The New Collected Short Stories

by Jeffrey Archer

  ‘Yes, m’lady,’ said Mr Dexter, trying not to sound exasperated.

  ‘Can I take it that those are your client’s instructions?’

  Mr Dexter glanced down at Bob, who didn’t even bother to offer an opinion.

  ‘And Mrs Abbott,’ she said, turning her attention back to Fiona’s solicitor, ‘I want your word that your client will not back down from such a settlement.’

  ‘I can assure you, m’lady, that she will comply with your ruling,’ replied Fiona’s solicitor.

  ‘So be it,’ said Mrs Justice Butler. ‘We will adjourn until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, when I will look forward to considering Mrs Radford’s two lists.’

  Carol and I took Bob out for dinner that night – a pointless exercise. He rarely opened his mouth to either eat or speak.

  ‘Let her have everything,’ he finally ventured over coffee, ‘because that’s the only way I’m ever going to be rid of the woman.’

  ‘But your aunt wouldn’t have left you her fortune if she’d known this would have been the eventual outcome.’

  ‘Neither Aunt Muriel nor I worked that one out,’ Bob replied with resignation. ‘And you can’t fault Fiona’s timing. She only needed another month after meeting my dear aunt before she accepted my proposal.’ Bob turned and stared at me, an accusing look in his eyes. ‘Why didn’t you warn me not to marry her?’ he demanded.

  When the judge entered the courtroom the following morning all the officials were already in place. The two adversaries were seated next to their solicitors. All those in the well of the court rose and bowed as Mrs Justice Butler resumed her place, leaving only Mrs Abbott on her feet.

  ‘Has your client had enough time to prepare her two lists?’ enquired the judge, as she stared down at Fiona’s counsel.

  ‘She has indeed, m’lady,’ said Mrs Abbott, ‘and both are ready for your consideration.’

  The judge nodded to the clerk of the court. He walked slowly across to Mrs Abbott, who handed over the two lists. The clerk then walked slowly back to the bench and passed them up to the judge for her consideration.

  Mrs Justice Butler took her time studying the two inventories, occasionally nodding, even adding the odd ‘Um’, while Mrs Abbott remained on her feet. Once the judge had reached the last items on the lists, she turned her attention back to counsel’s bench.

  ‘Am I to understand,’ enquired Mrs Justice Butler, ‘that both parties consider this to be a fair and equitable distribution of all the assets in question?’

  ‘Yes, m’lady,’ said Mrs Abbott firmly, on behalf of her client.

  ‘I see,’ said the judge and, turning to Mr Dexter, asked, ‘Does this also meet with your client’s approval?’

  Mr Dexter hesitated. ‘Yes, m’lady,’ he eventually managed, unable to mask the irony in his voice.

  ‘So be it.’ Fiona smiled for the first time since the case had opened. The judge returned her smile. ‘However, before I pass judgement,’ she continued, ‘I still have one question for Mr Radford.’ Bob glanced at his solicitor before rising nervously from his seat. He looked up at the judge.

  What more can she want? was my only thought as I sat staring down from the gallery.

  ‘Mr Radford,’ began the judge, ‘we have all heard your wife tell the court that she considers these two lists to be a fair and equitable division of all your assets.’

  Bob bowed his head and remained silent.

  ‘However, before I pass judgement, I need to be sure that you agree with that assessment.’

  Bob raised his head. He seemed to hesitate a moment, but then said, ‘I do, m’lady.’

  ‘Then I am left with no choice in this matter,’ declared Mrs Justice Butler. She paused, and stared directly down at Fiona, who was still smiling. ‘As I allowed Mrs Radford the opportunity to prepare these two lists,’ continued the judge, ‘which in her judgement are an equitable and fair division of your assets –’ Mrs Justice Butler was pleased to see Fiona nodding her agreement – ‘then it must also be fair and equitable,’ the judge added, turning her attention back to Bob, ‘to allow Mr Radford the opportunity to select which of the two lists he would prefer.’

  ‘IF YOU WANNA FIND out what’s goin’ on in this nick, I’m the man to ’ave a word with,’ said Doug. ‘Know what I mean?’

