Twelve Red Herrings

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.