The Queen's Cipher

by David Taylor

  “‘Brave souls and many, to Hades hurled it down …’ Damn it, no!” The sheet was scrunched up and drop kicked expertly into the wastepaper basket. In wrestling with Homer’s slow stepping spondees and dactylic hexameter the Master of Beaufort couldn’t find the flowing translation he was looking for.

  Freddie cleared his throat. “You wanted to see me, Master.”

  “Come in Brett,” said Sir Alan, slumping into his desk chair. “You find me in the Slough of Despond. My words should be as sharp as the arrow that pierced Achilles’ heel, not blunt and lifeless. The trick lies in combining grammatical form with verse structure and it’s not coming. Now what did I want to see you about?”

  Freddie couldn’t answer that. He felt like a small boy waiting for the cane in the headmaster’s study.

  “Take a pew anyway. Ah yes, I remember, library books and the dead professor. That’s what we need to talk about. You do realize it’s an offence to let somebody use your university library card?”

  The question completely threw him. “Of course I do. There must be some mistake. I haven’t loaned my card to anyone. Look, I’ve got it here.”

  He pulled his credit card holder out of his wallet expecting to see the familiar blue-stripe university card with which members of staff were issued. But it wasn’t there.

  “I-I’m awfully sorry, Master, I seem to have mislaid it.”

  “Well, somebody has your card and they’ve been borrowing books wholesale. OLIS threw this up.” At Oxford OLIS was God. The university computer system was held to be infallible.

  “Your online borrowing record reveals you’ve got twenty books out at present, all of them on secret messaging and the works of Francis Bacon, which I find rather disturbing.”

  Freddie trembled with rage. “Well, I haven’t got these books. I can promise you that. You’re welcome to search my flat if you don’t believe me.”

  Sir Alan looked at him coldly. “Let me ask you something else. You know Professor Cartwright was working on a Channel Four documentary.”

  “I read something to that effect.”

  “Well, I’ve had a phone call from the producer and they’re pressing ahead with the show. They have persuaded Professor Cleaver to speak on Cartwright’s behalf and will claim you were the plagiarist, not Cartwright. You stole his work. More alarmingly, they possess further proof of literary theft on your part. I refused to discuss this over the phone. Do you know what they’re talking about?”

  “No, I don’t,” Freddie replied heatedly, “and I resent the implication.”

  The Master’s eyebrows shot up. “They are making a serious allegation – that you committed the very crime of which you accused your tutor.”

  “Haven’t we been through this before?” Freddie’s anger was rising. “Where’s the new evidence?”

  “Here,” Sir Alan said, opening a drawer in his desk and handing Freddie a printout. “This arrived half an hour ago. It’s a copy of an email sent to you.”

  Freddie hadn’t accessed his email. Someone called Fiona Middleton wanted to know why, in a published article, he had ‘borrowed’ from Duncan-Jones’s Ungentle Shakespeare and, in a magazine piece, from Claire Asquith’s Shadowplay. Ms Middleton admitted plagiarism wasn’t a cut and dry affair but added that on other occasions he had virtually ‘copied out’ someone else’s work.

  “I sympathize Brett, I really do.” The Master appeared to be studying the highly polished surface of his wooden desk. “An academic researcher is like a sponge, soaking up information and forgetting where it came from. As for Shakespeare, we know he borrowed wholesale from Ovid.”

  Freddie felt sure there was a ‘but’ coming. In climbing Oxford’s political ladder, Sir Alan had learned to be conservative. Certain core values were essential in the academic community and Beaufort had a policy of zero tolerance where plagiarism was concerned.

  “But I’m afraid we will have to take this further. Repeated cribbing is a serious matter. It creates a perception of deliberate wrongdoing.”

  “Can’t you see what’s going on here,” he yelled. “This is Cleaver’s doing. The bastard wants to destroy me. I bet he’s been onto you, poisoning the well, telling you what a good guy Cartwright was. You didn’t believe this when Cartwright was alive. Why do so now he’s dead.”

