Guilty Not Guilty

by Felix Francis

  ‘So how did you have Amelia’s funeral without a death certificate?’

  ‘I applied to the coroner for a temporary one. That allowed the funeral to take place on condition she was buried and not cremated.’

  He gave me a sideways look, which implied I was giving him too much information.

  ‘How about you?’ I said, changing the subject. ‘Have you seen your boys recently?’

  He smiled broadly.

  ‘They were here last week for half-term. Charlotte came with them for some of the time.’

  ‘That’s great news.’

  ‘Don’t get excited. We’re not getting back together. In fact, she left a day earlier than originally planned because we found we couldn’t stand being together. Kept arguing over the smallest of things.’ He laughed nervously. ‘I’ve obviously got used to living on my own.’

  I wished I could.

  One of the main reasons why I had come to stay this weekend with Douglas in London was because I now found the Old Forge to be such a lonely place and I had thought that, after giving my evidence, I would have hated being alone there even more.

  And I was right.

  The experience had clearly affected me.

  I had been building up to this day for so long, believing that it would be the decisive day in the trial, but, somehow, I felt it had been a bit of an anticlimax.

  After going up to bed, now back in Douglas’s guest bedroom after the repairs from the water leak, I lay in the dark for a long time, worrying about it.

  Should I have done more?

  Could I have done more?

  By the time I finally went to sleep, I had convinced myself that, in spite of Douglas’s help, I hadn’t done enough, and that Joe Bradbury would get off.

  The very thought gave me nightmares.

  *

  On Saturday afternoon I went to the races at Sandown Park.

  It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. I had been invited by the chairman of the Honorary Stewards Appointment Board to discuss my future, a move I had taken as being hugely positive, so I had accepted at once.

  My legs were still not up to a journey to the Esher course by train as there was a good half-mile between the railway station and the racecourse entrance. So I booked a car with a driver, one who would wait and bring me back when I became tired.

  I asked Douglas if he would like to come with me and, much to my surprise and delight, he agreed.

  ‘I’ve only been to a horse race once before in my life,’ he announced in the car on the way. ‘And that was to see you ride at Lingfield. Long time ago, now, mind. I was a junior in a trial at Southwark and it was postponed for a day due to a bout of sickness in the jury. So, in a moment of weakness, I caught a train from Victoria.’

  I turned in my seat to stare at him. ‘You’ve never told me that before. Did I win?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You were miles in front and I thought you were going to, but you fell off at the last fence.’

  I remembered it well. Failures like that seem to stick in the memory longer than the successes.

  ‘I think you’ll find that the horse itself fell,’ I said. ‘Rather than I fell off it.’

  ‘Same thing, surely.’

  No, it wasn’t, I thought. Totally different thing altogether. But, I suppose, the result was the same. And, in truth, it had been my fault. It had been early in my riding career. I could recall being so elated that I was about to win my first race that I hadn’t concentrated enough in getting my mount balanced for the last. And we had both paid the price, hitting the turf hard.

  The incident had bruised my ego even more than it had bruised my body.

  ‘You didn’t say anything to me at the time about being there.’

  ‘I would have if you’d won. But I thought, under the circumstances, it was best simply to drift away.’

  He was right.

  My clever lawyer brother was always right.

  He had worked out that I would have been doubly embarrassed and distraught if I had known that he had witnessed the debacle. But, almost two decades on since the event, I was pleased that he had taken the effort to go and see me ride, albeit with such a disaster. Even now, my heart ached with the desire to have done better for him on that day. Maybe it wouldn’t have been his only previous trip to the races if I’d won. Indeed, I was sure of it.

  ‘At least no one will fall at the last fence here today,’ I said as the car pulled up in front of the Sandown main entrance. ‘It’s flat racing.’

  I had never returned my official BHA steward’s pass and I used it to gain access. I even managed to acquire a complimentary entrance badge for Douglas and a racecard.

  It felt so good to be back on a racecourse.

  I hadn’t been to the races since that appalling day at Ascot just three days after Amelia had died and, even now, I went hot and cold wondering what on earth I’d been thinking of in going.

  I clearly hadn’t been myself.

  I wasn’t sure I was myself even now.

  It was as if the death of my wife had also killed off a large part of me. Sure, I went on breathing and eating, sleeping and thinking, but it was in a parallel universe to how I had been before, seemingly not living in reality.

  Part of me even expected to wake up from this torment and find everything was fine again.

  I knew it wasn’t really going to happen but, somehow, I received some degree of solace from believing that it might, and I could understand absolutely how Mary had been comforted by her certainty that she would soon meet Amelia again on the ‘other side’.

  ‘Fancy some lunch?’ I asked Douglas.

  ‘What time’s your meeting?’

  ‘After the first race. That’s at five past two. We have plenty of time.’

  We went to the champagne and seafood bar and found a table in the window that someone else was just vacating.

  ‘I’ll get the food,’ Douglas said. ‘You keep the table.’

