Dick Francis's Refusal

by Felix Francis

  “Have I passed?” I asked.

  “It is not a matter of passing or failing,” he said. “But I presume you mean is there any reason why you should not have a transplant.”

  “And is there?”

  “No,” he said, “none at all. I think you are psychologically sound in your outlook, and I think you are a suitable candidate for a transplant.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “But be careful. I detect from our discussion that you can be rather impulsive at times, sometimes acting without thinking through all the consequences. But, to counter that, you do seem to know what you want.”

  He was good, I thought. Very good.

  • • •

  HARRY BRYANT was delighted and set about explaining to me all the various bits of paperwork we needed to complete.

  “The final consent forms will have to be signed just before the operation,” he said, “when we have the donor hand available. But you need to confirm that you understand now what the limitations are and that we can give you no guarantees as to the future dexterity of the transplanted hand.”

  He gave me a number of documents to read and then invited me to sign each of them in the space provided.

  “Covering your back?” I said.

  “Absolutely,” he said with a laugh. “I trained in America, don’t forget. They’ll sue you for anything. We had one patient who threatened legal action over the fact that his new fingernails grew at a different rate to the ones on his other hand.”

  “Faster or slower?” I asked.

  He laughed. “I’ve no idea.”

  I filled in the last of the documents, the one that recorded all my contact details.

  “Right,” he said, collecting all the papers together. “That’s it. You’re now officially on the transplant waiting list. If you are ever away from these telephone numbers, you must phone us with instructions of how to contact you. If you go abroad, you will come off the list while you’re away.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “We need you in the operating room within a maximum of six hours,” he said. “If a suitable hand became available and you were farther away than that, the transplant might not be viable.”

  “What would happen to the hand?”

  “If it was appropriate for someone else, either here or in Europe, then they might be offered it, but most likely it would stay with the donor.”

  “And be buried?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Or cremated.”

  “I’d really hate that to happen,” I said. “I think I’d better stay within six hours of the hospital.”

  And hope for rain.

  • • •

  I WALKED OUT through the hospital gates in a state of great anticipation and excitement, wondering if the next time I passed through them I would be on my way to having a new hand—to a new life as a complete human being.

  The cell phone rang in my pocket. It was Marina.

  “Hello, my darling,” I said happily as I answered it.

  “Sid, Sid.” Marina was in a panic. I could hear her hyperventilating.

  “What is it?” I shouted down the phone, all happiness instantly banished and with the adrenaline level in my blood shooting up to maximum.

  “The police are here.”

  “Where?”

  “At Sassy’s school. Together with two women from social services.”

  “Why?” I asked helplessly.

  “They say they’ve come to take Sassy into care.”

  “What?” I suddenly couldn’t feel my legs.

  “They say they’re taking Saskia into care,” Marina repeated. Then I could hear her screaming at someone, “Leave her alone!”

  “But they surely can’t take her into care just like that.”

  “They can and they are,” Marina said in tears. “And they also say they’re going to arrest you for sexually abusing her.”

  • • •

  I WASN’T QUITE SURE how I got myself from Roehampton to Marylebone station and onto a train to Banbury. Afterwards, I couldn’t recall a single moment of the journey.

  Everything was racing in my head.

  How could I be accused of sexually abusing my own daughter. It didn’t make any sense.

  I sat on the train as it pulled out of Marylebone, wondering what I should do. Who should I call?

  Once upon a time, I’d have phoned my tame Whitehall mandarin, Archie Kirk, but, sadly, not only had he retired from his job but also from his life.

  A lawyer. That’s what I needed.

  The only lawyer I knew was a local solicitor in Banbury who had done all the legal work when Marina and I had bought our house, and I hardly knew him very well. But he would have to do, especially as I still had his direct phone number on my contacts list.

  “Jeremy Duncombe,” he said, answering on the second ring.

  “Hello, Jeremy,” I said, “this is Sid Halley. Do you remember me? You did the searches on my house some time ago.”

  “Of course I remember,” he said. “Nice place in Nutwell.”

  “That’s right.” I paused. “Jeremy, I’ve got rather a problem and I need some advice.”

  “OK,” he said. “Shoot.”

  Suddenly, it didn’t seem very easy to explain that I was about to be arrested by the police for child abuse even if the accusation was completely untrue. No smoke without fire, I could hear myself saying.

  “It seems that, for some reason that I don’t understand, the police want to question me.”

  “What about?” he asked.

  “Well,” I said, “I know this sounds crazy, but they seem to think I’ve been molesting my daughter.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to use the term child sex abuse, but there was still a distinct silence from the other end, and the man opposite me on the train looked at me with contempt.

  “And have you?” Jeremy said.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Are you with the police at the moment?” he asked.

  “No, I’m on a train from London to Banbury. My wife called me and told me that the police were looking for me and why.”

  “What are your intentions?”