  The Master moved uneasily in his chair. Milton Cleaver had rung him barely an hour ago, informing him ‘as a friend and colleague’ that Beaufort had made a serious mistake over Dr Brett.

  “I am sorry, Brett,” Sir Alan said in a flat voice. “There will have to be a college disciplinary hearing. In the meanwhile, I would s-strongly advise you n-not to talk to the m-media.”

  A sentence with three stutters in it had to be taken seriously.

  Friday 16 May 2014 • Cherwell

  Brett Charged with Plagiarism

  When it comes to high drama, Beaufort’s controversial research fellow Dr Freddie Brett is never far away. Hot on the heels of the Cartwright affair, when he accused his tutor of stealing his dissertation, comes the news that he too is being charged with literary theft. The biter bit? We don’t think so. We believe this is a smokescreen. Oxford’s Eng. Lit. Establishment hasn’t forgiven him for his outspoken attack on the late Professor Dawkins’ turgid Shakespeare biography and is out for blood. Word is Brett’s disciplinary tribunal will turn into a kangaroo court. What’s at stake here is not the young whippersnapper’s purple prose but the more serious issue of academic freedom. Remember, you heard it here first.

  17 MAY 2014

  Stratford-upon-Avon had an identity crisis. A town trying to retain the quaintness of Old England while wholeheartedly embracing commercialism was bound to suffer from a split personality. This built-in tension was all too apparent in its broad thoroughfares where black and white Tudor style frontages sat disapprovingly above the plate glass windows of coffee shops and car-phone warehouses. Gradually, the high street shops were erasing Stratford’s true character.

  On a bright if blustery morning pedestrians had to fight their way along the street against a north-east wind that whipped through women’s dresses and sent pensioners tottering. Some of the surrounding architecture looked equally insecure; top heavy dwellings with overhanging jetties that seemed ready to tumble into the street below.

  It was in one of these precariously balanced Grade Two listed buildings that Much Ado Tours had offices. As the owner of this travel firm, it had been Sebastian Christie’s decision to rent an upper floor. He could have acquired much cheaper premises but felt a business marketing Shakespearean package tours deserved a period setting.

  More for the customer’s benefit than his own comfort, Sebastian was perched on a hard Tudor settle chair behind an oak desk with rope twist legs. On the other side of the desk a slightly built American woman in an anorak and baseball cap was haranguing him but his thoughts were elsewhere, focussed on the tiny particles of dust that hung in the air before settling on the glass partition that separated him from his secretary.

  Back in the world of package tours he was being challenged. “Have you heard a word I’ve said?” demanded the harassed holiday agent.

  “Of course I have,” Sebastian retorted, “and I can feel your pain. Your Seattle group did not enjoy their night at the theatre. That is the gist of your complaint, is it not? To which I would answer, Madison, that there is nothing wrong with the auditorium. The thrust stage creates a more intimate relationship with the actors, the upholstered seats are comfortable and the sightlines excellent.”

  “No, they’re not. Not in the upper circle where there is no leg room and the security rail gets in the way. You have to bend forward to see even half the stage.”

  “Then you should have paid more; asked us to book you seats in the circle.”

  Madison shifted her line of attack. The Seattle ladies had found the theatre uncomfortably hot.

  Sebastian sighed deeply. “In this country we don’t really do air conditioning. It’s seldom necessary. Althoug
h I am bound to say that the ventilation is much better in our new theatre.”

  “That’s not …” She got no further. Sebastian silenced her with an imperious wave of the hand. “Hamlet is a very long play. That is how Shakespeare wrote it. If you thought it would prove too much for your ladies, who may prefer their culture in a shorter form, you should have chosen The Comedy of Errors. In these circumstances we cannot possibly entertain a refund.”

  Having grown up in the Bronx, Madison was not easily bested. As Sebastian listened to her increasingly febrile reflections on overpriced theatre programmes and interval drinks he wondered whether he was really cut out for this kind of work. Instead of pandering to go-getting Americans, he should be a don at High Table, cracking nuts and old jokes, with Julia smiling at him as he passed the port. And as if by magic, there she was, Oxford’s most distinguished Shakespeare scholar, in his outer office, waiting to get a word with him.

