Then he said he was off to take coffee with ‘Sammy’ Ballard, and he left the presence.
*
The invitation came a couple of weeks later.
Lord and Lady Quarant invite Mr and Mrs Horace Rumpole to their summer party in the herbgarden. Dress informal.
I tried to hide this dreaded message under my breakfast plate, but Hilda spotted it immediately.
‘The dear Quarants. Everyone says they’re utterly charming.’
‘The son’s in our chambers. Christopher Kidmoth. He threatened something of the sort.’
“‘Dress informal”. That means a new summer frock, Rumpole.’
At Kidmoth’s suggestion a bus was hired to take us all from the Temple to the herb garden party. Informal dress was interpreted in many ways. Sam Ballard had a straw hat and Claude Erskine-Brown was tricked out in full cricket whites. I was struck by the appearance of his wife. Phillida was once a sparkling young beauty, appointed the unofficial Portia of our chambers, but she had achieved a middle-aged loveliness and a sort of authority that made everyone make way for her.
Hilda had purchased a deep orange creation. The Mad Bull, I thought inappropriately, appeared in long khaki shorts, while Henry and the secretaries from the clerk’s room were dressed as for a summer holiday in Ibiza. I had dug out a white cotton jacket, now yellowing with age, and Hoskins had brought a selection of his daughters, who huddled together and whispered to each other.
Surrounded by the suburban spread of southeast London, Quarant Castle rose like ‘a good deed in a naughty world’.
We tramped across a drawbridge into a small courtyard and then found ourselves in a country garden which seemed to have sought refuge inside the sturdy walls. We passed roses, delphiniums and hollyhocks in bloom, and then we went into the herb garden, where thyme and rosemary and mint gently swayed in the breeze.
It was at the corner of this garden that a brazier was lit and Christopher Kidmoth put on an apron and a chef’s hat and started to cook, while two servants from the castle handed round red wine in paper cups.
In the course of time, while I was trying to deal with a sausage in a bun, an elderly, grey-haired fellow bowled up beside me in a wheelchair.
‘Singed meat!’ he said. ‘Do you really enjoy eating singed meat?’
‘That seems to be the only thing there is.’
‘It was all Christopher’s idea. He loves having people to eat singed meat in the garden. By the way, he was telling me that you’re one of the barristers, Rumpole. He says you’re top hole at the job.’
‘That has to be me,’ I admitted.
‘He says you can get people off in murder cases.’
‘I have a certain reputation…’
‘You can get them off, even if they did it?’
‘No. Only if it can’t be proved that they did it.’
‘Ah. I see. Very clever!’
There was a pause and then the old fellow, whom I took to be Lord Quarant, looked round the assembled company. ‘The trouble is,’ he said, ‘I feel I’d like to commit murder almost daily. Stubbs the gardener, who insists on planting vulgar-coloured dahlias. Mrs Donovan the cook, who won’t do me a decent macaroni cheese.’ Then he lowered his voice. ‘My wife, who tells me that at my age I’m lucky not to be dead. If I do any of them in, would you defend me?’
‘It would be a pleasure,’ I said, to humour the old chap.
‘It’d be a pleasure!’ Lord Quarant threw back his head and shook with laughter. ‘Would it really?’
Before I could answer he bowled himself off to greet some new arrivals, neighbours perhaps, whom he might wish to kill.
By now Hilda was deep in conversation with Claude, and Mizz Liz was being chatted up by the heir to Quarant Castle. Having downed two or three paper cupfuls of red wine, which was only a shade less appealing than Pommeroy’s Very Ordinary, I stepped through an archway in the hedge in the hope of finding a private place.
After relieving myself I walked on, seeking peace and quiet, between the hedges, until an extraordinary spectacle met my eyes.
In an embrasure in the hedge the Mad Bull was seated very close to Mrs Justice Erskine-Brown on a white painted iron seat. As he kissed her I saw his hand on her knee slide towards the opening of her fashionably short skirt. I beat a hasty retreat, and I didn’t think that they had noticed me. But the vision of the two judges kissing had a lasting effect on me.
