Rumpole and the Reign of Terror

by John Mortimer

  The drawer was locked, but Bernard had been to see Tiffany to get the key. It was a small brass key for a small brass lock which, again, wouldn't have presented much of a problem to experienced lock pickers on either side of the law.

  The drawer slid open and revealed a surprising spectacle, uncharacteristic of the neat and self-contained Dr Khan. The drawer was a mess. If it had been any bigger it might have been called a tip. There were pieces of old circulars, letters, credit-card bills, notes on patients, doctors' requests, tubes of sweets, a half-full bottle of pills, a slightly tattered copy of Health & Beauty magazine. I glanced at the letters but there was nothing that could have been in any way incriminating. I shut the drawer and locked it.

  •

  'If he's not guilty…' I started when we returned to Barry's room in the main hospital, but he jumped in before I could finish my sentence.

  'If?' he said. What's "if" about it? Surely we all believe Mahmood's innocent, don't we?'

  'Do we?' I warned. 'Have you read the letters? I asked Bernard to send you copies.'

  'Disgusting!' Barry agreed. 'But I can't believe Mahmood was involved in any of that. They might have sent him the letters, I suppose.'

  'What for?'

  'What for? To trap him perhaps. To make him join them. What does Mahmood say about the letters?'

  'He says he's never seen them before in his life. They came as a complete surprise to him. That's what he says.' Barry said nothing to that, so I went on, 'Do you still believe he's innocent?'

  'Of course I do. Don't you?'

  'I'm not sure,' I answered him cautiously. 'But I'm prepared to act on that assumption.'

  'That's terrible for Mahmood!' Barry was clearly shocked. 'Terrible if his own barrister doesn't believe he's innocent.'

  'My beliefs, one way or the other, are completely irrelevant. I shall defend him to the best of my ability, and I don't think he, or you, will have a fault to find with the Rumpole ability. Can we still rely on you as a character witness?'

  'Of course you can.' Barry was looking at me doubtfully. 'The question is – can we rely on you?'

  'I think I've already answered that question.' I gave a brisk answer to a man who seemed unwilling to trust his friend's fate to Rumpole.

  •

  In the weeks that followed I did my best to forget the doubting Barrington and return to the Rumpole confidence, which, I am delighted to say, was soon back and supporting me loyally through a number of minor cases.

  One unoccupied afternoon my thoughts turned again to Will Timson – the Timson who hated Dr Khan and wanted to see him behind bars, a result that had been achieved. I looked through the brief and discovered, among the list of items removed from his garage by the police, mainly consisting of television sets, iPods and DVDs, a folder containing 'lists, notes and addresses'. Purely on a whim, a hundred-to-one off-chance, I asked Bonny Bernard to inspect this file and copy anything that seemed important.

  Days later he rang me. 'It's the damnedest thing. I can't imagine how you got on to it. In the file there's a paper with our Dr Khan's address and telephone number and his contact number at the hospital. Oh, and there's more still. It's in that Indian language. Shall I get it translated?'

  'Yes,' I said, delighted by his news. 'Do you think we're going to find out something helpful at last?'

  'I don't know about that,' Bernard said, 'but I do know what judge we've got assigned to us.'

  'Who?' I asked, and his answer wiped the smile off my face.

  'The new judge. The one they've just appointed. Bullingham.'

  The news couldn't have been worse. I wondered if it would help if I thought of him as 'Leonard'.

  28

  Extract from Hilda Rumpole's Memoirs

  'WILL TIMSON HATES Dr Khan. Will Timson has in his possession Dr Khan's telephone number and also a document written in Urdu. On being translated, this appears to be a note of some of the facts which appear in the incriminating letters directed to Dr Khan and apparently found in his possession. Is this a chink of light? The beginning of a defence?'

  'I do wish you'd stop whingeing on about that wretched Dr Khan's case, Rumpole,' I told him. 'It's not good for your health.' I had done lamb chops with mashed potatoes, which is what he usually likes, but he was just picking at it.

