An Innocent Proven Guilty

By Michael Fitzalan

Philip Hayward is a mathematics teacher who thinks of himself as ‘Mr Nice Guy’. He tries to be generous and giving, but he harbours a guilty secret, he wants his brother, Patrick, dead. Ten years previously they had bought a flat together but when Patrick lost his job through shady deals, a year later, they were forced sell.
As the elder brother, Patrick was the principal name on the mortgage and he held the account. When they sold, the capital payment for the flat was paid into his bank, and he disappeared to America with all the money. The mortgage company came after Phil for the whole debt, leaving him with a huge sum of money to pay off and nowhere to live.
He fantasized about fratricide; the bitterness at his unfair treatment had become greater as time passed and as his poverty weighed more heavily on him.
When a serendipitous meeting reveals his brother’s whereabouts, he stumbles into his brother’s new house to discover a body.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781291902921

Book preview

An Innocent Proven Guilty

An Innocent Proven Guilty

An Innocent Proven Guilty

By

Michael Fitzalan

Copyright © 2012 by Michael Fitzalan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews.

IPG

Innocent Proved Guilty

By

Michael Fitzalan

Philip Hayward is a mathematics teacher who thinks of himself as ‘Mr Nice Guy’. He tries to be generous and giving, but he harbours a guilty secret, he wants his brother, Patrick, dead. Ten years previously they had bought a flat together but when Patrick lost his job through shady deals, a year later, they were forced sell.

As the elder brother, Patrick was the principal name on the mortgage and he held the account. When they sold, the capital payment for the flat was paid into his bank, and he disappeared to America with all the money. The mortgage company came after Phil for the whole debt, leaving him with a huge sum of money to pay off and nowhere to live.

He fantasized about fratricide; the bitterness at his unfair treatment had become greater as time passed and as his poverty weighed more heavily on him.

When a serendipitous meeting reveals his brother’s whereabouts, he stumbles into his brother’s new house to discover a body.

His wish had come true but wishes and reality are two different things. With his brother dead, he feels duty bound to find out who killed him. The police want him ‘to help them with their enquiries’ because he has left a bloody footprint on the floor.

Phil sees himself like the fugitive, Hannay, in ‘The 39 Steps’, the only way he can stop running is to find the culprit and clear his name.

It’s time to call in some favours, but has he really been good enough for people to help him; a known murderer who had motive and who was the last person at the crime scene?

Can he prove his innocence before the police move in and who is Diana Deverill who signs herself Deadly nightshade and pursues Phil at every opportunity?

His distinctive looks and height give him away at every turn but will the help of the Muslim community save him from the clutches of the law and allow him to track down the real murderer?

Chapter One – Sunday-‘bloody’-Sunday

Assalamu ‘alaykum, Phil greeted the shopkeeper who sat behind the counter in a perfect Arabic accent. There was a mound of chocolate confectionary between them. Phil smiled warmly; he visited the shop at least once a day during the term time. 

Wa ‘alaykum Assalam, replied the man, he was in his early forties but he had coal black hair and kind brown eyes. He was from Pakistan and his hair was thick and black in stark contrast to Phil’s mousy thinning hair.

How are you, sir? continued Phil. They did not look like brothers but they treated each other with the same respect.

Very well, he said, obviously being polite. The man was tired, it was clear that he had been working all the hours available to him and staying up late to do his paperwork. And how are you?

Very well, thank you, replied Phil truthfully. He was feeling in a good mood, he had survived the week; the new classes were settling in well, term had got off to a smooth start and at the weekend, he had enough money for the collection at mass and a packet of cigarettes. It was a rare week when he had both.

Sunday newspaper? asked the man. His voice was warm and he smiled genuinely at Phil. They both understood each other’s struggle to survive. He had not bought a newspaper in nine years; it was a luxury too far. Cigarettes could be justified as a survival tool to help with stress; all other fripperies were unnecessary luxuries, he could do without alcohol, food and papers.

No thanks, he said hurriedly, he did not have time for a conversation about Afghanistan and Iraq, that morning, although he normally caught up on what the Arabic press was saying. He was not ignorant of current affairs but his source of information was the radio, it was free, talk shows, The World Service from the BBC and Radio Four. I’m in a rush and I have so much marking to do, I won’t have time to read even the front page.

You’re right, all doom and gloom and sleaze.

Phil was relieved when another customer came in, halting their conversation.

"Ten, Marlboro Lights, please."

