Guilty Not Guilty

by Felix Francis

  I don’t know why I bothered to ask. I knew the answer would be no.

  ‘Not until the search is complete.’

  I put on my coat, picked up my suitcase, and was escorted through to the public side and then to the front door. Here, I paused, checking for any sign of more press photographers, but all looked clear so I stepped out into the late-October sunshine.

  I stood for a moment looking up at the blue sky and realised how we all took liberty for granted. Only when we were deprived of it, albeit even for a very short period, did our lack of a distant horizon become so significant.

  Where to now?

  I couldn’t go home to the Old Forge in Hanwell and I had no available car to get to Wales, even though, I suppose, I could have taken a train from Banbury to Wrexham and then asked my father to pick me up from there. But I didn’t have any appetite for going back to the castle, only to have another fight with my elder brother.

  I decided that I’d return to Chester Square. Douglas had said I could stay as long as I wanted, so I was sure he wouldn’t mind me sleeping in Philip’s unused bed for another couple of nights.

  I walked down through the town to the railway station, stopping off at a mobile-phone shop to buy a pay-as-you-go smartphone.

  Instant communication was another thing we took for granted. There are now officially more mobile telephones in the world than there are people, and being disconnected from the network was tantamount to being a non-person, an outcast, a reject from society.

  ‘Name?’ asked the young man in the shop.

  ‘Why do you need my name?’ I asked.

  ‘Regulations.’

  ‘Jones,’ I said. ‘Henry Jones.’

  ‘Any ID? Driving licence or a utility bill? Something with your address?’

  ‘Not on me,’ I said, patting my pockets.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, smiling. ‘No one will ever know.’

  He typed Henry Jones into a computer without question.

  ‘Address?’

  ‘It’s 262 West Street, Coventry, CV1 7QT.’

  He typed that in too without checking, which was just as well because I’d also made it up. I had no idea if there even was a West Street in Coventry and that wouldn’t have been the postcode even if there were. It seemed easier than telling him that I was William Gordon-Russell, notorious accused husband of the woman recently murdered down the road in Hanwell village.

  ‘How much data do you want?’ the young man asked.

  ‘How much do I need?’

  ‘Depends what you intend doing. Downloading films and videos takes the most. That and streaming live TV, or internet gaming.’

  I shook my head. ‘Just enough for my emails and some Google searches.’

  ‘Five gigs should be plenty for that,’ he said. ‘You can always top up if you need more.’

  He showed me how to add email accounts and I paid for the phone with cash, to avoid giving him a bank card with a different name on it than Henry Jones.

  Hence I became, once again, a fully fledged member of the human race.

  I walked on to the station but I didn’t catch a train to London.

  Instead, I took one to Oxford, and, contrary to Douglas’s advice, I went to the opening of Amelia’s inquest.

  16

  My presence in the Coroner’s Court caused quite a flurry of excitement and not just among the assembled media. Not that I had intended it to, but circumstances overcame me.

  The hearing was scheduled for two o’clock and I had caught the train from Banbury at just after midday, arriving into Oxford station at half past. Hence, I had been early at the court and had slipped into the public area unseen, partly by wearing my tweed cap, and with my Barbour jacket collar turned up. I chose to sit on the back row of benches.

  As the time drew near, the court began to fill up; due, no doubt, to the extensive media coverage and the public’s love of anything morbid, and especially of violent death. I shuffled along the bench until I was tight against the wall in the far corner from the door, still with my cap pulled down to my eyebrows.

  ‘All rise,’ announced the court usher, and the coroner came in and took his place behind his bench. He sat down and we did too.

  The court itself was a very fine affair, having been built in 1841 with magnificent tall arched windows and an extremely high ceiling. It had originally been the city’s Assizes and Quarter Sessions court, and later served as the Crown Court before the construction of the new Oxford Combined Court building in St Aldates in the mid-1980s. It was now part of Oxfordshire County Council offices and access was gained, rather ignominiously for such a grand setting, through the staff canteen.

  The interior had changed very little since its time as a Crown Court, with extensive grey-painted wooden divisions separating the different areas. In the centre of the court, with a high solid back to prevent access for the defendant to and from the public, was the old dock with its steep flight of wooden steps leading up from the holding cells beneath, still connected in turn via a subterranean passage to the nearby Oxford Prison, itself now converted into a luxury hotel.

  The dock served no purpose in the current usage, other than to block the floor of the court from my view, but it was here in July 1976 that the infamous Donald Neilson, nicknamed the Black Panther, had stood trial for the kidnap, ransom and subsequent murder of seventeen-year-old heiress Lesley Whittle.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the coroner began. ‘We are here today to open and then adjourn the inquest into the death of Amelia Jane Gordon-Russell. As I am sure you are all aware, this death is subject to police inquiries and, as such, a date for the full hearing will not be set at this time.

  ‘The purpose of an inquest is to establish the who, where, when and how of an individual’s demise. Who was the deceased? Where did they die? When did they die? And how did they die? It is not the purpose of a Coroner’s Court to apportion blame to any specific individual or organisation. That is the role of the criminal courts.

