The Queen's Cipher (62 page)

“Oh, very well, perhaps you and your friend will join me in the Fellows’ Garden.”

Freddie blushed at the implied rebuke. “I am sorry, Dame Julia, May I introduce Cheryl Stone. W-we’re working together on a project.”

“We are lucky to have such a large garden with a view over the flood meadows. But I think the quality of a garden depends on the skill of the gardener rather than the actual acreage.”

“I think Warbeck wins on both counts.” It was the model girl who answered her.

A set of steps led them to a terrace. “This is called Dead Man’s Walk,” Julia told her young companions. “It got its name during the English Civil War when Prince Rupert ordered shootings to be carried out here.”

Freddie remained tight-lipped and morose.

“Is something bothering you?” Julia asked him.

There was a painful silence. “We’ve just come back from Italy,” he said eventually. “Do you know Venice?”

“Yes, quite well, actually,” she replied guardedly.

“Ever been to Giudecca?”

The colour drained from her cheeks. This couldn’t be happening, not after all these years.

“We met someone there who remembers you, Cristobel Carpenter, used to be called Pisani. Does that ring a bell?”

Julia waited a shade too long before replying. “It’s been a while since I was on the island. As for the woman you mention, no, I don’t recall her name. Should I?”

“Let me refresh your memory. Thirty years ago, you and your then boyfriend borrowed a letter belonging to her, a letter of considerable historical significance. You promised to return it but never did so. Neither did you make any use of the information you’d wrongly acquired. You told me once, Dame Julia, and I respected you for it, that a scholar’s job was to publish the truth without fear or favour but you didn’t do that, did you?”

The old Julia might have damned his impertinence or stormed off to the safe haven of her college rooms. The new one slumped onto a garden bench and began to cry softly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, scrambling for tissues to dry her eyes.

She had often lectured on the moment when Shakespearean characters went into free fall, weighed down by their misfortunes. This was such a moment. And she knew how she looked beneath her make-up: old and scared.

When she spoke it was in the merest whisper. “We were students backpacking our way around Italy. We went to the Venice Biennale and came across a painting called ‘The Chess Players.’ I’d seen the Francis Bacon miniature at a London exhibition and wanted to know why he had been painted playing chess with a stagey-looking Moor under a mulberry tree. We worked it out from there, as you must have done, and went to see the Pisanis. I was young and impressionable. I thought I was in love. It was his idea to borrow the letter. He called it an insurance policy in case the authorship question blew up in our faces. We’d have documentary evidence. He wanted it both ways. What we did was very wrong and it has tormented me ever since. I would ask you to believe that.”

Freddie sat down beside her and took her hand. “Of course I believe you and will do everything I can to protect your reputation. If Cristobel Carpenter gets her letter back she won’t take matters any further.”

Julia shook her head. “I wish I had as optimistic a view of humanity as you do. She may only want what she says she wants but it won’t end there. The press will get to hear of it.”

“No they won’t. I can promise you that.”

“Where is the letter?” The redhead asked gently.

“I honestly don’t know. I suspect he still has it.”

“Didn’t you try to persuade him to give it back?” she wanted to know.

“Of course I did, frequently, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Who is he?” Freddie asked. “Cristobel said he was English.”

“She was wrong about that at least.”

“Have you any idea where he is now?”

The question galvanized Julia. She looked him straight in the eye. “I know exactly where he is. Milton Cleaver is at Mather University where he is Professor in the Comparative Humanities.”

31 JULY 2014

Somewhere on the campus a clock struck the hour. Milton Cleaver freed himself from the throes of creation and stretched his back. Another chapter was beginning to take shape. He saved his work before closing down the laptop and locking it away in his antique elm pedestal desk.

The desk’s highly polished surface was noticeably free of filing trays. Milton hated clutter. Conversely, he appreciated space and perspective and arranged his office furniture accordingly. Visitors to his study were supposed to notice the Shaker rocking chair near the terrace window and the artful way the morning light caught the Rockwell canvas above the marble fireplace.

