Rumpole and the Reign of Terror

by John Mortimer

  'I find that this witness has been hostile to the truth. You may cross-examine him, Mr Rumpole.'

  It was a relief. If this particular ploy hadn't worked I'd have had to think of some other way of bringing the facts of Dr Khan's case before the court.

  'Mr Whiteside, you know that when Dr Khan's father came here from Pakistan he acquired about ten corner shops in London.'

  'He told me that, yes.'

  'And he also acquired a very desirable residence on the better side of Kilburn. I think you admire that house, don't you?'

  'Yes, we do. I know my wife and I feel it's a perfect family house.'

  'For you?'

  'Possibly for us. But of course it belongs to Dr Khan.'

  'Who inherited it from his father?'

  'Yes.'

  'And you would have hoped it would be yours?'

  'If Dr Khan didn't own it, yes. I suppose it's the sort of place we'd've liked. But of course it wasn't ours.'

  'And Dr Khan and his wife, Tiffany, were your friends?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good friends?'

  'Perfectly good friends.'

  'Let's see about that. You know that Dr Khan's father's shops began to fail. There were fires, thefts, all sorts of misfortunes. So in the end he had to sell the shops.'

  'I heard something about that.'

  'I should rather think you did. The shops eventually became the property of a company called Baltistan-British Services Ltd. And the chairman of the Baltistan was … I'm sure you can tell us here, Mr Whiteside? The chairman was Mr Ahmed Jubal. And who was he?'

  'My late father-in-law.' The words had to be dragged out of the witness.

  'Quite right. And since his death, a director of Baltistan and a major shareholder is none other than your wife, Benazir.'

  'Where's all this leading?' Plaistow, QC, MP, rose to his feet a little later than expected. 'I simply wonder where all this talk of companies and corner shops is leading.'

  'Then wonder on,' I told the prosecutor, 'till truth make all things plain.'

  'Mr Rumpole,' Leonard felt called upon to intervene, 'that's no answer to Mr Plaistow's question.'

  'Perhaps not, My Lord. It's a small drop of Shakespeare – A Midsummer Night's Dream – which I thought the court might enjoy. If Your Lordship will allow me to ask the next few questions, I can show exactly where this is leading.'

  Once again His Lordship glanced up at the public gallery. Whether he got a clear message of public opinion or not I don't know, but his decision was, 'Very well, Mr Rumpole, but keep it short. We haven't got all the time in the world, you know.'

  'I promise Your Lordship I won't take up all the time in the world. Mr Whiteside, one of the shops your wife's company runs is at numbers 33 to 35 Heckling Street, isn't it?'

  'It might be.'

  'And you know that shop in Heckling Street was burgled, don't you?'

  'You should know that, Mr Rumpole.' Here Barrington Whiteside scored his first and only point. 'Didn't you defend one of the burglars?'

  There was laughter from the QC, MP, in which the jury joined. As I turned to look at him, I caught Benazir Whiteside in her bright sari staring at me with a look of complete hatred.

  'He's rather got you there, hasn't he, Mr Rumpole?' Leonard was pleased as punch, his face wreathed in smiles.

  'I was in the case, My Lord. That's why I happen to know so much about it. May I remind the jury of an admission made by the prosecution in their case?'

  'Oh very well. If you're coming to the point.'

  'This is the point. Members of the jury, the prosecution admits that documents stolen from the office of the shop in Heckling Street included a paper with Dr Khan's name on it and notes in the Urdu language referring to various acts of terrorism and suggestions of terrorist activities.'

  When they heard that, the jury, who had stopped laughing, became quiet and attentive.

  'I don't know anything about that.'

  'Don't you? It was your wife's shop.'

  'Exactly.'

  'And she was a good friend to Dr Khan. Just as her father was a good friend to his father?'

  'Of course she was.'

  'Was her father such a good friend? Didn't he sabotage the shop and secretly take over the business?'

  'I don't know anything about that.'

  'And wasn't there something else? A long-term feud between the two families in Pakistan? A hatred of the Khans behind all that pretence of friendship?'

  I glanced up at the public gallery. Hilda was leaning forward, apparently listening eagerly to my questions and Barry's answers. I had never received so much attention from her. Then Leonard chipped in with, 'Mr Rumpole, just where is all this leading to?'

  'Directly to the question of my client's guilt or innocence. If Your Lordship will just be patient.'

  'In my submission, Your Lordship has shown exemplary patience.' Peter Plaistow was on his feet. 'But isn't it now time Mr Rumpole put his case, whatever that may turn out to be?'

  'It's in the public interest that I establish the facts leading up to an inevitable conclusion, My Lord,' I told Leonard. 'These are all matters which the public has a right to know.'