  Every prison has one. At North Sea Camp his name was Doug Haslett. Doug was half an inch under six foot, with thick, black, wavy hair that was going grey at the temples, and a stomach that hung out over his trousers. Doug’s idea of exercise was the walk from the library, where he was the prison orderly, to the canteen a hundred yards away, three times a day. I think he exercised his mind at about the same pace.

  It didn’t take me long to discover that he was bright, cunning, manipulative and lazy – traits that are common among recidivists. Within days of arriving at a new prison, Doug could be guaranteed to have procured fresh clothes, the best cell, the highest-paid job, and to have worked out which prisoners, and – more important – which officers he needed to get on the right side of.

  As I spent a lot of my free time in the library – and it was rarely overcrowded, despite the prison accommodating over four hundred inmates – Doug quickly made me aware of his case history. Some prisoners, when they discover that you’re a writer, clam up. Others can’t stop talking. Despite the silence notices displayed all around the library, Doug fell into the latter category.

  When Doug left school at the age of seventeen, the only exam he passed was his driving test – first time. Four years later he added a heavy goods licence to his qualifications, and at the same time landed his first job as a lorry driver.

  Doug quickly became disillusioned with how little he could earn, traipsing backwards and forwards to the south of France with a load of Brussels sprouts and peas, often returning to Sleaford with an empty lorry and therefore no bonus. He regularly fouled up (his words) when it came to EU regulations, and took the view that somehow he was exempt from having to pay tax. He blamed the French for too much unnecessary red tape and a Labour government for punitive taxes. When the courts finally served a debt order on him, everyone was to blame except Doug.

  The bailiff took away all his possessions – except the lorry, which Doug was still paying for on a hire-purchase agreement.

  Doug was just about to pack in being a lorry driver and join the dole queue – almost as remunerative, and you don’t have to get up in the morning – when he was approached by a man he’d never come across before, while on a stopover in Marseilles. Doug was having breakfast at a dockside cafe when the man slid on to the stool next to him. The stranger didn’t waste any time with introductions, he came straight to the point. Doug listened with interest; after all, he had already dumped his cargo of sprouts and peas on the dock-side, and had been expecting to return home with an empty lorry. All Doug had to do, the stranger assured him, was to deliver a consignment of bananas to Lincolnshire once a week.

  I feel I should point out that Doug did have some scruples. He made it clear to his new employer that he would never be willing to transport drugs, and wouldn’t even discuss illegal immigrants. Doug, like so many of my fellow inmates, was very right wing.

  When Doug arrived at the drop-off point, a derelict barn deep in the Lincolnshire countryside, he was handed a thick brown envelope containing £25,000 in cash. They didn’t even expect him to help unload the produce.

  Overnight, Doug’s lifestyle changed.

  After a couple of trips, Doug began to work part-time, making the single journey to Marseilles and back once a week. Despite this, he was now earning more in a week than he was declaring on his tax return for a year.

  Doug decided that one of the things he’d do with his new-found wealth was to move out of his basement flat on the Hinton Road and invest in the property market.

  Over the next month he was shown around several properties in Sleaford, accompanied by a young lady from one of the local estate agents. Sally McKenzie was puzzled how a lorry d
river could possibly afford the type of properties she was offering him.

  Doug eventually settled on a little cottage on the outskirts of Sleaford. Sally was even more surprised when he put down the deposit in cash, and shocked when he asked her out on a date.

  Six months later Sally moved in with Doug, although it still worried her that she couldn’t work out where all the money was coming from.

  Doug’s sudden wealth created other problems that he hadn’t anticipated. What do you do with £25,000 in cash each week, when you can’t open a bank account, or pay a monthly cheque into a building society? The basement flat on Hinton Road had been replaced with a cottage in the country. The second-hand fork-lift truck had been traded in for a sixteen-wheel Mercedes lorry. The annual holiday at a bed and breakfast in Blackpool had been upgraded to a rented villa in the Algarve. The Portuguese seemed quite happy to accept cash, whatever the currency.

