Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

We started off towards the station but there was a shout from behind.

‘Mr Gordon-Russell.’

I half-expected it to be DCI Priestly or Sergeant Dowdeswell calling me back to arrest me but, when I spun round, I found myself confronted by two press photographers who busily snapped away with their cameras. I turned away from them in disgust.

‘How the hell did they know I’d be here?’ I asked.

‘Tipped off by the police, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Simon replied as we hurried along. But the two weren’t giving up that easily. They ran past us and continued to take more shots, their flashguns going off like strobes in a nightclub.

I started to cover my face with my arms.

‘Don’t do that!’ Simon said sharply. ‘It makes you look like you have something to hide.’

So I put my hands down and walked along with my head held up high, or at least as high as my five-foot-eight-inch frame would allow.

Eventually, after about five minutes, the two obviously decided they had enough pictures and they peeled away, eager, no doubt, to send the images off to their editors.

I sighed again.

‘How long before they lose interest?’ I asked of no one in particular.

‘Not until the next juicy story breaks,’ Simon replied.

We caught the train back to London. I wasn’t sure where I was going but Simon needed to get back for some meetings and I just went with him.

At Marylebone we were met not by a couple of photographers but by a whole TV-news crew complete with cameraman, sound recordist and female reporter.

‘Mr Gordon-Russell, have you any comment to make about your wife’s death?’ shouted the reporter as I passed through the ticket barrier.

I glanced at Simon and he shook his head. ‘Whatever you say to them they will distort to fit their agenda. So don’t say anything.’

I kept my mouth shut and walked straight past without giving them a second glance.

‘This is ridiculous,’ I said when we were safely on our way in a taxi. ‘Surely they have more important stories to follow.’

‘Spoilt rich aristocrat being quizzed as a suspect in the murder of his commoner wife? Just up their commie street.’

‘I’m not spoilt or rich,’ I objected.

Simon looked at me. ‘But you were brought up in a castle, weren’t you? There’s nothing the press like more than having a bash at the upper classes. If they can’t find Lord Lucan, then you will have to do.’

He obviously wasn’t much of a fan of the news media, nor, it seemed, of the aristocracy, although it was hardly my fault that my father was an earl.

The taxi dropped me off as Simon had to rush back to his office for a meeting, so I wandered down Baker Street on foot, not really sure where I was going, or for what purpose.

One must have things to arrange after the death of one’s spouse. How about deciding the order of service for a funeral or memorial service? Or completing necessary paperwork, such as registering the death, sorting out bank accounts, wills and probate?

Plus a myriad of other things to be done. Surely?

Why, then, did I have nothing to do?

It was not just that I had no practical arrangements to complete, but now there was no work for me to do either.

I had checked my emails on the train back to London and discovered that the two other insurance companies for whom I was engaged as a freelance consultant had both suspended the agreements.

I wondered if I should sue them for breach of contract, but that would hardly bode well for any future relationship either with them or any other firm. The world of insurance was quite cliquey, with everyone knowing each other’s business. To upset one was likely to upset them all. I would just have to grin and bear it, and hope that the suspensions were short.

I drifted aimlessly along, staring into shop windows.

I was horrified to see that Selfridges already had their Christmas window displays up and running, more than two months before the day itself.

Christmas. Oh, God!

In spite of her saying that it was all too commercial and complaining about how much work was involved, Amelia had always adored Christmas, and she revelled in finding me a present that I would love, despite also declaring that I was ‘impossible’ to buy for.

I had already bought hers for this year.

Back in July she had tried on a gold necklace in a small jewellers in Brighton when we had been there for a day. She loved it but claimed it was far too expensive; but I had managed to sneak back and buy it without her knowledge. It was hiding at the back of one of my desk drawers.

Now what would I do with it?

Here, surrounded by a multitude of shoppers on Oxford Street but effectively alone, my eyes did fill with tears.

How could anyone possibly think that I’d killed her? I worshipped her and would do anything to have her back.

I stood on the kerb waiting for the traffic lights to change while several London buses swept past me at speed, and I seriously wondered about stepping out right in front of one of them.

Quick and easy, and it would put an end to this dreadful pain.

Perhaps the only reason that I didn’t was because everyone would then conclude that I had indeed killed my wife, and the real culprit would get away scot-free. And I was still positive that that was Joe Bradbury.

Sandwiched between the emails from the two insurance companies, there had been yet another of his rants, as usual full of abuse and untruths.

‘How could you do such a thing?’ he had written. ‘Amelia always said you were dangerous and now you’ve proved it. If it weren’t for you, my sister would still be alive. Your marriage to Amelia was, without doubt, the worst thing that ever happened to our family. I have tolerated your behaviour up to now for the sake of my sister. But no longer. How could you?... how could you?... shame on you.’

I had hardly bothered to read it. I certainly wouldn’t be replying.

As another twelve tons of bright-red double-decker thundered past inches from my nose, I resolved to stay alive long enough to expose my brother-in-law as the fraud and liar that he was, and to bring him to justice for the death of my wife.

It was easier said than done — the staying alive bit, that was.

On Saturday I went to the races at Ascot.

I’m not sure why, because I wasn’t acting as a steward, but I’d had enough of kicking my heels aimlessly around Douglas’s house. And I needed something else to occupy my mind rather than spending all the hours that God gave yearning that I could reverse the passage of time, like Superman.

However, I received some strange looks from my fellow racegoers even before I’d passed through the turnstiles.

The press had obviously received inside information from the police, and more than just telling them when I’d appear outside Banbury Police Station. Features of the crime were being widely reported by the media, including the gory details of how Amelia had died in spite of the fact that the post-mortem report had yet to be completed.

Friday had been another sparse news day and the police failure to make an arrest in what was now being described as the ‘dog-lead murder’ was still prominent on both broadcast news bulletins and in the papers. All the front pages included the picture taken of me with the police station in the background, and the evening TV news had had the footage of me arriving at Marylebone.

All of their stories included the fact that I had recently taken out an insurance policy on Amelia’s life and implied that I had killed her in order to collect, without actually stating it in so many words. Close to libel but not quite. The lawyers had been busy.

So much for the presumption of innocence. That was clearly a myth and the crowd at Ascot had obviously believed everything they had read and heard.