Rumpole and the Reign of Terror

by John Mortimer

  By the way, Rumpole has just telephoned to say that he has a conference after court and might be a bit late back. When I asked him what the conference was all about, he said he was defending a terrorist. How absolutely typical!

  4

  TIFFANY KHAN – once, somehow improbably, Tiffany Timson – sat on the edge of my client's chair in chambers as though prepared to rush off at any moment in search of the husband she seemed to believe I would have no difficulty in rescuing. As I have said, she had darker hair and eyes than the rest of the Timsons and when she spoke it was in a soft and gentle voice which I thought she might have caught, in part, from her Pakistani husband.

  Her story was both simple and alarming. About twelve years ago she had got a job as a secretary at Oakwood, a north London hospital. It was there she had met Dr Khan, who was some fifteen years older than Tiffany, and they'd fallen in love, married and had two children, a boy of ten and a girl of eight.

  Mahmood Khan's father had come to England in the 1970s and started a small corner shop just off the Edgware Road. His success then led to his acquiring more corner shops and he sent money back regularly to his family in Pakistan.

  He also acquired a highly desirable residence, a fairly large house 'on the better side of Kilburn'. While he was living there, his wife died and his only son, Mahmood (Tiffany's husband), left Pakistan to join him in England.

  Mahmood had qualified as a doctor in Pakistan but he was forced to leave the country of his birth because, Tiffany said, 'he had become involved in politics, which is a risky thing to do in Pakistan'. Tiffany wasn't at all clear what exact form her husband's politics took, but they clearly met with the outright disapproval of the Pakistan government. He told her he'd been in danger of prison, and this was when he managed to escape from his country, Tiffany said, 'by a few disguises and a long walk across the mountains', and made his way to England, where his father had organized an immigrant's visa.

  In the course of time the father's businesses began to fail and he had to sell off the corner shops. That was the bad news. The good news was that Mahmood had sufficient qualifications to practise as a doctor in England and had got a post at Oakwood Hospital. It was no doubt, as Tiffany said, because Mahmood's father was so overcome with the happiness of the occasion that he had died on the night of their wedding, leaving his son the desirable house in Kilburn. Although he was permitted to remain in England and work here as a doctor, Mahmood, like his father, never became a British citizen.

  There seemed to have been no blot on the contented life of the young Khan family until that dreadful morning when the police called early at the Kilburn house and Dr Mahmood met the fate he had managed to avoid in his native country. He was under arrest.

  'And not being a British subject, he's liable to be deported.' Bonny Bernard spoke in pessimistic and depressing terms, a process known to him as 'preparing the client for the worst'. Tears welled in Tiffany's eyes, which she wiped quickly away with the back of her hand as she went on with her story. They came for Mahmood Khan when Tiffany was getting their children ready for school and he was about to leave for the hospital. They were three police officers in plain clothes and they refused to explain why he was being arrested or where he was being taken. He, it seemed, was controlled and told her it must be some extraordinary mistake. It was only as they were going out of the house that one of the officers thought to announce that Mahmood was being arrested under the Terrorism Act. The last thing she heard him say was that the idea was ridiculous.

  'Have you any inkling why they took him?' I asked her.

  'Because of what he is.' She had no doubt about it.

  'You mean – a terrorist?'

  'No. Pakistani. He's a Paki. That's why they're against him. All my family are against him. Never mind what sort of trouble they get into with the police, I've done the worst crime. I've married a Paki.'

  'This government of ours,' I had to tell her, 'has done quite enough harm to our age-old and much-prized legal system, but I don't think it has quite got to the stage of making the fact of having been born in Pakistan a criminal offence. My solicitor, Mr Bernard, will correct me if I'm wrong.'

  'Mr Rumpole's quite right,' Bonny Bernard reassured Tiffany, who clearly stood in great need of reassurance. 'We must get to know which particular brand of terrorism he's accused of.' My anxiety to comfort Tiffany had gone too far, as Bonnie Bernard was quick to point out.

  'We may never know. The prosecution aren't bound to tell us anything.'

