Guilty Not Guilty

by Felix Francis

  ‘Yesterday afternoon about five,’ I said.

  ‘Can you account for your movements over the past twenty-four hours?’

  ‘I was at work in my study yesterday until about four,’ I said.

  ‘Where is your study?’

  ‘At my house. I’m a self-employed business consultant. I work mainly from home unless I have meetings, and they are usually in London. Mostly with insurance companies.’

  The look on his face indicated clearly that he didn’t think much of insurance companies. Not a lot of people do.

  ‘Doing what, exactly?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m an actuary.’

  I could see a quizzical look spread into his eyes.

  ‘I deal in all sorts of insurance but mostly life cover and annuities.’

  I don’t think it helped him much.

  ‘Basically, I calculate risk against reward,’ I said. ‘I calculate mortality rates and investment risk and then I turn those into insurance premiums.’

  ‘Clever, then, are you?’ he asked with irony.

  I shook my head. ‘Just good at maths.’

  ‘So what did you do after you left your study?’

  ‘I changed into a suit and then drove myself to Birmingham. To Edgbaston. I attended a charity event in the banqueting suite at the cricket ground. It started at seven and finished about eleven. Then I stayed the night in a hotel.’

  ‘Which hotel?’

  ‘The Edgbaston Manor Hotel. It’s near the cricket ground. Walking distance. I checked in around six and walked to the ground.’

  ‘It’s not far from your house to Birmingham. Why didn’t you simply drive home afterwards?’

  ‘Because the event was a dinner and I knew I’d be drinking.’

  ‘Drink often, do you, Mr Gordon-Russell?’

  Was he trying to rile me?

  ‘No,’ I said calmly. ‘I had maybe three or four glasses of wine throughout the whole evening. Too much to drive but I certainly wasn’t drunk, if that’s what you’re implying.’

  ‘Why didn’t your wife go with you?’

  ‘Charity dinners are not really her thing.’

  Were not.

  ‘Is there anyone who can vouch that you were at this dinner?’ he asked.

  ‘Lots of people,’ I said. ‘I sat at a table with friends.’

  ‘And were they staying at the same hotel?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. I walked to the hotel alone.’

  ‘For a nightcap?’

  ‘No,’ I said patiently. ‘I went straight to bed. I needed to be well rested for my role as a steward at Warwick Races today.’

  ‘Did you call your wife?’

  ‘I spoke to her at about six, before I went to the dinner, to tell her I’d arrived safely at the hotel. She told me she was just going out for an hour to meet a friend at the village pub for a drink.’

  ‘What is the name of this friend?’

  ‘Nancy Fadeley,’ I said. ‘She lives right across the road from us in the same village.’

  The detective sergeant nodded as if he already knew.

  ‘She was spoken to this morning as part of our house-to-house inquiries.’

  ‘What did she say?’ I asked.

  He ignored me.

  ‘Did you call your wife again later?’

  ‘No. It was after eleven when I got back to the hotel and I didn’t want to disturb her. She might have gone to bed early. She often does when I’m away.’

  Did.

  ‘And she knew she could call me if she needed something. I always have my phone on. I leave it by the bed all night when I’m away, just in case.’

  ‘But she didn’t call?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How about this morning?’

  ‘I tried the house number about nine but there was no answer so I thought she must have gone out. She often goes food shopping in Waitrose on Wednesday mornings.’

  Went.

  ‘How about her mobile phone?’

  ‘I tried that too but there was no answer. It went to voicemail so I left a message saying I’d be home around six-thirty. The last race at Warwick today is at five but we have to complete our report before we can leave.’

  ‘So you also work for Warwick Racecourse.’

  ‘It’s not exactly work,’ I said. ‘Not paid work anyway. I’m what is called an honorary steward. For the BHA – the racing authority. It’s a volunteer role. I suppose you could call it my hobby. I act for about thirty-five days a year at the local racecourses – Warwick and Stratford mostly. It is something I choose to do in addition to my usual day job.’