24
Extract from the Memoirs of Hilda Rumpole
Leonard Bullingham has taken a shine to Dame Phillida Erskine-Brown. I could tell by the way he gawped at her at Quarant Castle. Afterwards he kept telling me what a handsome woman she was. Well, she hasn’t worn so badly, but of course, I told him, she’s knocking on and their twins, Tristan and Isolde, must be quite grown up.
All the same, I said to him, I wish she could just relax and be her age. That streaky hair-do and ridiculously short skirt were quite unsuitable. All I could say about her appearance nowadays was ‘mutton dressed as lamb’.
I did get a bit jealous though when he told me at the bridge club how very much Phillida had enjoyed lunch at the Sheridan. I couldn’t help remembering how he had once taken me for lunch at his club.
And then there was the question of the flicks. I was particularly anxious to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean film as I am very taken with Johnny Depp. It was hopeless asking Rumpole to accompany me, but I remembered that Leonard had taken me to see a film in the days when he was, so to speak, courting me.
When I told him my idea about the flicks he actually said, quite calmly, ‘I’ve fixed up to see that with Phillida.’
25
Events, which up till then had passed in a leisurely way since the days when I appeared in the ASBO scandal for Peter Timson, were now hurrying towards a climax, so that, as Hamlet’s mother was fond of saying, they almost trod on each other’s heels.
‘You’ll never guess what happened last night,’ Mizz Liz Probert said, coming into my room to tell me.
‘I shan’t even try. And as it’s mid-morning, can I offer you a cup of coffee from my machine? It’s far better than that Arctic mud they provide for you in the clerk’s room.’
‘Last night I went out with Claude.’
‘Who, you think, is a splendid character.’
‘About whom I do now have certain feelings. Yes.’
‘Has Claude told Phillida that he went out with you?’
‘I don’t think so. He needs help, Rumpole. I need to help him to restore his self-esteem.’
I thought that Claude’s self-esteem was probably indestructible, but I refrained from saying so.
‘Anyway, his wife, Phillida, said she was going to a conference of senior judges, very boring. Of course, the children were well able to look after themselves.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I wanted to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and take a look at gorgeous Johnny Depp. Who do you think we saw in the queue ahead of us at the cinema in Leicester Square?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Only Phillida and Mr Justice Bullingham. That’s all!’
‘Did they see you?’
‘I don’t think so. But she lied to him, Rumpole. She never told him she was going out with a High Court judge.’
‘And did Claude tell her he was going out with a single barrister?’
‘No. But I didn’t lie to Claude. I just went out.’
26
The warmth of early June had gone, to be followed by an uncertain summer with bright days, then high winds and pouring rain. The list of new judges came out and, in spite of his intervention in the Rumpole ASBO case and Leonard Bullingham’s promise of support, Ballard’s name was not among those picked.
‘Uneasy is the head that relies on princes’ favours,’ I told Sam.
‘I don’t think Leonard Bullingham is a prince,’ he answered. ‘In fact he gained his scarlet and ermine by cosying up to the Lord Chancellor. I don�
�t agree with that sort of thing. It’s beneath contempt.’
I totally agreed. And I was not delighted to discover that on the list was the gloomy Barnes, the man with the looks of a discontented camel. It was this Barnes, you will remember, who had suggested that Rumpole spent his life trying to extricate the guilty from lawful punishment for their crimes.
It was therefore with some sinking of the heart that I learned the new judge was to be started off with a turn at the Old Bailey, where he was to try the tricky matter of the Queen against Graham Wetherby on the serious charge of murder.
‘You still haven’t got it, have you?’ It was the first question my client asked me in the cell.
‘Got what exactly?’
‘The QC, of course.’
‘No. But, as I told you, the committee have recommended me and the final decision has to come from the Minister, Peter Plaistow.’