Appearances were important, but control was his God. All the chores that went with being a head of department – the mind-numbing bureaucratic backlog of government mandates, mission statements, grant applications and financial reviews – had been delegated to other members of staff, leaving him free to focus on those things that really mattered.

Thanks to
Shakespeare’s Mind Games
he had achieved celebrity status in an inward-looking myopic discipline and, if properly managed, it enabled him to coast through the remainder of his career on a warm tide of public approval. But he wanted more than that. He had grown tired of putting old wine into new bottles; tired of using stale similes and dying metaphors in the pursuit of academic excellence. What had happened to his originality, the flame that had once burned within him?

These were the thoughts that occupied his mind as he prepared to leave for lunch. Today he was taking Rosemary to a little French restaurant just down the road. There was a knock on the door and his secretary entered to say that a Dr Brett would like a word.

For a moment his mind went blank. Then the name registered with him. “Is he English?”

“Yes, he claims to come from Oxford University.” 

Milton felt his legs trembling as he imagined what might happen if Sam’s former lover was allowed into his office. The young man was deranged. He had shown that in Verona. And that was before the dirty tricks campaign. What excuse could he find for not seeing him? How about getting Genevieve to say he’d slipped out, gone to a faculty meeting or a president’s lunch.

“There’s something else, Professor Cleaver.” His secretary sounded embarrassed. “He asked me to tell you that his visit has nothing to do with your personal differences.”

Milton relaxed. “I’m sure I don’t know what he means, but show him in anyway.”

As soon as she had gone out he grabbed a large file from a desk drawer. Carrying a folder conveyed authority. He’d been taught that on his management course.

The door opened to admit Brett’s tall, angular frame. “How are you?” he began brightly. “I was just about to go out …”

“You can cut the bullshit,” Brett ignored the outstretched hand. “It’s in your interest to hear what I have to say.”

“I doubt that very much.”

They stared at one another like prize fighters waiting for the bell.

Brett broke the silence. “What have you done with Cristobel Pisani’s letter?” said in the same accusatory tone his jealous wife adopted when she suspected he’d been seeing other women.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Milton feigned surprise.

“I want the letter you took from Cristobel Pisani. Here’s her note asking for it back.”

Milton didn’t even look at what was thrust into his hand. “How dare you waltz in here accusing me of literary theft? Where’s your evidence?”

“We have Cristobel’s affidavit that a young student couple took the letter and never returned it. Dame Julia Walker-Roberts has confirmed her part in this and says you were her partner. Do you understand?”

Milton understood. “But you’ve no proof of that, nothing in writing, have you? It’s Dame Julia’s word against mine.”

“You really are a piece of shit. You use and abuse women, don’t you?” Brett was incandescent with rage. “I had the third Mrs Cleaver crying down the phone about your affair with Sam.”

“You’re making this up,” Milton blustered. “Anyway, I thought you said this wasn’t about Sam.”

“I lied, just like you do,” Brett retorted icily. “Give me Cristobel’s letter or I’ll release the story to the press. Let’s see what the Mather authorities make of a professor who acts like a common thief.”

Milton made a rapid calculation. “OK, I borrowed the letter but I would have returned it long ago, only I lost it.”

“I don’t believe that for a moment. You don’t lose things. You are far too meticulous for that.”

“I lost Sam, didn’t I?” Milton couldn’t keep the venom out of his voice. “I don’t know what you did to her but she was never the same after she’d been with you.”

A look of surprise crossed the Englishman’s face. “I didn’t know that,” he muttered.

“Then you don’t know that she’s resigned, taken a teaching job at the University of Miami and gone to live with the father she professed to hate. Rather ironic, wouldn’t you say?”

“Ironic is too short a word. Now what’s it going to be? I’m losing patience.”

Milton made a last attempt. “Would you like a drink?” he asked solicitously. “Let bygones be bygones.”

“Not a chance, Cleaver. Now get on with it.”

“This is blackmail, Brett, and I’ll not forget it.”

He crossed to the fireplace and lifted the Rockwell painting off the wall. Behind it was a Chubb Black Box with an electronic lock which he released with a six figure code. He took a buff envelope out of the safe and handed it over.