  “I am sorry, Madison, I really am, but something has come up. I hope the rest of your trip is a huge success and that you won’t allow this little hiccup to interfere with our business relationship.”

  He rose to his feet and showed her the door less graciously than he had intended.

  With Madison out of the way he could concentrate on his old flame. He noticed her understated elegance - the Hermes silk scarf, the black suit and the calf length leather boots – and felt drawn to her. Even now, in her formidable middle age, she had a powerful influence on him.

  “Julia,” he said, kissing her on both cheeks and ushering her into his office. “How are you today?”

  “Very well, thank you. The Spectator wants an article on Oxford’s academic contribution to English literature. I’ve told the magazine editor it is a case of arrested development. The dons who wrote the best books like Lewis Carroll, Tolkien and C.S Lewis did so for children.”

  “Is that so?” Not so much a question as a general wondering.

  Julia felt the need to explain her presence. “I was in Stratford this morning for a theatre trust meeting and I thought I’d drop in on you.”

  She rummaged around in her shoulder bag. “Like the Greeks, I come bearing gifts. I knew you wanted this.” She handed him a CD of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites. “There are only two operas that really move me – La Boheme and this one – and I think Dialogues has the more effective ending.”

  Not knowing what to say he kissed her again. “How about an early lunch?” he asked.

  “That would be lovely,” she replied. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t drink. I’ve got a conference at five and university finance is a sobering subject at the best of times.”

  The words were innocent enough and her eyes fixed upon him but he could tell her thoughts were elsewhere. Was it some emphasis of voice or the way she was fiddling with her silk scarf.

  “By the way,” she added brightly, “I saw your ad in the local paper. Why does a tour company need an academic consultant?”

  He smiled at her. “Blame my American partners for that. Ever since they came on the board they’ve been pressing me to appoint a theatre guide with expert knowledge of the Shakespeare plays. They think it will enhance the theatregoing experience.”

  “Have you filled the post yet?”

  “Not so far. Have you somebody in mind? I’m sure the cousins would greatly appreciate a recommendation from you.”

  Julia looked at him, hearing rather more than he meant, and began to talk in a distracted fashion. The words tumbled out in half sentences that had to be pieced together to form a narrative. There was a young lecturer at Beaufort College in whom she took a special interest. As a boy he had seen his parents blown up by a terrorist bomb in Northern Ireland. He was psychologically damaged, a loner, and yet he had a brilliant mind and was very different from the current crop of students who wore their cynicism like a badge. He might fit the bill.

  But that wasn’t the only thing she had come to say. “I’m having more trouble with Major Duncan,” she sighed, her lower lip trembling.

  “Do you mean the fake one with the odd forwarding address?”

  “No, not him, the one you met at the Frankfurt Book Fair. He’s been in touch with a colleague of mine about a Bacon genealogy that will cast a new light on sixteenth-century history. There’s some kind of scam going on and I’m going to be caught up in it. You can see that, can’t you Seb?”

  Actually he couldn’t. All he could see were the tears welling up in her eyes.

  “They’re playing games with me.”

  He murmured a few polite negatives - surely not and you must be mistaken – but she wasn’t listening to him. “I thought you were going to find someone who’d make discreet inquiries but I haven’t heard a thing.”

  It simply wasn’t Sebastian Christie’s day. Here was another woman reproaching him for his shortcomings.

  “Look, I found an investigator who made preliminary inquiries. The man you met in Verona is called Donald Strachan, a once famous Shakespearean actor living on a houseboat in Shoreham who buys and sells Jacobean memorabilia. The private detective believes Strachan disguised himself in order to enhance his status. Says he’s harmless. I was going to tell you this at our next meeting. I really do want to help ...” He ran out of words.

  “What about the real Major Duncan?” she persisted.

  “There didn’t seem any point in checking him out. His name had simply been taken in vain.”

