Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

Well I never did. The devious old witch.

‘She was particularly angry with him for stealing money from her. She said she would happily have given him some cash if he’d asked her, so why did he have to go and take it without telling her?’

‘Right, that really is enough now.’ The battleaxe was back. ‘Time for you to go.’

I could tell that defiance was not going to work this time.

‘Come back and see me again,’ I said to the detective. ‘And make it soon.’

He stood up and turned to go.

‘How about a police guard?’ I asked to his back.

He turned round once more to face me. ‘Why do you need one?’

‘Because, with Joe Bradbury on the loose, I don’t feel safe. That’s why. He’s now tried to kill me twice and I fear he’ll try to do it again, and I can hardly fight back when I’m like this. At the moment, a five-year-old could bump me off in a heartbeat.’

‘But what would he gain by it?’

The battleaxe started to tap her foot with impatience.

‘Don’t you ever learn anything?’ I said. ‘Joe Bradbury doesn’t need a reason to try and do me harm. He simply thinks of me as his enemy, someone that needs to be destroyed.’

It was how I was beginning to think of him too.

The DS stared at me. ‘I’ll have a word with the DCI.’

‘You do that,’ I said. ‘And also find that other car. Start with Joe’s Nissan. Then you can add attempted murder to his charge sheet.’

The day after my visit from the detective sergeant, the big toe on my left foot started moving, and gradually, during the following week, most of my fingers began to obey my mental commands too, and then my ankles would flex when I asked them to.

My whole body started to feel human again, rather than just a disconnected brain, uselessly attached to an inert lump of meat.

And the improvement seemed to please the neurologists and also Mr Constance, the surgeon.

‘Now that your neck is orthopaedically stable, and the operation site has healed well, I think it’s time we moved you on,’ he announced. ‘You need to go to a specialist rehabilitation centre rather than staying here in hospital. The physiotherapy there is more intensive and they will try and get you back walking again. I’ll arrange it.’

I suppose it was the obvious next step but part of me wanted to stay right here at the John Radcliffe. Stupid as it sounded, I found some comfort in being in the same building, or at least on the same site, as Amelia.

Even though it had now been more than a month since her death, there had still been no mention by anyone of a funeral. I was in no fit state to organise anything, so I just went with the flow and kept quiet. But it was a bridge that would have to be crossed at some stage, although bridge was hardly the right word — minefield, more like.

Mr Constance returned to say that it was all sorted and I would be transferred by ambulance the following Monday.

‘Where to?’ I asked.

‘The National Spinal Injuries Centre,’ he said. ‘At Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury.’

‘But isn’t that for disabled people?’

He laughed, even though I thought it particularly insensitive under the circumstances.

‘So what do you think you are?’ he said, still chuckling.

He could see that I wasn’t joining in with his mirth.

‘Look,’ he said more seriously. ‘The problems you are currently experiencing are due to the trauma your spinal cord received in the accident.’

‘It wasn’t an accident,’ I said, interrupting him.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘In the incident, then. The nerves in your neck were heavily bruised and we know from experience that bruised nerves often stop working. In your case, it was specifically the motor nerves that shut down. Thankfully, they are slowly beginning to work again, but there are no guarantees that they will ever return to normal function.’

He didn’t pull his punches. He gave it to me straight.

‘Some patients in your situation regain full use and sensation, but there are others who are confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives.’

‘Oh.’

‘The spinal injuries centre will give you the best chance. Yes, they have specialist therapies to treat people whose cords have been totally snapped, but they also deal with people like you. If anyone can get you back on your feet, they can.’

‘Right, then,’ I said more positively. ‘The sooner I get there the better.’

Over my last weekend at the JR, I had three visitors.

The first two, on the Saturday afternoon, were Nancy and Dave Fadeley.

‘How are you doing?’ Nancy asked, again nervously fiddling with her ever-present pearl necklace. ‘We would have come before but the hospital...’

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m only just well enough to have visitors, and it’s so lovely to see you both.’

I smiled, and she relaxed a bit and smiled back.

By now I could move my head a little from side to side, which was just as well as Dave and Nancy sat down on chairs placed on either side of the bed.

‘How are things in Hanwell?’ I asked.

‘Much the same,’ Dave replied. ‘We’ve been over to your place a couple of times. We used the key you gave us.’

They had been keyholders for the alarm company since we first arrived.

‘I threw away some stuff from the fridge,’ Nancy said. ‘It had gone off.’

‘Thank you. Was everything else okay?’

‘I turned off the hot water and put the heating right down,’ Dave said. ‘But everything seemed fine.’

No sign of Joe Bradbury, I assumed.

‘It was Mark Thornton who found you. It’s been the talk of the pub.’

Mark Thornton, the local publican. After the way he’d spoken to me when I’d collected my car from his car park, I suppose I should be grateful that he’d called the emergency services at all. Perhaps he hadn’t realised it was me, or maybe he’d thought I was already dead.

We chatted on for a while about a number of mundane things, such as the weather, until I sensed a slight unease in them.

‘Have you heard from the police at all?’ I asked, thinking that must be reason.

‘Not a dicky,’ Dave said.

So it was not that.

I then wondered if their unease was just that of the hospital visitor who wants to leave but doesn’t know quite how to say so to the patient.

‘I’m sorry.’ I forced a yawn. ‘I’m getting quite tired.’

‘Yes,’ said Nancy, her unease disappearing in an instant. ‘Sorry. We’ve just been prattling on without thinking. Come on, Dave. It’s time to go.’

They both stood up just a tad too eagerly.

‘We’ll come again.’

‘I’m moving on Monday,’ I said. ‘To Stoke Mandeville.’

‘Oh, right. Then we’ll come and see you there.’

‘I’ll call you,’ I said, and we left it at that.

Everybody happy.

My third visitor came on Sunday morning.

The return of movement to my feet had been accompanied by a feeling of intense pins and needles in my soles, something that was quite painful. And it had been particularly bad during Saturday night and hence I had slept rather badly.

So, on Sunday morning, I was snoozing quite a lot.

I woke from one such doze to find Mary Bradbury sitting at the side of my bed. She looked concerned, with deep furrows across her brow.

‘Bad, is it?’ she asked.

‘Only when I think about it.’ Which was all the time.

‘I needed to come and see you,’ Mary said. ‘Before I can’t.’

She did look much more frail than when I’d seen her only a few weeks before, and her skin was noticeably more yellow. Her cheeks had also sunken in somewhat and her face had a pronounced skull-like appearance. There was not much doubt that the cancer within was taking its dreadful toll on her body.