Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

‘Please wind it right on to the following morning,’ I said.

‘What time was it vandalised?’ the man asked.

‘I’m not sure. Sometime during the night.’

He pushed some more buttons on the remote and the image flickered as he fast-forwarded it, the time-recording in the top corner racing on from six in the evening to midnight and then beyond.

The colour returned to the image with the coming of daylight and still the car was unmoved. Only at 9.56 a.m. by the onscreen clock did the car finally disappear from the image, and that was when I drove it out of the car park to go to Warwick Racecourse.

‘I didn’t see any vandalism,’ the man said.

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘It must have been done further forward out of sight of the camera. But that is fabulous nevertheless. Can I please have a copy?’

‘But it didn’t show anything.’

‘I know, but it does at least prove my car was in that car park all night and I’ll need that for the insurance company.’ And for DS Dowdeswell , I thought.

I felt elated. I finally had the proof I needed.

‘You could have used some other form of transport,’ said the detective sergeant.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said. ‘What other form of transport do you think I had access to, a racehorse?’

I had gone direct from Edgbaston to Banbury by train and had walked with a jaunty step through the town to the police station, where I was now talking to DS Dowdeswell in the entrance lobby.

‘There’s always public transport,’ the DS said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Every bus and train has CCTV. If I’d come back from Birmingham by public transport I’d have been filmed. And how would I have then got from Banbury to Hanwell village? By taxi? Have you found the driver? And what did I do then? Ask him to wait outside on the road while I just nipped inside for five minutes to kill my wife?’

He said nothing.

I had laid the grocery-store CCTV evidence before him, together with the data from the hotel keycards.

‘I demand that you stop this nonsense and release me from this laughable investigation. You have no forensic evidence against me, nothing on my phone or computer, and now I have proof that I couldn’t have been in Hanwell when Amelia was murdered. I was “elsewhere”. That’s what alibi means in Latin. I am told by a QC that an alibi is an absolute defence. So it is high time you started looking for the real culprit. And that’s Joe Bradbury.’

‘You could have arranged for someone else to kill your wife when you knew that you could prove you weren’t present.’

‘Now you really are grasping at straws,’ I said. ‘And who is this mystery person? And how did I contact them, by telepathy?’

‘What about your wife’s life insurance policy? That’s a powerful motive.’

‘I explained all that,’ I said. ‘It’s not relevant.’

‘We’ll see,’ he replied patronisingly. ‘And there is also the abuse complaint we have received.’

‘That’s malicious nonsense and you know it.’ I was quite cross. ‘I not only demand that you release me from this investigation but also that you inform the press and media that I am no longer a suspect in the murder of my wife.’

‘Well, that’s not going to happen.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you do remain a suspect.’

It was like talking to a brick wall.

‘I want my car back,’ I said. ‘And my house, plus my computer and my phone.’

I wanted my life back too, my lovely life with my gorgeous Amelia, but that wasn’t going to happen either.

‘I will need to speak to DCI Priestly,’ the DS said.

‘Fine,’ I replied. ‘You do that. I’ll wait.’

I sat down on one of the seats in the police station lobby, crossed my legs and folded my arms. I could also be bloody-minded.

I waited a long time and I began to worry that they must have more evidence against me than I thought.

It had always been a bit of a risk coming back to the police station and part of me had argued strongly against it — the memory of being in that cell, even for only one night, was raw and distressing. I had no wish to repeat the experience.

Eventually the detective sergeant returned, still without handcuffs.

‘You can have your car,’ he said. ‘And access to your house, but we will keep your phone and computer for the time being.’

It was a start — a move in the right direction.

‘Okay,’ I said. I held my hand out. ‘I’ll take the car and house keys now.’

‘I can give you the keys for the house but not to your car. It’s still at our forensic lab and needs to be returned here first to complete the paperwork.’

‘So when will that happen?’

‘Soon,’ he said.

Soon could mean anything from just a few minutes to any length of time you chose. Something happening soon in geological terms meant in only a million years or so.

‘Why can’t I have my phone and computer?’ I asked.

‘Because the forensic team are still going through the data.’

‘They won’t find anything incriminating,’ I said. ‘Not implicating me, anyway. But you should take a look at the emails from Joe Bradbury over the past three years. They will show you the sort of man he really is. And there are more of those on Amelia’s laptop. I presume you still have that?’

‘Yes, we do. We’ve had it since the morning she was found.’

‘Well, take a good look. You will see that there is no possible way that my wife would call Joe Bradbury and invite him over to our house, especially if I wasn’t there. She hated him. Joe was lying about that in the Coroner’s Court yesterday and you should ask him why. Check his phone records. There’ll be no call.’

He looked at me in silence and I found it impossible to read what he was thinking.

‘House keys?’ I said, holding out my hand.

He handed over the padlock keys.

‘Call me at home about the car and the other stuff,’ I said.

And then I departed, inhaling the cold crisp air outside in great gulps. There was definitely something refreshing about freedom.

‘Sounds like you had a good day,’ Douglas said when I told him everything that evening.

‘It could have been better. The damn police still won’t release me from the investigation. They seem hung up on the life insurance thing.’

‘You have to admit that it’s a strong motive,’ he said. ‘Money being the root of all evil, and all that guff.’

‘But that’s not right,’ I said. ‘The correct quote is “ the love of money is the root of all evil”. Different thing altogether. It comes from the Bible. Saint Paul’s first epistle to Timothy, chapter six, verse ten.’

Douglas looked at me and raised a questioning eyebrow.

I laughed. ‘I calculate the church buildings insurance premium for the Diocese of London. The bishop quotes that verse at me every year when the premium goes up.’

And my love of money was like nothing compared to my love of Amelia. I’d give up every drop of monetary riches I owned just to have her back for an hour — or even a minute.

‘How about you?’ I asked, fighting back another wave of emotion. ‘Did you have a good day?’

‘Mixed,’ he said. ‘The damn jury convicted our man of manslaughter rather than murder. Complete cop-out, if you ask me. The judge was clearly furious with them. All but told them so, straight out.’

‘So what happens now?’ I asked.

‘The CPS may decide to retry him for murder. Or they might take the view that this conviction is enough. We’ll wait and see.’

‘How long is the sentence for manslaughter?’

‘The maximum possible is life imprisonment,’ Douglas said. ‘Same as for murder. But, in my experience, it’s typically between two and ten years.’