Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

My heart was racing faster than a filly’s in the Nunthorpe Stakes, but still I didn’t stand up.

‘What are you going to do?’ I asked in as level a tone as I could manage. ‘Kill me too?’

‘Joe, put the knife down,’ Mary said, but he took absolutely no notice of her and it suddenly dawned on me that he might use it. Perhaps it was time to heed the old adage that he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.

‘Okay, okay,’ I said, standing up. ‘I’m going.’

I backed my way into the hall, never taking my eyes off the knife. Joe followed me.

‘Bye, Mary,’ I shouted past him.

‘Bye, Bill dear,’ she replied, seemingly totally unaware of the seriousness of the situation.

That seemed to make Joe even more angry.

‘You leave my mother alone, do you hear,’ he hissed. ‘Come here again and I’ll kill you.’

‘Developed a taste for killing people, have you, Joe?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I just wondered if you enjoyed strangling your own sister?’

‘I didn’t kill her,’ he said, his lips drawn back in a frightening grimace of hate. ‘You did that. You’d been killing her for years, cutting her off from her true family and driving her crazy. I loathe you. In fact, I’d be doing everyone a favour by killing you. Everyone knows you’re a murderer. They’ll say you got your just deserts.’

I now became genuinely worried. He was demented and, perhaps for the first time, I thought he was truly mad. And mad people act impulsively and to hell with the consequences.

The time for goading him was past. Now, I had to concentrate on getting out of this alive.

I continued to back across the hall until I could feel the front door behind me. He followed, getting ever closer, the knife held out in front, his manic staring eyes clearly visible behind his glasses.

‘Come on, Joe,’ I said in as consolatory a tone as I could muster under the circumstances. ‘Don’t do anything silly. Put the knife down.’

Try as I might, I couldn’t keep the fear out of my voice, and Joe liked it.

He smiled at me. ‘Frightened, are you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m frightened how your mother will cope for her last few months on her own, without both her daughter and her son. Amelia is dead and you’ll be in prison for murder.’

‘I’ll claim self-defence,’ he said. ‘Protecting myself from a murderer.’

‘The police know that I didn’t murder Amelia. I can prove I was in Birmingham all night.’

He took no notice, advancing to within a couple of feet. I pressed my back up against the door, and, to open it, I would have to move towards him.

I didn’t.

‘You’re lying,’ he barked. ‘Everyone knows you’re a killer. Read the papers. It even says so on your garage door.’

So had it been he who had painted that? I suppose I should be grateful he hadn’t burned the whole place down while he was at it.

I felt around behind me with my hands, searching for some sort of weapon or at least something to shield me from the stabbing thrust that I knew was coming. But there was nothing.

He smiled again. He was enjoying himself.

His arm went back.

‘Joseph!’ snapped his mother from the kitchen door. ‘Stop it! Stop it right now.’

He hesitated, just for an instant, glancing over his shoulder towards her.

I needed no second invitation. I lurched forward, pushed him away and was out through the front door quicker than a greyhound leaving the starting traps.

I ran to Amelia’s car and jumped in, locking the doors from the inside.

Joe had parked his black Nissan immediately behind the Fiat so I couldn’t reverse out. Instead I engaged forward gear, gunned the engine, and drove sharply left, bouncing over the front lawn and then out through the gate onto the road. Amelia would have been horrified at how I treated her beloved 500.

But I was shaking so much that I had to stop in order to avoid hitting something, all the while keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the rear-view mirror, just in case Joe had decided to follow. Thankfully, he hadn’t, and the road behind remained clear.

Gradually, I recovered my composure and I drove to Banbury without mishap, pulling up in front of the police station.

I went in to report the incident.

DS Dowdeswell came out to the lobby to see me.

‘Ah, Mr Gordon-Russell,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’ve come in. I was about to come looking for you.’

‘Why is that?’ I asked with rising trepidation.

‘We’ve just had an emergency call from Mr Joseph Bradbury. He’s accused you of threatening him with a carving knife.’

I found myself back in the same interview room as before, this time questioned under caution on suspicion of engaging in threatening behaviour with a bladed weapon.

‘It’s not true,’ I said. ‘In fact, quite the reverse is the case. He threatened me with a carving knife and, what’s more, he said he’d kill me if I ever went to see his mother again.’

‘So you admit that you’ve been there this morning, then?’ said the DS.

‘Yes, of course. I went to visit Mary Bradbury.’

‘Why was that?’ he asked.

In the cold light of day, it seemed like a very good question. Why, indeed, had I gone there? I could have phoned her for the information about the Wilsons.

‘Why shouldn’t I go and see my mother-in-law?’ I said. ‘The poor woman has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Amelia and I were a huge part of her life for so many years, that was until Joe Bradbury convinced her that I’m the devil incarnate.’

I was getting quite worked up. To coin one of Joe Bradbury’s favourite phrases: How could he? How could he accuse me when it had all been his doing?

I made a conscious effort to relax, as being angry wouldn’t help my current predicament one bit.

‘Have you spoken to Mary Bradbury?’ I asked calmly. ‘I am sure she will corroborate everything I’ve said. I’m in no doubt that it was only her intervention that enabled me to get out of her house alive.’

‘Mr Bradbury claims you verbally abused his mother in a highly aggressive manner and he says that she is too upset by the incident to be interviewed at the present time.’

‘And you believe him?’ I asked incredulously. ‘Have you learned nothing? The man is a pathological liar.’

‘That’s precisely what he says about you.’

‘I will tell you exactly what happened.’

I went through everything, leaving out only the conversation I’d had with Mary about the Wilsons. I felt, right now, that it would simply confuse matters and I wanted to investigate what Nancy Fadeley had said a little more before I made any accusations to the authorities. It certainly wouldn’t help my cause if the police investigated and it turned out to be all a pile of tosh.

‘Get your forensic team over to Mary Bradbury’s house,’ I said. ‘You won’t find my fingerprints on any of her knives. I never touched them.’

He waved a dismissive hand, suggesting that his forensic team had far more important things to be dealing with.

‘So,’ I said. ‘Are you going to charge me or not? I have other things I need to be getting on with, like fixing the lock on my back door.’

‘Wait here,’ he said, and he went out, no doubt to confer with his superiors.

I just couldn’t believe what was happening.

How did Joe Bradbury have the nerve?

He must have worked out that I would go straight to the police and hence he’d decided to get his accusation in first. What I couldn’t understand was why they believed him. It was a clear demonstration of how much they didn’t trust me.