  The detective made some notes before again looking at me.

  ‘Did anyone see you at the hotel last night?’

  ‘Not that I specially remember. The restaurant staff would have seen me at breakfast. Plus the receptionist when I checked out.’ I dug into my pocket and produced the credit card receipt from my wallet and put it on the table. ‘There. I checked out at . . .’ I glanced at the slip. ‘Nine fifty-two this morning.’

  ‘But no one saw you from the time you left the dinner until breakfast. So there would have been plenty of time for you to drive home, kill your wife, and get back to Birmingham.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ I said, standing up. ‘I didn’t kill her. In fact, I’ve had enough of this. You said I was free to go at any time, so I’m going. Which way is it to the exit?’

  It was obviously not what he’d been expecting.

  ‘But we need to ask you some more questions.’

  ‘Then you will have to make an appointment. I will attend only with my solicitor. I want to see my wife.’

  ‘As I told you before, that’s not possible.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked belligerently.

  He said nothing but his sidekick finally broke his silence. ‘Post-mortem.’

  Oh, shit.

  Too much information. I’d have been better off not knowing.

  ‘Don’t you need official identification first?’ I asked. ‘It may not be Amelia at all.’

  ‘We already have a positive identification,’ said the DS. ‘Joseph Bradbury, your wife’s brother, confirmed it was her.’

  ‘How come?’ I asked angrily. ‘What’s he got to do with it? He’s not her next of kin. I am.’

  ‘Formal identification of a body doesn’t have to be done by the next of kin. A close relative is good enough, and Mr Bradbury was there. He was the one who called the police. He says he went to visit his sister and found her lying dead on your kitchen floor.’

  ‘How did he get in?’ I asked with rising rage.

  ‘He said he looked through the kitchen window and saw her.’

  ‘And you believed him, I suppose?’ I shook my head in frustration. ‘He’s the man you should be questioning, not me. If I were you, I wouldn’t have confidence in a single word my brother-in-law says.’

  ‘Why is that?’ the DS asked with all seriousness.

  ‘Because the man’s a pathological liar. He wouldn’t know the truth if it punched him in the face.’

  ‘He told us where to find you.’

  ‘And I suppose he told you that I’d killed my wife.’

  He nodded. ‘And he also said you’d deny it.’

  ‘Of course I deny it. Because I didn’t do it.’

  He looked up at me. ‘Then answer my questions.’

  ‘Not without my solicitor being present.’

  ‘But you said there was no reason for you to need a solicitor. Changed your mind about that, have you, Mr Gordon-Russell? Why don’t you just tell us what really happened between you and your wife?’

  The detective clearly believed I had murdered Amelia. It was plain to see in his manner.

  ‘I am leaving now,’ I said.

  ‘I could arrest you.’

  ‘What for?’ I asked. ‘Murder? You don’t have any evidence. If you did, you’d have done it by now.’

  3

  I stood outside Banbury Police Sta
tion in a bit of a daze.

  I’d half-expected to be prevented from leaving but here I was alone on the side of the road, not quite knowing what to do next.

  The detective sergeant had unhelpfully told me that I wouldn’t be able to go home as my house was sealed off and it would remain so for some time, maybe for days, or even weeks. And my car was still in the officials’ car park at Warwick Racecourse where I’d parked it that morning, with my overnight bag in the boot.

  But at least I had kept hold of my mobile phone, in spite of the detective wanting to take it from me.

  ‘Have you got a warrant?’ I’d asked as he’d held out his hand for it.

  The police may have been allowed to forensically search my house as a crime scene, but I was damned if they were going to do the same to my phone. Not yet anyway. Not without arresting me first.

  I looked at its screen: 15.58.

  Racing at Warwick would still be going on but there was no point in going back. My car would be quite safe in their car park. I would collect it when I felt a little better.

