Guilty Not Guilty

by Felix Francis

  In spite of the fact that she had lied to me about being another student at the college, and that she had fully consented to our sexual activity, I had been arrested for having had intercourse with a minor, with her father demanding loudly that I be sent down for a long stretch in the slammer.

  I should have contested the charge in court as the law at the time actually stated that a man under the age of twenty-four who had sex with a girl over thirteen but under sixteen was not guilty of an offence if it was consensual and he had reasonable grounds to believe that she was older. But I was a frightened naive nineteen-year-old and I was badly advised to accept an official police caution because, I was told, that that would be the end of the matter and my university career would not be affected.

  What I hadn’t realised at the time was that, by accepting the police caution, I was not only admitting guilt of an illegal act but also acquiring a permanent criminal record. As such, my name had been added to the then newly created sex offenders register for five years and, even though that period had long since passed, the police obviously still had a record of it.

  And it didn’t look good.

  I so wanted to explain the circumstances, to make the chief inspector realise that it had been a huge misunderstanding and that I wasn’t the one at fault, but I could see that what Harriet had said was right. He believed the worst of me and no amount of explanation would ever change that.

  ‘Still fond of young girls, are you, Mr Gordon-Russell?’

  ‘No comment.’

  *

  The grilling lasted another half-hour or so but, basically, the DCI asked the same few questions over and over again, and he received the same answer – ‘No comment’. Eventually, he gave up and terminated the interview.

  Harriet and I went back into the legal consultation room.

  ‘I think that went pretty well,’ she said when the door was closed.

  ‘Pretty well?’ I said with incredulity. ‘I thought it was disastrous.’

  ‘But it showed they have nothing on you other than Joe’s tittle-tattle, innuendos and the dragging up of past events. Don’t forget, they can’t raise that previous conviction in court as evidence in this case.’

  ‘It wasn’t a conviction,’ I corrected. ‘It was a police caution.’

  ‘Okay, I agree,’ Harriet said. ‘Technically a caution is not a conviction, but you know what I mean. And they concentrated all their efforts on the child-abuse thing instead of confronting the reason for your arrest. It shows that they have nothing new to connect you with the murder of your wife. Not enough, I would have thought, to charge you, anyway.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ I asked.

  ‘We wait.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Legally they can detain you for twenty-four hours, thirty-six with the agreement of a senior officer, a superintendent or above, and they’re almost certain to get that in a murder case. After that they have to apply to a court to keep you longer, up to a maximum of ninety-six hours in total, but I don’t think they have enough to convince a magistrate to extend that long. Then they have to either charge you or let you go. Of course, we’re assuming they won’t find anything incriminating on your phone or computer in the meantime.’

  That was beginning to worry me more and more. One hears such dreadful stories of how hackers can remotely get into other people’s computers to do all sorts of stuff such as turn on their webcams to spy on them. God knows what Joe Bradbury might have done to mine.

  ‘I’ll try and find out some information from them,’ Harriet said. ‘Like if they intend to interview you again today, which I think is most unlikely as they will need time to trawl through your hard drive. I have to get back to London now but I can come back again in the morning if necessary.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘You just have to sit and wait.’

  ‘In a cell?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ She smiled a sort of lopsided apologetic smile. ‘I could ask them if they have anything you can read but I wouldn’t hold out much hope. They consider that sitting in a cell alone with nothing to do is part of the process of encouraging a prisoner to confess.’

  ‘Well, I certainly won’t be doing that,’ I said. ‘But something to read would be good.’

  I was taken back to cell seven and, shortly afterwards, some reading material in the form of a thick booklet was brought in and handed to me.

  They must be having a laugh.

  The booklet was entitled Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984: Code of Practice for the Detention, Treatment and Questioning of Persons by Police Officers.

  I lay down on the thin blue mattress and stared at the ceiling.

  What was happening to my life?

  I watched as the daylight coming through the small frosted window diminished to darkness. It was exactly one week ago that I had left to go to Birmingham on that fateful day, with Amelia waving to me from the garden as I’d driven away.

  Just a single week. It felt more like half a lifetime.

  And the time went on dragging as I lay on the bed feeling sorry for myself. Eventually, in desperation, I sat up and read through the code of conduct booklet. At least then I really did know my rights, which I’d previously signed for, one of which was that I was entitled to have access to this very document.

  So they had done me no special favour in supplying it. I was not surprised.

  However, another thing of interest that I discovered was that I should be offered three meals within every twenty-four hour period, two light and one main. And, if I had special dietary requirements, I was even be permitted to have food brought in by my friends or family, at my own expense, as long as it didn’t conceal drugs or weapons.

  So far today, I’d had absolutely nothing to eat, not even breakfast, and I was hungry, very hungry. That was surely a special dietary requirement. Maybe I could order a super-size takeaway from the Thai Orchid restaurant in Banbury town centre – I was on particularly good terms with the head waiter and I’m sure he would deliver it as my ‘friend’.

