Collected Short Stories

by Jeffrey Archer

  Donald looked up. “There’s a picture of him taken when he was in Greece, but it’s too blurred to be of much use.”

  I studied the black-and-white photograph of a bearded middle-aged man surrounded by students. He wasn’t anything like Jeremy. I frowned. “Another blind alley,” I said.

  “It’s beginning to look like it,” said Donald. “Especially after what I found out yesterday. According to his secretary, Balcescu delivers his weekly lecture every Friday morning, from ten o’clock to eleven.”

  “But that wouldn’t stop him from taking a call from Rosemary at midday,” interrupted Jenny.

  “If you’ll allow me to finish,” said Hackett sharply. Jenny bowed her head, and he continued. “At twelve o’clock he chairs a full departmental meeting in his office, attended by all members of staff. I’m sure you’ll agree, Jenny, that it would be quite difficult for him to take a personal call at that time every Friday, given the circumstances.”

  Donald turned to me. “I’m sorry to say we’re back where we started, unless you can remember where you’ve seen Mrs. Balcescu.”

  I shook my head. “Perhaps I was mistaken,” I admitted.

  Donald and Jenny spent the next few hours going over the files, even checking every one of the ten phone numbers a second time.

  “Do you remember Rosemary’s second call, sir?” said Jenny, in desperation. “The director’s not in at the moment’ Might that be the clue we’re looking for?”

  “Possibly,” said Donald. “If we could find out who the director is, we might be a step nearer to Jeremy Alexander.”

  I remember Jenny’s last words before I left for my room. “I wonder how many directors there are in Britain, Chief.”

  Over breakfast in Donald’s room the following morning, he reviewed all the intelligence that had been gathered to date, but none of us felt we were any nearer to a solution.

  “What about Mrs. Balcescu?” I said. “She may be the person taking the call every Friday at midday, because that’s the one time she knows exactly where her husband is.”

  “I agree. But is she simply Rosemary’s messenger, or is she a friend of Jeremy’s?” asked Donald.

  “Perhaps we’ll have to tap her phone to find out,” said Jenny.

  Donald ignored her comment, and checked his watch. “It’s time to go to Balcescu’s lecture.”

  “Why are we bothering?” I asked. “Surely we ought to be concentrating on Mrs. Balcescu.”

  “You’re probably right,” said Donald. “But we can’t afford to leave any stone unturned, and since his next lecture won’t be for another week, we may as well get it over with. In any case, we’ll be out by eleven, and if we find Mrs. Balcescu’s phone is engaged between twelve and twelve thirty …”

  After Donald had asked Jenny to bring the car around to the front of the hotel, I slipped back into my room to pick up something that had been hidden in the bottom of my suitcase for several weeks. A few minutes later I joined them, and Jenny drove us out of the hotel parking lot, turning right into the main road. Donald glanced at me suspiciously in the rearview mirror as I sat silently in the back. Did I look guilty? I wondered.

  Jenny spotted a parking meter a couple of hundred yards away from the Department of European Studies, and pulled in. We got out of the car and followed the flow of students along the sidewalk and up the steps. No one gave us a second look. Once we had entered the building, Donald whipped off his tie and slipped it in his jacket pocket. He looked more like a Marxist revolutionary than most of the people heading toward the lecture.

  The lecture hall was clearly signposted, and we entered it by a door on the ground floor, which turned out to be the only way in or out. Donald immediately walked up the raked auditorium to the back row of seats. Jenny and I followed, and Donald instructed me to sit behind a student who looked as if he spent his Saturday afternoons playing lock forward for his college rugby team.

  While we waited for Balcescu to enter the room, I began to look around. The lecture hall was a large semicircle, not unlike a miniature Greek amphitheater, and I estimated that it could hold around three hundred students. By the time the clock on the front wall read 9:55 there was hardly a seat to be found. No further proof was needed of the professor’s reputation.

