Twelve Red Herrings Read Free Page A

together worth around thirty
million pounds.
    I had never
thought of myself as being wealthy – after all, as far as I was concerned the
shares were simply pieces of paper held by Joe Ramsbottom, our company
solicitor. I still lived in my father’s house, drove a five-year-old Jaguar,
and worked fourteen hours a day. I had never cared much for holidays, and
wasn’t by nature extravagant.
    Wealth seemed
somehow irrelevant to me.
    I would have
been happy to continue living much as I was, had I not arrived home
unexpectedly one night.
    I had caught the
last plane back to Heathrow after a particularly long and arduous negotiation
in Cologne, and had originally intended to stay overnight in London. But by
then I’d had enough of hotels, and simply wanted to get home, despite the long
drive.
    When I arrived
back in Leeds a few minutes after one, I found Jeremy’s white BMW parked in the
driveway.
    Had I phoned
Rosemary earlier that day, I might never have ended up in jail.
    I parked my car
next to Jeremy’s, and was walking towards the front door when I noticed that
there was only one light on in the house - in the front room on the first
floor. It wouldn’t have taken Sherlock Holmes to deduce what might be taking
place in that particular room.
    I came to a
halt, and stared up at the drawn curtains for some time. Nothing stirred, so
clearly they hadn’t heard the car, and were unaware of
my presence. I retraced my steps and drove quietly off in the direction of the
city centre. When I arrived at the Queen’s Hotel I asked the duty manager if
Mr. Jeremy Alexander had booked a room for the night. He checked the register
and confirmed that he had.
    “Then I’ll take
his key,” I told him. “Mr. Alexander has booked himself in somewhere else for
the night.” My father would have been proud of such thrifty use of the
company’s resources.
    I lay on the
hotel bed, quite unable to sleep, my anger rising as each hour passed. Although ! no longer had a great
deal of feeling for Rosemary, and even accepted that perhaps I never had, I now
loathed Jeremy. But it wasn’t until the next day that I discovered just how
much I loathed him.
    The following
morning I rang my secretary, and told her I would be driving to the office
straight from London. She reminded me that there was a board meeting scheduled
for two o’clock, which Mr. Alexander was pencilled in to chair. I was glad she
couldn’t see the smile of satisfaction that spread across my face. A quick
glance at the agenda over breakfast and it had become abundantly clear why
Jeremy had wanted to chair this particular meeting. But his plans didn’t matter
any more. I had already decided to let my fellow directors know exactly what he
was up to, and to make sure that he was dismissed from the board as soon as was
practicable.
    I arrived at
Cooper’s just after .3o, and parked in the space marked “Chairman’. By the time
the board meeting was scheduled to begin I’d had just enough time to check over
my files, and became painfully aware of how many of the company’s shares were
now controlled by Jeremy, and what he and Rosemary must have been planning for
some time.
    Jeremy vacated
the chairman’s place without comment the moment I entered the boardroom, and
showed no particular interest in the proceedings until we reached an item
concerning a future share issue.
    It was at this
point that he tried to push through a seemingly innocuous motion which could
ultimately have resulted in Rosemary and myself losing
overall control of the company, and therefore being unable to resist any future
takeover bid. 1 might have fallen for it if I hadn’t travelled up to Leeds the
previous evening and found his car parked in my driveway, and the bedroom light
on.
    Just when he
thought he had succeeded in having the motion agreed without a vote, I asked
the company accountants to prepare a full report for the next board meeting
before we came to any decision.
    Jeremy showed no
sign of