Under Suspicion

Allow me to set the scene, put you in the picture, so to speak. My
name is Police Constable Arnold West. I joined the Met straight from
Bitterne Park Secondary School twenty-three years ago, and yes, I am
still a Constable. It isn't that I am not ambitious, or that I have
been overlooked for promotion due to any unsavoury personal habits or
traits. Rather it is that I know where my skills can best serve my
community.

When I heard about this case I asked to be assigned, even though it
wasn't my field; it wasn't traffic work. And I was duly informed that
the special task force being put together could indeed do with an extra
pair of hands, or feet, to help with the legwork.

If you want to know why I asked to be excused from my normal duties,
relinquishing control of illegal parking and road fund dodgers in the
Crouch End area of north London, it is because I hate Michael Le
Fureir. When I heard that name again, a name that has plagued me my
whole life, and that he was under suspicion, with his wife, for quite
such a heinous crime, I was beside myself with excitement at the
prospect of helping put him behind bars.

Of course though, I am a professional and my view is that I was put on
this Earth to uphold the law, not bend it to my convenience. Thus my
role in this case would be as such, but that does not mean that I did
not feel that my special interest in the man in question would not help
me pursue justice without a little bit of extra vim and vigour.

Why do I hate Michael Le Fureir with such a passion? Well, it all
started when we were schoolboys. We were not friends. Oh no. My dislike
is not the product of any dispute between one-time friends. I always
hated Michael, and his stupid name, from afar. Although no farther than
catapult range.

I don't know. There were so many things that contributed to my hate. He
had these stupid big ears. He was always working with mechanical
things, bikes and go-carts. Some said he even worked on cars at the
weekend, for money! He could occupy himself in a way that no one else
did. He listened to and even understood physics and chemistry lessons.
Basically, he was an oddball, and nobody liked him. Well, that's not
actually true. Lots of people liked him, especially some of the girls.
Girls that you wouldn't think would give him, his silly name and big
ears, a second glance.

If I am honest I guess that is the real root of my hate; his affinity
with girls. The way they seemed to like the way he didn't mind not
being 'in' with the boys. The way they liked the fact that he was a
little bit different, the way one girl in particular liked the way he
was different!

Amy Burridge. She was a little younger than us, but she was nice. No,
she was lovely, and she was popular. Yet she liked, went on to love, my
nemesis, Michael Le Fureir! How could she?

On leaving school I thought I was free. I moved to London and I thought
that would be it. My peace though was short lived. Their names would
crop up from time to time. I heard that Michael was making a name for
himself as an engineer. A radical engineer, whatever that means. Then I
was watching TV one night and the name of a budding film critic, an
arts student at London University was mentioned. It was Amy Le Fureir.
So she had married the fool. I couldn't believe it. Yet I went about my
life, putting them out of my mind as much as I could. But it was never
easy. Amy ended up with her own TV film show. And of course it was
Michael who famously solved the puzzle of why the Millennium Foot
Bridge swayed so uncontrollably in the wind.

So it was a culmination of her media fame and his 'radical buffers'
that led to them being on the cover of Hello Magazine, showing off
their new baby girl, who was to provide the 'perfect balance' to their
'perfect family', a sister for their two-year-old son, Elijah. A son
who was apparently already 'showing the signs of genius'.

Well, you can imagine my disgust and I didn't dream for one second that
less than three years later my chance to get even would come
along.

*

Let me if you will, introduce myself and reset the scene. I am James
Burridge, brother to Amy and brother-in-law to Michael Le Fureir. I am
the eternal waster, borderline alcoholic, chain smoking flitter and
splitter. In my years I have achieved next to absolutely nothing, but
however, I do have the pleasure of a genius and celebrity sister.