  I saw Leonard glance up to the public gallery once again and then he said, 'Very well, Mr Rumpole, but the court relies on you to keep it as short as possible.'

  'I will be brief. Mr Whiteside, your wife was determined to carry on the family business. Her father had scooped up all the shops, but there was still one great asset the Khan family had left. You wanted it desperately, didn't you?'

  'Wanted what exactly?' Barry looked at his wife and attempted a tolerant smile. 'I'm not at all sure what you're talking about.'

  'A desirable residence. A fine house on the best side of Kilburn. Ruin Dr Khan and he'd have to sell it to you and your wife at a knock-down price. The Jubal family would have got it all.'

  'How do you think we planned to get the house?' Now Barry was asking me a question. I didn't object. I answered him.

  'By forging letters about terrorism and leaving them in his desk when he was away on holiday.'

  'Mr Rumpole,' Leonard appeared anxious to know, 'are you suggesting that this gentleman and his wife rang up the police and gave them misinformation about your client?'

  'Not directly, My Lord. The police informant was Mr Ali Raza, manager of the Heckling Street shop. That's why Dr Khan's name and notes about alleged terrorist activities were found there. He was the so-called source. And if Special Branch want to deny this no doubt my learned friend will have an opportunity of recalling the superintendent.'

  Here Plaistow rose, still in a fighting mood, and promised to take instructions. I turned my attention to Barrington Whiteside again.

  'Things were all right for you when my client was in Belmarsh, weren't they? You could pretend to be on his side and hope he'd be stuck there for ever. But then he was given house arrest and planted back in the property you wanted. Was that a bit of a blow to you?'

  Barry's smile had faded. He looked sullen and angry, all charm gone.

  'I still don't know what you're talking about.'

  It was then that I had an idea which considerably shortened the proceedings. Bonny Bernard had served a witness summons on Mr Ali Raza. I asked that he might be brought into court to be identified by Barrington Whiteside.

  'You know Mr Ali Raza,' I told Barry, 'who rang Special Branch with the lies you and your wife told. Who sent the text message which asked Dr Khan to visit a terrorist house. And who finally told them to search Dr Khan's desk, where you had hidden the forged letters. Is that Mr Raza?'

  Having been called from outside the court, an inoffensive-looking Pakistani of middle age, neatly dressed with spectacles and a greying beard, moved out into the space in front of the witness box.

  'You do know Mr Raza, don't you?'

  I got no answer to the question. That was the point at which Barrington Whiteside's nerve snapped. His look of fury was now directed at the slim figure i
n the bright sari who sat on one of the benches behind me.

  'It was her idea!' He spat out the words as though afraid of choking on them. 'All hers. She wanted it done. She wanted the house. She wrote the letters. Do you think I could have written them? She got Raza to contact the police. It's all hers, every bit of it, all this stupid business. She wanted it to happen and I'm not paying for it!'

  At this he sat on the seat in the witness box and seemed to sob. There was an embarrassed silence in court, so that you could hear the clock by Hilda's seat ticking. And then the silence was broken by Peter Plaistow, who moved to ask for a short adjournment so that the prosecution could consider its position. R. v. Khan was, in fact, over and the Queen had almost finished her business with the long-suffering doctor.

  35

  THERE WERE FORMALITIES to be gone through. The Attorney General had to give Peter Plaistow permission to drop the prosecution. Barry, his wife, Benazir, and Mr Raza from the shop were being interviewed in various parts of the court by various Special Branch officers. The jury had been sent to their room and the judge had left court, and Hilda, I noticed, had vanished from the public gallery.

  Tiffany's eyes were full of tears, but this time tears of joy as she stood by the dock looking up at her smiling husband. At last the judge and the jury returned. Peter Plaistow stood up to say that the prosecution would not be proceeding with this case and the jury, in the person of the Daily Telegraph reader, who had emerged as the foreman, pronounced a verdict of not guilty.

  As they were led away for further interviews, Barry ignored Dr Khan, but Benazir paused to give one of her by now well-known looks of hatred at the prisoner who was being released from the dock, a look which my client returned with a nervous smile. When I said goodbye to him, he said, 'I can't understand it. They were my best friends here in England. I shall miss their company.' And he thanked me, saying he was sorry to have given me so much trouble. As we shook hands, I thought that Dr Khan carried the art of being British to almost ridiculous lengths.

  •

  'It was a bit of luck, wasn't it, Rumpole? Barrington turning hostile so you could cross-examine him.'

  'It's all luck, Hilda. The administration of justice. Life itself. All luck.'

