Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

Now I wished I’d chosen the former.

But it was not too late.

I fetched a bottle of Merlot from the wine rack in the kitchen — not one of Douglas’s finest — and took it along to the sitting room.

I was still in time to watch the last three races from Ascot but I found myself mostly just staring at the screen without really taking in what was happening.

The short-priced favourite won the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, but it had been boxed in on the rail and appeared to barge its way through to get home by a neck. It would be something for George Longcross to sort out and, sure enough, a stewards’ enquiry was quickly announced.

I could imagine George and his fellow stewards studying the footage from the various cameras and interviewing the appropriate jockeys in the Stewards’ Room.

From what I could see from the head-on shot on the TV, the fast-finishing winner had taken a bit of a liberty by forcing himself through a gap that was hardly big enough in the first place while, at the same time, the horse in front, which had subsequently finished second, had begun to hang towards the rail, making the gap even smaller. Contact between the two had been inevitable.

It was a difficult call but I would have argued that, on balance, the fault was six by one, half a dozen by the other, and I would leave the placings unaltered.

But I wasn’t George Longcross.

To massive boos from the crowd, the horse that had been first past the post was demoted for causing interference and the race was awarded to the second. And then, to add insult to injury, it was announced that the jockey on the favourite had also been suspended for two days for careless riding.

A little while afterwards, the young man in question was interviewed by the TV presenter and he was not happy, and not particularly diplomatic either in his criticism of the stewards, something that might cause him more trouble later.

‘They didn’t consider the facts,’ he protested loudly. ‘It was as if they made up their minds without even bothering to look at the evidence. I’ve been unjustly accused of something I didn’t do.’

I knew exactly how he felt.

At eleven o’clock on Sunday morning I received an extremely irate and rambling call on my mobile from Mary Bradbury, Amelia’s mother.

‘You’re a horrid little man,’ she shouted down the line. ‘How could you have killed Amelia?’

‘I didn’t,’ I replied.

‘Ha!’ she squawked. ‘Joe told me that you’d deny it.’

‘I deny it because it isn’t true.’

‘Joe says it is.’

‘That’s because Joe is lying to you, as he’s lied to the police.’ And to everyone else. Some of the so-called exclusive revelations in the Sunday newspapers concerning Amelia’s history as a psychiatric in-patient had Joe Bradbury’s fingerprints all over them.

‘He says you killed her for her life insurance money.’

‘Mary,’ I said earnestly, ‘I didn’t kill her. I loved her, as you know all too well.’

‘Joe says—’

I interrupted her. ‘I don’t care what Joe says. He’s not telling you the truth.’

‘Why would he lie?’

Why indeed.

‘Why don’t you ask him what he was doing at our house when he found Amelia. He hasn’t been there for more than two years. He wasn’t welcome. Yet he appears on the very day Amelia died. Don’t you think that’s rather suspicious?’

‘You’re not seriously suggesting that Joe had something to do with Amelia’s death? Don’t be ridiculous, he’s her brother.’

‘But you think it’s not ridiculous that I did have something to do with it when I’m her husband?’ I asked with strong irony. ‘Come on, Mary, use some common sense.’

Common sense had always been something she was short of, and all the more so recently as her age-related confusion had grown.

‘But Joe is adamant that you killed her. He told me that he has proof you did it.’

‘Then he’s lying to you again,’ I said, but she wasn’t listening.

‘I just hope I live long enough to see you found guilty,’ she said. ‘It’s a real shame you won’t hang, if you ask me. Namby-pamby do-gooding abolitionists. Not like when I was a girl. Murderers got what was coming to them then — the long drop at the end of a rope. And good riddance. Prison’s too good for the likes of you.’

She was getting quite agitated and breathless.

‘I’m sure you’ll live for a long time yet, Mary,’ I said, ignoring her vitriol.

‘I will if this cancer doesn’t see me off.’

Cancer? What cancer? That was news to me.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Mary,’ I said.

However hard I tried, I found I couldn’t be angry with the old witch. I’d loved her dearly for such a long time, as Amelia had done. It was not her fault that her shit of a son had taken advantage of her increasing impairment to brainwash her so completely.

‘In the pancreas, they say. Found out last week. Quite advanced, spread to my liver. Seems it could see me off at any time. They say I’m too ill for an operation — it would kill me. But the damn cancer will kill me too.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

In a strange way, I was pleased that Amelia had never known — at least I assumed she had never known because, if she had, she would have surely told me. She would have been devastated. In spite of everything that had gone on over the past three years between them, she had still loved her mother very deeply.

‘Well, dear, I must go now,’ Mary said, as if she had completely forgotten why she had phoned me in the first place. ‘It will be time for my lunch soon.’

Away with the fairies, but not so much that she couldn’t do me considerable harm if I wasn’t careful.

We disconnected but my phone rang again straight away. I thought it must be Mary calling back with more insults but I was wrong.

‘William!’ stated a humourless male voice loudly. ‘It’s your father.’

Oh, hell!

‘Hello, Pa,’ I said in my best try-not-to-antagonise-him tone. ‘How lovely to hear from you.’

‘Don’t give me that claptrap,’ he said. ‘Seems like you’re in a bit of bother.’ He coughed, as if there was more he wanted to say but didn’t. Then he got it out. ‘Not something you can handle on your own. Your mother wants you to come home here so we can help.’

I could have cried except that he wouldn’t have wanted that, or liked it.

‘Thank you, Pa,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’ll come tomorrow.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll get Mrs Jenkins to make up your room. Your mother and I would be pleased to see you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, but he had already gone.

That was as near as he ever got to expressing his love for his sons.

I was my father’s son and, throughout my life, it had only been with Amelia that I had been able to express my true feelings about anything.

And now, God help me, she was gone.

Another series of huge bouts of sobbing left me completely wrung out and by the time Douglas returned about eight in the evening, I was pretty much ready for bed.

‘Good weekend?’ I asked.

‘Lovely,’ he said. ‘Although I felt guilty at having left you alone the whole time. Especially with all that nonsense printed in the newspapers.’

I waved a dismissive hand as if I could handle all of that, even though I couldn’t.

‘Fancy a drink?’ he asked. ‘I had to refrain at lunch because I was driving. Bloody shame. Tony had a really nice magnum of Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2007 that I could have got deeply stuck into.’ He sighed.

‘I’d love a drink,’ I said, ‘but make it just a small one. I don’t feel much like celebrating.’

‘No,’ he agreed, and he poured two small glasses of a somewhat lesser-quality red wine than the Châteauneuf.