  'It would mean that Will was in contact with some sort of terrorist or terrorist organization. It's not improbable. He could have done a bit of research among prisoners or ex-prisoners. Speakers of Urdu. It's not impossible, is it? Or what do you think?'

  'I think if you're not going to eat up the nice dinner I cooked for you you'll have to go back on the Omni Vite.'

  This had its effect. Rumpole started on a chop. But he hardly ever discussed his cases with me unless I brought up the subject first. I could see he was worried about defending the extremely dodgy Dr Khan, and he had every reason to be so. If he would take on absolutely laughable cases, he had only himself to blame.

  'You really have no need to worry,' I did say, just to cheer him up. 'You'll have a perfectly fair trial in front of Leonard Bullingham. Why can't you leave it all to him?'

  'A fair trial!' Rumple spluttered. He choked on his mashed potato and had to rectify matters by a giant swig of his Very Ordinary claret. 'Expecting a fair trial from the newly crowned Mr Justice Bullingham is like expecting a penguin to dance "The Merry Widow Waltz". The Mad Bull would have no instinct for fair trial if it stood up and shouted in his face.' Then he must have seen my look of disapproval, because he added, 'Although, Hilda, I know he took you to lunch at the Sheridan Club.'

  'He did,' I told him. 'And he managed to get through his meal without spitting out mashed potato.' Of course I didn't tell him about my visit to the cinema with Leonard, or the fact that he had made what amounted to a proposal. I don't think Rumpole would have quite understood if I'd told him that. So I just cleared away the dinner and left Rumpole sitting staring into the gas fire, smoking too many of his small cigars. I knew exactly what he was thinking about. 'Please, Rumpole,' I said, 'keep Dr Khan out of here. I have to say, he's not welcome in Froxbury Mansions.'

  •

  Dodo came up to London to see the Augustus Johns. She came to stay and of course she was full of the little Frenchman she'd met on her sketching trip to France. 'Lu-Lu, we called him,' she said. 'Of course, his real name was Louis, but we all called him Lu-Lu and I think he rather liked it. You know, Hilda, he had that way of talking to you which makes you feel like a woman.'

  Well, I didn't know what else Dodo would feel like when anyone talked to her. A man? A child? Or even some animal? In Dodo's case I saw her for a moment as a large furry dog, with big eyes and a tendency to jump upon the furniture. We were having lunch in Fortnum's and I dismissed that idea from my mind.

  'Did he propose marriage to you, Dodo?' was what I asked her.

  'Of course not. Frenchmen don't think about marriage, do they? Marriage is the last thing on their minds.'

  'I don't know about Frenchmen.' And then I said, quite casually, 'I had a proposal of marriage, but of course he was an Englishman.'

  'Good heavens!' Dodo seemed really startled. 'Does Rumpole know about this?'

  'No, of course he doesn't know. And I shan't tell him unless he gets really irritating.'

  'Well!' I could see that Dodo was fascinated by my news. 'Who is this Englishman?'

  'I'm not at liberty to tell you that.'

  'Why ever not?' Dodo looked slightly hurt.

  'He's a well-known public figure, Dodo. That's why.'

  'You mean he's someone on television?'

  'No, Dodo. He's not on television. He's someone of particular importance in the legal profession. And that's all I'm going to tell you.'

  'Oh, well,' Dodo looked pleased that it wasn't a television star, 'if it's someone high up in the legal profession I've probably never heard of him.'

  'He's just received an important appointment. And do you know what he wants?'

  'Of course
I don't, and are you quite sure that you do, Hilda?' was what Dodo said.

  'He wants me to divorce Rumpole and, well, he wants me to marry him. He says he's lonely.'

  'That's what those sorts of men say, they always say they're lonely. But of course, he's a lawyer, isn't he?'

  'I told you that.'