  Walking with crutches was not conducive to carrying anything so I sat and waited while Douglas fetched a bottle of Moët in an ice bucket, two glasses, and a couple of plates of prawn salad with lashings of Marie Rose sauce.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, raising a glass of bubbles. ‘Here’s to a fun afternoon.’

  ‘A fun afternoon,’ I echoed, somewhat forlornly, also raising mine.

  I knew that I hadn’t been any fun to be around for months. Maybe it was time I started looking on the brighter side of life. Perhaps I’d be able to soon, once the trial was over, provided we got the right result.

  Douglas and I ate our lunch and we finished the bottle of champagne, which was perhaps not the best preparation for an important appointment with the stewarding boss.

  ‘Where’s your meeting?’ Douglas asked.

  ‘In the Stewards’ Room,’ I said. ‘It’s in the weighing-room complex. After the first race, unless there’s an enquiry, in which case it will be after the second.’

  We went outside into the sunshine to watch the horses circling in the paddock for the first race, a five-furlong sprint for two-year-olds.

  ‘Which one do you fancy?’ Douglas asked, looking at the racecard. ‘Where should I stake my shirt?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘But I thought you knew about racing,’ he said with a laugh.

  ‘I know the rules,’ I said. ‘Not which horse will win.’

  Somewhat surprisingly, honorary stewards were allowed to bet provided they were not acting for the particular race in question. However, I usually didn’t bet at all while at the races, as I didn’t consider it was the best advertisement for the sport for a known steward to be seen gambling, even if he was ‘off duty’.

  And, far more importantly, I didn’t like losing my money, which I invariably did.

  ‘They look awfully small,’ Douglas said as the runners paraded past us.

  ‘These are just babies,’ I said. ‘For many it’s their first time on a racecourse. Jump
horses are generally much bigger because they’re older.’

  ‘So will these go jumping when they grow up?’

  I laughed. ‘Some might but I doubt it. These days, horses are mostly bred to be either flat or jumps specialists. But that wasn’t always the case. Red Rum, he of three-wins-plus-two-seconds-in-the-Grand-National fame, ran eight times on the flat as a two-year-old. In fact, his first ever race was a dead-heat win in a five-furlong selling plate at Aintree the day before Foinavon famously won the National, after that massive pile-up at the twenty-third fence. But that was back when Aintree used to stage flat races as well as jumps.’

  ‘Don’t they any more?’

  ‘No. Aintree is now jumping only.’

  ‘So how many racecourses are there in total?’ Douglas asked.

  ‘Sixty in Great Britain. About a third are flat only, a little over a third jumps only, and the rest have both, but not usually on the same day. Mixed meetings used to be quite common but now there are only a very few in the whole year. I know there’s one at Haydock in May. In fact, that might be the only one left.’

  ‘Why not more?’

  ‘Different clientele, I suppose. Different trainers. And different jockeys.’

  ‘But the same stewards?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said, smiling. ‘Rules is rules, either code.’

  Douglas decided to keep his shirt on his back and to invest just ten pounds to win on a horse whose jockey’s silks were in his college colours.

  ‘Bookmakers will love you,’ I said, laughing.

  We watched the race from the main grandstand.

  The babies broke evenly and ran as fast as they could down the five-furlong straight course, the whole thing over in less than a minute – blink and you missed it.

  Douglas enthusiastically shouted his support for his selection at maximum decibels, urging it to go faster, but to no avail. It finished sixth out of the nine runners.

  ‘Mug’s game,’ he said, tearing up his betting slip into confetti.

  We went to the unsaddling enclosure to watch the winner come in; as there were no controversial incidents that required any action, I left Douglas there, leaning on the rail, as I went through to the Stewards’ Room.

  The chairman of the Honorary Stewards Appointment Board was already waiting for me.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Bill,’ he said, stretching out a hand for me to shake, which I ignored.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I currently need both my hands to walk with.’

  Especially after half a bottle of champers.

  Why did I do that?

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said the chairman. ‘Silly me.’

  He pulled over a couple of the chairs and we sat down.

  ‘How are things?’ he asked.

  ‘Physically or mentally?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Physically, I am getting better very slowly. I can now walk pretty well with the crutches and I haven’t brought a wheelchair with me here today, which I would have had to do until about a week or two ago. The doctors tell me they have little or no idea if I will ever be back to normal, but I’m working on it.’

  The chairman smiled.

  ‘As for the mental side,’ I said, ‘I hope things will be better after the trial is over. I am finding that quite stressful at present.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ the chairman said again. ‘But other than that?’

  ‘Well, I won’t say that life has been a bunch of laughs these last eight months. It hasn’t. But I’m still here. And I’m ready and eager to resume my duties as a race-day steward.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s why I asked you to come here today.’

  Suddenly, I feared that he was going to tell me I wasn’t wanted, and to demand back my official pass card, but he could have surely done that by email or post. And my fears were unfounded.

  ‘I am pleased to tell you,’ he said, ‘that I will be recommending to the full BHA board that your name be reinstated on the official List of Stewards.’

  I smiled broadly.