  'Our present Home Secretary,' I had to inform Tiffany, 'in his wisdom, has relieved the prosecution of the trouble of making any charges at all.'

  'Fred Sugden.' Bernard named the culprit, the same bright spark who had abolished the hearsay rule, to the great disadvantage of Percy Timson.

  Tiffany looked puzzled, as though she hadn't entirely understood what we had told her but she was sure it wasn't good news. Then she saw a ray of hope.

  'If you want someone who'll tell you Mahmood was no more a terrorist than I am, Mr Rumpole,' she said, 'there's Barry.'

  'Barry who?'

  'Barry Whiteside, Oakwood Hospital's administrator. They've always got on so well. He's a real friend and I never heard Barry call anyone a Paki. Anyway, he's married to a Paki like I am, Benazir. She's lovely.'

  'Make a note, Bernard. We could do with a character witness.'

  'He'll help Mahmood. I know he'll help him.'

  'And I've got a few friends in the Home Office.' Bernard tried to sound modest about it. 'We should be able to discover where he is, at least.'

  'You'll bring him back to me, Mr Rumpole?' Tiffany was looking at me with her big dark eyes full of a trust I didn't feel I had in the least deserved. 'You'll help me find Mahmood and get him out of trouble? All my family say you're wonderful in court.'

  'Your family usually know what they are accused of,' I had to tell her. 'All the same, I'll do my best.'

  5

  EVEN IN THE REIGN of terror normal everyday life had to be carried on and everyday life for me consisted in cross-examining Inspector 'Persil' White, the dedicated enemy of the Timsons, an office he fulfilled in a cheerful and even occasionally friendly fashion. Encouraged by the latest attack on our legal system by the Home Secretary, he had crashed through all the restrictions of the time-honoured hearsay rule and told the jury that 'an informant' told him that Percy Timson, seated with a few friends in the snug bar of the Needle Arms, had boasted of knowing a house in Clapham where easy access through an unlocked kitchen window would lead to a treasure trove of silver and other valuable objects.

  'Let me put this to you, Inspector White,' I began politely. 'Percy Timson had recently been accused of another theft, had he not?'

  'You know that perfectly well, Mr Rumpole.'

  'Of an offence at number 7, Grimwell Terrace, Pimlico.'

  'That's the one.'

  'And in that case the jury acquitted him.'

  'They did.' The inspector sounded as though it was a painful memory. 'You got him off.'

  'He was found not guilty.'

  'Perhaps that was because he had you to defend him, Mr Rumpole.'

  'Thank you, Inspector, but flattery will get you nowhere! You were annoyed at losing that case, were you not?'

  'No one likes to be a loser. You must know that yourself, Mr Rumpole.'

  'And being angry at your defeat, you decided to tempt Percy Timson to commit another crime?'

  'What on earth do you mean by that, Mr Rumpole?' The Mad Bull assumed a puzzled expression, as though I had formed my question in some obscure foreign tongue.

  'What I mean,' I said, 'and I'm sure that the jury will be quite clear about this, is that the inspector got one of his tame "informants" to discuss an empty house full of silver in the presence of Percy Timson.'

  'Why on earth would I do that, Mr Rumpole?' 'Persil' White tried to look innocent.

  'In order to lure Mr Timson into a crime.'

  'Are you suggesting, Mr Rumpole,' t
he Bull had gone a deeper shade of purple and the words came effervescing out of him like the foam on a well-shaken beer bottle, 'that this officer was engaged in some dishonourable or dishonest plot?'

  'It was quite understandable, My Lord. This officer, perhaps over-zealously, wanted to be in a position to arrest a man whom he thought had escaped justice. And now I'm sure the inspector will be able to answer my questions without any further assistance from Your Lordship.' And then I turned to the witness before the judicial foam could blow off the stopper. 'Inspector, Royalty Avenue in Clapham is a fairly peaceful area of London, isn't it?'

  'We never had any trouble there before.'

  'We all know that you rarely put a policeman on the streets nowadays.'

