Guilty Not Guilty

by Felix Francis

  We were welcomed by the locals, not least because Amelia was immediately drafted in to help with the cleaning and flower arranging in the parish church, parts of which dated back to the twelfth century, as well as arranging coffee mornings in the village hall and becoming a major help at HanFEST, the annual food and farming festival.

  Life for us returned pretty much to normal and the lack-of-baby thing faded into the background as we were accepted for who we were, not for whom we might become.

  But then her stupid brother waded in with his size-twelve boots and abusive emails, upsetting her again badly and pushing her into full-blown clinical depression.

  Just the thought of him raised my blood pressure.

  It had all started with a quite innocuous-looking email from him to Amelia concerning the sale of the family home.

  Their father had died of bladder cancer not long after our move and Amelia had convinced her mother that it was sensible for her to sell their big house in commuter-belt Surrey and move into something smaller up in Oxfordshire, to be closer to us. It would also release the funds she needed to support herself.

  As my work with pensions showed, widows were often left asset-rich but cash-poor, with so much of their wealth tied up in their home. This had certainly been true of my mother-in-law, so much so that Amelia and I had had to help with her day-to-day expenses in spite of her living in a multimillion-pound seven-bedroomed mansion. As one of my financial advisors regularly pointed out to those who ignored his recommendation to buy shares as an investment rather than property, one can’t sell just a single window when a little money is needed.

  That first email from Joe had asked for the name of the estate agents Amelia had appointed on her mother’s behalf to sell the property.

  A simple enough request that Amelia had happily answered, naming the local Weybridge office of a big national firm, one that she had been assured would market the property extensively.

  The abusive email she received back from Joe by return had taken our breath away.

  ‘How dare you appoint that firm,’ he wrote. ‘Are you stupid or something? They are the worst estate agents in the world and very expensive. I have been in touch with them and cancelled the arrangement forthwith. I have far more experience than either of you in selling houses and I will appoint a different agent who will sell the house more cheaply.’

  There had been neither salutation nor valediction on the email.

  Almost as soon as it had landed in Amelia’s inbox, she had received an irate phone call from the manager of the Weybridge office who was, understandably, confused and not a little upset.

  Joe, it seemed, had been rude to several members of the agency staff, calling them lazy and arrogant, and he had demanded the cancellation of the contract. Hence the manager had removed the property from his company database. But, as he pointed out to Amelia, a colour brochure had already been prepared and a full-page advert placed in the upcoming Country Life magazine as well as on various websites, so her mother would remain liable for those costs in spite of the fact that any responders to the adverts would now be advised that the property had been withdrawn from sale.

  Amelia had immediately called her brother to tell him that it was he who was the stupid one but she had received a tirade of abuse in return, to the point where she’d had to hang up the call and burst into tears.

  And that had been just the start.

  Since that point, for the past three years, Joe had waged a spiteful campaign of calls and emails, all seemingly designed to undermine Amelia’s confidence and self-worth. And he’d also been incredibly rude both to me and about me to anyone who would listen; and there were, sadly, far too many of those.

  I wasn’t sure of his motive other than, it seemed, to place a firecracker in the centre of his and Amelia’s family and blow the whole lot of them to smithereens.

  Amelia and Joe had been the only two children of Reginald and Mary Bradbury, but their parents had each come from large families. Hence Amelia had a multitude of uncles and aunts, plus several dozen cousins, many of whom were now not talking to me, or to each other, due to Joe’s efforts to divide us with his lies.

  It was not something that especially bothered me, but Amelia had been much saddened and troubled by her loss of contact with some of those with whom she had spent many happy school holidays as a child.

  Reginald Bradbury had been a successful stockbroker in the City of London and he had been almost fifty before he had finally married for the first time, to Mary, his personal assistant, who’d been some fifteen years his junior. Amelia had arrived two years later, followed by Joe, four years after that.

  Not that the Bradburys had enjoyed a particularly happy marriage.

  Amelia often described to me how her parents had fought all the time. Memories of her childhood home, rather than being full of fun and happiness as mine had been, were of a battleground of shouting, recriminations and tears. From an early age, Amelia had had to protect her mother from a domineering husband. It was one of the reasons mother and daughter were so close . . . at least they had been until Joe had started his antics.

  My phone rang and brought me back to the here and now.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, answering.

  ‘Hi, Bill,’ said a female voice. ‘Virginia Lutton here, racecourse manager at Warwick.’

  ‘Yes, Virginia. How can I help?’

  ‘Is that your silver Jaguar sports car in the officials’ car park? George Longcross said you left early yesterday with the police.’

  Was it me or did she make it sound like an accusation?

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said. ‘I did leave early and left my car behind. I had some bad news.’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’ She paused for a sympathetic moment before continuing. ‘But, the thing is, we need it moved as we’re having that part of the car park resurfaced and it’s sitting right in the middle of where the workmen want to start.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’d better come and get it, but I’m afraid I won’t be there for a couple of hours or so. I’m in London.’

