Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Just the usual heavy traffic around Birmingham.’

I lifted my suitcase out of the car boot.

‘Here,’ I said. ‘I bought this for you.’

I handed him a bottle of his favourite Glenmorangie ten-year-old single malt.

‘How lovely,’ he said, and he smiled broadly, which was quite an unusual occurrence. The way to my father’s heart was definitely through his whisky decanter.

‘I also have some flowers for Ma,’ I said, lifting them out of the boot and giving them to him. I’d picked them up from a petrol station on the way and had been careful to remove the price label.

‘You shouldn’t have.’

But I always did. This was like a game and he would have been disappointed if I’d arrived empty-handed.

‘Let’s get in,’ my father said. ‘It’s getting cold out here.’

But it would be no less cold inside. ‘Why spend money on heating the damn place,’ my father would often say, ‘when one can simply wear a sweater?’

I was thankful that I’d remembered to pack one, and some fleecy pyjamas.

We went in through the massive wooden door of the main castle entrance, my father slamming it shut and bolting it behind us as if still keeping out the barbarian mob beyond.

My mother was waiting in the small sitting room, as it was known, and there was indeed a welcoming log fire in the grate.

‘Hello, my darling,’ she said, offering her cheek for a kiss. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come. I have some jobs for you to do.’

I smiled at her. It wouldn’t have been the same if she hadn’t.

‘Be quiet, woman,’ my father said with a mixture of authority and tenderness. ‘Give the boy a chance to sit down. He’s not here just to potter in your garden.’

But why was I here if not to busy myself and keep my mind off the void?

‘I’ll be happy to help tomorrow,’ I said, and smiled at her again.

For twenty minutes or so, we sat and drank cups of tea, making small talk and avoiding the elephant in the room until my father finally cut to the chase. ‘Now what’s all this stuff about you in the papers and on the television?’

My mother gave him one of her how-dare-you-ask-that-question stares, but the subject had to be broached sooner or later. After all, that was the main reason I was here.

In the least distressing terms I could muster, I outlined how Amelia had been murdered while I was away from home for the night, how she had been discovered lying on the kitchen floor of our house with a dog lead still round her neck. And I described how I had been informed of her death while at Warwick Races, and I told them of my subsequent interviews at Banbury Police Station.

‘The police are so certain that I’m guilty that they are telling it to the press, hence it’s all in the papers. But it’s all nonsense, of course.’

‘Of course,’ my mother echoed.

My dear mother would never have believed that any of her children could do anything illegal, and especially not murder.

‘But why do the police think you did it?’ my father asked.

‘It’s a long story.’

Up to that point I had kept my parents in the dark with respect to the trouble that Amelia and I had been having with her brother, and the effect it had had on her mental health. One’s wife having psychiatric problems was not the sort of thing one shouted about from the rooftops, or even to one’s parents. I was certain that my father would have considered it a weakness, so I hadn’t told him. But maybe now was the time.

‘It all started about three years ago,’ I said. ‘When Mary Bradbury moved out of their family home and into a quaint “chocolate-box” thatched cottage in West Oxfordshire to be closer to us. Joe didn’t like it and he’s been waging a war of abuse and vilification against me ever since, even though the move was not my idea or my doing. And every time he wrote his lies about me it was like a knife in the heart for Amelia. She became really upset that it was her brother who was attacking her husband.’

‘Didn’t you confront him about it?’ my father asked.

‘We tried. But he simply twisted everything we said and threw it back at us with interest. We were advised by a lawyer to stop responding to his emails or communicating with him in any way, but that appears to have made things worse. He now accuses us of trying to destroy him when we’re not even in contact. It’s bizarre.’

My parents sat quite still, staring at me and waiting for me to go on.

‘However, bad as all that is, it pales into insignificance compared to what else he did. He turned his own mother against Amelia. He kept telling her that Amelia was mad and not to be trusted. In the end she believed it. It was as if Joe was jealous of their close relationship so he set out to destroy it. And he managed it. It was that which caused Amelia the most heartbreak and it was what finally tipped her over the edge.’

‘What do you mean, it tipped her over the edge?’ my mother asked.

So I told them everything — the psychiatrists, the therapists, the hospital stays, even the suicide attempts. I told them the whole shebang.

They were shocked. My mother was even in tears.

‘My poor darling,’ she said. ‘How dreadful. Is there nothing you could have done to stop him?’

‘Nothing, short of going to court and getting an injunction. And that would have cost a fortune. Thousands at least.’

‘But exactly what has all that to do with the reports about you in the papers?’ my father asked.

‘Because Joe Bradbury has been telling the police, and the press and anyone else who’ll listen, that I killed his sister and, for some reason, they all believe him.’

My father had always been one for keeping his emotions in check, as he had taught me to do, but now he let down his guard. I had rarely seen him so angry. He stood up and marched back and forth across the room, continuously bunching and relaxing his fists. ‘There must be something we can do to shut this man up.’

‘Douglas says it’s best to do nothing,’ I said. ‘Not to give Joe any more ammunition that he can then fire back. Douglas is fully aware of what’s been going on and he’s been absolutely wonderful. In fact, I don’t know what I’d have done without him. I’ve been staying at his place in London because the police wouldn’t allow me back into my own house.’

‘Why ever not?’ my mother asked.

‘Forensic examination,’ I explained. ‘They’ve been searching for evidence.’

My mother looked appalled at the thought.

‘I could do with a drink,’ my father announced. ‘Want one?’

‘Why not,’ I said.

‘Whisky?’

He didn’t wait for an answer but went out the door, presumably to the drinks cabinet in the dining room.

‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’ my mother said quietly, but she was already aware of the answer. ‘I suppose your father would have told Amelia to get a grip and stop making a fuss.’

‘It would have made things worse.’

She nodded. She knew him even better than I did. Much better in fact.

‘Edward and Stella are joining us for dinner.’

‘Great,’ I said, not meaning it.

My eldest brother and his wife lived in another part of the castle, as my parents had done when my grandfather was still alive. It had become a tradition in the Gordon-Russell family for the heir apparent to the earldom to live on site but, unlike for former generations, the tax benefits were now being properly utilised. There clearly were some advantages to having a family member in the financial services industry.

In reality, my parents were now houseguests of Edward in his castle, the estate having been transferred to him several years ago. It was a transaction that I had initiated and managed in order to try to prevent another crippling round of inheritance taxes resulting in a total loss, a fate that had befallen so many British stately homes now owned by the National Trust on behalf of the nation after the taxman had come calling once too often.