  'It's a question of how we manage our resources, Mr Rumpole, and our resources are limited.'

  'Exactly. So it would seem to be a waste of money to police a peaceful area such as Royalty Avenue.'

  'As a general rule, yes.'

  'As a general rule. And yet on the night Mr Percy Timson is alleged to have broken and entered there was a policeman on the street outside the house ready to catch him.'

  'Sometimes we strike lucky, Mr Rumpole.'

  'Sometimes we strike lucky.' The Bull ostentatiously tapped out the phrase with a heavy finger on his word processor.

  'And sometimes you're cleverer than that, aren't you, Inspector? You lay the trap and wait for the suspect to fall into it. You organized a lot of talk about a hoard of silver in Royalty Avenue and kept an eye on the place until, as you hoped, Percy Timson walked into your net.'

  'No, Mr Rumpole. That's not how it was at all.'

  The jury, who had become interested in my cross-examination, were looking at 'Persil' White with some degree of reasonable doubt. I now had to move to the more difficult, not to say impossible, side of a defence which was weak even by Timson standards.

  'My client will say that he had been to a pub in the Clapham Common area. As he was passing through Royalty Avenue, he saw the window of an empty house open and took the trouble of shutting it when he was arrested.'

  Well, everyone on trial has to have their defence put to the jury in the best possible way and I have to admit that there's no one capable of doing the job better than Rumpole. The Bull, however, in a rare moment of sanity, put the matter succinctly.

  'That's what your client will say, Mr Rumpole. The question is, will the jury believe him?'

  Sadly, they didn't.

  •

  'I did my best, but I'm afraid I can't hold out much hope for Percy.'

  'It's not Percy we've come to see you about, Mr Rumpole.'

  The speaker was Dennis, at that time the acknowledged leader of the Timson clan. Others among the group were Fred, Cyril, Tony, Jim and Doris. I had found this deputation there to greet me as I sat down to a lunch in the Old Bailey canteen while we waited for the jury to come back with a verdict.

  'Not about Percy?' I was glad that they realized I was doing my best in a hopeless case. 'Then how can I help you?'

  'It's not helping us we've come about,' Dennis continued in a formal and not particularly friendly way. 'It's about the help you're giving to that husband of Tiffany's.'

  'We're doing our best,' I tried to reassure him. 'Of course, it's monstrous that he's never been told why he was arrested. But Mr Bernard has discovered that he's in Belmarsh Prison.'

  'It's not that, Mr Rumpole.' Dennis was apparently unappeased. 'It's not that at all. The family view is, and here I speak for all of us, don't I?' This was greeted by a general nodding of Timson heads. 'We don't think you should be helping Dr Mahmood Khan at all. Not in any way, shape or form.'

  'Why ever not? He's in trouble with the law. It's my duty to get him out of trouble if I possibly can. That's how I've helped every one of you from time to time.'

  'With all due respect,' this time the speaker was Fred Timson, addressing me as though we were taking part in some sort of legal proceeding, 'Dr Mahmood Khan is not in the least like any of us.'

  'Well, he's a doctor and he was born in Pakistan, but he's just as much entitled to a fair trial.'

  'He is not like us, Mr Rumpole.' Dennis was clearly not persuaded. 'We don't blow up innocent women and children.'

  'There's absolutely no evidence of that!' I protested.

  'Our Will knows him.' Jim, an elderly Timson, spoke out.

  'Will was courting Tiffany and he met that Paki doctor. Several occasions.'

  I hadn't noticed Will among the group, but now Jim looked at a much younger man, perhaps in his thirties. Then I remembered that I had once defended Will, successfully, on a charge of post office fraud years ago. Since then he had either gone straight or avoided arrest, for he had had no further need of my services.

  'I made Tiffany a fair offer. I thought so anyway.' Will seemed to find it a painful memory.

  'And our Will has a lot to offer.' Fred nodded his approval. 'Own home in the Epping area. Porsche car, isn't it?'

  'No, Dad.' Will smiled patiently. 'Lamborghini.'