  I felt a light sweat forming on my forehead as I waited for Balcescu to make his entrance. As the clock struck ten the door of the lecture hall opened. I was so disappointed at the sight that greeted me that I groaned aloud. He couldn’t have been less like Jeremy. I leaned across to Donald. “Wrong-colored hair, wrong-colored eyes, about thirty pounds too light.” The Don showed no reaction.

  “So the connection has to be with Mrs. Balcescu,” whispered Jenny.

  “Agreed,” said Donald under his breath. “But we’re stuck here for the next hour, because we certainly can’t risk drawing attention to ourselves by walking out. We’ll just have to make a dash for it as soon as the lecture is over. We’ll still have time to see if she’s at home to take the twelve o’clock call.” He paused. “I should have checked the layout of the building earlier.” Jenny reddened slightly, because she knew I meant you.

  And then I suddenly remembered where I had seen Mrs. Balcescu. I was about to tell Donald, but the room fell silent as the professor began delivering his opening words.

  “This is the sixth of eight lectures,” he began, “on recent social and economic trends in Eastern Europe.” In a thick Central European accent, he launched into a discourse that sounded as if he had given it many times before. The undergraduates began scribbling away on their pads, but I became increasingly irritated by the continual drone of the professor’s nasal vowels, as I was impatient to tell Hackett about Mrs. Balcescu and to get back to Great Shelford as quickly as possible. I found myself glancing up at the clock on. the wall every few minutes. Not unlike my own schooldays, I thought. I touched my jacket pocket. It was still there, even though on this occasion it would serve no useful purpose.

  Halfway, through the lecture, the lights were dimmed so the professor could illustrate some of his points with slides. I glanced at the first few graphs as they appeared on the screen, showing different income groups across Eastern Europe related to their balance of payments and export figures, but I ended up none the wiser, and not just because I had missed the first five lectures.

  The assistant in charge of the projector managed to get one of the slides upside down, showing Germany at the bottom of the export table and Romania at the top, which caused a light ripple of laughter throughout the hall. The professor scowled, and began to deliver his lecture at a faster and faster pace, which only caused the assistant more difficulty in finding the right slides to coincide with the professor’s statements.

  Once again I became bored, and I was relieved when, at five to eleven, Balcescu called for the final graph. The previous one was replaced by a blank screen. Everyone began looking round at the assistant, who was searching desperately for the slide. The professor became irritable as the minute hand of the clock approached eleven. Still the assistant failed to locate the missing slide. He flicked the shutter back once again, but nothing appeared on the screen, leaving the professor brightly illuminated by a beam of light. Balcescu stepped forward and began drumming his fingers impatiently on the wooden lectern. Then he turned sideways, and I caught his profile for the first time. There was a small scar above his right eye, which must have faded over the years, but in the bright light of the beam it was clear to see.

  “It’s him!” I whispered to Donald as the clock struck eleven. The lights came up, and the professor quickly left the lecture hall without another word.

  I leaped over the back of my bench seat, and began charging down the gangway, but my progress was impeded by students who were already sauntering out into the aisle. I pushed my way past them until I had reached ground level, and bolted through the door by which the professor had left so abruptly. I spotted him at the end of the corridor. He was opening another door, and disappeared ou
t of sight. I ran after him, dodging in and out of the chattering students.

  When I reached the door that had just been closed behind him I looked up at the sign:

  PROFESSOR BALCESCU

  DIRECTOR OF EUROPEAN STUDIES

  I threw the door open, to discover a woman sitting behind a desk checking some papers. Another door was closing behind her.

  “I need to see Professor Balcescu immediately,” I shouted, knowing that if I didn’t get to him before Hackett caught up with me, I might lose my resolve.

  The woman stopped what she was doing and looked up at me. “The director is expecting an overseas call at any moment, and cannot be disturbed,” she replied. “I’m sorry, but—”

  I ran straight past her, pulled open the door, and rushed into the room, where I came face to face with Jeremy Alexander for the first time since I had left him lying on the floor of my drawing room. He was talking animatedly on the phone, but he looked up and recognized me immediately. When I pulled the gun from my pocket, he dropped the receiver. As I took aim; the blood suddenly drained from his face.

