The Collected Short Stories Read online

  He stared at me for some time before uttering a word. “A terrible injustice has been done, Mr. Cooper,” he eventually said, “and we shall immediately lodge an appeal against your conviction. Be assured, I will not rest until we have found Jeremy Alexander and he has been brought to justice.”

  For the first time I realized Sir Matthew knew that I was innocent.

  I was put in a cell with a petty criminal called Fingers Jenkins. Can you believe, as we approach the twenty-first century, that anyone could still be called “Fingers”? Even so, the name had been well earned. Within moments of my entering the cell, Fingers was wearing my watch. He returned it immediately I noticed it had disappeared. “Sorry,” he said. “Just put it down to ’abit.”

  Prison might have turned out to be far worse if it hadn’t been known by my fellow inmates that I was a millionaire, and was quite happy to pay a little extra for certain privileges. Every morning the Financial Times was delivered to my bunk, which gave me the chance to keep up with what was happening in the City. I was nearly sick when I first read about the takeover bid for Cooper’s. Sick not because of the offer of £12.50 a share, which made me even wealthier, but because it became painfully obvious what Jeremy and Rosemary had been up to. Jeremy’s shares would now be worth several million pounds—money he could never have realized had I been around to prevent a takeover.

  I spent hours each day lying on my bunk and scouring every word of the Financial Times. Whenever there was a mention of Cooper’s, I went over the paragraph so often that I ended up knowing it by heart. The company was eventually taken over, but not before the share price had reached £13.43. I continued to follow its activities with great interest, and I became more and more anxious about the quality of the new management when they began to fire some of my most experienced staff, including Joe Ramsbottom. A week later I wrote and instructed my stockbrokers to sell my shares as and when the opportunity arose.

  It was at the beginning of my fourth month in prison that I asked for some writing paper. I had decided the time had come to keep a record of everything that had happened to me since that night I had returned home unexpectedly. Every day the prison officer on my landing would bring me fresh sheets of blue-lined paper, and I would write out in longhand the chronicle you’re now reading. An added bonus was that it helped me to plan my next move.

  At my request, Fingers took a straw poll among the prisoners as to who they believed was the best detective they had ever come up against. Three days later he told me the result: Chief Superintendent Donald Hackett, known as the Don, came out top on more than half the lists. More reliable than a Gallup Poll, I told Fingers.

  “What puts Hackett ahead of all the others?” I asked him.

  “’e’s honest, ’e’s fair, you can’t bribe ’im. And once the bastard knows you’re a villain, ’e doesn’t care ’ow long it takes to get you be’ind bars.”

  Hackett, I was informed, hailed from Bradford. Rumor had it among the older cons that he had turned down the job of assistant chief constable for West Yorkshire. Like a barrister who doesn’t want to become a judge, he preferred to remain at the coalface.

  “Arrestin’ criminals is ’ow ’e gets his kicks,” Fingers said, with some feeling.

  “Sounds just the man I’m looking for,” I said. “How old is he?”

  Fingers paused to consider. “Must be past fifty by now,” he replied. “After all, ’e ’ad me put in reform school for nickin’ a tool set, and that was”—he paused again—“more than twenty years ago.”

  When Sir Matthew came to visit me the following Monday, I told him what I had in mind, and asked his opinion of the Don. I wanted a professional’s view.

  “He’s a hell of a witness to cross-examine, that’s one thing I can tell you,” replied my barrister.

  “Why’s that?”

  “He doesn’t exaggerate, he won’t prevaricate, and I’ve never known him to lie, which makes him awfully hard to trap. No, I’ve rarely got the better of the chief superintendent. I have to say, though, that I doubt if he’d agree to become involved with a convicted criminal, whatever you offered him.”

  “But I’m not …”

  “I know, Mr. Cooper,” said Sir Matthew, who still didn’t seem able to call me by my first name. “But Hackett will have to be convinced of that before he even agrees to see you.”

  “But how can I convince him of my innocence while I’m stuck in jail?”

  “I’ll try to influence him on your behalf,” Sir Matthew said after some thought. Then he added, “Come to think of it, he does owe me a favor.”

  After Sir Matthew had left that night, I requested some more lined paper and began to compose a carefully worded letter to Chief Superintendent Hackett, several versions of which ended crumpled up on the floor of my cell. My final effort read as follows:

  I reread the letter, corrected the spelling mistake, and scrawled my signature across the bottom.

  At my request, Sir Matthew delivered the letter to Hackett by hand. The first thousand-pound-a-day postman in the history of the Royal Mail, I told him.

  Sir Matthew reported back the following Monday that he had handed the letter to the chief superintendent in person. After Hackett had read it through a second time, his only comment was that he would have to speak to his superiors. He had promised he would let Sir Matthew know his decision within a week.

  From the moment I had been sentenced, Sir Matthew had been preparing for my appeal, and although he had not at any time raised my hopes, he was unable to hide his delight at what he had discovered after paying a visit to the Probate Office.

  It turned out that, in his will, Jeremy had left everything to Rosemary. This included over three million pounds’ worth of Cooper’s shares. But, Sir Matthew explained, the law did not allow her to dispose of them for seven years. “An English jury may have pronounced on your guilt,” he declared, “but the hard-headed taxmen are not so easily convinced. They won’t hand over Jeremy Alexander’s assets until either they have seen his body, or seven years have elapsed.”

  “Do they think that Rosemary might have killed him for his money, and then disposed …”

  “No, no,” said Sir Matthew, almost laughing at my suggestion. “It’s simply that, as they’re entitled to wait for seven years, they’re going to sit on his assets and not take the risk that Alexander may still be alive. In any case, if your wife had killed him, she wouldn’t have had a ready answer to every one of my questions when she was in the witness box, of that I’m sure.”

  I smiled. For the first time in my life I was delighted to learn that the tax man had his nose in my affairs.

  Sir Matthew promised he would report back if anything new came up. “Goodnight, Richard,” he said as he left the interview room.

  Another first.

  It seemed that everyone else in the prison was aware that Chief Superintendent Hackett would be paying me a visit long before I was.

  It was Dave Adams, an old jailbird from an adjoining cell, who explained why the inmates thought Hackett had agreed to see me. “A good copper is never ‘appy about anyone doin’ time for somethin’ ’e didn’t do. ‘ackett phoned the governor last Tuesday, and ’ad a word with ’im on the Q.T., accordin’ to Maurice,” Dave added mysteriously.

  I would have been interested to learn how the governor’s trusty had managed to hear both sides of the conversation, but decided this was not the time for irrelevant questions.

  “Even the ‘ardest nuts in this place think you’re innocent,” Dave continued. “They can’t wait for the day when Mr. Jeremy Alexander takes over your cell. You can be sure the long termers’ll give ’im a warm welcome.”

  A letter from Bradford arrived the following morning. “Dear Cooper,” the chief superintendent began, and went on to inform me that he intended to pay a visit to the jail at four o’clock the following Sunday. He made it clear that he would stay no longer than half an hour, and insisted on a witness being present throughout.

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