Twelve Red Herrings Read online

  When I stepped into the interview room and saw the chief superintendent for the first time, I thought there must have been some mistake. I had never asked Fingers what the Don looked like, and over the past few days I had built up in my mind the image of some sort of superman. But the man who stood before me was a couple of inches shorter than me, and I’m only five foot ten. He was as thin as the proverbial rake and wore pebble-lensed horn-rimmed glasses, which gave the impression that he was half-blind. All he needed was a grubby raincoat and he could have been mistaken for a debt collector.

  Sir Matthew stepped forward to introduce us. I shook the policeman firmly by the hand. “Thank you for coming to visit me, chief superintendent,” I began. “Won’t you have a seat?” I added, as if he had dropped into my home for a glass of sherry.

  “Sir Matthew is very persuasive,” said Hackett, in a deep, gruff Yorkshire accent that didn’t quite seem to go with his body. “So tell me, Cooper, what do you imagine it is that I can do for you?” he asked as he took the chair opposite me. I detected an edge of cynicism in his voice.

  He opened a notepad and placed it on the table as I was about to begin my story. “For my use only,” he explained, “should I need to remind myself of any relevant details at some time in the future.” Twenty minutes later, I had finished the abbreviated version of the life and times of Richard Cooper. I had already gone over the story on several occasions in my cell during the past week, to be certain I didn’t take too long. I wanted to leave enough time for Hackett to ask any questions.

  “If I believe your story,” he said, “—and I only say ‘if’—you still haven’t explained what it is you think I can do for you.”

  “You’re due to leave the force in five months’ time,” I said. “I wondered if you had any plans once you’ve retired.”

  He hesitated. I had obviously taken him by surprise.

  “I’ve been offered a job with Group 4, as area manager for West Yorkshire.”

  “And how much will they be paying you?” I asked bluntly.

  “It won’t be full time,” he said. “Three days a week, to start with.” He hesitated again. “Twenty thousand a year, guaranteed for three years.”

  “I’ll pay you a hundred thousand a year, but I’ll expect you to be on the job seven days a week. I assume you’ll be needing a secretary and an assistant—that Inspector Williams who’s leaving at the same time as you might well fit the bill—so I’ll also supply you with enough money for backup staff, as well as the rent for an office.”

  A flicker of respect appeared on the chief superintendent’s face for the first time. He made some more notes on his pad.

  “And what would you expect of me in return for such a large sum of money?” he asked.

  “That’s simple. I expect you to find Jeremy Alexander.”

  This time he didn’t hesitate. “My God,” he said. “You really are innocent. Sir Matthew and the warden both tried to convince me you were.”

  “And if you find him within seven years,” I added, ignoring his comment, “I’ll pay a further five hundred thousand into any branch of any bank in the world that you stipulate.”

  “The Midland, Bradford will suit me just fine,” he replied. “It’s only criminals who find it necessary to retire abroad. In any case, I have to be in Bradford every other Saturday afternoon, so I can be around to watch City lose.” Hackett rose from his place and looked hard at me for some time. “One last question, Mr. Cooper. Why seven years?”

  “Because after that period, my wife can sell Alexander’s shares, and he’ll become a multimillionaire overnight.”

  The chief superintendent nodded his understanding. “Thank you for asking to see me,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I enjoyed visiting anyone in jail, especially someone convicted of murder. I’ll give your offer serious consideration, Mr. Cooper, and let you know my decision by the end of the week.” He left without another word.

  Hackett wrote to me three days later, accepting my offer.

  I didn’t have to wait five months for him to start working for me, because he handed in his resignation within a fortnight—though not before I had agreed to continue his pension contributions, and those of the two colleagues he wanted to leave the force and join him. Having now disposed of all my Cooper’s shares, the interest on my deposit account was earning me over four hundred thousand a year, and as I was living rent-free, Hackett’s request was a minor consideration.

