The Queen's Cipher (41 page)

“A neighbour heard a noise in the street and found you lying beside your car.”

“What’s the damage?”

“A fractured cheekbone, a cracked rib, a badly bruised ribcage and concussion – the doctor says it could have been much worse.”

The patient swallowed painfully and managed to whisper, “What do I look like?”

Cheryl was typically forthright. “You look like Rocky. One eye closed, the other full of blood and a badly bruised swollen cheek. Did you see who did this to you?” 

“No. I didn’t see him.” He shook his head, which pounded in protest.

Cheryl murmured in his ear. “We’ll get the bugger responsible, Freddie. That’s a promise.”      

Freddie raised an ironic inner eyebrow. It was too soon to think of retribution.

A nurse whispered something to Cheryl.

“They are going to operate to put the cheekbone back in place,” she told him. “It involves anaesthetic so they want you to rest now. I’ll look in again tomorrow.”

Cheryl squeezed his hand and was gone.  The nurse took his temperature before giving him the unwelcome news that the police wanted a word.

“Hello, sunshine, look at you. You’ve been marmalised.” The dulcet tones of the Liverpool copper, DI Owen. “How are you feeling?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you might be angry enough to tell me who attacked you.”

“Honestly, I have no idea” Freddie croaked. “I never saw him. He came out of nowhere.”

“I might be able to help you there,” the detective said. “There’s a patch of waste land near your garage. He could have been hiding in the shadows. You get out of your car and wham! You’re getting the shit kicked out of you.”

The hospital patient winced at the thought.

“Have you ever heard of a terrorist called The Engineer?” It was almost a throwaway question.

“No, should I have done?”

“He was very active in Northern Ireland in the nineties and our bomb experts thought the device that blew up Professor Cartwright carried his signature.”

Freddie tried to get his damaged head around this frightening new development. Had he been mugged by a murderous Irish bomber? It made no sense at all.

“One thing puzzles me though.” Owen wasn’t finished yet. “Your flat was broken into on Saturday night but, according to Mr Nicholas, nothing was stolen. What do you think of that?”

24 JUNE 2014

The consultant inspected the stitches in Freddie’s temple and expressed satisfaction with the patient’s progress. His cheekbone fracture was healing without infection and he no longer needed to be on an antibiotic drip. And there was more good news waiting on his iPhone.

Message One: Monday, 10.43am. ‘Dr Brett, its Margaret, the Master’s secretary. Sir Alan has asked me to convey his condolences and to express the hope that you will soon be out of hospital. The tribunal hearing has been postponed until you are fit to attend. Thank you.’

Message Two: Monday, 6.07pm. ‘It’s Donald Strachan, Dr Brett. We haven’t talked in a while. I need to see you urgently. Give me a ring on the houseboat.’

Message Three: Tuesday, 11.50am. ‘Freddie, dear heart, it’s me, Simon, bearing glad tidings. If there are no unforeseen complications, the doctors plan to discharge you on Thursday. Worry not, I shall pick you up. I have also invited the Hackney lap dancer to visit you this weekend. Not that she needed any persuading. Toodle-oo.’

Message Four: Tuesday, 4.34pm. ‘Hello, Freddie. Julia Walker-Roberts here. I’ve just heard you are in hospital. Someone attacked you, I understand. How could that have happened? Sebastian, I mean, Mr Christie, tells me the Maine ladies were quite distraught when they heard the news. Give me a call when you are feeling better.’

Message Five: Wednesday, 9.27am. ‘It’s me. Simon says he’s picking you up on Thursday. Can I stay at your flat? Look after you. Find your slippers. There’s only one thing though. I’m a lousy cook. But I can always get takeaway.”

Message Six: Wednesday, 10.41am. ‘Margaret again, if it’s at all possible, can you give Sir Alan a ring. He has something to tell you. Thank you.’ 

The clock in the hospital ward pointed to half past two. Sir Alan would be back from lunch. Freddie rang his private number.

“Is that you, Brett, delighted to hear from you?” There was a tremor in the Master’s voice. “The thing is … the thing is this. Earlier today I received a deputation from the student body who seem to think you are being unfairly treated by the college. I hope you don’t share this misapprehension?”

“Of course not, Master.” 

“That’s good of you, Brett.”

