Rumpole and the Reign of Terror

by John Mortimer

  'As I've tried to explain to Tiffany here,' he said, 'the idea of her husband being engaged in any illegal activity, let alone terrorism, is simply ridiculous.'

  The ever-anxious Tiffany had come with Whiteside to the meeting. She looked so beautiful that I doubted whether she was pure Timson; surely she was the result of some more exotic misalliance, a moment of infidelity, perhaps, by her mother. Her pool-like eyes were no longer filled with tears but shone with gratitude as the hospital administrator further endorsed her husband.

  'Of course, there is racial prejudice in Oakwood, as there is everywhere else, but I can't tolerate it myself. Mahmood's a first-rate doctor, whether he comes from Pakistan or Perivale. Of course, I might be a bit prejudiced in favour of "Pakis", seeing that I married one myself.'

  'The beautiful Benazir,' Tiffany told us. 'She's lovely.'

  'We've all four been friends for years.'

  'Really? Then tell us a bit more about your friend Dr Khan.'

  I got, as I expected, a good report, but no more light thrown on the terrorist charges.

  'An excellent doctor,' Barry told me, 'but I'm sure you know that. And a deeply caring man. We're very keen on relative support at Oakwood. So many hospitals spend no time with worried relatives and get rid of them as soon as possible. But we turned an old house in the hospital grounds into a Relatives' and Visitors' Centre. They can wait there and rest, get cups of tea and be told about the hospital and their loved ones' problems. Mahmood started a Muslim room there. We have so many in our catchment area and Mahmood often talks to relatives personally. He has a desk down there and a sort of filing system. I don't know how he copes with all he does, I honestly don't.'

  'Did you feel there were any mysteries in Dr Khan's life?' I asked Barry.

  'You mean, might he have been a secret terrorist?'

  'Something like that, yes.'

  'Absolutely ridiculous!' Barry told me. 'Mahmood is completely crazy about England.'

  'He is more English than the English,' Tiffany said. 'He always stands up to attention when they play the National Anthem. Always wears a poppy on Armistice Day. We have turkey and listen to the Queen on Christmas Day.'

  'He even loves the English weather,' Barry told me. 'He said they never got gentle rain in Pakistan. He said he was so proud of what he called "owning property in England".'

  'Our home,' Tiffany told me with serious pleasure.

  'A splendid house,' Barry assured me. 'Right on the sunny side of Kilburn. It's really Queen's Park. Benazir and I slum it down at the wrong end. We try not to show how jealous we are!'

  'Barry and Benazir are such good friends to us.' Tiffany sounded happy for a moment. 'We were always in and out of each other's houses.'

  'Let's talk about your husband.' I had to bring the attention of the meeting away from the happy past to the nightmare of Dr Khan's present. 'Did you notice anything, anything at all, unusual in the week, let's say the month, before he was arrested?'

  After a moment, Tiffany said, 'He said he thought he was being followed. He said that once or twice. I'm not quite sure how he got the idea.'

  'When was that?'

  'Last year. We went away for a holiday just before Christmas. It was after that.'

  'Did he say who was following him?'

  'No. Just that there'd be a man and he'd get off a bus or whatever just after he did. Sometimes he turned round, but the man had managed to disappear.'

  'Was it always the same man?'

  'It only happened four or five times. But it was the same man, yes.'

  'Did he say why he thought anyone would follow him?'

  'Yes.' Tiffany smiled. 'He thought they were pestering him to buy more raffle tickets for the hospital ball. He made a joke of it.'

  'He always made a joke of things,' Barry agreed. 'He thought that was typically English. Now, to get back to business, do you think you'd like me as a character witness?'

  'I think we'd love you as a character witness,' I assured him.

  It turned out there were certain formalities to be gone through with the hospital authorities, certain permissions to be granted or refused. 'But whatever they say, even if they cut up rough, you can count on me being there, Mr Rumpole. I'm not letting Mahmood down.'

  As I was thanking Barry, another member of our chambers, a man called Hoskins, who complained a good deal about the number of briefs he needed to meet the expense of supporting several, I forget how many, daughters, passed our table. He called out in a loud voice, 'Congratulations, Rumpole. You've got a remarkably pretty girl having drinks with you.'