Phil was always embarrassed asking for ten cigarettes instead of twenty, it always showed his poverty. Ten was his limit for each day.  Automatically, he handed over the money and with the same familiar action the man’s hand was cupped to receive the four golden coins.

Phil considered it his local corner shop, although it was on Tooting Bec Road, near the station and he lived half a mile away. He had used the shop on his way to the tube when he was commuting to his previous job and he occasionally bought his cigarettes from there when he came out of the ‘Underground’ station. 

That September he had started a new job around the corner at the secondary school during the week and he was always in the area on a Sunday morning, so perhaps it was not stretching things too far.

When he had time, he shopped at supermarkets because the cigarettes were cheaper and he could get reduced priced items if he went in late enough but at weekends and in emergencies during the week he used this shop run by two Muslim Pakistanis.

He had spent a few years in Dubai before it became the world’s largest building site, next to Beijing, and he was used to living among people from all over the world.

It was why he loved London; it was like Dubai and many other cities, a huge homogeneous melting pot of cultures, his phrase, the master of clichés and ‘sound-bites’ that he was.

The Marlboro, easily the best selling brand in most shops was comically just out of reach on the upper shelves. Generally, they were on the middle row where they were easy to get to, in this shop various cheap brands were loaded onto the shelves, replacing the well known types and well advertised brands.

It was indicative of the shop and the area, low rent and poor.  The man had to stretch from his stool, and then rose up to flip a packet from the rack. The effort seemed enormous.

You bought some stamps last week, the man announced, second class.

It was a statement but it sounded to Phil like an accusation. He hesitated accusations had to be admitted or denied, which should he do?

He had been taught to tell the truth but sometimes it was better not to be honest, he had learnt that much.

Yes, I did.

I remember you. 

So you should, thought Phil, I must have seen you a hundred times over the last five years.

I charged you for twenty-four stamps instead of twelve.

Really, I don’t remember that.

You bought twelve stamps.

Yes, but I don’t remember thinking that I had been overcharged.

The truth was Phil did not know how much a First or Second class stamp was. He did when they had the amount in the right hand corner but since colours and class had been introduced, he had lost track of the cost. All he knew was gold was First Class and Blue second.

I owe you some money, I’ve been thinking about it since you were last in. I remember wanting to give you the money back, it’s been bothering me.

He handed back the gold coins, dropping them into Phil’s hand, still outstretched to receive the change. The poor man had been worrying about a mistake he had made and wanted to put it right. Phil did not know what to say or do.

He knew that the majority of Muslims pride themselves on honesty, integrity and living peacefully. That was what he had admired in his friends in Dubai.

Unlike most of the teachers at the international school, Phil had made an effort to go to local markets and spend time with the local people. He had not travelled to the Middle East to drink gin and tonic with the ‘ex-pats’ of ‘Disney-sand’ as he called it.   

Naturally, he went to the top hotels and to the country clubs and pool parties, or fishing in the Gulf on a fast motor boat with its enormous ‘Evinrude’ outboards, he had even gone Wadi Bashing in the deserts of Oman.

However, he also immersed himself in the culture, found out the history of the small pearl outpost and spent time getting to know the indigenous people and their ways as would be expected of a ‘good’ person, someone who was real. 

Stabbing the calculator the shopkeeper deducted the packet of cigarettes and came up with a figure. He, then, subtracted the cost of the stamps, £3.84 from £3.05, the cost of the cigarettes, realised his mistake and then deducted the smaller figure from the larger.  Phil, the teacher reflexively thought always take-away the lesser number from the greater. That was all part of Year 7 ‘mathematics revision’ for the new intake at secondary school.

It seemed strange that he missed the original error; he could not work out how that had happened. Normally, in order to keep his mental arithmetic skills sharp he would try to add up all the items on his list, mental or written and then work out the change from the proffered notes.

He must have been really distracted not to have baulked at double priced stamps. It had obviously been a bad day, but that was not surprising, he had lots of those. Days when he smoked one too many cigarettes and he did not have enough money  to pay for his lunch, days when he could not sleep for worry or for hunger or for the amount of work he needed to catch up on.

Perhaps a bill had come in and that meant he would be broke again for the rest of the month. He was fuming at the fact that he was still in that position at forty, thanks to his brother leaving him with debts that kept him on the breadline.