  I would have shared with you in greater detail everything that happened to me over the following months, but during that time I was so preoccupied with briefing Hackett that I filled only three pages of my blue-lined prison paper. I should however mention that I studied several law books, to be sure that I fully understood the meaning of the legal term “autrefois acquit.”

  The next important date in the diary was my appeal hearing.

  Matthew—at his request I had long ago stopped calling him “Sir” Matthew—tried valiantly not to show that he was becoming more and more confident of the outcome, but I was getting to know him so well that he was no longer able to disguise his true feelings. He told me how delighted he was with the makeup of the reviewing panel. “Fair and just,” he kept repeating.

  Later that night he told me with great sadness that his wife Victoria had died of cancer a few weeks before. “A long illness and a blessed release,” he called it.

  I felt guilty in his presence for the first time. Over the past eighteen months, we had only ever discussed my problems.

  I must have been one of the few prisoners at Armley who ever had a tailor visit him in his cell. Matthew suggested that I should be fitted with a new suit before I faced the appeal tribunal, as I had lost several pounds since I had been in jail. When the tailor had finished measuring me and began rolling up his tape, I insisted that Fingers return his cigarette lighter, although I did allow him to keep the cigarettes.

  Ten days later, I was escorted from my cell at five o’clock in the morning. My fellow inmates banged their tin mugs against their locked doors, the traditional way of indicating to the prison staff that they believed the man leaving for trial was innocent. Like some great symphony, it lifted my soul.

  I was driven to London in a police car accompanied by two prison officers. We didn’t stop once on the entire journey, and arrived in the capital a few minutes after nine; I remember looking out of the window and watching the commuters scurrying to their offices to begin the day’s work. Any one of them who’d glanced at me sitting in the back of the car in my new suit, and was unable to spot the handcuffs, might have assumed I was a chief inspector at least.

  Matthew was waiting for me at the entrance of the Old Bailey, a mountain of papers tucked under each arm. “I like the suit,” he said, before leading me up some stone steps to the room where my fate would be decided.

  Once again I sat impassively in the dock as Sir Matthew rose from his place to address the three appeal judges. His opening statement took him nearly an hour, and by now I felt I could have delivered it quite adequately myself, though not as eloquently, and certainly nowhere near as persuasively. He made much play of how Jeremy had left all his worldly goods to Rosemary, who in turn had sold our family house in Leeds, cashed in all her Cooper’s shares within months of the takeover, pushed through a quickie divorce, and then disappeared off the face of the earth with an estimated seven million pounds. I couldn’t help wondering just how much of that Jeremy had already got his hands on.

  Sir Matthew repeatedly reminded the panel of the police’s inability to produce a body, despite the fact they now seemed to have dug up half of Leeds.

  I became more hopeful with each new fact Matthew placed before the judges. But after he had finished, I still had to wait another three days to learn the outcome of their deliberations.

  Appeal dismissed. Reasons reserved.

  Matthew traveled up to Armley that Friday to tell me why he thought my appeal had been turned down without explanation. He felt
that the judges must have been divided, and needed more time to make it appear as if they were not.

  “How much time?” I asked.

  “My hunch is that they’ll parole you within a few months. They were obviously influenced by the police’s failure to produce a body, unimpressed by the trial judge’s summing up, and impressed by the strength of your case.”

  I thanked Matthew, who, for once, left the room with a smile on his face.

  You may be wondering what Chief Superintendent Hackett—or rather ex-Chief Superintendent Hackett—had been up to while all this was going on.

  He had not been idle. Inspector Williams and Constable Kenwright had left the force on the same day as he had. Within a week they had opened up a small office above the Constitutional Club in Bradford and begun their investigations. The Don reported to me at four o’clock every Sunday afternoon.

  Within a month he had compiled a thick file on the case, with detailed dossiers on Rosemary, Jeremy, the company and me. I spent hours reading through the information he had gathered, and was even able to help by filling in a few gaps. I quickly came to appreciate why the Don was so respected by my fellow inmates. He followed up every clue, and went down every side road, however much it looked like a cul-de-sac, because once in a while it turned out to be a highway.