  'Who on earth was that?' Tiffany asked, understandably affronted.

  'It's a man called Hoskins,' I told her. 'And I'm not sure that I like him very much. Or indeed at all.'

  9

  Extract from Hilda Rumpole's Memoirs

  IT'S BEEN A JOY having Dodo here, being able to stay up late remembering not only our schooldays, but so much that has happened since. Dodo has always been friendly and helpful to Rumpole, going so far as preparing cheesy bits for parties in chambers whenever she is up here and available.

  However, I don't think I can get Rumpole to like Dodo. It's not that he's ever been rude to her. He wouldn't dare. But Rumpole loves to be the centre of attention around the mansion flat. It's his cases we are always discussing, the way he managed to get the better of Judge Bullingham, for instance, or the time at which he got up to polish off his final speech, or the long conference that was going to make him late home for supper. Above all else Rumpole likes to talk and he doesn't like having to sit there and listen to what Dodo and I have to say about our old friends and the things we got up to when we were all at school together. He might be a great performer in court, but he's not much of an audience at home.

  Laura Hoskins goes to my bridge club. Peter Hoskins, Laura's husband, is, as it happens, in Rumpole's chambers. They have four daughters, aged fifteen to twenty-two, which runs the Hoskinses into a good deal of expense. Well, although Peter always comes home as quickly as possible from chambers, it seems that only a week ago he was invited into that dingy wine bar, Pommeroy's, and he reported to his wife that he'd spotted Rumpole in there drinking with a remarkably pretty girl with big brown eyes with whom he was obviously smitten.

  Of course I remembered he'd chatted about a female client with eyes like dark pools full of tears. It seems she wasn't so tearful in the wine bar, but no doubt flattered by Rumpole's attentions, even though he is far too old for even the mildest sort of flirtation. However, Dodo took it more seriously. She'd been in touch recently with Maggie Parvine, who was a bit of a star at school, and she said that Maggie's husband, Richard, who was almost as old as Rumpole, was suffering from the same sort of thing, inviting young girls out to drinks and making up to them.

  Well, it seems that Maggie consulted her extremely good local GP in Basingstoke and he said it was a health hazard. As men grow older their willpower, and the instincts which make them behave sensibly, grow weaker. He'd seen it happen with dozens of patients – MPs, headmasters, chairmen of companies, even clerics, they simply needed, well, as Maggie's GP said it, something to strengthen both body and mind, and he put Maggie's husband on a course of Omni Vite, a preparation of amounts of vitamins and natural remedies. It's become clear to me that in many ways Rumpole is losing his grip. So we have decided to put him on a course of Omni Vite which merely consists of taking a small drink, night and morning.

  Of course, he's being extremely difficult about taking it regularly. He starts off talking rubbish about 'eye of newt and toe of frog' and 'slivered in the moon's eclipse'. At first he refused the drinks altogether, until I made it clear that I would leave him and live in Cornwall with Dodo, taking him to the cleaners as far as alimony was concerned. He was also not to make a face as he drank it. We had tried the Omni Vite and, as Dodo said, 'It tasted of all the goodness of the earth.' If we're watching, he knows he has to drink it, but as soon as our backs are turned I know he gets up to tricks
such as pouring it away in a plant pot, or on one occasion into a half-empty teapot.

  Rumpole is determined to win the appeal of that ghastly terrorist who is now safely in Belmarsh Prison. This is absolutely the right place for Dr Mahmood Khan, if you want my opinion, or that of most sensible people, but when I tell Rumpole this he starts talking about Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. And he hardly listens when I tell him that there were no suicide bombers and no al-Qaeda when King John signed up to the charter on the island of Runnymede.

  So all I can do is tell Rumpole that if he doesn't take his Omni Vite regularly I'm leaving home.

  10

  'I'VE HAD A TALK with your hospital administrator, Barrington Whiteside.'

  'A thoroughly decent chap, Barry. One of the best,' Dr Khan told me.

  'I'm inclined to agree with you.'