‘So I won’t have a QC for the trial?’
‘You may not have a QC but you’ll have Rumpole of the Bailey. Stop worrying and let’s just go quickly through the evidence again.’
27
‘There can be few cases tried in this court, members of the jury, in which the facts point so clearly and inescapably to the guilt of the accused. We have no doubt at all that when you have heard the full story, whatever ingenious arguments my learned friend Mr Rumpole may put forward, this case can only have one conclusion, the conviction of Graham Wetherby on a charge of wilful murder.’
The speaker was Humphrey Noakes, QC, leading for the prosecution. He was a star of the Bar Golf Club. He wasn’t the greatest lawyer in the world but the jury was being made to feel that he and they were normal people, as opposed to the devious Rumpole and his savage client.
Anna McKinnan was the first, and the most dangerous, witness for the prosecution. To remind you of her evidence, she testified that Wetherby arrived at the flat in Flyte Street shortly before one o’clock. After he’d paid her £110 she told him that the young lady wasn’t with anyone else and he could go into the small sitting room and wait for her. If she didn’t appear in a reasonable time he should knock on the bedroom door and she would call for him to come in. About twenty minutes later she heard Wetherby call out. She went in and found him standing by the bed. Ludmilla was lying across the bed, and she could see red marks around her neck.
Wetherby said nothing, so she locked the sitting-room door, which made him a prisoner, until the police arrived an hour later. He was then arrested and a police doctor examined Ludmilla’s body.
Noakes ended by asking the witness to describe Ludmilla’s character.
‘I know people don’t approve of what she did for a living, but she was a sweet girl, always cheerful and always kind to me. She never deserved what he did to her.’
This produced looks of sympathy and concern from the jury, so I knew that when I got up to cross-examine her I would be about as popular as a drunk interrupting a church service with an obscene joke. All the same, I had to challenge the witness.
‘Miss McKinnan,’ I tried to start in a friendly fashion, ‘you have suggested that my client strangled Ludmilla.’
‘I know he did.’
‘And, having strangled her, he called you in to see what he had done.’
‘He called out to me. Yes.’
‘When what he could have done was to walk out of the flat and get clear away before you had discovered the body. Isn’t that what you’d have done if you’d committed a murder?’
‘Mr Rumpole!’ Mr Justice Barnes interrupted for the first, but certainly not the last, time. ‘This witness can’t be asked what she would do if she had committed a murder. Her evidence is confined to what she saw.’
‘And what she saw was apparently a murderer who called attention to his crime and stayed to get arrested.’
‘That is a comment you may make at the appropriate time. At the moment would you confine yourself to dealing with this lady’s evidence!’
‘Very well, My Lord.’ I used the retort courteous, not wishing the jury to find me a difficult customer.
And then I asked her, ‘Had you ever seen my client, Graham Wetherby, before that fatal afternoon?’
‘Never at all. But I saw enough of him then.’
‘So you had no reason to think he’d had any sort of quarrel with Ludmilla?’
‘No.’
‘Thank you for telling us that. So, within five minutes of meeting a total stranger, he decided to strangle her?’
‘Sadly, our legal history is full, members of the jury,’ Barnes decided to tell them, ‘of murderers who have killed prostitutes without any apparent reason. It might be done from some perverted idea of ridding the world of such women.’
‘You may choose to disregard His Lordship’s reference to Jack the Ripper,’ I told the jury. ‘I’m afraid we have here a case of premature adjudication.’ It was a telling phrase that I had used a few times before, and I was pleased to see that it raised smiles from at least three members of the jury.
‘Manual strangulation might be a perverted part of the sex act, members of the jury,’ Barnes suggested.
‘He’d hardly been in her room for more than a minute or two,’ I reasoned. ‘Not enough time to get his trousers off, let alone have a fatal spasm of lust.’
This succeeded in silencing Barnes for a short while. So I turned my attention back to the witness.
‘Let me ask you about Ludmilla. Did you know that she was imported from Russia in a crate on the back of a lorry?’