Although I cannot argue factually with anything Constable Arnold West
has said about Michael, I do not share his sentiments. Yes, Michael
does have annoyingly large ears and the habit of always being right,
but I do not hate him. I like him, perhaps more than it is normal to
like a brother-in-law. But saying that, Michael has always been
generous and I am always skint! Could I have been swayed? That's a
question I'll have to get to the bottom of with my therapist, who,
incidentally Michael pays for.

The little course of events that I am going to describe, in an attempt
to throw some light on the predicament that the Le Fureir's found
themselves in, took place at my parents house, where I live. As I am
sure you will see, it can't have been easy for them, and no wonder they
started to wonder if perhaps there had been some mix-up at the
maternity ward. Of course, the DNA tests put paid that avenue of
escape, and led them to search elsewhere, as the net of paternal chance
started to tighten like a noose around their genius necks.

It was a morning in late Autumn 2002. I had finished work at the normal
time, around 11am and was pleased on returning home to see Michael and
Amy's entourage filling up half the small street. As I walked up the
path to the ramshackle two-bed terrace I thought how infrequently my
sister returned to the parental home these days. I wondered if she
wasn't sickened by their poverty and insular attitudes.

I went in and opened a beer. Elijah was sitting at the dining table
with a pad of paper, calculator and pencil.
"What you doing Elijah?" I asked.
No reply.
"Elijah," Amy said. "Your uncle James asked you a question."
"Logarithms," he said without looking up at me.
"Nice," I said. "Wouldn't you rather have a kick around?"
No reply.

My sister was on the couch. My mother was on the floor with a mail
order catalogue and was fussing over the latest cigarette burn that she
had made in the carpet. My niece, Esme, recently three-years-old, was
shouting at the top of her voice.
"Wee wee, look at me." Wee wee was what little Esme called her
grandmother. Wee wee did as she was asked.
Esme was naked from the waste down, and was charging around with a
cardboard tube between her legs, and a chocolate face.
"This is buckaroo," she was saying, "and he's going to save us from the
bears."
"But there aren't any bears here Esme," I told her.
"But they aren't real bears. They are imaginary bears, and buckaroo is
going to save us."
"But if they are imaginary, surely they present no danger, and there's
no need for buckaroo to save us?" I said. You see, I may be useless but
I am not stupid, and am an equal match for any three-year-old young
pretender.
Esme took another bite of melted chocolate and ignored me.
"Buckaroo to the rescue. Go away bears or I'll put you in my
tummy!"
Obviously this was frighteningly odd behaviour for a
three-year-old.

"Hi sis," I said to Amy, "how are you?"
"Drained, absolutely drained. She's a nightmare. I can't leave her with
anyone, so I can't work. I just don't know what I'm going to do."

Later buckaroo had defeated the bears and was resting. Esme though was
not ready to relax, and decided on a game of hide and seek.
"Mummy. I'll count to three and you hide."
"OK," Amy said.
"I'll tell you what," I interrupted, "why don't you count to five? Then
mummy will have about three years to hide." We all laughed, but it
wasn't funny, and we all knew it. Esme, as awful as it may sound, was
just not a genius. There had been some kind of genetic blip, a
throw-back almost. And I for one am not going to sit here and say Amy
and Michael were wrong for trying to get rid of her. I mean, at least
they tried to do the right thing in proving scientifically that she was
not theirs. And when that failed them there was no more help. The State
just denied all interest. "Your child, your problem," the judge at the
unprecedented 'involuntary euthanasia' hearing had said to Amy, so
where were they to turn? Having this genetic disaster happen right on
their own doorstep would wreck their careers, their lives, Elijah's
chances of being the youngest ever to matriculate to Oxford. They only
had one place left to go, they had to turn to crime, and who can blame
them?

*

Hello. Well, I see that I am coming in at number three. That's a pretty
unusual position for me. I like to go first, but so be it, I guess. I
am Amy Le Furier, wife to Michael, mother to Elijah and Esme, sister to
James. And the first thing I want to do is set things a little
straighter than my brother has done; and regarding Arnold West, well, I
cannot even be bothered to comment.