  I called my brother. Not the to-be-earl. The other one.

  ‘Douglas,’ I said when he answered, ‘I’m in a bit of trouble. Can I come and see you?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘When?’

  ‘Right now.’

  There was a slight pause from the other end.

  ‘Is it a big bit of trouble?’ he asked.

  ‘Huge.’

  Another pause.

  ‘I won’t be home for another forty minutes.’

  ‘I’m still in Banbury,’ I said. ‘The train takes an hour to London. I should be with you about six.’

  ‘Come,’ he replied. ‘I’ll be waiting.’

  I hung up.

  Good old Douglas.

  No ifs, no buts, no questions – just come.

  Ever since I could first walk and talk, Douglas had been the port I had run to in a storm. Eight years my senior, he had always seemed to me to be so calm and wise, traits he now employed daily in the courts as a QC, a Queen’s Counsel.

  I made my way through Banbury town centre to the railway station without really feeling my feet on the ground.

  Amelia murdered.

  It had to be a mistake or some sort of cruel joke.

  The detective sergeant had said during the interview that I didn’t seem very distressed by her death and I had replied that I was devastated, but, in fact, I was totally numb. I didn’t feel anything.

  It was as if this was happening to somebody else, like a drama unfolding on the television. It wasn’t like reality.

  Except that it was.

  I bought a train ticket from the machine using my credit card.

  My cognitive brain was working fine – I could remember my PIN without a moment’s hesitation. But my emotional brain was in disarray, with synapses failing to fire as if anaesthetised.

  I knew I ought to be sad, miserable even, or inconsolable and grief-stricken. I should be wretched and in despair, unable to bear the torment of my loss.

  But I was none of those things.

  If anything, I was angry.

  I was angry with Amelia for getting herself killed but angrier with her brother, whom I was absolutely certain was responsible.

  I stared out as the rolling green hills of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire gave way to the great metropolis of London, and the daylight began to dwindle towards darkness.

  The second half of October.

  It had never been a favourite time of the year for me. The clocks would go back in a few days and then we would be into winter, with many seemingly endless months to come before the re-emergence of spring. That in itself was depressing enough without the knowledge that I would now be spending them alone, cruelly deprived of my soulmate.

  And, as if to add to my woes, it started to rain, beating loudly against the carriage windows. Hence I took a taxi from Marylebone to Chester Square in Belgravia where Douglas lived in a four-storey town house.

  The rain was still hosing down as I climbed out of the taxi and I was pretty well drenched even by the time I’d walked across the pavement and pushed the doorbell.

  Douglas opened the door almost immediately.

  ‘My God, William, you look terrible. Come in, dear boy. Come in.’

  He led me through to his kitchen. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Can I have a drink? G and T. And make it a strong one.’

  And to hell with DS Dowdeswell.

  Douglas clinked ice into two tumblers, added generous portions of gin plus a splash of tonic water and some slices of lemon from the fridge.

  ‘There,’ he said, handing me one of the glasses. ‘Get that down your neck.’

  I drank deeply, enjoying the effect of the spirit in my throat.

  Douglas looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Amelia’s dead,’ I said.

  His shoulders slumped but there was no look of great surprise on his face – more one of resignation. My brother was fully up to speed on my family situation. He had been quietly advising Amelia and me for months.

  ‘She was murdered,’ I said.

  Now there was shock in his eyes. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘The police told me she was strangled. And they think I did it.’

  He looked straight at me. ‘And did you?’

  I told myself it was the lawyer in him.

  ‘What would you suggest if I had?’

  ‘I’d call the best criminal solicitor I know and arrange to meet him, with you, at Charing Cross Police Station in half an hour.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I didn’t, so there’s no need.’

  ‘Good. I didn’t think so.’

  I told him everything that had happened to me on that day and what I could remember from my interview with the detective sergeant.