  On their second visit to the Algarve a year later, Doug fell on one knee, proposed to Sally and presented her with a diamond engagement ring the size of an acorn: traditional sort of chap, Doug.

  Several people, not least his young wife, remained puzzled as to how Doug could possibly afford such a lifestyle while only earning £25,000 a year. ‘Cash bonuses for overtime,’ was all he came up with whenever Sally asked. This surprised Mrs Haslett because she knew that her husband only worked a couple of days a week. And she might never have found out the truth if someone else hadn’t taken an interest.

  Mark Cainen, an ambitious young assistant officer with HM Customs, decided the time had come to check exactly what Doug was importing, after a nark tipped him off it might not just be bananas.

  When Doug was returning from one of his weekly trips to Marseilles, Mr Cainen asked him to pull over and park his lorry in the customs shed. Doug climbed down from the cab and handed over his worksheet to the officer. Bananas were the only entry on the manifest: fifty crates of them. The young customs official set about opening the crates one by one, and by the time he’d reached the thirty-sixth, was beginning to wonder if he had been given a bum steer; that opinion changed when he opened the forty-first crate, which was packed tightly with cigarettes – Marlboro, Benson & Hedges, Silk Cut and Players. By the time Mr Cainen had opened the fiftieth crate, he had placed an estimated street value on the contraband of over £200,000.

  ‘I had no idea what was in those crates,’ Doug assured his wife, and she believed him. He repeated the same story to his defence team, who wanted to believe him, and for a third time, to the jury, who didn’t. Doug’s defence silk reminded his lordship that this was Mr Haslett’s first offence and his wife was expecting a baby. The judge listened in stony silence, and sent Doug down for four years.

  Doug spent his first week in Lincoln high-security prison, but once he’d completed an induction form and was able to place a tick in all the right boxes – no drugs, no violence, no previous offences – he was quickly transferred to an open prison.

  At North Sea Camp, Doug, as I’ve already explained, opted to work in the library. The alternatives were the pig farm, the kitchen, the stores or cleaning out the lavatories. Doug quickly discovered that despite there being over four hundred residents in the prison, as librarian he was on to a cushy number. His income fell from £25,000 a week to £12.50, of which he spent £10 on phone cards so that he could keep in touch with his pregnant wife.

  Doug rang Sally twice a week – you can only phone out when you’re in prison, no one can call you – to promise his wife repeatedly that once he was released, he would never get into trouble with the law again. Sally was reassured by this news.

  In Doug’s absence, and despite being heavily pregnant, Sally was still holding down her job at the estate agent’s, and had even managed to hire out Doug’s lorry for the period of time he would be away. However, Doug wasn’t telling his wife the whole story. While other prisoners were being sent in Playboy, Readers’ Wives and the Sun, Doug was receiving Haulage Weekly and Exchange & Mart for his bedside reading.

  He was browsing through Haulage Weekly when he found exactly what he was looking for: a second-hand, left-hand-drive, forty-ton, American Peterbilt lorry, which was being offered for sale at a knock-down price. Doug took a long time – but then he had a long time – considering the vehicle’s added extras. While he sat alone in the library, he began to draw diagrams on the back of the magazine. He then used a ruler to measure the exact size of a box of Marlboro. He realized that the cash return might be smaller this time, but at least he wouldn’t be caught.

  Among the problems of earning £25,000 a week, and not having to pay tax, is that after being released from prison you are expected to settle for a job that only offers you £25,000 a year before tax; a common enough dilemma for most criminals, especially drug dealers.

  With less than a month of his sentence to serve, Doug phoned his wife and asked her to sell his top-of-the-range Mercedes truck, in part exchange for the massive second-hand eighteen-wheel Peterbilt lorry that he’d seen advertised in Haulage Weekly.

  When Sally first saw the truck, she couldn’t understand why her husband wanted to exchange his magnificent vehicle for such a monstrosity She accepted his explanation that he would be able to drive from Sleaford to Marseilles without having to stop for refuelling.

  ‘But it’s a left-hand drive.’

  ‘Don’t forget,’ Doug reminded her, ‘the longest section of the journey is from Calais to Marseilles.’