Every month, he tried to get ahead, tried to save more, tried to pay his rent, the interest on his mortgage and a part of the principle as agreed by the bank. Every week he aimed to have more in his pocket by skipping meals or buying the cheapest goods possible.

It was embarrassing to have made a mistake with checking his change; he had to be so thorough normally. Fortunately the shopkeeper, his Muslim benefactor did not know that he taught mathematics. Phil’s hand closed around the change and gratefully slipped his winnings into his duffle-coat side pocket.

A teacher’s salary in an expensive city did not really stretch to luxuries such as cigarettes. It was his one indulgence; he needed the nicotine rush first thing in the morning and last thing at night. He adored the feeling of nicotine coursing through his veins and sending his head spinning.

The shop keeper knew he was a broke. Anyone who regularly buys the smallest and cheapest loaf of bread, sweet-corn, in a tin, and the cheapest tinned sardines is clearly lacking in cash.

People who don’t have to worry about cash buy twenty cigarettes and do not have a regular order that only alters with the purchase of some stamps, a tin of fish or four bags of instant noodles for £1.00.

When he had extra time, Phil shopped at supermarkets but only to find reduced items to supplement his diet of canned fish or noodles, and he only ever bought out of date and reduced priced vegetables or stodgy cheap, white bread.

Phil had been bought up on brown bread but even that was a luxury, which he might try at a friend’s house if ever. Paying his rent and paying off the mortgage for his brother and he, left Phil with very little money.

He tutored, privately, and eked out his teacher’s salary but his out-goings were horrendous as were his credit-card bills. The shopkeeper’s hand fished around in the tray of the open till, deftly palming silver and copper coins into his fist.

Well, this is money that I did not expect; can you put the rest in the charity box? Phil asked, feeling suddenly generous. The charity was an obscure Muslim charity for children.

You put it in the box, insisted the man, dropping the change into Phil’s outstretched hand.

He was not going to go mad; the pound coins he would keep, guarding them jealously. Coppers and silver, he could spare, thirty nine pence out of the eighty nine would leave him with fifty pence, so he would give thirty nine pence. Someone might have pointed out to him that this was money that was owed to him and not a gift to give away. Phil did not want sensible details to come in the way of his natural generosity.

Of course, I should share my good fortune, Phil announced to the shop keeper and the person queuing quietly behind him.

The coins, a twenty, a ten, a five and two tuppences travelled in an arc from till to hand to hand to box with no sound except the scrape of plastic in the first instance and the hollow thud as the metal hit the bottom of empty the plastic cylinder.

Thank you sir, Phil blurted out.

Thank you, sir replied the man, bowing his head and settling himself back onto the high stool on which he always sat.

Take care, Phil said smiling.

He was overwhelmed by his good fortune and the fact that this man had restored his faith in the honesty and goodness of people.

Take care, the man sighed wearily. He could not hide his tiredness and perhaps his despondency at having customers like Phil who spent so little when he needed a higher turnover to make the shop a success.

Pulling the door open, the noise of traffic at the lights, pulled Phil back to reality, he had to think what he was to do next. He could not believe his good fortune.

The last time he had been given money was when his aunt had given him a fiver for his birthday at ten. To remember coins being given he would have to stretch back to pre-decimalisation, two shillings at five perhaps, replaced by the one pound note that became birthday currency, easy to slip into a card and stick in an envelope. It was a substantial amount of money.

These days, he reflected, by the time children had reached pocket money stage or losing teeth, the one pound note had disappeared and a fiver went under the pillow to console a child whose milk tooth had been parted from the gums.

He wondered idly whether he should sell his teeth for a fiver, or perhaps his blood to a private blood bank, if they existed. That was a really good idea, he must be able to sell blood to someone, or maybe it was just in America where you were paid and other countries had donations.

He could perhaps donate his sperm, if it was healthy enough, he was sure that he was so malnourished that his sperm would be too weak to count.

Perhaps poverty increased your sperm count and their activity, his mathematics teachers at school had been inspirational, the science teachers plodding and boring, relying on real enthusiast to get them through the examination.

He could not therefore rely on his scientific knowledge; a subscription to ‘The New Scientist’ was out. It was general knowledge, according to the health warning on the packet, that smoking adversely affected sperm count and so perhaps being a donor was not such a good idea.

There was no way that he would ever get a girlfriend now that he did not have the money to buy her a drink let alone a meal, so perhaps he could afford to sell his sperm, he did not after all need it for his own use. At least then he might have a child. It was ten years since his brother’s betrayal and he was still paying off Patrick’s debts and his own. Life was just too bad. 