  We were having our evening chops in Froxbury Mansions and also sharing a bottle of Pommeroy's Very Ordinary. I was in an expansive, even a philosophic mood and She Who Must seemed unusually interested in my work.

  'What would you have done if he hadn't turned hostile and you wouldn't have been able to cross-examine him?' Hilda was also showing an unusual knowledge of the law.

  'I'd've found some other way of telling the story.'

  'You'd've called that shifty-looking shopkeeper as a witness?'

  'I would've had to. I knew what he knew, but I wasn't too sure what he was going to say.'

  'You think you're very clever, Rumpole, don't you?' Hilda said after a long pause.

  'I think I have a certain talent about the Courts of Law, yes.'

  Hilda took a slug of Pommeroy's and told me, 'While you were all waiting about, I was called in to have a cup of tea with the judge.'

  'With Leonard?'

  'Yes.'

  'Did he talk about my talent?'

  'Not at all. He talked about another Old Bailey judge. Judge Densher.'

  'Denny Densher. A fairly decent type of tribunal.'

  'Well, apparently he and Mr Densher take dancing lessons with the same teacher.'

  'You surprise me.'

  'Well, it seems they do. And Leonard said that if we ever, well, got together, we should take dancing lessons too.'

  'He said you might get together?'

  'I've never told you that, have I?'

  'No, Hilda, you haven't. So did he tell you what was going to happen to me?'

  'Well, we were talking about the possibility of a divorce.'

  I had an extraordinary feeling that my world was falling apart and I was about to face a strange and unknown future. I saw myself alone in Froxbury Mansions and I was uncomfortably afraid of the prospect.

  'We're not getting a divorce, are we?'

  'No, Rumpole. We're not.' Hilda's answer came as an unexpected relief. 'We're not going to be divorced. And I'm not going to dancing lessons. I have absolutely no desire to learn the rumba.'

  'I'm sure you haven't.'

  I refilled Hilda's glass. We drank a while in silence. Then I said, 'Perhaps we should go out more. Perhaps your life's too dull in Froxbury Mansions.'

  'Oh, I've got no time to go out,' Hilda told me. 'I shall be far too busy preparing my memoirs for publication.'

  'Hilda!' I was astonished. 'You haven't been writing your memoirs?'

  'Well, of course I have. You've been writing yours for years, haven't you? Isn't it about time I told my side of the story?'

  'Yes.' I wasn't about to argue. 'Yes, of course.' And then I had a sudden insight. 'Is that what you've been doing all this time, locked up in the boxroom?'

  'Of course it is.' Hilda gave me a little laugh. 'Didn't you realize? You're not such a great detective as all that, are you, Rumpole?'

  •

  Back in chambers at the end of an uneventful day Henry said he had a message. Some friends were anxious to meet me in Pommeroy's. Being headed in that direction anyway, I was surprised to find a group of Timsons, almost as numerous as the committee which decided to dispense with my services. Fred was there, Dennis and Cyril. Percy was still detained and Will was not of the party. The leading Timson on this occasion was clearly Tiffany's father, Ray.

  'I can never thank you enough, Mr Rumpole,' he said. 'For what you did for Tiffany. And she can never thank you enough. So I thought it right to bring you back into contact with the family.'

  'What Ray has told us,' Dennis sat back in his chair and sounded judicial, 'is that you pulled it off.'

  'If you can get a terrorist off you can get anyone off,' was Fred's opinion.

  'But he wasn't a terrorist,' I insisted. 'That's why he got off.'

  'Whether he was or whether he wasn't,' Dennis remained judicially neutral, 'you got him off. We all have a high opinion of Ray and he speaks highly of your talents – as a brief.'

  'I notice that Will isn't here,' I said in the silence that followed.

  'Will is still very jealous of your Pakistani friend,' Fred explained. 'But he's extremely grateful for his suspended sentence. Surprised and grateful, Mr Rumpole. We haven't had many of those in the family.'

  'If I can express the feelings of the meeting,' Dennis summed up, 'we would like to reappoint you as our official brief, Mr Rumpole. Mr Erskine-Brown has done his best, but we're not satisfied with alternatives that have been found for family members. Would you be prepared to act for us again, Mr Rumpole? If and when the need arises.'

  'At any time of the day or night,' I told them. Whereupon Ray bought us all a drink.

  So life was back to normal. There would be new closing speeches, further hopefully devastating cross-examinations, more small cigars and further bottles of Château Thames Embankment stretching away into a more or less contented future. There was only one cloud in the sky, at present a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, but who could tell what it might grow to? It was the possible future publication of the memoirs of She Who Must Be Obeyed.