'I'm sorry' began the embarrassed chief pathologist.
'No, you're not,' responded Stig, 'your interest is purely professional and in the pursuit of knowledge. We take no offence.'
'We're here to look at Mr Shaxtper,' said Bowden.
We were led to the main autopsy room, where several bodies were lying under sheets with tags on their toes.
'Overcrowding,' said Mr Rumplunkett, 'but they don't seem to complain too much. This the one?'
He threw back a sheet. The cadaver had a high-domed head, deep-set eyes, a small moustache and goatee. It looked a lot like William Shakespeare from the Droeshout engraving on the title page of the first folio.
'What do you think?'
'Okay,' I said slowly, 'he looks like Shakespeare, but if Victor wore his hair like that, so would he.'
Bowden nodded. It was a fair point.
'And this one wrote the Basil Brush sonnet?'
'No; that particular sonnet was written by this one.'
With a flourish Bowden pulled back the sheet from another cadaver to reveal a corpse identical to the first, only a year or two younger. I stared at them both as Bowden revealed yet another.
'So how many Shakespeares did you say you had?'
'Officially, none. We've got a Shaxtper, a Shakespoor and a Shagsper. Only two of them had any writing on them, all have ink-stained fingers, all are genetically identical, and all died of disease or hypothermia brought on by self-neglect.'
'Down-and-outs?'
'Hermits is probably nearer the mark.'
'Aside from the fact that they all have left eyes and one size of toe,' said Stig, who had been examining the cadavers at length, 'they are very good indeed. We haven't seen this sort of craftsmanship for years.'
'They're copies of a playwright named William Shakes'
'We know of Shakespeare, Mr Cable,' interrupted Stig. 'We are particularly fond of Caliban from The Tempest. This is a deep recovery job. Brought back from a piece of dried skin or a hair in a death mask or something.'
'When and where, Stig?'
He thought for a moment.
'They were probably built in the mid-thirties,' he announced. 'At the time there were perhaps only ten biolabs in the world that could have done this. We think we can safely say we are looking at one of the three biggest genetic engineering labs in England.'
'Not possible,' said Bowden. 'The manufacturing records of York, Bognor Regis and Scunthorpe are in the public domain; it would be inconceivable that a project of this magnitude could have been kept secret.'
'And yet they exist,' replied Stig, pointing to the corpses and bringing Bowden's argument to a rapid close. 'Do you have the genome logs and trace element spectroscopic evaluations?' he added. 'More careful study might reveal something.'
'That's not standard autopsy procedure,' replied Rumplunkett. 'I have my budget to think of'
'If you do a molar cross-section as well we will donate our body to this department when we die.'
'I'll do them for you while you wait,' said Mr Rumplunkett.
Stig turned back to us.
'We'll need forty-eight hours to have a look at them shall we meet again at my house? We would be honoured by your presence.'
He looked me in the eye. He would know if I lied.
'I'd like that very much.'
'We, too. Wednesday at midday?'
'I'll be there.'
The Neanderthal raised his hat, gave a small grunt and moved off.
'Well,' said Bowden as soon as Stig was out of earshot, 'I hope you like eating beetles and dock leaves.'
'You and me both, Bowden you're coming too. If he wanted me and me alone, he would have asked me in private but I'm sure he'll make something more palatable for us.'
I frowned as we walked blinking back out into the sunlight.
'Bowden?'
'Yup?'
'Did Stig say anything that seemed unusual to you?'
'Not really. Do you want to hear my plans for infil'
Bowden stopped talking in mid-sentence as the world ground to a halt. Time had ceased to exist. I was trapped between one moment and the next. It could only be my father.
'Hello, Sweetpea,' he said cheerfully, giving me a hug, 'how did the Superhoop turn out?'
'That's next Saturday.'
'Oh!' he said, looking at his watch and frowning. 'You won't let me down, will you?'
'How will I not let you down? What's the connection between the Superhoop and Kaine?'
'I can't tell you. Events must unfold naturally or there'll be hell to pay. You'll just have to trust me.'
'Did you come all this way just to not tell me anything?'
'Not at all. It's a Trafalgar thing. I've been trying all sorts of plans but Nelson stubbornly resists surviving. I think I've figured it out, but I need your help.'
'Will this take long?' I asked. 'I've got a lot to do and I have to get home before my mother finds I've left a gorilla in charge of Friday.'
'I think I am right in saying,' replied my father with a smile, 'that this will take no time at all if you'd prefer, even less!'
21
Victory on the Victory
RAUNCHY ADMIRAL IN LOVE CHILD SHOCK
Our sources can reveal exclusively in this paper that Admiral Lord Nelson, the nations darling and much-decorated war hero, is the father of a daughter with Lady Emma Hamilton, wife of Sir William Hamilton. The affair has been going on for some time, apparently with the full knowledge of both Sir William and lady Nelson, from whom the hero of the Nile is now estranged. Full story, page two; leader, page three; lurid engravings, pages four, seven, and nine; hypocritical moralistic comment, page ten; bawdy cartoon featuring an overweight Lady Hamilton, pages twelve and thirteen. Also in this issue: reports of the French and Spanish defeat at Cape Trafalgar, page thirty-two, column four.
There was a succession of flickering lights and we were on the deck of a fully rigged battleship that heaved in a long swell as the wind gathered in its sails. The deck was scrubbed for action and a sense of expectancy hung over the vessel. We were sailing abreast with two other men-of-war, and to landward a column of French ships sailed on a course that would bring us into conflict. Men shouted, the ship creaked, the sails heaved and pennants fluttered in the breeze. We were on board Nelson's flagship, the Victory.
I looked around. High on the quarterdeck stood a group of men, uniformed officers in navy blue jackets, cream breeches and cockade hats. Among them was a smaller man with one arm of his uniform tucked neatly into a jacket festooned with medals and decorations. He couldn't have been a better target if he'd tried.
'It would be hard to miss him,' I breathed.
'We keep telling him that but he's pretty pig-headed about it and won't budge just says they are military orders and he does not fear to show them to the enemy. Would you like a gobstopper?'
He offered me a small paper bag which I declined. The vessel heeled over again and we watched in silence as the distance between the two ships steadily closed.
'I never get bored of this. See them?'
I followed his gaze to where three people were huddled on the other side of a large coil of rope. One was dressed in the uniform of the ChronoGuard, another was holding a clipboard and the third had what looked like a TV camera on his shoulder.
'Documentary-makers from the twenty-second century,' explained my father, hailing the other ChronoGuard operative. 'Hello, Malcolm, how's it going?'
'Well, thanks!' replied the agent. 'Got into the soup a bit when I lost that cameraman at Pompe. Wanted an extra close-up or something.'
'Hard cheese, old man, hard cheese. Golf after work?'
'Right-o!' replied Malcolm, returning to his charges.
'It's nice being back at work, actually,' confessed my father, turning back to me. 'Sure you won't have a gobstopper?'