  On the first Sunday in October, after Hackett had been working for four months, he told me that he thought he might have located Rosemary. A woman of her description was living on a small estate in the south of France called Villa Fleur.

  “How did you manage to track her down?” I asked.

  “Letter posted by her mother at her local mailbox. The postman kindly allowed me to have a look at the address on the envelope before it proceeded on its way,” Hackett said. “Can’t tel’ you how many hours we had to hang around, how many letters we’ve had to sift through, and how many doors we’ve knocked on in the past four months, just to get this one lead. Mrs. Kershaw seems to be a compulsive letter writer, but this was the first time she’s sent one to her daughter. By the way,” he added, “your wife has reverted to her maiden name. Calls herself Ms. Kershaw now.”

  I nodded, not wishing to interrupt him.

  “Williams flew out to Cannes on Wednesday, and he’s holed up in the nearest village, posing as a tourist He’s already been able to tell us that Ms. Kershaw’s house is surrounded by a ten-foot stone wall, and she has more guard dogs than trees. It seems the locals know even less about her than we do. But at least it’s a start.”

  I felt for the first time that Jeremy Alexander might at last have met his match, but it was to be another five Sundays, and five more interim reports, before a thin smile appeared on Hackett’s usually tight-lipped face.

  “Ms. Kershaw has placed an advertisement in the local paper,” he informed me. “It seems she’s in need of a new butler. At first I thought we should question the old butler at length as soon as he’d left, but as I couldn’t risk anything getting back to her, I decided Inspector Williams would have to apply for his job instead.”

  “But surely she’ll realize within moments that he’s totally unqualified to do the job.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Hackett, his smile broadening. “You see, Williams won’t be able to leave his present employment with the Countess of Rutland until he’s served a full month’s notice, and in the meantime we’ve signed him up for a special six-week course at Ivor Spencer’s School for Butlers. Williams has always been a quick learner.”

  “But what about references?”

  “By the time Rosemary Kershaw interviews him, he’ll have a set of references that would impress a duchess.”

  “I was told you never did anything underhanded.”

  “That is the case when I’m dealing with honest people, Mr. Cooper. Not when I’m up against a couple of crooks like this. I’m going to get those two behind bars, if it’s the last thing I do.”

  This was not the time to let Hackett know that the final chapter of this story, as I plotted it, did not conclude with Jeremy ending up in jail.

  Once Williams had been put on the shortlist for the position of Rosemary’s butler, I played my own small part in securing him the job. Rereading over the terms of the proposed contract gave me the idea.

  “Tell Williams to ask for 15,000 francs a month, and five weeks’ holiday,” I suggested to Hackett when he and Matthew visited me the following Sunday.

  “Why?” asked the ex-chief superintendent. “She’s only offering 11,000, and three weeks’ holiday.”

  “She can well afford to pay the difference, and with references like these,” I said, looking back down at my file, “she might become suspicious if he asked for anything less.”

  Matthew smiled and nodded.

  Rosemary finally offered Williams the job at 13,000 francs a month, with four weeks’ holiday a year, which after forty-eight hours’ consideration Williams accepted. But he did not join her for another month, by which time he had learned how to iron newspapers, lay place settings with a ruler, and tell the difference between a port, sherry and liqueur glass.

  I suppose that from the moment Williams took up the post as Rosemary’s butler, I expected instant results. But as Hackett pointed out to me Sunday after Sunday, this was hardly realistic.

  “Williams has to take his time,” explained the Don. “He needs to gain her confidence, and avoid giving her any reason for the slightest suspicion. It once took me five years to nail a drug smuggler who was only living half a mile up the road from me.”

  I wanted to remind him that it was me who was stuck in jail, and that five days was more like what I had in mind, but I knew how hard they were all working on my behalf, and tried not to show my impatience.