  Once again Bonny Bernard and I had passed, with the usual difficulties and prolonged questions, into that strange foreign country which was Belmarsh Prison. And now we were closeted with our client, who once again looked neat, smiling and inexplicably relaxed.

  'I understand that you complained of being followed in the street. Why didn't you tell me that?'

  'It might have been my imagination. It didn't seem important.'

  'Everything that's happened to you recently is important. Was it always the same man or men following you?'

  'I thought it might be the same man. I only got a glance at him.'

  'How many times? More than once?'

  'Perhaps four or five times. I'd get off the bus and he'd be on the pavement behind me. I'd look back and he'd be gone. Or I'd go into a shop and find someone I'd vaguely noticed before standing outside the door. I don't suppose it's important, is it, Mr Rumpole?'

  'We don't know what's important yet. Has anything unusual happened to you? Anything you couldn't explain at the time?'

  'Not really. Only when I got sent to the wrong address. It was a silly mistake, I suppose.'

  'What happened?'

  'I got a text message from Mrs Bina Singh. She'd gone through quite a serious cancer operation and I looked after her on her regular visits to the hospital. She wanted to meet me urgently at her home at twelve-thirty the next day. It was an address in Willesden. I tried ringing her on the number the hospital had, but there was no reply. So I decided to call at the Willesden house.'

  'When was this?'

  'Earlier this year. January, I think it was.'

  'So what happened when you got to the house?'

  'It was the wrong address. I rang the bell and a man from Pakistan answered it. There were two other men in the hall. They were very rude, Mr Rumpole. Very ill-mannered. They wanted to know who I was, who sent me. I tried to explain but I don't think they believed me. It was clear that Mrs Singh had nothing to do with the place. In the end they pushed me out of the door. Warned me never to come to the place again. It was a bit odd.'

  'I would say so. Did you speak to Mrs Singh after that?'

  'Naturally. She said she never texted me. She wouldn't have known how to do such a thing. It was all a bit of a joke really.'

  'Not a particularly funny one. What was the address?'

  'Highfield Road. I forget the number.'

  'Did you ever go back there?'

  'Just once. Out of curiosity. The place was boarded up, with a "For Sale" notice.' He gave a little laugh. 'It was all a ridiculous mistake.'

  Once again he was doing his act as a typical stoic, or perhaps a not very bright Englishman. And once again the act seemed artificial and unconvincing. Was it all a disguise, and a particularly effective one? Had he, in fact, been rightly arrested as a terrorist? I allowed my disbelief a little while to speculate and then shut it up again in the cupboard.

  'Do you travel to work by bus?' I asked him.

  'Only sometimes. When Tiffany needs the car.'

  'Did you tell Tiffany about being followed?'

  'I mentioned it to her but I made a joke of it by saying I thought someone was trying to sell me raffle tickets for a hospital dance.'

  'Why did you say that?'

  'I was so uncertain and I didn't want to worry her.' And then Dr Khan gave one of his patiently amused smiles and said, 'It doesn't make sense at all, does it?'

  'At some point,' I told my client, 'we'll have to make sense of it. In the meantime, I've got to make sense of this strange commission.'

  11

  'EYE OF NEWT AND toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog.'

  'Don't forget your Omni Vite today of all days, Rumpole, now that you're actually appearing in court.'

  She Who Must had exercised her usual talent of raising two unpleasant matters in the course of a single sentence. One was the question of the repulsive medicine she and her friend Dodo were forcing me to take, a horrid distillation smelling of rotting parsnips dipped in seaweed in which I could identify all the ingredients mentioned by the witches in Macbeth, including the pilot's thumb. She had also touched on a further sore point. It was true that I had hardly been busy or much engaged in court during the past months: the withdrawal of their patronage by the Timson family had made an appreciable hole in the Rumpole bank account.

  I sniffed the Omni Vite and shuddered at the familiar smell.

  'Drink it down, Rumpole. You know what good it's doing you.' Hilda was standing over me. I had no alternative but to swallow it.

  'That wasn't too bad, was it?'

  'All I can say is that the witches seem to have added an extra lizard's leg to the brew.'