  If only I could contact him.

  I pushed the cell-call button set into the wall next to the door.

  I waited for five minutes but nothing happened, so I pushed the button again. This time an eye appeared at the peephole in the door and then the hatch beneath was slid open.

  ‘What do you want?’ said an unfriendly voice.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ I said. ‘I’ve had nothing to eat all day.’

  Before I had the chance to say I’d like a double portion of Thai green chicken curry with sticky rice, the hatch was slammed shut again.

  Damn it. Are they trying to starve me into submission too?

  But I hadn’t been ignored.

  After a while, the hatch reopened and a cheese sandwich in a cardboard container was held through it. I took it and the small plastic bottle of water that followed. It wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind but it would do.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said through the hatch just before it was slammed shut again.

  It must have taken me all of two minutes to eat the sandwich, although I managed to stretch out drinking the water for just a fraction longer.

  Now what?

  I lay down again on the bed and once more stared at the ceiling.

  At least I knew I’d done nothing wrong and was totally blameless of the crime for which I had been arrested.

  I tried to work out in my mind which was worse: to have done something really bad and be facing the prospect of a long stretch in prison, or to be totally innocent but hopeful that this was only a short-term incarceration until innocence was established.

  There was a third scenario, of course, and one that was truly scary – that, in spite of being innocent, you were nevertheless convicted, and hence facing the same long sentence as the guilty.

  I tried hard not to dwell on option three, but without much success.

  The hours passed and I started to imagine the DCI finding all sort
s of incriminating evidence on my computer hard drive.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the cell door was opened by a young policeman who handed me a musty blanket and a far-from-fragrant lumpy pillow.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Ten-thirty,’ he replied.

  Too late to place an order from the Thai Orchid.

  ‘Is there any more food? I’ve only had a single cheese sandwich to eat all day. According to this . . .’ I tapped the cover of the code-of-practice booklet, ‘ . . . I’m entitled to a main meal.’

  ‘Main meals are served at lunchtime,’ he said. ‘Midday.’

  When I’d still been on the road from Wales.

  ‘Are there any more sandwiches?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find,’ he replied, and he slammed shut the door again.

  But, true to his word, a few minutes later the hatch opened and another sandwich was passed through – egg this time – and another bottle of water.

  ‘Eat it quick, though,’ the policeman said through the gap. ‘Lights out in five minutes.’

  That was a great relief. The overhead strip lights, built flush into the ceiling, were particularly bright and I had wondered how I would ever get to sleep with them on.

  However, when the main lights did go out, it was far from being completely dark in the cell as there were several night lights built into the same fitting. But it was a huge improvement and I snuggled down beneath the musty blanket for my seventh restless night in a row.

  At least it was warmer here than in Llanbron Castle.

  15

  Wednesday morning started much the same way as Tuesday finished, with me lying awake on the cell bed staring at the ceiling wondering what the hell was going on, and why was I here?

  The bright overhead strip lights were turned on without warning and, presently, the hatch in the door opened and my breakfast was passed in – an individual small packet of cornflakes, a small half-pint cardboard carton of milk, a plastic bowl and a flimsy plastic spoon. What did they think I’d do with a metal one? Dig a tunnel through the concrete floor?

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked through the open hatch.

  ‘Eight,’ came the reply just a fraction of a second before the hatch was slammed shut again.

  Eight o’clock. I’d been arrested at the castle just before nine. So in an hour’s time their twenty-four would be up and I should be released.

  Either that or I would have to be brought before a senior police officer or a magistrate.

  I ate the cornflakes, drank the rest of the milk, and wished I had a toothbrush.

  The isolation was beginning to get to me and I’d been here less than a day. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for those in long-term solitary confinement – no wonder it was considered to be torture by the United Nations.

  It was not being aware of what was going on outside the cell door that was causing me the most distress. That and also not knowing the time.

  My whole life was normally determined by the clock – meeting times, appointments, race-start times, train departures – everything. Yet here I was, trying to estimate the passing of a single hour without one, and getting it hopelessly wrong.

  When I was certain it must be at least nine o’clock, I leaned on the cell-call button and kept on pressing.

  I was fed up doing nothing. It was time to fight back.

  First an eye appeared in the peephole and then the hatch was opened.

  ‘What do you want?’ shouted an irate voice through the slot.

  I took my finger off the button.

  ‘It’s nine o’clock,’ I said confidently. ‘I’ve been in custody for twenty-four hours.’

  ‘It’s only eight-forty and you haven’t. So shut up.’

  Oh! Damn. But I wasn’t giving up.

  ‘I demand to be released.’

  The hatch was slammed shut again.

  Once more I leaned on the cell-call button, but no one came for a long time.

  Finally, the hatch opened again.

  ‘Be quiet,’ came the order.

  ‘I know my rights,’ I said, holding up the code-of-conduct booklet. ‘I demand to be released.’