  'Anyway, him and Tiffany would have been well suited,' Fred said. 'Except that Paki doctor was always around her. You didn't like him, did you?'

  'Dishonest.' Will spoke the word as though it were a quality unknown to the Timsons. 'And he had that look in his eyes. I always suspected he might turn dangerous.'

  'Terrorism. Isn't that what they've got him for?' Fred was triumphant.

  'That's what they've said, but we have no idea what sort of evidence they've got.'

  'I think we've come to a decision, Mr Rumpole.' Dennis Timson, like those who arrested Tiffany's husband, seemed uninterested in the question of evidence. 'We don't want to see you sticking up for a Paki terrorist.'

  'We don't know yet if he is a terrorist.' I tried to remain reasonably calm. 'Anyway, you know I'm just an old taxi. If a client flags me down, I'm bound to give them a ride. To the best of my ability.'

  'If you defend him,' Dennis ignored my speech, 'we have agreed we will have to look elsewhere if anyone of the name of Timson is in need of a legal brief. Do I express the view of the meeting?'

  At this the various Timson heads nodded in agreement. It was, I reluctantly understood, their way of saying goodbye.

  6

  Extract from Hilda Rumpole's Memoirs

  'I TRIED TO EXPLAIN to the Timsons that I'm just an old taxi.'

  This is what Rumpole said. I felt like telling him that all those years ago, when he was a pupil in Daddy's chambers, I really had no intention of marrying an old taxi. In fact I had higher hopes for him. I saw a future with Rumpole, QC, or one with Mr Justice Rumpole. Of course, it wasn't to be, mainly because of the quality of the riff-raff he took for rides in that old taxi of his.

  Of course, Rumpole does have a better type of client occasionally, people with decent homes and proper jobs, the sort of people you might enjoy meeting for lunch at Harrods, say, or Fortnum and Mason. But then Rumpole meets such people when it's a case of a husband murdering his wife, or vice versa. And I know I shouldn't say this, but when it comes to wives murdering their husbands, I can sort of feel some sympathy for them on occasion. I haven't been married to Rumpole all these years without finding out how really irritating husbands can be from time to time, and particularly now.

  Not serious, of course, with regard to the above. I'd have to stop short of murder; but I'm not quite sure how I can express my frustration at the way he's behaving now.

  In the absence of the better class of client, Rumpole came to depend on that terrible family of hardened villains, the Timsons, or whatever they choose to call themselves. Rumpole always says we can rely on them to provide us with what we need to buy at the Saturday morning shop at Sainsbury's. And now it seems he's fallen out with even them. They've told him they're going to look elsewhere for their legal representation, and all because of the last client he's chosen to open his old taxi door to – a terrorist!

  To be honest, I have to say I fully understand the terrible Tims
ons' views on this subject. I think, and I'm sure most decent people in the country think, that terrorists don't need defending. What they need is locking up securely, or at least turfing out of the country.

  It seems to me sometimes that Rumpole takes a sort of perverse delight in disagreeing with what ordinary decent people think. He thinks that defending this terrorist is as good as the really important property cases Daddy used to do so brilliantly. He's going to put all his energy into defending him, quite regardless of what anyone else thinks about it.

  It all started when he met the terrorist's wife. 'Eyes full of tears like dark pools full of water' was how he put it to me over supper when he'd almost come to the end of his usual bottle of Pommeroy's plonk. Well, all I can say is, a lot of terrorists may have wives with eyes like deep pools, but that doesn't make it any the less urgent to lock them up or turf them out with no unnecessary delay. And for all Rumpole knows about it, their wives may also be implicated, right up to their pool-like eyes.

  As I sit here in the boxroom writing, I can only report that my dear old schoolfriend Dodo Mackintosh is coming for a few days to do the sales, so I'll have an ally to help me through this worst of times.

  And to cap it all, he has just announced that a conference has been fixed with his miserable terrorist in Belmarsh Prison and he's got to turn up there with his passport. He couldn't be more excited if he'd been invited to tea with the Queen in Windsor Castle, but that's Rumpole all over, isn't it?