Cat O'Nine Tales: And Other Stories

NOVELS

Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less

Shall We Tell the President?

Kane & Abel

The Prodigal Daughter

First
Among
Equals

A Matter of Honor

As the Crow Flies

Honor
Among
Thieves

The Fourth Estate

The Eleventh Commandment

Sons of Fortune

False Impression

SHORT
STORIES

A
Quiver Full of Arrows

A Twist in the Tale

Twelve Red Herrings

To Cut a Long Story Short

The Collected Short Stories

PLAYS

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Exclusive

The Accused

PRISON
DIARIES

Volume One – Hell, Volume Two – Purgatory and Volume Three – Heaven

SCREENPLAYS

Mallory: Walking off the Map False Impression

JEFFREY ARCHER

CAT O’ NINE TALES

And Other Stories
Drawing by Ronald
searle
St. Martin’s Press New York
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events
portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously.

CAT
O’ NINE TALES.

Copyright
© 2007 by Jeffrey Archer.
All rights reserved.
Printed
in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For
information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.
10010.

www.stmartins.com

Drawings copyright ©
2007 by Ronald Searle ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36264-5

ISBN-10:
0-312-36264-1

First
published in Great
Britian
by Macmillan, an imprint
of Pan Macmillan Ltd.

First U.S. Edition:
June 2007

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Elizabeth

While I was
incarcerated for two years, in five different prisons, I picked up several
stories that were not appropriate to include in the day-to-day journals of a prison
diary. These tales are marked in the contents with an asterisk.

Although all
nine stories have been embellished, each is rooted in fact. In all but one, the
prisoner concerned has asked me not to reveal his real name.

The other three
stories included in this volume are also true, but I came across them after
being released from prison: in Athens – ‘A Greek Tragedy’, in London – The
Wisdom of Solomon’, and in Rome my
favourite
– ‘In
the Eye of the Beholder’.

M
r.
Justice Gray Stared down at the two defendants in the dock.
Chris and
Sue Haskins had pleaded guilty to the theft of £250,000, being the property of
the Post Office, and to falsifying four passports.

Mr. and Mrs.
Haskins looked about the same age, which was hardly surprising as they had been
at school together some forty years before. You could have passed them in the
street without giving either of them a second look. Chris was about five foot
nine, his dark wavy hair turning gray, and he was at least a stone overweight.
He stood upright in the dock, and although his suit was well worn, his shirt
was clean and his striped tie suggested that he was a member of a club. His
black shoes looked as if they had been spit-and-polished every morning. His
wife Sue stood by his side. Her neat floral dress and sensible shoes hinted at
an organized and tidy woman, but then they were both wearing the clothes that
they would normally have worn to church. After all, they considered the law to
be nothing less than an extension of the Almighty.

Mr. Justice
Gray turned his attention to Mr. and Mrs.
Haskins’s
barrister, a young man who had been selected on the grounds of cost, rather
than experience.

“No doubt you
wish to suggest there
are
mitigating circumstances in
this case, Mr. Rodgers,” prompted the judge helpfully.

“Yes,
m’lord
,” admitted the newly qualified barrister as he rose
from his place. He would like to have told his lordship that this was only his
second case, but he felt his lordship would be unlikely to consider that a
mitigating circumstance.

Mr. Justice
Gray settled back as he prepared to listen to how poor Mr. Haskins had been
thrashed by a ruthless stepfather, night after night, and Mrs. Haskins had been
raped by an evil uncle at an impressionable age, but no; Mr. Rodgers assured
the court that the Haskins came from happy, well-balanced backgrounds and had
in fact been at school together. Their only child, Tracey, a graduate of
Bristol University, was now working as an estate agent in Ashford.
A model family.

Mr. Rodgers
glanced down at his brief before going on to explain how the Haskins had ended
up in the dock that morning. Mr. Justice Gray became more and more intrigued by
their tale, and by the time the barrister had resumed his place the judge felt
he needed a little more time to consider the length of the sentence. He ordered
the two defendants to appear before him the following Monday at ten o’clock in
the forenoon, by which time he would have come to a decision.