  “Are you there, Jeremy?” asked an agitated voice on the other end of the line. Despite the passing of time, I had no difficulty in recognizing Rosemary’s strident tones.

  Jeremy was shouting, “No, Richard, no! I can explain! Believe me, I can explain!” as Donald came running in. He came to an abrupt halt by the professor’s desk, but showed no interest in Jeremy.

  “Don’t do it, Richard,” he pleaded. “You’ll only spend the rest of your life regretting it.” I remember thinking it was the second time he had ever called me Richard.

  “Wrong, for a change, Donald,” I told him. “I won’t regret killing Jeremy Alexander. You see, he’s already been pronounced dead once. I know, because I was sentenced to life imprisonment for his murder. I’m sure you’re aware of the meaning of ‘autrefois acquit,’ and will therefore know that I can’t be charged a second time with a crime I’ve already been convicted of and sentenced for. Even though this time they will have a body.”

  I moved the gun a few inches to the right, and aimed at Jeremy’s. heart. I squeezed the trigger just as Jenny came charging into the room. She dived at my legs.

  Jeremy and I both hit the ground with a thud.

  Well, as I pointed out to you at the beginning of this chronicle, I ought to explain why I’m in jail—or, to be more accurate, why I’m back in jail.

  I was tried a second time; on this occasion for attempted murder—despite the fact that I had only grazed the bloody man’s shoulder. I still blame Jenny for that.

  Mind you, it was worth it just to hear Matthew’s closing speech, because he certainly understood the meaning of autrefois acquit. He surpassed himself with his description of Rosemary as a calculating, evil Jezebel, and Jeremy as a man motivated by malice and greed, quite willing to cynically pose as a national hero while his victim was rotting his life away in jail, put there by a wife’s perjured testimony of which he had unquestionably been the mastermind. In another four years, a furious Matthew told the jury, they would have been able to pocket several more millions between them. This time the jury looked on me with considerable sympathy.

  “Thou shalt not bear false witness against any man,” were Sir Matthew’s closing words, his sonorous tones making him sound like an Old Testament prophet.

  The tabloids always need a hero and a villain. This time they had got themselves a hero and two villains. They seemed to have forgotten everything they had printed during the previous trial about the oversexed truck driver, and it would be foolish to suggest that the page after page devoted to every sordid detail of Jeremy and Rosemary’s deception didn’t influence the jury.

  They found me guilty, of course, but only because they weren’t given any choice. In his summing up the judge almost ordered them to do so. But the foreman expressed his fellow jurors’ hope that, given the circumstances, the judge might consider a lenient sentence. Mr. Justice Lampton obviously didn’t read the tabloids, because he lectured me for several minutes, and then said I would be sent down for five years.

  Matthew was on his feet immediately, appealing for clemency on the grounds that I had already served a long sentence. “This man looks out on the world through a window of tears,” he told the judge. “I beseech Your Lordship not to put bars across that window a second time.” The applause from the gallery was so thunderous that the judge had to instruct the bailiffs to clear the court before he could respond to Sir Matthew’s plea.

  “His Lordship obviously needs a little time to think,” Matthew explained under his breath as he passed me in the dock. After much deliberation in his chambers, Mr. Justice Lampton settled on three years. Later that day I was sent to Ford Open Prison.

  After considerable press comment during the next few weeks, and what Sir Matthew described to the Court of Appeal as “my client’s unparalleled affliction and exemplary behavior,” I ended up only having to serve nine months.