  'Try not to be ridiculous. Off you go and, by the way, Dodo and I both think that terrorist of yours should stay in prison. Best place for him, Dodo thinks.'

  'Then it'll come as something of a relief not to have your friend Dodo on the bench,' was what I didn't say. Instead I took a swig of tea to wash down the last of the Omni Vite and cleanse the gullet. Then I left for work.

  •

  From the Temple I only had to cross Fleet Street to reach the Law Courts, the huge, sham Gothic château on the Strand that houses innumerable courts as well as a mosaicked hall where the secretaries emerge to play badminton in the evening (or so the rumour goes). In no other part of the building to my knowledge have the fundamental principles of British justice been forgotten or indefinite imprisonment without charge been approved of. I hoped that these great traditions would rub off on the mysterious commission.

  These hopes were a little dashed when I met the prosecuting counsel and rising star of the New Labour Party. This was Peter Plaistow, a tall, winsome barrister with chestnut hair which peeped discreetly out from under his wig. He was surrounded, outside the court, by a posse of civil servants, which I had to penetrate to approach the Prime Minister's favourite QC.

  'My name's Rumpole,' I gave it to him straight. 'And I'm against you in the Khan case.'

  'Oh, my dear,' Peter Plaistow affected a look of mock terror, 'I hope you're not going to attack me viciously. Everyone tells me you're absolutely ruthless down at the Old Bailey.'

  'That's as may be.' I can't say I didn't feel flattered by this alleged reputation. 'I haven't seen you much, round the Old Bailey.'

  'No. I avoid it as much as possible. I'm sure you'll find this a perfectly friendly court.'

  'Good! I'm glad to hear it.'

  'Is there any way I can help you, before we all "go into battle"?' He spoke the last three words in inverted commas, as though he didn't really expect us to have any arguments at all.

  'There certainly is,' I told him. 'I want further and better particulars.'

  'Particulars?' he asked, as though I had uttered a word in a strange language.

  'Yes. Particulars of the case against my client. Dates, places, times. Details of what he's supposed to have done. When, where and with whom. You must know what "particulars" are, from a thousand other cases.'

  'In other cases, yes.' Plaistow was smiling more charmingly than ever. 'But here in SIAC we don't "do" particulars. Your client knows that we received informa
tion about his terrorist activities.'

  'Yes. But what sort of activities? Are we ever going to know that?'

  'My dear, I'm so sorry.' Plaistow appeared genuinely sympathetic. 'But there's this rather cheery chap, Erskine-Brown I believe his name is. He will put your case fairly before the court.'

  'Is he going to give me the particulars?'

  'I'm afraid not. But you can rely on Erskine-Brown to argue any sort of defence your client may have.'

  'To rely on Erskine-Brown to put my defence,' I had to tell the elegant MP, 'is like relying on a bobbin of darning wool to pull you up the side of a mountain.'

  Undeterred, I now approached the newly appointed Erskine-Brown and found him surrounded by a similar bunch of Home Office officials. He was chatting with them in what was for him a fairly animated sort of way.

  'I don't want to interrupt the conversation, Claude,' I told him, 'but Peter Plaistow over there told me that you were the chap who'd give me particulars of the charges against my client.' The civil servants round Claude looked shocked and he appeared incredulous.

  'You're trying it on, aren't you, Rumpole?' he suggested.

  'Trying what on?' I did my best to look innocent.

  'Peter Plaistow told you nothing of the sort. He knows perfectly well that we don't do further particulars here at SIAC.'

  'So you don't "do" fair trials then?'

  'Of course it'll be fair! You know, Rumpole, I'll see to that.'

  I didn't say I couldn't trust Claude to tell the difference between a fair trial and the proceedings of the Spanish Inquisition. Instead I said, 'It's the first principle of British justice that the accused should know what he's charged with. Don't you remember that from your student days, when you read Criminal Law for Beginners? If you won't tell me I'll have to apply to the court.'

  As I walked off, my confidence fuelled by anger, I noticed that Claude's rabble of civil servants no longer looked appalled. They were now quietly amused.