Free The Queen's Cipher by David Taylor Page B

Bacon writing Shakespeare’s plays.”
    Sebastian patted her hand. “Calm down, Julia. You are over-reacting. All you’ve done is to examine a Francis Bacon letter. Presumably it was genuine?”
    “Oh yes, the letter was genuine but it contained some kind of cipher and goodness knows what that might reveal. This fake major is plotting something, I feel it in my bones, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. I’m in the running to be the next Warden of Warbeck College but there’s stiff competition and the smallest whiff of scandal will be enough to ruin my chances.”
    “This is what we are going to do,” he said, reaching across the table to take her hand. “Hire an investigator to find this bogus bookseller, discover what his game is and keep you out of it.”
    “You’ll do this for me,” she said.
    “Of course I will.”
    “Then so be it.” Julia began to relax. A weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Had she known the consequences, her joy would have been short-lived.

14 APRIL 2014
    He enjoyed shaving. It was a satisfying ritual that hadn’t changed much since his days on the West End stage. Applied with a badger brush, the lather from the Truefitt & Hill shaving cream softened and moistened the skin letting the triple-bladed razor glide over the greying stubble on his chin. A sprinkling of lavender water and a quick look in the mirror completed this well-rehearsed manoeuvre. The face gazing back at him was the one Dame Julia Walker-Roberts had seen in Verona but without the moustache, the neatly parted hair or the walking stick.
    How he had loved impersonating the short-changing book dealer from Hove. But the time for pretence was over. Major Duncan and Bard-lite were back in the prop basket. He would greet his guests as Donald Strachan, a silver-haired man in an open-necked shirt and khaki shorts who had once been a famous actor and was now marooned on a rusty Shoreham houseboat.
    He went out onto the deck to sniff the salty, sea-scented early morning air and salute the flag. Where had that woman got to? He couldn’t have her wandering off when there was so much work to be done. Then he remembered. She was collecting the mail. With a guilty start he snatched a pair of binoculars off the upper deck seating and began to search for her.
    By now, dark grey clouds were gathering overhead, heavy with intention, but even in the mounting gloom he could pick out his partner sashaying out of the leisure centre on her high heels. Even in a plastic mackintosh and approaching forty, Antonia Alvarez was a stunning sight. Training his glasses on her, he saw she was studying a cream coloured envelope. Oh, my God, he thought, she’s got Dame Julia’s letter and is wondering why it’s postmarked Oxford. She’s thinking he doesn’t know any Oxford women but, then again, he hadn’t known that gardener from the Royal Horticultural Society until she caught them in the flower beds. Bollocks, she’s bound to think the worst. Why didn’t I collect the bloody post myself?
    The guilty philanderer’s bushy eyebrows began to twitch and quiver as he saw how closely she was examining the letter, holding it up to the damp, misty south coast air and sniffing it suspiciously. He lowered his field glasses and prowled around the deck trying to think up an excuse. He loved his Argentine mistress dearly but hadn’t seen fit to tell her about his Italian trip. She would have wanted to know how he could afford such a luxury while living on income support. Instead, he had talked vaguely about a long day’s research in Worthing public library and she had swallowed his story.
    Strachan brushed drops of rain off his face and looked at the coils of blue smoke rising from the houseboat’s chimney. It was always cold and damp on the good ship Silly Mid On . Antonia hated the name, which he refused to explain, dismissing the matter by saying that people who played barbaric games like polo and football couldn’t possibly