The Queen's Cipher (19 page)

“Freshness isn’t everything,” he replied. “If I gave you a present and there was nothing inside the wrapping, you wouldn’t be best pleased. That’s what this
Merchant
was like – an empty box of a production lacking in context and commitment. Yet this is a great drama about capitalism, sex and racial persecution.”

Sam put down her fork. He obviously wanted a Rialto of big money deals and a Jewish Shylock for the audience to hate and feel guilty about at the same time.

“Don’t you approve of a production in which the director uses the theatre space and lets the text do the work?”

Freddie took a sip of water to ease his stomach cramps. “Right, let’s talk about the theatre. I’m glad Stratford has got rid of the proscenium arch in favour of a thrust stage. It’s the modern equivalent of the courtyard theatres of Shakespeare’s day. But that doesn’t justify dull acting and bad production.”

The main course arrived in the nick of time and she began to dissect her chicken breast with surgical precision. He cudgelled his brains for something to say.

“Have you ever cared for anyone? Men I mean.” His voice tailed off.

Sam’s face clouded over. She didn’t like to talk about her sex life. “No, I don’t think so. Several of the mistakes I slept with accused me of being standoffish, of not engaging with them, and I suppose they were right. The problem started long before that, when I was a kid in Connecticut living with a drunken mother who doubled up on Bourbon and Prozac. I’ve never been frantic mad with love, as the poets call it.”

“Actually it’s Shakespeare.”

Sam ignored his interjection. “I didn’t want to end up like so many girls I knew, tired out by their mid-twenties, pushing a pram and coping with husbands who were cheating on them.”

The silence grew between them and he knew, with a sickening certainty, that this beautiful woman would never be his.

Had he been a mind reader, Freddie would have realised how wrong he was. Sam had been disappointed to hear that he’d booked separate rooms in their Stratford hotel and that there would be no ‘hanky-panky.’ She fancied a bit of ‘hanky-panky’, if it meant what she thought it did. Indeed, she’d thought of little else since their first meeting. For some unfathomable reason she wanted to sleep with this wild young man who talked too much and was so lacking in guile. He was completely different to the self-confident Americans she’d known.  Lacking parental guidance she had had to cope with puberty on her own and bad experiences with boys had hardened her. Sex was just sex, a transient pleasure and a muscle memory. With Freddie she had hoped it might be more than that.

She had tried to rationalise her feelings for him. He was neither handsome nor charming although being English and an Oxford don were definite plus points. And there were other things too: his intensity and dark animal quality excited and unnerved her. She knew he liked her company, enjoyed the intellectual cut and thrust, but, at a more basic level, she couldn’t figure out why he had never kissed her. There had been a brief moment earlier today when he seemed to fancy her but it hadn’t led to anything. And here she was dressing like a tart to capture his attention. Perhaps he was incapable of a physical relationship. It was a sour note to end on.

Sam pushed her plate away and stifled a yawn. “I’d like to go now,” she said. “I’m tired and I’ve got a long journey tomorrow.” She was booked on an evening flight to New York.

They walked back to the hotel without saying a word, aware they were playing out their final scene together. The awkward silence continued in the lobby. As they rode the lift she tried to think of some light remark to dispel the gloom but nothing came to mind. In frustrated agony she stood outside her bedroom door fumbling with her key card. Her pulse was beating frantically. She couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Oh, Freddie,” she said softly, “what am I going to do with you?” 

Her slightly parted lips suggested she knew the answer. Leaning forward she let him see the lacy blue outline of her bra and the soft mounds of flesh within it. In the kiss that followed she used her tongue to prise his mouth open.

Freddie groaned with pleasure, putting his arms around her and pulling her close. As he did so she whispered in his ear. “I think you’d better come inside.”

He did as he was told.

29 APRIL 2014

It was mid morning but the curtains were still drawn in Prospero’s Cell. Normally an early riser, Freddie had no wish to get up. Exhausted and dazed with joy, his awkwardness a thing of the past, he lay in the four-poster bed luxuriating in the heat coming from Sam’s naked body. How beautiful she looked with her head resting on his shoulder: pale gold apart from the tiny white patch where she had worn a bikini bottom sunbathing. She smelled of warm flesh, scented and deliciously feminine.

