Guilty Not Guilty

by Felix Francis

  In a flash, a pair of handcuffs were out and being snapped tightly onto my wrists, which did nothing to help calm my father. Only the arrival of my mother on the scene did that. She had always been the pragmatic one in the relationship.

  She took one look at the situation and went straight over to stroke my father’s arm. ‘Now, now, dear,’ she said to him. ‘We won’t help William by getting all upset, now, will we?’

  My father looked down at her and smiled, the tension instantly draining out of his features. Not that my mother couldn’t also give her own acerbic opinions when she wanted to. She turned to the detective sergeant. ‘You’re going to look very foolish when you find there’s no evidence.’

  The policemen ignored her and went about their business, collecting my suitcase and possessions from my bedroom and taking them out to their cars.

  ‘Mobile telephone?’ the DS said to me.

  ‘In my left trouser pocket,’ I replied.

  He removed it.

  ‘Laptop?’

  ‘In my Jag.’

  ‘Where are the keys?’

  ‘In the other trouser pocket.’

  He took those too. Then it was my turn to be taken to the police car.

  I turned my head. ‘Pa,’ I called over my shoulder as I was taken out. ‘Don’t forget to call Simon Bassett. Look up the number on the internet. His firm is Underwood, Duffin and Wimbourne in Chancery Lane, London.’

  ‘I’ll do it straight away,’ my father replied, having finally regained his composure.

  I took one last look at the castle as I was placed in the back seat of the marked police car and wondered, in spite of what I’d said to my father, how long it would really be until I was back here. They wouldn’t have arrested me now, and not before, unless they had found something else, something new.

  ‘How did you know where I was?’ I asked as we drove away.

  ‘Dead easy,’ said one of the constables. ‘We traced your phone.’

  That was sneaky. Now I rather wished I had left the charger in the kitchen and let the battery run down. But why? I asked myself. I have no reason to hide. I’ve done nothing wrong. Have I?

  *

  It took nearly three and a half hours for us to get back to Banbury, which gave me plenty of time to think but still I couldn’t come up with a single reason why the detective sergeant should consider it necessary to have gone all the way to North Wales to arrest me today when I’d been voluntarily at his police station only yesterday.

  He had simply to invite me back and I would have come, meek and mild, to his own front door without the need for histrionics, henchmen and handcuffs.

  But we didn’t go in through the police station front door this time. Instead, the cars pulled into the yard behind the building and I was ushered through a rear door into the lobby of the custody suite, where the cuffs were finally removed.

  ‘Name?’ asked the burly uniformed custody sergeant behind the high desk.

  ‘Bill Russell,’ I said, rubbing my wrists.

  ‘William Gordon-Russell,’ said DS Dowdeswell, and the uniformed sergeant typed the longer version into a computer on the desk.

  ‘Date of birth?’

  I told him.

  ‘Address?’

  I told him that too, and he entered it.

  ‘Offence?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Murder,’ announced the DS with a bit of a flourish.

  The custody sergeant glanced up at him and then back to his screen.

  ‘Murder,’ he repeated, typing it into the computer. ‘Any medical concerns? Or medications?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Other than I take a statin each night for high cholesterol.’

  ‘Mental health problems?’

  ‘No,’ I said. There had been plenty of those in our family but they were not down to me.

  He typed some more then looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘Mr Gordon-Russell, I authorise your detention here at Banbury at twelve-thirty p.m., in line with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Do you need to let anyone know you are here?’

  ‘Has my solicitor arrived?’ I asked.

  ‘No one has asked for you. But I can arrange for you to see the duty solicitor if you want.’

  ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll wait for my own.’

  The DS next to me snorted slightly as if to imply that he wouldn’t wait too long.

  ‘Anyone else?’ asked the custody sergeant.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No one else. No one at all.’

  The only person I really wanted couldn’t be here; indeed, I was only in this situation because she couldn’t be here.

  Oh, Amelia! Help me.

  ‘Empty your pockets,’ instructed the sergeant.

  I took out my wallet, a handkerchief, Douglas’s key and a few coins and placed them in the grey plastic tray provided. Next came the keys to the four padlocks on my house, which caused DS Dowdeswell to raise his eyebrows. He picked them up from the tray.

  ‘Belt?’ said the custody sergeant.

  I removed my leather belt and put that in the tray.

  ‘Watch?’

  It joined my belt.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any drugs?

  ‘No.’

  ‘Phone?’

  ‘I’ve already got that,’ said DS Dowdeswell.

  The custody sergeant nodded and made another note in his computer.

  ‘Remove your shoes,’ he said.

  I nearly said please to him, like my grandmother would to say to me as a small child, but the sergeant wasn’t asking, he was ordering.

  I removed my shoes and put them in the tray with the other stuff.

  I was then searched – thankfully more of a frisking than a full-body strip search. Nothing found.

  Next I was photographed and fingerprinted, and then a DNA sample was taken by a none-too-gently swabbing of the inside of my cheek.