  ‘You should have never allowed yourself to be interviewed without a solicitor being present, especially after the police cautioned you.’

  I knew he’d say that. And he was right.

  ‘So what should I do now?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s not a lot you can do. The police will conduct their investigation and, undoubtedly, they’ll want to speak to you again. But make sure you have a solicitor present next time.’ He wagged his finger at me as if to emphasise the point. ‘So why do they think you did it?’

  ‘Because . . .’ I couldn’t even bring myself to say his name. ‘Amelia’s damn brother told them I’d done it. More likely it was him. What was he doing there otherwise? He hasn’t been to our house for well over two years. And neither Amelia nor I have been in contact with him for months, so why did he turn up out of the blue? And on the day Amelia died? That’s bloody fishy if you ask me.’

  ‘I’m sure the police will have worked that out.’

  ‘But shouldn’t I tell them what’s been going on? Especially before he puts his oar in with all his nonsense.’

  ‘He’s probably already done it,’ Douglas remarked.

  ‘Isn’t that all the more reason to show them the sort of man he is?’

  Douglas stroked his chin as if thinking. He was always keen for me to take a ‘stand back and watch’ position rather than jumping in with both feet. But I found it was hard sometimes not to respond to my brother-in-law’s lies.

  ‘How about Amelia’s mother?’ Douglas said, changing the subject and not answering my question. ‘Does she know her daughter is dead?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. And, what’s more, I don’t really care.’

  ‘But I thought you had a good relationship with your mother-in-law – what’s her name?’

  ‘Mary Bradbury. And you’re right in so far that I had a good relationship with her, but not any more. Her damn son has turned her against us with his lies. She, of course, accepts as true every word he says. I gave the old bat more credit but Joe keeps whispering in her ear about how wonderful he is and how awful Amelia was, and eventually she believed it. God knows why after all Amelia and I have done for her, taking her o
n holiday with us and so on. We even took her with us on a Mediterranean cruise.’

  ‘How old is she now?’

  ‘Seventy-five. But she’s a very old seventy-five. Nothing like our dad. I’m certain she’s losing her marbles, but her doctor keeps telling her she’s fine and has still got full mental capacity. And Joe Bradbury exploits that fact to get her to sign all sorts of papers. He now controls her completely. I think he must have been jealous of how close Amelia was to her mother so he set out to drive a wedge between them, and he managed it.’

  ‘I suspect it wasn’t only that that made him jealous,’ Douglas said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What does he do for a living?’

  ‘He’s a High Court enforcement officer,’ I said.

  Douglas looked at me. ‘So he’s a glorified debt collector. I bet that doesn’t make him much. Does he own his own house?’

  ‘No. He lives with his wife and three girls in a rented flat in Uxbridge.’

  ‘There you are then. He is obviously jealous of your lifestyle – successful in the City, making lots of money, living in the country in your own home, two-car family, cruises to the Mediterranean. I bet jealousy has been eating away at him for years.’

  ‘You might be right,’ I said. ‘Last year, Joe returned the Christmas presents we sent for his girls with a curt note stating that they didn’t need our charity.’

  ‘There you are then – he’s clearly insanely jealous.’

  Funny that, I thought, when Amelia had been so incredibly jealous of him for having children while we did not.

  ‘He also tells everyone that, because Amelia has been a patient in a psychiatric hospital, she is totally unhinged and not to be trusted.’

  Was.

  ‘But that’s rubbish,’ Douglas said. ‘Winston Churchill had psychiatric problems and where would we be now without his astute wartime leadership. Everyone trusted him.’

  ‘Exactly. But that hasn’t stopped that damn Joe Bradbury from saying it.’

  I was getting quite agitated.

  ‘Here,’ my brother said, ‘let me refill your glass.’

  Douglas had a masterly way of taking the heat out of any situation. He always had. ‘Justice is determined by the facts,’ he would often say, ‘not by how we feel about the facts. Sentiment should have no place in court.’