Last night had been a revelation. He could hardly believe what had happened. She had taken charge of their lovemaking, showing him slower and more sensual ways of achieving orgasm. They had talked afterwards, exchanging confidences. She had begun by warning him she did not favour post-coital confessionals. Some things were better left unsaid, but if he needed to strip her mentally as well as physically she would indulge his fancy. Propping herself up in bed she talked about an absentee father and an alcoholic mother. There was no such thing, she said, as a good divorce. Divorce freed adults but forced their children to grow up too soon. Only her father could make the monsters disappear and he stopped tucking her into bed when she was four. Receiving lots of money but very little love she had closed herself off in adolescence, believing academic success was the only worthwhile goal in life. There had been no girlfriends but plenty of men. She was, in her own estimation, a promiscuous bitch and likely to remain so. That was how it was. “I’m just a good fuck,” she told him.

Far from being alarmed by these confidences, Freddie felt they were part of the bonding process. Sam was too hard on herself. Highly intelligent people often overdid the self-analysis. How wonderful to have a woman with brains, not to mention all the other bits. The softness of her breasts, the curve of her thigh. He lifted a strand of golden hair and kissed her gently on the soft down behind her ear. Sam stirred and murmured something indistinct.

“Morning, darling,” he breathed, his eyes sliding over her body. “Rise and shine.”

“What’s the time?” She was still heavy with sleep.

“It’s gone eleven.”

Freddie picked up the phone and dialled reception. Yes, they could have a delayed checkout. What a relief. He turned on the flat screen television, pressing the mute button as he did so.

Sam shuddered as he ran his fingers up and down her spine.

“Sweet bottom-grass, and high delightful plain,” he said, quoting from
Venus and Adonis.

“Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,” she carried on the stanza, “To shelter thee from tempest and from rain.”

His hand slid between her legs. “I seek shelter.”

“Not again,” she moaned in mock despair. “You’re so demanding.”

Sam wriggled out of his embrace.  “Wait a mo,” she said, “and no playing with John Thomas while I’m gone!” She clambered out of bed, retrieving her discarded underwear from the floor, and disappeared into the bathroom.

“I’m famished,” she yelled from the shower. “How about getting brunch?”

“Haven’t you forgotten something,” Freddie shouted back. “You’ve a flight to catch.”

“Oh that, I am going to cancel my booking and move in with you for a while,” she shouted back at him. “That’s if you want me.”

Freddie threw his pillows in the air. “How long can you stay on,” he yelled back.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe a couple of weeks or so before I’m missed.”

“Right,” he said. “We’ve got a fortnight in which to solve the Shakespeare mystery. It should be a piece of cake.”

That was when he saw a close-up of a burnt out car on the television screen. The charred wreckage was being inspected by policemen in protective clothing. A bomb had gone off. His interest quickened when he saw a wider shot of the cordoned off area. He knew the location only too well – it was the shopping precinct in the Oxford suburb of Summertown.

Freddie turned up the sound.  “Professor Edward Cartwright was on his way to the television studio when his Renault family saloon blew up. The explosion killed the driver outright. According to police sources, it was the kind of ammonium nitrate-fuel oil car bomb the IRA pioneered in Belfast. Professor Cartwright was a ...”

“What the hell?” Sam had come out of the bathroom and was gazing in horror at the TV set. “Who could have done this? Cartwright was a shit but you don’t put a bomb under him.”

Freddie wasn’t listening to her. The television pictures had brought the nightmare back: the concussive blast, the thick smoke, the air full of gritty dust from a demolition site, hair burning, people screaming: his long-term commitment to horror and sadness.

“What’s the matter with you? You’ve got an alibi. You were in bed with me.”

“My p-parents died like this,” he stammered in a voice hollowed out by grief.

The towel slipped from her body as she rushed to comfort him.