Then out of the blue something good happened, a friend asked him out for a drink or he ended up with some extra cash, a pound coin behind the sofa or on the pavement.

He was still in shock, good fortune like this always left him stunned: being invited to a great party, being invited to the Irish Club to the launch of a friend’s book on his Irish parents, discovering a new painting in the National Gallery, stumbling across a Graeme Greene novel that he had not already read, finding a fiver in a pair of jeans he was about to wash, or be given a free ticket to the theatre from one of the ushers that he knew; all these things made life worth living.

Bringing him from his euphoria and depositing back into the real world, he heard the 319 pull up noisily at the bus stop. The door opened and a crowd of people bore down on him, some determined to make it to the tube station in the shortest possible time, heading for the bars or shops in town.

A second wave, clearly hung over, headed for a post mortem of Friday and Saturday at a pub where the ‘hair of the dog that bit you’ would prolong their liver’s discomfort.

The third wave that bustled past him consisted of the old, the infirm, the distracted, or the hesitant. He waited while they streamed past him like water flowing around a cataract. Only then did Phil continue his walk.

Resisting the temptation to un-wrap the cellophane, flip open the box and pull the silver foil off his free packet of cigarettes, Phil set off with a singular purpose and a hurried gate. He had one more duty to perform before he went home and marked '7 R’s' Friday revision test.

Like a snake slithering through the grass, Phil slipped through the traffic queuing at the red-light and glancing briefly to his left, strode across to the opposite pavement.

Just as his foot landed on the paving stone, he spotted his boss. Tom. Thomas Clancy was the Headmaster of the most successful secondary school in south London, quite a feat. The school was Catholic, non-selective and existed in a working class area that showed its gradual gentrification by the appearance of second hand Porsches and new Audi TT coupes suddenly appearing on roads full of Fords, Vauxhalls and Toyotas.

Younger, moneyed, single buyers were coming into the area, forced out of Balham by the higher prices. They bought flats in Tooting next to the houses owned by families that were firmly working-class and ‘South London rough’. 

Tom had his work cut out for him. Phil liked his headmaster. Who could fail to fall for Tom’s self-deprecating and charming humour? Mothers gushed over his wit and ready repartee and the fathers secretly wanted to be as effortlessly laid back as he was and as incredibly successful.

Inner London schools are the baptism of fire for teachers. There was a Saxon justice in steering a school through the shoals of examinations and government school effectiveness ratings; like ordeal by water if you floated you were guilty as charged and if you drowned you were innocent.

Tom and his carefully selected team managed to provide pupils with a solid education and at the same time encourage the children to get the best results that they possibly could.

Yet, he seemed to be floating serenely across a still pond offering advice, a kind word and humour to parents paranoid about their children’s future in a world where without a degree you were nobody. Beneath the surface though, the swan’s webbed feet were paddling frantically.

For twelve years, Tom had built up a superb team, a superior curriculum and managed to get the parents involved in their school. With this classic triumvirate in place, the children could only do well. A superb administrator with a capable and committed deputy head and staff, he also managed to be the smoothest and most genuine politician that any school ever had.

Phil was a supply teacher for one of the mathematics coordinators who had gone on maternity leave. He had only known Tom few a few weeks, yet Phil already saw him as the father that he wished he had actually had.

Tom had made a Herculean effort to make sure he visited all his staff, particularly the newer ones, on a daily basis to help iron out problems and discuss any issues. He was the perfect head, marrying the ability to delegate and allowing the teachers to deliver the curriculum freely within the framework, with strong support for his staff.

Phil’s father had been hard working and successful but seemed to resent the time spent with his wife and Patrick and Philip. The dysfunctional aspects of Patrick, Phil directly ascribed to his father’s neglect. He was sure his father had loved his mother and both children but he had not been prepared to involve himself in their upbringing beyond playing with his train-set and coaching them in cricket and teaching them rugby skills, then it was back to his study to work.

He had after all sent them to boarding school when Phil was eight and Patrick was ten, fed up with Patrick’s bed wetting. Maybe their father had recognised the evil that was inherent in Patrick.

The boys needed an electrician and ‘Fat Controller’ when they played with their father’s ‘Hornby’ steam engines and he had to be there to ensure the family heirloom survived the abuse of two young children who found derailing the coaches more fun than steaming around the track.