  ‘Sign here,’ said the custody sergeant, pushing a sheet of paper across the desk towards me.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Custody report. Confirms you have been told your rights.’

  I signed even though I didn’t know if I’d been told my rights or not.

  ‘Cell number seven,’ said the sergeant to another uniformed officer, and I was escorted by him past the line of other doors and into cell seven.

  The door was slammed shut behind me, leaving me alone in a space about six feet by ten, painted throughout in calming cream.

  A solid bed was built-in down one side of the cell, complete with a thin blue plastic-covered mattress. On the wall opposite the door, there was a small frosted-glass window and, in one corner, a stainless-steel lavatory with no movable seat, plus a tiny washbasin built totally into the wall with pushbuttons for taps.

  All of it had been constructed to avoid there being any fixture or fitting from which an inmate could hang themselves.

  I kept telling myself that wasn’t a consideration and I should not fret. The whole custody procedure had clearly been specifically designed to unnerve the prisoners – and it was working.

  I sat down on the bed, took some deep breaths, and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.

  Without a watch, I found it impossible to know exactly how long it was before I heard a key in the door, but it felt like at least half a day, although it couldn’t have in fact been that long – it was still light outside.

  ‘Your solicitor is here,’ said the policeman who opened the door. ‘She wants to see you.’

  She?

  I was taken along the corridor to a legal consultation room where a woman in a smart dark-blue suit and white blouse was waiting.

  ‘Where’s Simon Bassett?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s in court,’ she said. ‘He sent me instead. I’m Harriet Clark.’ She handed me one of her business cards. ‘I’m a specialist criminal solicitor in the same firm.’

  I wondered if Simon Bassett really was in cou
rt or whether it was his concerns over a potential conflict of interest that had made him step aside. Either way, Harriet Clark was all I had.

  I glanced up at the clock on the wall of the room and was dismayed to find that it had been less than two hours since I’d arrived. Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself – not!

  ‘I assume you haven’t been interviewed yet,’ Harriet said.

  ‘Not today.’

  I explained that I’d been interviewed before, on Friday, but she knew all about that. Simon had given her some notes.

  ‘I don’t understand why I’ve been arrested,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘No doubt we’ll find out in due course,’ she replied in a rather matter-of-fact tone.

  ‘I didn’t kill my wife,’ I said earnestly.

  ‘That’s not what’s important at the present time,’ Harriet said.

  ‘I assure you, it’s pretty important as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Yes, well, as maybe. But, right now, I’m more interested in deciding our tactics for this interview.’

  ‘What do you mean by tactics?’

  ‘Basically, are you going to answer their questions? Or should you reply “no comment” to everything?’

  ‘I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘That, again, is not what’s important here. This interview is our opportunity to discover what they have. They might think they will get information from you, but we intend to turn things around and find out something from them, to determine the strength of their case.’

  ‘They can’t have a case,’ I said. ‘I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Then we should definitely give them nothing. I strongly recommend you answer “no comment” to anything and everything they ask.’

  ‘But won’t that make me sound guilty?’

  ‘It’s not what you sound like in the police interview that’s important. It’s what evidence they have. Remember, we don’t have to prove your innocence – it’s up to them to prove your guilt.’

  ‘But they said that it could harm my defence if I didn’t say something now that I later rely on in court.’

  ‘Poppycock,’ Harriet said with a laugh. ‘That’s just the standard caution. And you can always blame me. What really hurts your defence is to say something now that is completely different from what you say later in court. So it’s better to say nothing now, and especially nothing you haven’t already said in your previous interview. But I’d much rather you say nothing at all. Any slight change to your story, however small and insignificant, maybe due only to a minor lapse of memory, will be picked up and thrown right back at you – and at the jury – as proof that you are lying.’

  Why was all legal advice seemingly always to say nothing? And do nothing?

  Harriet banged on the door, which was opened from the outside.

  ‘Tell them we’re ready when they are.’

  We were taken into the same interview room as before, again with Detective Chief Inspector Priestly and DS Dowdeswell. The only difference was that, this time, it was Harriet sitting next to me instead of Simon.

  The recorders were started again with a long beep.

  ‘I remind you, Mr Gordon-Russell,’ the DCI said, ‘that you are still under caution and anything you say may be used in evidence. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ he said, shuffling the papers in front of him. ‘Now, Mr Gordon-Russell, would you describe yourself as a violent man?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I would not.’

  I received a nudge from Harriet under the table.

  I looked at her. Surely there was no harm in answering that question.

  ‘But is it not the case, Mr Gordon-Russell, that you have been violent in the past?’

  ‘No,’ I said and, after receiving another nudge, I added, ‘comment.’

  The DCI looked up at me from his notes.

  ‘Was that no, or no comment?’

  ‘No comment,’ I said.

  ‘So you have been violent in the past?’

  He was twisting my answers, or rather my lack of them.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Do you know a young girl called Victoria Bradbury?’