Yes, Esme does not exactly fit the type of cap that I would have liked.
And no, I do not hate her. It's just that I wished Esme hadn't happened
to us, as it were. She's the type of child that shows no interest in
bettering herself whatsoever, or learning anything at all. All she
seems interested in is enjoying herself and entertaining others with
her foolery. She's the kind of child that sees her imagination as the
most important thing in the world, and that just does not fit into our
plans, with our lifestyle. Neither does her wearing dear Elijah's cycle
helmet when we are driving in the car, or wearing his swimming goggles
when it is raining, whether we are indoors or out. To be perfectly
frank I find her embarrassing. She is truly a peculiar child and we are
truly not a peculiar family. With that said though, it looks as if fate
has dealt another cruel blow, and the Le Furier name is stuck with
Esme, and it shall just have to continue, whatever the consequences.
But as I say, let me put things a little straighter.

My brother speaks as if he has nothing to do with us turning to crime,
as he puts it. Well, he certainly had a lot to do with it, and if he
had never met that girl, Chloe, we would have done nothing illegal to
tarnish our bright shinning name.

To be honest with you, although I was very taken with her, there was
always something slightly amiss somewhere. And if I can be brutal,
probably the only reason I was ever taken with her was because all of
James' previous girlfriends have been so ghastly. Chloe Gruelton was
different. She seemed to have some breeding. She had studied at
Cambridge, or so we were told, and even though she had an over-bite
that would not have been out of place in an episode of The Simpson's,
she was quite attractive in a way. Her family history, or how it was
first described to us, was quite distinguished. Her father was a
'high-up' civil servant, attached to the cabinet office. Her mother was
a teacher, although long since retired to concentrate on bringing up
her children and seeing to her husbands needs. This of course is no
mean feat, and at first glance it seemed that Mrs Gruelton had made a
first-class job. Incidents of cruelty from her son to the younger Chloe
were isolated and apparently restricted to the occasional corkscrew in
the backside, and slightly less occasional nasal mucus being blown into
her hair. She managed an equally successful record, as far as we knew,
with her husband. James said that his potential father-in-law always
looked well fed, that he and his wife frequently expressed love and
affection for one another, plus they always held hands whilst out
walking. What more needs to be said?

Michael and I first had direct involvement with Mr Gruelton after a
very minor incident in a swimming pool. He called us, saying that he
had 'seen the news' and that 'perhaps with his contacts he could help.'
The news that Mr Gruelton was referring to had been a complete mistake
on the part of the authorities, and the swimming pool owner. I will
just give you the greatest hits of that case. Basically, Elijah had a
couple of swimming lessons at a private pool, because that was all he
needed. My! It was a wonderful sight, seeing him perfect the butterfly
stroke within only a few minutes of taking off his armbands. However,
we had booked six lessons for our darling boy, and decided not to waste
the remaining four, and so we sent Esme. The case against me, which was
dismissed due to the evidence being purely circumstantial, was that I
had removed both Esme's arm bands and float, leaving her alone in the
centre of the pool, to drown. That was not at all how it happened. My
mobile rang and I just was not thinking. The instructor, after saving
my daughter, called the Police. He also provided a CCTV film the
incident. The film though was highly unprofessional, and through the
fuzziness it was impossible to see whether I, or if Esme had removed
her own aids, and thus I was acquitted. The story though made the
papers, and Mr Gruelton, putting three and four together came up with
seven, and made the proposal about his contacts.

In short, the help we could get from Mr Gruelton was to put us into
contact with people who could arrange for Esme to disappear. But not
only would she disappear, we would be paid for the privilege.