  The hatch shut again and no amount of call-button pushing made it open again. Perhaps they had a way of disconnecting the bell for ‘difficult’ prisoners. And I intended to be ‘difficult’. My detention beyond twenty-four hours, for something I hadn’t done, was an outrage and I was becoming incensed by it.

  In frustration, I banged on the metal cell door with my fist, but that did nothing more than give me a sore hand.

  In the end, I sat down on the bed and almost cried.

  Amelia, my darling, where are you when I need you?

  In a mortuary; cold and lifeless.

  I rather wished I could join her there.

  *

  By the time the cell door was finally opened some considerable time later, I was totally depressed and suicidal. Perhaps it was a good thing there were no hanging points after all.

  ‘Out,’ said the policeman, jerking his thumb at me.

  I was escorted back to the custody-suite lobby and told to stand in front of the high desk, across from the custody sergeant.

  ‘Why have I been detained for more than twenty-four hours?’ I asked before he had a chance to speak.

  ‘You haven’t,’ the sergeant replied.

  I looked up at the clock on the wall. It indicated half past eleven.

  ‘I was arrested at nine yesterday morning. I make that twenty-six and a half hours ago.’ I stared at the sergeant with my angry face on.

  He ignored it. ‘The relevant time from which the twenty-four hours run is the time you were booked in at the police station, which was . . .’ He consulted his record. ‘ . . . twelve-thirty yesterday. We are well within the time limit.’

  ‘So being confined in a police car for three and a half hours wearing handcuffs doesn’t count?’ My voice was full of irony.

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ said the sergeant firmly. ‘The twenty-four hours started when I authorised your detention here on your arrival.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous,’ I said.

  ‘It’s the law. Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, section forty-one, subsection two-point-A-one.’

  He rattled off the provision without having to look it up and I was sure he must know. He would deal with this many times every day.

  But I still wasn’t happy.

  ‘I wish to see my solicitor.’

  The sergeant sighed.

  ‘As you wish,’ he said, ‘although you have been brought out here now to be processed for release.’

  ‘Release?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the sergeant. ‘You are being released under investigation. Sign here.’

  He pushed a piece of paper and a pen over the desk towards me.

  ‘What does “released under investigation” mean?’ I asked.

  ‘It means exactly what it says. You are being released from custody but the investigation of your involvement in the murder of your wife continues and you may be required to return at some time in the future for further questioning, or to be charged.’

  ‘So it’s like being on police bail?’ I said.

  ‘Similar, but there is no fixed date to report to a police station, and no conditions.’ He handed me an envelope. ‘The details are in here.’

  ‘But I’m free to go now?’

  ‘As soon as you sign this paper.’

  I signed quickly before he changed his mind.

  ‘How about my stuff?’ I asked.

  He passed across the grey plastic tray from yesterday. I put on my watch, shoes and belt, and placed my wallet and handkerchief in my pocket along with the loose change and Douglas’s front-door key.

  ‘Where’s my phone?’

  The sergeant consulted his computer.

  ‘Your phone is subject to a police evidence seizure notice, as is your car and your computer, so they will be held by us for th
e time being while forensic investigations continue.’

  ‘How about my wife’s car?’

  ‘Where is it?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘I assume it’s in the garage at my home but I don’t know. I didn’t check. And where are my house keys, anyway?’

  ‘You have it. I just gave it to you.’

  ‘That was my brother’s house key,’ I said. ‘Where are mine?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said the sergeant. ‘The only key in the inventory of your belongings is the one you’ve already got.’

  That would be because the padlock keys hadn’t in fact been my keys in the first place.

  ‘But there’s a black suitcase and a coat in the store under your name.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘I’ll take those.’

  One of his staff appeared with my things and, much to the custody sergeant’s obvious irritation, I lifted my case up onto the top of his desk and opened it.

  It had clearly been thoroughly searched, with the pockets of my dinner jacket and trousers pulled inside out to ensure they were empty, but, as far as I could tell, everything I had taken to Wales was still there – other than my dignity, and my wellingtons, which I assumed were still in the boot of the Jaguar.

  ‘Can you ask DS Dowdeswell for the keys to my house?’

  ‘Does he have them?’

  ‘I presume so. They’re the keys to the padlocks that you lot applied.’

  A call was made but the outcome was unsatisfactory, at least as far as I was concerned.

  ‘It seems your house remains a place of interest to the investigation. A second search of the premises is being conducted there even as we speak.’

  ‘Looking for more dog bones, are you?’ I asked sarcastically, but he didn’t know to what I was referring and my joke fell completely flat. ‘When can I go back there?’

  ‘Not until the search is complete.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘Depends on what they find,’ the custody sergeant said unhelpfully. ‘We’ll let you know.’

  ‘How?’ I said. ‘You have my phone and my computer.’

  ‘You’ll have to contact us, then. But I’d give it at least a day or two.’

  ‘Can I get my wife’s car from the garage in the meantime?’