I sat down on the bed, took some deep breaths, and waited... and waited... and waited.
Without a watch, I found it impossible to know exactly how long it was before I heard a key in the door, but it felt like at least half a day, although it couldn’t have in fact been that long — it was still light outside.
‘Your solicitor is here,’ said the policeman who opened the door. ‘She wants to see you.’
She?
I was taken along the corridor to a legal consultation room where a woman in a smart dark-blue suit and white blouse was waiting.
‘Where’s Simon Bassett?’ I asked.
‘He’s in court,’ she said. ‘He sent me instead. I’m Harriet Clark.’ She handed me one of her business cards. ‘I’m a specialist criminal solicitor in the same firm.’
I wondered if Simon Bassett really was in court or whether it was his concerns over a potential conflict of interest that had made him step aside. Either way, Harriet Clark was all I had.
I glanced up at the clock on the wall of the room and was dismayed to find that it had been less than two hours since I’d arrived. Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself — not!
‘I assume you haven’t been interviewed yet,’ Harriet said.
‘Not today.’
I explained that I’d been interviewed before, on Friday, but she knew all about that. Simon had given her some notes.
‘I don’t understand why I’ve been arrested,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘No doubt we’ll find out in due course,’ she replied in a rather matter-of-fact tone.
‘I didn’t kill my wife,’ I said earnestly.
‘That’s not what’s important at the present time,’ Harriet said.
‘I assure you, it’s pretty important as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Yes, well, as maybe. But, right now, I’m more interested in deciding our tactics for this interview.’
‘What do you mean by tactics?’
‘Basically, are you going to answer their questions? Or should you reply “no comment” to everything?’
‘I have nothing to hide.’
‘That, again, is not what’s important here. This interview is our opportunity to discover what they have. They might think they will get information from you, but we intend to turn things around and find out something from them, to determine the strength of their case.’
‘They can’t have a case,’ I said. ‘I didn’t do it.’
‘Then we should definitely give them nothing. I strongly recommend you answer “no comment” to anything and everything they ask.’
‘But won’t that make me sound guilty?’
‘It’s not what you sound like in the police interview that’s important. It’s what evidence they have. Remember, we don’t have to prove your innocence — it’s up to them to prove your guilt.’
‘But they said that it could harm my defence if I didn’t say something now that I later rely on in court.’
‘Poppycock,’ Harriet said with a laugh. ‘That’s just the standard caution. And you can always blame me. What really hurts your defence is to say something now that is completely different from what you say later in court. So it’s better to say nothing now, and especially nothing you haven’t already said in your previous interview. But I’d much rather you say nothing at all. Any slight change to your story, however small and insignificant, maybe due only to a minor lapse of memory, will be picked up and thrown right back at you — and at the jury — as proof that you are lying.’
Why was all legal advice seemingly always to say nothing? And do nothing?
Harriet banged on the door, which was opened from the outside.
‘Tell them we’re ready when they are.’
We were taken into the same interview room as before, again with Detective Chief Inspector Priestly and DS Dowdeswell. The only difference was that, this time, it was Harriet sitting next to me instead of Simon.
The recorders were started again with a long beep.
‘I remind you, Mr Gordon-Russell,’ the DCI said, ‘that you are still under caution and anything you say may be used in evidence. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said, shuffling the papers in front of him. ‘Now, Mr Gordon-Russell, would you describe yourself as a violent man?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I would not.’
I received a nudge from Harriet under the table.
I looked at her. Surely there was no harm in answering that question.
‘But is it not the case, Mr Gordon-Russell, that you have been violent in the past?’
‘No,’ I said and, after receiving another nudge, I added, ‘comment.’
The DCI looked up at me from his notes.
‘Was that no, or no comment?’
‘No comment,’ I said.
‘So you have been violent in the past?’
He was twisting my answers, or rather my lack of them.
‘No comment.’
‘Do you know a young girl called Victoria Bradbury?’
Where was this going? Victoria was Joe and Rachael Bradbury’s ten-year-old daughter.
‘No comment.’
‘We have received a complaint from her father that you have been violent in the past towards Victoria Bradbury. That you picked her up by the arms, shook her violently and shouted at her. Is that true?’
I sat and stared at him. Of course it wasn’t true.
‘Well?’ said the DCI. ‘Is it true?’
I looked at Harriet and she shook her head very slightly.
‘No comment,’ I said.
‘Did you shout at her because she wouldn’t do what you wanted? And was that something of a sexual nature?’
What nonsense was this?
‘Was that why you killed your wife? Because she found out about your sexual depravity with her niece?’
I didn’t like this, not one bit. I could feel my palms beginning to sweat and my heart was racing.
‘I wish to consult alone with my solicitor.’
‘Interview suspended,’ said the DCI, and he stopped the recorder.
Harriet and I were shown back into the legal consultation room.
‘What is it?’ Harriet asked, the irritation clear in her voice.
‘I can’t just sit there saying “no comment” to such an allegation.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Because it’s not true, dammit. I’ve never laid a finger on that girl, and Joe Bradbury knows it. Why would he say such a thing?’
‘Because he’s trying to wind you up,’ Harriet said. ‘And so are the police. Ignore it — unless there’s some proof to back up the claim.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘So let it all wash over you.’
Easier said than done.
Sexual interference with a young child was considered the most horrendous of crimes — far worse even than murder. And yet it was so easy to accuse someone of sexually abusing children and have the police and others believe it. Look at how some senior politicians, including a former prime minister and other men of rank and influence, had been lambasted on the TV and in the press, having had false accusations of rape and sexual abuse made against them by a liar and complete fantasist. The police may have grudgingly apologised to the accused eventually, but not before one of them had died and the others had had their reputations destroyed for ever.
And I had no doubt that this latest unjustified claim against me would also make it into the newspapers.
‘I want to fight back,’ I declared. ‘If no one is telling them that Joe Bradbury is lying, then they will all believe him.’
‘They’ll all believe him anyway,’ Harriet said depressingly. ‘It’s human nature. People want to believe everything bad about the perceived villain and, in this case, that’s you. If Joe Bradbury told them that you had two heads and scales down your back, most of them would believe it absolutely. You simply claiming that he’s lying will make no difference.’