Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

The detective sergeant returned.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You’re free to go for the time being. But we will continue to investigate this incident.’

‘You just do that,’ I said. ‘It will prove what I’m saying is the truth.’

I started to walk out but I turned back.

‘And when are you going to stop treating me as a suspect for my wife’s murder? You must realise by now that I couldn’t have done it.’

‘Releasing you from the investigation would have to be a decision of DCI Priestly.’

‘So where is he?’

‘What? Now?’

‘Yes. Right now,’ I said. ‘I want to speak to him.’

‘But it’s Saturday,’ he said.

‘So? You’re working, aren’t you?’ Which I had to admit was a bit of a surprise. ‘Get him on the phone.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ said the detective. ‘Yes, I am working, but he is not. He has the weekend off.’

I thought I could detect a slight touch of envy in his voice, as if weekends off during a murder investigation were the exclusive domain only of senior officers.

‘Well, first thing on Monday morning, you tell him from me that I should no longer be under arrest or considered as a suspect. And I also demand a statement be made by the police to the press confirming that fact.’

He gave me a look, which implied that that was not going to happen.

‘Otherwise,’ I went on, ‘I will lodge a lawsuit with the courts citing wrongful arrest and police harassment. You have no evidence against me, you never have had, and you know it. It is absolutely disgraceful the way I’ve been treated both by you and the media. I am one of the victims here. My darling wife has been murdered.’

‘We did have reasonable grounds for arresting you,’ the DS protested.

‘What reasonable grounds? Accusations by Joe Bradbury and a life insurance policy? Don’t make me laugh. That’s not evidence. It’s Joe Bradbury you should be arresting, both for killing his sister and for threatening to kill me.’

I didn’t want to argue the point with him any further. I’d need to speak to a lawyer. So I marched out of the police station and climbed back into the Fiat.

Needless to say, I didn’t go home and fix the lock on my back door.

I went to Weybridge instead.

I parked on Elgin Crescent, on St George’s Hill, in front of the house that Reginald and Mary Bradbury had once lived in.

I had been to this address many times, both during the years I had courted their daughter and after we were married. Sunday lunches of roast beef plus all the trimmings had always been a favourite.

I got out of the car and stood looking at it through its wrought-iron gates.

Set back behind an evergreen yew hedge, the property had changed little in the three years since Mary had left, but I had forgotten how big it was. I suppose it would have had to be big to have been sold for more than three million quid. Such was the opulence of exclusive developments in London’s leafy Surrey suburbs.

I walked up and down the road looking at the houses on either side, trying to see which of them was a likely candidate as a home for the Wilsons. The one on the right was undergoing some work with a concrete mixer and a stack of breeze blocks visible on the drive.

I decided to try the other side first, on the grounds that a mature couple might not bother with renovations after such a long time in the property. Also, it had no locked gates with an intercom button, as the others did. It was all too easy to tell someone standing at the gate to get lost via a disembodied speaker. Less so when they were face to face at the front door.

I pushed the bell and waited.

Nothing happened.

I pushed the bell again, longer this time, and I could faintly hear a ringing deep in the premises.

I was about to go when I heard a bolt being drawn back. Then the door opened about four inches, brought up short by a sturdy-looking security chain.

‘I’m sorry,’ said a male voice through the crack. ‘We don’t want to buy anything. Please go away.’

‘That’s all right then,’ I replied jauntily. ‘Because I’m not selling. Are you Mr Wilson?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said the voice with a hint of surprise.

‘Mr Jim Wilson,’ I said. ‘Married to Gladys?’

‘Who are you?’ asked the voice, the door still open just four inches against the chain.

‘I’m Mary Bradbury’s son-in-law.’

The door closed briefly and I could hear the chain being removed. When it reopened wide I could see a small grey-haired man I took to be in his late seventies standing there.

‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘Have you come to tell us bad news? We saw Mary two weeks ago and she didn’t look at all well then.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No bad news. I was with her earlier this morning.’

‘Oh, good,’ Jim Wilson said, now smiling. ‘I’m so pleased. Gladys and I are very fond of Mary. But I do fear she won’t be with us for much longer.’

‘I’m afraid that you’re right,’ I said. ‘She’s had rather a bad diagnosis.’

‘Yes,’ he said gloomily. ‘She told us.’

It was my turn to be surprised. If Mary had told the Wilsons two weeks ago that she had cancer, then why hadn’t Amelia known about it?

Mr Wilson looked at me.

‘So how can I help you?’ he asked.

‘It’s a bit delicate to talk about out here,’ I said. ‘Could I come in?’

He hesitated, clearly debating with himself whether it was wise. He decided that it was, and he stepped to one side and waved me in.

‘Come through to the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Gladys and I are just having a spot of breakfast.’ He laughed. ‘We tend not to get up very early these days so we never have breakfast before eleven, and then we have our lunch in the middle of the afternoon.’

‘Very sensible,’ I said. ‘I hate getting up early. All those cold dark mornings are best avoided.’

He smiled at me and I wondered if he thought I was taking the mickey.

Because I was.

But I found I liked Jim Wilson, and Gladys turned out to be a treat as well.

They were having smoked salmon and cream cheese on toasted bagels. Quite a breakfast.

‘Would you like one?’ Gladys said. ‘I have plenty more in the fridge.’

‘That would be lovely,’ I said, realising that I’d also had nothing to eat so far today.

Gladys fetched another bagel, cut it in two and put the halves in the toaster.

‘Poor dear Mary,’ Gladys said. ‘First she hears about the cancer and then her sweet Amelia gets killed. We saw Amelia very recently, you know. She was with Mary when we went to visit. What a dreadful business. I just can’t bear it that such a lovely girl was murdered. And in her own house, too. I hope that horrid husband of hers gets what’s coming to him.’

‘Now,’ said Jim Wilson, cutting in. ‘What was so delicate you couldn’t...’ He stopped and stared at me with his mouth hanging open. ‘My God,’ he said with a trembling voice. ‘You’re him.’

‘Who?’ Gladys asked, clearly confused.

‘Amelia’s husband.’

They both suddenly looked terrified, as if they had let a monster into their home.

‘Please don’t hurt us,’ Gladys wailed pitifully.

‘Get out of my house,’ her husband demanded, standing up and pulling himself to his full height, which was still an inch or two shorter even than I.

I didn’t move but sat there in silence and, at that moment, the bagel popped up in the toaster, making all of us jump.

‘I didn’t kill Amelia,’ I said, for yet another time. ‘I can prove that I was fifty miles away in Birmingham at the time she was killed. Otherwise the police wouldn’t have let me go. It’s only the damn press that are still accusing me of murder, and it isn’t true.’