  “I’m going straight to Banbury police station to put an end to all this nonsense, but I thought I ought to contact a lawyer first, and you are the only one I know.”

  “I’m not really the right person,” Jeremy said. “I usually deal only with house conveyance and the occasional will. You need a solicitor that specializes in crime.”

  “So how do I find one in the next hour?”

  “There are two in our practice, but I’m certain that they’ll both be at the Banbury Magistrates’ Court this afternoon.”

  “It’s next door to the police station,” I said. “Can you contact one of them and tell them to meet me there in an hour’s time.”

  “I’ll try,” he said without much confidence. “But I wouldn’t bank on them being there. They’ve each got a full caseload at the court and it sits late on Wednesdays.”

  I hung up and smiled at the man opposite me. He didn’t smile back.

  Great, I thought. What next?

  The phone rang in my hand. Number withheld.

  “Hello, Mr. Halley,” said Billy McCusker. “Are you well?”

  “What do you care?” I said.

  “I thought I told you to stop asking questions of jockeys.”

  Goose bumps rose up on my arm, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. How did he know I’d been asking more questions?

  “I haven’t been,” I said.

  “Oh, I think you have, Mr. Halley,” he said. “And now you will pay for it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Such a sweet little girl,” he said. “I hope she doesn’t fa
re too badly in a children’s home.”

  “You bastard,” I shouted, but he’d already gone. The phone was dead.

  I looked up to see most of the people in the carriage were now looking in my direction. I smiled at them all, and some even turned away.

  How could McCusker do it?

  Not only was he able to determine which horse won a race or force a frightened couple into kidnapping a child, but now he was seemingly able to direct social services to take Saskia into care and also to have me arrested.

  How far did his deadly tentacles reach?

  I called Robert Price.

  “I thought I told you not to contact McCusker,” I said forcibly into the phone while at the same time trying not to be too loud. My fellow travelers were paying me too much notice as it was.

  “I didn’t,” he said. “I swear to you, I didn’t.”

  Then how did McCusker know? Had Robert been right all along when he claimed his phone was being bugged? Was my phone tapped as well? Had McCusker just listened in on our little exchange?

  I tried to remember what had been said between Robert and me on Friday evening and on which phones. How much of our conversation had McCusker listened to? And, in particular, was he aware that I had his phone number?

  Next I tried to call Marina, but there was no reply from our house, and her cell went straight to voice mail.

  Who else should I speak to? I might not have the chance for very much longer.

  Whenever I’d been in trouble, or had been hurt, I’d always sought sanctuary at Aynsford with Charles, and now was no exception.

  “But that’s preposterous,” he said when I told him of my latest woe.

  “I know that and you know that,” I said, “but other people will still believe it.”

  “Of course they won’t.”

  “Oh yes they will,” I said. “Once upon a time, being labeled a prostitute was the worst one could be called. But, nowadays, a whore is positively respectable compared to a pedophile or a child abuser. Just the whiff of an association with someone of that type is enough to damn you in the eyes of the public.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Charles asked.

  “I’m on my way to Banbury police station, where I hope I can sort it all out. But I need a solicitor. And quickly.”

  “I have a barrister friend, a QC. Member of my club. I’ll give him a call. See if he can fix anything.”

  I was grateful, but even Queen’s Counsels tried to steer well clear of child abusers. It wasn’t good for their image or their careers.

  • • •

  I NEVER DID get to Banbury police station.

  Three police officers, two in uniform and one not, were waiting for me on the platform when I alighted from the train.

  I had wondered about the man sitting opposite me who had taken his cell phone along to the train’s lavatory as we’d passed through High Wycombe and I now saw him smiling smugly as the two uniformed officers took me firmly by the arms.

  “Mr. Halley,” said the plainclothes man standing in front of me, “I am Detective Sergeant Fleet, and I am arresting you on suspicion of the abuse of a child in contravention of the Sexual Offences Act of 2003. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

  I said nothing but allowed myself to be escorted out of the railway station and into a waiting police car.

  • • •

  THEY TOOK ME not to Banbury but to Oxford police station, where I was checked into custody by a burly sergeant in a white shirt who made it very clear from the start that he didn’t like “kiddie fiddlers,” as he called them.

  I had to empty my pockets and hand over my cell phone, my wallet and my belt, which were carefully placed each in its own see-through plastic bag that was then sealed with a signed label. Next someone took my photograph, head-on and in profile, and then a DNA sample was scraped, none too gently, from the inside of my cheek.

  There was a moment of amusement, at least on my part, when one of the custody staff tried to take the fingerprints of my left hand. No one had asked me if I had a prosthesis, so I hadn’t told them, especially as their brief pat-down search hadn’t discovered it.

  Not that the custody sergeant was laughing.

  “Take it off,” he ordered brusquely.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I say so.”

  I could tell that arguing with him was not going to make any difference, so I carefully extricated my left forearm from its tightly gripping fiberglass sleeve and handed the hand to him, palm uppermost. He looked at it in disgust and then placed it in another of his plastic bags.