  ‘Today we will be mainly concerned with evidence of identification of the deceased, and the time and place of death, plus we will hear brief updates on the medical circumstances and the police investigation.’

  He shuffled his papers.

  ‘Do we have the investigating officer present?’

  ‘Here, sir,’ came a voice from behind the old dock, out of my sight.

  A man I knew well appeared in view and went to stand in the witness box to the left of the coroner as we looked. He was sworn in by the usher.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Dowdeswell,’ said the man. ‘Thames Valley Police, based at Banbury Police Station. I am one of the investigating officers in this case. The senior investigating officer, Detective Chief Inspector Priestly, sends his apologies. He is detained elsewhere.’

  The coroner nodded in understanding as he wrote down the details on a pad in front of him. Clearly the presence of a DCI at an inquest opening was not expected or required.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said the coroner. ‘Can you please briefly outline the circumstances of the death?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The detective referred to his pocket notebook. ‘The police emergency line received a call at ten-seventeen last Wednesday morning informing us that a woman’s body had been found in the kitchen of a house in the village of Hanwell, near Banbury.’

  ‘Do we know who made the call?’ the coroner asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the DS. ‘It was made from the premises by the deceased’s brother, Mr Joseph Bradbury. It was he who had discovered the body and it was also he who provided the official identification of the remains as those of Mrs Amelia Gordon-Russell.’

  The coroner looked up from his note-taking.

  ‘Is Mr Bradbury in court?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said another voice from out of sight behind a wooden division.

  ‘Good,’ said the coroner. ‘Sergeant, will you step down a moment but remain within the court as I will require you again shortly.’
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  DS Dowdeswell exited the witness box.

  ‘Mr Bradbury, if you please.’ The coroner waved a hand towards the now-empty space.

  I watched with gritted teeth as Joe Bradbury made his way into the box. He was handed a Bible and he read from a card: ‘I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  He handed the Bible and card back to the usher.

  This will be interesting, I thought. I hadn’t heard him say much that had been even the slightest bit true for a very long time.

  ‘Please state your full name and occupation for the record.’

  ‘Joseph Reginald Bradbury. I work as a High Court enforcement officer.’

  So far, so good. I knew that bit was true even if, as Douglas had said, it was just a fancy way of saying he was a debt collector.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Bradbury,’ said the coroner. ‘Can you please tell the court what happened on the morning of Wednesday last?’

  ‘I arrived at my sister’s house about ten o’clock. There was no answer at the front door so I walked round to the back. That was also locked so I looked through the kitchen window. My sister was lying face down on the floor. She didn’t respond to me knocking on the glass so I kicked the lock off the door and forced my way in.’

  Joe stopped, looked up to the high ceiling and took a deep breath.

  ‘Take your time, Mr Bradbury,’ said the coroner. ‘I realise that this is very difficult for you but it would be most helpful to the court if you could continue.’

  Joe took another deep breath.

  ‘I reached down to Amelia to try and wake her but her skin was cold to the touch – very cold. She was clearly dead. Had been for hours, I reckon. Then I saw the strap around her throat. That was when I called the police.’

  He paused again, swallowed hard, and tears appeared in his eyes.

  Crocodile tears. The bastard.

  He and Amelia had been at loggerheads for the past three years, with some of his texts and emails reducing her to real tears, and he was the main reason she had ended up in hospital with mental health problems.

  I found it impossible to believe that he was really upset by her death. After all, it was he who’d been doing his utmost to drive her to suicide.

  ‘What did you do while you waited for the police to arrive?’ asked the coroner, still writing notes on his pad.

  ‘I can’t really remember,’ Joe replied. ‘I was in shock.’

  The coroner looked up at him with misplaced sympathy. ‘I won’t keep you much longer, Mr Bradbury, but can you confirm that you formally identified the deceased to the police as your sister, Mrs Amelia Jane Gordon-Russell?’

  ‘I can. There was no doubt about it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the coroner, making another note. ‘Just one more thing. Can you tell us why you went to see your sister that particular morning, a weekday morning when you would normally have been at work?’

  ‘Because she asked me to. She called me at home on Tuesday evening. Our mother has just been diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer and Amelia wanted to discuss her treatment, and how we could make her remaining time a little easier for her.’

  ‘Liar!’ I shouted loudly.

  I didn’t mean to. I hadn’t planned it. It just slipped out.

  All eyes in the public gallery swung round in my direction, as they did in the courtroom below.

  ‘Silence!’ ordered the coroner. ‘You,’ he said, pointing up at me with his right forefinger extended. ‘Who are you?’

  I removed the tweed cap and stood up.

  ‘I’m Bill Russell. Amelia Russell’s husband. And her brother is lying.’

  My outburst brought the inquest proceedings to a halt, at least for a while.

  I was warned by the coroner that I could be held in contempt of court.

  ‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘Joe Bradbury is lying to you when he’s just sworn an oath to tell the truth. Surely that’s more a contempt of the court than a bit of shouting.’

  ‘That would be committing perjury not contempt,’ the coroner corrected.

  ‘Well, that’s what he’s doing. There is absolutely no way on earth that my wife would have invited her brother over to our house. She’d have rather cut off her own hand with an axe. She hated him with a passion for what he’d done to us over the past three years.’

