," he says. "Pull my beard."

I do. "It's real," I say.

"And what town are you in?" Santa asks.

"North Pole," I say.

"And this particular building is ... ?"

"Santa Claus House," I say.

"So," says Santa. "If you're in a real North Pole, in a real Santa Claus House, and Santa has a real beard, that must make me ... real."

Most of the children here are very young, but there are two older girls in the crowd. I ask them how old they are.

"Thirteen," they say.

That's the same age as the plotters. I remember what Jessie said about how being a letter-writing elf at the age of twelve ruined her belief in Santa, and then I remember what Jeff Jacobson said about how kids of that age are savvy, and they know fact from fantasy.

So I decide to put it to the test.

"Do you believe in Santa?" I ask them.

There is a long silence.

"Half and half," says one.

"Yes," says the other.

Phoning a Friend

In November 2001, when Major Charles Ingram, his wife, Diana, and another man, Tecwen Whittock, were arrested attempting to cheat the TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? out of a million pounds using an elaborate system of audience-based coughs, my mother called me to say, "You know them! You were at school with them!"

"With who?" I asked.

"Diana Ingram's brothers, Adrian and Marcus Pollock," she said. "You must remember Diana Pollock. Their cousin Julian lived around the corner from us. You must remember them."

"No," I said.

The next day it dawned on me that this was an in that money couldn't buy, so I wrote to the Ingrams, reminding them of our halcyon days together.

"My family and I are experiencing a very real nightmare," Charles wrote back. "I have no doubt that there is a case to prove against media manipulation after consideration of the content, its cyclical nature, the care taken to quickly undermine expressions of support, the outrageous leaking of privileged information, and so on."

Charles wrote that perhaps I was the journalist to prove that case. I reread the letter. Its cyclical nature? It seemed curiously over-erudite, as if Charles wanted to prove that he was the sort of person clever enough to legitimately win a million pounds. I had no idea what he meant.

Still, it was odd. Diana, Adrian, and Marcus Pollock attended the same synagogue I did. They were well-to-do in an ordinary way. What happened to them? I did, in fact, have some vague memory, some Pollock-related to-do that rocked the local Jewish community when I was about ten. It was something to do with a car with the number plate APOLLO G and the manufacture of watch straps. But I couldn't remember anything more than that, and neither could my mother.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON, March 20, 2003, Southwark Crown Court, is when it all goes wrong for Charles Ingram. He's being cross-examined by prosecuting barrister Nicholas Hilliard about Particular Coughs 12 to 14. Those of us who've attended this long, slow trial from the beginning know the coughs so well we can mouth them: The tape of Charles's appearance on Millionaire has been played nearly a dozen times. During Charles's tenure in the hot seat, 192 coughs rang out from the audience: 173 were, experts agree, innocent clearings of throats, etc. But nineteen have been termed Particular Coughs.

Perhaps the most devastating of all is Particular Cough 12. It arose during Chris Tarrant's 500,000 question: "Baron Haussmann is best known for his planning of which city? Rome, Paris, Berlin, Athens."

"I think it's Berlin," Charles immediately, and confidently, replied. "Haussmann is a more German name than Italian or Parisian or Athens. I'd be saying Berlin if I was at home watching this on TV."

This is when Cough 12 occurred. It sounds, from the tape, like a cough born from terrible frustration. If the prosecution case is true, the plan was for Charles to chew over the answers out loud and for Tecwen Whittock-sitting behind him in a Fastest Finger First seat-to cough after the correct one. But now it seemed that Charles was going to plump straight for Berlin.

"Cough. No!"

(The first time this "No!" was played in court, every journalist and member of the public burst out laughing. Judge Rivlin threatened to clear the court.)

"I don't think it's Paris," he said.

"Cough."

"I don't think it's Athens."

No cough.

"I'm sure it's not Rome."

No cough.