  'Well, you can't trust what lawyers say. Look at Rumpole. He'll get up in court and say absolutely anything. Now, it's quite different with people in the arts. Great artists are almost always sincere.'

  'You're not going to tell me that your little Frenchman is a great artist, are you?'

  'He's not been discovered yet. But he did a study of a haystack when we were in the Dordogne, and I'm here to tell you, Hilda, it was quite as good as Monet.'

  'Is he as good as Augustus John?'

  'Oh, much better than Augustus John.'

  For the rest of the lunch I didn't have much to say to Dodo. She was just like that at school, she always had a great deal to tell you and was never interested in anyone else's news. I shall be quite glad when she goes back to Lamorna Cove.

  29

  'WILL TIMSON SAYS HE never looked inside the file. Never wrote Khan's number in there. Knows nothing about notes in Urdu. In fact, he denies everything.'

  'That's what the Timson family were taught as soon as they learned to speak. Deny everything.' This was my reaction to Bonny Bernard's latest instructions as we walked together across the yard in Brixton Prison on our way to the interview room and a routine visit to Dr Khan. There were two prisoners weeding a flower bed, a warden leading a large dog, a patch of open sky in early autumn. Brixton is one of the time-honoured, or dishonoured, institutions in our country, which confines more people to prison than any other in Europe. This pattern of offending and reoffending continues because nobody seems able to think of anything better to do with the Timsons and their like. It's ridiculous, but I now get an uneasy feeling whenever I visit a prison that somewhere someone is preparing a serious charge against me and that I might, one day, be led off down a long corridor by a man with a clinking bundle of keys to be locked up and take my dinner seated on the lavatory.

  Nothing like that happened, of course, and we were soon paying a courtesy visit to our client, sitting in a room where a lonely cactus wilted and we could see the back of a warden's head through the glass panel in the door. Dr Khan shook his head when Bonny Bernard offered him a cigarette, an automatic gesture my instructing solicitor always indulges in when meeting prisoners.

  'No, thank you, Mr Bernard. My troubles have not led me to take up smoking. Nor to taking drugs, although they are freely available in here.' This was followed by a short and completely mirthless laugh.

  'Will Timson hates you very much, doesn't he?' I asked the question.

  'He is exceedingly jealous. I can understand that, considering the beauty of my wife.'

  'All the same, you shouldn't have telephoned him to warn him off.'

  'Clearly not. They put me in prison for it.'

  'Will Timson was found in possession of papers with your address and telephone number and notes in Urdu which clearly contemplate acts of terrorism.'

  'It sounds familiar.'

  'Something like the letters they say you received.'

  'They say that. I never received them.'

  'Do you think Will Timson hates you so much he was trying to frame you?'

  'I don't know about that.' Dr Khan considered the idea and seemed to like it. 'He would have needed help, from someone who could write letters in Urdu, I suppose. Could he have got such help?'

  'Possibly. I've always thought of Will as one of the cleverer Timsons.' Then I remembered, perhaps a little late, that Will Timson was my client and I was bound to put the case for the defence. 'He says the documents in question were part of the booty a friend of his took from a corner shop off the Edgware Road.'

  'Corner shop?' Dr Khan repeated my words with something like affection.

  'Well, I don't know if this one is actually on a corner. And it doesn't sell interesting groceries any more – it's all computers and television sets and iPods. It's in Heckling Street so far as I remember.'

  'Heckling Street.' He was smiling as though I had mentioned some beautiful place where he had played as a child. 'Numbers 33 to 35.'

  'You know it?'

  'Of course. It was one of my father's favourite shops. The one he was most proud of.'

  'You don't still own it?'

  'No, of course not. I told you, my father lost all his shops.'

  Well, that was a relief. At least I didn't have to contend with one client stealing from another. But Dr Khan seemed determined to tell me the story of his father's corner shop and I composed myself to listen.

  'It was all bad luck really. The shops were going so well and suddenly trouble started. Then there was nothing but trouble.'

  'What sort of trouble?'