As you will be well aware by now, I would have done, pretty much
anything at that time, short of harming my daughter, to remove her, as
a burden, from us. I know that we had the involuntary euthanasia
hearing, but in a very real sense, we felt that if the verdict had been
in our favour, we would have been doing the best thing for Esme,
putting her out of her misery, sending her to a better place etc. The
ruling, though, was not in our favour, so we dropped the whole thing.
And maintaining those sentiments, we were not about to sell Esme to
just anyone. We would want her to go to at least a half-decent home,
thus we thought it best to get Mr Gruelton checked out.

The first thing we did, before arranging a meeting, was to hire a
private detective. The report, that we got back within 48 hours, made
for very interesting reading. It told us both personal and business
details of Mr Gruelton, who it seems, was not quite as his daughter had
described.

He was not a civil servant. He had begun life as a petty thief, but had
managed to build up quite a substantial chain of East End laundrettes.
They were not his only business concern though, and he had served two
short prison sentences for aggravated assault and fraud. His wife had
never been a teacher. She had, though, been a dinner lady for a short
time.

Mr Gruelton had undergone two cosmetic surgery operations. One to cure
baldness, another to remove 'love-handles', of which his file said 'the
patient says they just cannot be cycled off.'

Mr Gruelton had paid The University of East Anglia, not Cambridge, for
his daughter's degree, after she dropped out two terms into her first
year. The sum had been ?100 000. Mr Gruelton, we could now see, was not
a poor man. At least, not until his daughter decided she wanted a
degree.

The report suggested, but could not substantiate, that Mr Gruelton had
a porn fetish, liked to eat sausages and olives, and that he had
incredibly thick nasal hair. However, it could substantiate that Mr
Gruelton was on file with Her Majesty's Secret Services. Their files
demonstrated links between Mr Gruelton and the KGB, the PLO, the CIA
and the RSPB.

There was also a suspected link with a fledgling organisation known as
SPUD, which translates as the Society for the Protection of people who
have been Unfairly Dumped. This link seemed a little odd to us, as he
was, by all accounts, a happily married, but in the end we concluded
that Mr Gruelton didn't approve of my brother and was in the business
of putting his daughter in touch with people who could give her some
ideas on how to get rid of him. On this subject, Michael and I could
hardly disagree with Mr Gruelton.

I have to be honest; I was not disappointed by this report, although I
was slightly concerned by the link with the RSPB, as I have always
hated birds. They give me a nervous tick, especially caged birds,
almost as if they provide me with some strange premonition. Anyway, he
seemed like 'our man' as it were. Now all we had to do was meet Mr
Gruelton. See some videos of potential families that we could sell our
daughter to, and that would be it. We would be free of Esme, and would
also have around ?50 000, after Mr Gruelton's 'introduction and
administrative fee' to invest in Elijah's brilliant future.

I went to meet Mr Gruelton alone. He was not concerned to see Esme,
after watching the video I had supplied, and Michael said 'he was too
busy for any more of my idle distractions.' I was not really sure what
he meant by this, but I assumed that he meant he trusted my
judgement.

I have to say that I was quite intrigued by Mr Gruelton, and I found
him to be thoroughly professional. His language was succinct and to the
point. He almost talked without making a sentence. Saying and using
only the words he had to, as if words were a priceless commodity. All
he was wearing was a pair of cycling shorts, and even though it was
April, he displayed a deep brown tan.

"My tan," he said. "See you looking at it. Canaries."
"Very nice," I said.
"Booked it all on CEEFAX. Always do that. Great deals."

The report was wrong about his nasal hair, and from what I could see he
had undergone no surgery to relieve baldness, at least, no effective
surgery. And I could see no visible evidence of either love handles or
scars around his waist.

Apart from his holidays, all we seemed to talk about during lunch was
his distaste for Marks &; Spencer, and yes the report was correct;
plates of sausages and olives was all that was served.

And then of course, after lunch we talked no more, because that was
when the plain clothed Police burst in, wielding a warrant. Of course,
once again, I was in the clear. No daughters or money had exchanged
hands. The Police were a little too early. But they arrested me anyhow,
and who should I see as they marched me out to the car? Arnold West.
You could have knocked me down with any weightless implement, if one
exists. He was walking around like a peacock, as if he was the
mastermind, and I have to say, the image of that somewhat took me
back.