  Meanwhile, Jeremy had been arrested at Addenbrookes Hospital by Allan Leeke, deputy chief constable of Cambridgeshire. After three days in a heavily guarded ward he was charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice, and transferred to Armley Prison to await trial. He comes before the Leeds Crown Court next month, and you can be sure I’ll be sitting in the gallery following the proceedings every day. By the way, Fingers and the boys gave him a very handsome welcome. I’m told he’s lost even more weight than he did trooping backward and forward across Europe fixing up his new identity.

  Rosemary has also been arrested and charged with perjury. They didn’t grant her bail, and Donald informs me that French prisons, particularly the one in Marseilles, are less comfortable than Armley—one of the few disadvantages of living in the South of France. She’s fighting the extradition order, of course, but I’m assured by Matthew that she has absolutely no chance of succeeding, now we’ve signed the Maastricht Treaty. I knew something good must come out of that.

  As for Mrs. Balcescu—I’m sure you worked out where I’d seen her long before I did.

  In the case of Regina v. Alexander and Kershaw, I’m told, she will be giving evidence on behalf of the Crown. Jeremy made such a simple mistake for a normally calculating and shrewd man. In order to protect himself from being identified, he put all his worldly goods in his wife’s name. So the striking blond ended up with everything, and I have a feeling that when it comes to her cross-examination, Rosemary won’t turn out to be all that helpful to Jeremy, because it slipped his mind to let her know that in between those weekly phone calls he was living with another woman.

  It’s been difficult to find out much more about the real Professor Balcescu, because since Ceauescu’s downfall no one is quite sure what really happened to the distinguished academic. Even the Romanians believed he had escaped to Britain and begun a new life.

  The Bradford City team has been relegated, so Donald has bought a cottage in the West Country and settled down to watch Bath play rugby. Jenny has joined a private detective agency in London, but is already complaining about her salary and conditions. Williams has returned to Bradford and decided on an early retirement. It was he who pointed out the painfully obvious fact that when it’s twelve o’clock in France, it’s only eleven o’clock in Britain.

  By the way, I’ve decided to go back to Leeds after all. Cooper’s went into liquidation as I suspected they would, the new management team not proving all that effective when it came to riding out a recession. The official receiver was only too delighted to accept my offer of £250,000 for what remained of the company, because no one else was showing the slightest interest in it. Poor Jeremy will get almost nothing for his shares. Still, you should look up the new stock in the F.T. around the middle of next year, and buy yourself a few, because they’ll be what my father would have called “a risk worth taking.”

  By the way, Matthew advises me that I’ve just given you what’s termed “insider information,” so please don’t pass it on, as I
have no desire to go back to jail for a third time.

  THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN

  I would never have met Edward Shrimpton if he hadn’t needed a towel. He stood naked by my side staring down at a bench in front of him, muttering, “I could have sworn I left the damn thing there.”

  I had just come out of the sauna, swathed in towels, so I took one off my shoulder and passed it to him. He thanked me and put out his hand.

  “Edward Shrimpton,” he said, smiling. I took his hand and wondered what we must have looked like standing there in the gymnasium locker room of the Metropolitan Club in the early evening, two grown men shaking hands in the nude.

  “I don’t remember seeing you in the club before,” he added.

  “No, I’m an overseas member.”

  “Ah, from England. What brings you to New York?”

  “I’m pursuing an American novelist whom my company would like to publish in England.”

  “And are you having any success?”

  “Yes, I think I’ll close the deal this week—as long as the agent stops trying to convince me that his author is a cross between Tolstoy and Dickens and should be paid accordingly.”

  “Neither was paid particularly well, if I remember correctly,” offered Edward Shrimpton as he energeticaily rubbed the towel up and down his back.

  “A fact I pointed out to the agent at the time, who countered by reminding me that it was my house which published Dickens originally.”

  “I suggest,” said Edward Shrimpton, “that you remind him that the end result turned out to be successful for all concerned.”

  “I did, but I fear this agent is more interested in ‘up front’ than posterity.”

  “As a banker that’s a sentiment of which I could hardly disapprove, as the one thing we have in common with publishers is that our clients are always trying to tell us a good tale.”