  'Silly things at first. Small things. Things went missing. Then the stealing got more serious. There was a fire in one shop. Then the ordering went wrong, stuff never got delivered. And then the managers kept leaving. He couldn't keep a manager for more than a week or so before they quarrelled with the rest of the staff. It was beginning to get my dad down, I think, so he sold them all off.'

  'All to one buyer?'

  'No. To different buyers. I can't remember who they were, in fact I doubt if he ever told me. He didn't talk about it much. I think he was ashamed of having failed in his business. Anyway, he was left with nothing but his savings and the beautiful house we live in. At the very end I was keeping him.'

  'He didn't think of selling the house?'

  'No. Dad was so proud of the house he would never have sold it. And I hope never to sell it either,' then he added with a smile, 'if you can keep me out of prison, Mr Rumpole.'

  I wasn't in a position to guarantee him anything so I asked, 'Did the shops do better after he sold them?'

  'I suppose so. I don't really know. His Heckling Street shop seems to have done well enough to be worth stealing from, doesn't it?'

  'It's a sad story. About your father.'

  'Not altogether sad. He loved Tiffany. He had good friends like Mr Jubal.'

  'Mr Jubal? Who was he?'

  'Benazir's father. And my dad's friend. That's how we know Benazir.'

  'Mrs Barry Whiteside?'

  'Yes. You know, it was strange. My father told me this odd thing. The Jubals and the Khans had been deadly enemies in Pakistan. The two families had hated each other for years. It was some dispute over a piece of land, something like that. But when they met in England, my father and Benazir's father forgot all about the family feud and they became firm friends. Perhaps it had something to do with your British climate.' Dr Khan seemed to have made a little joke; in the unlikely surroundings of Brixton Prison he giggled.

  'My father always said, when he was down on his luck and had lost all his shops, "I am still a lucky man, I've got you and a good friend. And of course I've got the house."'

  'The house was very important to him?'

  'Whatever bad luck he had, he said, "I've kept this house, and you'll keep it for me, won't you, Mahmood?" I promised I would on the day he died.'

  He was silent for a while, as though to impress upon us the solemnity of his oath, and then he said, 'You'll win this case for me, won't you, Mr Rumpole? Tiffany has so much confidence in you.'

  'I'll do my best,' was all I could tell him. And I wished I had as much confidence in myself.

  30

  'WE MUST BE PREPARED for all eventualities,' I told Bonny Bernard when he came for a conference in my chambers, 'even the unlikely possibility that Will Timson is telling us the truth.'

  'What do you mean exactly?'

  'Just that even if these scraps of paper have nothing to do with him, we're left with the following facts. A shop in Heckling Street, at one time the property of our client's father, contained a paper with Dr Khan's name and address on it and a document written in Urdu with note
s apparently connected with terrorist activity.'

  'So what do you suggest?'

  'I suggest we make use of the services of Fig Newton. He could visit Heckling Street and tell us what he can find out about that particular corner shop and its proprietor.'

  'You really think that's going to help us?'

  'God only knows. But we've got to try everything.'

  Ferdinand Ian Gilmour Newton, of the aged mackintosh and perpetual cold caught from keeping close observation on bedroom windows during long and rainy nights, was, I knew, the man to prise out any nuggets of information that might be found in the corner shop. I could think of no further lines of investigation, and when Bonny Bernard left me I lit a small cigar and contemplated the situation.

  I, who had complained of the lack of work, was now faced with two cases which gave every appearance of inevitable losers. Will Timson had been found with stolen property and Dr Khan with incriminating letters in his possession. Will had criminal form and Dr Khan would be regarded with the hatred and contempt rightly felt for anyone remotely connected with terrorism. No jury would feel any hesitation in convicting either of them. Furthermore, in Khan's case we had drawn the short straw of the Mad Bull, newly appointed to the scarlet and ermine on the bench and no doubt convinced that it was his public duty to pot the doctor, a task which would require no particular effort or intellectual ability.