*

Well, this is a novelty, me getting the final word. Quite a nice one
too, and one that I'm not sure I have had the pleasure of since I got
involved with the Burridge family. Apart from at work, that is.

My role here, I think, will be to provide some clarity to it all.
Things are not always as they seem, and although most of the things
previously said are in a sense true, many are contextually incorrect,
and thus misleading.

If I can give you an example to demonstrate my train of thought.
Earlier there was mention of an 'involuntary euthanasia' hearing. Well,
the fact is, it did take place, but not at all in the way the way
suggested. It sounds here as if we actually went to court, in an
attempt to have our daughter legitimately murdered. The truth is that
it was a 'mock up', organised and carried out by Amy's employers, the
company that used to make her film programme. We were actors, in a sort
of 'people's jury', designed to demonstrate the pitfalls of voluntary
euthanasia, and the DNA tests were all part of that process. So you see
what I mean?

With that said though, I do think that course of events were quite
instrumental in our melt down. It was like a departure from reality for
my wife. It was as if she went through a metamorphosis, and began
living through that documentary, with the character she played taking
on a real form.

I'm not going to argue that having Esme wasn't a little different for
us. It was. Elijah is more like me than you can imagine, but Amy just
couldn't accept that Esme was her recreation, and in short, she went
insane.

I am also not going to argue that I wasn't party to any of it, because
I believe I was, simply because I didn't manage to stop it. I knew that
Amy was losing it, or had lost it. But I was just too darn blind to see
it, or at least too slow to recognise the potential of its
consequences. That's just typical of me, under estimating the
consequences.

But anyway, these events are now historical facts and we must get on
with living in the future. And my main role is to make sure both Elijah
and Esme get everything they need, not only to be successful, but also
to be happy. Of course, it is not going to be easy, but I shall give it
my all. Ears and all! I'll even change my name if Elijah doesn't stop
getting teased about it at school.

What's the situation now? Well, Elijah is doing brilliantly at school,
apart from the bullying, but I'm doing my best to keep his feet on the
ground, as much as his ears try to make him float away.

Esme is lovely. She is really too young to understand what's been
happening around her, and she in fact loves coming here. There's so
much room for her to run and play in. I've been taking her to ballet
lessons. She's looks a picture, but refuses to listen to anything her
dance teacher says to her. She just stands looking in the huge mirror,
saying, "Daddy, I love you."

My brother-in-law. Well. What can I say? It seems that Chloe Gruelton
took whatever advice her father passed on, courtesy of SPUD, because
she broke up with him a while back. It's a nuisance really, as I was
hoping to cancel his therapist, what with money getting a bit tight
with only one salary, but James has pretty much lost it and sunk into a
deep depression. So it just doesn't seem fair to stop him seeing the
only person that will listen to him.

Mr Gruelton. The jury is still out, in more sense than one.

My wife is currently sectioned under the Mental Health Act, the year of
which escapes me, even though James quotes from it so frequently. I
don't quite understand this law, as she is here voluntarily, but she
cannot leave until they say so. They do say that there's a good chance
of her making a recovery, and she is even beginning to show dim signs
of remorse. Actually last weekend I even saw her smile as she watched
Esme from the window, running around in the grounds, playing with
buckaroo. Although she denied it. Personally I think she is warming to
her daughter. Fingers crossed.

And that's about it really. Oh, apart from to say, it's quite ironic
that my wife is in the same institution as the first man that ever
proposed marriage to her. Of course he was a boy then. It was many
years before he became Constable Arnold West.

*

Actually there is something else. Hang on. Please! Thank you.

Now. How much am I getting paid for my part in this documentary? It's
hard being a lone father, and the interest on these bloody credit cards
is killing me.