  ‘Mr Gordon-Russell,’ said the coroner. ‘In the light of the loss of your wife, I can understand your anger and frustration at a perceived wrong, but this is neither the time nor the place for this conversation. Please resume your seat.’

  ‘It’s not a perceived wrong,’ I said. ‘It’s real. And this is the time. I’m fed up of not saying anything and letting him get away with it. Joe Bradbury is nothing more than a habitual liar and all his smarmy protestations otherwise are yet more lies.’

  The coroner had run out of patience. ‘Mr Gordon-Russell. If you don’t retake your seat immediately and be quiet, I will have you forcibly removed from the court.’

  All through this exchange, Joe Bradbury had been standing silently in the witness box, a supercilious smirk on his face.

  ‘I object to being called a liar,’ he said haughtily. Then he turned to the bench with his nose held high in an arrogant pose. ‘Your honour,’ he said, addressing the coroner incorrectly, ‘I am an officer of the High Court and I take severe exception to having my name blackened in such a manner by that man.’

  Sue me, then, I thought. That will give me a chance to prove his lies.

  I sat back down and the coroner had the good sense to excuse Joe from the witness box and recall DS Dowdeswell.

  But my troubles weren’t over. Far from it.

  ‘Now, Sergeant,’ said the coroner, clearly relieved to be getting the inquest back on track. ‘I am sure I don’t have to remind you that you are still under oath.’ The detective nodded at him. ‘Good. Before I deal with the pathologist’s interim report, could you please give us a brief update on the progress of the police investigation?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the DS. ‘The police are treating the death of Mrs Gordon-Russell as one of murder and, as such, a murder inquiry incident room has been set up at Banbury Police Station under the leadership of DCI Priestly.’

  The coroner wrote it all down. ‘Has it not been reported in the press that an arrest has been made?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ replied the detective. ‘A forty-year-old man was arrested yesterday morning on suspicion of murder. However, at this time, there is insufficient evidence to charge the individual so he has been released under investigation.’

  As he spoke, the detective sergeant stared straight at me from the witness box and no one in the courtroom, nor anyone in the public gallery, was left in any doubt about who was the forty-year-old individual concerned. Those sitting near to me shifted away slightly, as if too close a proximity might cause them to be contaminated.

  ‘But we continue to search for and examine the evidence and we are hopeful of tabling charges against the man in the near future.’

  It wasn’t a hope I shared.

  ‘Thank you, Detective Sergeant,’ said the coroner. ‘Have you anything else to add at this time?’

  He hesitated for a moment and I wondered if he was going to ask the coroner if he could arrest me for contempt of court but then he shook his head. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then you are excused.’

  The DS left the witness box but continued to stare up at me as he walked back to his place in the body of the courtroom.

  ‘Next I come to the post-mortem results,’ said the coroner. ‘Dr Nicholas Brewster, the Home Office pathologist who performed the examination, will attend the full hearing as and when that is convened. However, for the purposes of the official recording, I will read out loud his interim report.’

  He lifted a single sheet of paper from his desk.

  ‘Having been informed by Thames Valley Police that a suspected murder victim ha
d been found, I attended the scene at a house in the village of Hanwell, Oxfordshire, at eleven-thirty a.m. The body was that of a female aged approximately forty years of age. I confirmed that life was extinct and conducted an initial examination in situ, including recording the core temperature of the deceased.

  ‘This temperature, plus the fact that rigor mortis was already detectable in the eyelids, neck and jaw, indicated that death had probably occurred between two and eight hours previously. General lividity of the body, that is the pooling of the fluids after death due to gravity, indicated that the victim had likely died where she was found.

  ‘I had the body removed to the mortuary at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where I conducted a full post-mortem examination.

  ‘An external inspection of the corpse showed considerable pinpoint haemorrhaging, known as petechiae, in both the skin and in conjunctiva of the eyes, a clear indication that asphyxia was the likely cause of death.

  ‘Dissection and removal of the larynx, with the tongue attached, showed that the hyoid bone was fractured and that there was evidence of contusion haemorrhage in both the superficial and deep musculature of the neck, all positive indications of strangulation, and something that was in keeping with the deceased having been found with a ligature still in place around the neck. In addition there were several abrasions on the neck consistent with damage due to finger and thumbnails and, from the angle of the wounds, they were most likely the nails of the victim fighting to remove the ligature. Skin found under the nails matched that of the deceased.’

  The coroner paused and took a drink of water and I realised what Douglas had meant about the body being considered as an ‘it’ rather than a ‘she’. The post-mortem examination of Amelia was not something that was easy for me to think about.

  ‘I conclude that, subject to the results of various toxicology tests yet to be received, the deceased died from asphyxia as a consequence of being strangled by pressure to the neck. This pressure created an obstruction of the jugular veins, causing a backup of venous blood in the head that would, within a minute or two, have resulted in passive congestion within the vessels of the brain. This, in turn, would have cut off the supply of oxygen to the surrounding tissues, leading to unconsciousness, depressed respiration and, eventually, to death.’