  ‘That is very good news,’ I said. ‘But George Longcross won’t be pleased. He told me in no uncertain terms that I’d brought racing into disrepute.’

  It was a comment that still irritated me.

  ‘Yes, well, George can be a bit of a dinosaur at times. But you have always impressed me by the solid reasoning of your arguments and the clarity of your decisions. Welcome back to the team.’

  He held out his hand again and, this time, I shook it, warmly.

  ‘Let’s hope the main board agree with you.’

  ‘They will,’ he said. ‘I have the Authority chairman’s blessing to hold this meeting. You will hear officially very soon.’ He stood up to indicate that our meeting was over. He smiled. ‘I must now get back to my job of stewarding here today. My colleagues have been holding the fort for me outside.’

  I also stood up and gathered my walking aids together.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, meaning it.

  There was almost a spring in my faltering steps as I went back outside to Douglas and I didn’t need to tell him the outcome – he could tell by the huge grin that I couldn’t wipe off my face.

  It was going to be a fun afternoon, after all.

  ‘I’ll order some more bubbly,’ he said.

  ‘Only if you want me to fall over.’

  We settled on a coffee from a concession stand, which we drank while perusing the runners in the next race.

  Douglas chose to place another wager, again ten pounds, this time on a horse with a legal-sounding name, but his renewed high hopes ended once again with more confetti in the wind.

  It was a good job my brother was a better lawyer than he was a punter.

  37

  Week two of the trial was taken up by the prosecution as they slowly tried to build a solid wall of evidence with which to surround the defendant, a wall that we all hoped the defence would be unable to knock down.

  After I’d finished giving my own testimony on the first Friday, I sat in the public area of the court for every moment of the trial, and I watched as a steady stream of witnesses made their way in and out again.

  First up was Nancy Fadeley. She stood bolt upright in the witness box dressed in a smart floral-printed summer dress, and wearing her signature pearl necklace, this time with matching drop-pearl earrings. The prosecutor began by asking her to tell the jury of her trip to the pub with Amelia on the evening before she died, and to recount the conversation that had taken place between the two of them.

  As DCI Priestly had predicted, the defence barrister didn’t like it one bit and, in spite of his complaints having been dismissed once at a previous hearing, he now again protested vociferously to the judge that what Amelia had said to a third party was mere hearsay and should be inadmissible as evidence.

  The jury were sent out of the court while the matter was discussed at length between the lawyers. Eventually, the judge ruled that, as Amelia wasn’t able to attend court herself to be questioned due to having been the victim of the murder and hence she was dead, evidence of what she had said to a third party was relevant and admissible.

  The jury were brought back in and Nancy continued, explaining how Amelia had told her that she was certain that Joe had stolen money from their mother, and how he would have killed her if he’d known she was aware of it.

  The next witness was someone I didn’t recognise, who turned out to be Alan Newbould, the man who had bought the house in Weybridge from Mary Bradbury.

  Yes, he agreed, he had given Joe Bradbury a personal cheque for one hundred thousand pounds as payment for fixtures and fittings, plus some of the carpets and pieces of furniture and, yes, Joe had indicated to him that it was best if the lawyers used by each side for the transaction knew nothing about it.

  The eel gave him a bit of a hard time in cross-examination, claiming that it had been he who had committed a crime by avoiding a proportion of the stamp duty land tax, but Mr Newbould never wavered from his s
tory that, as far as he was concerned, the payment had been a legitimate settlement for goods received, and he had been unaware of any intention by Joe Bradbury to keep the money for himself.

  An executive of one of the High Street banks then arrived to testify that no sum of any amount, let alone one of a hundred thousand pounds, had been deposited at any time into Mary Bradbury’s account by Mr Joseph Bradbury. And, because her son had banked with the same company as his mother, the same executive was also able to provide bank statements to the jury that showed Mr Newbould’s funds being cleared into Mr Bradbury’s personal account just three days after he’d received the cheque.

  Next to appear was the solicitor Mr James Fairbrother, MA (Oxon), TEP, who confirmed that, oh, yes, well, prior to her death, Mrs Mary Bradbury had expressed to him her belief that her son had indeed stolen a hundred thousand pounds from her. As a result, she had cut him out of her will, passing his share of her estate directly to his children.

  The eel had made another attempt to prevent hearsay testimony being admitted but with the same result – abject failure – and for the same reason: the relevant person was unable to attend the court in person to give it herself as she was dead.

  There were brief appearances by Fred Marchant, Mary’s neighbour, followed by his wife Jill, both of whom stated that they had been witnesses to Mary’s signing of her new will, the one excluding Joe, and that, as far as they were concerned, she had been quite aware of what she was doing, and why, at the time of the signing.

  The eel had been quick to ask them what qualifications they had for making such a claim and, reluctantly, they both had to admit they had none.

  However, this played straight into the hands of the prosecution as they then called Mary’s doctor, the one who had performed the cognitive assessment tests on her, and he did have the necessary qualifications to assert that Mary Bradbury had been of sound mind and did have the required testamentary capacity under sections 1 to 4 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.