  Where was this going? Victoria was Joe and Rachael Bradbury’s ten-year-old daughter.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘We have received a complaint from her father that you have been violent in the past towards Victoria Bradbury. That you picked her up by the arms, shook her violently and shouted at her. Is that true?’

  I sat and stared at him. Of course it wasn’t true.

  ‘Well?’ said the DCI. ‘Is it true?’

  I looked at Harriet and she shook her head very slightly.

  ‘No comment,’ I said.

  ‘Did you shout at her because she wouldn’t do what you wanted? And was that something of a sexual nature?’

  What nonsense was this?

  ‘Was that why you killed your wife? Because she found out about your sexual depravity with her niece?’

  I didn’t like this, not one bit. I could feel my palms beginning to sweat and my heart was racing.

  ‘I wish to consult alone with my solicitor.’

  ‘Interview suspended,’ said the DCI, and he stopped the recorder.

  Harriet and I were shown back into the legal consultation room.

  ‘What is it?’ Harriet asked, the irritation clear in her voice.

  ‘I can’t just sit there saying “no comment” to such an allegation.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because it’s not true, dammit. I’ve never laid a finger on that girl, and Joe Bradbury knows it. Why would he say such a thing?’

  ‘Because he’s trying to wind you up,’ Harriet said. ‘And so are the police. Ignore it – unless there’s some proof to back up the claim.’

  ‘There isn’t.’

  ‘So let it all wash over you.’

  Easier said than done.

  Sexual interference with a young child was considered the most horrendous of crimes – far worse even than murder. And yet it was so easy to accuse someone of sexually abusing children and have the police and others believe it. Look at how some senior politicians, including a former prime minister and other men of rank and influence, had been lambasted on the TV and in the press, having had false accusations of rape and sexual abuse made against them by a liar and complete fantasist. The police may have grudgingly apologised to the accused eventually, but not before one of them had died and the others had had their reputations destroyed for ever.

  And I had no doubt that this latest unjustified claim against me would also make it into the newspapers.

  ‘I want to fight back,’ I declared. ‘If no one is telling them that Joe Bradbury is lying, then they will all believe him.’

  ‘They’ll all believe him anyway,’ Harriet said depressingly. ‘It’s human nature. People want to believe everything bad about the perceived villain and, in this case, that’s you. If Joe Bradbury told them that you had two heads and scales down your back, most of them would believe it absolutely. You simply claiming that he’s lying will make no difference.’

  ‘It’s so unfair.’

  ‘As maybe, but unfair false accusations are not evidence. It is still better for you to say nothing at this stage. Trust me.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘At least we now know why they went all the way to Wales to arrest you.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘So that they could search your phone and computer for sexual images of children before you heard about Joe Bradbury’s allegations and destroyed them.’

  ‘I assure you, they won’t find any such images,’ I said. ‘Not unless Joe has managed to store them there remotely.’ I was suddenly worried. ‘He can’t do that, can he?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so, not without sending them as emails and showing his hand as being the one responsible.’

  That re
assured me, but only slightly. Joe was a bit of a wizard with computers and I wouldn’t put anything beyond him at present.

  ‘Are you ready to continue?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  But I wasn’t looking forward to it. And with good reason.

  14

  ‘I ask you again, Mr Gordon-Russell,’ DCI Priestly said when we were all again in the interview room with the recording restarted. ‘Was the reason you killed your wife because she found out about your sexual depravity with her niece?’

  I still felt uneasy. I wanted to shout, No, of course not, you fool. Not only did I not kill my wife, but I have never had any sexual feelings towards any young children, let alone my wife’s niece.

  But, instead, all I said was ‘No comment.’

  I could see that the DCI took my reply as a minor victory. In his eyes, it clearly implied my guilt.

  I felt sweaty and unwell.

  But the DCI wasn’t finished. Not by a long way.

  ‘Does the name Tracy Higgins mean anything to you?’

  I blushed.

  I know I blushed. I could feel the warmth of the blood in my neck and face.

  ‘No comment,’ I said.

  But the policeman had seen. And both he and I knew he’d seen.

  ‘Did you not admit to having sexual intercourse with Tracy Higgins when she was under the age of sixteen and was therefore still a child?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘And did that admission not result in your name being placed on the sex offenders register.’

  I gritted my teeth. ‘No comment.’

  How mistakes in your past can come back to haunt you.

  I’d been in my first week as an undergraduate at Cambridge when, at a freshers’ party in my college, I’d been approached by a beautiful young woman with very long legs and a very short skirt. She told me that she’d also just started at the university, and wasn’t it fun to be finally living away from home.

  One thing had led to another and, at her express invitation, we had ended up indulging in the pleasures of the flesh in my room. Only at one o’clock in the morning had I discovered that things were not as they appeared, when the college security officer banged on my door.

  The young woman’s father had turned up at the porter’s lodge enquiring after the whereabouts of his fifteen-year-old daughter, whom he had dropped off there earlier in the evening.