Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

‘Then you will have to make an appointment with my solicitor,’ I said.

‘It’s not for the police to arrange meetings with your solicitor. That’s your job. Who is it, anyway?’

‘Simon Bassett,’ I said.

‘I don’t know him. Is he local?’

‘No. He’s a partner at Underwood, Duffin and Wimbourne. It’s a London firm. Chancery Lane.’

‘Humph!’ said the DS. He clearly didn’t like London firms.

Tough.

Simon and I had been undergraduates together at Cambridge, and firm friends ever since. He was also up to speed with what had been going on vis-à-vis Joe Bradbury, and had provided Amelia and me with advice on how to proceed — mostly by not replying to or even acknowledging any of Joe’s plethora of emails — which had annoyed him even more.

‘I would like you to attend at Banbury Police Station tomorrow,’ said the detective. ‘Shall we say at ten o’clock in the morning?’

‘Make it eleven,’ I said. ‘My solicitor will have to come from London. And I’ll need to confirm to you that he’s available.’

‘Eleven it is, then,’ he said, ignoring my last comment.

The DS hung up and I handed back the phone to the man in the white suit.

‘Thanks,’ I said to him. ‘But no thanks.’

A bright yellow JCB digger came along the road and stopped. One of the policemen from the back garden came out to guide it down the side of the house, its great rear wheels chewing up Amelia’s lovingly tended flower beds.

‘Is that really necessary?’ I asked of no one in particular as the digger disappeared from sight behind the house.

How ridiculous. There was nothing to find and they would just make a dreadful mess everywhere. But did I care?

I walked down the road to the pub to my car.

Where to now?

My life was routinely what one might call incredibly busy. As a rule, my diary was full to bursting and hardly a moment existed when I didn’t have some work to complete, usually something that had to be finished by yesterday.

Yet, here and now, I had nothing to do.

My mobile phone, customarily ringing five or six times an hour, had been silent all morning, and my inbox lay strangely quiet, with the arrival of just a couple of spam emails.

I sat in the driver’s seat of the Jaguar and banged my hands on the steering wheel in frustration at not being able to turn back the clock.

After a while I called Simon Bassett.

‘Bill, I’m so very sorry,’ he said. ‘Amelia was lovely. I can’t think why anyone would want to harm her.’

Simon had known Amelia for as long as I had. Indeed, he had been seated on the other side of her at that alumni dinner and had often bemoaned the fact that he had let me speak to her first while he had turned the other way.

He’d even been my best man.

‘How can I help?’ he asked.

‘I have an interview with the police tomorrow at eleven in Banbury. I’d like you to accompany me.’

There was a pause from the other end.

‘At eleven, you say?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s the purpose of the interview?’ he asked.

‘The police think I killed Amelia.’

Another pause.

‘I assume you didn’t.’

I wasn’t sure if he was making a statement or asking a question. At least he hadn’t asked me straight out, as Douglas had.

‘Can you come?’ I asked. ‘I really need you.’

‘Why do the police think you are responsible?’

‘Because that damn Joe Bradbury has been telling them so. He’s been filling their heads with his lies.’

‘But is there any physical evidence?’

‘Of course not.’ I was slightly exasperated. ‘I didn’t do it. Can you come or not?’

‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I could, but I’m not at all sure that I am the right person.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘I know you and I knew Amelia. Both very well. And I’ve met Joe Bradbury. He was at your wedding, remember. There’s far too much scope here for a conflict of interest.’

Bloody lawyers. Why do they always make things so damn complicated?

‘I could send one of my colleagues. Someone who specialises in criminal work more than I do.’

‘I want you ,’ I said despairingly. ‘I need my friend.’ Try as I might, I couldn’t keep an emotional quiver out of my voice.

Yet another pause, longer this time.

‘Okay, Bill,’ he said. ‘I’ll come. Of course I’ll come. I’ll rearrange things. But you will have to appoint someone else if you are charged.’

‘Charged! But I didn’t do it. Don’t you believe me?’

‘Listen,’ he said slowly but forcefully, ‘it’s not what I believe that’s important. Charges are laid by the CPS, that’s the Crown Prosecution Service. It is solely what they think that matters.’

If only that were true.

Simon Bassett and I walked through the front door of Banbury Police Station on Friday morning at eleven o’clock precisely.

We had caught the train together from Marylebone after I had spent a second restless night in my nephew’s bed in Chester Square.

I had nowhere else to go.

The Welsh castle hardly seemed an option in spite of its abundance of spare bedrooms. It was so far away from London, from where I needed to be for my work. Not that I had much work to do.

A big London insurance company, with whom I’d been in final contract negotiations to produce a detailed analysis of their full-life business, had emailed me late on Thursday to say that, in the light of the previous day’s events, they had decided to appoint a different actuarial firm to do the work.

Bad news clearly travelled fast, and I regretted all the time and effort I had already put in on research for which I would now not get paid.

At least it meant I didn’t need the papers on my desk at home any more.

On Thursday afternoon I’d spent time buying some new outfits, enabling me to give my suit a rest and wear some casual trousers of the right length.

I had wandered around the shops at an out-of-town retail park on the outskirts of Banbury more in a trance than in a determined effort to provide myself with a coordinating new wardrobe. Hence, when I’d boarded the train to London, I carried a motley collection of bags from Marks and Spencer, Next, River Island and Primark containing four shirts (all blue), two pairs of chinos (also blue), a blue sweater and two packs each of blue underwear and blue socks.

My mood must have subconsciously dictated my choices.

Only when I’d unpacked it all at Douglas’s house did I realise the uniformly monochrome nature of my purchases.

At least it had made me smile, if only fleetingly.

So, when I walked into the police station, I was The Blue Boy both in dress and demeanour, although I felt more like the boy in the painting And When Did You Last See Your Father? than in the Thomas Gainsborough version.

Simon had impressed on me to be extremely careful when answering the police questions.

‘They are very adept at getting their interviewees to give away more information than they mean to,’ he’d said to me on the train.

‘But I have nothing to hide,’ I’d retorted. ‘The more information that I can give them will surely help them catch the person who is really responsible — Joe Bradbury.’

‘I know you believe that your brother-in-law is guilty but it would be far better if you let the police work that out for themselves rather than stating it straight off.’

I looked at him, wondering if he really did think I’d killed Amelia.

‘You wanted me to come to advise you,’ he’d said quite sternly. ‘So take my advice.’

‘Okay, okay,’ I’d replied. ‘I will.’