  I could hear her suck the air in through her teeth in annoyance. ‘We need it shifted before then. Is there anyone else who could move it?’

  The only spare key was in a drawer of the kitchen dresser at the Old Forge in Hanwell, and I wasn’t about to call DS Dowdeswell to ask him to get it to move the car, even if he would have done. He’d have probably impounded the vehicle and carried out a fingertip forensic search looking for evidence. And my laptop was in the boot along with my overnight bag; I didn’t want him getting his hands on that, not because I had anything to hide but because I needed it for my work.

  My work.

  I’d better do something about that too. I was due to attend a meeting later in the day with some pension-fund managers in Henley-on-Thames. I would have to cancel. I didn’t feel up to meeting with anyone.

  ‘I’m sorry, Virginia,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there as quickly as I can. There’s no one else I can ask.’

  She wasn’t happy but, short of organising a crane, there was nothing she could do. ‘Right,’ she said with resignation. ‘Please get here as soon as possible. I’ll go and tell the men to start somewhere else.’

  She hung up.

  There’s no one else I can ask.

  Oh, God!

  How could I survive without Amelia?

  5

  It was just after midday when I arrived by train and taxi at Warwick Racecourse.

  Virginia Lutton’s workmen were clearly a bunch of jokers.

  They had dug up the tarmac all round my Jaguar, leaving it as if on an island. It was surrounded by red and white plastic barriers, clipped together in a tight rectangle almost touching the car’s paintwork.

  I looked about me. Plenty of their big bright yellow machinery stood silently doing nothing but there was not a workman in sight. It must be lunchtime, an early lunchtime.

  I unclipped the plastic barriers, climbed in an
d drove carefully off the island and across the site to the exit.

  Where to?

  I had called the fund managers in Henley to tell them I wasn’t able to meet with them but they were well ahead of me, having themselves already cancelled on the assumption I wouldn’t be coming.

  ‘I saw it on the TV news,’ said the young man I spoke to. ‘Dreadful.’

  Amelia’s murder was not just on the television. Every daily newspaper on the newsstand at Marylebone Station had the story on its front page, all of them carrying that same smiling picture taken at Ascot.

  The man who’d been sitting opposite to me on the train had been reading the Daily Telegraph and I’d craned my neck to peruse the article beneath the picture.

  While the journalist hadn’t openly accused me of being responsible, he all but had, reporting the fact that I had been escorted by the police from Warwick Racecourse to Banbury Police Station for questioning under caution, but had not yet been arrested.

  How did he know all that? I wondered.

  There had even been a small head-and-shoulders photo of me at the bottom, lifted from my website, no doubt, and without my copyright permission.

  I’d kept my eyes down and hoped that neither my train neighbour, nor anyone else, would recognise me.

  It was an action I’d sadly have to become familiar with.

  I turned right out of the racecourse car park and drove the twenty miles home to Hanwell village.

  *

  There was a single marked police car and a small white van stopped on the road outside my house blocking the drive. Not that I wanted to park there anyway. I went past them and round the corner to the village pub, where I left my car in their car park. The publican was a good friend and I was sure he wouldn’t mind.

  I walked back to my house.

  There were lines of yellow tape everywhere around the property with CRIME SCENE – DO NOT ENTER printed in bold black capital letters continuously along its length. It was stretched across the driveway and also across the path from the road to the front door, which itself was wide open. There was no sign of the police guard I had seen on the TV news the previous evening.

  I stood by the tape barrier. ‘Hello,’ I shouted. ‘Anybody there?’

  There was no answer.

  I almost ducked under the tape and went in but there was a little voice in my head telling me not to upset the police more than I had to.

  It would be out of my control if they chose to arrest me for something I hadn’t done, but giving them a good reason to arrest me for something that I had would be just plain stupid.

  I stayed where I was and called out again, louder this time, but with the same lack of result.

  So I waited.

  Eventually a figure appeared through the front door. It was wearing a full head-to-toe white forensic coverall, complete with hood, facemask, gloves and overshoes. Such was the formless nature of the baggy suit that I was unable to tell if it was a man or a woman.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I shouted. ‘Who’s in charge?’

  The person in the suit ignored me completely as he or she walked across the drive towards the van, bending down slightly and lifting the yellow tape overhead.

  I walked along the road.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said again. ‘I live here and I need to collect a few things.’

  The figure turned towards me and a blue-gloved hand pulled down the facemask. It was a man. He had stubble on his chin.

  ‘Don’t know about that,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘I was told not to allow anyone in.’

  ‘So who can let me in?’

  ‘The senior SOCO. Scene of Crime Officer.’

  ‘And where is he?’ I asked, trying my best to keep my cool.

  ‘Oxford.’

  Oxford was almost an hour’s drive away.

  ‘Can you please call him?’ I asked.

  The man peeled off his gloves and unzipped the front of his plastic suit to extract a mobile phone from a pocket within. He dialled his boss and handed the phone to me.

  ‘What sort of things?’ asked the senior SOCO when he came on the line.