  Doug turned out to be a model prisoner, so ended up serving only half of his four-year sentence.

  On the day of his release, his wife and eighteen-month-old daughter Kelly were waiting for him at the prison gates. Sally drove them back to Sleaford in her old Vauxhall. On arrival, Doug was pleased to find the second-hand pantechnicon parked in the field next to their little cottage.

  ‘But why haven’t you sold my old Merc?’ he asked.

  ‘Haven’t had a decent offer,’ Sally admitted, ‘so I hired it out for another year. At least that way it’s showing us a small return.’ Doug nodded. He was pleased to find that both vehicles were spotless, and after an inspection of the engines, discovered they were also in good nick.

  Doug went back to work the following morning. He repeatedly assured Sally that he would never make the same mistake twice. He filled up his lorry with sprouts and peas from a local farmer, before setting out on his journey to Marseilles. He then returned to England with a full load of bananas. A suspicious, recently promoted Mark Cainen regularly pulled Doug over so that he could carry out a spot-check to find out what he was bringing back from Marseilles. But however many crates he prised open, they were always filled with bananas. The officer remained unconvinced, but couldn’t work out what Doug was up to.

  ‘Give me a break,’ said Doug, when Mr Cainen pulled him over yet again in Dover. ‘Can’t you see that I’ve turned over a new leaf?’ The customs officer didn’t give him a break because he was convinced it was a tobacco leaf, even if he couldn’t prove it.

  Doug’s new system was working like a dream, and although he was now only clearing £10,000 a week, at least this time he couldn’t be caught. Sally kept all the books up to date for both lorries so that Doug’s tax returns were always filled in correctly and paid on time, and any new EU regulations were complied with. However, Doug didn’t brief his wife on the details of his new untaxed benefit scheme.

  One Thursday afternoon, just after Doug had cleared customs in Dover, he drove into the nearest petrol station to refuel before continuing his journey north to Sleaford. An Audi followed him onto the forecourt, and the driver began to curse about how long he was going to have to wait before the massive pantechnicon would be filled up. To his surprise, the lorry driver only took a couple of minutes before he replaced the nozzle in its holder. As Doug drove out onto the road, the car behind moved up to take his place. When Mr Cainen saw the name on the side of the lorry, his curiosity was aroused. He checked the pump, to find that Doug had only spent £33. He stared
at the massive eighteen-wheeler as it trundled off down the highway, aware that with that amount of petrol Doug could only hope to cover a few more miles before he would have to fill up again.

  It took Mr Cainen only a few minutes to catch up with Doug’s truck. He then followed the lorry at a safe distance for the next twenty miles before Doug pulled into another petrol station. Once Doug was back on the road a few minutes later, Mr Cainen checked the pump – £34 – only enough to cover another twenty miles. As Doug continued on his journey to Sleaford, the officer returned to Dover with a smile on his face.

  When Doug was driving back from Marseilles the following week, he showed no concern when Mr Cainen asked him to pull over and park his lorry in the customs shed. He knew that every crate on board was, as the manifest stated, full of bananas. However, the customs officer didn’t ask Doug to unlock the back door of the truck. He simply walked around the outside of the vehicle clutching a spanner as if it were a tuning fork while he tapped the massive fuel tanks. The officer was not surprised that the eighth tank rang out with a completely different timbre to the other seven. Doug sat around for hours while customs mechanics removed all eight fuel tanks from both sides of the lorry. Only one was half full of diesel, while the other seven contained over £100,000 worth of cigarettes.

  On this occasion the judge was less lenient, and Doug was sent down for six years, even after his barrister pleaded that a second child was on the way.

  Sally was horrified to discover that Doug had broken his word, and sceptical when he promised her never, ever, again. The moment her husband was locked up, she rented out the second vehicle and returned to her job as an estate agent.

  A year later Sally was able to declare an increased income of just over £3,000, on top of her earnings as an estate agent.

  Sally’s accountant advised her to buy the field next door to the cottage, where the lorries were always parked at night, as she could claim it against tax. ‘A carpark,’ he explained, ‘would be a legitimate business expense.’