‘I think she tried to tell me something like that. She couldn’t speak much English.’
‘Was she brought to your address in a people carrier from somewhere near Canary Wharf?’
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘There, Mr Rumpole,’ Barnes said with some pleasure, ‘you’ve had your answer.’
‘But you know there is an organization bringing in prostitutes from abroad, and Ludmilla was one of them?’
‘I knew nothing about that.’
‘Once again you have your answer,’ the demented camel on the bench interrupted.
I gave the jury what I hoped was a look of hopeless resignation at an impossible judge, and then I got on to what I had decided was the most important part of the evidence.
‘Do you remember a journalist called Lars Bergman?’
‘I don’t know that name.’ It was the first time the witness had handed me an opening.
‘But you remember a journalist coming to your address? He wanted Ludmilla to tell him the story of how she got to England, and her relationship with the group that brought her here.’
The witness had to agree reluctantly that she did remember the journalist.
‘He might have said something like that.’
‘Did Ludmilla agree to cooperate with him?’
‘He said she had. He’d offered her a lot of money for her story.’
‘I’m sure he did. But the organization didn’t want the story told, did they?’
‘Mr Rumpole,’ Barnes weighed in again. ‘I wonder what exactly this organization is?’
‘Then wonder on, My Lord, till truth make all things plain.’ I did my best to silence him with a quotation, then turned back to the witness. ‘The organization that brought Ludmilla here didn’t want their story told, did they? And very soon afterwards her throat was wrung, so she could tell no more tales!’
‘Mr Rumpole, who are you suggesting did this terrible deed?’
‘Someone, My Lord, who had a far better motive for killing her than my unfortunate client. Someone who was afraid she’d tell the whole story. Someone killed her and made sure that her death would be blamed on the next available client. You knew that, Miss McKinnan, didn’t you?’
There was a silence then. The witness, a middle-aged woman who might have been a hospital nurse, was looking round the court as if in the hope of finding some reasonable way of escape. She needn’t have bothered. Barnes, of course, came to her rescue.
/> ‘It is my duty to remind you that you are not bound to answer any question which might incriminate you. Do you wish to answer Mr Rumpole’s question?’
‘It’s an impertinence!’ the witness said with obvious relief.
‘I’m sure we would all agree with that,’ Barnes couldn’t resist saying. ‘Do you intend to answer?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘There, Mr Rumpole.’ Barnes gave me a mirthless smile. ‘You’ve done your best!’
‘My best, or my worst? I’ll let the jury decide. I have no more questions.’
So I sat down, not altogether displeased with my cross-examination.
‘That woman was lying!’ That was my client’s comment when I met him in the cells at lunchtime.
‘Not at all. I made her tell the truth. It was very helpful.’
‘And that judge! He’s got no respect for you, Mr Rumpole.’
‘The feeling is entirely mutual,’ I assured him.
‘Maybe he’ll respect you a bit more when the QC comes through.’
‘I don’t expect so.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m afraid the judge is out for a conviction. I’ll have to disappoint him.’
As I left the cell my client slapped his forehead and said, ‘Before I forget, Mr Rumpole. Helsing.’
‘What do you mean exactly?’
‘You asked me if I remembered the name. It came to me after you’d gone. It was a small firm of estate agents. We used them for accommodation when I was with human resources at the Home Office.’
‘Thank you for that.’ I was genuinely grateful but I tried not to sound too over-optimistic, even though I was beginning to feel that we might be in the clear. But there was still a lot to do and I had yet to cross-examine the police doctor.
‘Dr Plater, you first saw the body of Ludmilla Ravenskaya when you arrived at about two-thirty. What did you find?’
‘That death had been due to manual strangulation.’
‘I think we’re all agreed about that. What else did you notice?’
The doctor was a middle-aged man with a high forehead and a nervous smile. ‘I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to.’
The Anti-Social Behaviour of Horace Rumpole Page 9
