Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

‘Couldn’t the judge just sentence him to life anyway?’

‘He could,’ Douglas agreed, ‘but it would likely be reduced in the Court of Appeal. Much better to get things right the first time round.’

Pity the Banbury police didn’t take the same view.

Friday morning dawned bright and cold with the sun streaming through a crack in Philip’s curtains.

‘I think I’ll go back home today,’ I said to Douglas over breakfast.

‘You know that you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like,’ he said between mouthfuls of toast.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But I can’t run away for ever.’

‘Are you sure you’re ready?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not at all sure, but I have to go back sometime, and today seems as good a day as any. At least the sun is shining.’

Douglas looked troubled.

‘Would you like me to come with you? I’ve nothing scheduled for today now that my trial has finished. All I have to do is prepare my next brief.’

‘My dear brother,’ I said, ‘I would love you to come but you’ve told me how busy you are in the coming weeks and I think this is something I have to do on my own.’

‘At least you don’t have to worry about the police any more.’

‘Don’t I?’ I said. ‘Try telling that to the investigating DS. He’s still treating me as the only suspect.’

‘Trust me,’ Douglas said. ‘I’ve been an advocate in criminal proceedings for more than twenty years now and I’m telling you that there is no chance the CPS would countenance charges against you with so little evidence, and with so many counterindications. Your alibi is cast iron for a start. This DS might not want to admit it but, after what you proved to him yesterday, he will now be forced to look for someone else.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ I said. ‘I told him to check Joe Bradbury’s phone records for the non-existent call he claims he received from Amelia.’

‘That’s a start,’ Douglas agreed. ‘But they will need more than that to charge him with her murder.’

‘But, if nothing else, it will show him to be a liar and that might just stop them believing every word he says against me, and especially all that claptrap about me abusing his daughter.’

‘I agree that is bizarre,’ Douglas said. ‘Why would he say such a thing without any evidence?’

‘Because he’s obsessed. He hates me so much that it clouds his judgement over everything. And I don’t know why. He accuses me of bullying his mother but he’s the real bully. Take all that nonsense over selling the family home a few years ago. He claimed that he was the world’s expert on selling houses and then he made a complete cock-up of it. He berated Amelia for her choice of estate agent and then ended up appointing a cheap one who tried to mislead potential buyers with incomplete information. It would be a joke if it weren’t so serious. The house was eventually sold for a hundred thousand pounds less than we believe it should have raised. All due to his incompetence. The man’s an idiot.’

‘I can tell that you don’t like him much either,’ Douglas said with a laugh.

‘You’re dead right there,’ I agreed. ‘But what he did to Amelia was even worse. I blame him completely for her mental illness and for putting her in hospital. He’s done nothing except continually undermine her confidence for years and then he drove a wedge between her and their mother. And now he’s killed her.’ I choked back the emotion. ‘I intend to nail him for that.’

But I felt better for having had a bit of a broadside against my brother-in-law and it was with a lighter heart that I packed up my stuff and caught the train from London to Banbury.

The first thing I did on arriving home was to paint over the ‘killer’ graffiti on the garage door.

I’d taken a taxi from Banbury station and had asked the driver to wait at a DIY superstore while I went in and bought some dark-green paint and a paintbrush.

I stood back and surveyed my handiwork.

The paint I had bought wasn’t exactly the same shade of dark green as the rest of it but it would do. I would repaint the whole thing at another time.

Next I opened the padlock on the front door and went in.

As before, the house was cold and lifeless but, this time, I didn’t dilly-dally in the hall but forced myself to go straight into the kitchen and then through into the utility room.

The central heating had been switched off by someone so I turned it back on again and the boiler sprang into action, bringing a sense of life back to the house as the pipework creaked as it heated.

I went round the house switching on all the lights and even set the music system in the sitting room so that Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ blared out of the speakers at full volume.

Adele had been Amelia’s absolute favourite singer and we had been lucky enough to catch her final live concert at Wembley Stadium, buying horrendously inflated tickets off the internet with gay abandon. But it had been worth every penny to see my wife happy after so many desperate months of psychiatric treatments and mental institutions. Even Adele’s mournful lyrics couldn’t prevent me from now smiling at the memory.

For the next two and a half hours, I busied myself clearing up the mess left by the police forensic team, wiping away the mass of fine metallic fingerprint powder left on every surface, exercising the vacuum cleaner all around the house and tidying away stuff into the wardrobes and bathroom cabinet. I re-laid the fire in the hearth, plumped up all the cushions on the sofa, discarded a vase of flowers that were well past their best, and, finally, I swept up the broken wood by the back door and washed the kitchen floor, which I found very difficult.

I realised what I was doing.

I was keeping myself busy so as not to dwell on the fact that I was alone in this house and evermore would be.

It was the little things that I found the hardest to bear — Amelia’s toothbrush still in a tumbler next to the bathroom sink; her shampoo in the shower; and particularly her multiple lip salves left at strategic points all over the house. Dry lips had always been a problem for her, however much I had tried to kiss them better.

Finally, when there was nothing left to clean and I was pooped, I made myself a cup of instant black coffee and sat down in the sitting room, flicking on an afternoon TV programme about buying antiques to further distract my mind.

So far, so good.

But then there was a heavy knock on the front door.

Who could that be? I rather hoped it wasn’t either the police or the press.

It was neither.

Standing on my doorstep was a smartly dressed slim woman with long blonde hair. She was holding a large plate on which sat a sponge cake, and she was fiddling nervously with a string of large pearls around her neck.

‘Hello, Bill,’ said Nancy Fadeley. ‘I saw you earlier painting the garage door. I thought you might need something to eat. This is all I could think of. I’ve just baked it myself.’

She held out the plate and I took it.

‘How lovely, Nancy,’ I said. ‘Thank you so much. Please come in.’

She hesitated, looking past me towards the kitchen, and fiddled some more with her pearls.

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Amelia would have been so happy that you’ve come over.’

Just my mention of Amelia set her off crying, huge tears rolling down her face and dripping onto the doormat. I handed her my handkerchief.

‘I can’t believe she’s gone,’ she said between snuffles. ‘I loved her so much.’

‘So did I,’ I said with a sigh.

‘I know you did,’ she said with more sniffs. ‘You absolutely adored each other. That’s why I can’t believe what everyone in the village is saying. People can be so nasty.’