  Within a month Williams had supplied us with photographs and life histories of all the staff working on the estate, along with descriptions of everyone who visited Rosemary—even the local priest, who came hoping to collect a donation for French aid workers in Somalia.

  The cook: Gabrielle Pascal—no English, excellent cuisine, came from Marseilles, family checked out. The gardener: Jacques Reni—stupid and not particularly imaginative with the rosebeds, local and well known. Rosemary’s personal maid: Charlotte Merieux—spoke a little English, crafty, sexy, came from Paris, still checking her out. All the staff had been employed by Rosemary since her arrival in the south of France, and they appeared to have no connection with each other, or with her past life.

  “Ah,” said Hackett as he studied the picture of Rosemary’s personal maid. I raised an eyebrow. “I was just thinking about Williams being cooped up with Charlotte Merieux day in and day out—and more important, night in and night in,” he explained. “He would have made superintendent if he hadn’t fooled around so much. Still, let’s hope this time it turns out to our advantage.”

  I lay on my bunk studying the pictures of the staff for hour after hour, but they revealed nothing. I read and reread the notes on everyone who had ever visited Villa Fleur, but as the weeks went by, it looked more and more as if no one from Rosemary’s past, other than her mother, knew where she was—or if they did, they were making no attempts to contact her. There was certainly no sign of Jeremy Alexander.

  I was beginning to fear that she and Jeremy might have split up, until Williams reported that there was a picture of a dark, handsome man on a table by the side of Rosemary’s bed. It was inscribed: “We’ll always be together—J.”

  During the weeks following my appeal hearing I was constantly interviewed by probation officers, social workers and even the prison psychiatrist. I struggled to maintain the warm, sincere smile that Matthew had warned me was so necessary to lubricate the wheels of the bureaucracy.

  It must have been about eleven weeks after my appeal had been turned down that the cell door was thrown open, and the senior guard on my corridor announced, “The warden wants to see you, Cooper.” Fingers looked suspicious. Whenever he heard those words, it inevitably meant a dose of solitary.

  I
could hear my heart beating as I was led down the long corridor to the warden’s office. The prison guard knocked gently on the door before opening it. The warden rose from behind his desk, thrust out his hand and said, “I’m delighted to be the first person to tell you the good news.”

  He ushered me into a comfortable chair on the other side of his desk, and went over the terms of my release. While he was doing this I was served coffee, as if we were old friends.

  There was a knock on the door, and Matthew walked in, clutching a sheaf of papers that needed to be signed. I rose as he placed them on the desk, and without warning he turned round and gave me a bearhug. Not something I expect he did every day.

  After I had signed the final document, Matthew asked: “What’s the first thing you’ll do once they release you?”

  “I’m going to buy a gun,” I told him matter-of-factly.

  Matthew and the warden burst out laughing.

  The great gate of Armley Prison was thrown open for me three days later. I walked away from the building carrying only the small leather suitcase I had arrived with. I didn’t look back. I hailed a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the station, as I had no desire to remain in Leeds a moment longer than was necessary. I bought a first-class ticket, phoned Hackett to warn him I was on my way, and boarded the next train for Bradford. I savored a British Rail breakfast that wasn’t served on a tin plate, and read a copy of the Financial Times that had been handed to me by a pretty shop assistant and not a petty criminal. No one stared at me—but then, why should they, when I was sitting in a first-class carriage and dressed in my new suit? I glanced at every woman who passed by, however she was dressed, but they had no way of knowing why.

  When the train pulled into Bradford, the Don and his secretary Jenny Kenwright were waiting for me on the platform. The chief superintendent had rented me a small furnished flat on the outskirts of the city, and after I had unpacked—not a long job—they took me out to lunch. The moment the small talk had been dispensed with and Jenny had poured me a glass of wine, the Don asked me a question I hadn’t expected.