Friday 8 August 2014 •
Cherwell

History Today Gone Tomorrow

We hear on the grapevine that controversial don Dr Freddie Brett has begun work on a mind-blowing article for the History Today magazine in which he intends to argue that Shakespeare had a silent partner and will be advancing literary and cryptographic evidence in support of his case. We can also reveal that he is about to fly off to America to negotiate a book deal with the Van Horn Media Group. If these things be true, Dr Brett’s days in academia may well be numbered and
Cherwell
will certainly miss him.

13 AUGUST 2014

Cheryl stared out at Miami’s hot blue horizon as their train hurtled over the raised Metrorail that connected the city centre with its southern suburbs. As this was her first visit to Florida’s biggest city, Freddie was pointing out local landmarks such as the seventy-four storey Four Seasons Hotel and the sites for the new thousand foot skyscrapers, One Bayshore Plaza and the Empire World Towers.

“Miami will soon have one of the most striking skylines in the world,” he said.

She was distinctly unimpressed. “I think it’s ghoulish that anyone should want to build another Twin Towers after 9/11.”

“You don’t understand the high-rise tradition,” he replied.

That’s rich, she thought, when I’ve lived in tower blocks all my life.

“Americans think the skyscraper symbolizes their energy and technological resourcefulness.”

“All it actually shows is a love of ostentation. These construction projects are nothing more than vertical expressions of corporate power.” Cheryl curled her lip in disgust, more at herself than American capitalism. She knew her left-wing politics made him feel uncomfortable.

Sure enough, he hit back at her. “I suppose you read that in the
Morning Star
. The history of architecture has been a continual quest to build high – the Egyptian pyramids, the Greek temples and the Roman triumphal arches. The Americans aren’t the first to have soaring ambitions.”

“And I guess you got your aspirations from the lovely Samantha,” she retorted spitefully. Try as she might, Cheryl couldn’t get rid of the idea that she was walking in someone else’s footsteps.

“Bloody hell, I thought we were beyond that. Why do you keep bringing her up?”

“Because you are not over her - you say her name in your sleep!”

They continued to bicker as the train sped through downtown Miami and out into Dade County. Culmer, Government Center, Brickell and Vizcaya came and went without the couple noticing.

Exiting just in time at Coconut Grove station they were hit by a solid wall of heat. The temperature had climbed into the mid thirties and Freddie’s cotton shirt was soon sticking to his back.

Cheryl looked at her perspiring lover with renewed affection. It was funny how often they argued over nothing. A measure, she supposed, of their shared insecurity.

He must have read her mind for he turned to face her, cupped her head in his hands and kissed her tenderly. “Let’s not argue anymore,” he murmured. “I’m sorry to be so tetchy but I’m as nervous as a kitten. What if Van Horn’s people have found out about the treatise? We’re dead in the water.”

He could be unbelievably negative. “You know what your trouble is? You worry too much. The only way they could know about the treatise is if they possessed it and if that was the case, we wouldn’t be having this meeting, would we?”

The logic was inescapable but Freddie fought against it. “That’s not necessarily the case. They might be on a fishing expedition to find out what we know.”

“I think this Van Horn geezer frightens you a bit.”

“You may be right. This ‘geezer’, as you put it, is certainly no pushover.”

He had been briefed on Jack Van Horn, a poor little rich boy who became a multi-billionaire. Inheriting a couple of rundown Christian radio stations in the Florida Panhandle he had built a newspaper empire out of the ashes. In 1981 he had launched RNC, the Rolling News Corporation, as a live twenty four hour global news network, and bought Key Lime Publishing, a Miami-based company specializing in trashy romantic fiction about the antebellum South, turning it into a worldwide book group selling everything from cutting-edge contemporary fiction to the outpourings of Nobel prize-winning scientists.

Politically, Van Horn wasn’t hard to read. He rarely spoke in public but when he did so it was always to say the same thing: America should adopt a free market economy with as little federal intervention as possible. These conservative values had first been articulated by Grandfather Reuben when Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders rode the plains. Something else that Jack had inherited from his grandfather was a belief in the Baconian Theory and it was this family obsession that had persuaded him to back Strachan’s book on the authorship issue.