  ‘Clothes,’ I said. ‘And some papers from my desk.’

  ‘I’ll have to check with the officer in the case. I’ll call you back.’

  The senior hung up.

  His subordinate and I waited.

  ‘Found anything?’ I asked.

  ‘Like what?’ he replied.

  ‘Evidence.’

  ‘I never know what’s evidence and what isn’t. I’m just the dabs man. I go through the place recording all the fingerprints I can find.’

  ‘Not the DNA?’ I asked.

  ‘I can if necessary but that’s mostly the job of the blood team. They were here yesterday.’

  ‘Where are they, then?’ I asked, nodding at the marked police car.

  ‘Round the back in the garden, digging. They’re waiting for a JCB excavator to arrive.’

  ‘Digging?’ I repeated. ‘What for?’

  He never had a chance to reply as his phone rang. He answered.

  ‘It’s for you,’ he said, holding it out.

  It wasn’t the senior SOCO but DS Dowdeswell.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Gordon-Russell,’ he said. ‘I can’t let you into the property until we have finished our investigation and search of the crime scene.’

  ‘But I need some more clothes. I only have what I’m standing up in.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said again, not sounding it.

  ‘Can I at least go into my study?’ I said. ‘It’s next to the conservatory. I can get in there without going through the rest of the house. There are some papers on my desk that I require urgently for my work.’

  There was a slight pause while he thought it over – very slight.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘That won’t be possible.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’ I demanded. ‘Are you being deliberately obstructive?’

  He didn’t deny it.

  ‘Mr Gordon-Russell,’ he said, ‘you have to appreciate that we have a murder to investigate. Do you not want us to determine who is to blame for your wife’s death?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ I replied. ‘And please call me Mr Russell.’

  ‘I will call you only by your proper name.’

  Now I was certain he was trying to rile me.

  I remained un-riled – at least on the outside.

  ‘Why are your officers digging in my garden?’

  There was a slight snort from the other end as if he was annoyed that I knew. ‘We are carrying out our investigation in accordance with accepted practice. It is normal to thoroughly search the area surrounding where a body has been discovered in questionable circumstances.’

  ‘Are you anticipating more?’ I asked sarcastically.

  ‘A geophysical survey of the garden indicated two areas of interest and a dog specially trained to find dead bodies gave a positive response at one of them. We need to investigate.’

  ‘A geophysical survey and a cadaver dog,’ I said. ‘My, you have been a busy boy.’

  He refused to rise to my goading. Two could play at that little game.

  ‘So when can I gain access to my home?’ I asked.

  ‘Not until after we have completed our search. It’s difficult at the moment to say when that will be.’

  ‘Have a guess,’ I said, consciously suppressing the anger that was rising in my throat.

  ‘I would hope we’ll be finished over the weekend. Monday, maybe. It depends on what we find.’

  ‘Do I get a hotel allowance?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘No.’

  It was Thursday today. Could I stay with Douglas for four more nights or was that pushing the boundaries of brotherly love too far?

  I sighed.

  My life seemed to be unravelling around my ears. Amelia’s murder was back in the I-don’t-believe-this-is-happening category. And I wasn’t even sure that I ever wanted to go into the house again anyway.

  How could I
carry on living there without Amelia? How could I go into the kitchen without looking down at the floor and thinking . . . ?

  Oh, God.

  I could feel the grief rising in me once more and I fought it for control.

  ‘And I also need to ask you some more questions,’ the DS went on. ‘We didn’t finish yesterday.’

  ‘Then you will have to make an appointment with my solicitor,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not for the police to arrange meetings with your solicitor. That’s your job. Who is it, anyway?’

  ‘Simon Bassett,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know him. Is he local?’

  ‘No. He’s a partner at Underwood, Duffin and Wimbourne. It’s a London firm. Chancery Lane.’

  ‘Humph!’ said the DS. He clearly didn’t like London firms.

  Tough.

  Simon and I had been undergraduates together at Cambridge, and firm friends ever since. He was also up to speed with what had been going on vis-à-vis Joe Bradbury, and had provided Amelia and me with advice on how to proceed – mostly by not replying to or even acknowledging any of Joe’s plethora of emails – which had annoyed him even more.

  ‘I would like you to attend at Banbury Police Station tomorrow,’ said the detective. ‘Shall we say at ten o’clock in the morning?’

  ‘Make it eleven,’ I said. ‘My solicitor will have to come from London. And I’ll need to confirm to you that he’s available.’

  ‘Eleven it is, then,’ he said, ignoring my last comment.

  The DS hung up and I handed back the phone to the man in the white suit.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said to him. ‘But no thanks.’

  A bright yellow JCB digger came along the road and stopped. One of the policemen from the back garden came out to guide it down the side of the house, its great rear wheels chewing up Amelia’s lovingly tended flower beds.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ I asked of no one in particular as the digger disappeared from sight behind the house.

  How ridiculous. There was nothing to find and they would just make a dreadful mess everywhere. But did I care?