Each boy had a bat and ball, to allow them to practise blocking, thwacking, catching and fielding. They also needed a bowler, a second batsman or a fielder, cricket with two was a bore, with three it was tolerable or even quite fun on a warm day with the afternoon stretching before them. In winter, their father also taught them to pass and tackle, drop-kick and convert, but beyond the basic skills needed to play rugby; he was hardly interested.

The boys excelled at cricket and rugby thanks to a superb rugby coach, Mike Thomas and a Headmaster who was a former member of the England XI, Hugh Watts. They were always in the 1st XV or 1st XI and they won colours and caps, their talents encouraged and augmented by their father in the school holidays.

Patrick had potential and even those who loathed him at school recognised his gift for the game. An enemy of Patrick’s had once cornered Phil in a corridor and told him that no matter how much he despised him, Patrick was capable of playing rugby at an international level but he was too lazy. 

Their father never once saw him play at school on Saturdays. Consequently, Patrick became lazy and squandered his gift and spoilt his chance for a sports scholarship. Yes, their father had been there for them but only as a part-time dad.

He usually wanted them out of the way when play or sport was not on the cards. They were not encouraged to air their views, only adopt the father’s and early bedtimes coupled with an increasingly late supper for the parents negated any sharing of social time. It was clearly a deliberate ploy to demarcate the bounds of their relationship. They were children and they should not mix socially with their parents.

He did not want to socialise with his children, he considered them a nuisance but his duty was to teach them skills that they would need for sport. He considered sport training for life, teaching leadership skills and preparing his children for corporate life. They were both taught to lose gracefully and play fair, Phil listened, and Patrick did not.

Yes, Phil would have gladly traded his father for Tom. He had never known the joy of seeing a paternal figure until he met Tom. He hoped that he might be offered a permanent position and dreaded the fact that if he was, Tom might take early retirement. Tom was definitely the father he wished that he had and Phil wanted to hang onto him.

Good morning, Tom, Phil called as Tom approached.

Good morning, Phil, Tom replied.

Lovely, day, Phil continued, it was not after all raining, even if it was cold.

They were both heading for the gates of the church but being considerate people they stopped to talk just to one side of the opening to let people pass.

It was an unnecessary gesture as the congregation was inside at eleven fifteen mass and few if any people came into the church forecourt during that time.

It certainly is. How are you? Tom sang, his face lighting up with recognition and a warm smile followed.

Fine, Tom Phil beamed as he replied. Couldn’t be better and how about you?

Glad this week is over. Tom theatrically wiped his brow as he spoke. I’ve got another inspector coming in this week but the visit on Thursday went well. We got top marks, all ‘ones’, for religious education.

Phil and all the staff were aware that an inspection of religious teaching had been going on that week. They were also aware, from staff meetings and gossip among the parents and pupils that the inspectors were more than pleased with the religious aspect of the children’s education.

The children gave all the right answers, the planning reflected the desired learning goals and ethos, plus the delivery of the curriculum was considered excellent. All in all, a great result.

Brilliant, that’s a relief.

It certainly is, Tom smiled; his nonchalance seemed to convey that he was as unfussed about it as anyone could be. And how about you, how are you settling in to the school and how is the new flat?

Fine thanks, Tom. I’ve done most of my formative assessment and I’ve got a handle on the kids. The flat’s great, the rents not too bad and I’m saving myself a fortune on fares by being just around the corner.

Well, then, there’ll be no excuse for being late in the morning for you. I’ve had some great feedback about your teaching from the parents although they are complaining that they can’t do the home work themselves. He paused momentarily to register Phil’s consternation, before hurriedly adding. But you always get that. Don’t look so worried. It seems the children are coping all right with it and that’s the main thing. It does the children good to be able to do work their parents can’t understand, it’s marvellous for their confidence.

That’s good; how’s your weekend been?

The usual, sorting out things for the church, the shop and the school, I mustn’t grumble, I had a fantastic holiday in Ireland and now I’m paying for all the peace and tranquility by never having a dull moment. How about you, how are you getting along? Are you managing to enjoy your weekends?

I went to a great play last night.

Oh did you?

It was brilliant, ‘Pianoforte’, by my favourite playwright, Terry Johnson. Someone got me a free ticket. It was on at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square.

Good, I’d glad you enjoyed it. I’d like to see The History Boys.

Maybe we should organise a staff outing?

"That’s not a bad idea. I’ve got to check