  Julia blew her nose on her handkerchief. “Well, that’s no longer the case. The two men must be working together. And you know why this bothers me. I’ve got a lot to lose.”

  He wanted to tell her what he felt about her but now was not the right time.

  “Alright Julia, if that’s what you want. I’ll get my man on to it. Now lunch is calling.”

  Julia gave him a hug. Here we are, she thought, rolling back the years, sharing things again.

  21 MAY 2014

  The low front hovered overhead leaching the colour out of the countryside. Fog clung to the flood plain like ancient sin and for the lone runner looming out of the watery haze there was no end in sight. The track-suited athlete had perfect control over his body, understood how each muscle and sinew worked, but his melancholy showed no sign of lifting, resembling sorrow as mist resembles rain, muffling the senses in its eerie stillness.

  In running through the wet pastureland until his lungs burst, Freddie hoped to lose himself in a world of pain. To pound away until there wasn’t a thought left in his head. Passing the longhorn cattle in Christ Church Meadow for a second time he pulled up, drenched from his exertions, and admitted defeat. As an exercise in forgetfulness, it had been a dismal failure. Everything he came across reminded him of her and how she had played him for a fool. Beauty without truth was a lethal cocktail.

  He would never get over her betrayal. That she was sleeping with her head of department was bad enough but to learn about it from a hysterical American woman made things far worse. Winona Cleaver had wept down the line; telling him how she had overheard Milton’s indiscreet long-distance conversation and jotted down the telephone number. Are you aware, she shrieked, that your wife is having an affair with my husband. He had been too shocked to correct her. He had simply hung up. But he couldn’t get rid of the picture stamped on his brain: bodies intertwining in a tableau of treachery.

  He glanced at his watch. There was time for a quick shower before meeting the London train. Donald Strachan would be on it. The old actor claimed to have exciting news of an American publisher for a book that they might write together. Freddie wasn’t looking forward to the meeting. He would have to reject the offer. He couldn’t afford to tilt at any more academic windmills, not when he was facing police inquiries and a college disciplinary tribunal.

  Then, in a single moment, standing beside the chewing cattle, panting for breath, passion replaced reason. Cleaver had got under his skin and like a parasitic protozoan he was burrowing into his brain. He hated the man for taking his girl a
nd trying to harm his career. But it went deeper than that. Cleaver and his kind were opposed to freedom of thought. They saw themselves as the guardians of history but it was the old problem of who guards the guardians. Establishments had tried to control the flow of information ever since the Catholic Inquisition. However modern he might seem, Cleaver actually stood for the thumbscrews and the rack. He had to be stopped.

  “To hell with it,” Freddie yelled aloud. “I’ll show the bastard!”

  22 MAY 2014

  In an oak-framed building called Bookmark, a mahogany wall clock chimed the hour as a well dressed grey-haired man sniffed a leather-bound volume and sighed with pleasure as he ran his hand over its soft spine. Appearances mattered in his world. Everything should be spic-and-span. Hence the navy blue blazer, pink and white striped shirt and sharply creased wool flannels. A good soldier should always respect himself and what he did.

  Books were easy to respect. They were living things. He could hear their sounds and smell their scents, the musty but somehow compelling aroma of decaying parchment and rotting wood; he could stroke their marbled covers and even taste them when he moistened his fingers to turn a page: row upon row of shining editions with their red, blue and gilt bindings like ceremonial soldiers on parade.

  But there was no parade ground now, just a bookshop with a second-hand section where customers had to contend with uneven floors, low lintels and exceptionally narrow catwalks. Book lovers needed to be thin and athletic to browse here. Not that it mattered financially as most of Bookmark’s business was with private libraries and interior decorators.

  Gone were the days when an antique bookseller could make a living out of dealing with the general public. The new ‘collectors’ were not interested in reading. Books had become elegant accessories adding panache to a rich man’s room and designers bought them by the truckload. The talk was of quantity, size and richness of hue. Orders placed by the linear yard, fifty books to a six foot shelf. He might as well be in haberdashery.