The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [209]
After their first full day’s deliberations, the jury had to be put up overnight in a hotel—ironically, the Queen’s—and when the jolly little fat man in the bow tie was finally asked: “Members of the jury, do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty as charged?” I wasn’t surprised when he said clearly for all to hear, “Guilty, My Lord.”
In fact I was amazed that the jury had failed to reach a unanimous decision. I have often wondered which two members felt convinced enough to declare my innocence. I would have liked to thank them.
The judge stared down at me. “Richard Wilfred Cooper, you have been found guilty of the murder of Jeremy Anatole Alexander …”
“I did not kill him, My Lord,” I interrupted in a calm voice. “In fact, he is not dead. I can only hope that you will live long enough to realize the truth.” Sir Matthew looked up anxiously as uproar broke out in the court.
The judge called for silence, and his voice became even more harsh as he pronounced, “You will go to prison for life. That is the sentence prescribed by law. Take him down.”
Two prison officers stepped forward, gripped me firmly by the arms, and led me down the steps at the back of the dock into the cell I had occupied every morning for the eighteen days of the trial.
“Sorry, old chum,” said the policeman who had been in charge of my welfare since the case had begun. “It was that bitch of a wife who tipped the scales against you.” He slammed the cell door closed and turned the key in the lock before I had a chance to agree with him. A few moments later the door was unlocked again, and Sir Matthew strode in.
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