He could hear Sir Alan shuffling uneasily as he looked for a bush to beat. “Did you see this week’s Observer? Anyway, the paper calls plagiarism one of literature’s seven deadly sins.”

Although it hurt to do so, Freddie felt obliged to laugh.

“Of course, plagiarism cannot be ignored, but having studied the case against you it seems that any theft on your part was quite unconscious. You know what TS Eliot said when he was accused of cribbing vast chunks of
The Waste Land
.”

“No, Master, what did he say?”

“He said, ‘immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.’ And yes, literature is theft. Even my hero, Homer, took much of the
Iliad
from older material.”

“That’s if he ever existed!” Freddie couldn’t resist having a dig at Sir Alan whose laborious translation of the
Iliad
provoked such mirth in the Beaufort staff common room.

“Oh, he existed all right. It’s just that we know nothing about him. You know the standard joke? The
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
were not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name.”

“Didn’t they say that about Shakespeare?”

“And for the same reason, lack of biographical detail, but one thing we know about Shakespeare is that he was a plagiarist, a ‘snapper-up of unconsidered trifles,’ like Autolycus in
The Winter’s Tale
, but we don’t hold that against the Bard, do we? And if Shakespeare can get away with it, so should a Shakespeare scholar who shows real academic promise and is very popular with the student body. My colleagues have agreed there will be no tribunal. Case dismissed. Congratulations, Dr Brett.”    

Friday 27 June 2014 •
Cherwell

Brett Mugged Twice!

Beaufort’s most talked about lecturer ended up in hospital last weekend after a burglar put the boot in outside his flat in Walton Lane. Fortunately, Dr Freddie Brett’s injuries – a broken cheekbone and cracked ribs – were of a comparatively superficial nature and he was discharged in time to watch last night’s Channel Four documentary in which his old enemy, the late Professor Cartwright accused him of plagiarism. Brett watchers will be well aware of the part he played in the scandal which led to Cartwright losing his Oxford chair. This then was payback from beyond the grave but, in our opinion, it was a damp squib. Beaufort’s disciplinary board must be of a like mind for they have dropped all charges against Dr Brett. The real question is this: how will our hero manage to screw up next? We wait with bated breath.

27 JUNE 2014

Freddie fastened his dressing gown, popped a couple of painkillers into his mouth and washed them down with water. Deciding that was enough medication for now, he scooped the remaining tablets off the bathroom shelf and put them into the plastic film canister he kept as a pill jar.

He straightened up in front of the mirror. The face that greeted him had the hollow look of a badly beaten up boxer, one eye half closed, the other swollen and discoloured.  The strapped up rib and blood clots in his nose made breathing difficult while the fractured cheekbone felt numb but, for all that, his body was on the mend.

A key turned in the lock. “We’ve arrived!” Simon yelled down the corridor.

Simon burst into the kitchen with a bag of groceries followed by a rather sheepish-looking Cheryl. She was dressed in a teal satin blouse and a long print skirt whose russet shades matched her hair.

“What do you think of my Florence Nightingale outfit,” she inquired with an air of forced gaiety. “I’m the Lady with the Lamp. No legs on view you notice, didn’t want to over-excite the patient. How is the scar healing?”

He moved the hair on his temple to give her a better look. The wound was only a small one.

Simon chimed in. “It’s very disappointing. I’d expected a couple of metal plates and screws to hold the cheekbone in place but, apparently, our boy didn’t require this. He’s a total fraud and doesn’t deserve all the sympathy he gets.”

Cheryl dug Simon playfully in the stomach. “You total bag of wind, no one could have been more concerned about him than you were.”

“But that was when I thought he was severely injured. Now all he needs is tucking up in bed with a cup of hot cocoa and that, Cheryl old darling, I can safely leave to you. So
buenos tardes
and
adios amigos
! My bags are packed and I’m off to see my chums in Brighton. Have fun in my absence.”

For some reason Cheryl looked uncomfortable, fiddling self-consciously with the buttons on her blouse. She stared at him as if uncertain what to say. “Can I get you a cup of tea?” she asked.

“Not for me, thanks,” he replied, self-consciously tightening his dressing gown.

She couldn’t keep it in any longer. The words came tumbling out. “Look, I want to know who attacked you and why he went mental. You must have some idea. Come on, cough up.” 