  “I’d like to see my solicitor,” I said.

  “All in good time,” the sergeant replied unpleasantly.

  “And I’d like to speak with Detective Chief Inspector Watkinson.”

  “He’ll no doubt speak to you when he’s ready,” replied the sergeant, making a note of what I’d said. He turned to his staff. “Take this scum to cell five.”

  “Hold on a minute,” I said. “Don’t I get to make a phone call?”

  “All in good time,” he repeated. “Cell five.”

  Two of the custody staff frog-marched me through a metal gate and down a cream-painted corridor to cell number 5, where I was unceremoniously thrust through the entrance. The door was immediately clanged shut behind me.

  I suppose I couldn’t blame them.

  I don’t like pedophiles either, and, whatever the law may say to the contrary, in the eyes of the police all people arrested are guilty until proven innocent, and, even then, they’d still have their doubts, especially if those arrested are suspected child abusers.

  I sat down on the concrete bed with its thin blue-plastic-covered mattress and pondered how things could change in my life so rapidly. Within two hours I had gone from a state of great anticipation and excitement to one of utter despair and hopelessness.

  I could tell that sorting out this mess would take a lot more than a brief word with D.C.I. Watkinson and a laugh at the gullibility of social services. It was probably going to require court appearances, together with the associated, unwelcome press coverage.

  And how long was I going to be cooped up in this damn cell?

  I reckoned there wouldn’t be much chance of me getting from here to the Queen Mary’s operating room in the next six hours if a suitable donor hand became available.

  Good job, it wasn’t raining.

  17

  I was allowed to make my one phone call about two hours later, after repeated requests. I knew my rights, I told them, and I was entitled to let someone know where I was.

  I called Charles from the custody sergeant’s desk, using his phone.

  “Where are you?” Charles asked.

  “Oxford police station,” I said. “Did you speak to your QC friend?”

  “Yes. He’s arranged for a solicitor, but she’s currently looking for you at Banbury.”

  “Good. Ask her to come to Oxford. And, Charles, please call Marina and tell her where I am and that I’m fine.”

  “That’s enough,” said the custody sergeant, taking his phone from my hand. “Take him back to his cell.”

  “I need to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Watkinson,” I said.

  “All in good time,” the sergeant said once more. “Back to his cell.”

  The frog-march procedure was repeated.

  “When will I be interviewed?” I asked one of my manhandlers.

  “All in good time,” he also replied.

  It must be policespeak for Not yet.

  • • •

  I WAS INTERVIEWED by a detective superintendent at nine o’clock in the evening, four and a h
alf hours after I’d been arrested and an hour after the arrival in Oxford of Maggie Jennings, the solicitor arranged by Charles’s QC friend, not that I’d been allowed to meet with her until five minutes before the interview.

  “I’m sorry for the delay, Mr. Halley,” said the superintendent, not sounding it. “We have been conducting a search of your premises.”

  “There is nothing to find,” I said.

  “I would like to have a private conversation with my client,” Maggie Jennings interjected loudly.

  “Interview suspended at”—the superintendent looked at the clock on the wall—“twenty-one-oh-two.” He switched off the recording machine and left the room, followed by his sidekick, leaving Maggie Jennings and me alone. I wondered if the room was bugged but decided against asking.

  “Mr. Halley, I thought I told you not to say anything other than ‘No comment’ to direct questions.” Maggie Jennings was quite angry with me.

  “Sid,” I said to her. “Please, call me Sid. And why shouldn’t I say something? I have nothing to hide. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Mr. Halley . . . Sid,” she said, “you are facing very serious allegations, and the police will take what you say and twist its meaning to make it look bad for you. Trust me, it is much better to say nothing.”

  I couldn’t see how. Surely only guilty men would stay silent.

  Maggie went over to the door and knocked on it. It immediately reopened, and the superintendent and sidekick returned to their seats.

  The recorder was switched back on.

  “Interview resumed at twenty-one-oh-five,” said the detective. “Superintendent Ingram, Detective Sergeant Fleet, the accused, Mr. Halley, and Ms. Jennings, the accused’s solicitor, being present.

  “Now, Mr. Halley,” he went on, “if there’s nothing to find at your premises, tell us where should we look instead for all your pictures of little girls.”

  “No comment.”

  “You do have pictures of little girls, don’t you?”

  “No comment,” I said again, biting my tongue.

  What I wanted to say was that of course I had pictures of little girls, thousands of them. Six years of pictures of Saskia, from the moment of her birth right up until yesterday afternoon in the garden: pictures of her at home and at school, at Charles’s place or on holidays at the beach in Holland, at Christmas dinners and at birthday parties, pictures of her anywhere and everywhere. I habitually had my phone at the ready, with its built-in, multi-megapixel camera. What father didn’t? There was nothing wrong or sinister about it.