“I was fourteen and I’d got them to pose for my new camera. They were only a few yards away from the bomb when it went off. It ripped them apart. Yet I was virtually untouched. Why did I survive when they didn’t?”

He began to cry, dry racking sobs. The pent-up emotion came pouring out. “They were wonderful people who never did any harm. Why did it have to be them? Why not me? If I hadn’t taken that bloody photograph they’d be here now.”

Sam cradled his head to her breast. “You don’t know that,” she whispered. “What you’re feeling is survivor’s guilt. It’s a perfectly natural response to such a senseless loss. You were just a kid at the time. You know what Freddie? You’ve been alone too long. But that’s over now.”

30 APRIL 2014

Warbeck College was dozing in the early morning sunshine. Light streamed through an open first-floor study window in the Fellows’ Quadrangle to silhouette a hunched figure peering at a pile of notes on her escritoire. Dame Julia Walker-Roberts had been up since dawn preparing tomorrow’s lecture.

Raised voices and laughter heralded the arrival of early visitors on a sightseeing tour. Although one of Oxford’s wealthiest colleges Warbeck allowed members of the public to wander around its quads and gardens for a three pound entrance fee. Annoyed by the outside distraction, Julia shut her window so forcefully its ancient panes positively rattled.

A loud knocking on the study door interrupted her train of thought. “Come,” she said distractedly. Her secretary Clarissa entered the room. “There’s a phone call for you. It’s that man again. Professor Cleaver is ringing from America. Are you out or in?” 

Julia pulled a face. She had been avoiding his calls all week but he was nothing if not persistent.

She picked up the receiver. “Hello, Milton. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Gee, you’re a hard woman to track down. I was beginning to think I’d never get hold of you.”

“What are
you
doing up?” she countered. “The sun hasn’t risen where you are.”

“I find it harder and harder to sleep as I get older and when I do it’s only fleeting.”

“I’m not surprised.” The words slipped out before she had time to consider them.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked sharply.

Julia counted silently to three before answering. “I would think that’s obvious. There aren’t enough hours in the day for a man like you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

And you’d be wrong, she thought. It was strange really. Once you began to dislike someone, everything they did annoyed you. All that bogus bonhomie made her sick.

“I wanted a word with you about the Cartwright killing. It must have come as a terrible shock. You and he used to be good friends. He often mentioned you.”

“You are mistaken. We were never close and I thought he was at fault in the plagiarism case.”

“Even so, his death must have affected you deeply. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you.”

And still he persisted. “Why would anyone want to murder an English scholar?”

“I’ve absolutely no idea.”

What she wanted to say was because Cartwright was like you, mendacious and manipulative. Someone you couldn’t trust.

“Get to the point,” she snapped. “You’re not ringing me up about Cartwright, are you?”

He seemed unruffled by her outburst. “OK, I want to know why you refused to review my book.”

Julia took a deep breath. “Well, for a start it isn’t
your
book, Milton. You only edited it. Secondly, I don’t think we should acknowledge the existence of an authorship problem. This simply plays into the hands of the Shakespeare theorists by giving them the oxygen of publicity.”

“You ivory tower merchants haven’t done too good a job in that respect, have you?” he sneered. “You may not have noticed but doubts about Shakespeare are spreading. Scores of web sites are devoted to the so-called authorship question. There are even degree courses in it. I think the time has come for the literary establishment to set the record straight.”

“But you aren’t doing that, are you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” For the first time he sounded flustered.

“Look, I haven’t the time to argue with you. I’ve got a memorial lecture to give tomorrow.”

“One last question if I may. Why did you take Brett’s part at my Verona cocktail party? You embarrassed me in front of my guests.”

“No, you did that to yourself. In any case, Freddie Brett is a very promising scholar who is worth defending. I think you should leave him alone.”

There was a pause while Cleaver considered the unspoken threat. “Or else?” he asked.

“You know what I’m saying.”

“You won’t be able to protect him much longer, not with this court case coming up!”

Julia could hear the belligerence in his voice.

“I understand you’re in the running to be warden of your college. Tread carefully, Julia.”