‘What’s the special?’ asked Bowden.
‘Soupe d’Auverge au Fromage,’ replied Lottie, ‘followed by Rojoes Cominho.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘It’s braised pork with cumin, coriander and lemon,’ replied Bowden.
‘Sounds great.’
‘Two specials please and a carafe of mineral water.’
She nodded, scribbled a note and gave me a sad smile before departing.
Bowden looked at me with interest. He would have guessed eventually that I was ex-military. I wore it badly.
‘Crimea veteran, eh? Did you know Colonel Phelps was in town?’
‘I bumped into him on the airship yesterday. He wanted me to go to one of his rallies.’
‘Will you?’
‘You must be kidding. His idea of the perfect end to the Crimean conflict is for us to fight and fight until there is no one left alive and the peninsula’s a poisoned and mined land no good for anything. I’m hoping that the UN can bring both governments to their senses.’
‘I was called up in ‘78,’ said Bowden. ‘Even got past basic training. Fortunately it was the same year the Czar died and the Crown Prince took over. There were more pressing demands on the young Emperor’s time, so the Russians withdrew. I was never needed.’
‘I was reading somewhere that since the war started, only seven years of the one hundred and thirty-one have actually been spent fighting.’
‘But when they do,’ added Bowden, ‘they certainly make up for it.’
I looked at him. He had taken a sip of water after offering the carafe to me first.
‘Married? Kids?’
‘No,’ replied Bowden. ‘I haven’t really had time to find myself a wife, although I am not against the idea in principle. It’s just that SpecOps is not really a great place for meeting people and I’m not, I confess, a great socialiser. I’ve been short-listed for a post opening the equivalent of a LiteraTec office in Ohio; it seems to me the perfect opportunity to take a wife.’
‘The money’s good over there and the facilities are excellent. I’d consider it myself given the opportunity,’ I replied. I meant it, too.
‘Would you? Would you really?’ asked Bowden with a flush of excitement that was curiously at odds with his slightly cold demeanour.
‘Sure. Change of scenery,’ I stammered, wanting to change the subject in case Bowden got the wrong idea. ‘Have you—ah—been a LiteraTec long?’
Bowden thought for a moment.
‘Ten years. I came from Cambridge with a degree in nineteenth-century literature and joined the LiteraTecs straight away. Jim Crometty looked after me from the moment I started.’
He stared out of the window wistfully. ‘Perhaps if I’d been there—‘
‘—then you’d both be dead. Anyone who shoots a man six times in the face doesn’t go to Sunday school. He’d have killed you and not even thought about it. There’s little to be gained in what ifs; believe me, I know. I lost two fellow officers to Hades. I’ve been over it all a hundred times, yet it would probably happen exactly the same way if I had another chance.’
Lottie placed the soup in front of us with a basket of freshly baked bread.
‘Enjoy,’ said Lottie, ‘it’s on the house.’
‘But—!’ I began. Lottie silenced me.
‘Save your breath,’ she said impassively. ‘After the charge. After the shit hit the fan. After the first wave of death—you went back to do what you could. You went back. I value that.’ She turned and left.
The soup was good; the Rojoes Cominho even better.
‘Victor told me you worked on Shakespeare up in London,’ said Bowden.
It was the most prestigious area in which to work in the LiteraTec office. Lake poetry was a close second and Restoration comedy after that. Even in the most egalitarian of offices, a pecking order always established itself.
‘There was very little room for promotion in the London office so after a couple of years I was given the Shakespeare work,’ I replied, tearing at a piece of bread. ‘We get a lot of trouble from Baconians in London.’
Bowden looked up.
‘How do you rate the Baconian theory?’
‘Not much. Like many people I’m pretty sure there is more to Shakespeare than just Shakespeare. But Sir Francis Bacon using a little-known actor as a front? I just don’t buy it.’
‘He was a trained lawyer,’ asserted Bowden. ‘Many of the plays have legal parlance to them.’
‘It means nothing,’ I replied, ‘Greene, Nashe and especially Ben Jonson use legal phraseology; none of them had legal training. And don’t even get me started on the so-called codes. ‘
‘No need to worry about that,’ replied Bowden. ‘I won’t. I’m no Baconian either. He didn’t write them.’
‘And what would make you so sure?’
‘If you read his De Augmentis Sdentarium you’ll find Bacon actually criticising popular drama. Furthermore, when the troupe Shakespeare belonged to applied to the King to form a theatre, they were referred to the commissioner for suits. Guess who was on that panel and most vociferously opposed the application?’
‘Francis Bacon?’ I asked.
‘Exactly. Whoever wrote the plays, it wasn’t Bacon. I’ve formulated a few theories of my own over the years. Have you ever heard of Edward De Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘There is some proof that, unlike Bacon, he could actually write and write quite well—hang on.’
Lottie had brought a phone to the table. It was for Bowden. He wiped his mouth with a napkin.
‘Yes?’
He looked up at me.
‘Yes, she is. We’ll be right over. Thanks.’
‘Problems?’
‘It’s your aunt and uncle. I don’t know how to say this but… they’ve been kidnapped!’
There were several police and SpecOps cars clustered around the entrance to my mother’s house when we pulled up. A small crowd had assembled and was peering over the fence. The dodos had gathered on the other side and were staring back, wondering what the fuss was all about. I showed my badge to the officer on duty.
‘LiteraTec?’ he said scornfully. ‘Can’t let you in, ma’am. Police and SpecOps 9 only.’
‘He’s my uncle—!’ I said angrily, and the officer reluctantly let me through. Swindon was the same as London: a LiteraTec’s badge held about as much authority as a bus pass. I found my mother in the living room surrounded by damp Kleenex. I sat beside her and asked her what had happened.
She blew her nose noisily.
‘I called them in for dinner at one. It was snorkers, Mycroft’s favourite. There was no answer so I went down to his workshop. They were both gone and the double doors wide open. Mycroft wouldn’t have gone out without saying anything.’
This was true. Mycroft never left the house unless it was absolutely necessary; since Owens had been meringued Polly did all his running around.
‘Anything stolen?’ I asked a SpecOps 9 operative who stared at me coldly. He didn’t relish being asked questions by a LiteraTec.
‘Who knows?’ he replied with little emotion. ‘I understand you’d been in his workshop recently?’
‘Yesterday evening.’
‘Then perhaps you can have a look around and tell us if there is anything missing?’
I was escorted to Mycroft’s workshop. The rear doors had been forced and I looked around carefully. The table where Mycroft had kept all his bookworms had been cleared; all I could see was the massive two-pronged power lead that would have slotted into the back of the Prose Portal.
‘There was something right here. Several goldfish bowls full up with small worms and a large book a bit like a mediaeval church Bible—‘
‘Can you draw it?’ asked a familiar voice. I turned to see Jack Schitt lurking in the shadows, smoking a small cigarette and overseeing a Goliath technician who was passing a humming sensor over the ground.