“I’ll tell you what I know,” he mumbled, “but my head was a bit scrambled at the time. He told me to stick to Shakespeare or worse would follow. He said I’d been making a nuisance of myself.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“How should I know? Perhaps he was referring to our extra-curricular activities.”

“Don’t joke about it, Freddie. This is serious.”

“I can see myself on the cobbles getting my head kicked in and the more I think about it, the angrier I get. Whatever the crazy maniac was trying to do, I’m not going to let him intimidate me.”

“Good for you.” Cheryl studied his battered face. “You’re looking tired. Why don’t you go and have forty winks. You’ll feel better for it. Don’t worry about me. There are plenty of books here to keep me amused.”

He watched her smoothing down her uncustomary long skirt and felt a tug of desire before shuffling off to the bedroom.

Three hours later, refreshed by a short sleep and wearing a blue slim fit shirt and beige chinos, he wandered into the lounge to find Cheryl curled up on the sofa surrounded by paperbacks. “My, don’t we look elegant,” she said approvingly.

“I raided your bookshelves for stuff on the young Elizabeth. What a selection - Neale, Starkey, Jenkins, they’re all here.” He had acquired the books in a car boot sale but never read them.

“I’ll tell you this much,” she said. “Elizabeth had an awful upbringing. The poor little thing spent her childhood in mortal terror. To be only two when your father executes your mother, to have four stepmothers, to be sexually abused by your last stepmother’s husband, to be implicated in plots to overthrow your half-brother and sister, to be under house arrest and put in the Tower, to be declared illegitimate and constantly pressurized to change your religion - talk about living by your wits.”

Freddie doubted whether anyone could crowd so much drama into their adolescent years.

Cheryl swung her legs off the sofa to make room for him. “Imagine you are a tiny tot used to wearing lovely dresses,” she began. He struggled to do so. “Suddenly you are sent away from court. All you hear is backstairs gossip. Servants whispering that your father has executed your mother and declared you a bastard. Do you know how Elizabeth behaves? She never cries for her mother. Not once. The past is buried with Anne Boleyn. She talks about her father’s greatness and how she wants to please him. She’s only a kid and yet she’s already learned to guard her tongue in case the walls have ears.”

“So she’s a quick learner.” 

“She had to be.”      

“Was she emotionally frigid? Scarred by her early experiences as some historians claim?” 

“Do me a favour,” Cheryl scoffed at the idea. “We are talking about the daughter of Henry Tudor and Anne Boleyn here. The Boleyn women had loads of sex appeal. Anne’s sister Mary had been the king’s mistress while her mother was supposed to have shown Henry the ropes when he was a lad. A lustful king like Henry would never have turned his kingdom upside down for an ice maiden. No, Anne was fully hot and she did what a clever woman had to do to secure a good marriage – she used her body as a bargaining chip.”

“If Elizabeth hadn’t liked sex,” she continued, “why did she indulge in slap and tickle with the admiral?”

“And who would that be?”     

“Thomas Seymour, the Lord High Admiral of England.”

“I assume he got that fancy title because he was Jane Seymour’s brother. Apart from molesting underage girls, what was he good at?”

“Not a lot really. The admiral never spent much time at sea. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. But he was an accomplished seducer; you have to give him credit for that. Women adored him, particularly the Dowager Queen Katherine Parr.”

Henry VIII’s sixth wife married Thomas Seymour shortly after she was widowed. By then his elder brother was the Lord Protector at Edward VI’s court and the fourteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth was entrusted to his keeping in Chelsea. Having got Katherine pregnant, Seymour acquired a key to Elizabeth’s bedchamber and took to entering her room every morning in his night shift for what would now be called fantasy foreplay. They pretended the princess’ bed was a Spanish galleon on which she tried to repel boarders before succumbing to his powerful embrace.

The glint in Cheryl’s eye suggested a liking for such nautical adventures. “My last boyfriend taught me a game called ‘The Princess and the Pirate.’ Fancy playing it, Freddie?”

“Later perhaps,” he said. “Did Catherine Parr know what was going on under her roof?”

“That’s the odd thing. She was like this pious Protestant lady, strait-laced in the extreme, yet she actually joined in Seymour’s sex romps. Once when walking with Elizabeth in the garden, she pinioned the girl’s arms while Seymour took a knife to her dress and cut it to pieces.”