Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

Just the thought of him raised my blood pressure.

It had all started with a quite innocuous-looking email from him to Amelia concerning the sale of the family home.

Their father had died of bladder cancer not long after our move and Amelia had convinced her mother that it was sensible for her to sell their big house in commuter-belt Surrey and move into something smaller up in Oxfordshire, to be closer to us. It would also release the funds she needed to support herself.

As my work with pensions showed, widows were often left asset-rich but cash-poor, with so much of their wealth tied up in their home. This had certainly been true of my mother-in-law, so much so that Amelia and I had had to help with her day-to-day expenses in spite of her living in a multimillion-pound seven-bedroomed mansion. As one of my financial advisors regularly pointed out to those who ignored his recommendation to buy shares as an investment rather than property, one can’t sell just a single window when a little money is needed.

That first email from Joe had asked for the name of the estate agents Amelia had appointed on her mother’s behalf to sell the property.

A simple enough request that Amelia had happily answered, naming the local Weybridge office of a big national firm, one that she had been assured would market the property extensively.

The abusive email she received back from Joe by return had taken our breath away.

‘How dare you appoint that firm,’ he wrote. ‘Are you stupid or something? They are the worst estate agents in the world and very expensive. I have been in touch with them and cancelled the arrangement forthwith. I have far more experience than either of you in selling houses and I will appoint a different agent who will sell the house more cheaply.’

There had been neither salutation nor valediction on the email.

Almost as soon as it had landed in Amelia’s inbox, she had received an irate phone call from the manager of the Weybridge office who was, understandably, confused and not a little upset.

Joe, it seemed, had been rude to several members of the agency staff, calling them lazy and arrogant, and he had demanded the cancellation of the contract. Hence the manager had removed the property from his company database. But, as he pointed out to Amelia, a colour brochure had already been prepared and a full-page advert placed in the upcoming Country Life magazine as well as on various websites, so her mother would remain liable for those costs in spite of the fact that any responders to the adverts would now be advised that the property had been withdrawn from sale.

Amelia had immediately called her brother to tell him that it was he who was the stupid one but she had received a tirade of abuse in return, to the point where she’d had to hang up the call and burst into tears.

And that had been just the start.

Since that point, for the past three years, Joe had waged a spiteful campaign of calls and emails, all seemingly designed to undermine Amelia’s confidence and self-worth. And he’d also been incredibly rude both to me and about me to anyone who would listen; and there were, sadly, far too many of those.

I wasn’t sure of his motive other than, it seemed, to place a firecracker in the centre of his and Amelia’s family and blow the whole lot of them to smithereens.

Amelia and Joe had been the only two children of Reginald and Mary Bradbury, but their parents had each come from large families. Hence Amelia had a multitude of uncles and aunts, plus several dozen cousins, many of whom were now not talking to me, or to each other, due to Joe’s efforts to divide us with his lies.

It was not something that especially bothered me, but Amelia had been much saddened and troubled by her loss of contact with some of those with whom she had spent many happy school holidays as a child.

Reginald Bradbury had been a successful stockbroker in the City of London and he had been almost fifty before he had finally married for the first time, to Mary, his personal assistant, who’d been some fifteen years his junior. Amelia had arrived two years later, followed by Joe, four years after that.

Not that the Bradburys had enjoyed a particularly happy marriage.

Amelia often described to me how her parents had fought all the time. Memories of her childhood home, rather than being full of fun and happiness as mine had been, were of a battleground of shouting, recriminations and tears. From an early age, Amelia had had to protect her mother from a domineering husband. It was one of the reasons mother and daughter were so close... at least they had been until Joe had started his antics.

My phone rang and brought me back to the here and now.

‘Hello,’ I said, answering.

‘Hi, Bill,’ said a female voice. ‘Virginia Lutton here, racecourse manager at Warwick.’

‘Yes, Virginia. How can I help?’

‘Is that your silver Jaguar sports car in the officials’ car park? George Longcross said you left early yesterday with the police.’

Was it me or did she make it sound like an accusation?

‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said. ‘I did leave early and left my car behind. I had some bad news.’

‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’ She paused for a sympathetic moment before continuing. ‘But, the thing is, we need it moved as we’re having that part of the car park resurfaced and it’s sitting right in the middle of where the workmen want to start.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’d better come and get it, but I’m afraid I won’t be there for a couple of hours or so. I’m in London.’

I could hear her suck the air in through her teeth in annoyance. ‘We need it shifted before then. Is there anyone else who could move it?’

The only spare key was in a drawer of the kitchen dresser at the Old Forge in Hanwell, and I wasn’t about to call DS Dowdeswell to ask him to get it to move the car, even if he would have done. He’d have probably impounded the vehicle and carried out a fingertip forensic search looking for evidence. And my laptop was in the boot along with my overnight bag; I didn’t want him getting his hands on that, not because I had anything to hide but because I needed it for my work.

My work.

I’d better do something about that too. I was due to attend a meeting later in the day with some pension-fund managers in Henley-on-Thames. I would have to cancel. I didn’t feel up to meeting with anyone.

‘I’m sorry, Virginia,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there as quickly as I can. There’s no one else I can ask.’

She wasn’t happy but, short of organising a crane, there was nothing she could do. ‘Right,’ she said with resignation. ‘Please get here as soon as possible. I’ll go and tell the men to start somewhere else.’

She hung up.

There’s no one else I can ask.

Oh, God!

How could I survive without Amelia?

It was just after midday when I arrived by train and taxi at Warwick Racecourse.

Virginia Lutton’s workmen were clearly a bunch of jokers.

They had dug up the tarmac all round my Jaguar, leaving it as if on an island. It was surrounded by red and white plastic barriers, clipped together in a tight rectangle almost touching the car’s paintwork.

I looked about me. Plenty of their big bright yellow machinery stood silently doing nothing but there was not a workman in sight. It must be lunchtime, an early lunchtime.

I unclipped the plastic barriers, climbed in and drove carefully off the island and across the site to the exit.

Where to?

I had called the fund managers in Henley to tell them I wasn’t able to meet with them but they were well ahead of me, having themselves already cancelled on the assumption I wouldn’t be coming.