Free Twelve Red Herrings by Jeffrey Archer

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leads before we risk coming face to face with either of them. Let’s head back
to the hotel and consider our next move.”
    “I know it’s
only a coincidence,” I ventured, ‘but when I knew him, Jeremy had a white BMW.”
    “F173 BZK,” said
Jenny. “I remember it from the file.” Donald swung round. “Some people can’t
give up smoking, you know, others drinking. But with some, it’s a particular
make of car,” he said. “Although a lot of people must drive white BMWS,” he
muttered almost to himself.
    Once we were
back in Donald’s room, he began checking through the file he had put together
on Professor Balcescu. The Times report of his escape from Romania, he told us,
was the most detailed. professor BALCESCU first came
to prominence while still a student at the University of Bucharest, where he
called for the overthrow of the elected government.
    The authorities
seemed relieved when he was offered a place at Oxford, and must have hoped that
they had seen the last of him. But he returned to Bucharest University three
years later, taking up the position of tutor in Politics.
    The following
year he led a student revolt in support of Nicolae Ceausescu, and after he
became president, Balcescu was rewarded with a Cabinet post, as Minister of
Education. But he soon became disillusioned with the Ceasescu regime, and
within eighteen months he had resigned and returned to the university as a
humble tutor.
    Three years
later he was offered the Chair of Politics and Economics.
    Professor
Baicescu’s growing disillusionment with the government finally turned to anger,
and in I986 he began writing a series of pamphlets denouncing Ceausescu and his
puppet regime. A few weeks after a particularly vitriolic attack on the
establishment, he was dismissed from his post at the university, and later
placed under house arrest. A group of Oxford historians wrote a letter of
protest to The Times, but nothing more was heard of the great scholar for
several years. Then, late in I989, he was smuggled out of Romania by a group of
students, finally reaching Britain via Bulgaria and Greece.
    Cambridge won
the battle of the universities to tempt him with a teaching post, and he became
a fellow of Gonville and Caius in September 199o. In November 991, after the
retirement of Sir Halford Mckay, Balcescu took over the Chair of Eastern
European Studies.
    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
middleaged 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 TRIAL
    AND
ERROR 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